- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Would You Let A Site Mine Cryptocurrency In Return For Blocking Ads?
by Rowan Schischka 14 Feb '18

14 Feb '18

> What do you think: is it a fair trade? Not fair trade but fair game. The technology used is coinhive and anybody at any level of computer skill can block it. Firefox's noscript plugin and Pi-hole are both effective.

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Linux Journal: Best Linux Distribution
by Peter Reutemann 14 Feb '18

14 Feb '18

'We started things off with Best Linux Distribution, and nearly 10,000 readers voted. The winner was Debian, with many commenting "As for servers, Debian is still the best" or similar. One to watch that is rising in the polls is Manjaro (7 percent), which is independently based on the Arch Linux. Manjaro is a favorite for Linux newcomers and is known for its user-friendliness and accessibility. And, now for the top three LJ winners: Debian (33 percent), openSUSE (12 percent), and Fedora (11 percent).' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/02/14/1850259 Does anyone want to give Manjaro a spin at the next meeting? Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Would You Let A Site Mine Cryptocurrency In Return For Blocking Ads?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Feb '18

14 Feb '18

This was inevitable, really. Salon.com <https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/02/salon-to-ad-blockers…> now asks you, when it notices you are running an ad-blocker, if you would like to contribute some CPU to running a cryptocurrency miner for them instead. What do you think: is it a fair trade? Is it a sustainable revenue model, at least better than doing the mining without asking your permission?

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The Most Popular Linux Desktop Programs
by Peter Reutemann 14 Feb '18

14 Feb '18

'The most recent Linux Questions poll results are in. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, writing for ZDNet: LinuxQuestions, one of the largest internet Linux groups with 550,000 members, has just posted the results from its latest survey of desktop Linux users. In the always hotly-contested Linux desktop environment survey, the winner was the KDE Plasma Desktop. It was followed by the popular lightweight Xfce, Cinnamon, and GNOME. If you want to buy a computer with pre-installed Linux, the Linux Questions crew's favorite vendor by far was System76. Numerous other computer companies offer Linux on their PCs. These include both big names like Dell and dedicated small Linux shops such as ZaReason, Penguin Computing, and Emperor Linux. Many first choices weren't too surprising. For example, Linux users have long stayed loyal to the Firefox web browser, and they're still big fans. Firefox beat out Google Chrome by a five-to-one margin. And, as always, the VLC media player is far more popular than any other Linux media player. For email clients, Mozilla Thunderbird remains on top. That's a bit surprising given how Thunderbird's development has been stuck in neutral for some time now. When it comes to text editors, I was pleased to see vim -- my personal favorite -- win out over its perpetual rival, Emacs. In fact, nano and Kate both came ahead of Emacs.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/02/13/1652238 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Active Browser Tabs Vs Active Browser Windows
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Feb '18

14 Feb '18

I have noticed some interesting behaviour with video playback on various websites, at least with Firefox. Videos on the NZ Herald website, for example, don’t start playing until the tab becomes the active one in the window. Also on YouTube, sometimes after an ad, there is a display inviting you to take part in some kind of survey. This displays for a fixed amount of time, but that time only accumulates while the tab is active -- make it inactive, and the time counter stops until it becomes active again. *But* ... the active tab is still considered to be active even if the window is not the frontmost one. This means if you want to do something else while waiting for a YouTube ad to finish playing (with the sound off, of course) and the extra display to disappear, you just have to do it in an entirely separate window.

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Facebook is Pushing Its Data-tracking Onavo VPN Within Its Main Mobile App
by Peter Reutemann 14 Feb '18

14 Feb '18

'Onavo Protect, the VPN client from the data-security app maker acquired by Facebook back in 2013, has now popped up in the Facebook app itself, under the banner "Protect" in the navigation menu. Clicking through on "Protect" will redirect Facebook users to the "Onavo Protect -- VPN Security" app's listing on the App Store. We're currently seeing this option on iOS only, which may indicate it's more of a test than a full rollout here in the U.S. Marketing Onavo within Facebook itself could lead to a boost in users for the VPN app, which promises to warn users of malicious websites and keep information secure as you browse. But Facebook didn't buy Onavo for its security protections. Instead, Onavo's VPN allow Facebook to monitor user activity across apps, giving Facebook a big advantage in terms of spotting new trends across the larger mobile ecosystem. For example, Facebook gets an early heads up about apps that are becoming breakout hits; it can tell which are seeing slowing user growth; it sees which apps' new features appear to be resonating with their users, and much more. Further reading: Do Not, I Repeat, Do Not Download Onavo, Facebook's Vampiric VPN Service (Gizmodo).' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/02/13/2026211 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Camera Makers Still Showing Zero Interest In Protecting Users With Built-In Encryption
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 13 Feb '18

13 Feb '18

From <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180204/07404639150/camera-makers-still-…>: The Freedom of the Press Foundation sent a letter to major camera manufacturers in December 2016, letting them know filmmakers and journalists would appreciate a little assistance keeping their data out of governments' hands. ... We've covered many cases where police officers have seized phones/cameras and deleted footage captured by bystanders. ... Unfortunately, it doesn't look like camera manufacturers are considering offering encryption. The issue still doesn't even appear to be on their radar, more than a year after the Freedom of the Press Foundation's letter -- signed by 150 photographers and filmmakers -- indicated plenty of customers wanted better protection for their cameras. ... If a government can search something, it will. Encryption may not thwart all searches, but it will at least impede the most questionable ones.

