- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Fwd: [NZLUG] Windows rebate?
by Peter Reutemann 23 Aug '19

23 Aug '19

Apologies for cross-posting, but this will be of interest to this group as well. Cheers, Peter ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Atom Smasher <atom(a)smasher.org> Date: Fri, Aug 23, 2019 at 10:49 AM Subject: Re: [NZLUG] Windows rebate? To: NZ Linux Users Group <nzlug(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz> I was hoping this battle had already been fought, but apparently not. After some phone calls, it seems the best course of action now is to contact The Commerce Commission of New Zealand and file a complaint pursuant to the Fair Trading Act. They don't handle these complaints individually, but they will consider them in aggregate. So the more people complain, the more likely that it will be taken seriously. * 0800 943 600 * contact(a)comcom.govt.nz * https://comcom.govt.nz/make-a-complaint Relevant points seem to be that Microsoft has effectively created a monopoly whereby purchasers of new computers are forced to purchase a copy of, and non-transferable license for, their Windows operating system (approx retail price of OEM Windows 10 is $160). Building ones own computer from parts, or purchasing a computer from specialty retailers may be an option in some cases, but this severely limits consumer choices and they're not viable options for a lot of people. While it may not be practical to "force" retailers to stock Windows-free PC hardware, there should be a standard process for obtaining a fair refund for unused and unwanted Windows operating system licenses. -- ...atom ________________________ http://atom.smasher.org/ 762A 3B98 A3C3 96C9 C6B7 582A B88D 52E4 D9F5 7808 ------------------------------------------------- "Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering." -- Arthur C. Clarke _______________________________________________ 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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Security Researchers Find Several Bugs In Nest Security Cameras
by Peter Reutemann 23 Aug '19

23 Aug '19

'Hackers could have logged into your Nest Cam IQ Indoor and watch whatever was happening in your home by taking advantage of a vulnerability found by security researchers. The hackers could have also prevented you from using the camera, or use access to it to break into your home network. Researchers Lilith Wyatt and Claudio Bozzato of Cisco Talos discovered the vulnerabilities and disclosed them publicly on August 19. The two found eight vulnerabilities that are based in the Nest implementation of the Weave protocol. The Weave protocol is designed specifically for communications among Internet of Things or IoT devices. Nest has provided a firmware update that the company says will fix the vulnerabilities. The vulnerabilities apply to version 4620002 of the Nest Cam IQ indoor device. You can check the version of your camera on the Nest app. Nest says that the updates will happen automatically if your camera is connected to the internet. "We've fixed the disclosed bugs and started rolling them out to all Nest Camera IQs," Google said in a statement to ZDNet. "The devices will update automatically so there's no action required from users."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/08/22/2134208 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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Backdoor found in Webmin, a popular web-based utility for managing Unix servers
by Peter Reutemann 22 Aug '19

22 Aug '19

'A backdoor mechanism was found in Webmin, a popular web-based application used by system administrators to manage remote Unix-based systems, such as Linux, FreeBSD, or OpenBSD servers. The backdoor mechanism would allow a remote attacker to execute malicious commands with root privileges on the machine running Webmin. Once this machine is compromised, an attacker could then use it to launch attacks on the systems managed through Webmin. [...] According to one of the Webmin developers, the vulnerability was not the result of a coding mistake, but was actually "malicious code injected into compromised build infrastructure."' -- source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/backdoor-found-in-webmin-a-popular-web-based-… 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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Android Ditches Desserts as Q Becomes 10
by Peter Reutemann 22 Aug '19

22 Aug '19

'The next version of the Android operating system (OS) will not be named after a dessert or sweet treat, ending a tradition that started in 2009. From a report: Following the pattern, the name of the new version would have started with Q. But Google said it had ditched the naming scheme because it made it difficult for consumers to know which version of the OS was the latest. The new edition, which will be released later this year, will be called Android 10. Previous versions of the mobile operating system have been nicknamed Jellybean, Kitkat and Lollipop' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/08/22/187243 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 Planet Needs a New Internet
by Peter Reutemann 22 Aug '19

22 Aug '19

'When climate change comes for our coffee and our wine, we'll moan about it on Twitter, read about it on our favorite websites, and watch diverting videos on YouTube to fill the icy hole in our hearts. We'll do all this until the websites go dark and the networks go down because eventually, climate change will come for our internet, too. That is, unless we can get the web ready for the coming storms. Huge changes will be needed because right now, the internet is unsustainable. On the one hand, rising sea levels threaten to swamp the cables and stations that transmit the web to our homes; rising temperatures could make it more costly to run the data centers handling ever-increasing web traffic; wildfires could burn it all down. On the other, all of those data centers, computers, smartphones, and other internet-connected devices take a prodigious amount of energy to build and to run, thus contributing to global warming and hastening our collective demise. To save the internet and ourselves, we'll need to harden and relocate the infrastructure we've built, find cleaner ways to power the web, and reimagine how we interact with the digital world. Ultimately, we need to recognize that our tremendous consumption of online content isnâ(TM)t free of consequences -- if we're not paying, the planet is. You probably don't think about it when you're liking a photo or reading an article, but everything you do online is underpinned by a globe-spanning labyrinth of physical infrastructure. There are the data centers hosting the web and managing enormous flows of information on the daily. There are the fiber cables transmitting data to into our homes and offices, and even across oceans. There are cell towers sending and receiving countless calls and texts on the daily.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/08/22/1733253 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 GNU/Linux System Is Now Based on Debian GNU/Linux 10 "Buster"
by Peter Reutemann 21 Aug '19

