- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Systemd Rolls Out Its Own Mount Tool
by Peter Reutemann 22 Aug '16

22 Aug '16

"anonymous reader: 'I'm surprised this hasn't surfaced on Slashdot already, but yesterday Phoronix reported that systemd will soon be handling file system mounts, along with all the other stuff that systemd has encompassed. The report generated the usual systemd arguments over on Reddit.com/r/linux with Lennart Poettering, systemd developer and architect, chiming in with a few clarifications.' Lennart argued it will greatly improve the handling of removable media like USB sticks." -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/08/21/2259219 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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New Linux Trojan Is A DDoS Tool, a Bitcoin Miner, and Web Ransomware
by Peter Reutemann 22 Aug '16

22 Aug '16

"A trojan that targeted Drupal sites on Linux servers last May that was incredibly simplistic and laughable in its attempt to install (and fail) web ransomware on compromised websites, has now received a major update and has become a top threat on the malware scene. That trojan, named Rex, has evolved in only three months into an all-around threat that can: (1) compromise servers and devices running platforms like Drupal, WordPress, Magento, Jetspeed, Exarid, AirOS; (2) install cryptocurrency mining in the background; (3) send spam; (4) use a complex P2P structure to manage its botnet; and (5) install a DDoS agent which crooks use to launch DDoS attacks. Worse is that they use their DDoS capabilities to extort companies. The crooks send emails to server owners announcing them of 15-minute DDoS tests, as a forewarning of future attacks unless they pay a ransom. To scare victims, they pose as a known hacking group named Armada Collective. Other groups have used the same tactic, posing as Armada Collective, and extorting companies, according to CloudFlare." -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/16/08/21/0050204 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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KDE Edition Beta Released For Linux Mint 18 'Sarah'
by Peter Reutemann 22 Aug '16

22 Aug '16

"Linux Mint 18 'Sarah' KDE Edition Beta is now available for download and testing. This release is based on the long-term supported Linux 4.4 kernel and KDE Plasma 5.6 desktop environment. The final release of this widely popular distro is expected to arrive in September... Just like MATE, Cinnamon, and Xfce releases, the KDE release is a long term release that will remain supported until 2021. Linux Mint 18 'Sarah' KDE Edition ships with Mozilla Firefox as default web browser and LibreOffice as the default office suite. The Linux distro also features a wide range of popular KDE apps like Kontact, Dolphin, Gwenview, KMail, digiKam, KTorrent, Skanlite, Konversation, K3b, Konsole, Amarok, Ark, Kate, Okular, and Dragon Player." -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/08/21/1622201 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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PowerShell is Microsoft?s latest open source release, coming to Linux, OS X
by rowan schischka 20 Aug '16

20 Aug '16

>Looking at it, I see something that is trying to be both a shell language and a programming language. Bringing scripting powers to .net based applications and plugging in to azure (devops market?) looks like a relaxation of windows desktop market dominance. whatever powershell is trying to be it looks like part of a strategy to move from relying on 90's desktop dominance to becoming a cloud service provider. the conversion to office 356 in nz is over 55% (unofficial word of mouth stat here); so microsoft appears to have done well to migrate office dependant IT systems to the cloud. it maybe in the near future businesses will be able to completely cut the windows umbilical cord? -- Kind Regards Rowan Schischka

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multiboot usb
by rowan schischka 19 Aug '16

19 Aug '16

I am trying to make a usb flash drive that can hold multiple iso files for various linux distros that i find useful. In the past legacy bios was sweet and easy; there was syslinux. EUFI is a bit of a new PITA. im trying to make a usb drive that contains, kali, ubuntu desktop & server, fedora, LPS (arch-based) and debian; all live cds. This is complicated by the debian 'cant find installation cdrom' bug. I looked for a script and there are a surprising amount of multiboot usb options available now. not all of them support both EUFI and legacy bios; there use to be only one with a french UI, now theres almost a dozen and i dont know which one to choose. i am looking to create a multi-boot usb that can work on my macbook and my notebook that came with windows 8. older hardware i dont care too much about but it would be nice to have a toolbox for both boot types that i can carry around in my pocket. can anyone recommend a way to do this? - my preference is to do this manually; i have already been through the arch wiki and ubuntu wiki. -- Kind Regards Rowan Schischka

