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The Librem 5 has been “shipping” for a month—but not to backers
by Peter Reutemann 26 Nov '19

26 Nov '19

'Purism announced that shipping of its Librem 5 open source smartphone began in late September. Two months later, nobody outside the company has a Librem 5, and people are getting restless. The Librem 5 is a crowdfunded project—and an ambitious one—so it wasn't much surprise or cause for concern when it missed its original January 2019 delivery target—or the April 2019 target set after January slipped. Both date changes were announced well ahead of time, and the company continued to post progress reports, commit code upstream, and assure backers of its commitment to transparency. (Full disclosure: I am a Librem 5 backer myself and am scheduled to receive a phone in the Evergreen batch.) The new delays are more troubling. On September 5, CEO Todd Weaver announced that the Librem 5 would ship in six iterative batches, codenamed Aspen, Birch, Chestnut, Dogwood, Evergreen, and Fir. The first three batches would effectively be usable prototypes of decreasing roughness; Evergreen would be the first entirely finished hardware production run, and Fir would be a relatively unspecified next-generation design.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/11/the-librem-5-has-been-shipping-for-… 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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Mozilla's Annual Buyer's Guide Rates Amazon and Google Security Cameras 'Very Creepy'
by Peter Reutemann 26 Nov '19

26 Nov '19

'"Be Smart. Shop Safe," warns Mozilla's annual buyer's guide for secure connected products. Based on their conversations with developers and dozens of privacy experts, they've awarded smiley faces with different expressions to rate products from "Not Creepy" up to "Super Creepy". "While the variety of smart devices on offer is rapidly increasing, so are the number of products that pay no heed to even basic security measures..." notes the editor of Mozilla's Internet Health Report. "Now that more and more companies collect personal data about you, including audio and video of your family, and sensitive biometric and health information, like your heart rate and sleeping habits, it's worrying that more are not upfront about the privacy and security of their products." Or, as The Next Web writes, "god bless Mozilla for having our lazy backs." And, well, if you're a user of any Ring camerasâ¦ we're sorry. Basically, there are five things that every product must do: - Have automatic security updates, so they're protected against the newest threats - Use encryption, meaning bad actors can't just snoop on your data - Include a vulnerability management pathway, which makes reporting bugs easy and, well, possible - Require users to change the default password (if applicable), because that makes devices far harder to access - Privacy policies -- ones that relate to the product specifically, and aren't just generic Doesn't seem too much to ask right...? Well, of the 76 devices Mozilla selected, 60 of them passed this test... And what devices didn't meet the criteria? There were nine of them overall (including the Artie 3000 Coding Robot and the Wemo Wifi Smart Dimmer), but the real loser in this test is the Amazon-owned Ring. Three of the company's products (which is effectively all of their major devices) didn't meet Mozilla's criteria. Yes, that's right, the Ring Video Doorbell, Ring Indoor Cam, and Ring Security Cam all didn't meet minimum standards for security.... The main reasons for not meeting this criteria is due Ring's history with poor encryption policies, and vulnerability management. To be fair, Nest Cam's Indoor and Outdoor Security Cameras and Google Home also fell into the "Very Creepy" category -- and so did Amazon's Echo smart speakers. (The Amazon Echo Show even made it into Mozilla's highest "Super Creepy" category, where the only other product was Facebook Portal.) But at least the Nest Hello Video doorbell only appears in Mozilla's "Somewhat Creepy" category. "Just because something on your wishlist this year connects to the internet, doesn't mean you have to compromise on privacy and security..." warns the editor of Mozilla's Internet Health Report. And in addition, "Fitness trackers designed for kids as young as 4 years old, raise questions about what we are teaching our children about how much digital surveillance in their lives is normal." Going forward, they suggest that we push for better privacy regulations -- and that whenever we rate products on performance and price, we should also rate them on their privacy and security. But in the meantime, as Mozilla explained on Twitter, "Friends don't let friends buy creepy gifts."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/11/25/0415202 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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Web Creator Tim Berners-Lee Launches Plan To 'Fix' the Internet
by Peter Reutemann 26 Nov '19

