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Critical bugs in dozens of Zyxel and Lilin IoT models under active exploit
by Peter Reutemann 22 Mar '20

22 Mar '20

'Criminals are exploiting critical flaws to corral Internet-of-things devices from two different manufacturers into botnets that wage distributed denial-of-service attacks, researchers said this week. Both DVRs from Lilin and storage devices from Zyxel are affected, and users should install updates as soon as possible. Multiple attack groups are exploiting the Lilin DVR vulnerability to conscript them into DDoS botnets known as FBot, Chalubo, and Moobot, researchers from security firm Qihoo 360 said on Friday. The latter two botnets are spinoffs of Mirai, the botnet that used hundreds of thousand of IoT devices to bombard sites with record-setting amounts of junk traffic. The DVR vulnerability stems from three flaws that allow attackers to remotely inject malicious commands into the device. The bugs are: (1) hard-coded login credentials present in the device, (2) command-injection flaws, and (3) arbitrary file reading weaknesses. The injected parameters affect the device capabilities for file transfer protocol, network time protocol, and the update mechanism for network time protocol.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/lilin-dvrs-and-zyxel… 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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Using Employer’s Proprietary Software From Home? It’ll Cost You
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 21 Mar '20

21 Mar '20

Never mind the security pitfalls of employees working from home, now there are additional licensing headaches to worry about as well, with proprietary software <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/20/surge_in_home_working/>: ... some vendors have curious rules about remote access to their applications that incur additional fees. Rich Gibbons, a licensing trainer at IT Asset Management (ITAM), noted that Citrix and/or Remote Desktop Services are "the easiest way to quickly become non-compliant with a LOT of vendors." ... Security is one thing, but in the midst of a global pandemic, does anyone care about licensing? "You're not going to get audited right now," Gibbons told The Reg. "But in six months or whenever this is over, you need to know what you've done."

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Open-Source Project Spins Up 3D-Printed Ventilator Validation Prototype In Just One Week
by Peter Reutemann 20 Mar '20

20 Mar '20

'In a great example of what can happen when smart, technically-oriented people come together in a time of need, an open-source hardware project started by a group including Irish entrepreneur Colin Keogh and Breeze Automation CEO and co-founder Gui Calavanti has produced a prototype ventilator using 3D-printed parts and readily available, inexpensive material. The ventilator prototype was designed and produced in just seven days, after the project spun up on Facebook and attracted participation from over 300 engineers, medical professionals and researchers. The prototype will now enter into a validation process by the Irish Health Services Executive (HSE), the country's health regulatory body. This will technically only validate it for use in Ireland, which ironically looks relatively well-stocked for ventilator hardware, but it will be a key stamp of approval that could pave the way for its deployment across countries where there are shortages, including low-income nations. The group behind the ventilator also recently changed the focus of their Facebook community, renaming the group from the Open Source Ventilator Project to the Open Source COVID19 Medical Supplies community. They're looking at expanding their focus to finding ways to cheaply and effectively build and validate other needed equipment, including protective gear like masks, sanitizer and protective face guards for front-line healthcare workers.' -- source: https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/03/19/2047232 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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Samba and the French Government
by Peter Reutemann 20 Mar '20

20 Mar '20

>From the Catalyst March newsletter: 'For many years, several French Ministries have entrusted Samba with the role of authentication for Windows desktop machines - using Samba's Domain Controller capability. As modern versions of Windows began phasing out the NT4 Domain Control protocols, it became imperative for the French Ministries to upgrade to Active Directory. Thanks to the long-standing success they had had with Samba, the Ministries were keen to continue to use Samba, this time as an Active Directory (AD) Domain Controller (DC). However, the French Ministries faced a problem: the new AD domains would need to be combined so that a single domain serves a whole ministry, not just a single site. This meant that Samba needed to upscale. Samba was successfully operating in the smaller ministries of the French Government, however, scaling from a thousand users up to 100,000 users for the ministry of Finance was a new challenge that required Catalyst's Samba experts.' -- source: https://www.catalyst.net.nz/client-work/samba-and-french-government Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Windows Subsystem for Linux is making inroads with developers
by Peter Reutemann 20 Mar '20