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meeting on Monday
by Peter Reutemann 19 Aug '16

19 Aug '16

Hi everyone We have a meeting on Monday next week: "An introduction to Linux - features, history, examples of popular flavors (Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, etc) and user interfaces (MATE, Gnome3, KDE, Unity, etc). Advantages and disadvantages to Windows. Presenters: - William Mckee: History - Peter Reutemann: MATE and XFCE - Rowan Schischka: Gnome3 and Unity - Lawrence D'Oliveiro: KDE - John Thompson: Frustrations and delights as a disgruntled Windows 9x user." Details here: http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/232676239/ 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 global jam
by rowan schischka 18 Aug '16

18 Aug '16

This should be an interesting event; fixing bugs in ubuntu at the Ubuntu global jam. Fri, 26 Aug. 2016 01:00 - Sun, 28 Aug. 2016 13:45 UTC I have zero experience in fixing bugs in ubuntu but it would be a great learning experience. Do wlug members want to form a team? http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/global/3418/ -- Kind Regards Rowan Schischka

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next meeting
by rowan schischka 15 Aug '16

15 Aug '16

>Feel free to bring your devices along and see if there is still time. >Though we could also just schedule a demo of them for the next >meeting? the meeting after the next one would be better so i can get better prepared. What kind of questions should I be prepared to answer? Im a regular gnome3 user and im confident I can show off its features, but im not a regular unity user. Iv just been using unity recently on my new tablet. -- Kind Regards Rowan Schischka +64226719711

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LibreOffice Merchandise
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 15 Aug '16

15 Aug '16

The Document Foundation (who manage the development of LibreOffice) have put out their annual report for 2015 <http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=TDF-2015-Annual-Report>. Just glancing through it, I found that you can buy LibreOffice-themed coffee mugs, T-shirts etc here <https://shop.spreadshirt.de/documentfoundation?version=1471300568494>.

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New FreeBSD 11.0 Release Candidate Tested By Phoronix
by Peter Reutemann 14 Aug '16

14 Aug '16

'"The first release candidate for the upcoming FreeBSD 11.0 is ready for testing," reports Distrowatch, noting various changes. ("A NULL pointer dereference in IPSEC has been fixed; support for SSH protocol 1 has been removed; OpenSSH DSA keys have been disabled by default...") Now an anonymous Slashdot reader writes: Sunday Phoronix performed some early benchmark testing, comparing FreeBSD 10.3 to FreeBSD 11.0 as well as DragonFlyBSD, Ubuntu, Intel Clear Linux and CentOS Linux 7. They reported mixed results -- some wins and some losses for FreeBSD -- using a clean install with the default package/settings on the x86_64/amd64 version for each operating system. FreeBSD 11.0 showed the fastest compile times, and "With the SQLite benchmark, the BSDs came out ahead of Linux [and] trailed slightly behind DragonFlyBSD 4.6 with HAMMER. The 11.0-BETA4 performance does appear to regress slightly for SQLite compared to FreeBSD 10.3... With the BLAKE2 crypto test, all four Linux distributions were faster than DragonFlyBSD and FreeBSD... with the Apache web server benchmark, FreeBSD was able to outperform the Linux distributions..." ' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/08/14/238226 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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next meeting
by Peter Reutemann 14 Aug '16

14 Aug '16

Hi everyone Just to get the meeting sorted: "An introduction to Linux - features, history, examples of popular flavors (Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat etc). Advantages and disadvantages to Windows." http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/232676239/ William will cover the history, but we need people demoing the various flavors and user interfaces (just a few minutes each). Flavors: Debian - ? Ubuntu - ? Red Hat - ? SuSE - ? User interfaces: MATE - ? KDE - ? Unity - ? Gnome3 - ? XFCE - ? LXDE - ? I'm happy to cover MATE. Ian S., Unity? Lawrence or Chris, KDE? Who wants to cover another one? 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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next meeting
by rowan schischka 14 Aug '16