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meeting next month
by Peter Reutemann 13 Feb '18

13 Feb '18

Hi everyone At the last meeting, Ian suggested to have cryptocurrencies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency) as topic for our meeting next month. One aspect is the increasing amount of power that is consumed in order to mine "coins". The other interesting aspect introduced by, but not limit to, cryptocurrencies is the concept of the blockchain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain) an open, distributed ledger of transactions. Is there interest? Any volunteers to talk about something regarding this topic (history, current status, etc)? Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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That mega-vulnerability Cisco dropped is now under exploit
by Peter Reutemann 12 Feb '18

12 Feb '18

'Hackers are actively trying to exploit a high-severity vulnerability in widely used Cisco networking software that can give complete control over protected networks and access to all traffic passing over them, the company has warned. When Cisco officials disclosed the bug last week in a range of Adaptive Security Appliance products, they said they had no evidence anyone was actively exploiting it. Earlier this week, the officials updated their advisory to indicate that was no longer the case.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/02/that-mega-vulnerabil… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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VideoLAN VLC releases version 3.0 with HDR and 360-degree video
by Peter Reutemann 12 Feb '18

12 Feb '18

'The popular cross-platform, open-source video player VLC has received a significant update in 3.0, the first in what will be called the Vetinari branch. It adds support for HDR, including both 10-bit and 12-bit color and 360-degree video. This release version now also fully supports Chromecast streaming, a feature we first played with back in 2016. While VLC is open source, this part of it isn't; Tom's Hardware reports that VideoLAN explained it "used Google’s official closed-source SDK to build out the feature, which prevents it from releasing the source." [*] Other major added features include 3D audio support, audio passthrough for HD audio codecs, and support for browsing NAS drives. As always, a bunch of new codecs are supported too.' [*] 'Please note that Chromecast support in VLC 3.0 is fully open-source for all platforms! That’s the reason why it took us so long to ship as we completely reverse-engineered the entire thing. The closed-source component by Google can’t be used for legal reasons in VLC, isn’t compatible with Macs, Linux and Windows and supports a very limited set of codecs only. With our code, you can play basically anything VLC can decode on your Chromecast (as we transcode on-the-fly if needed).' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/videolan-vlc-releases-version-3-0-w… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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'Razer Doesn't Care About Linux'
by Peter Reutemann 12 Feb '18

12 Feb '18

'Razer is a vendor that makes high-end gaming hardware, including laptops, keyboards and mice. I opened a ticket with Razor a few days ago asking them if they wanted to support the LVFS project by uploading firmware and sharing the firmware update protocol used. I offered to upstream any example code they could share under a free license, or to write the code from scratch given enough specifications to do so. This is something I've done for other vendors, and doesn't take long as most vendor firmware updaters all do the same kind of thing; there are only so many ways to send a few kb of data to USB devices. The fwupd project provides high-level code for accessing USB devices, so yet-another-update-protocol is no big deal. I explained all about the LVFS, and the benefits it provided to a userbase that is normally happy to vote using their wallet to get hardware that's supported on the OS of their choice. I just received this note on the ticket, which was escalated appropriately: "I have discussed your offer with the dedicated team and we are thankful for your enthusiasm and for your good idea. I am afraid I have also to let you know that at this moment in time our support for software is only focused on Windows and Mac." The post, written by Richard -- who has long been a maintainer of GNOME Software, PackageKit, GNOME Packagekit, points out that Razer executive Min-Liang Tan last year invited Linux enthusiasts to suggest ideas to help the company make the best notebook that supports Linux.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/02/12/0722235 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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How the First Open Source Software and Hardware Satellite UPSat Was Built
by Peter Reutemann 11 Feb '18

11 Feb '18

'UPSat is the first open source -- both hardware and software -- satellite to have ever been launched in orbit. Pierros Papadeas, the Director of Operations for Libre Space Foundation, which helped build the UPSat, talked about the project at FOSDEM, a non-commercial, volunteer-organized European event focused on free and open-source software development. You can watch the talk here; and read an interview of him with folks at FOSDEM ahead of the talk here. Two excerpts from the interview: Q: What challenges did you encounter while designing, building, testing and eventually launching UPSat in orbit? PP: The challenges where numerous, starting with the financial ones. Lack of appropriate funding led us to invest heavily in the project (through Libre Space Foundation funds) to ensure its successful completion. Countless volunteer participation was also key to the success. On the technical side, with minimal documentation and knowledge sharing around space projects we had to re-invent the wheel and discover many procedures and practices in a really short time-frame (6 months - unheard for a space mission). Lack of tools and equipment made our building process a creative exploration as we had to figure out ways to achieve specific tasks resorting to purpose-built projects in our local lab (hackerspace.gr). Testing and verification facilities where also a challenge mainly as we had to undergo much more extensive tests than other missions, having none of our components already "flight proven". Again creativity and countless hours of negotiations and documentation got us to the final delivery point. Launching UPSat in orbit was secured once the delivery happened, but as any typical space mission it came with long delays and timeline push-backs. Q: What do you hope to accomplish by giving this talk? What do you expect? Through this talk we would like to raise awareness for open source initiatives in space, and inspire open source technologists (engineers, programmers, analysts, makers) to engage in an open source project. We would also love to gather feedback and ideas on next steps and provide contribution opportunities for interested parties.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/02/11/2139203 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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EFF Founder John Perry Barlow Has Died At Age 70
by Peter Reutemann 08 Feb '18

