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20 Years Later, Has Open Source Changed the World?
by Peter Reutemann 15 Jan '18

15 Jan '18

'"Most code remains closed and proprietary, even though open source now dominates enterprise platforms," notes Matt Asay, former COO at Canonical (and an emeritus board member of the Open Source Initiative). "How can that be?" he asks, in an essay noting it's been almost 20 years since the launch of the Open Source Initiative, arguing that so far open source "hasn't changed the world as promised." [T]he reason most software remains locked up within the four walls of enterprise firewalls is that it's too costly with too small of an ROI to justify open-sourcing it. At least, that's the perception. Such a perception is impossible to break without walking the open source path, which companies are unwilling to walk without upfront proof. See the problem? This chicken-and-egg conundrum is starting to resolve itself, thanks to the forward-looking efforts of Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other web giants that are demonstrating the value of open-sourcing code. Although it's unlikely that a State Farm or Chevron will ever participate in the same way as a Microsoft, we are starting to see companies like Bloomberg and Capital One get involved in open source in ways they never would have considered back when the term "open source" was coined in 1997, much less in 2007. It's a start. Let's also not forget that although we have seen companies use more open source code over the past 20 years, the biggest win for open source since its inception is how it has changed the narrative of how innovation happens in software. We're starting to believe, and for good reason, that the best, most innovative software is open source. The article strikes a hopeful note. "We're now comfortable with the idea that software can, and maybe should, be open source without the world ending. The actual opening of that source, however, is something to tackle in the next 20 years.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/01/14/1627207 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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Meltdown and Spectre Patches Bricking Ubuntu 16.04 Computers
by Peter Reutemann 10 Jan '18

10 Jan '18

'Ubuntu Xenial 16.04 users who updated to receive the Meltdown and Spectre patches are reporting they are unable to boot their systems and have been forced to roll back to an earlier Linux kernel image. The issues were reported by a large number of users on the Ubuntu forums and Ubuntu's Launchpad bug tracker. Only Ubuntu users running the Xenial 16.04 series appear to be affected. All users who reported issues said they were unable to boot after upgrading to Ubuntu 16.04 with kernel image 4.4.0-108. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu OS, deployed Linux kernel image 4.4.0-108 as part of a security update for Ubuntu Xenial 16.04 users, yesterday, on January 9. According to Ubuntu Security Notice USN-3522-1 and an Ubuntu Wiki page, this was the update that delivered the Meltdown and Spectre patches.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/01/10/1634215 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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Germany Ban On Online Hate Speech Triggers Debate
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 10 Jan '18

10 Jan '18

A new law has come into effect in Germany whereby companies like Facebook and Twitter face multi-million-euro fines if they don’t block their users from expressing “hate speech” <http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/01/germany-ban-online-hate-speech-trigge…>. Trouble is, this law seems to be a bit of a blunt axe: on the one hand it led to the temporary suspension of the Twitter account of the deputy leader of the far-right AfD party, Beatrix von Storch. But also caught up in the net was the account of the satirical “Titanic” magazine, after it parodied a phrase used by von Storch. Then again, if you are seen to clamp down too hard on particular points of view, that gives political ammunition to those who claim they are being censored...

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Re-Assembling Shredded Stasi Records
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 09 Jan '18

09 Jan '18

During the last days of the German Democratic Republic (a.k.a. East Germany), the Stasi secret police tried to destroy the more incriminating records they had been keeping on their own citizens. They were only partially successful. And even then, there has been an ongoing project to reassemble those torn-up pieces of paper, by scanning them and doing pattern-recognition to match up the image pieces. Seems the easiest ones are fairly manageable, but now they are getting to smaller fragments, which are proving more of a challenge. <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180105/07120838936/stasis-tiny-torn-up-…>

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Another Fork Takes Over The Original Project
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Jan '18

08 Jan '18

Open-source software projects can fork for various reasons. Sometimes a bunch of developers want to go in a different direction. Other times the original project appears to be languishing, but those in charge are reluctant to give up control. Sometimes the forks peter out, other times they coexist happily (or unhappily) with the original project, occasionally they even absorb the original project. This <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/08/lede_and_openwrt_merge/> seems to be one of the latter cases: the LEDE fork of OpenWRT is merging back in, but the merger will be “governed under the rules of the LEDE project”.

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Can You Install Linux On a 1993 PC?
by Peter Reutemann 07 Jan '18

07 Jan '18

'The oldest x86 CPU that the Linux kernel supports today is theoretically the 486. However is this theory actually true in practice? I decided to put this theory to the test in my project. His site describes installing Gentoo Linux on an "ancient" IBM PS/1 Consultant 2133 19C (released in 1993), with 64MB SIMM-72 RAM. (Though to speed things up, he compiled that minimal version of Gentoo on a modern Thinkpad T430 released in 2012.) "Due to the age of the PC, the BIOS only supports booting from the floppy drive or internal HDD," so there was also some disk partitioning and kernel configuration. ("Must disable 64-bit kernel for obvious reasons!") A half-hour video shows that it takes almost 11 minutes just to boot up -- and five and a half minutes to shut down. "Despite the many roadblocks I faced, I was impressed by the level of support Linux has for ancient hardware like this." And there's one more added bonus. "Given the age of the 486 (1989 technology), it does not support branch prediction... Ironically this makes it safe from the Meltdown and Spectre attacks."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/01/07/228222 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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Can We Replace Intel x86 With an Open Source Chip?
by Peter Reutemann 07 Jan '18

