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Old Ubuntu Bug Lets Malicious Users Gain Sudo Access
by Peter Reutemann 30 Apr '15

30 Apr '15

"Users can change the system clock without authenticating It appears that there's a bug in Ubuntu distributions which lets malicious users locally exploit sudo and gain access to the user's account without knowing their password. The bug was submitted to Canonical's Launchpad back in September 2013 by user Mark Smith." -- source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/An-Old-Ubuntu-Bug-Lets-Malicious-Users-Gain-… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Hard Drive Failure Rates
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Apr '15

28 Apr '15

BackBlaze have been frequently posting notes on their experience with running large numbers of hard drives in their storage service. Some salient points: * “Enterprise” drives, while more expensive than “consumer” ones, are not significantly more reliable. (This has been borne out by other studies.) * Keep your drives running all the time, or switch them off when not in use? “Our vote is to keep them running.” * They do use SMART to keep an eye on their drives. Other studies I read reported that these only picked up a minority (around 30%) of failures, from which I concluded that SMART was not worth using. I suppose it’s different for these guys if it saves on costs to replace a drive *before* it actually starts reporting uncorrectable errors... <https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-stats-faq/>

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meeting tomorrow
by Peter Reutemann 27 Apr '15

27 Apr '15

Hi everyone We have a meeting tomorrow: "Due to the positive feedback on Baden Delamore's demonstration of Kali back in February, there will be a follow up to, delving deeper into the world of (in-)security." http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/221426689/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Debian 8 Jessie Released
by Peter Reutemann 26 Apr '15

26 Apr '15

"After almost 24 months of constant development, the Debian project is proud to present its new stable version 8 (code name Jessie), which will be supported for the next five years thanks to the combined work of the Debian Security team and the Debian Long Term Support team. (Release notes.) Jessie ships with a new default init system, systemd. The systemd suite provides features such as faster boot times, cgroups for services, and the possibility of isolating part of the services. The sysvinit init system is still available in Jessie. Screenshots and ascreencast are available." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/04/26/0322241 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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The March Of (In)Security
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 25 Apr '15

25 Apr '15

Bruce Schneier has said “Today's top-secret programs become tomorrow's PhD theses and the next day's hacker tools”. And not long after that, a graduate homework assignment. The NSA was desperate to prevent any exposure of its top-secret “QUANTUM” packet-injection technology. But all this effort was futile, because others had already invented the same thing, including China’s “Great Cannon”, which was used to attack GitHub recently. The only protection is end-to-end encryption. <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/04/the_further_dem.html>

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X2Go: An Open Source Remote Desktop Solution For Linux
by Peter Reutemann 23 Apr '15

23 Apr '15

"X2Go is an Open Source remote desktop application for GNU/Linux that uses NX technology protocol. The main difference between X2Go and other remote desktop applications is it provides secure standalone remote desktop sessions via SSH. So, each session connected using X2Go is strongly encrypted and safe. X2Go allows you mainly to connect to Linux systems from Linux, Windows, or Mac OS systems. Also, many clients can simultaneously connect and use single X2Go server. It comes with two components, namely X2Go server and X2Go client. X2Go server is a system that is being accessed from a client system. And, the X2Go is a system which can be used to access the X2Go server. This Client will be able to connect to X2Go server(s) and start, stop, resume and terminate (running) desktop sessions. X2Go Client stores different server connections and may automatically request authentication data from LDAP directories. Furthermore it can be used as fullscreen loginscreen (replacement for loginmanager like xdm)." -- source: http://www.unixmen.com/x2go-an-open-source-remote-desktop-solution-for-linu… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Lubuntu 15.04 released
by Peter Reutemann 23 Apr '15

23 Apr '15

'The developers of the Lubuntu distribution have announced the availability of Lubuntu15.04. Lubuntu is built using packages from the Ubuntu repositories and features the LXDE desktop. This release of Lubuntu offers nine months of support and focuses on minor bug fixes as the development team prepares the distribution for a switch to the newer LXQt desktop environment. "New Features in Lubuntu 15.04: General bug fix release as we prepare for LXQt; Many LXDE components have been updated with bug fix releases; An update of the artwork (more icons, theme update, more compatibilities." Lubuntu is available in two editions, one edition for most desktop computers and an "Alternative" edition for computers featuring less than 400MB of RAM.' -- source: http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=08906 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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8 Linux file managers to try
by Peter Reutemann 23 Apr '15

