- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Easy guide to secure VNC server with TLS encryption
by Peter Reutemann 05 Nov '17

05 Nov '17

'In this tutorial, we will learn to install VNC server & secure VNC server sessions with TLS encryption. This method has been tested on CentOS 6 & 7 but should work on other versions/OS as well (RHEL, Scientific Linux etc).' -- source: http://linuxtechlab.com/secure-vnc-server-tls-encryption/ 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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TorMoil Vulnerability Leaks Real IP Address From Tor Browser Users; Security Update Released
by Peter Reutemann 04 Nov '17

04 Nov '17

'The Tor Project has released a security update for the Tor Browser on Mac and Linux to fix a vulnerability that leaks users' real IP addresses. The vulnerability was spotted by Filippo Cavallarin, CEO of We Are Segment, an Italian company specialized in cyber-security and ethical hacking. Cavallarin privately reported the issue -- which he codenamed TorMoil -- to the Tor Project last week. Tor Project developers worked with the Firefox team (Tor Browser is based on the Firefox browser) to release a fix. Today, the Tor team released version 7.0.9 to address the vulnerability. Tor Browser 7.0.9 is only available for Mac and Linux users. Tor Browser on Windows is not affected.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/17/11/03/2127235 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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Lots Of Digitally-Signed Malware Out There
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 03 Nov '17

03 Nov '17

One of the security weaknesses exploited by the “Stuxnet” worm that sabotaged Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was that it had a valid digital signature from a recognized issuer of certificates for Windows software. Of course, the issuer would never knowingly have validated a piece of malware, but the certificate had been compromised so it could be used without their permission. Turns out this sort of thing is not only quite common, there is a further problem in that anti-malware software, which is supposed to pick up revoked certificates and reject signatures that use them, frequently has bugs in their implementation of the signature-checking protocol, so they can let these bad signatures through. <https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/evasive-code-signed-…>

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The Patent That Just Wouldn’t Die
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 03 Nov '17

03 Nov '17

A holding company called Personal Audio claims to have a patent covering the entire idea of podcasting. Over the years, it has succeeded in winning some lucrative payouts, including $8 million from Apple and $1.3 million from CBS. All without making a single item of product itself. In other words, Personal Audio is what lawyers politely refer to as a “Non-Practising Entity” (NPE), or, in more common parlance, a patent troll. However, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has succeeded, with the help of a crowdfunding campaign, in invalidating this patent, using a system introduced at the USPTO called “inter partes review” (IPR). Of course, Personal Audio has not taken this lying down. It has come up with a truly imaginative series of legal counterarguments: * IPR violates the 7th Amendment of the US Constitution (right to trial by jury in a lawsuit). * IPR encourages “collective efforts to invalidate patents” which “severely tilts the playing field in favor of the party or parties seeking invalidation”. * the EFF has been working together with defendants in their litigation. Fortunately, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) -- the same appeals court that overruled Judge William Alsup in his verdict (in Oracle vs Google) that APIs were not copyrightable -- seems to be a bit less uncritically pro-“Intellectual Property” these days (something to do with being slapped down by the Supreme Court?), and has rejected these arguments. Imagine if all this creativity had gone into producing actual useful products, instead of legal arguments ... <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/eff-destroys-the-podcasting-pat…>

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Microsoft Quietly Announces End of Last Free Windows 10 Upgrade Offer
by Peter Reutemann 03 Nov '17

03 Nov '17

'If you've been waiting to claim your free Windows 10 upgrade using the "assistive technologies" exception, you need to act soon. In a quiet change to an obscure web page, Microsoft announced this week that those exceptions will end on December 31, 2017. On July 29, 2016, Microsoft officially ended the Get Windows 10 program, which offered free Windows 10 upgrades to anyone currently running a supported earlier version of Windows. But the company left a giant loophole in a separate announcement at the same time. Under the terms of that announcement, individuals who use "assistive technologies" received an automatic extension of the free upgrade offer. Sometime in the past week, Microsoft quietly edited that page, to add "The accessibility upgrade offer expires on December 31, 2017."' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/11/03/1737219 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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Android Oreo Bug Sends Thousands of Phones Into Infinite Boot Loops
by Peter Reutemann 02 Nov '17

02 Nov '17

'A bug in the new "Adaptive Icons" feature introduced in Android Oreo has sent thousands of phones into infinite boot loops, forcing some users to reset their devices to factory settings, causing users to lose data along the way. The bug was discovered by Jcbsera, the developer of the Swipe for Facebook Android app (energy-efficient Facebook wrapper app), and does not affect Android Oreo (8.0) in its default state. The bug occurs only with apps that use adaptive icons -- a new feature introduced in Android Oreo that allows icons to change shape and size based on the device they're viewed on, or the type of launcher the user is using on his Android device. For example, adaptive icons will appear in square, rounded, or circle containers depending on the theme or launcher the user is using. The style of adaptive icons is defined a local XML file. The bug first manifested itself when the developer of the Swipe for Facebook Android app accidentally renamed the foreground image of his adaptive icon with the same name as this XML file (ic_launcher_main.png and ic_launcher_main.xml). This naming scheme sends Android Oreo in an infinite loop that regularly crashes the device. At one point, Android detects something is wrong and prompts the user to reset the device to factory settings. Users don't have to open an app, and the crashes still happen just by having an app with malformed adaptive icons artifacts on your phone. Google said it will fix the issue in Android Oreo 8.1.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/11/01/1550256 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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10 Best Lightweight Linux Distributions For Older Computers In 2017
by Peter Reutemann 31 Oct '17