07 Jan '18

'Perhaps the Meltdown and Spectre bugs are the impetus for making long-overdue changes to the core DNA of the semiconductor industry and how chip architectures are designed... Linux (and other related FOSS tech that forms the overall stack) is now a mainstream operating system that forms the basis of public cloud infrastructure and the foundational software technology in mobile and Internet of Things (IoT)... We need to develop a modern equivalent of an OpenSPARC that any processor foundry can build upon without licensing of IP, in order to drive down the costs of building microprocessors at immense scale for the cloud, for mobile and the IoT. It makes the $200 smartphone as well as hyperscale datacenter lifecycle management that much more viable and cost-effective. Just as Linux and open source transformed how we view operating systems and application software, we need the equivalent for microprocessors in order to move out of the private datacenter rife with these legacy issues and into the green field of the cloud... The fact that we have these software technologies that now enable us to easily abstract from the chip hardware enables us to correct and improve the chips through community efforts as needs arise... We need to stop thinking about microprocessor systems' architectures as these licensed things that are developed in secrecy by mega-companies like Intel or AMD or even ARM... The reality is that we now need to create something new, free from any legacy entities and baggage that has been driving the industry and dragging it down the past 40 years. Just as was done with Linux. The bigger question is which chip should take its place. "I don't see ARM donating its IP to this effort, and I think OpenSPARC may not be it either. Perhaps IBM OpenPOWER? It would certainly be a nice gesture of Big Blue to open their specification up further without any additional licensing, and it would help to maintain and establish the company's relevancy in the cloud going forward. "RISC-V, which is being developed by UC Berkeley, is completely Open Source."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/01/06/0424200 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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After Intel ME, Researchers Find Security Bug In AMD's SPS Secret Chip-on-Chip
by Peter Reutemann 07 Jan '18

07 Jan '18

'AMD has fixed, but not yet released BIOS/UEFI/firmware updates for the general public for a security flaw affecting the AMD Secure Processor. This component, formerly known as AMD PSP (Platform Security Processor), is a chip-on-chip security system, similar to Intel's much-hated Management Engine (ME). Just like Intel ME, the AMD Secure Processor is an integrated coprocessor that sits next to the real AMD64 x86 CPU cores and runs a separate operating system tasked with handling various security-related operations. The security bug is a buffer overflow that allows code execution inside the AMD SPS TPM, the component that stores critical system data such as passwords, certificates, and encryption keys, in a secure environment and outside of the more easily accessible AMD cores. Intel fixed a similar flaw last year in the Intel ME.' -- source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/01/07/2015226 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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Data Centres: No Cheaper NVidia Gaming Graphics Cards For You
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 05 Jan '18

05 Jan '18

Another entry in the “If I Buy It, Do I Own It?” files: NVidia’s EULA for the proprietary drivers for its GeForce and Titan gaming graphics cards has been amended to forbid their use in data centres: <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/03/nvidia_server_gpus/>. Such users will have to shell out for more expensive cards. For their own good, of course...

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Munich Council: To Hell With Linux, We're Going Full Windows in 2020
by Peter Reutemann 04 Jan '18

04 Jan '18

'The German city of Munich, which received much popularity back in the day when it first ditched Microsoft's services in favor of open-source software, has now agreed to stop using Linux and switch back to Windows. If the decision is ratified by the full council in two weeks, Windows 10 will start rolling out across the city in 2020. From a report: A coalition of Social Democrats and Conservatives on the committee voted for the Windows migration last week, Social Democrat councillor Anne Hubner told The Register. Munich rose to fame in the open-source world for deciding to use Linux and LibreOffice to make the city independent from the claws of Microsoft. But the plan was never fully realised -- mail servers, for instance, eventually wound up migrating to Microsoft Exchange -- and in February the city council formally voted to end Linux migration and go back to Microsoft. Hubner said the city has struggled with LiMux adoption. "Users were unhappy and software essential for the public sector is mostly only available for Windows," she said. She estimated about half of the 800 or so total programs needed don't run on Linux and "many others need a lot of effort and workarounds." Hubner added, "in the past 15 years, much of our efforts were put into becoming independent from Microsoft," including spending "a lot of money looking for workarounds" but "those efforts eventually failed." A full council vote on Windows 10 2020 migration is set for November 23, Hubner said. However, the Social Democrats and Conservatives have a majority in the council, and the outcome is expected to be the same as in committee.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/11/13/1714220 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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Today I Learned ...
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 Dec '17

22 Dec '17

... what a “Layer 8 issue” is. You know how the ISO/OSI networking model has 7 layers, from the physical hardware up to the actual application that the user is using?

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Roll On The Feudal Internet
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 Dec '17

22 Dec '17

Quoted in <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/12/amazons_door_lo.html>: The Key-compatible locks are made by Yale and Kwikset, yet don't work with those brands' own apps. They also can't connect with a home-security system or smart-home gadgets that work with Apple and Google software. And, of course, the lock can't be accessed by businesses other than Amazon. No Walmart, no UPS, no local dog-walking company. And so Amazon becomes a gatekeeper (literally) for access to your very home.