23 Apr '15

"One of the most common administrative tasks that end users and administrators alike need to perform is file management. Managing files can consume a major portion of your time. Locating files, determining which files and folders (directories) are taking the most disk space, deleting files, moving files, and simply opening files for use in an application are some of the most basic—yet frequent—tasks we do as computer users. File management programs are tools that are intended to streamline and simplify those necessary chores." -- source: http://opensource.com/business/15/4/eight-linux-file-managers My gripes with Caja (MATE's equivalent of Nautilus) is that it cannot handle lots of files in a directory. A directory containing 10s of thousands of files will bring the file browser to a stand still for several minutes. Midnight commander takes less than a second for the same directory. Krusader is pretty good as well, with 1-2 seconds. Nice thing about Krusader: both panels can have multiple tabs, making it quite versatile. Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Fedora 23 to Use Wayland and Python 3 by Default, Will Be Released in Fall 2015
by Peter Reutemann 23 Apr '15

23 Apr '15

"The Beta version of the forthcoming Fedora 22 Linux computer operating system was released on April 21, as reported by Softpedia, but it is time now to look at some of the features to be implemented in the next major release of the Red Hat-sponsored distribution, Fedora 23. Therefore, among the highlights announced for Fedora 23, we can mention that the next-generation Wayland display server will be used by default for the Workstation edition, which will most probably be built around the GNOME 3.18 desktop environment. Python 3 will also be used by default in the Workstation edition, and a Vagrant image will be provided for Fedora 23 Atomic Host and Cloud spins. The Vagrant boxes have been designed to be compatible with the Oracle VirtualBox and KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) virtualization software." -- source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Fedora-23-to-Use-Wayland-and-Python-3-by-Def… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Debian 8.0 “Jessie” To Be Released This Weekend
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Apr '15

23 Apr '15

Looks like the new version of Debian Stable is in imminent release... <http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Debian-Jessie-CD-Ready>

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Wi-Fi software security bug could leave Android, Windows, Linux open to attack
by Peter Reutemann 22 Apr '15

22 Apr '15

"In an e-mail today to the Open Source Software Security (oss-security) mailing list, the maintainer of wireless network client code used by Android, the Linux and BSD Unix operating systems, and Windows Wi-Fi device drivers sent an urgent fix to a flaw that could allow attackers to crash devices or even potentially inject malicious software into their memory. The flaw could allow these sorts of attacks via a malicious wireless peer-to-peer network name." -- source: http://bit.ly/1bjWGtn Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Development Activity In LibreOffice Versus OpenOffice
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 Apr '15

22 Apr '15

LWN has a comparison <http://lwn.net/Articles/637735/> of the relative health of the two main OpenOffice forks. Summary: in the last 4½ years, one project has done precisely two releases, while the other has managed over a dozen. In the last year, one has received contributions from just 16 developers, while the other has benefited from the work of around 16 times that number.

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meeting next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 21 Apr '15

21 Apr '15

Hi everyone We have a meeting coming up next Monday: "Due to the positive feedback on Baden Delamore's demonstration of Kali back in February, there will be a follow up to, delving deeper into the world of (in-)security." http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/221426689/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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NCR Unveils Android For ATMs
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Apr '15

16 Apr '15

NCR is offering an Android-based platform for operating cash machines, called “Kalpana”. Unlike the multiple gigabytes of RAM needed to run Windows, this one only needs a fraction of a gigabyte. The company is also claiming significantly lower maintenance costs. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/15/ncr_android_atm/> However, open-source or not, I’m still not convinced the question has been fully answered: what happens to devices running older versions once the vendor drops support?