31 Oct '17

Quick overview: 10. Peppermint 9. Lubuntu 8. Linux Lite 7. LXLE 6. CrunchBang++ 5. Bodhi Linux 4. antiX Linux 3. SparkyLinux 2. Puppy Linux 1. Tiny Core See here for full details: https://itsfoss.com/lightweight-linux-beginners/ 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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Googler A Command Line Tool To Search Google
by Peter Reutemann 31 Oct '17

31 Oct '17

'Looking for information on the web has become something that we do day in and day out. Whether it is support you are looking for, looking for a product or news about a particular topic, all you have to do is search on the web. As a result, search engines have been designed so they can help us sift through or the garbage in order to get the information we seek. There are Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo just to mention a few. But what do all these have in common, well, to use these you need a browser such as Firefox or Chromium first. Well does no problem at all; except when all you have is a terminal and no GUI and browser. Also, you may have a GUI and a browser but you wish you did not have to leave the terminal just for that quick search, and thus comes Googler. ' -- source: http://www.linuxandubuntu.com/home/googler-a-command-line-tool-to-search-go… 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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Appeals Court Keeps Alive The Never-Ending Linux Case, SCO v. IBM
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Oct '17

30 Oct '17

“Jarndyce v. Jarndyce” for the 21st century, anybody? <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/appeals-court-keeps-alive-the-n…>

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How Kodi Took Over Piracy
by Peter Reutemann 30 Oct '17

30 Oct '17

'For years, piracy persisted mainly in the realm of torrents, with sites like The Pirate Bay and Demonoid connecting internet denizens to premium content gratis. But a confluence of factors have sent torrent usage plummeting from 23 percent of all North American daily internet traffic in 2011 to under 5 percent last year. Legal crackdowns shuttered prominent torrent sites. Paid alternatives like Netflix and Hulu made it easier just to pay up. And then there were the "fully loaded" Kodi boxes -- otherwise vanilla streaming devices that come with, or make easily accessible, so-called addons that seek out unlicensed content -- that deliver pirated movies and TV shows with push-button ease. "Kodi and the plugin system and the people who made these plugins have just dumbed down the process," says Dan Deeth, spokesperson for network-equipment company Sandvine. "It's easy for anyone to use. It's kind of set it and forget it. Like the Ron Popeil turkey roaster." Kodi itself is just a media player; the majority of addons aren't piracy focused, and lots of Kodi devices without illicit software plug-ins are utterly uncontroversial. Still, that Kodi has swallowed piracy may not surprise some of you; a full six percent of North American households have a Kodi device configured to access unlicensed content, according to a recent Sandvine study. But the story of how a popular, open-source media player called XBMC became a pirate's paradise might. And with a legal crackdown looming, the Kodi ecosystem's present may matter less than its uncertain future.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/17/10/30/1931208 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 To Get a Better Password Manager
by Peter Reutemann 30 Oct '17

30 Oct '17

'Mozilla engineers have started work on a project named Lockbox that they describe as "a work-in-progress extension [...] to improve upon Firefox's built-in password management." Mozilla released the new extension for employee-use only at first, but users can install it by going to this or this links. Lockbox revamps Firefox's antiquated password management utility with a new user interface (UI). A new Firefox UI button is also included, in case users want to add a shortcut in their browser's main interface to open Lockbox without going through all the menu options. Support for a master password is included, helping users secure their passwords from unauthorized access by co-workers, family members, or others.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/10/30/1245202 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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If We Can’t Trust Kaspersky, Should We Trust Microsoft?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Oct '17

30 Oct '17

An opinion piece at Al Jazeera <http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/trust-kaspersky-trust-microsoft-17…> considers: A single malicious update pushed from Microsoft could cripple almost every government worldwide. ... That a small number of vendors have the capacity to remotely shut down government infrastructure, or vacuum up secret documents, is almost too scary to wrap your head around. And that's without pondering how likely they are to be pressured by their governments. In the face of future conflict, is the first step going to be disabling auto-updates for software from that country?