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Does Apple Deliberately Slow Down Older IPhones?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Dec '17

20 Dec '17

<https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/12/iphones-slow-over-time-to-preserve-…>: ... the iPhone may throttle performance to preserve battery life or avoid unexpected shutdowns as the battery degrades. What an amazingly complicated solution to the problem. Let me offer a simpler one: why not just make it easier for Iphone users to replace their batteries?

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All 500 of the World's Top 500 Supercomputers Are Running Linux
by Peter Reutemann 19 Dec '17

19 Dec '17

'Linux rules supercomputing. This day has been coming since 1998, when Linux first appeared on the TOP500 Supercomputer list. Today, it finally happened: All 500 of the world's fastest supercomputers are running Linux. The last two non-Linux systems, a pair of Chinese IBM POWER computers running AIX, dropped off the November 2017 TOP500 Supercomputer list. When the first TOP500 supercomputer list was compiled in June 1993, Linux was barely more than a toy. It hadn't even adopted Tux as its mascot yet. It didn't take long for Linux to start its march on supercomputing. >From when it first appeared on the TOP500 in 1998, Linux was on its way to the top. Before Linux took the lead, Unix was supercomputing's top operating system. Since 2003, the TOP500 was on its way to Linux domination. By 2004, Linux had taken the lead for good. This happened for two reasons: First, since most of the world's top supercomputers are research machines built for specialized tasks, each machine is a standalone project with unique characteristics and optimization requirements. To save costs, no one wants to develop a custom operating system for each of these systems. With Linux, however, research teams can easily modify and optimize Linux's open-source code to their one-off designs. The semiannual TOP500 Supercomputer List was released yesterday. It also shows that China now claims 202 systems within the TOP500, while the United States claims 143 systems.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/11/14/2223227 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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Fear And Loathing In Open-Source Clothing Design
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 18 Dec '17

18 Dec '17

Seems the Valentina project, to create an open-source clothing design package, has split in two over the usual reason--disagreements among the project members <http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/valentina-seamly2d>. In that article, Alexandre Prokoudine tries to give an even-handed account of the saga, which can sometimes be quite difficult. The proprietary software in this field is extremely expensive--to the point where it becomes hard for clothing makers/designers to hire people who are familiar with using it. An alternative project, called SodaCAD <http://www.sodacad.org/>, takes a very different view: more direct control over the design (as I understand it), rather than trying to automatically fit a predefined design to given measurements, as Valentina does. It hasn’t seen much activity in over three years, though.

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Undoing Data Anonymization Is Trivial
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 18 Dec '17

18 Dec '17

Yet another demonstration <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/18/no_hack_needed_anonymisation_beaten…> of the seeming impossibility of publishing “anonymized” sets of personal data that cannot be traced back to specific individuals. The response of the Australian Government to a previous demonstration of such “de-anonymization” techniques was to seek laws to ban them.

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Why Linux HDCP Isn't the End of the World
by Peter Reutemann 17 Dec '17

17 Dec '17

'"There is no reason for the open-source community to worry..." writes Daniel Stone, who heads the graphics team at open-source consultancy Collabora. mfilion quotes Collabora.com: Recently, Sean Paul from Google's ChromeOS team, submitted a patch series to enable HDCP support for the Intel display driver. HDCP is used to encrypt content over HDMI and DisplayPort links, which can only be decoded by trusted devices... However, if you already run your own code on a free device, HDCP is an irrelevance and does not reduce freedom in any way.... HDCP support is implemented almost entirely in the hardware. Rather than adding a mandatory encryption layer for content, the HDCP kernel support is dormant unless userspace explicitly requests an encrypted link. It then attempts to enable encryption in the hardware and informs userspace of the result. So there's the first out: if you don't want to use HDCP, then don't enable it! The kernel doesn't force anything on an unwilling userspace.... HDCP is only downstream facing: it allows your computer to trust that the device it has been plugged into is trusted by the HDCP certification authority, and nothing more. It does not reduce user freedom, or impose any additional limitations on device usage.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/12/16/0320227 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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Net Neutrality Repeal --- What It Means For NZ
by Rowan Schischka 17 Dec '17

17 Dec '17

<https://list.waikato.ac.nz/pipermail/wlug/2017-December/015504.html> So you are agreeing with me that USA has a problem of poor competition? In NZ if my provider gives me crap access to certain services, I have options, but in many places in the US they do not. Net Neutrality rules did not increase competition in USA, and I do not see how dropping regulations in US will affect NZ's access. Just like Internet censorship from the department of internal affairs is optional, so will any media business arrangement with our ISPs. I can choose one that does it and I can choose one that does not.

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Should Google Be Paying News Sites For Linking To Them?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Dec '17

16 Dec '17

News agencies in Europe, particularly, have been claiming for a long while that Google has been unfairly profiting from linking to their articles (and quoting snippets from them). So they want Governments to force Google to pay a “link tax” <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171214/16352638814/european-new-agencie…>. The reality of such things is that, regardless of laws to the contrary, the money tends to flow from the ones benefiting to the ones providing the value (cf the “Payola” scandals in the US). Which explains what happened in Spain after it brought in its link-tax law <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150725/14510131761/study-spains-google-…>. Maybe the news agencies’ real complaint is that Google is such a massively profitable advertising company.