14 Aug '16

Ive been playing around with the ubuntu m10 tablet, i can bring that; its actually a pretty good tablet. i havnt played with the wireless screen casting as I dont have a miracast device but i do have a mini hdmi cable. Iv also just received last years intel compute stick if you want to see that running, theyre dirt cheap now and i can bring it if anyone wants to try before they buy. -- Kind Regards Rowan Schischka

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next meeting
by rowan schischka 14 Aug '16

14 Aug '16

I can also demonstrate gnome3 & unity -- Kind Regards Rowan Schischka

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thef..k command correction
by Peter Reutemann 13 Aug '16

13 Aug '16

Hi everyone Excuse my Klatchian, but I just came across this interesting application that corrects your misspelled terminal commands: https://github.com/nvbn/thefuck The GIF on the github page is quite interesting to watch. 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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rise and rise of open source in New Zealand?
by rowan schischka 12 Aug '16

12 Aug '16

Looks like more push towards Silverstripe in government. I believe this relates to the common web platform which is an Internal Affairs project? Im not a big fan of php, and I dont really understand the CWP, but i guess nows a good time to get invested in silverstripe experience? https://www.cwp.govt.nz/ -- Kind Regards Rowan Schischka +64226719711

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Can Facebook Really Make Ads Unblockable?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 11 Aug '16

11 Aug '16

Facebook recently announced <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/09/facebook_ad_blockers/> it was going to disable adblockers and, in return, (supposedly) give users more control over their ad preferences. Here <https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/randomwalker/can-facebook-really-make-ad…> is an analysis of why such an adblocker bypass isn’t really possible. In its favour, Facebook does serve up its own ads, not relying on outside ad networks, which are notorious for being malware-infested <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/29/its_time_for_a_discussion_about_mal…>.

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rise and rise of open source in New Zealand?
by Ian Young 11 Aug '16

11 Aug '16

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC1608/S00039/a-policy-win-for-open-source-s…

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Open Source // Open Society Conference August 20-23rd
by Chris McClimans 11 Aug '16

11 Aug '16

I'm heading down for the hackathon and conf, probably fly in Friday return Wednesday. (I still haven't bought conf or flight tickets) Anyone else want to go or know folks I should connect with or places to stay? http://www.opensourceopensociety.com/programme.html Cheers, Chris

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Security: Leading Edge, Bleeding Edge ...
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 11 Aug '16

11 Aug '16

Linux has been the first to offer a complete implementation of RFC5961 in its TCP/IP stack, designed to prevent certain kinds of hacking attacks. Now it turns out there’s a flaw in the spec itself, which creates its own vulnerability <http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/08/linux-bug-leaves-usa-today-other-to…>: The problematic RFC 5961 has not yet been fully implemented in Windows or Mac OS X, so those operating systems aren't believed to be vulnerable. By contrast, the Linux operating system kernel, starting with version 3.6 introduced in 2012, has added a largely complete set of functions implementing the standard. Linux kernel maintainers released a fix with version 4.7 almost three weeks ago, but the patch has not yet been applied to most mainstream distributions.

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Finding, viewing, downloading, and saving videos from the web
by rowan schischka 11 Aug '16

11 Aug '16

Use a firefox extension to change the browser user agent string to iphone; right click and save :). I am forced to do this for sites that use flash or other proprietary video players. i find it does not work when a site has its own iphone app and forces you to use those apps such as tvnz and youtube. -- Kind Regards Rowan Schischka

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Finding, viewing, downloading, and saving videos from the web
by Roderick Aldridge 11 Aug '16