08 Feb '18

'The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports that its founder, John Perry Barlow, has passed away quietly in his sleep this morning. He was 70 years old. From the report: It is no exaggeration to say that major parts of the Internet we all know and love today exist and thrive because of Barlow's vision and leadership. He always saw the Internet as a fundamental place of freedom, where voices long silenced can find an audience and people can connect with others regardless of physical distance. Barlow was sometimes held up as a straw man for a kind of naive techno-utopianism that believed that the Internet could solve all of humanity's problems without causing any more. As someone who spent the past 27 years working with him at EFF, I can say that nothing could be further from the truth. Barlow knew that new technology could create and empower evil as much as it could create and empower good. He made a conscious decision to focus on the latter: "I knew it's also true that a good way to invent the future is to predict it. So I predicted Utopia, hoping to give Liberty a running start before the laws of Moore and Metcalfe delivered up what Ed Snowden now correctly calls 'turn-key totalitarianism.'" Barlow's lasting legacy is that he devoted his life to making the Internet into "a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth... a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity."' -- source: https://politics.slashdot.org/story/18/02/07/234213 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Insurance Companies Recommending Computer Gear?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 07 Feb '18

07 Feb '18

A couple of big insurance outfits have made deals with Apple and Cisco to charge lower cybersecurity premiums to customers buying their gear <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/06/cisco_apple_allianz_aon_cyber_insur…>. I’m in favour (up to a point) of charging according to assessed risk, but basing it on specific brand names leaves them open to accusations of conflict of interest. Better it be done according to adherence to published nonproprietary standards, such as PCI-DSS, for example.

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New IoT botnet offers DDoSes of once-unimaginable sizes for $20
by Peter Reutemann 02 Feb '18

02 Feb '18

'Organizers of a new botnet made up of infected home and small office routers are brazenly selling denial-of-service attacks of once unimaginable volumes for just $20 per target. Calling itself Los Calvos de San Calvicie, the group is advertising several services on this site. Among the services are distributed denial-of-service attacks of 290 to 300 gigabits per second for $20 each. While a third the size of some of the biggest recorded attacks, 290Gbps is still enough to bring most sites down unless they seek DDoS mitigation services, which in many cases cost considerable amounts of money. Just five years ago, 300Gbps was considered enough volume to shut down the Internet's core infrastructure. Los Calvos de San Calvicie members have been spotted assembling a botnet in recent days that very possibly has the firepower required to deliver the potent attacks promised. According to Pascal Geenens, a researcher at security firm Radware, the group is building the botnet by exploiting two vulnerabilities: one in RealTek routers running out-of-date firmware and the other in the Huawei HG532 router, where a patch released in December has yet to be installed by many users. Both vulnerabilities are also exploited by a different Internet-of-things botnet known as Satori.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/02/for-sale-ddoses-guar… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Microsoft Releases Skype As a Snap For Linux
by Peter Reutemann 01 Feb '18

01 Feb '18

'While Microsoft has long been viewed as an enemy of the Linux community -- and it still is by some -- the company has actually transformed into an open source champion. One of Microsoft's biggest Linux contributions, however, is Skype -- the wildly popular communication software. By offering that program to desktop Linux users, Microsoft enables them to easily communicate with friends and family that aren't on Linux, thanks to its cross-platform support. Today, Microsoft further embraces Linux by releasing Skype as a Snap. This comes after two other very popular apps became available in Snap form -- Spotify and Slack. "Skype is used by millions of users globally to make free video and voice calls, send files, video and instant messages and to share both special occasions and everyday moments with the people who matter most. Skype has turned to snaps to ensure its users on Linux, are automatically delivered to its latest versionupon release. And with snaps' roll-back feature, whereby applications can revert back to the previous working version in the event of a bug, Skype's developers can ensure a seamless user experience," says Canonical.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/02/01/1644250 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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LibreOffice 6.0 Released: Features Superior Microsoft Office Interoperability, OpenPGP Support
by Peter Reutemann 31 Jan '18

31 Jan '18

'LibreOffice 6.0 comes two and a half years after the LibreOffice 5.x series, and it's the biggest release of the open-source and cross-platform office suite so far. It introduces a revamped design with new table styles, improved Notebookbars, new gradients, new Elementary icons, menu and toolbar improvements, and updated motif/splash screen. LibreOffice 6.0 offers superior interoperability with Microsoft Office documents and compatibility with the EPUB3 format by allowing users to export ODT files to EPUB3. It also lets you import your AbiWord, Microsoft Publisher, PageMaker, and QuarkXPress documents and templates thanks to the implementation of a set of new open-source libraries contributed by the Document Liberation project. Many great improvements were made to the OOXML and ODF filters, as well as in the EMF+, Adobe Freehand, Microsoft Visio, Adobe Pagemaker, FictionBook, Apple Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, as well as Quattro Pro import functionality, and to the XHTML export. LibreOffice Online received numerous improvements as well in this major release of LibreOffice.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/01/31/1422245 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Samsung Surpasses Intel To Become the World's Largest Chipmaker
by Peter Reutemann 31 Jan '18

