- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Microsoft SQL Server For Linux?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 07 Mar '16

07 Mar '16

From <http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/sql-server-for-linux-…>: The announcement implies [one of] two things. Either there is a large number of Linux-using corporations out there that are desperate for SQL Server's feature set (as opposed to open source databases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, or MaxDB, or the proprietary ones such as IBM's DB2 and, of course, Oracle's Oracle), or there is a large number of SQL Server-using organizations out there that are keen to ditch the cost of their Windows licenses but happy to continue to pay for their SQL Server licenses. Neither seems obvious to us. Nor to me...

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Raspberry Pi 3
by William Mckee 02 Mar '16

02 Mar '16

Hello, Raspberry Pi 3 was just released. The highlights of the model: Raspberry Pi 3 - Model B Technical Specification Broadcom BCM2387 chipset 1.2GHz Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A53 802.11 bgn Wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.1 (Bluetooth Classic and LE) 1GB RAM 64 Bit CPU I think I am most excited about the 64 Bit CPU. What's also amazing is they have kept the same price as the Raspberry Pi 2 - 35 pounds. I'm happy with my Raspberry Pi 2 setup but keen to pick one of these up (still can't get a zero). Blog post: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-3-on-sale/ cheers, William.

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LibreSSL Unaffected By DROWN
by Peter Reutemann 02 Mar '16

02 Mar '16

"The OpenBSD people forked and heavily cleaned up OpenSSL to create LibreSSL due to dissatisfaction with the maintainance of OpenSSL, culminating in the heartbleed bug. The emphasis has been on cleaning up the code and improving security, which includes removing things such as SSL2 which has fundamental security flaws. As a result, LibreSSL is not affected by the DROWN bug. LibreSSL is largely compatible with OpenSSL. The main exceptions are in the cases where programs use insecure functions removed from libreSSL, or require bug compatiblity with OpenSSL." -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/16/03/02/1620221 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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SCO Is Undeniably, Reliably Dead
by Peter Reutemann 01 Mar '16

01 Mar '16

"On Friday, IBM and SCO filed an agreement with the US district court in Utah to accept a ruling of dismissal of the last remaining claims by SCO against IBM." -- source: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/03/01/154214 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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A Third of All HTTPS Websites Vulnerable To DROWN Attack
by Peter Reutemann 01 Mar '16

01 Mar '16

"The OpenSSL project has released versions 1.0.2g and 1.0.1s to address a high severity security issue known as the DROWN attack (CVE-2016-0800) which allows attackers to break HTTPS and steal encrypted information. In layman terms, the attack uses an improperly patched issue (from 1998) in SSL to attack websites using the more modern TLS protocol. Servers where admins use SSL and TLS are in danger. Additionally, servers where only TLS is used, but the admins are sharing the same certificate for other servers where they have SSL, are also vulnerable, since the attack targets RSA, employed in both SSL and TLS. The entire attack is also easy to carry out, costing only $440 on Amazon EC2." -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/16/03/01/1743237 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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Pi used in FM radio transmitters in Syria
by Ian Young 01 Mar '16

01 Mar '16

Hope this is of some interest - not a Pi application I have heard about hitherto. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35690688

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OpenShot 2.0 Beta Is Out
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 Feb '16

29 Feb '16

Initial verdict on the results of the crowd-funded development: “The real winners here are Linux users who now have an editor that's on par with Apple's iMovie (even more powerful than recent versions of iMovie) and bears considerable resemblance to the industry-standard Final Cut Pro.” <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/29/openshot_2_review/>

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Skype On Linux Is Broken
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 Feb '16

26 Feb '16

Seems like the Linux version of Skype has lost the ability to connect with Skype on other platforms. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/25/linux_skype_outage_outrage/>

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Linux On Windows?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 25 Feb '16

25 Feb '16

Microsoft has abandoned its “Astoria” project to allow Android apps to run essentially unmodified on Windows. <http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/microsoft-confirms-an…> Nevertheless, one interesting by-product of this effort remains: Tucked away inside the Windows 10 Insider Preview is a Linux-like operating system. The big question is what Microsoft is actually going to do with it.