11 Aug '16

Anybody got good tips for this, particularly good sources (as well as Youtube) of free videos on all subjects, not just news, movies and technical subjects. OS independent options for downloading and saving sought - the best downloaders and browser extensions. I have used Firefox extension Video DownloadHelper and William put me on to youtube-dl, but there are lots of others, some possibly better and/or with special uses. This is the topic for the Hamilton Computer Club meeting tomorrow, so any Windows-friendly options welcome, or you could join us to 60A Sare Crescent and show us yourself. Roderick Aldridge

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Microsoft Leaks Its Golden Backdoor Keys
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 10 Aug '16

10 Aug '16

Seems Microsoft has inadvertently published “golden” master keys that will allow installation of third-party OSes on supposedly locked-down devices <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/10/microsoft_secure_boot_ms16_100/>.

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Major Qualcomm chip security flaws expose 900M Android users
by Peter Reutemann 09 Aug '16

09 Aug '16

"Four major security holes in the Qualcomm chips which power modern Android devices have left as many as 900 million users vulnerable to a range of attacks. According to Israel-based security firm Checkpoint, the flaws—dubbed "Quadrooter"—found in the firmware which governs the chips, could allow potential attackers to "trigger privilege escalations for the purpose of gaining root access to a device" using malware which wouldn't require special permissions, allowing it to pass under suspicious users' radars." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/08/qualcomm-chip-flaws-expose-900-mill… 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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Howdy, Ubuntu on Windows! How Fast Is It?
by Peter Reutemann 09 Aug '16

09 Aug '16

"My primary laptop is a Lenovo x250, with an Intel i7-5600U CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB Transcend SSD, and a 2TB Samsung SSD. Let’s run some benchmarks on the CPU, Memory, Disk, and Network. We’ll first run each test in Ubuntu running natively on the hardware, and then reboot, and run the same benchmarks on the same machine running Ubuntu on Windows. We’ll use the utilities sysbench, dd and iperf, as well as compile the Linux kernel to do our benchmarking." -- source: https://www.linux.com/learn/howdy-ubuntu-windows-how-fast-it 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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SQLite 3.14 Does CSV
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 09 Aug '16

09 Aug '16

The latest release of SQLite now lets you load a CSV file as a “virtual” database table, and do the usual sorts of queries on it <http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=SQLite-3.14-Released>. More details about the new extension here <http://www.sqlite.org/csv.html>.

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Linux Abandoning DocBook For Its Documentation?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Aug '16

08 Aug '16

Just came across this <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/08/linux_48_rc1_lands_with_surface_3_s…>: Torvalds has also pointed out that while progress on v 4.8 is “fairly normal … the patch itself looks somewhat unusual: over 20% of the patch is documentation updates, due to conversion of the drm and media documentation from docbook to the Sphinx doc format. There are other doc updates, but that's the big bulk of it.” DocBook is an open-source implementation of SGML, which is a pretty heavyweight, official-international-standard, 1980s, big-company way of writing documentation. Sphinx, on the other hand, is commonly used for Python documentation, including on python.org itself <https://docs.python.org/3/index.html>. If you were putting together the documentation set for a passenger liner or a chemical factory, you’ll probably use SGML (in fact, there is very likely a legal requirement to do so). But for the rest of us, more lightweight markup systems like Sphinx/ReST and Markdown are much more convenient.

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The Murky (Under)World Of Pay-Per-Install
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 07 Aug '16

07 Aug '16

A research group has released a paper <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/05/payperinstall_study/> studying those “free” software installs that bring along a host of uninvited guests with them. While not actually illegal (yet), they resort to sneaky tactics, like lying low for a few weeks before taking over your browser search bar or injecting ads, to try to obscure their origin. They even actively defeat blocking attempts, by jumping between domain names as often as in a matter of hours.

