- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Google Play Store Mistakenly Removed KDE Connect
by Peter Reutemann 24 Mar '19

24 Mar '19

'Google's Play Store made a bad mistake on Tuesday, long-time Slashdot reader sombragris writes: KDE Connect, a project designed to enable seamless communcation and control between a desktop computer and a mobile phone, was suddenly removed from Android's Google Play store. According to a Twitter thread by Albert Vaca, KDE Connect's maintainer, the removal was allegedly because the app was in breach of Google's new SMS policy. There's an exemption which applies to KDE Connect, but the maintainer was unable to contact anyone at Google to provide support. "There is simply no way to talk to a human being at @Google", he said. Cintora also announced on Twitter that while trying to comply with the Play Store's new policy, he'd initially been stopped again by technical problems. "The @GooglePlay console gives me an internal error, so I can't upload the version without SMS support." But on Thursday Cintora tweeted that KDE Connect "finally got approved, and SMS support is back in version 1.12.4, both on the Play Store and F-Droid!" Cintora credits this resolution partly to his Twitter thread, which got over half a million impressions. Its last tweet now features a picture of a celebrating parrot.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/03/23/1852220 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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Share Buybacks
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Mar '19

23 Mar '19

Seems that Oracle has been buying back its own shares to keep its share price high <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/03/22/oracle_buyback_programme/>. On its own, this is not automatically a bad thing. I remember reading about a conversation between Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett some years ago, along the lines of: WB: You think your company shares are undervalued? SJ: Yes. WB: You have plenty of spare cash on hand? SJ: Yes. WB: Then use some of that cash to buy back some of your own shares. If you can spend 80¢ and get a dollar, why wouldn’t you? However, the warning sign in the above article is this: The overall effect is that Oracle is now in a net debt position for the first time since 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported this week. In other words, it seems to be borrowing in order to boost its share price. This might not end well ...

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Tor-Powered Tails 3.13 Anonymous Linux OS Adds Extra Security and Latest Updates
by Peter Reutemann 21 Mar '19

21 Mar '19

'Powered by the Linux 4.19.28 kernel, the Tails 3.13 operating system is now available with latest TOR technologies to help you stay hidden while surfing the Internet, including the Tor Browser 8.0.7 anonymous web browser and Tor 0.3.5.8 client and server for the anonymous Tor network. However, probably the most important addition in the Tails 3.13 release is the updated Intel microcode to version 3.20180807a.2, which adds an extra security measure against more variants of the well-known Spectre, Meltdown, and L1TF (Level 1 Terminal Fault) security vulnerabilities. Furthermore, Tails 3.13 updates the Mozilla Thunderbird email and news client to version 65.1.0, adds support for the Bopomofo input method and improves support for the Pinyin input method for Chinese users, and implements automatic backup of the persistent storage's configuration whenever a change occurs.' -- source: https://news.softpedia.com/news/tor-powered-tails-3-13-ethical-hacking-linu… 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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For Years, Hundreds of Millions of Facebook Users Had Their Account Passwords Stored in Plain Text and Searchable By Thousands of Facebook Employees
by Peter Reutemann 21 Mar '19

21 Mar '19

'Hundreds of millions of Facebook users had their account passwords stored in plain text and searchable by thousands of Facebook employees -- in some cases going back to 2012, KrebsOnSecurity reported Thursday. From the report: Facebook says an ongoing investigation has so far found no indication that employees have abused access to this data. Facebook is probing the causes of a series of security failures in which employees built applications that logged unencrypted password data for Facebook users and stored it in plain text on internal company servers. That's according to a senior Facebook employee who is familiar with the investigation and who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. The Facebook source said the investigation so far indicates between 200 million and 600 million Facebook users may have had their account passwords stored in plain text and searchable by more than 20,000 Facebook employees. The source said Facebook is still trying to determine how many passwords were exposed and for how long, but so far the inquiry has uncovered archives with plain text user passwords in them dating back to 2012.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/03/21/1525243 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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SGM next week
by Peter Reutemann 19 Mar '19

19 Mar '19

Hi everyone Just a reminder for our (paying) society members that our SGM is on next Monday at 7pm: https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/259341905/ 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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How a wireless keyboard lets hackers take full control of connected computers
by Peter Reutemann 19 Mar '19