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NVIDIA’s New Hardware Becoming “Open-Source-Unfriendly”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Apr '15

16 Apr '15

NVIDIA, in its desire to stop third parties making hacks to its firmware to enable higher-end features on lower-end hardware, is moving to requiring signed firmware on its newer cards. Some promises made to the Nouveau project (which is developing open-source drivers for NVIDIA cards) have yet to eventuate, leaving them unable to take advantage of features of these cards. <http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-Unfriendly-OSS-Ha…>

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Controversy Over KDBUS
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Apr '15

16 Apr '15

KDBUS is the in-kernel implementation of D-BUS, which is a core interprocess communication architecture used to build the GUI in every desktop Linux system today. Putting this code in the kernel provides performance improvements, as well as fixing many limitations that cannot be overcome by userspace-only code. After quite a few years of development, it looked like KDBUS was finally ready for merging into the Linux 4.1 kernel. However, controversy has now erupted. It seems from a look at few of the comments that they are objecting, not to the implementation, but to the protocol, which cannot be changed, otherwise it is no longer a drop-in replacement for D-BUS. <http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=KDBUS-Taking-Heat>

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Elementary OS Freya: A Complete List of Changes and New Features
by Peter Reutemann 15 Apr '15

15 Apr '15

"Based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and uses pantheon as the main desktop environment, Elementary OS freya delivers great new features, dozen of improvements, bugfixes, better documentation, updated applications from upstream, and many other goodies that will make your desktop a delight to use every day. Here’s everything you’ll find in the stable version of Elementary OS Freya." -- source: http://ubuntuportal.com/2015/04/elementary-os-freya.html Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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reading files from old applications
by Ian Young 15 Apr '15

15 Apr '15

When all else fails try strings :-) Man strings. The resulting output if any could need a bit of tidying up.I have tried this on the odd older MS Word file when there was no alternative, at least gives an idea of text content. Hmmm. Having said that, I see the fine manual says ' strings is mainly useful for determining the contents of non-text files.'

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The Document Liberation, one year after
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Apr '15

14 Apr '15

The Document Liberation is an offshoot of The Document Foundation (responsible for LibreOffice) to manage all the handling of proprietary/legacy document formats in a form that can be reused by other projects, not just LibreOffice. I like the name of the framework library they created: “librevenge”--the aim, of course, being to strike a blow against all the companies locking up users’ data in undocumented, proprietary formats which they then abandoned. For example, look at the support for Microsoft Works--anybody else even remember what that was? (Puts hand up.) It’s probably true to say that Open Source software now has better handling of many of these ancient formats than any current product from the companies that originally created those formats. <http://lwn.net/Articles/640198/>

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Linux 4.0 released
by Peter Reutemann 13 Apr '15

13 Apr '15

"So I decided to release 4.0 as per the normal schedule, because there really weren't any known issues, and while I'll be traveling during the end of the upcoming week due to a college visit, I'm hoping that won't affect the merge window very much. We'll see. Linux 4.0 was a pretty small release both in linux-next and in final size, although obviously "small" is all relative. It's still over 10k non-merge commits. But we've definitely had bigger releases (and judging by linux-next v4.1 is going to be one of the bigger ones)." -- source: http://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/linux-4.0-released.html Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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First Alpha of Public Sector Linux Deployment System
by Peter Reutemann 12 Apr '15

12 Apr '15

"SverigeLinux (SwedenLinux in Swedish) is a project financed by the Swedish Internet Fund that is developing a Linux deployment system for the public sector. It is based on DebianLAN and has just released its first public early alpha version. This 7 minute video shows how you can deploy up to 100 workstations with minimal Linux knowledge in under an hour, complete with DHCP, DNS and user data in LDAP, logins using Kerberos and centralized storage. The project has a home on GitHub and is looking for testers and developers. Don't worry, no Björgen Kjörgen; it's all in English." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/04/12/0354205 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Firefox disables “opportunistic encryption” to fix HTTPS-crippling bug
by Peter Reutemann 08 Apr '15

08 Apr '15

'The "opportunistic encryption" feature added to Firefox last week has been disabled to fix a critical security bug that allowed malicious websites to bypass HTTPS protections, Mozilla officials said.' -- source: http://goo.gl/qP5EJj Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Git This: World's Favorite Software Development Tool Turns 10
by Peter Reutemann 07 Apr '15