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Old server hardware
by Daniel Lawson 04 Aug '16

04 Aug '16

Hi all Endace is getting rid of a lot of old server hardware. Some of it is still in reasonable condition, and I can make it available to WLUG members if they are interested. It's all offered as-is, on a first-come-first-serve basis, and if you say you want it you have to take it away ( we are sending it to an e-waste recycler very soon) There's two types of system, multiple units of each: 1U, non-redundant PSU (SMC 6015X-TB system), Supermicro X7DBX-i motherboard, dual Xeon X5440 (quad-core, 2.5GHz), 16 or 32 GB (depending on unit) DDR2 667MHz FB DIMMs, IPMI controller, dual gige LAN, 3x SATA disk in hotswap drive bays 3U, 2+1 redundant PSU (Chenbro Chassis), Supermicro X7DBE Motherboard, dual Xeon X5540 (quad-core, 2.5GHz), 16 or 32 GB (dependint on unit) DDR2 667MHz FB DIMMs, IPMI controller, dual gige LAN, 2x 3Ware 9650SE-8LPML RAID controllers, 16 x SATA disk in hotswap drive bays In both cases, any disks inside them will need to be scrubbed. If anyone is interested, based on a firm commitment to pick up, please let me know by Friday 5pm. Email to daniel.lawson(a)endace.com or daniel(a)meta.net.nz please Thanks

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FTC Stops Requiring Regular Password Changes
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 Aug '16

04 Aug '16

Lorrie Cranor, new chief technologist at the US Federal Trade Commission, has managed to persuade them to drop their policy of requiring regular password changes <http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/08/frequent-password-changes-are-the-e…>: Frequent password changes do little to improve security and very possibly make security worse by encouraging the use of passwords that are more susceptible to cracking.

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Beware Of User-Interface Experts
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 Aug '16

04 Aug '16

The nice thing about GUIs is that there are so many to choose from. And everybody has an opinion about them. Particularly UI experts, who are always ready to point to things that any particular GUI does wrong. Even the platform developers themselves are prone to keep redesigning things from time to time. And then not even following their own rules. There was a famous map of the New York subway, released in 1972 <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/arts/design/the-subway-map-that-rattled-n…>, that represented the network in such a stylized fashion that the city’s residents got mightily confused. Was it the people’s fault? Was the designer’s brilliance simply misunderstood? Sometimes I think UI designers themselves lose track of how users actually do things outside their labs...

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Project Hosting Service Fosshub Compromised, Embedding Malware Inside Hosted Files
by Peter Reutemann 04 Aug '16

04 Aug '16

'At least some applications on Fosshub, a free project hosting service appear to have been compromised, according to several reports. (Update: Fosshub has acknowledged the hack.) The software portal, furthermore, is serving malware payloads, reports add. Catalin Cimpanu of Softpedia says that a hacking group which goes by the name of PeggleCrew is responsible for the hack. "In short, a network service with no authentication was exposed to the internet," the hacker told Softpedia in an email. "We were able to grab data from this network service to obtain source code and passwords that led us further into the infrastructure of FOSSHub and eventually gain control of their production machines, backup and mirror locations, and FTP credentials for the caching service they use, as well as the Google Apps-hosted email." The hacker group told the publication that they have compromised the entire website, "including the administrator's email. He also revealed he didn't dump the site's database but claimed that "passwords weren't salted." A user on Reddit, who has since received lots of upvotes, adds: Some popular apps that have links to FossHub that may be infected include: Audacity, WinDirStat, qBittorrent, MKVToolNix, Spybot Search&Destroy, Calibre, SMPlayer, HWiNFO, MyPhoneExplorer, and IrfanView. Another application which has reportedly been compromised is Classic Shell. It is ostensibly overwriting the MBR on users' computers. Many users are upset with the timing of hack, noting that plenty of people were looking for Classic Shell amid the release of Windows 10 Anniversary Update. Update: 08/03 17:30 GMT by M :In a blog post, Audacity said that Fosshub was serving a hacked copy of its audio editing software for three hours. It adds that "no Audacity Team infrastructure was compromised." Fosshub team writes: Last night we had a security incident caused by a group of hackers that allowed them to log-in to FossHub developer *through* an user that was compromised. Shortly after, we noticed two users that were compromised. They simply logged-in using their passwords and this allowed them to escalate. [...] Several hours later, we noticed the attackers were able to gain access through an FTP account and we decided to shut down the main server immediately to prevent any further infection/damage. FossHub.com is down on purpose until we are able to identify the way hackers were able to escalate. Fosshub insists that the hacked copy of Classic Shell was only downloaded 300 times. In the meantime, if you know someone who may have downloaded the compromised copy of Classic Shell, here's what they need to do next.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/08/03/1635240 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 10 Anniversary Update Borks Dual-Boot Partitions
by Peter Reutemann 04 Aug '16