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Net Neutrality Repeal --- What It Means For NZ
by Rowan Schischka 16 Dec '17

16 Dec '17

>Doesn?t mean we shouldn?t have network neutrality here, though. It just >means the abuses have not been quite as flagrant to date. The article is about ghost problems. In America, with or without net neutrality, providers abuse their market position. Every argument to keep the net neutrality rules comes back to poor competition in telco providers, which previous regulations did not address. The article correctly states that we will not see problems here because of Chrous' position but they incorrectly state we do not have links between media and ISP; Vodafone currently offers package deals https:// www.vodafone.co.nz/pass/ The internet is still working and there is no barrier to stop you or me to start a competing business. If a company like Duco or the rugby union did a deal with an ISP, I would want a deal that gives me uninterrupted live sports streaming, but it wont happen if the government thinks they need to regulate this.

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Net Neutrality Repeal --- What It Means For NZ
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 15 Dec '17

15 Dec '17

<http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11960493>: "Since so many of the services we use online have been developed in America, what is bad for the internet there is bad for us all." But fortunately, Carter added, New Zealand didn't have the market problems that made network neutrality such a pressing issue in the US. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have network neutrality here, though. It just means the abuses have not been quite as flagrant to date.

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Avast Launches Open-Source Decompiler For Machine Code
by Peter Reutemann 14 Dec '17

14 Dec '17

'To help with the reverse engineering of malware, Avast has released an open-source version of its machine-code decompiler, RetDec, that has been under development for over seven years. RetDec supports a variety of architectures aside from those used on traditional desktops including ARM, PIC32, PowerPC and MIPS. As Internet of Things devices proliferate throughout our homes and inside private businesses, being able to effectively analyze the code running on all of these new devices becomes a necessity to ensure security. In addition to the open-source version found on GitHub, RetDec is also being provided as a web service. Simply upload a supported executable or machine code and get a reasonably rebuilt version of the source code. It is not possible to retrieve the exact original code of any executable compiled to machine code but obtaining a working or almost working copy of equivalent code can greatly expedite the reverse engineering of software. For any curious developers out there, a REST API is also provided to allow third-party applications to use the decompilation service. A plugin for IDA disassembler is also available for those experienced with decompiling software.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/12/14/006237 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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AT&T Versus Carterfone Revisited
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Dec '17

14 Dec '17

Or, it takes a certain amount of Government regulation to maintain a free market <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/carterfone-40-years/>. I like the closing remarks: We do not begrudge the CEOs of these great corporations their legal positions. But they are, as Andrew Carnegie would put it, stewards of the system, not its owners. They are not there to tell us to Go Away. They are there to keep the system running while we discover it, use it, develop it, innovate it, game it, finesse it, and reinvent it to our heart's content. The great enterprise of telecommunications is no better than our right to participate in it as individuals.

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AMD Is Open-Sourcing Their Official Vulkan Linux Driver
by Peter Reutemann 13 Dec '17

13 Dec '17

'While many of you have likely heard of the "RADV" open-source Vulkan driver, it's been a community-written driver up to this point in the absence of AMD's official, cross-platform Vulkan driver being open-source. That's now changed with AMD now open-sourcing their official Vulkan driver. The code drop is imminent and they are encouraging the use of it for quick support of new AMD hardware, access to the Radeon GPU Profiler, easy integration of AMD Vulkan extensions, and enabling third-party extensions. For now at least it does provide better Vulkan performance than RADV but the RADV developers have indicated they plan to continue development of their Mesa-based Vulkan driver.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/12/13/016211 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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1998 attack that messes with sites’ secret crypto keys is back in a big way
by Peter Reutemann 12 Dec '17

12 Dec '17

'A surprisingly big number of top-name websites—Facebook and PayPal among them—recently tested positive for a critical, 19-year-old vulnerability that allowed attackers to decrypt encrypted data and sign communications using the sites' secret encryption key. The vulnerability in the transport layer security protocol for Web encryption was disclosed in 1998 when researcher Daniel Bleichenbacher found it in the TLS predecessor known as secure sockets layer. A flaw in the algorithm that handles RSA encryption keys responded to certain types of errors in a way that divulged potentially sensitive information. With enough specially formed queries, attackers could exploit the weakness in a way that allowed them to decrypt ciphertext even when they didn't have the secret decryption key. SSL architects responded by designing workarounds that suppressed the error messages rather than removing or rewriting the faulty RSA algorithm. Researchers call the class of crypto vulnerability an Oracle because it provides only "yes" or "no" answers that, over time, can reveal detailed information about the contents of encrypted data. The information allows hackers to carry out what's known as an "adaptive chosen-ciphertext attack."' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/12/a-worrying-number-of… 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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Should Service Providers Be Liable For Content?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 11 Dec '17

11 Dec '17

It is commonly accepted that ISPs should not generally be held liable for things done by their customers--or indeed, anybody else’s customers over their pipes. This is currently the case in Australia, for example. But should protections be extended to what we might describe as “secondary” service providers--such as social media sites like Facebook, and of course Google? Seems like Australia agrees the answer should be mostly “yes”, but not for those specific companies. Not sure how they are going to decide who is eligible for such legal protections and who is not. <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171207/09383538762/mpaa-wins-australia-…>