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Software Freedom Conservancy: Distributing Linux With ZFS Is Illegal
by Peter Reutemann 25 Feb '16

25 Feb '16

'Phoronix reports that Bradley M. Kuhn and Karen M. Sandler at the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFS) have posted a blog post today arguing that Canonical's plan to distribute Ubuntu 16.04 LTS "Xenial Xerus" with support for the ZFS file system violates the Linux kernel's GPLv2 license. On February 18, Dustin Kirkland at Canonical wrote on his blog: "We at Canonical have conducted a legal review, including discussion with the industry's leading software freedom legal counsel, of the licenses that apply to the Linux kernel and to ZFS. And in doing so, we have concluded that we are acting within the rights granted and in compliance with their terms of both of those licenses...The CDDL cannot apply to the Linux kernel because zfs.ko is a self-contained file system module — the kernel itself is quite obviously not a derivative work of this new file system. And zfs.ko, as a self-contained file system module, is clearly not a derivative work of the Linux kernel but rather quite obviously a derivative work of OpenZFS and OpenSolaris. Equivalent exceptions have existed for many years, for various other stand alone, self-contained, non-GPL kernel modules. Our conclusion is good for Ubuntu users, good for Linux, and good for all of free and open source software." The SFS's blog post of today states: "We are sympathetic to Canonical's frustration in this desire to easily support more features for their users. However, as set out below, we have concluded that their distribution of zfs.ko violates the GPL."' -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/02/25/1846230 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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Carnegie Mellon University Attacked Tor, Was Subpoenaed By Feds
by Peter Reutemann 25 Feb '16

25 Feb '16

'Back in November 2015 it was speculated that Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) helped the FBI attack the TOR network. Now, both the name of the university and the existence of a subpoena have been confirmed in a recent filing in one of the affected criminal cases: "The record demonstrates that the defendant's IP address was identified by the Software Engineering Institute ("SEI") of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU") [sic] when SEI was conducting research on the Tor network which was funded by the Department of Defense ("DOD")," an order filed on Tuesday in the case of Brian Farrell reads. Between January and July 2014, a large number of malicious nodes operated on the Tor network, with the purpose, according to the Tor Project, of deanonymising dark web sites and their users. The attack relied on a set of vulnerabilities in the Tor software—which have since been patched—and according to one source, the technique could unmask new hidden services within two weeks.' -- source: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/02/25/172245 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 Hack Is an Indicator of a Larger Problem
by Peter Reutemann 25 Feb '16

25 Feb '16

"On February 20th, a hacker working under the handle 'Peace' took control of the website of Linux Mint, a popular Linux distribution derived from Ubuntu (and Debian) targeted toward non-technical users and power users unhappy with modern desktop environments. While these attacks are regrettable, and part of an infrastructure problem rather than a problem with the distribution itself, it increasingly appears that the Linux Mint team is spread too thin when it comes to security. The distribution itself blacklists updates that work perfectly in Ubuntu and Debian, and the graphical utilities don't update the kernel. Because the value added by Linux Mint is in Cinnamon, why do the developers need to distribute a broken version of Ubuntu when the Cinnamon DE could be distributed as an Ubuntu spin?" -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/02/24/1924229 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 Virtual Ethernet Bug Delivers Corrupt TCP/IP Data
by Peter Reutemann 22 Feb '16

22 Feb '16

"Vijay Pandurangan from Twitter warns about a Linux kernel bug that causes containers using Virtual Ethernet devices for network routing to not check TCP checksums. Examples of software stacks that use Virtual Ethernet devices are Docker on IPv6, Kubernetes, Google Container Engine and Mesos. The kernel flaw results in applications incorrectly receiving corrupt data in a number of situations, such as with bad networking hardware. The bug dates back at least 3 years or more – it is present in kernels as far back as the Twitter engineering team has tested. Their patch has been reviewed and accepted into the kernel, and is currently being backported to -stable releases back to 3.14 in various distributions. If you use containers in your setup, Pandurangan recommends that you deploy a kernel with this patch." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/02/22/1715202 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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Knoppix image
by Ian Young 21 Feb '16

21 Feb '16

Hi Peter, Yes, I have the image thanks. ~ Ian Y

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Timeline Of Events: Linux Mint Website Hack That Distributed Malicious ISOs
by Peter Reutemann 21 Feb '16

21 Feb '16

"The Linux Mint website was hacked last night and was pointing to malicious ISOs that contained an IRC bot known as TSUNAMI, used as part of an IRC DDoSing botnet. While the Linux Mint team says they were hacked via their WordPress site, security experts have discovered that their phpBB forum database was put up for sale on the Dark Web at around the same time of the hack. Also, it seems that after the Linux Mint team cleaned their website, the hackers reinfected it, which caused the developers to take it down altogether." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/02/21/1548228 Ouch... Maybe time to switch to a Nikola generated site... 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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knoppix live install
by Ian Young 21 Feb '16

21 Feb '16

If there is some free time at Monday's meeting perhaps we could try an install of what i think is the latest Knoppix iso to USB, live as it happens. ~ Ian Y

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World’s cheapest Android smartphone goes on sale for just $3.67
by Peter Reutemann 20 Feb '16