07 Apr '15

'Linux today is built faster than ever before. The latest data proves it. This is due to the distributed, global community of developers, IT managers and companies contributing to it every minute of every day. This massive collaboration is made possible with similarly distributed tools, tools like Git. Linus Torvalds 10 years ago today released Git after it was clear BitKeeper was no longer an option for the Linux community. He assessed other existing revision control systems and decided none would do. Ultimately, he decided he would just write a new one, so he went away for a weekend and came back with another hole in one. Most people know Linus created Linux, but many don’t know he is the mastermind behind what has become the most popular revision control system in software development today. If you ask him which is his crowning achievement, he’ll say “do I have to have just one?”' -- source: http://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/158-jim-zemlin/821847 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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New Firefox version says “might as well” to encrypting all Web traffic
by Peter Reutemann 01 Apr '15

01 Apr '15

"Developers of the Firefox browser have moved one step closer to an Internet that encrypts all the world's traffic with a new feature that can cryptographically protect connections even when servers don't support the HTTPS protocol." -- source: http://goo.gl/w7hwbR Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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VMware Being Sued For Infringing GPL
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Mar '15

28 Mar '15

As I understand it, an important part of VMware’s closed-source hypervisor depends on Linux device drivers to communicate with hardware. VMware implemented their own interface, compatible with the Linux one, in order to allow these drivers to work. However, in doing so, they appear to have copied a lot of GPL-licensed code from the actual Linux kernel. There are probably more subtleties to the lawsuit than that, but more details here: <http://lwn.net/Articles/635290/>.

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RaspEX - another Linux version for Raspberry Pi
by Ian Young 25 Mar '15

25 Mar '15

That man from Sweden has now put together a Linux version for the Pi. He wants money for it however. $7 US. http://raspex.exton.se/ News 150318 I have made a perfect (as I think) Linux ARM system for Raspberry Pi 2. I call it RaspEX. It is based on Debian Jessie (upcoming Debian 8), Ubuntu Vivid Vervet (upcoming Ubuntu 15.04) and Linaro (Open Source software for ARM SoCs). Why shall I use RaspEX? Eight Operating Systems are recommended by Raspberry.org. Among them Noobs, Raspbian (Debian Wheezy) and Snappy Ubuntu Core. RaspEX is faster, more useful and more fun to use. (In my opinion). How do I install RaspEX? Just like any other Raspberry system. I.e.: Unpack the downloaded ZIP file (raspex-ubuntu-15.04-armhf-923mb-150318.zip) and transfer the IMAGE file (raspex-ubuntu-15.04-armhf-3050mb-150318.img) to your Micro SD card of at least 8GB. http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Linux-Distributions/RaspEX-103737.shtml

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MIPS Wants To Join In The Fun
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 24 Mar '15

24 Mar '15

With all the huge popularity of ARM chips in mobile and embedded devices, Imagination Technologies (owner of the MIPS architecture) would like to remind us that the MIPS ecosystem shipped 800 million chips last year, making them the world’s number 2 CPU architecture. This article <http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/03/imagination-technologies-wants-to-ta…> reviews a reference tablet design running Firefox OS. Not impressive in itself, but hopefully a forerunner of things to come? And earlier they announced their CI20 development/hobbyist board <http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/02/mips-creator-ci20-released-interesti…>, clearly trying to take on the BeagleBoard and Raspberry π market.

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Tails 1.3.1 Is an Emergency Release to Patch Critical Security Issues in Tor Browser
by Peter Reutemann 23 Mar '15

23 Mar '15

"According to the release notes, Tails 1.3.1 is an emergency release that includes Tor Browser 4.0.5, based on the patched Mozilla Firefox 31.5.3 ESR web browser, fixing critical security issues disclosed at the Pwn2Own hacking contest. Tails 1.3.1 has now transitioned to an all-new OpenPGP signing key, which is currently used to sign the official ISO images of the distribution, as well as to certify other OpenPGP keys that are used by the project. More details can be found here." -- source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Tails-1-3-1-Is-an-Emergency-Release-to-Patch… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Meeting tomorrow
by Peter Reutemann 22 Mar '15