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Early HP Archives Destroyed
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Oct '17

30 Oct '17

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard were the archetypal “two guys who started a business in a garage” from 1938. When the company they founded moved on to other things (computers, printers etc), the original test-equipment business they created was spun off as part of a company called Agilent, which in turn divested it as an outfit now known as Keysight. Now we hear that important historical paper archives from those early days, which were in the care of Keysight Technologies, have been lost in the recent deadly Santa Rosa wildfires. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/29/hewlett_packard_history_lost_to_san…>

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Anypaste – Share And Upload Files To Compatible Hosting Sites Automatically
by Peter Reutemann 30 Oct '17

30 Oct '17

'A while ago, we have written a guide about Transfer.sh which allows you to share files over Internet from command-line. Today, we will see yet another file sharing utility called Anypaste. It is a simple script to share and upload files to compatible hosting sites depending upon the type of the files, automatically. You don’t need to manually log in to the hosting sites and upload or share your files. Anypaste will pick the right hosting sites depends upon the type of the file you want to upload. To put this simply, photos will get uploaded to image hosting sites, videos to video sites, code to pastebins. Cool, yeah? Anypaste is completely free, open source and light-weight script and you can do everything from command line. You don’t need to depend on any heavy, memory-consuming GUI apps to upload and share files.' -- source: https://www.ostechnix.com/anypaste-share-upload-files-compatible-hosting-si… 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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Purism Now Offers Laptops with Intel's 'Management Engine' Disabled
by Peter Reutemann 29 Oct '17

29 Oct '17

' "San Francisco company Purism announced that they are now offering their Librem laptops with the Intel Management Engine disabled," writes Slashdot reader boudie2. Purism describes Management Engine as "a separate CPU that can run and control a computer even when powered off." HardOCP reports that Management Engine "is widely despised by security professionals and privacy advocates because it relies on signed and secret Intel code, isn't easily alterable, isn't fully documented, and has been found to be vulnerable to exploitation... In short, it's a tiny potentially hackable computer in your computer that you cannot totally control, nor opt-out of, but it can totally control your system." Purism writes: Disabling the Management Engine is no easy task, and it has taken security researchers years to find a way to properly and verifiably disable it. Purism, because it runs coreboot and maintains its own BIOS firmware update process, has been able to release and ship coreboot that disables the Management Engine from running, directly halting the ME CPU without the ability of recovery... "Disabling the Management Engine, long believed to be impossible, is now possible and available in all current Librem laptops. It is also available as a software update for previously shipped recent Librem laptops," says Todd Weaver, Founder & CEO of Purism.' -- source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/17/10/29/0324201 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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Linux Mint Is Killing the KDE Edition
by Peter Reutemann 27 Oct '17

27 Oct '17

'While both the Cinnamon and Mate versions of Linux Mint are decent choices for computer users, there was one version that was always utterly bizarre -- the KDE Edition. Don't get me wrong, KDE is a fine environment, but Kubuntu already exists. Having a version of Mint using KDE was redundant and confusing. Thankfully, today, the Linux Mint team announces it is finally killing the KDE edition. "In continuation with what's been done in the past, Linux Mint 18.3 will feature a KDE edition, but it will be the last release to do so. I would like to thank Kubuntu for the amazing work they have done. The quality of Plasma 5 in Xenial made backports a necessity. The rapid pace of development upstream from the KDE project made this very challenging, yet they managed to provide a stable flow of updates for us and we were able to ship good KDE editions thanks to that. I don't think this would have been possible without them," says Clement Lefebvre, Linux Mint. Lefebvre further says, "KDE is a fantastic environment but it's also a different world, one which evolves away from us and away from everything we focus on. Their apps, their ecosystem and the QT toolkit which is central there have very little in common with what we're working on. We're not just shipping releases and distributing upstream software. We're a product distribution and we see ourselves as a complete desktop operating system. We like to integrate solutions, develop whatâ(TM)s missing, adapt what's not fitting perfectly, and we do a great deal of that not only around our own Cinnamon desktop environment but also thanks to cross-DE frameworks we put in place to support similar environments, such as MATE and Xfce."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/10/26/0325221 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 to Install Mycroft AI Assistant On Raspberry Pi
by Peter Reutemann 27 Oct '17

27 Oct '17

'Personal assistants like Alexa and Google Home are extremely popular right now, and interest is only growing. It’s not too hard to envision a near future where just about every home has its own AI assistant. What if you don’t want a huge corporation having a direct line into your home? Maybe you want to build your own to understand how they work? Mycroft is the solution. Mycroft is an open-source AI assistant that aims to compete with the likes of Alexa and Google. No, Mycroft isn’t entirely there yet, but the project is still in active development. Mycroft is based on the hugely popular Raspberry Pi, so you can actually set up your own with a Pi and test it out.' -- source: https://www.maketecheasier.com/install-mycroft-on-raspberry-pi/ Apparently, you can use it without creating an account: https://github.com/MycroftAI/mycroft-core#using-mycroft-without-home 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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Who's building Linux in 2017?
by Peter Reutemann 27 Oct '17