31 Jan '18

'Samsung Electronics just knocked Intel off its perch as the world's biggest chipmaker by revenue, a spot the U.S. company has held since 1992. From a report: On Tuesday, Samsung reported 2017 chip sales of $69 billion, blowing past Intel's $63 billion from last year. The switch underlines how Samsung has transformed itself from a maker of cheap televisions into a pervasive supplier of key components in smartphones and other modern computing devices. It's also a testament to the growth of memory chips, Samsung's main market. Intel, whose processors are the heart of about 90 percent of the world's computers, didn't have a bad year. Sales grew 6 percent. Success in computers is no longer enough, though. Memory chips, a market Intel only recently got back into, are now crucial parts of smartphones, which easily outsell PCs these days. Memory chips are also finding their way into a range of new devices such as cars. One of the ironies of Samsungâ(TM)s success in memory is that itâ(TM)s a business Intel created in the 1960s.' -- source: https://slashdot.org/story/18/01/31/1516212 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Google Chrome To Feature Built-In Image Lazy Loading
by Peter Reutemann 31 Jan '18

31 Jan '18

'Future versions of Google Chrome will feature built-in support for lazy loading, a mechanism to defer the loading of images and iframes if they are not visible on the user's screen at load time. This system will first ship with Chrome for Android and Google doesn't rule out adding it to desktop versions if tests go as planned. The feature is called Blink LazyLoad, and as the name hints, it will implement the principle of "lazy loading" inside Chrome itself. Google engineers reported page load speed improvements varying from 18% to 35%, depending on the underlying network. Other browser makers have been notified of the Chrome team's plan, but none have provided input if they plan to implement a similar feature. Compared to most JS-based lazy loading scripts that only target images, Google implementation will also target iframes.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/01/31/180234 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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MPEG Founder Says the MPEG Business Model Is Broken
by Peter Reutemann 30 Jan '18

30 Jan '18

'Leonardo Chiariglione, the founder and chairman of MPEG, argues on his blog that the current MPEG business model is broken. He writes, "Thanks to [MPEG's] 'business model' that can be simply described as: produce standards having the best performance as a goal, irrespective of the IPR involved. Because MPEG standards are the best in the market and have an international standard status, manufacturers/service providers get a global market of digital media products, services and applications, and end users can seamless communicate with billions of people and access millions of services. Patent holders who allow use of their patents get hefty royalties with which they can develop new technologies for the next generation of MPEG standards. A virtuous cycle everybody benefits from." But, he argues, the MPEG model is now in crisis because the forthcoming AV1 video format from the Alliance for Open Media means that "everybody realizes that the old MPEG business model is broke, all the investments (collectively hundreds of millions USD) made by the industry for the new video codec [HEVC] will go up in smoke and AOM's royalty free model will spread to other business segments as well." Chiariglione goes on to explain what can be done: "The first action is to introduce what I call 'fractional options.' ISO envisages two forms of licensing: Option 1, i.e. royalty free and Option 2, i.e. FRAND, which is taken to mean 'with undetermined license.' We could introduce fractional options in the sense that a proposer could indicate that the technology be assigned to a specifically identified profile with an 'industry license' (defined outside MPEG) that does not contain monetary values. For instance, one such license could be 'no charge' (i.e. Option 1), another could be targeted to the OTT market etc." "The second action, not meant to be alternative to the first, is to streamline the MPEG standard development process. Within this a first goal is to develop coding tools with 'clear ownership,' unlike today's tools which are often the result of contributions with possibly very different weights. A second goal is not to define profiles in MPEG. A third goal could be to embed in the standard the capability to switch coding tools on and off."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/01/30/0419222 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Is This The Hawaii Civil Defence Missile Alert UI?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Jan '18

30 Jan '18

Remember the alert about the incoming missile in Hawaii that turned out to be nonsense? This <https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/the-interface-to-sen…> is apparently what the user interface looks like for the system that sends out both test and genuine alerts. It looks like a web page with a random assortment of links. Just off the top of my head, not claiming to be a UI expert here, but I would have a big title across the top of the screen saying either “TEST MODE” or “LIVE MODE” (the latter red, and blinking). Then have a single set of options below, appropriate to the active mode. Even go one better, and do what Japanese railway locomotive drivers do as they see signs at the side of the track: say out loud what the signs mean, before taking appropriate action.

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The SCO Vs IBM Zombie Shambles On
by Peter Reutemann 29 Jan '18

29 Jan '18

'At the end of last October, the 10th Circuit issued an opinion overturning the lower court's summary judgement in favor of IBM on one of SCO's claims, sending it back to the lower court for trial. Shortly thereafter, IBM filed for a re-hearing en banc. On January 2nd, the 10th circuit essentially denied IBM's request, issuing a slightly revised opinion with the same conclusions and result. The charge being reheard accuses IBM of "stealing and improperly using [SCO's] source code to strengthen its own operating system, thereby committing the tort of unfair competition by means of misappropriation" -- though that charged is based on an implied duty that SCO says IBM incurred by entering into a development relationship with SCO. "SCO believes that IBM merely pretended to go along with the arrangement in order to gain access to Santa Cruz's coveted source code." The court's 46-page document adds that "We are now almost fifteen years into this litigation."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/18/01/29/0213203 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Intel Told Chinese Firms of Meltdown Flaws Before the US Government
by Peter Reutemann 29 Jan '18