22 Mar '15

Hi everyone We have a meeting tomorrow: Andrew Crosby: Raspberry Pi 2 demo, what's new, what's hot. Michael Cree: BeagleBone demo, consisting of general introduction of the BeagleBone and on using it for interfacing with an inertial measurement unit (IMU). http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/220635633/ Cheers, Peter

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Fwd: [NZLUG] Document Freedom Day
by Peter Reutemann 20 Mar '15

20 Mar '15

Apologies, if you've received this already. Cheers, Peter ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Nicola Feltrin" <nicola.feltrin(a)fsfe.org> Date: Mar 20, 2015 9:33 PM Subject: [NZLUG] Document Freedom Day To: <nzlug(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz> Cc: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Dear Sirs/Madams, I'm writing to this address hoping to reach the largest possible number of New Zealand LUGs. If you feel I should contact your groups in any other way, please let me know. I'd like to bring to your attention the impending Document Freedom Day [1]. As you may know, the last Wednesday of March (this year it is the 25th), people around the world organize events to raise awareness over Open Standards, expressing how much these matter to them. If you think we should push more and more people towards the adoption of Open Standards, you could propose to organize something within your community. We support events of any size, from a chat with your friends at the local coffee house (or pub) to proper conferences. You can look at the "get involved" page [2] to get some inspiration and more detailed information. If you decide to do something, keep in mind that we offer some free [3] promotional material (posters, leaflets, flyers, stickers...) [4]. In addition we'd like to support local groups on the financial level by offering a refund for your expenses [5]. Finally, don't forget to register your event [6], so that anyone can see that Open Standards matter all around the globe. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly or the FSFE through the conventional channels [7]. Thank you for your time and best wishes for all your activities, Nicola Feltrin [1] http://documentfreedom.org/ [2] http://documentfreedom.org/getinvolved.html [3] both as in freedom and as in free beer [4] http://documentfreedom.org/promotion.html - Keep in mind that the pack has to travel from Germany to you by postal service, so be sure to order in time... [5] http://documentfreedom.org/funding-expenses.html - There was a deadline fixed at 11/3, but we can still offer refunds if needed [6] http://documentfreedom.org/registerevent.html [7] http://documentfreedom.org/contact.html - -- Nicola Feltrin Free Software Foundation Europe Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin tel. +49-30-27595290, mob. +49-152-04682063 Your donation enables our work (fsfe.org/donate) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux) iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJVBuuCAAoJEDh/5ZfdTAopHWwP/iPERUsgeZYat0CBEevp76Q6 za9XM5zTpthG3mgRxC7tybcsxkINA+iNF0e/JHS4Ricmj7fqOGxOGLt8wSIW0Vsv +QznECV91L+5YTHQuHnmtTu/3b7lyUOHB3KJRfcPzwuiasZrlMibfMJD5u9wi9sq NfpfQNd0br3QbHvhuaLjtQlxwTjeJSDlJslCxgHi5MLHjQqkxL7tKBZ74f4xgLTA Qg4ryQvI3u09mA2gqhMpybxT2qpGXsVwO+e8q5YgILhYmrrNb7fRW2Y3uG5OVwP8 3BcJwOkGZWZ2Pg0DWpAvPGR5WRSfa9HpM+c8+fIzklroSqehJ5R6yzVFRipYl4+g QoYsIrXMHxSUxs/mucaYPaD5LfdmBVj6nHZ0sIfSFFCA8Vv7pZ7aM6DcybWOb+go pKImh3yfn67X5EsQEQAlEFPq0M7wlF3cwz72QKHe3Epju38KsCjdjDrQbYjigQ9B o8KYnZBLqFEbeEi4f6s+zS1/MIyaoQ0SB4dWtUoWR9pzFJ4Nrb7daNlASo6+tg7W k4Eyk6cej5AjP+nkbV2qGSv7+W/oLavvTzln7Pe9yVn9KEFjoNvRULMwrwgjFs9M C0O4IjQOawHG43md868QZGxKx4WgY8Ys6GJ2tchCNsp8c2oozdfY+gY3o8KULzdC 8GtOlviTzgym8SXEKIJp =GOiP -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ NZLUG mailing list NZLUG(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz http://lists.nzoss.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