20 Feb '16

"An Android-based smartphone costing about the same as a cup of coffee has been launched today in India by the local company Ringing Bells. The Freedom 251 costs 251 rupees (about £2.50 or $4), comes with a one-year guarantee, and has surprisingly decent specifications, on paper at least. The phone's price is not subsidised by a carrier contract: it really costs £2.50." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/02/worlds-cheapest-android-smartphone-g… 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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TP-Link Begins Lockdown of Firmware In Response To FCC
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '16

18 Feb '16

'In response to an FCC rule that requires manufacturers to lock down computing devices (routers, PCs, phones) to prevent modification if they have a "modular wireless radio," TP-Link has begun locking down its routers to prevent firmware not signed by TP-Link from being installed. This essentially prevents open source OSs (OpenWRT, for example) from being used on routers.' -- source: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/02/18/1423216 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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Stealing Keys From a Laptop In Another Room — and Offline
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '16

18 Feb '16

'Motherboard carries a report that with equipment valued at about $3,000, a group of Israeli researchers have been able to extract cryptographic keys from a laptop that is not only separated by a physical wall, but protected by an air gap. This, they say, "is the first time such an approach has been used specifically against elliptic curve cryptography running on a PC." From the article: The method is a so-called side-channel attack: an attack that doesn't tackle an encryption implementation head on, such as through brute force or by exploiting a weakness in the underlying algorithm, but through some other means. In this case, the attack relies on the electromagnetic outputs of the laptop that are emitted during the decryption process, which can then be used to work out the target's key. Specifically, the researchers obtained the private key from a laptop running GnuPG, a popular implementation of OpenPGP. (The developers of GnuPG have since released countermeasures to the method. Tromer said that the changes make GnuPG âoemore resistant to side-channel attack since the sequence of high-level arithmetic operations does not depend on the secret key.â)' -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/16/02/18/1626205 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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Meet Linux's Little Brother Zephyr, a Tiny Open Source IoT RTOS
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '16

18 Feb '16

"The Linux Foundation has launched the Zephyr Project, to foster an open source, small footprint, modular, scalable, connected, real-time OS for IoT devices. The Zephyr Project's RTOS implements both a small footpoint microkernel and an even tinier nanokernel, and is the result of Wind River contributing its Rocket RTOS kernel to the Zephyr Project. (Wind's Rocket RTOS will now become a downstream commercial distribution based on Zephyr sources.) To get a sense of Zephyr's benefit, its nanokernel is said to be able to run in as little as 10KB of RAM on 32-bit microcontrollers, whereas a minimalistic Linux implementation like uClinux needs upwards of 200KB. The Linux Foundation hopes to see cross-project collaboration between the Zephyr and Linux communities. Technical details are at the Zephyr site." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/02/18/1522219 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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Magnitude of glibc Vulnerability Coming To Light
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '16

18 Feb '16

"The glibc vulnerability disclosed this week has some experts on edge because of how DNS can leveraged in exploits. Dan Kaminsky said that while man-in-the-middle attacks are one vector, it would appear that it's also possible to exploit the bug and attack most Linux servers via DNS caching-only servers. 'This would be substantially worse if it went through the caching ecosystem; 99 percent of attack vectors go through that system,' Kaminsky said. Glibc, or the GNU C library, is used by most flavors of Linux and also a number of popular web services and frameworks, giving attacks potentially massive horizontal scale. The major Linux distros have patched and pushed updates to servers; source code is also available for homegrown Linux builds." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/02/18/157239 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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Fwd: [NZLUG] Fwd: [SECURITY] [DSA 3481-1] glibc security update
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '16