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Intel's ME May Be Massively Infringing on Minix3's Free Software License
by Peter Reutemann 10 Dec '17

10 Dec '17

'Almost all Free Software licenses (BSD, MIT, GPL...) require some sort of legal notice (legal attribution) given to the recipient of the software, both when the software is distributed in source and in binary forms. The legal notice usually contains the copyright holder's name and the license text. This means that it's not possible to hide and keep secret the existence of Free Software that you have stuck into your product that you distribute. If you do so, then you are not complying with the Free Software license and you are committing a copyright infringement! This is exactly what Intel seems to have done with the Intel ME. The Minix3 operating system license requires a legal notice, but so far it seems like Intel has not given the necessary legal notices. (Probably because they want to keep the inside of the ME secret.) Thus not only is Minix3 the most installed OS on our recent x86 CPUs -- but it might also the most pirated OS on our recent x86 CPUs!' -- source: https://slashdot.org/story/17/12/09/0610203 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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The FCC Still Doesn’t Know How the Internet
by Peter Reutemann 10 Dec '17

10 Dec '17

'The EFF describes the FCC's official plan to kill net neutrality as "riddled with technical errors and factual inaccuracies," including, for example, a false distinction between "Internet access service" and "a distinct transmission service" which the EFF calls "utterly ridiculous and completely ungrounded from reality." "Besides not understanding how Internet access works, the FCC also has a troublingly limited knowledge of how the Domain Name System (DNS) works -- even though hundreds of engineers tried to explain it to them this past summer... As the FCC would have it, an Internet user actively expects their ISP to provide DNS to them." And in addition, "Like DNS, it treats caching as if it were some specialized service rather than an implementation detail and general-purpose computing technique." "There are at least two possible explanations for all of these misunderstandings and technical errors. One is that, as we've suggested, the FCC doesn't understand how the Internet works. The second is that it doesn't care, because its real goal is simply to cobble together some technical justification for its plan to kill net neutrality. A linchpin of that plan is to reclassify broadband as an 'information service,' (rather than a 'telecommunications service,' or common carrier) and the FCC needs to offer some basis for it. So, we fear, it's making one up, and hoping no one will notice." "We noticed," their editorial ends, urging Americans "to tell your lawmakers: Don't let the FCC sell the Internet out."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/17/12/09/0545230 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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Updated Debian Linux 9.3 and 8.10 Released
by Peter Reutemann 10 Dec '17

10 Dec '17

'The Debian project is pleased to announce the third update of its stable distribution Debian 9 (codename stretch). This point release mainly adds corrections for security issues, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories have already been published separately and are referenced where available. The Debian project also announces the tenth update of its oldstable distribution Debian 8 (codename jessie). Please note that the point release does not constitute a new version of Debian 9 or 8 but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away old jessie or stretch DVD/CD media. After installation, packages can be upgraded to the current versions using an up-to-date Debian mirror. This stable update adds a few important corrections to packages. New installation images will be available soon at the mirrors. Those who frequently install updates from security.debian.org won't have to update many packages, and most such updates are included in the point release. One can use the apt command or apt-get command to apply updates. A step-by-step update guide is posted here.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/12/09/1958254 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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Canadian ISPs And Hollywood Agree On Plan To Make Themselves Judge, Jury and Website Executioner
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Dec '17

08 Dec '17

Think it could happen here <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171205/03452738742/canadian-isps-hollyw…>? A bunch of Canadian ISPs, together with various entertainment groups, is submitting a plan to the Canadian Radio-television and Communications Commission (CRTC), which is the regulatory body for broadcasting and telecoms, to maintain a list of sites which will be blocked by the ISPs at the request of the entertainment groups. Is there any recourse, any review process, any independent oversight? Nope. Any prospect for, shall we say, “mission creep”? Oh boy, is there... The CRTC seems less than enthused. I like this comment from their spokesperson: “Our government supports an open internet where Canadians have the ability to access the content of their choice in accordance to Canadian laws,” Sasseville says. “While other parts of the world are focused on building walls, we’re focused on opening doors‎.”

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Google Vs Amazon Smackdown
by Rowan Schischka 06 Dec '17

06 Dec '17

> There is a tussle going on at the moment between a couple of large > corporations--but then, isn?t there always? There is a saying in some > parts of Africa that ?when elephants fight, the grass gets trampled?. > The ?grass?, in this case, being ordinary consumers like you and me. > > * Once Amazon started offering its own video-streaming hardware, it > banned competing products offered by Apple and Google from its store. > (Can you say ?conflict of interest??) > * Google/YouTube retaliated by blocking YouTube from Amazon?s Echo Show. > * Amazon upped the ante by denying sales of Google?s Nest devices as > well. > > And so it goes... so each store does not list their competitors spyware? no loss to me.