27 Oct '17

'It's 2017 and Linux rules the computing world. Don't believe me? The Linux Foundation reports that Linux runs 90 percent of the public cloud workload, 82 percent of the world's smartphones, 62 percent of the embedded market, oh and a mere 99 percent of the supercomputer market. All that rests on the Linux kernel. In its 2017 Linux Kernel Development Report, Jonathan Corbet, Linux kernel developer and editor of LWN.net, and Greg Kroah-Hartman, stable Linux kernel maintainer, report on Linux's recent evolution. This report was released at the invitation-only Linux Kernel Summit in Prague, Czech Republic. Since 2005 and adoption of Git version control system, 15,637 developers from over 1,400 companies have contributed to the Linux kernel. Since last year, over 4,300 developers from more than 500 companies have contributed to the kernel. Of these, 1,670 contributed for the first time, or about a third of contributors' -- source: http://www.zdnet.com/article/whos-building-linux-in-2017/ 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 “Enterprise-Quality” Hard Drives Worth It?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 Oct '17

26 Oct '17

Another quarter, another report from backups outfit Backblaze on hard disk reliability <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/10/big-hard-disks-may-be-breaking-the-…>: In aggregate, the company has now accumulated 3.7 million drive days for the consumer disks and 1.4 million for the enterprise ones. Over this usage, the annualized failure rates are 1.1 percent for the consumer disks and 1.2 percent for the enterprise ones. At least for now, then, the enterprise disks aren't doing anything to justify their longer warranty; their reliability is virtually identical.

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How To Protect A Small Organization Against Electronic Adversaries
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 25 Oct '17

25 Oct '17

About to have a look at the document posted here <https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2017/10/25/howto-protect-your-small-organizat…>. Unfortunately, for a document that’s about security, wget tells me the link is (currently) not secure: WARNING: The certificate of ‘www.cs.rice.edu’ is not trusted. WARNING: The certificate of ‘www.cs.rice.edu’ hasn't got a known issuer. WARNING: The certificate of ‘www.cs.rice.edu’ was signed using an insecure algorithm.

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Why Computing Devices Slow Down Over Time
by rowan schischka 25 Oct '17

25 Oct '17

> So trying to speed things up can make things slower?? Its a repost from another outlet. This is just filler article in the tech section. Stuff has one today about mobile battery advice that contradicts last months article about mobile batteries.

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When You Have To Have An Entire Conference On Software Licensing...
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 24 Oct '17

24 Oct '17

Choice quotes from <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/24/oracle_users_meets_behind_closed_do…>: The emphasis on anonymity comes from firms’ fear that vendors are always poised to launch an audit or bump up fees. Sessions will offer advice on ... why customers shouldn’t be too reliant on licensing tools.

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Why Did Ubuntu Drop Unity? Mark Shuttleworth Explains
by Peter Reutemann 24 Oct '17

24 Oct '17

Since we talked about Canonical ditching Mir/Unity on Monday night, here's some more insight from Shuttleworth himself: 'Ubuntu's decision to ditch Unity took many of us by surprise earlier this year. Now Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth shares more details about why Ubuntu chose to drop Unity. From a report: Shuttleworth says he, along with the other 'leads' at Canonical, came to a consensual view that they should put the company on the path to becoming a public company. And to appear attractive to potential investors the company has to focus on its areas of profitability -- something Unity, Ubuntu phone, Unity 8 and convergence were not part of: "[The decision] meant that we couldn't have on our books (effectively) very substantial projects which clearly have no commercial angle to them at all. It doesn't mean that we would consider changing the terms of Ubuntu for example, because it's foundational to everything we do. And we don't have to, effectively," he said. Money may have meant Unity's demise but the wider Ubuntu project is in rude health. as Shuttleworth explains: "One of the things I'm most proud of is in the last 7 years is that Ubuntu itself became completely sustainable. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and Ubuntu could continue. It's kind of magical, right? Here's a platform that is a world class enterprise platform, that's completely freely available, and yet it is sustainable. Jane Silber is largely to thank for that." While it's all-too-easy for desktop users to focus on, well, the desktop, there is far more to Canonical (the company) than the 6-monthly releases we look forward to. Losing Unity may have been a big blow for desktop users but it helped to balance other parts of the company: "There are huge possibilities for us in the enterprise beyond that, in terms of really defining how cloud infrastructure is built, how cloud applications are operated, and so on. And, in IoT, looking at that next wave of possibility, innovators creating stuff on IoT. And all of that is ample for us to essentially put ourselves on course to IPO around that." Dropping Unity wasn't easy for Mark, though: "We had this big chunk of work, which was Unity, which I really loved. I think the engineering of Unity 8 was pretty spectacularly good, and the deep ideas of how you bring these different form factors together was pretty beautiful.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/10/24/1854254 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

Install Let's Encrypt and Secure Nginx with SSL/TLS in Debian 9
by Peter Reutemann 24 Oct '17