18 Feb '16

Apologies for cross-posting... Cheers, Peter ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mark Foster <blakjak(a)blakjak.net> Date: Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 1:50 PM Subject: Re: [NZLUG] Fwd: [SECURITY] [DSA 3481-1] glibc security update To: NZ Linux Users Group <nzlug(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz> And just to illustrate that, CERT is compiling a list of vendor's position statements etc, it's quite a list already: https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/457759 On 18/02/2016 1:49 p.m., Mark Foster wrote: This is a widespread risk to pretty much every linux based system out there. I hope you're all aware of this one and taking action to patch or protect your systems. -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: [SECURITY] [DSA 3481-1] glibc security update Resent-Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 14:18:54 +0000 (UTC) Resent-From: debian-security-announce(a)lists.debian.org Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 14:18:27 +0000 From: Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil(a)debian.org> Reply-To: debian-security(a)lists.debian.org To: debian-security-announce(a)lists.debian.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debian Security Advisory DSA-3481-1 security(a)debian.org https://www.debian.org/security/ Florian Weimer February 16, 2016 https://www.debian.org/security/faq - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Package : glibc CVE ID : CVE-2015-7547 CVE-2015-8776 CVE-2015-8778 CVE-2015-8779 Debian Bug : 812441 812445 812455 Several vulnerabilities have been fixed in the GNU C Library, glibc. The first vulnerability listed below is considered to have critical impact. CVE-2015-7547 The Google Security Team and Red Hat discovered that the glibc host name resolver function, getaddrinfo, when processing AF_UNSPEC queries (for dual A/AAAA lookups), could mismanage its internal buffers, leading to a stack-based buffer overflow and arbitrary code execution. This vulnerability affects most applications which perform host name resolution using getaddrinfo, including system services. CVE-2015-8776 Adam Nielsen discovered that if an invalid separated time value is passed to strftime, the strftime function could crash or leak information. Applications normally pass only valid time information to strftime; no affected applications are known. CVE-2015-8778 Szabolcs Nagy reported that the rarely-used hcreate and hcreate_r functions did not check the size argument properly, leading to a crash (denial of service) for certain arguments. No impacted applications are known at this time. CVE-2015-8779 The catopen function contains several unbound stack allocations (stack overflows), causing it the crash the process (denial of service). No applications where this issue has a security impact are currently known. While it is only necessary to ensure that all processes are not using the old glibc anymore, it is recommended to reboot the machines after applying the security upgrade. For the stable distribution (jessie), these problems have been fixed in version 2.19-18+deb8u3. For the unstable distribution (sid), these problems will be fixed in version 2.21-8. We recommend that you upgrade your glibc packages. Further information about Debian Security Advisories, how to apply these updates to your system and frequently asked questions can be found at: https://www.debian.org/security/ Mailing list: debian-security-announce(a)lists.debian.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJWwy2KAAoJEAVMuPMTQ89EIIIP/1Sa7Mlc0xJ0b4v5QFf1UL1N zLPxw/JXbExR1sX9RUt8mCzdOoz5rcwaR8yyvGZS0A+NwtSgLr3sNKweMrrf3yaH Ul7vziRfgcNjnWdN5+aeHp+lIUEIgCbT6JJVqt/lfXO8/vo23V2EZKVTtnNt7oR6 FmhSW73+jt8v9qxdHVDhE0ivXhs7Neeo7oLfolAX9n+ZFjRhT68ERRTyPaq3dnfS PdDLdnn5V+g+3y9zjurGNvmSp7OcOq7aKclEFtQBoEF6ZFmqhUYkuOmAkhlQlMMX nJGqZYrY2pgz1pHZZXJGY31WIYDaYR0cSIoe/c49ejT+Kug9IMLBMruvwAglX+gd IAFflJ8Iar9StiPwMz3HloLbNT1vVCvlvdbEJiMrgpTMRUyacG6GfHVid2tso+n7 ZpWnxI2B62lwJU/Jq2yxRkIVtGs9go7lvGEmUs/T4Pl87otULBAfGD0xXtt2vY+A hrEbjCgNMrbrjiCdm/w2MW+hLwiXgRn617Q7w9e5gWnSjIEpybrrwKAR1QsDxxNM zwjgwQdTEivJ5dtXQdwkHg+2ba1/gqKqMU9b0rlBf/YF0e73I/FTaDu1nEgOX4En kq6ZwrPBlptv0kCR0EtyX6xmt4Q3j8tF1IwPyEwfiyPKcN0cxuk7LLILc7ewPnGU pPKkk9EqhPWAP7+Ufo9p =lzjt -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ NZLUG mailing list NZLUG(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz http://lists.nzoss.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/nzlug _______________________________________________ NZLUG mailing list NZLUG(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz http://lists.nzoss.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/nzlug -- 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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Chrome OS distro for regular PCs can now dual-boot with Windows
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '16

18 Feb '16

"Today, Neverware announced a new version of CloudReady aimed at schools and individuals who want to try the software on their PCs without losing the capability to run Windows. CloudReady version 45.3 can be installed on any system with an existing UEFI-mode installation of Windows 7, 8, or 10 and 32GB of free disk space. You can find detailed installation directions on Neverware's site." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/02/chrome-os-distro-for-regular-pcs-can… 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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Apple Being Ordered To Help Break Into San Bernardino Shooter’s Phone
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Feb '16

17 Feb '16

It is being widely reported in the news that a judge has told Apple to give investigators access to encrypted data on an Iphone belonging to one of the perpetrators in the San Bernardino shooting case. Current versions of IOS do not allow Apple to break this encryption. However, it seems Apple is actually being asked to help bypass the feature that autowipes the phone after 10 failed attempts to enter the decryption key, thereby allowing the key to be broken by brute force. This feature is supposed to be under the control of the owner of the phone, not Apple. But what Apple can give, it can take away. It may be possible that Apple could load a software update (perhaps a temporary one) into the phone to override control of this feature. <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160216/17393733617/no-judge-did-not-jus… backdoor.shtml>