19 Mar '19

'There’s a critical vulnerability in a model of Fujitsu wireless keyboard that makes it easy for hackers to take full control of connected computers, security researchers warned on Friday. Anyone using the keyboard model should strongly consider replacing it immediately. The Fujitsu Wireless Keyboard Set LX901 uses a proprietary 2.4 GHz radio communication protocol called WirelessUSB LP from Cypress Semiconductor. While the keyboard and mouse send input that’s protected with the time-tested Advanced Encryption Standard, the USB dongle that accepts the input accepts unencrypted packets as well, as long as they’re in the proper format. Researchers with the Germany-based penetration-testing firm SySS developed a proof-of-concept attack that exploits the insecure design. Using a small hardware device, they are able to send commands to vulnerable Fujitsu keyboard receiver dongles that are within range. As the video below demonstrates, the researchers were able to send input of their choice that’s automatically funneled to the connected computer.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/03/how-a-wireless-keybo… 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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Are Large Cloud Providers a Threat To Open Source Vendors?
by Peter Reutemann 18 Mar '19

18 Mar '19

'Stephen O'Grady, co-founder of the industry analyst firm RedMonk, asks whether open source vendors are marching towards an inevitable and damaging war with big cloud providers: In the last twelve to eighteen months...a switch has been flipped. Companies have gone from regarding cloud providers like Amazon, Google or Microsoft as not even worth mentioning as competition to dreadful, existential threat. The fear of these cloud providers has become so overpowering, in fact, that commercial open source vendors have chosen -- against counsel, in many cases -- to walk down strategic paths that violate open source cultural norms, trigger massive and sustained negative PR and jeopardize relationships with developers, partners and customers. Specifically, commercial open source providers have increasingly turned to models that blur the lines between open source and proprietary software in an attempt to access the strengths of both, with the higher probability outcome of ending up with their weaknesses instead. That commercial open source providers took these actions having been advised of these and other risks in advance says everything about how these businesses view their prospects in a world increasingly dominated by massive providers of cloud infrastructure and an expanding array of services that sit on top of that. The strategic decisions inarguably have major, unavoidable negative consequences, but commercial open source providers -- or their investors, at least -- believe that a lack of action would be even more damaging.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/03/16/0118259 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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How Debian Almost Failed to Elect a Project Leader
by Peter Reutemann 17 Mar '19

17 Mar '19

'Five candidates now are running to be Debian's project leader for the coming year. But earlier this week, Slashdot reader Seven Spirals shared LWN's story about what a difficult election it's been: This year, the call for nominations was duly sent out by project secretary Kurt Roeckx on March 3. But, as of March 10, no eligible candidates had put their names forward... There is nobody there to do any campaigning. This being Debian, the constitution naturally describes what is to happen in this situation: the nomination period is extended for another week... Should this deadline also pass without candidates, it will be extended for another week; this loop will repeat indefinitely until somebody gives in and submits their name... In the absence of a project leader, the chair of the technical committee and the project secretary are empowered to make decisions -- as long as they are able to agree on what those decisions should be. Since Debian developers are famously an agreeable and non-argumentative bunch, there should be no problem with that aspect of things... One might well wonder, though, why there seems to be nobody who wants to take the helm of this project for a year. The fact that it is an unpaid position requiring a lot of time and travel might have something to do with it. If that were indeed to prove to be part of the problem, Debian might eventually have to consider doing what a number of similar organizations have done and create a paid position to do this work' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/03/16/2317214 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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F5 Acquired NGINX For $670M
by Peter Reutemann 17 Mar '19

17 Mar '19

'F5 Networks on Monday announced that it will acquire NGINX, which provides popular open-source software of the same name, for $670 million. The deal advances F5's aim of capitalizing on the trend toward multi-cloud deployments. F5 plans to enhance NGINX's current offerings with F5 security solutions and will integrate F5 cloud-native technology with NGINX's software load balancing technology. This should accelerate F5's time to market of application services for containerized applications. Meanwhile, NGINX will benefit from F5's global salesforce, channel infrastructure and partner ecosystem. The acquisition adds "the power of NGINX's open source innovation to F5's ADC leadership and enterprise reach," NGINX CEO Gus Robertson said in a statement ' -- source: https://slashdot.org/story/19/03/16/1957241 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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Two-Thirds of Android Antivirus Apps Are Total BS
by Peter Reutemann 14 Mar '19

14 Mar '19

'Austrian antivirus-testing lab AV-Comparatives tested 250 antivirus apps in Google Play against 2,000 malware samples. They found that only 80 of the apps could stop even a minimal amount of malware. "Less than one in 10 of the apps tested defended against all 2,000 malicious apps, while over two-thirds failed to reach a block rate of even 30 percent," the lab said in a press release. To make sure you're protecting your Android device properly, stick to apps from well-known antivirus companies. Basically, AV-Comparatives said, most Android antivirus apps are phony, and many of them seemed to have been created only to display ads or promote a developer's career. "The main purpose of these apps seems to be generating easy revenue for their developers, rather than actually protecting their users," the AV-Comparatives report said' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/03/13/213255 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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