24 Oct '17

'This tutorial will show you how to install and secure a Nginx web server on Debian 9 with a TLS certificate issued for free by the Let’s Encrypt Certificate Authority. Furthermore, we will configure automatic renewal of Lets’ Encrypt TLS certificates using a cron job before the certificates expire.' -- source: https://www.howtoforge.com/tutorial/install-letsencrypt-and-secure-nginx-in… 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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Librem 5 Privacy-Focused Linux Phone Crowdfunding Campaign Ends with $2 Million
by Peter Reutemann 24 Oct '17

24 Oct '17

Since we talked about this phone last night... 'Librem 5 was successfully crowdfunded about two weeks ago when it surpassed its goal of $1.5 million, but the campaign continued to run, and now it appears to have gathered half million dollars more, ending with $2 million, which we believe is more than enough to build world's first truly free mobile device. Powered by PureOS, Purism's own GNU/Linux distribution based on the popular Debian GNU/Linux operating system, but focused on offering users a privacy-focused and more secure desktop solution, Librem 5 will be using KDE's Plasma Mobile and GNOME's GNOME Shell user interfaces, along with powerful open source software. During its crowdfunding campaign, Librem 5 saw an amazing feedback from the Open Source community as Purism partnered not only with big names like KDE and GNOME, but also with Nextcloud, which will bring its end-to-end encrypted file sync, sharing and cloud-based storage solution by default to the Linux smartphone.' -- source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/librem-5-privacy-focused-linux-phone-crowdfu… 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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3 Simple, Excellent Linux Network Monitors
by Peter Reutemann 24 Oct '17

24 Oct '17

'You can learn an amazing amount of information about your network connections with these three glorious Linux networking commands. iftop tracks network connections by process number, Nethogs quickly reveals what is hogging your bandwidth, and vnstat runs as a nice lightweight daemon to record your usage over time.' -- source: https://www.linux.com/learn/intro-to-linux/2017/10/3-simple-excellent-linux… 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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4 Reasons Building A Gaming PC Sucks Right Now
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Oct '17

23 Oct '17

Just saw this video on the current high prices of GPUs, RAM and variable-refresh monitors <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh8tZ_qkY1o>. What’s surprising to me is the reason why GPU prices are currently high: because they are being snapped up for cryptocurrency mining.

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Why Computing Devices Slow Down Over Time
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Oct '17

23 Oct '17

Entertaining opinion piece <http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11935838>: To make their apps run faster, some designers make them store copies of things in RAM ... Known as cacheing, this makes things work much faster - until your system starts to run out of memory. For cacheing to be effective, the amount of space devoted to it must be carefully managed by the application and the device's operating system. Some app developers don't put the effort that they should into doing this well, and their applications not only slow down over time, but can drag the rest of the system down with them too. So trying to speed things up can make things slower??

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Android getting “DNS over TLS” support to stop ISPs from knowing what websites you visit
by Peter Reutemann 23 Oct '17

23 Oct '17

'DNS (Domain Name Server) is what translates a website address from a URL that you enter to an IP address which your computer actually connects to. For example, when you type “www.xda-developers.com” into your browser, your computer queries a DNS which looks up and returns the IP address “209.58.128.90” to the client. This process is hidden from the user, but every website you visit (so long as it has a human-readable URL) will go through this same process. The problem for those security conscious out there is that these requests are done in plain text through UDP or TCP protocols which are readable by anyone that can see your connection, including your ISP. This is where DNS over TLS comes in.' -- source: https://www.xda-developers.com/android-dns-over-tls-website-privacy/ 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 Chastises Google Over Chrome Security
by Peter Reutemann 22 Oct '17

22 Oct '17

'In a Wednesday blog post, Redmond examined Google's browser security and took the opportunity to throw some shade at Chrome's security philosophy, while also touting the benefits of its own Edge browser. The post, written by Microsoft security team member Jordan Rabet, noted that Google's Chrome browser uses "sandboxing" and isolation techniques designed to contain any malicious code. Nevertheless, Microsoft still managed to find a security hole in Chrome that could be used to execute malicious code on the browser. The bug involved a Javascript engine in Chrome. Microsoft notified Google about the problem, which was patched last month. The company even received a $7,500 reward for finding the flaw. However, Microsoft made sure to point out that its own Edge browser was protected from the same kind of security threat. It also criticized Google for the way it handled the patching process. Prior to the patch's official rollout, the source code for the fix was made public on GitHub, a software collaboration site that hosts computer code. That meant attentive hackers could have learned about the vulnerability before the patch was pushed out to customers, Microsoft claimed. "In this specific case, the stable channel of Chrome remained vulnerable for nearly a month," the blog post said. "That is more than enough time for an attacker to exploit it." In the past Google has also disclosed vulnerabilities found in Microsoft products -- including Edge.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/17/10/22/010235 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

Security Upgraded For NetBSD-amd64 with Kernel ASLR Support
by Peter Reutemann 22 Oct '17