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Backblaze Report On Hard Drive Failures In 2015
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Feb '16

17 Feb '16

Backblaze has posted another report on the reliability of their hard drives <https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-q4-2015/>. As pointed out in the Ars Technica analysis <http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/hgst-hard-disks-still…>, HGST is owned by WD, so WD is simultaneously responsible for the most and least reliable brands of drives in the report. An overall statistic of 6% failure rate per year seems a reasonable conclusion. Also it seems like 3-4TB is still the sweet spot.

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WLUG meeting next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 17 Feb '16

17 Feb '16

Hi everyone We have a meeting coming up next Monday: "Peter Reutemann will demo Alpine Linux, a security-oriented, lightweight Linux distribution based on musl libc and busybox. Discussion of March meeting: potential introduction to git version control, in conjunction with CS^3 student society from Computer Science. Discussion of meetup.com's new pricing strategy: going up from USD 12 per 6 months to USD 29.94 per 6 months. Feel like demoing another distro? Or some other great open-source tool (doesn't necessarily have to be Linux)? Then let me know." http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/228718557/ 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 Warnings In GCC 6
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Feb '16

16 Feb '16

Couple of interesting blog posts <https://gnu.wildebeest.org/blog/mjw/2016/02/15/looking-forward-to-gcc6-many…>, <https://gnu.wildebeest.org/blog/mjw/2016/01/09/looking-forward-to-gcc6-nice…> about new dubious-looking constructs that the GCC 6 C and C++ compilers can pick up. I particularly like the latter, which warns against a situation like the following: if (cond) statement_guarded_by_cond; statement_not_guarded_by_cond; /* though it may look like it is */ Of course, this only works in a language that allows the redundancy of having both bracketing symbols and indentation. This is why trying to get rid of one, and having the other do duty for both--is such a bad idea.

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UEFI aka Ooof!!y links - more than a lifetime to know
by Ian Young 13 Feb '16

13 Feb '16

Following a recent refererence to the dread Oofy at a LUG meeting and after looking at a couple of Intel PC type machines using this boot method I am pretty well totally baffled. The people of Arch however know it all. Or as much as can be known. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface#… I seem to have a vague recollection that Sun once used Ooofy. And Apple of course was an early adopter. Or am I thinking of Open Firmware? Somewhat related. Hmmm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware

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The Truth Behind “true”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 11 Feb '16

11 Feb '16

Among the many useful commands you will find as standard on any POSIX system is “true”. This command does absolutely nothing, but returns a successful exit status. (There is also “false”, which also does nothing, but always returns a failure status. If anyone is curious as to how you would make use of these in shell scripts, just ask.) This page <http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/humor/ATT_Copyright_true.html> gives the history of the “true” command from the original AT&T Unix--it was essentially a shell script that did absolutely nothing at all. Yet AT&T claimed copyright on it. This article <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/10/line_break_ep2/> includes, among its examples of supposedly bad code, the full source of the GNU “true” program (which actually also shares its source with the “false” program), which runs to 80 lines, as compared to the version from OpenBSD, which is just four lines (including a blank line and comments). But as pointed out in the previous link, the GNU version uses less memory and runs faster.

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San Francisco To Open-Source Its Voting Software
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 11 Feb '16

11 Feb '16

The San Francisco Elections Commission has resolved to “support the development and certification of an open source voting system running on commercial off-the-shelf hardware; and to request that the Mayor and Board of Supervisors initiate and fund a project to develop and certify such a system for use in San Francisco”. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/10/san_francisco_to_open_source_voting…> Contrast this with ongoing unsuccessful attempts to get access to the software used for Australian federal elections under its Freedom Of Information Act <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/13/aec_easycount_foi_decision/>: [Hobart lawyer Michael] Cordover sought the source code because Australia's 2013 election produced some irregularities. What software do we use in NZ?