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Discarding data to /dev/random instead of /dev/null
by Eric Light 20 Mar '15

20 Mar '15

I just happened across this article, recommending that discardable output be redirected to /dev/random instead of just thrown into /dev/null https://pthree.org/2014/12/07/use-dev-random-instead-of-dev-null/ Looks interesting - keen to hear other thoughts. Eric -------------------------------------------- Q: Why is this email five sentences or less? A: http://five.sentenc.es

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Dell Linux Laptop With 4K Screen
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 18 Mar '15

18 Mar '15

For US$100 less than the Windows version, you can get the Dell M3800 Developer Edition “workstation” laptop with Ubuntu 14.04. The desktop works nicely on the 3840×2160 15.6” screen, but app support is a bit mixed <http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/03/review-dell-m3800-developer-edition-…>.

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meeting next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 16 Mar '15

16 Mar '15

Hi everyone We have a meeting next Monday: Andrew Crosby: Raspberry Pi 2 demo, what's new, what's hot. Michael Cree: BeagleBone demo, consisting of general introduction of the BeagleBone and on using it for interfacing with an inertial measurement unit (IMU). http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/220635633/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Silicon Graphics workstation
by David Nicholls 15 Mar '15

15 Mar '15

I happen to have a silicone graphics irix indego workstation still in working order as far as I know if anyone wants it. I've had it for some time but never had a chance to play as I intended. I have the O/S disk and other bits let me know if you are interested.

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Android for tweakers, USB-C
by Ian Young 14 Mar '15

14 Mar '15

Someone on the internet said, "The advantage of Android is that you are free to tweak everything to your liking. The disadvantage is that you have to." There was some sort of comparison with the Apple enclosed garden going on. Experiments with the v5 Android live CD from exton continue. Seems picky about hardware, more so than the Kitkat from android-x86 project. Meanwhile the release of a new Apple lightweight laptop reveals the existence of USB-C. Say what? http://www.wired.com/2015/03/usb-type-c-faq/ Coming to a device near you soon now apparently. Oh dear, so hard to keep up.

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Google to close Google Code open source project hosting
by Peter Reutemann 13 Mar '15

13 Mar '15

"Google Code is to join the long list of Google projects that have been consigned to the dustbin of history. The open source project hosting service will no longer be accepting new project submissionsas of today, will no longer be accepting updates to existing projects from August 24, and will be closed entirely on January 25, 2016." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/03/google-to-close-googl… Well, there goes another free service... Now I have to move my remaining projects over to github. Grr... Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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OpenSSL To Undergo Massive Security Audit
by Peter Reutemann 12 Mar '15

12 Mar '15

"Now that its codebase is finally viewed as stable, OpenSSL is getting a good top-to-bottom once-over in the form of a sweeping audit. As part of the Linux Foundation's Core Infrastructure Initiative, the foundation and the Open Crypto Audit Project are sponsoring and organizing what may arguably be the highest-profile audit of a piece of open-source software in history. The audit itself will be conducted by the information assurance organization NCC Group, and its security research arm, Cryptography Services, will carry out the code review of OpenSSL's 447,247 line codebase over the next several months." -- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/03/12/1928259 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Linux Kernel Adopts 'Code of Conflict'
by Peter Reutemann 11 Mar '15

11 Mar '15

'Motor was one of several readers to note that a small patch recently added to the Linux kernel contains guidelines for discourse and dispute resolution within the community. It's called the "Code of Conflict."' -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/03/10/237257 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Cutting-edge hack gives super user status by exploiting DRAM weakness
by Peter Reutemann 10 Mar '15

10 Mar '15

"In one of more impressive hacks in recent memory, researchers have devised an attack that exploits physical weaknesses in certain types of DDR memory chips to elevate the system rights of untrusted users of Intel-compatible PCs running Linux." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/03/cutting-edge-hack-gives-super-user-… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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How to create a full backup of your Android device without root
by Peter Reutemann 10 Mar '15

