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Review: MNT Reform laptop has fully open hardware and software—for better or worse
by Peter Reutemann 01 Feb '22

01 Feb '22

'If you’re a Linux fan or open source advocate looking for a decent laptop, you actually have some solid options right now—much better, at least, than buying a Windows laptop, installing Linux on it, and hoping for the best. Dell has offered Ubuntu editions of some of its XPS laptops and other PCs for years now, and Lenovo sells a respectable collection of desktops and laptops with Linux. System76 sells a selection of Linux-friendly laptops preloaded with Ubuntu or its own Pop!_OS distribution. The repair-friendly Framework Laptop doesn’t ship with Linux, but it can be configured without an OS, and Framework promises robust Linux support from multiple distributions. But those laptops all have something in common with run-of-the-mill Windows PCs: a reliance on closed-source hardware and, often, the proprietary software and drivers needed to make it function. For some people, this is a tolerable trade-off. You put up with the closed hardware because it performs well, and it supports the standard software, development tools, and APIs that keep the computing world spinning. For others, it’s anathema—if you can’t see the source code for these “binary blobs,” they are inherently untrustworthy and should be used sparingly or not at all. The MNT Reform is a laptop for the latter group. It's a crowdfunded, developed-in-the-open, extensively documented device that cares more about being open than it cares about literally any other aspect of the computing experience. Perhaps predictably, this makes for a laptop that is ideologically pure but functionally compromised.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/review-mnt-reform-laptop-has-fully-… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 (office) +64 (7) 577-5304 (home office) https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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GitHub Is Broken
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Jan '22

28 Jan '22

github.com is currently returning a server-error page.

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Only 90s Web Developers Remember This
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Jan '22

28 Jan '22

An only-slightly-tongue-in-cheek expletive-laden rant <https://zachholman.com/posts/only-90s-developers/> about how Web development used to be: the wonders of the 1×1 GIF (“To this day it is the only way to vertically center elements”) and the fun of “ ”, to the coming of JavaScript to create the “Technology of Terror”, DHTML (Dynamic HTML).

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A bug lurking for 12 years gives attackers root on most major Linux distros
by Peter Reutemann 27 Jan '22

27 Jan '22

'Linux users on Tuesday got a major dose of bad news—a 12-year-old vulnerability in a system tool called Polkit gives attackers unfettered root privileges on machines running most major distributions of the open source operating system. Previously called PolicyKit, Polkit manages system-wide privileges in Unix-like OSes. It provides a mechanism for nonprivileged processes to safely interact with privileged processes. It also allows users to execute commands with high privileges by using a component called pkexec, followed by the command.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/01/a-bug-lurking-for-12… I think, I saw an update coming through the other day... Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 (office) +64 (7) 577-5304 (home office) https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Fwd: [NZLUG] Fwd: [Linux-aus] Australia (and hopefully NZ) LUG meetings
by Peter Reutemann 26 Jan '22

26 Jan '22

Apologies for cross-posting, but this may be of interest to some of you. Cheers, Peter -------- Original Message -------- From: Mark Foster <blakjak(a)blakjak.net> Sent: January 26, 2022 9:12:30 PM GMT+13:00 To: NZ Linux Users Group <nzlug(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz>, russell(a)coker.com.au Subject: [NZLUG] Fwd: [Linux-aus] Australia (and hopefully NZ) LUG meetings There may be some interest in this initiative from the (now largely defunct, it seems) NZLUG mailing list.... Thanks to Russell for offering up this initiative and trying to make it accessible to New Zealanders as well as Australians. I myself am unlikely to be available but am forwarding this to NZLUG in case there's interest here. Cheers Mark (sometime NZLUG admin; there's still a mailing list with some people subscribed to it... so who knows? :)) -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: [Linux-aus] Australia (and hopefully NZ) LUG meetings Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 17:45:44 +1100 From: Russell Coker via linux-aus <linux-aus(a)lists.linux.org.au> Reply-To: russell(a)coker.com.au To: linux-aus(a)lists.linux.org.au https://etbe.coker.com.au/2022/01/26/australia-nz-linux-meetings/ I'm starting a new group for online meetings with the aim of giving benefits you can't get from watching YouTube etc. Details of how to connect etc will be available shortly. -- My Main Bloghttp://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Bloghttp://doc.coker.com.au/ _______________________________________________ linux-aus mailing list linux-aus(a)lists.linux.org.au http://lists.linux.org.au/mailman/listinfo/linux-aus To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to linux-aus-unsubscribe(a)lists.linux.org.au -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 (office) +64 (7) 577-5304 (home office) http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/.