26 Nov '19

'Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, is officially launching his plan to "fix" the internet. From a report: The World Wide Web Foundation, a non-profit campaign group set up by Berners-Lee, has secured the backing of tech giants Facebook, Google and Microsoft for the scheme, dubbed the "contract for the web." The British computer scientist first outlined his vision to overhaul organizations' approach to the internet at the Web Summit event last year. At the time, he said the web was "at a tipping point." The contract calls on companies to respect consumers' data privacy and urges governments to ensure everyone has access to the internet. "Never before has the web's power for good been more under threat," Adrian Lovett, CEO of the World Wide Web Foundation, told CNBC in an interview Friday. He added that the rise of hateful content and fake news being propagated online meant something had to change. "We're launching the contract for the web for the world's first-ever global action plan to protect the web as a force for good, bringing together companies, governments and citizens from around the world to say these are the things that need to be done to put things back on the right track." Other organizations backing the contract include DuckDuckGo, Reddit, GitHub and Reporters Without Borders. One major component of the pledge is the requirement that the web remains an accessible tool for all users. Lovett said that, "despite the progress we've seen in getting the world connected, half the world doesn't have access." He said the contract comes with nine core principles, while underneath them is a total of 76 clauses. "Not every organization has to abide by all of them," he insisted. "A good number of those 76 will be relevant." Berners-Lee will deliver a speech in Berlin, Germany, on Monday where he is due to say the contract will serve as a blueprint for governments, companies and citizens to safeguard the web as a force for good. The World Wide Web Foundation says it is working with partners to develop tools that can measure progress on the contract's various clauses' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/11/25/1347233 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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Zorin OS 15 Lite Linux Distro Can Rejuvenate Your Aging Windows PC
by Peter Reutemann 26 Nov '19

26 Nov '19

'Called "Zorin OS 15 Lite," it is not only lightweight, but thanks to the Xfce desktop environment and integrated Flatpak support, it should be quite familiar to those switching from Windows. In fact, the developers are intentionally targeting existing Windows 7 users, as Microsoft's operating system will be unsupported beginning January 2020. Zorin OS 15 Lite, in comparison, is based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and supported until 2023! It even comes with the very modern Linux kernel 5.0. "With Zorin OS 15 Lite, weâ(TM)ve condensed the full Zorin OS experience into a streamlined operating system, designed to run fast on computers as old as 15 years. With version 15, we've gone the extra mile to make the XFCE 4.14-based desktop feel familiar and user-friendly to new users, especially those moving away from Windows 7 leading up to the end of its support in January 2020. By pairing the most advanced and efficient software with a user-friendly experience, we've made it possible for anyone to extend the lifespan of their computers for years to come," explains the Zorin OS developers.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/11/25/179256 Maybe worth a demo next year? 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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The RIPE NCC Has Run Out of IPv4 Addresses
by Peter Reutemann 26 Nov '19

26 Nov '19

'The RIPE NCC, the regional internet registry for Europe, West Asia, and the former USSR, has allocated the final /22 remaining in their address pool, and has stated that they have now run out of IPv4 addresses. RIPE will continue to recover IPv4 addresses from organisations that go out of business, close, or that return them due to lack of need, but expects these small amounts of recovered IPv4 addresses to fall well short of demand: RIPE will now only assign IPv4 addresses to entities that have never received any IPv4 allocation in the past, and even then will assign no more than a /24. RIPE puts out a call to action for IPv6 migration: This event is another step on the path towards global exhaustion of the remaining IPv4 addressing space. In recent years, we have seen the emergence of an IPv4 transfer market and greater use of Carrier Grade Network Address Translation (CGNAT) in our region. There are costs and trade-offs with both approaches and neither one solves the underlying problem, which is that there are not enough IPv4 addresses for everyone. Without wide-scale IPv6 deployment, we risk heading into a future where the growth of our Internet is unnecessarily limited — not by a lack of skilled network engineers, technical equipment or investment -- but by a shortage of unique network identifiers. There is still a long way to go, and we call on all stakeholders to play their role in supporting the IPv6 roll-out.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/11/25/1841256 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 5.4 Released
by Peter Reutemann 26 Nov '19