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Docker Images To Be Based On Alpine Linux
by Peter Reutemann 07 Feb '16

07 Feb '16

"Docker container sizes continue a race to the bottom with a couple of environments weighing in at less than 10MB. Following on the heels of this week's story regarding small images based on Alpine Linux, it appears that the official Docker images will be moving from Debian/Ubuntu to Alpine Linux in the near future. How low will they go?" -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/02/06/0433228 Alpine Linux is rather small, coming in at 82MB as ISO download: http://www.alpinelinux.org/ Anybody feel like giving a demo at the next meeting? Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Open Source Pioneer Michael Tiemann On the Myth of the Average
by Peter Reutemann 03 Feb '16

03 Feb '16

'In a recent article, Michael Tiemann, one of the world's first open source entrepreneurs and VP of Open Source Affairs at Red Hat, highlights an example from the 1950s US Air Force where the "myth of the average resulted in a generation of planes that almost no pilots could reliably fly, and which killed as many as 17 pilots in a single day." He uses this example to argue that IT leaders who think that playing it safe means being as average as possible in order to avoid risks (i.e. "Buy what others are buying. Deploy what others are deploying. Manage what others are managing.") may be making IT procurement and strategy decisions based on flawed data. Instead, Tiemann says that IT leaders should understand elements of differentiation that are most valuable, and then adopt the standards that exploit them. "Don't aim for average: it may not exist. Aim for optimal, and use the power of open source to achieve what uniquely benefits your organization."' -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/16/02/03/177233 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 Hack Shrinks Docker Containers
by Peter Reutemann 03 Feb '16

03 Feb '16

'Promising "uber tiny Docker images for all the things," Iron.io has released a new library of base images for every major language optimized to be as small as possible by using only the required OS libraries and language dependencies. "By streamlining the cruft that is attached to the node images and installing only the essentials, they reduced the image from 644 MB to 29MB,"explains one technology reporter, noting this makes it quicker to download and distribute the image, and also more secure. "Less code/less programs in the container means less attack surface..." writes Travis Reeder, the co-founder of Iron.io, in a post on the company's blog. "Most people who start using Docker will use Docker's official repositories for their language of choice, but unfortunately if you use them, you'll end up with images the size of the Empire State Building..."' -- source: http://developers.slashdot.org/story/16/02/03/221231 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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Chromodo Browser Disables Key Web Security
by Peter Reutemann 03 Feb '16

03 Feb '16

"A Google Security Research update has claimed that Comodo's internet browser Chromodo, based on the open-source project Chromium, contains significant security failings and puts its users at risk. This week's Google alert suggested that the Chromodo browser – available as a standalone download, as well as part of the company's Security package – is less secure than it promises. According to analysis, the browser is disabling the Same Origin policy, hijacking DNS settings, and replacing shortcuts with Chromodo links, among other security violations." -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/16/02/03/1416236 NB: I know that the browser is for Windows, but you might know someone who's using it, blindly trusting the marketing of Comodo. Chromium builds are available here: https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel 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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Crypto flaw was so glaring it may be intentional eavesdropping backdoor
by Peter Reutemann 03 Feb '16

03 Feb '16

"Socat is a more feature-rich variant of the once widely used Netcat networking service for fixing bugs in network applications and for finding and exploiting security vulnerabilities. One of its features allows data to be transmitted through an encrypted channel to prevent it from being intercepted by people monitoring the traffic. Amazingly, when using the Diffie-Hellman method to establish a cryptographic key, Socat used a non-prime parameter to negotiate the key, an omission that violates one of the most basic cryptographic principles." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/02/crypto-flaw-was-so-glaring-it-may-b… 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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Fwd: [NZOSS OpenChat] TPPA appears to compromise NZ data sovereignty
by Peter Reutemann 02 Feb '16

02 Feb '16

Apologies for cross-posting. Cheers, Peter ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dave Lane <president(a)nzoss.org.nz> Date: Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 10:22 AM Subject: [NZOSS OpenChat] TPPA appears to compromise NZ data sovereignty To: NZOSS Open Chat List <openchat(a)groups.nzoss.org.nz> Hi all, Thanks to Grant Paton-Simpson for bringing clause 14.13.2 of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement to my attention... I've just written a quick post to explain the potential implications of it, as I see it: https://nzoss.org.nz/content/tppa-compromises-nz-data-sovereignty Any comments or corrections (or alternative interpretations) to the article would be appreciated. If you think it is a cause for concern, I encourage you to promote it, particularly among those who will understand the implications. The TPPA is slated for signing tomorrow. We need to make a BIG stink about this very unfortunate turn of events. Cheers, Dave -- Dave Lane, President, New Zealand Open Source Society e: president(a)nzoss.org.nz m: 021 229 8147 w: http://nzoss.org.nz ―― View topic http://groups.nzoss.org.nz/r/topic/7bw4I2juaLBbCQycHlZriA Leave group mailto:openchat(a)groups.nzoss.org.nz?subject=Unsubscribe Start groups https://OnlineGroups.net -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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The State Of Blender: “The Art Of Open Source”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Feb '16

02 Feb '16

An article <https://www.blender.org/media-exposure/the-art-of-open-source/> written for the November 2015 issue of “Linux Format” magazine covers the origins and increasing popularity of Blender. But more than popularity, it seems it is now (somewhat grudgingly) winning actual respect among 3D artists. Pixar even lists Blender as one of the packages it officially supports in the latest release of RenderMan. My main beef with the article is the writer keeps saying “commercial” when he means “proprietary”, seemingly reserving the use of “proprietary” for when he means “in-house”. If you don’t think Blender can be “commercial”, just look at some of its users mentioned in the article. A quote from one of those users: “In 10 years of using proprietary 3D software, we never received usable support from either software vendor or reseller – except on problems with registering our licences.”