22 Oct '17

'24 years after its release, NetBSD is getting a security upgrade -- specifically, Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR). An anonymous reader writes: Support for Kernel ASLR was added on NetBSD-amd64 a few weeks ago. KASLR basically randomizes the address of the kernel, and makes it harder to exploit several classes of vulnerabilities [including privilege escalations and remote code execution]. It is still a work-in-progress, but it's already fully functional, and can be used following the instructions on this post from the NetBSD blog. It will be available starting from NetBSD 9, but may be backported to NetBSD 8 once it is stabilized. NetBSD says they're the first BSD system to support ASLR.' -- source: https://bsd.slashdot.org/story/17/10/21/0118226 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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Bloody Stupid Linux
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 21 Oct '17

21 Oct '17

That’s the name of the distro <http://bloodystupid.clockwatching.org/>: Why go to all this trouble? The BSL kernel is basically a life support system for ram and network cards, since it wget's support for everything else on the machine the kernel is very small. The initial aim was to fit it on a single floppy, then PXE booting became attractive, and really, since the kernel doesn't need to support whatever it just booted from in order to have its root filesystem, its very flexible. Yeah, I know an initrd can do the same thing, but its more fun this way. As it stands, BSL makes for an excellent repair system, the framework for a bulk installer, a neat toy, and an alright thin client ( as long as you've got a gob of RAM handy.) OK, so it hasn’t been updated in over a decade. But the mascot image is cute. ;)

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The Ultimate In Terminal Emulators?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Oct '17

20 Oct '17

Brian Lunduke continues his Command-Line Week with a look at a couple of quite amazing terminal emulators: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vm7B6bLbLg>. So you think “command line” and “eye candy” can’t go together?

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Yet another distro - Q4OS - meeting topic
by Ian Young 20 Oct '17

20 Oct '17

Some may be surprised to learn that a few diehards are still running a fork of KDE 3.5 on a Debian Base. The Trinity desktop. Could give it a quick run through on Monday night if there is time. May be of interest to those who wonder sometimes why KDE 3 was dropped once it actually became usable.

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Meet CudaText: A Cross-Platform Open Source Code Editor
by Peter Reutemann 20 Oct '17

20 Oct '17

'CudaText is a cross-platform open source code editor based on Lazarus. It has extensive support for most of the popular programming languages. I cannot call it one of the best open source code editors because it is too early for that. I cannot even call it Notepad++ alternative for Linux because it’s more like a lightweight IDE like Geany. Though the default interface reminds me of Eclipse IDE.' -- source: https://itsfoss.com/cudatext-code-editor/ Great to see that Object Pascal is still thriving, though I haven't programmed in Pascal for years. Lazarus is an IDE for Object Pascal, a free alternative to (originally Borland's) Delphi. 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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Linux Desktop Recorder App Green Recorder 3.0 Released
by Peter Reutemann 19 Oct '17

19 Oct '17

'Green Recorder is a simple desktop recorder for Linux distributions. You can use it to record audio and video on almost every Linux interface. Released under GPL 3, it now also supports Wayland. Green Recorder 3.0 supports avi, mkv, mp4 nut and gif. Wayland’s GNOME session supports only WebM. The user can choose the audio input source from a list as well as can set default values from the preference window.' -- source: https://itsfoss.com/green-recorder-3/ Just tried it and it works! Previously, I had used recordMyDesktop (GTK UI), which only supported Ogg Video. 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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Canada's 'Super Secret Spy Agency' Is Releasing a Malware-Fighting Tool To the Public
by Peter Reutemann 19 Oct '17

19 Oct '17

'Canada's electronic spy agency says it is taking the "unprecedented step" of releasing one of its own cyber defence tools to the public, in a bid to help companies and organizations better defend their computers and networks against malicious threats. The Communications Security Establishment (CSE) rarely goes into detail about its activities -- both offensive and defensive -- and much of what is known about the agency's activities have come from leaked documents obtained by U.S. National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden and published in recent years. But as of late, CSE has acknowledged it needs to do a better job of explaining to Canadians exactly what it does. Today, it is pulling back the curtain on an open-source malware analysis tool called Assemblyline that CSE says is used to protect the Canadian government's sprawling infrastructure each day. "It's a tool that helps our analysts know what to look at, because it's overwhelming for the number of people we have to be able to protect things," Scott Jones, who heads the agency's IT security efforts, said in an interview with CBC News. On the one hand, open sourcing Assemblyline's code is a savvy act of public relations, and Jones readily admits the agency is trying to shed its "super secret spy agency" reputation in the interest of greater transparency.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/10/19/1837236 Let's see, whether anybody finds bits in the code that report home to the agency... 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 month
by Peter Reutemann 19 Oct '17

19 Oct '17

Hi everyone The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Waikato Linux Users Group Society will be held on November 27th this year. Agenda (preliminary) - President's Report - Treasurer's Report - Election of 2017 Committee - General business - Consumption of pizza 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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Ubuntu 17.10 Artful Aardvark Released
by Peter Reutemann 19 Oct '17