29 Jan '18

'According to The Wall Street Journal, Intel initially told a handful of customers about the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, including Chinese tech companies like Alibaba and Lenovo, before the U.S. government. As a result, the Chinese government could have theoretically exploited the holes to intercept data before patches were available. Engadget reports: An Intel spokesman wouldn't detail who the company had informed, but said that the company couldn't notify everyone (including U.S. officials) in time because Meltdown and Spectre had been revealed early. Lenovo said the information was protected by a non-disclosure agreement. Alibaba has suggested that any accusations of sharing info with the Chinese government was "speculative and baseless," but this doesn't rule out officials intercepting details without Alibaba's knowledge. There's no immediate evidence to suggest that China has taken advantage of the flaws, but that's not the point -- it's that the U.S. government could have helped coordinate disclosures to ensure that enough companies had fixes in place. ' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/01/29/0520222 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Are the BSDs Dying? Some Security Researchers Think So
by Peter Reutemann 26 Jan '18

26 Jan '18

'The BSDs have lost the battle for mindshare to Linux, and that may well bode ill for the future sustainability of the BSDs as viable, secure operating systems, writes CSO's JM Porup. The reason why is a familiar refrain: more eyeballs mean more secure code. Porup cites the work of Ilja von Sprundel, director of penetration testing at IOActive, who, noting the "small number of reported BSD kernel vulnerabilities compared to Linux," dug into BSD source code. His search 'easily' turned up about 115 kernel bugs. Porup looks at the relative security of OpenBSD, FreeBSD and NetBSD, the effect on Mac OS, and why, despite FreeBSD's relative popularity, OpenBSD may be the most likely to survive.' -- source: https://bsd.slashdot.org/story/18/01/26/1636229 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Will Default To The X.Org Stack, Not Wayland
by Peter Reutemann 26 Jan '18

26 Jan '18

'Five years after their original goal to ship Ubuntu with Wayland, Ubuntu 17.10 transitioned to using the Wayland display system by default as part of their transition to GNOME Shell as the default desktop. But with the upcoming Ubuntu 18.04 LTS release, Canonical has decided to transition back to the X.Org Server. Their reasoning for moving to an X.Org Server by default is better support for screen sharing, remote desktop, and better recovery from crashes. But for those interested the Wayland session will still be available as a log-in option.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/01/26/1437212 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Burger King Explains Net Neutrality
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 Jan '18

26 Jan '18

Burger King uses “Whopper Neutrality” to illustrate why service providers shouldn’t play favourites <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/24/burger_king_net_neutrality/>.

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Senator Asks FBI Director To Justify His 'Ill-Informed' Policy Proposal For Encryption
by Peter Reutemann 26 Jan '18

26 Jan '18

'In a speech earlier this month, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the inability of law enforcement authorities to access data from electronic devices due to powerful encryption is an "urgent public safety issue." He proposed that Silicon Valley companies should add a backdoor to their encryption so that they could both "provide data security and permit lawful access with a court order." One person is not amused by Wray's proposal. Senator Ron Wyden criticized Wray on Thursday for not consulting him before going public with the proposal for encryption. Wyden said today, via Gizmodo: Your stated position parrots the same debunked arguments espoused by your predecessors, all of whom ignored the widespread and vocal consensus of cryptographers. For years, these experts have repeatedly stated that what you are asking for is not, in fact, possible. Building secure software is extremely difficult, and vulnerabilities are often introduced inadvertently in the design process. Eliminating these vulnerabilities is a mammoth task, and experts are unified in their opinion that introducing deliberate vulnerabilities would likely create catastrophic unintended consequences that could debilitate software functionality and security entirely. [...] I would like to learn more about how you arrived at and justify this ill-informed policy proposal. Please provide me with a list of the cryptographers with whom you've personally discussed this topic since our July 2017 meeting and specifically identify those experts who advised you that companies can feasibly design government access features into their products without weakening cybersecurity. Please provide this information by February 23, 2018.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/18/01/25/161245 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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New Unit Of Time: The “Flick”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 Jan '18

26 Jan '18

Oculus is proposing a new unit for measuring time for audio/video/VR purposes: it is 1/705,600,000 of a second. This denominator was chosen to have sufficient integer factors to allow it to exactly represent various common frame/sample rates as whole numbers of flicks (which cannot be done with the usual SI divisions). And also, from the looks of it, possible future higher multiples of those rates. <https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/01/oculus-creates-a-new-open-source-uni…>

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Chrome 64 Released With Stronger Popup Blocker, Spectre Mitigations
by Peter Reutemann 25 Jan '18

25 Jan '18

'Google on Thursday pushed an update to its marquee Web browser Chrome, now at v64, which offers a handful of new features including an improved ad blocker. From a report: Most of the new features included with Chrome 64 are meant to improve the browser's support for the ever-changing web standards that drive the modern Internet. For example, Chrome 64 is choke full of support for new browser APIs, new CSS properties, new JavaScript (ECMAScript) features, and changes to Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine. [...] Other big changes that shipped with Chrome 64 are on the browser's security side. For starters, Chrome 64 includes mitigations against the web-exploitable Spectre flaw. Further, Chrome 64 also comes with a bolstered popup blocker that can now block tab-under behavior, being much more efficient at blocking malvertising redirects.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/01/25/1717226 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Dell and HP Advise All Their Customers To Not Install Spectre BIOS Updates
by Peter Reutemann 25 Jan '18

25 Jan '18

'The Spectre and Meltdown mess continues with Dell now recommending their customers to not install the BIOS updates that are supposed to resolve the Spectre (Variant 2) vulnerabilities. These updates have been causing numerous problems for users including performance issues, boot issues, reboot issues, and general system stability. Due to this, Dell EMC has updated its knowledgebase article with a statement advising customers to not install the BIOS update and to potentially rollback to the previous BIOS if their computers are exhibiting "unpredictable system behavior". ZDNet reports that HP too has issued a similar advisory. The computer manufacturer pulled its softpaqs BIOS updates with Intel's patches from its website, and said it would be releasing a BIOS update with a previous version of Intel's microcode on Thursday.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/01/24/1312241 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 2

The Death Of Moore’s Law
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 24 Jan '18

24 Jan '18

From <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/24/death_notice_for_moores_law/>: The computer science behind microprocessor design has therefore found itself making a rapid U-turn as it learns that its optimisation techniques can be weaponised. ... Hammered by the finance of physics and the weaponisation of optimisation, Moore’s Law has hit the wall, bounced off - and reversed direction. We’re driving backwards now: all things IT will become slower, harder and more expensive. Actually economics probably had more to do with it than physics, as PC sales have been slowing over the past decade.