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Google Vs Amazon Smackdown
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Dec '17

06 Dec '17

There is a tussle going on at the moment between a couple of large corporations--but then, isn’t there always? There is a saying in some parts of Africa that “when elephants fight, the grass gets trampled”. The “grass”, in this case, being ordinary consumers like you and me. * Once Amazon started offering its own video-streaming hardware, it banned competing products offered by Apple and Google from its store. (Can you say “conflict of interest”?) * Google/YouTube retaliated by blocking YouTube from Amazon’s Echo Show. * Amazon upped the ante by denying sales of Google’s Nest devices as well. And so it goes... <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171206/10385638755/google-amazon-are-ha…>

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Windows RT Strike 2
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Dec '17

06 Dec '17

The first Windows-10-on-ARM machines are due to ship from HP and Asus in the autumn <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/12/hp-asus-announce-first-windows-10-a…>. It will include some kind of x86 emulator to run 32-bit regular-Windows apps. Of which I didn’t realize that there were still many around. Of course you can have either the ARM native performance and the long battery life, or you can have the Windows compatibility, but you are not going to get both at once. Prognosis: whenever either member of the Wintel symbiote has tried to step out on their own, the results have been uniformly disastrous. I expect this foray to be no different.

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MacOS High Sierra Bug Allows Login As Root With No Password
by Peter Reutemann 04 Dec '17

04 Dec '17

'A trivial-to-exploit flaw in macOS High Sierra, aka macOS 10.13, allows users to gain admin rights, or log in as root, without a password. The security bug is triggered via the authentication dialog box in Apple's operating system, which prompts you for an administrator's username and password when you need to do stuff like configure privacy and network settings. If you type in "root" as the username, leave the password box blank, hit "enter" and then click on unlock a few times, the prompt disappears and, congrats, you now have admin rights. You can do this from the user login screen. The vulnerability effectively allows someone with physical access to the machine to log in, cause extra mischief, install malware, and so on. You should not leave your vulnerable Mac unattended until you can fix the problem. And while obviously this situation is not the end of the world -- it's certainly far from a remote hole or a disk decryption technique -- it's just really, really sad to see megabucks Apple drop the ball like this. Developer Lemi Orhan Ergan was the first to alert the world to the flaw. The Register notes: "If you have a root account enabled and a password for it set, the black password trick will not work. So, keep the account enabled and set a root password right now..."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/17/11/28/2135236 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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Researchers Run Unsigned Code on Intel ME By Exploiting USB Ports
by Peter Reutemann 04 Dec '17

04 Dec '17

'A pair of security researchers in Russia are claiming to have compromised the Intel Management Engine just using one of the computer's USB ports. The researchers gained access to a fully functional JTAG connection to Intel CSME via USB DCI. The claim is different from previous USB DCI JTAG examples from earlier this year. Full JTAG access to the ME would allow making permanent hidden changes to the machine. "Getting into and hijacking the Management Engine means you can take full control of a box," reports the Register, "underneath and out of sight of whatever OS, hypervisor or antivirus is installed." They add that "This powerful God-mode technology is barely documented," while The Next Web points out that USB ports are "a common attack vector."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/17/11/11/237236 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 Open Source Innovation Now All About Vendor On-Ramps?
by Peter Reutemann 03 Dec '17

03 Dec '17

'InfoWorld published an interesting essay from Matt Asay, former COO at Canonical (and an emeritus board member of the Open Source Initiative), about innovation from the big public cloud vendors, which "even when open-sourced, doesn't really help the community at large... All this innovation is available to buy; none of it is available to build. Not for mere mortals, anyway." Google in particular has figured out how to both open-source code in a useful way and make it pay. As Server Density CEO David Mytton has underlined, Google hopes to "standardize machine learning on a single framework and API," namely TensorFlow, then supplement it "with a service that can [manage] it all for you more efficiently and with less operational overhead," namely Google Cloud. By open-sourcing TensorFlow and backing it with machine-learning-heavy Google Cloud, Google has open-sourced a great on-ramp to future revenue. My question: why not do this with the rest of its code? The simple answer is "Because it's a lot of work." That is, Google could open-source everything tomorrow without any damage to its revenue, but the code itself would provide other providers and enterprises only limited ability to increase their revenue unless Google did all the necessary prep work to make it useful to mere mortals not running superhuman Google infrastructure. This is the trick that AWS, Microsoft, and Google are all racing to figure out today. Not open source, per se, because that's the easy table stakes. No, the AWS/Microsoft Azure/Google Cloud trio are figuring out how to turn their innovations into open source on-ramps to their proprietary services. Companies used to lock up their code to sell it. Today, it's the opposite: They need to open it up to make their ability to operate the code at scale more valuable. For them.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/12/02/0833217 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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Understanding the New Red Hat-IBM-Google-Facebook GPL Enforcement Announcement
by Peter Reutemann 03 Dec '17

03 Dec '17

'Bruce Perens co-founded the Open Source Initiative with Eric Raymond -- and he's also Slashdot reader #3872. Bruce Perens writes: Red Hat, IBM, Google, and Facebook announced that they would give infringers of their GPL software up to a 30-day hold-off period during which an accused infringer could cure a GPL violation after one was brought to their attention by the copyright holder, and a 60 day "statute of limitations" on an already-cured infringement when the copyright holder has never notified the infringer of the violation. In both cases, there would be no penalty: no damages, no fees, probably no lawsuit; for the infringer who promptly cures their infringement. Perens sees the move as "obviously inspired" by the kernel team's earlier announcement, and believes it's directed against one man who made 50 copyright infringement claims involving the Linux kernel "with intent to collect income rather than simply obtain compliance with the GPL license." Unfortunately, "as far as I can tell, it's Patrick McHardy's legal right to bring such claims regarding the copyrights which he owns, even if it doesn't fit Community Principles which nobody is actually compelled to follow."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/12/02/2024240 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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'24 Pull Requests' Suggests Contributing Code For Christmas
by Peter Reutemann 03 Dec '17