04 Aug '16

'Windows 10 Anniversary Update may affect and even delete other partitions on the same disk, OMGUbuntu is reporting, citing several complaints by users. "Broken boot loaders on an update are one thing but losing data, even entire partitions?" asks the author. Microsoft-centric news blog WindowsReport is corroborating on the report, adding that in some cases, the new OS was not able to detect some partitions. It says (edited): Many users are reporting that some of their partitions disappeared after installing the Anniversary Update. Usually, it's the smallest partition that disappears, although we couldn't say for sure whether the partition is deleted or if Windows simply doesn't detect it. Some users are saying that the partition is not allocated, while others can detect it once they install third-party partition management applications. We have reached out to Microsoft for clarification, and will update the post when we hear back from them.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/08/03/1614223 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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LibreOffice 5.2 Officially Released
by Peter Reutemann 04 Aug '16

04 Aug '16

'LibreOffice 5.2 is finally here, after it has been in development for the past four months, during which the development team behind one of the best free office suites have managed to implement dozens of new features and improvements to most of the application's components. Key features include more UI refinements to make it flexible for anyone, standards-based document classification, forecasting functions in Calc, the spreadsheet editor, as well as lots of Writer and Impress enhancements. A series of videos are provided to see what landed in the LibreOffice 5.2 office suite, which is now available for download for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows operating systems.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/08/03/2022226 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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Security Vulnerabilities In Wireless Keyboards
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 03 Aug '16

03 Aug '16

You’d think they’d be encrypted, but apparently most of them are not <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/08/security_vulner_7.html>.

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FCC Demands TP-Link Support Open Source Third-Party Firmware On Its Routers
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 03 Aug '16

03 Aug '16

You may have heard that the US Federal Communications Commission has been updating its regulations concerning wi-fi routers. Some interpreted the new rules as meaning that companies should lock down their routers to prevent them running third-party open-source firmware. The FCC tried to make it clear that was not its intent, but nevertheless some companies did start to interpret things that way. Now, here is a case where, as part of a settlement against TP-Link for violating the regulations, the FCC has made it an explicit requirement that the company allow the running of third-party firmware <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160802/06073235135/fcc-demands-tp-link-…>.

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Linux Grabs More Than 2% of Desktop Market Share
by rowan schischka 03 Aug '16

03 Aug '16

>is another example of the kind of dubious stats I was referring to. >You?ll notice it has Android well behind IOS, at 17% versus 23%. This >simply does not make sense. i often get access to a customers web analytics or i get employed to set up on behalf. the way this information is presented makes it useless. web analytics is really fun and interesting because you get to see the country of origin, time of day, page click through etc. for example im still seeing large numbers of visits from ie6 on windows xp from china. there are so many variables all i can really add is that The Register is reporting on the number of perceived unique visitors to their web site, not the rise or fall of desktop software brands as they claim. -- Kind Regards Rowan Schischka

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Chrome 52 for Android Arrives With Smoother Video Playback, Faster Load Times, and Better Battery Life
by Peter Reutemann 02 Aug '16

02 Aug '16

'Following the release of Chrome 52 for desktop two weeks ago, Google last week also launched Chrome 52 for Android. For whatever reason, the company didn't share what's new until today. You can download the new version from Google Play. Chrome 52 for Android makes video playback feel smoother, load faster, and consume less battery. More specifically, video playback has been improved for speed and power efficiency, meaning you should expect smoother playback and faster load times (so videos will start playing sooner, instead of pausing briefly before starting). Your Android device's battery should also last longer if you consume a lot of videos online. Last but not least, video in Chrome for Android also now works with Data Saver Mode. This means a lightweight version of the video will be downloaded and played if you have Data Saver Mode on, saving you as much as 50 percent in data downloads, by Google's estimation.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/08/02/1713202 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 48 Released With Multi-Process Support, Mandatory Add-On Signing
by Peter Reutemann 02 Aug '16