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Classic Linux Joke Even Less Funny Than Previously Thought
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Feb '16

02 Feb '16

On some UEFI-based systems, the old “rm -rf /” trick for destroying your system may do more than annihilate your software installation, it may also brick your machine. This is because it is possible to mount a virtual kernel filesystem that gives access to persistent UEFI configuration data read/write, and deleting this data makes it impossible for your machine to boot. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/02/delete_efivars_linux/>

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Towards A Ten-Million-Core Supercomputer
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Feb '16

02 Feb '16

Europe’s ExaNeSt project is putting together a small prototype of what will eventually be a supercomputer with 10 million ARM cores. Why ARM? Because the performance bottleneck in a super is not the CPUs, but the interconnect between them. So it makes sense to use more power-efficient cores to keep the overall cost down. The main cost of running a super, or indeed any massively-multiprocessor installation (data centre, cloud service, render farm etc) is the electricity bill. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/02/buddy_can_you_spare_ten_meeelion_ar…>

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Using IPv6 with Linux? You’ve likely been visited by Shodan and other scanners
by Peter Reutemann 02 Feb '16

02 Feb '16

"One of the benefits of the next-generation Internet protocol known as IPv6 is the enhanced privacy it offers over its IPv4 predecessor. With a staggering 2128 (or about 3.4×1038) theoretical addresses available, its IP pool is immune to the types of systematic scans that criminal hackers and researchers routinely perform to locate vulnerable devices and networks with IPv4 addresses. What's more, IPv6 addresses can contain regularly changing, partially randomized extensions. Together, the IPv6 features cloak devices in a quasi anonymity that's not possible with IPv4. Now, network administrators have discovered a clever way that scanners are piercing the IPv6 cloak of obscurity. By setting up an IPv6-based network time protocol service most Internet-connected devices rely on to keep their internal clocks accurate, the operators can harvest huge numbers of IPv6 addresses that would otherwise remain unknown. The server operators can then scan hundreds or thousands of ports attached to each address to identify publicly available surveillance cameras, unpatched servers, and similar vulnerabilities." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/02/using-ipv6-with-linux-youve-likely-… 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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Bloat: How and Why UNIX Grew Up (and Out)
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 31 Jan '16

31 Jan '16

The original versions of common utilities like “cat”, “grep” and “ls” on V6 Unix from 1976 could measure their disk and RAM usage in bytes in just five figures. A few decades later, and the corresponding programs on a modern Linux distro are orders of magnitude larger. Why? Here is a detailed (and technical) analysis from the 2012 Linux.conf.au <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbv9L-WIu0s> which takes you step by step through all the contributions to the difference. They isolated most of these by modifying the code, selectively taking out features, and building it in different ways. Conclusion: you may call it “bloat”, but if you want a modern system, it’s pretty much unavoidable.

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High-severity bug in OpenSSL allows attackers to decrypt HTTPS traffic
by Peter Reutemann 28 Jan '16

28 Jan '16

"Maintainers of the OpenSSL cryptographic code library have fixed a high-severity vulnerability that made it possible for attackers to obtain the key that decrypts communications secured in HTTPS and other transport layer security channels. While the potential impact is high, the vulnerability can be exploited only when a variety of conditions are met. First, it's present only in OpenSSL version 1.0.2. Applications that rely on it must use groups based on the digital signature algorithm to generate ephemeral keys based on the Diffie Hellman key exchange. By default, servers that do this will reuse the same private Diffie-Hellman exponent for the life of the server process, and that makes them vulnerable to the key-recovery attack. DSA-based Diffie-Hellman configurations that rely on a static Diffie-Hellman ciphersuite are also susceptible." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/01/high-severity-bug-in-openssl-allows… 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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What’s The Cheapest Wi-Fi Access Point?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 27 Jan '16

27 Jan '16

Someone has hacked a cheapie wireless SD card reader to turn it into a wi-fi access point running OpenWRT: <http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Zsun-WiFI-With-OpenWRT>. The most obvious thing it lacks is any kind of wired network port...