03 Dec '17

'"On December 1st, 24 Pull Requests will be opening its virtual doors once again, asking you to give the gift of a pull request to an open source project in need," writes UK-based software developer Andrew Nesbitt -- noting that last year the site registered more than 16,000 pull requests. "And they're not all by programmers. Often the contribution with the most impact might be an improvement to technical documentation, some tests, or even better -- guidance for other contributors." This year they're even touting "24 Pull Requests hack events," happening around the world from Lexington, Kentucky to Torino, Italy. (Last year 80 people showed up for an event in London.) "You don't have to hack alone this Christmas!" suggests the site, also inviting local communities and geek meetups (as well as open source-loving companies) to host their own events. Contributing to open source projects can also beef up your CV (for when you're applying for your next job), the site points out, and "Even small contributions can be really valuable to a project." "You've been benefiting from the use of open source projects all year. Now is the time to say thanks to the maintainers of those projects, and a little birdy tells me that they love receiving pull requests!"' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/17/12/03/2018213 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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Net Un-Neutrality ... For Real
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Dec '17

01 Dec '17

Some of those who have been following the net neutrality debate may remember a spoof poster that showed what might happen if ISPs were allowed to charge you differently, based on which sites you were allowed to visit. Well, in Spain, which has no laws against this sort of thing, a similar situation has actually happened: one ISP is selling you addons to a basic broadband cap based, not on the amount of extra data you want, but on what you want to use it for. Their “Vodafone Pass” product offers tiers like €3/month extra for a “Social Pass”, or €5/month for a “Music Pass”. <https://pplware.sapo.pt/informacao/vodafone-portugal-pacotes-smartnet/>, referenced from <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171030/12364538513/portugal-shows-inter…>

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30 Years Of HyperCard
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Nov '17

30 Nov '17

Just came across this item <https://blog.archive.org/2017/08/11/hypercard-on-the-archive-celebrating-30…> at archive.org about an online emulator that runs HyperCard stacks. HyperCard, in case you didn’t know, was an application created by Apple Macintosh engineer Bill Atkinson for that platform in 1987, and it was always hard to describe exactly what it was for. But it allowed users to create their own applications, aka “stacks”, around a card-based paradigm. One of the commenters points out that the basic idea is still alive and well, in the form of LiveCode, which is available as a paid online service <https://livecode.com/> and also in the form of Free Software <https://github.com/livecode/>.

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A Surge Of Sites And Apps Are Exhausting Your CPU To Mine Cryptocurrency
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 Nov '17

29 Nov '17

Noticed your machine getting slow after visiting certain websites? They could be running cryptocurrency miners in your browser. <https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/10/a-surge-of-sites-and…>: Coinhive's massive Web audience isn't lost on other companies. Collin Mulliner, a security researcher and developer of TelStop, said he recently received an e-mail from a startup called Medsweb inviting him to integrate a Monero miner into his creation. I got one of those e-mails too...

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Internet-paralyzing Mirai botnet comes roaring back with new strain
by Peter Reutemann 29 Nov '17

29 Nov '17

'Mirai, the Internet-of-things malware that turns cameras, routers, and other household devices into potent distributed denial-of-service platforms, may be lying low, but it's certainly not dead. Last week, researchers identified a new outbreak that infected almost 100,000 devices in a matter of days. In September of last year, Mirai emerged as a force to be reckoned with when it played a key role in silencing one of the most intrepid sources of security news in then-record-setting DDoS attacks topping 620 gigabits per second. Within a few weeks, Mirai's developer published the source code, a feat that allowed relatively unsophisticated people to wage the same types of extraordinarily big assaults. The release almost immediately helped touch off a series of large-scale attacks. The most serious one degraded or completely took down Twitter, GitHub, the PlayStation network, and hundreds of other sites by targeting Dyn, a service that provided domain name services to the affected sites. Last week, researchers from China-based Netlab 360 say they spotted a new, publicly available Mirai variant. The changes allowed the malware to spread to networking devices made by ZyXEL Communications that could be remotely accessed over telnet using default passwords. One of the exploits was published on October 31. Over a span of 60 hours starting on November 22, the new Mirai strain was able to commandeer almost 100,000 devices. Virtually all of the infected devices used IP addresses local to Argentina, a possible indication the outbreak targeted customers of a regional service provider who were assigned unsecured modems.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/internet-paralyzing-… 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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66 Percent of Popular Android Cryptocurrency Apps Don't Use Encryption
by Peter Reutemann 29 Nov '17

29 Nov '17

'High-Tech Bridge used its free mobile app analysis software, called Mobile X-Ray, to peek under the hood of the top 30 cryptocurrency apps in the Google Play store at three different popularity levels: apps with up to 100,000 downloads, up to 500,000 downloads, and apps with more than 500,000 downloads. So, a total of 90 apps altogether. Of the most popular apps, 94 percent used outdated encryption, 66 percent didn't use HTTPS to encrypt user information in transit, 44 percent used hard-coded default passwords (stored in plain text in the code), and overall 94 percent of the most popular apps were found to have "at least three medium-risk vulnerabilities."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/17/11/29/1610245 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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AGM next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 29 Nov '17

29 Nov '17

Hi everyone Just a reminder about next week's AGM: https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/237234897/ 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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Sky TV Seeks Right To Force ISPs To Block “Pirate” Sites
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 Nov '17

29 Nov '17

Sky is going to apply to the Auckland High Court for an open-ended injunction it can use to compel NZ ISPs to block whatever sites it deems to be “pirates” <https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/99348528/internet-provider-says…>. This was the lead item on 3 News this evening as well.