10 Mar '15

"Sometimes, a backup of a smartphone or tablet just isn't enough, especially if you have a number of (the same) devices that have to be quickly deployed (or redeployed). For that, you need a bit more power than Titanium Backup or Google Drive. If you want to do full-blown backup of devices, you must turn to the Android Software Developer Kit (SDK). With this powerhouse tool, you can easily create a complete backup of a device with a single command." -- source: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-create-a-full-backup-of-your-and… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Android v5 live CD version from Sweden
by Ian Young 08 Mar '15

08 Mar '15

A live CD of Android 5.0.2 by a gentleman named Arne Exton who seems to have a passion for running up pimped out versions of sundry distros. Looks like he also plays golf. Not yet run by me. Arne's work sometimes has quirks, he is a one man band afaik and comes up with something new at least fortnightly. AndEX (Android) x86 5.0.2 Lollipop Live CD with kernel 3.10.58-exton-android-x86 :: Free Download https://extonlinux.wordpress.com/ -- currently at top of this page. http://andex.exton.net/?page_id=13

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You Thought PC Security Was Bad...
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Mar '15

06 Mar '15

To those still reeling from Baden’s presentation on cracking PC security, there’s worse to come. At least PC OSes do get some patching. But think of all the other devices around your home which have the core of a computer running something resembling an operating system on them which might be many years out of date (even on a newer device!). But the vendor can’t be bothered to provide fixes for any security holes which may be discovered. And even if they did, most of the buyers of these devices wouldn’t even know patches were available. Case in point: wireless routers, which are so full of unpatched holes that it’s actually unusual to find a reasonably secure one <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/05/broadband_routers_sohopeless_and_ve…>.

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Red Hat Strips Down For Docker
by Peter Reutemann 06 Mar '15

06 Mar '15

"Reacting to the surging popularity of the Docker virtualization technology, Red Hat has customized a version of its Linux distribution to run Docker containers. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host strips away all the utilities residing in the stock distribution of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that aren't needed to run Docker containers. Removing unneeded components saves on storage space, and reduces the time needed for updating and booting up. It also provides fewer potential entry points for attackers." -- source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/03/05/2240245 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Software Freedom Conservancy Funds GPL Suit Against VMWare
by Peter Reutemann 05 Mar '15

05 Mar '15

"Jeremy Allison - Sam writes with this excerpt from a news release from the Software Freedom Conservancy: Software Freedom Conservancy announces today Christoph Hellwig's lawsuit against VMware in the district court of Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany. This is the regretful but necessary next step in both Hellwig and Conservancy's ongoing effort to convince VMware to comply properly with the terms of the GPLv2, the license of Linux and many other Open Source and Free Software included in VMware's ESXi products. Serge Wroclawski points out the SFC's technical FAQ about the suit. One nugget: This case is specifically regarding a combined work that VMware allegedly created by combining their own code (“vmkernel”) with portions of Linux's code, which was licensed only under GPLv2. As such, this, to our knowledge, marks the first time an enforcement case is exclusively focused on this type of legal question relating to GPL" -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/03/05/1721231 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Pulling Remote Word Documents from RAM using Kali Linux
by Peter Reutemann 05 Mar '15

05 Mar '15

With the Kali demo at last month's meeting in mind, I just came across this post here and I thought people might be interested in this: "In this tutorial we will see how to pull a Word document from a remote machine’s memory, parse it for text and view it in Kali Linux." -- sources: http://www.linuxtoday.com/security/pulling-remote-word-documents-from-ram-u… https://cyberarms.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/pulling-remote-word-documents-fr… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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FREAK Attack Threatens SSL Clients
by Peter Reutemann 04 Mar '15