21 Aug '19

'KNOPPIX 8.6 is now available based on the software repositories of the recently released Debian GNU/Linux 10 "Buster" operating system series, but also packing some elements from the Debian Uunstable (Sid) repos. It's powered by the latest Linux 5.2 kernel series and X.Org Server 7.7 display server to support newer graphics cards and computer hardware. Best of all, Knoppix 8.6 is shipping with both 32-bit and 64-bit kernels to support old and new computers. The 64-bit version of KNOPPIX 8.6 supports machines with more than 4GB of RAM (system memory), as well as chroot into 64-bit installations for system rescue tasks. Moreover, the bootloader starts the 64-bit kernel automatically whenever a 64-bit CPU is detected.' -- source: https://news.softpedia.com/news/knoppix-live-gnu-linux-system-is-now-based-… 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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Bitbucket Dropping Support For Mercurial
by Peter Reutemann 21 Aug '19

21 Aug '19

'Bitbucket, once one of the largest Mercurial repository hosting sites, said Tuesday it plans to remove Mercurial features and repositories from its platform on June 1, 2020. In a blog post, Bitbucket wrote: As we surpass 10 million registered users on the platform, we're at a point in our growth where we are conducting a deeper evaluation of the market and how we can best support our users going forward. After much consideration, we've decided to remove Mercurial support from Bitbucket Cloud and its API. Bitbucket will stop letting users create new Mercurial repositories starting February 1, 2020, and start removing all the Mercurial repositories four months later. So you will want to backup your repositories and switch to a different platform in the coming months. A different user pointed out, "Another shitty aspect of bitbucket dropping mercurial support and deleting all the old repositories in 2020: all yt pull request discussions from before 2017 are going to be deleted. There's valuable context for how the code got written in those discussions." Several users have expressed their concerns over this decision. Sebastien Jodogne, CSO at Osimis, said, "This is an extremely concerning decision that endangers diversity in the computer science industry by pushing the de facto hegemony of git." For those of you affected by this, you can consider a number of platforms including SourceForge to host and manage your repositories. ' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/19/08/20/1654253 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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IBM is Moving OpenPower Foundation To The Linux Foundation
by Peter Reutemann 21 Aug '19

21 Aug '19

'IBM makes the Power Series chips, and as part of that has open sourced some of the underlying technologies to encourage wider use of these chips. The open source pieces have been part of the OpenPower Foundation. Today, the company announced it was moving the foundation under The Linux Foundation, and while it was at it, announced it was open sourcing several other important bits. From a report: Ken King, general manager for OpenPower at IBM, says that at this point in his organization's evolution, they wanted to move it under the auspices of the Linux Foundation. But IBM didn't stop there. It also announced that it was open sourcing some of the technical underpinnings of the Power Series chip to make it easier for developers and engineers to build on top of the technology. Perhaps most importantly, the company is open sourcing the Power Instruction Set Architecture (ISA). These are "the definitions developers use for ensuring hardware and software work together on Power," the company explained. King sees open sourcing this technology as an important step for a number of reasons around licensing and governance. "The first thing is that we are taking the ability to be able to implement what we're licensing, the ISA instruction set architecture, for others to be able to implement on top of that instruction set royalty free with patent rights," he explained. The company is also putting this under an open governance workgroup at the OpenPower Foundation.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/08/20/197244 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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WebKit Introduces New Tracking Prevention Policy
by Peter Reutemann 21 Aug '19

21 Aug '19

'WebKit, the open source HTML engine used by Apple's Safari browser and a number of others, has created a new policy on tracking prevention. The short version is that many forms of tracking will now be treated the same way as security flaws, being blocked or mitigated with no exceptions. While on-site tracking will still be allowed (and is practically impossible to prevent anyway), all forms of cross-site tracking and covert tracking will be actively and aggressively blocked.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/08/20/1522235 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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tilix - terminal emulator
by Peter Reutemann 20 Aug '19

20 Aug '19

Hi everyone I've been a long-term user of the gnome terminal and then the mate terminal (after switching to Linux Mint). Despite the tab-support that these terminals offer, there were occasions when I missed being able to tile (ie vertical or horizontal split) in the same window rather than opening another window (and then moving/resizing it to make it fit better). Over the last month or so, I've been trialing "tilix" as my everyday terminal and I have to say that I'm very happy with it! According to the website, tilix is "an advanced GTK3 tiling terminal emulator that follows the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines" Here is the project page (incl screenshots) if you want to know more: https://gnunn1.github.io/tilix-web/ 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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