02 Aug '16

'Mozilla on Tuesday released Firefox v48, touted as one of the most important updates the browser has ever received. With the new version, Firefox starts migrating users to using mullti-process threads (e10s, Electrolysis), and it is also the first version to ship with Rust component. In addition, Firefox is now also making add-on signing mandatory. >From a Softpedia article: Announced last year, Electrolysis, e10s, or multi-process support is Firefox's ability to process core browser operations separately from the content viewed on a Web page. Multi-process support allows a page to crash without bringing the entire browser down with it and improves the browser's overall performance. e10s rollout will take place in two phases, first in Firefox 48, and it will finish in Firefox 49, set for release on September 13, 2016. Mandatory add-on signing refers to Firefox preventing users from installing any add-ons that have not been approved by Mozilla's testers. This is something similar to what Chrome employs, but Firefox users have been spoiled all these years, always having the capability of installing any add-on they've desired. Rust is a programming language that's a revamped and improved version of C++ but that protects developers from accidentally including dangerous memory bugs in their code. It achieves this by how the language was constructed and by how developers write the code.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/08/02/1646255 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 Grabs More Than 2% of Desktop Market Share
by Peter Reutemann 02 Aug '16

02 Aug '16

'W3Counter's stats for June 2016 are in, and Linux desktop accounts for 2.48% of all web visits from tracked websites... (Android is counted separately from "Linux desktop.") Meanwhile, NetMarketShare shows Linux with a 2.02% share of the desktop market. And StatCounter shows a more detailed breakdown of the top 7 operating systems, with Windows 7 at 42.02%, Windows 10 at 21.88%, OSX at 9.94%, Windows 8.1 at 8.66%, Windows XP at 6.5%, and another 4.06% for "Unknown" (which is roughly tied with "Other") -- beating Windows 8.0 at 3.52%. In May they also reported another thought-provoking statistic: that Firefox's browser usage had surpassed that of IE and Edge combined for the first time.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/07/02/184229 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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There Is A Saying In Computer Science ...
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Aug '16

01 Aug '16

... that any problem can be solved by adding yet another level of indirection. (Might have been Butler Lampson who said that.) What brought that to mind was this report <http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-Netplan-YAML-Network> of a new Ubuntu project to add a common front end for generating network confgurations for all the different network-control backends. What, you mean there are setups that don’t use NetworkManager? Or even networkd?

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Seymour Papert Has Died
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Aug '16

01 Aug '16

I remember I first heard of Seymour Papert when I picked up a copy of his book “Mindstorms” at the University library. This was based around the radical idea that young children could not only learn advanced concepts about mathematics and programming, but they could have fun doing so. For example, to draw a circle, you repeat the following some x number of times: * turn a little bit to one side * move a little bit forward (The larger the “x”, and the correspondingly smaller the “little bit” becomes, the better the approximation to a circle.) This comes straight out of a child’s intuitive idea of how they would walk in a circle (i.e. turtle graphics). But it is also a differential-geometric formulation of a circle! And today I discovered that Papert had suffered a serious traffic injury in Hanoi a decade ago. No word on whether he ever recovered, and now he has passed away, with no mention of the cause. <http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/08/seymour-papert-theorist-behind-one-…>

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Microsoft Brings ChakraCore to Linux and OS X
by Peter Reutemann 01 Aug '16