19 Oct '17

'Canonical has made available the download links for Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark". It comes with a range of new features, changes, and improvements including GNOME as the default desktop, Wayland display server by default, Optional X.org server session, Mesa 17.2 or Mesa 17.3, Linux kernel 4.13 or kernel 4.14, new Subiquity server installer, improved hardware support, new Ubuntu Server installer, switch to libinput, an always visible dock using Dash to Dock GNOME Shell extension, and Bluetooth improvements with a new BlueZ among others. ' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/10/19/0943200 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 To Let Proper Linux Distros Run on Galaxy Smartphones
by Peter Reutemann 19 Oct '17

19 Oct '17

'Samsung has announced it will soon become possible to run actual proper Linux on its Note8, Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones -- and even Linux desktops. Yeah, yeah, we know Android is built on Linux, but you know what we mean. Samsung said it's working on an app called "Linux on Galaxy" that will let users "run their preferred Linux distribution on their smartphones utilizing the same Linux kernel that powers the Android OS." "Whenever they need to use a function that is not available on the smartphone OS, users can simply switch to the app and run any program they need to in a Linux OS environment," Samsung says. The app also allows multiple OSes to run on a device. Linux desktops will become available if users plug their phones into the DeX Station, the device that lets a Galaxy 8 run a Samsung-created desktop-like environment when connected to the DeX and an external monitor.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/10/19/0524234 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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EU: No Encryption Backdoors But, Let's Help Each Other Crack That Crypto
by Peter Reutemann 19 Oct '17

19 Oct '17

'The European Commission has proposed that member states help each other break into encrypted devices by sharing expertise around the bloc. From a report: In an attempt to tackle the rise of citizens using encryption and its effects on solving crimes, the commission decided to sidestep the well-worn, and well-ridiculed, path of demanding decryption backdoors in the stuff we all use. Instead, the plans set out in its antiterrorism measures on Wednesday take a more collegiate approach -- by offering member states more support when they actually get their hands on an encrypted device. "The commission's position is very clear -- we are not in favour of so-called backdoors, the utilisation of systemic vulnerabilities, because it weakens the overall security of our cyberspace, which we rely upon," security commissioner Julian King told a press briefing. "We're trying to move beyond a sometimes sterile debate between backdoors or no backdoors, and address some of the concrete law enforcement challenges. For instance, when [a member state] gets a device, how do they get information that might be encrypted on the device." [...] Share the wealth. "Some member states are more equipped technically to do that [extract information from a seized device] than others," King said. "We want to make sure no member state is at a disadvantage, by sharing the tech expertise among the member states and reinforcing the support that Europol can offer."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/17/10/19/1440200 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 Engineers Explore Ways To Stop In-Browser Cryptocurrency Miners in Chrome
by Peter Reutemann 19 Oct '17

19 Oct '17

'Google Chrome engineers are considering adding a special browser permission that will thwart the rising trend of in-browser cryptocurrency miners. Discussions on the topic of in-browser miners have been going on the Chromium project's bug tracker since mid-September when Coinhive, the first such service, launched. "Here's my current thinking," Ojan Vafai, a Chrome engineering working on the Chromium project, wrote in one of the recent bug reports. "If a site is using more than XX% CPU for more than YY seconds, then we put the page into 'battery saver mode' where we aggressively throttle tasks and show a toast [notification popup] allowing the user to opt-out of battery saver mode. When a battery saver mode tab is backgrounded, we stop running tasks entirely. I think we'll want measurement to figure out what values to use for XX and YY, but we can start with really egregious things like 100% and 60 seconds. I'm effectively suggesting we add a permission here, but it would have unusual triggering conditions [...]. It only triggers when the page is doing a likely bad thing." An earlier suggestion had Google create a blacklist and block the mining code at the browser level. That suggestion was shut down as being too impractical and something better left to extensions.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/10/19/1618222 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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Targeted Fuzzing Is Improving Linux Security, Linus Torvalds Says
by Peter Reutemann 19 Oct '17

19 Oct '17

'On the sidelines of announcing the fifth release candidate for the Linux kernel version 4.14, Linus Torvalds said fuzzing, which involves stress testing a system by generating random code to induce errors, is helping the community find and fix a range of security vulnerabilities. He wrote: The other thing perhaps worth mentioning is how much random fuzzing people are doing, and it's finding things. We've always done fuzzing (who remembers the old "crashme" program that just generated random code and jumped to it? We used to do that quite actively very early on), but people have been doing some nice targeted fuzzing of driver subsystems etc, and there's been various fixes (not just this last week either) coming out of those efforts. Very nice to see.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/10/19/171206 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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IoT Cybersecurity: What’s Plan B?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Oct '17

19 Oct '17

Whither the Internet Of Things? Markets, as we've repeatedly learned over the past century, are terrible mechanisms for improving the safety of products and services. It was true for automobile, food, restaurant, airplane, fire, and financial-instrument safety. The reasons are complicated, but basically, sellers don't compete on safety features because buyers can't efficiently differentiate products based on safety considerations. The race-to-the-bottom mechanism that markets use to minimize prices also minimizes quality. Without government intervention, the IoT remains dangerously insecure. The US government has no appetite for intervention, so we won't see serious safety and security regulations, a new federal agency, or better liability laws. We might have a better chance in the EU. Depending on how the General Data Protection Regulation on data privacy pans out, the EU might pass a similar security law in 5 years. No other country has a large enough market share to make a difference. <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/10/iot_cybersecuri.html>