04 Mar '15

"For the nth time in the last couple of years, security experts are warning about a new Internet-scale vulnerability, this time in some popular SSL clients. The flaw allows an attacker to force clients to downgrade to weakened ciphers and break their supposedly encrypted communications through a man-in-the-middle attack. Researchers recently discovered that some SSL clients, including OpenSSL, will accept weak RSA keys–known as export-grade keys–without asking for those keys. Export-grade refers to 512-bit RSA keys, the key strength that was approved by the United States government for export overseas. This was an artifact from decades ago and it was thought that most servers and clients had long ago abandoned such weak ciphers. The vulnerability affects a variety of clients, most notably Apple's Safari browser." -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/15/03/03/2036241 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Linux and Multiple Internet Uplinks: a New Tool
by Peter Reutemann 04 Mar '15

04 Mar '15

"Linux has been able do multipath routing for a long time: it means being able to have routes with multiple gateways and to use them in a (weighted) round-robin fashion. But Linux is missing a tool to actively monitor the state of internet uplinks and change the routing accordingly. Without it, from a LAN perspective, it's like having a RAID-0: just one uplink goes down and all of your LAN-to-WAN traffic goes down too. Documentation and examples on the subject are lacking; existing solutions are few and deeply integrated in firewall/routing specific distributions. To address these issues, a new standalone tool was just released: Fault Tolerant Router. It also includes a complete (iptables + ip policy routing) configuration generator." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/03/03/1910206 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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A Tale Of Two Standards
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 03 Mar '15

03 Mar '15

Came across this article from a decade ago <https://www.samba.org/samba/news/articles/low_point/tale_two_stds_os2.html> about the evolution of the POSIX and Win32 standards from the viewpoint of a veteran who earned his scars in the trenches. While POSIX got one or two things spectacularly wrong (e.g. the disaster that is file locking), it got a lot of things right (e.g. abstracting data types for file offsets/sizes, timestamps etc). Wonder why WINE has taken so long to get to where it is? It’s because nobody can be quite sure they have flushed out every last wrinkle of the behaviour of every Win32 API call.

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Xfce 4.12 Released
by Peter Reutemann 01 Mar '15

01 Mar '15

"After two years of hard work (and much to the dismay of naysayers who worried the project has been abandoned), the Xfce team has announced the release of Xfce 4.12. Highlights include improvements to the window switcher dialog, intelligent hiding of the panel, new wallpaper settings, better multi-monitor support, improved power settings, additions to the file manager, and a revamped task manager. Here is a quick tour, the full changelog, and the download page. I have been running it since Xubuntu 15.04 beta 1 was released two days ago. It is much improved over 4.10, and the new additions are great." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/03/01/0558259 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Android-x86 -- the story continues
by Ian Young 24 Feb '15

24 Feb '15

Who knew? Android doesn't play nicely with a 2nd display. However investigation continues. Some say the internal display should be turned off, before the outside screen will go. Watch this space. Meanwhile some may like to read an interview with English as not the primary language featuring Chih-Wei Huang, main man of Android-x86. Snip > Why Android-x86? Runs on PC(x86). Original Android runs on ARM. Android - Teoreticaly could run on every present and future device, PS4 and Xbox one included (in pure theory). Is everytime better develop for only one OS (even with some platform differences), that for bunch of them. Mac OS or iOS are too closed and fixed on Apple device and its unlikely to change it. Linux market is realy fragmented and its development is relatively slow. Android - is without doubt OS with faster development speed and it counts. Android is open and free. Today, when i can buy good living room pc for 200$ i realy dont wan to pay next 100 bucks to Microsoft for crippled OEM licence, or 200$ for retail (HW independed licence) .... > How many of users know you think that tried Android-x86, at least through live distro and how many installed it into physical computer? Do you have some stats about usage? I don't have the stats and I don't really care about that. Just checked. The 4.4-RC1 release has 584,441 downloads and the 4.3-test release has 1,365,182 downloads. > Are you in contact with Google? Do you know why Google isn't developing Android-x86 for desktops itself? Is affair of Microsoft or something else? ChromeOS looks like duplicity. I have no official contact window of Google. But I have many friends in Google including the android team. I'll also contact Google android engineers directly for issues clarification or patches submission. I don't know Google's plan. But as you said, ChromeOS is probably the right one for its desktop roadmap. This is a common guess. < stop snipping http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RuthanielVandenNaar/20140612/219170/Current_…

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