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City of Barcelona Dumps Windows For Linux and Open Source Software
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jan '18

24 Jan '18

'The City of Barcelona is migrating its computer systems away from the Windows platform, reports the Spanish newspaper El País. The City's strategy is first to replace all user applications with open-source alternatives, until the underlying Windows operating system is the only proprietary software remaining. In a final step, the operating system will be replaced with Linux... According to Francesca Bria, the Commissioner of Technology and Digital Innovation at the City Council, the transition will be completed before the current administration's mandate ends in spring 2019. For starters, the Outlook mail client and Exchange Server will be replaced with Open-Xchange. In a similar fashion, Internet Explorer and Office will be replaced with Firefox and LibreOffice, respectively. The Linux distribution eventually used will probably be Ubuntu, since the City of Barcelona is already running 1,000 Ubuntu-based desktops as part of a pilot... Barcelona is the first municipality to have joined the European campaign 'Public Money, Public Code'. This campaign is an initiative of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and revolves around an open letter advocating that publicly funded software should be free. Currently, this call to public agencies is supported by more than 100 organisations and almost 15,000 individuals. With the new open-source strategy, Barcelona's City Council aims to avoid spending large amounts of money on licence-based software and to reduce its dependence on proprietary suppliers through contracts that in some cases have been closed for decades.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/01/15/0415219 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Firefox 58 Gets Graphics Speed Boost, Web App Abilities
by Peter Reutemann 23 Jan '18

23 Jan '18

'Mozilla released on Tuesday a new version of its Firefox Quantum browser, boosting its graphics speed and improving a couple of new technologies designed to make the web more powerful. From a report: The browser, version 58, is the first major update since Mozilla's recovery plan hit full stride in November with the debut of Firefox Quantum. Speed is of the essence in Mozilla's recovery plan, and Firefox 58 does better than its predecessor in some graphics tasks by splitting work better across the multiple processor cores that computer chips have these days. The result should be scrolling that's smooth, uninterrupted by the stuttering that in computing circles goes by the disparaging term "jank." [...] Firefox 58 helps with two new web technologies. One, called WebAssembly, provides for dramatically faster web apps. Firefox 58 can get WebAssembly software running faster so you don't have to twiddle your thumbs waiting as long after clicking a link. Another is progressive web apps (PWAs), an initiative that came out of Google to help make the web a better match for the apps we all drop on our phones.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/01/23/150206 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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New Malware Hijacks Cryptocurrency Mining
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Jan '18

23 Jan '18

One parasite feeding off another, or “Human Technology Recapitulates Biology, Volume 323”. <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/01/new_malware_hij.html>

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Fake Ads Redirecting To Malicious Software Installers
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Jan '18

23 Jan '18

Seems a consortium of fake ad companies has been built up, cultivating relationships with legitimate ad platforms, and then carefully inserting forced redirects in a proportion of the ads they serve, to trick unwitting viewers into installing malware on their machines. Various checks are first applied, to try to ensure that the machines being redirected don’t happen to be run by security researchers, for example. Each member of the consortium is activated for serving this malware in turn; then when it is exposed, it is abandoned and the operators move on to the next one. <https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/malvertising-factory…>

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Linux 4.15 Becomes Slowest Release Since 2011
by Peter Reutemann 23 Jan '18

23 Jan '18

'Linus Torvalds has decided that Linux 4.15 needs a ninth release candidate, making it the first kernel release to need that much work since 2011. Torvalds flagged up the possibility of an extra release candidate last week, with the caveat that "it obviously requires this upcoming week to not come with any huge surprises" after "all the Meltdown and Spectre hoopla" made his job rather more complicated in recent weeks. Fast-forward another week and Torvalds has announced "I really really wanted to just release 4.15 today, but things haven't calmed down enough for me to feel comfy about it."' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/01/22/2035228 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Ex-NSA Hacker Runs Christmas Lights With Raspberry πs And Dodgy NZ-Made Radio Kit
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 Jan '18

22 Jan '18

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/22/rob_joyce_hacking/>: Joyce uses a couple of Raspberry Pis to control the light show and a slightly dodgy FM transmitter to broadcast the soundtrack to visiting folks. The transmitter, bought as a kit from New Zealand, has the capability to broadcast illegally on FM frequencies, so is sold without the power supply attached to get around regulations, but Joyce said he keeps it low power and within FCC regulations because "I'm very legal."