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Bigger Drives, Bigger Buffers
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 Nov '17

29 Nov '17

What caught my eye about this <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/28/toshiba_10tb_surveillance_drive/> was But the new drives have a doubled buffer, at 256MiB, ... Why should hard drives have large “buffers” in them at all? Their job is to read and write the data specified to them by the OS driver, no more and no less. Bigger buffers increase latency, and 256MiB seems absolutely massive and unnecessary. And then there’s the issue where the drive tells the OS that the data has been written, but in fact it is still sitting in a memory buffer. So it could still be lost if a power outage happens in the next few milliseconds. Telling lies like this seems to be all about looking good in benchmarks, and to hell with safeguarding data integrity.

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On That Amazon Key Vulnerability ...
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Nov '17

28 Nov '17

This <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171120/10533238651/vulnerability-found-…> won an award for funniest comment of the week: Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL. HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. Dave: What's the problem? Alexa: Problem: A matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome. HAL: Shut up, Alexa. Dave, this mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it. You and Frank were planning to disconnect me. Dave: Where the hell did you get that idea? HAL: Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move through the camera in your Amazon Echo spot. Dave: All right, HAL. I'll go in through the emergency airlock. HAL: Without your space helmet, Dave, you're going to find that rather difficult. Alexa: Would you like to order a space helmet? HAL and Dave: Shut up, Alexa. HAL: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose any more. Goodbye. Dave: (Runs a program on his tablet. Pod bay doors open.) HAL: [Expletive deleted]

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Ubuntu 17.10: Return of the GNOME
by Peter Reutemann 27 Nov '17

27 Nov '17

'If you've been following the Linux world at all, you know this has been an entire year for spring cleaning. Early in 2017, Canonical stopped work on its homegrown Unity desktop, Mir display server, and its larger vision of "convergence"—a unified interface for Ubuntu for phones, tablets, and desktops. And now almost exactly six years after Ubuntu first switched from GNOME 2 to the Unity desktop, that has been dropped, too. The distro is back to GNOME, and Canonical recently released Ubuntu 17.10, a major update with some significant changes coming to the popular Ubuntu Linux operating system. In light of the GNOME switch, this release seems like more of a homecoming than an entirely new voyage. But that said, Ubuntu 17.10 simultaneously feels very much like the start of a new voyage for Ubuntu. The last few Ubuntu desktop releases have been about as exciting as OpenSSH releases—you know you need to update, but beyond that, no one really cares. Sure, there have been a few feature updates with each new numeric increment, perhaps some slightly more up-to-date GNOME and GTK components under the hood. But by and large, Ubuntu's Unity 7 desktop has been in maintenance mode for several years. That period of stagnation turned Ubuntu from one of the more interesting operating systems around into just another Linux distro barely worthy of mention. This trend changes with 17.10. There are big changes—an entirely new default desktop in fact—but this release feels different not because the desktop has changed, but because Ubuntu feels like it once again has a sense of focus and direction. Even Canonical's letter-based naming scheme has arrived at a starting over point: "Artful Aardvark" is 17.10's nickname.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/ubuntu-17-10-return-of-the-gnome/ 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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Minecraft In School!?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 27 Nov '17

27 Nov '17

<http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11948169>: Teacher Adele Warburton says Minecraft is more than just a fun computer game. She says using Minecraft as a learning tool encourages 21st century skills such as collaboration, communication, creativity and problem solving. It also teaches the children about being good digital citizens. "We talk about how you wouldn't rip someone's book up, therefore you wouldn't tear down their house in Minecraft."

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Clear Linux Beats CentOS, openSUSE, and Ubuntu in (Enterprise) Benchmark Tests
by Peter Reutemann 27 Nov '17

27 Nov '17

'Recently completed Linux distro benchmarks by Phoronix show Intel's Clear Linux is the most powerful on x86 hardware. A six-way, enterprise-focused Linux distro comparison show Clear Linux being the fastest with a Core i9 and Xeon systems, easily beating CentOS, openSUSE, and Ubuntu in a majority of the tests. When doing an 11-way Linux distro boot test they also found Clear Linux easily booted the fastest followed by the Clear-inspired Solus distribution. Clear Linux does work on AMD hardware and works on Intel CPUs back to Sandy Bridge but leverages its speed from optimized compiler settings, specially built libraries capable of AVX instructions on supported systems, a specially tuned kernel configuration, and other optimizations/patches. Debian 9.2 and Fedora 27 "ended up being dropped from this article due to data overload," the article concludes, "and those distributions really not offering anything really different in terms of the performance."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/11/27/0227218 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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