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GPL Abuse In The Linux Kernel
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 18 Oct '17

18 Oct '17

The questionable legal activities of a former Linux kernel developer <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/18/linux_kernel_community_enforcement_…> have driven a bunch of senior kernel figures to issue a “Community Enforcement Statement” to try to put a stop to this sort of thing in the future. What’s interesting about this is their admission that the GPL 2.0 has “ambiguities … that no one in our community has ever considered part of compliance”. And to fix it, their Statement “adopts the same termination provisions we are all familiar with from GPL-3.0 as an Additional Permission giving companies confidence that they will have time to come into compliance if a failure is identified”. Do you remember back when GPL 3.0 came out, and Linus Torvalds and other senior kernel figures issued a statement claiming that they were quite happy with GPL 2.0, they had no intention of moving to GPL 3.0, which he quite publicly loathed? Seems like now they are slowly coming to a realization of the reasons why GPL 3.0 was created in the first place...

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Ah, The Joys Of Debian Unstable ...
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Oct '17

17 Oct '17

Did my (roughly) monthly system upgrades over the last couple of days. Debian has changed the default Python version for the “python3” command to 3.6. (And Blender now requires that version for building as well.) Didn’t notice anything broken until today, when I tried to print something on my HP inkjet. Turns out the various HP/CUPS-related packages with version number 3.17 want the system default Python to be 3.5, not 3.6. In situations like these, the first thing I have learned to try is to manually download older versions of packages from <http://ftp.debian.org/debian/> and install them with “dpkg -i”. For reference, these are the packages I downgraded: dpkg -i hplip-data_3.16.11+repack0-3_all.deb dpkg -i libhpmud0_3.16.11+repack0-3_amd64.deb dpkg -i libsane-hpaio_3.16.11+repack0-3_amd64.deb dpkg -i printer-driver-hpcups_3.16.11+repack0-3_amd64.deb dpkg -i hplip_3.16.11+repack0-3_amd64.deb And it worked. My printer now prints again. Presumably this will be sorted out in time for my next upgrade ...

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Unlikely Things Running Linux
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Oct '17

16 Oct '17

>From the International Space Station and Large Hadron Collider, through self-driving cars, an electric motorbike and a solar-powered surfboard, down to a milking machine, Computer Engineer Barbie and a crockpot, Brian Lunduke presents a quick tour of just some of the unlikely places you will find a computer running Linux <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPbAXKMCDkY>. Complete with a sting in the tail for those who uncritically subscribe to the old “do one thing and do it well” misconception...

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meeting suggestions?
by Peter Reutemann 16 Oct '17

16 Oct '17

Hi everyone Since we had no volunteers for demoing "Sogo Groupware Server" (Roger?), does anybody else have a topic for next Monday's meeting? Ubuntu 17.10 should be out then... 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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qTox – An Open Source P2P Instant Messaging and VoIP App
by Peter Reutemann 16 Oct '17

16 Oct '17

'As you probably already know, GNU/Linux has no shortage of VoIP apps. We’ve written on Wire and Discord. And we even compiled a list of The 10 Best Instant Messaging Apps for Linux. Today, we’ve got a new app to add to our list of instant messaging apps and it goes by the name of qTox. qTox is a free and open source p2p instant messaging, audio and video calls app and is (apparently) the most feature-rich Tox client. As a powerful Tox client, it follows Tox’s design guidelines while maintaining a uniform UI/UX across all the major platforms. It is built with privacy as its paramount goal and the team has even made a public statement that user safety is their priority and nothing in the world can change that.' -- source: https://www.fossmint.com/qtox-an-open-source-p2p-instant-messaging-and-voip… 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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Windows Subsystem for Linux graduates in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update
by Peter Reutemann 16 Oct '17

16 Oct '17

'Interested in running Linux on Windows 10 with Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), but nervous about it being both a beta and only available in Windows 10 developer mode? Your worries are over. In the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (WinFCU) WSL has graduated to being a Windows 10 feature that can be run by any user. Tested for over a year, WSL on WinFCU is bringing many new features to this combination of the Linux Bash shell and Windows. Besides WSL no longer being a beta or requiring users to be in developer mode, the new features include: Install Linux distros via the Windows Store - WSL now runs multiple Linux distros - WSL comes to Windows Server & Microsoft Azure VMs - WSL now supports USB/serial comms - Miscellaneous fixes and improvements Besides Ubuntu, the new WSL-supported Linux distros are SUSE's community openSUSE and its corporate SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES). Fedora and other distros will arrive in the store shortly.' -- source: http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-subsystem-for-linux-graduates-in-windo… 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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