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Has the Decades-Old Floating Point Error Problem Been Solved?
by Peter Reutemann 22 Jan '18

22 Jan '18

'Wednesday a company called Bounded Floating Point announced a "breakthrough patent in processor design, which allows representation of real numbers accurate to the last digit for the first time in computer history. This bounded floating point system is a game changer for the computing industry, particularly for computationally intensive functions such as weather prediction, GPS, and autonomous vehicles," said the inventor, Alan Jorgensen, PhD. "By using this system, it is possible to guarantee that the display of floating point values is accurate to plus or minus one in the last digit..." The innovative bounded floating point system computes two limits (or bounds) that contain the represented real number. These bounds are carried through successive calculations. When the calculated result is no longer sufficiently accurate the result is so marked, as are all further calculations made using that value. It is fail-safe and performs in real time. Jorgensen is described as a cyber bounty hunter and part time instructor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas teaching computer science to non-computer science students. In November he received US Patent number 9,817,662 -- "Apparatus for calculating and retaining a bound on error during floating point operations and methods thereof." But in a followup, HPCwire reports: After this article was published, a number of readers raised concerns about the originality of Jorgensen's techniques, noting the existence of prior art going back years. Specifically, there is precedent in John Gustafson's work on unums and interval arithmetic both at Sun and in his 2015 book, The End of Error, which was published 19 months before Jorgensen's patent application was filed. We regret the omission of this information from the original article.' -- source: https://science.slashdot.org/story/18/01/21/0157230 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

Google’s Fuchsia OS on the Pixelbook: It works! It actually works!
by Peter Reutemann 21 Jan '18

21 Jan '18

'Google currently has two OSes on the market: Android and Chrome OS. The company is never one to leave a successful product alone in the marketplace, though, so it's also developing a third operating system called "Fuchsia." When we last checked in on the experimental OS in May 2017, calling it an "OS" was a bit of a stretch. We only got the system UI up and running on top of Android, where it then functioned like an app. The UI offered a neat multi-window system, but mostly it was just a bunch of placeholder graphics. Nothing worked. It has been hard to check in on Fuchsia since. The Fuchsia system UI, which was written with a cross-platform SDK called "Flutter," quickly shut down the Android (and iOS) compatible builds. Fuchsia has a Vulkan-based graphics stack, and no emulator supports the new-ish graphics API. The only way to get Fuchsia up and running again was with actual hardware, and the only supported devices were Intel NUC PCs from 2015 and the Acer Switch Alpha 12 laptop. So after the recent news that the Fuchsia team picked the Chrome OS-powered Google Pixelbook as a supported device, we jumped at the chance to get it up and running. And after a little elbow grease, it actually booted. Now, we're not just running the system UI on top of Android like last time, we're running Fuchsia directly on a piece of hardware! This means it's finally time for a deep dive on what Fuchsia looks like in early 2018. Our usual in-development OS testing caveats apply: Fuchsia only started development in 2016 and probably has several years of development time ahead of it. Everything can—and probably will—change between now and release (if a release ever even happens). Google won't even officially acknowledge the OS exists—Fuchsia is a bunch of code sitting on fuchsia.googlesource.com.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/01/googles-fuchsia-os-on-the-pixelbook… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

“Kernel Memory Leaking” Intel Processor Design Flaw Forces Linux, Windows Redesign
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Jan '18

20 Jan '18

A pretty serious-sounding security hole has been found in recent Intel CPUs, which will require performance-sapping workarounds in both Linux and Windows to fix <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/02/intel_cpu_design_flaw/>. The details are not public yet, but AMD, in its announcement that its products are not affected, would seem to have divulged some important clues.

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Trying To Fix Windows Security Problems Breaks Security Software
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Jan '18

20 Jan '18

Microsoft is having a tough time coming out with good patches for the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities. The main trouble is, these patches cause third-party anti-malware software to malfunction, and so the vendors of those products have to rush out their own patches to work with the fixes <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/08/meltdown_fix_security_problems/>.

2 3

Introducing The Cryptocurrency-Mining Operating System
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Jan '18

19 Jan '18

Mentioned in passing in this article <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/cryptocurrency-boom-creates-ins…> explaining why high-end graphics cards are currently in short supply (they’re being snapped up by cryptocurrency miners) is the existence of a “mining-centric operating system called PIMP OS”. Presumably they’re Linux-based, I thought. And checking the T&Cs <https://getpimp.org/terms/> reveals yes, it’s built on Debian, with a bunch of other pieces, some closed-source, some open.

1 0

Wine 3.0 Released
by Peter Reutemann 18 Jan '18

18 Jan '18

'The Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) project has been updated today to version 3.0, a major release that ends 2017 in style for the open-source compatibility layer capable of running Windows apps and games on Linux-based and UNIX-like operating systems. Almost a year in the works, Wine 3.0 comes with amazing new features like an Android driver that lets users run Windows apps and games on Android-powered machines, Direct3D 11 support enabled by default for AMD Radeon and Intel GPUs, AES encryption support on macOS, Progman DDE support, and a task scheduler. In addition, Wine 3.0 introduces the ability to export registry entries with the reg.exe tool, adds various enhancements to the relay debugging and OLE data cache, as well as an extra layer of event support in MSHTML, Microsoft's proprietary HTML layout engine for the Windows version of the Internet Explorer web browser. You can read the full list of features and download Wine 3.0 from WineHQ's website.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/01/18/2054205 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

NHoS/NHSBuntu Gives Up After NHS Trademark Bullying
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 18 Jan '18