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Material for Monday's meeting
by Peter Reutemann 26 Jan '16

26 Jan '16

Hi everyone The material from Monday's meeting is now available from our github account: https://github.com/WLUG/meetings/tree/master/2016/2016-01-25 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 4.5 Adds Raspberry Pi 2 Support, AMD GPU Re-Clocking, Intel Kaby Lake
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jan '16

24 Jan '16

"Linux 4.5 is set to bring many new features across the kernel's 20 million line code-base. Among the new/improved features are Raspberry Pi 2 support, open-source Raspberry Pi 3D support, NVIDIA Tegra X1 / Jetson TX1 support, an open-source Vivante graphics driver, AMDGPU PowerPlay/re-clocking support, Intel Kaby Lake enablement, a Logitech racing wheel driver, improvements for handling suspended USB devices, new F2FS file-system features, and better Xbox One controller handling." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/01/24/1329206 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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Atom-Based JaguarBoard To Take On Raspberry Pi
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jan '16

24 Jan '16

"The tiny single-board PC movement that's leading the Internet of Things (IoT) market is largely dominated by ARM-based processors, and for good reason — they're cheap, low power and capable. However, what if you prefer to work with the x86 architecture? JaguarBoard looks strikingly similar to Raspberry Pi, which is arguably the most popular single-board mini PC. But unlike Raspberry Pi, JaguarBoard allows users to develop for x86, courtesy of its Intel Atom Z3735G (Bay Trail) foundation. The chip is a quad-core part clocked at 1.33GHz to 1.83GHz with 2MB of L2 cache, offering a fair amount of horsepower for IoT applications. In addition to an Atom processor, JaguarBoard also boasts 1GB of DDR3L memory, 16GB of eMMC storage, three USB 2.0 ports, 10/100M LAN port, HDMI 1.4 output, SDIO 3.0 socket, two COM ports, four GPIO pins, and audio ports. It's an interesting device that you could use strictly as a mini PC for general purpose computing, as an embedded system, a learning or research tool, or for whatever DIY projects you can conjure up." -- source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/01/24/1729241 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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Searching For Vulnerable Webcams
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Jan '16

23 Jan '16

Customers don’t understand and don’t care about the security of the devices they put online. And vendors are in no hurry to enlighten them, if it adds to costs and cuts profits. If anybody is in a position to intervene, it has to be a Government authority. <http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/01/how-to-search-the-internet-of-thing…>

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Linux Filesystems On Windows
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 Jan '16

22 Jan '16

Came across this <http://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoronix-articles/8468…> rather informative posting about different filesystems for cross-platform use. One interesting possibility is UDF (“Universal Disk Format”), which is how DVDs are usually formatted. It turns out it is useful not just for read-only media but read/write as well. There is widespread built-in support for it on Linux, OS X and Windows, albeit with some limitations in the proprietary OSes (as usual). It can even work on flash drives, though there may be some issues with the hardware layout being optimized for FAT32 or other antiquated filesystems. Alternatively, the article mentions a number of choices for accessing Linux filesystems on Windows: <http://www.fs-driver.org/> <http://uranus.chrysocome.net/linux/ext2ifs.htm> <http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/> <http://www.chrysocome.net/virtualvolumes> Disclaimer: I haven’t tried any of these.

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Command-Line Options For CUPS
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Jan '16

20 Jan '16

I was looking for some options to tweak scaling and positioning of images printed with the CUPS “lp” command. This page <http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/doc-1.5/options.html> lists various keywords that can be used with the “-o” option, in particular “natural-scaling”, “ppi” and “position”. You’ll notice that section has a large banner at the top saying “Not Supported on Mac OS X”. Which is slightly ironic, given that CUPS is owned by Apple. Anyway, the description of those options has disappeared from versions of that page for CUPS 1.6 and later, e.g. <http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/doc-1.6/options.html>, <http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/doc-2.1/options.html>. This even though I have CUPS 2.1.2 on my system, and the “position” option, for example, does seem to do something.

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Tracking Protection In Wi-Fi Networks Coming Soon To Linux
by Peter Reutemann 19 Jan '16

19 Jan '16

'Fedora contributor and NetworkManager developer Lubomir Rintel explains how your devices are being identified on a network by a unique number that most of us know by the name of MAC address. Same goes for mobile networking, as your laptop's or mobile phone's MAC address is, in most cases, broadcasted everywhere you go before you even attempt a connection to a wireless network. And that's a problem for your privacy. The solution? Randomization of the MAC address while scanning for Wi-Fi networks. Apple is already using this method on iOS 8 and later mobile operating systems, and so is Microsoft in Windows 10, so Linux users will ["likely"] get it in the upcoming NetworkManager 1.2 release.' -- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/01/19/1345210 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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