20 Mar '20

'Last week, Microsoft and Canonical (the company behind the Ubuntu Linux distribution) were scheduled to host a developer conference focused on the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) at Microsoft's Redmond campus. Ars was invited, and I had plane tickets in hand—but the physical conference was canceled at the last minute due to the coronavirus. Note that I did say the physical conference was canceled—WSLconf itself went on, with 22 speakers and 21 talks given. Virtual attendees were reportedly more than double the (sold out) physical attendee registration and included developers from all around the world. Presentations were given over the Bluejeans videoconferencing platform, and Canonical's Developer Advocate Hayden Barnes says that the recorded sessions will be made generally available soon.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/the-windows-subsyste… Probably useful for developers that are stuck on Windows, but I'm not gonna trade my Linux Desktop for that horrible Windows one... Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Pixar Co-Founders Win Turing Award
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Mar '20

19 Mar '20

Pat Hanrahan and Ed Catmull split the latest ACM Turing award between them <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/18/pixar_founders_turing_award/>, in recognition of their pioneering work in computer graphics. Catmull has his name in the “Catmull-Clark” subdivision algorithm commonly used in 3D modellers to turn polygonal shapes into more curvy ones. He headed the Computer Graphics Lab at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), started in 1974, with the help of a load of funding from a wealthy benefactor. Among their many projects, NYIT tried to create what would have been, in 1984, the first feature-length movie done entirely in CG. It was called “The Works”. Unfortunately they never got much further than tantalizing fragments <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgzAqRyhjVs>. Hanrahan was a key figure in the creation of the RenderMan renderer at Pixar. What was pioneering about that was the concept of a “shader”, written in a specialized programming language designed for describing how light reacts with a material. This was the “RenderMan Shading Language”. The same idea led to GLSL which became part of OpenGL later, and also the “Open Shading Language” (OSL) created and open-sourced at Sony Pictures ImageWorks, and adopted by many 3D software apps, including Blender.

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Purism Librem Mini is a Tiny Linux Desktop
by Peter Reutemann 19 Mar '20

19 Mar '20

'Today, we get another diminutive desktop option, but this one is designed for Linux and privacy. From a report: Yes, Purism is finally launching a tiny desktop, and it will come pre-installed with the Debian-based PureOS. Called "Librem Mini," the cute bugger has 4 USB-A ports on the front, along with a 3.5mm audio jack, and the power button. On the rear, there are two more USB-A ports, a single USB-C port, Ethernet, HDMI, DisplayPort, and the power port. "Announcing the Purism Librem Mini. Our small form-factor mini-PC that puts freedom, privacy and security first. We're really excited about the Librem Mini, it's a device our community have wanted and we've wanted to offer for some time. The Librem Mini is accessible, small, light and powerful featuring a new 8th gen quad core i7 processor, up to 64 GB of fast DDR4 memory and 4k 60 fps video playback. It's a desktop for your home or oïfce, a media center for your entertainment, or an expandable home server for your files and applications," says Purism.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/03/18/1654232 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 Against The Virus
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 18 Mar '20

18 Mar '20

A researcher at Google has published plans for an Arduino-based DIY ventilator, in case hospitals run short of officially-approved units for patients <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/18/diy_ventilator_shortage/>. Quite a few other links there to homebrew efforts to address other ways to help deal with Covid-19. All potentially quite risky and unregulated, of course. So let’s just hope we won’t need any of it. And on a sad note: Meanwhile, technician Christian Fracassi reportedly <https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/16/firm-refuses-give-blueprint-coronavirus-equi…> helped make a 3D printed valve that helped save at least 10 lives at a hospital in Italy, although he may now face legal action from the company whose parts he copied.

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Text processing in the shell
by Peter Reutemann 18 Mar '20

18 Mar '20

Hi everyone Just came across this article, which also has real-world examples: 'One of the things that makes the shell an invaluable tool is the amount of available text processing commands, and the ability to easily pipe them into each other to build complex text processing workflows. These commands can make it trivial to perform text and data analysis, convert data between different formats, filter lines, etc. When working with text data, the philosophy is to break any complex problem you have into a set of smaller ones, and to solve each of them with a specialized tool.' -- source: https://blog.balthazar-rouberol.com/text-processing-in-the-shell Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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meeting next Monday - cancelled
by Peter Reutemann 18 Mar '20

18 Mar '20

Hi everyone Due to COVID-19, we are cancelling all WLUG meetings for the foreseeable future. Stay safe and we'll see you again when things are back to normal! 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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