18 Jan '18

The small team of volunteers behind the NHoS project (formerly NHSBuntu) are giving up. They wanted to offer an alternative to the current NHS smartcard implementation system, currently running on Windows, using open-source software. First they rebranded from “NHSBuntu” to “NHoS” (along with “overhauling the previous tooling and branding”), which they thought would address trademark concents from the NHS. But now it seems even this name is considered unacceptable. One of the developers, Marcus Baw, ... said openhealthhub had numerous conversations that had led to "several cancelled-at-the-last minute meetings" with NHS England (NHSE) CIO Will Smart and Paul Rice, head of technology strategy in the Digital Health team. Baw alleged the pair "(unbeknown to us) were also duplicitously negotiating with Microsoft about a new NHS Enterprise Wide Agreement". He added: "In fact I now strongly suspect that the reason we were getting any engagement at all at these levels was in order to strength NHSE negotiating position with Microsoft, by being able to say to M$ 'There is a competitor, we are meeting with them next week'." <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/18/nhs_thanks_for_all_the_free_work_li…>

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Apple Rejects Net-Neutrality-Testing App
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 18 Jan '18

18 Jan '18

A researcher who has published papers on “traffic differentiation” by ISPs tried to submit an app to perform tests to detect this happening on behalf of Iphone users, only to have Apple turn it down on the grounds that it “has no direct benefits to the user”. That is, until word got around about the rejection. Now it seems they are reconsidering. <https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/apple-rejects-app-th…>

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meeting ideas?
by Peter Reutemann 18 Jan '18

18 Jan '18

Hi everyone I hope everyone had a good break and enjoyed the lovely muggy weather in the Waikato... ;-) Unfortunately, I didn't get around to looking into home automation over the break, so currently drawing a blank in terms of topics for next week's meeting. Did you work on a little Linux or open-source related project and feel like sharing? Then please let me know! Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

5 7

Hackers can’t dig into latest Xiaomi phone due to GPL violations
by Peter Reutemann 17 Jan '18

17 Jan '18

'Yet another Android OEM is dragging its feet with its GPL compliance. This time, it's Xiaomi with the Mi A1 Android One device, which still hasn't seen a kernel source code release. Android vendors are required to release their kernel sources thanks to the Linux kernel's GPLv2 licensing. The Mi A1 has been out for about three months now, and there's still no source code release on Xiaomi's official github account. Unfortunately, GPL non-compliance is par for the course in the world of Android. Budget SoC company MediaTek once tried charging users for access to GPL'd code. Motorola under Lenovo has been regularly accused of violating the GPL and releasing incomplete sources or sources that differ from the kernel shipping on devices. Unsurprisingly, the majority of these alleged GPL violators are from China, which often plays fast and loose with IP law. Android developers use the source code to create custom kernels that tweak the way a device works, allowing for overclocking, better battery life, or control over the CPU governor. One of the largest custom kernel developers, Francisco Franco, has started a public Twitter campaign to encourage Xiaomi to comply with the GPL.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/01/xiaomi-is-dragging-its-feet-on-the-… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Found: New Android malware with never-before-seen spying capabilities
by Peter Reutemann 17 Jan '18

17 Jan '18

'Last year, researchers found what at the time was quite possibly the world's most sophisticated espionage app ever written for the Android mobile operating system. Now, in a discovery that underscores the growing arms race among competing malware developers, researchers have uncovered a new Android spying platform that includes location-based audio recording and other features that have never been seen in the wild before. According to a report published Tuesday by antivirus provider Kaspersky Lab, "Skygofree" is most likely an offensive security product sold by an Italy-based IT company that markets various surveillance wares. With 48 different commands in its latest version, the malware has undergone continuous development since its creation in late 2014. It relies on five separate exploits to gain privileged root access that allows it to bypass key Android security measures. Skygofree is capable of taking pictures, capturing video, and seizing call records, text messages, geolocation data, calendar events, and business-related information stored in device memory. Skygofree also includes the ability to automatically record conversations and noise when an infected device enters a location specified by the person operating the malware. Another never-before-seen feature is the ability to steal WhatsApp messages by abusing the Android Accessibility Service that's designed to help users who have disabilities or who may temporarily be unable to fully interact with a device. A third new feature: the ability to connect infected devices to Wi-Fi networks controlled by attackers. Skygofree also includes other advanced features, including a reverse shell that gives malware operators better remote control of infected devices. The malware also comes with a variety of Windows components that provide among other things a reverse shell, a keylogger, and a mechanism for recording Skype conversations' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/found-new-android-ma… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Phrase Of The Week: “Foveated Rendering”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Jan '18

16 Jan '18

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/16/human_limits_of_vr_and_ar/>: By some estimates, given a field of view of 180 degrees, around 74 gigabytes of visual data are available to us each second, but only around 125 megabytes are ultimately processed ... Much of the rest is chucked away before it even gets to the optic nerve. But trying to minimize the rendering workload by concentrating on the fovea (the most detail-sensitive part of the eye, the little spot where the image falls when you “look at” something) is not so simple, given the quirks of how our visual perception actually works. Computer graphics doyen Alvy Ray Smith is reputed to have said “reality is 80 million polygons per second”. I think we can achieve that now, but the pixel rate considered acceptable on a conventional monitor is peanuts compared to that required for VR.

1 0

Fighting Ransomware
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 15 Jan '18

15 Jan '18

No More Ransom <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/01/fighting_ransom.html> is a joint project between Europol, the Dutch police, Kaspersky and McAfee to offer a central repository of bypasses for ransomware. Mainly good against older strains, but it should still help prevent lightening a few pocketbooks ...

1 0