01 Aug '16

'A few days ago I wrote about Microsoft's revival of Skype for Linux. I called it "a big deal" -- less because of Skype itself and more because it signified Microsoft's recognition that Linux is a platform worth supporting... Now the company has done it again. At Node Summit this week, Microsoft announced the availability of ChakraCore for Linux. ChakraCore is the core part of the Chakra JavaScript engine that powers Microsoft Edge and Universal Windows Platform. With this move, Microsoft is putting one of its core technologies on a competing platform. This, more than any other Linux-friendly move the company has made, is a clear departure from the Microsoft of Gates and Ballmer that used its technologies to lock users into Windows... While Ubuntu is the primary Linux distribution that Microsoft is using to showcase its ChakraCore technologies, the company said that the support should easily translate to other modern Linux distributions. ' -- source: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/16/07/31/151240 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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New Site Checks Your Browser's Fingerprint
by Peter Reutemann 01 Aug '16

01 Aug '16

'"Does your web browser have a unique fingerprint? If so your web browser could be tracked across websites without techniques such as tracking cookies..." warns a new site created by the University of Adelaide and ACEMS, adding "the anonymization aspects of services such as Tor or VPNs could be negated if sites you visit track you using your browser fingerprint."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/07/31/1357234 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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Onion Debian Services Are Now Available
by Peter Reutemann 01 Aug '16

01 Aug '16

'"I just set up a lot of Onion Services for many of Debian's static websites," announced Debian sys-admin Peter "weasel" Palfrader on Friday. "You can find the entire list of services on onion.debian.org. More might come in the future.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/07/31/0017225 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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Earth-friendly EOMA68 Computing Devices
by Peter Reutemann 01 Aug '16

01 Aug '16

Interesting concept: 'A new crowdfunding campaign by Rhombus Tech "introduces the world's first devices built around the EOMA68 standard," which separates a "modular" CPU board from the rest of the system so that it can be easily used in multiple devices and upgraded more simply. Rhombus Tech is now offering a 15.6-inch laptop, a laser-cut wooden Micro-Desktop housing, and two types of computer cards, both using A20 dual-core ARM Cortex A7 processors. The cards are available with four flavors of the GNU/Linux operating system, and they're hoping to receive RYF certification from the Free Software Foundation. "No proprietary software," explains their campaign's video. "No backdoors. No spyware. No NDAs." They envision a world where users upgrade their computers by simply popping in a new card -- reducing electronic waste -- or print new laptop casings to repair defects or swap in different colors. (And they also hope to eventually see the cards also working with cameras, phones, tablets, and gaming consoles.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/07/31/0323255 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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meeting suggestion
by Peter Reutemann 30 Jul '16

30 Jul '16

Hi everyone William suggested a topic for our next meeting in August: "An introduction to Linux - features, history, examples of popular flavors (Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat etc). Advantages and disadvantages to Windows." Meetup link: http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/232676239/ He volunteered to cover a bit of the history (if I remember correctly), but we need others as well to fill in the rest! What do you think? 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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meeting suggestion
by rowan schischka 29 Jul '16

29 Jul '16

When are these meetings and how can i help? -- Kind Regards Rowan Schischka

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Dark Patterns: User Interfaces Designed To Confuse
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Jul '16

28 Jul '16

Ever come across websites that seem designed to trick you into paying for things you might not want? <http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/07/dark-patterns-are-designed-to-trick…>

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NIST Says Two-Factor Auth Via SMS Is Not A Good Idea
by rowan schischka 26 Jul '16

26 Jul '16

Regarding two factor sms authentication; I wonder if new Zealands mobile providers are able to be tricked into sending out replacement Sim cards

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NIST Says Two-Factor Auth Via SMS Is Not A Good Idea
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 25 Jul '16

25 Jul '16

The US National Institute for Standards and Technology is updating its Digital Authentication Guideline <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/24/nist_says_sms_no_good_for_authentic…>. Responding to recent cases where SMS-based two-factor authentication systems were hijacked to rack up charges on premium-rate phone numbers, it is now saying that sending a text message is no longer good enough. At least the service sending the messages needs to be sure they are going to a real mobile phone. Interestingly, it is posting review documents on GitHub, as an addition to the usual publication channels.

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