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Who's Paying to Fix Open Source Software?
by Peter Reutemann 26 Jan '22

26 Jan '22

'The Log4Shell exploit "exposes how a vulnerability in a seemingly simple bit of infrastructure code can threaten the security of banks, tech companies, governments, and pretty much any other kind of organization," writes VentureBeat. But the incident also raises some questions: Should large deep-pocketed companies besides Google, which always seems to be heavily involved in such matters, be doing more to support the cause with people and resources? Long-time Slashdot reader frank_adrian314159 shares a related article from a programming author on Dev.To, who'd read hot takes like "Open source needs to grow the hell up." and "Open source' is broken". [T]he log4j developers had this massive security issue dumped in their laps, with the expectation that they were supposed to fix it. How did that happen? How did a group of smart, hard-working people get roped into a thankless, high-pressure situation with absolutely no upside for themselves...? It is this communal mythology I want to talk about, this great open source brainwashing that makes maintainers feel like they need to go above and beyond publishing source code under an open source license — that they need to manage and grow a community, accept contributions, fix issues, follow vulnerability disclosure best practices, and many other things... In reality what is happening, is that open source maintainers are effectively unpaid outsourcing teams for giant corporations. The log4j exploit was first reported by an engineer at Alibaba — a corporation with a market capitalization of $348 billion — so the article wonders what would happen if log4j's team had sent back a bill for the time they'd spend fixing the bug. Some additional opinions (via the "This Week in Programming" column): * PuTTY maintainer Andrew Ducker: "The internet (and many large companies) are dependent on software maintained by people in their spare time, for free. This may not be sustainable." * Filippo Valsorda, a Go team member at Google: "The role of Open Source maintainer has failed to mature from a hobby into a proper profession... The status quo is unsustainable.... GitHub Sponsors and Patreon are a nice way to show gratitude, but they are an extremely unserious compensation structure." Valsorda hopes to eventually see "a whole career path with an onramp for junior maintainers, including training, like a real profession."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/21/12/18/2016216 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 (office) +64 (7) 577-5304 (home office) http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Big Surprise Of The Week: Oracle’s Audit Process Is In Cahoots With Sales
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 Jan '22

26 Jan '22

As part of the licensing terms for certain (most?) Oracle products, you have to agree to be audited by the company, to ensure your usage does not exceed the licences you have bought. Such audits are notorious for regularly telling customers that what they thought was compliance with the licence was nothing of the sort, and that they had better hand over more money to make the problem go away. Oracle’s official position has always been that there is some kind of separation between the operations of the audit department and the sales department, so the auditing process was entirely impartial and under no pressure to increase company revenues. Now some ex-Oracle execs are publicly admitting this is a load of nonsense <https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/25/oracle_audits/>. I don’t think Oracle is unique in this. Lots of big software companies (including Microsoft, I believe) offer similar site-licensing of their products, with similar audit requirements. And likely similar outcomes when an audit actually takes place.

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SystemRescueCD is now just SystemRescue
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 25 Jan '22

25 Jan '22

Since (almost) nobody uses CDs any more, the handy bootable system-fixer Linux distro has dropped the “CD” from its name <https://www.system-rescue.org/>. The latest version, 9.00, is reviewed here <https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/24/systemrescue/>. Not sure what the benefit of the new in-kernel NTFS driver is, since the existing FUSE support works fine, and benchmarks I have seen seem to indicate that one is not unambiguously faster than the other. Seems SystemRescue is very popular with Windows users: “Windows gets its underwear in a twist relatively easily, and it's not generous with tools to fix it.” The writer also says “We would have quite liked to see some tools to help with a dead Linux box, too, though.” But the main (software) issue I get with Linux installations not booting is some screwup in the bootloader, and you can use the Linux installation itself to fix that, by chrooting into it from your SystemRescue boot.

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New MoonBounce UEFI Bootkit Can't Be Removed by Replacing the Hard Drive
by Peter Reutemann 25 Jan '22

25 Jan '22

'Security researchers from Kaspersky said they have discovered a novel bootkit that can infect a computer's UEFI firmware. From a report: What makes MoonBounce -- the name they gave the bootkit -- special is the fact that the malware doesn't burrow and hide inside a section of the hard drive named ESP (EFI System Partition), where some UEFI code typically resides, but instead it infects the SPI flaws memory that is found on the motherboard. This means that, unlike similar bootkits, defenders can't reinstall the operating system and replace the hard drive, as the bootkit will continue to remain on the infected device until the SPI memory is re-flashed (a very complex process) or the motherboard is replaced. According to Kaspersky, MoonBounce marks the third UEFI bootkit they have seen so far that can infect and live inside the SPI memory, following previous cases such as LoJax and MosaicRegressor. Furthermore, MoonBounce's discovery also comes after researchers have also found additional UEFI bootkits in recent months, such as ESPectre, FinSpy's UEFI bootkit, and others, which has led the Kaspersky team to conclude that what was once considered unachievable following the rollout of the UEFI standard has gradually become the norm.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/22/01/24/1815234 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 (office) +64 (7) 577-5304 (home office) https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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AGM next week
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jan '22

24 Jan '22

Hi everyone We have our AGM coming up on Monday next week, with the following agenda: - President's Report - Treasurer's Report - Election of 2022 Committee - General business - Consumption of pizza (if applicable) However, I'm not sure whether we have a meeting room, as I'm still waiting on the confirmation whether we get our room sponsored or not for the year (head of CMS was on holiday till today). And if we should get it sponsored, then I need to sort out the room booking (which will take time, too). Worst case scenario: it will be an online only one via BigBlueButton. Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 (office) +64 (7) 577-5304 (home office) https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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