26 Nov '19

'Linux 5.4 has been released, featuring the new kernel lockdown mode, intended to strengthen the boundary between UID 0 and the kernel; virtio-fs, a high-performance virtio driver which allows a virtualized guest to mount a directory that has been exported on the host; fs-verity, for detecting file tampering, like dm-verity, but works on files rather than block devices; dm-clone, which allows live cloning of dm targets; two new madvise() flags for improved app memory management on Android, support for new Intel/AMD GPUs, support for the exfat file system and removing the experimental status of the erofs file system; a new haltpoll cpuidle driver and governor that greatly improves performance for virtualized guests wanting to do guest-side polling in the idle loop; and blk-iocost, a new cgroup controller that attempts to calculate more accurately the cost of IO. As always, many other new drivers and improvements can be found in the changelog.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/11/25/1836212 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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NextCloud Linux Servers Targetted by NextCry Ransomware
by Peter Reutemann 25 Nov '19

25 Nov '19

'A new and particularly troublesome ransomware variant has been identified in the wild. Dubbed NextCry, this nasty strain of ransomware encrypts data on NextCloud Linux servers and has managed to evade the detection of public scanning platforms and antivirus engines. To make matters worse, there is currently no free decryption tool available for victims. Ransomware hunter and creator of ID Ransomware Michael Gillespie notes that the NextCry ransomware, which is a Python script compiled in a Linux ELF binary using pyInstaller, oddly uses Base64 to encode file names as well as the content of files which have already been encrypted. Gillespie has also confirmed that NextCry encrypts data using the AES algorithm with a 256-bit key. The ransom note that NextCry victims receive reads "READ_FOR_DECRYPT", and demands 0.025 BTC for a victim's files to be unlocked.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/11/24/1845253 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 Tracking Prevention in Microsoft's Edge Will Hit Google the Hardest
by Peter Reutemann 25 Nov '19

25 Nov '19

'Microsoft's Edge browser is built on the same open source code as Google Chrome. But Ed Bott, writing for ZDNet, noticed something interesting: On January 15, 2020, Microsoft is scheduled to roll out a completely revamped Edge browser to the general public. That browser, which is available for beta testing now on all supported versions of Windows and MacOS, includes a feature called Tracking Prevention. If that name sounds familiar, you're not imagining things. Microsoft added a Tracking Protection feature to Internet Explorer 9, back in 2011; it used simple text files called Tracking Protection Lists (TPLs) to allow or block third-party requests from specific domains. That's the same general principle behind Tracking Prevention in the new Edge, but the implementation is more usable and more sophisticated, with multiple Trust Protection Lists taking the place of a single TPL. I've spent the past week looking closely at this feature... [A]lthough it's aimed at the online advertising and tracking industries in general, my tests suggest that its effects are likely to be felt most directly by one company: Google. Using the default Balanced setting, Tracking Prevention blocked a total of 2,318 trackers, or an average of 35 on each page. Of that total, 552 were from Google domains. That's a mind-boggling 23.8% of the total. To put that into perspective, the second entry on the list of blocked trackers was Facebook, which represented 3.8% of the total. Rather than an anti-Google conspiracy, the article suggests this is instead just a reflection of both Google's ubiquity and its business model. "Google Analytics and Google AdSense are embedded on a staggering number of web pages."' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/11/24/2055219 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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AGM tomorrow
by Peter Reutemann 24 Nov '19

24 Nov '19

Hi everyone Just a friendly reminder that our AGM is on tomorrow: https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/257884356/ 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 19.2
by tom butz 23 Nov '19

23 Nov '19

Re: Linux Mint 19.2 The latest update ('new' package-manager) seems to disable Bluetooth. That also happened to me when I updated from 19.1 to 19.2 WITHOUT a complete reinstall. There are two workarounds: EITHER: back-up the whole system every night, and restore it if Bluetooth disappears again (=no icon in the panel after an update) - skipping updates. OR: use another system such as SparkyLinux, e.g. on a bootable sdcard for Bluetooth-transfers and stick with Mint 19.2 for anything else. I use this 'veteran' Linux because it features OpenShot 1.4 - my (favourite) moviemaker. My Toshiba laptop has 128 GB of RAM-HD, so copying/restoring to/from an image-file doesn't take all that long. Tom Butz

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