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Motorola Becomes First Smartphone Company To Sell DIY Repair Kits To Its Customers
by Peter Reutemann 23 Oct '18

23 Oct '18

'As Apple continues to fight independent repair, Motorola has partnered with iFixit and pledged to support the right to repair movement. From a report: It is excellent news that Motorola has decided to make it as easy as possible for you to repair your phone. The company announced that it would begin selling replacement parts for all of its recent phones to customers, and it has partnered with iFixit to sell repair kits for phones like the Moto X, Z, G4, G5, and Droid Turbo 2. The kits come with tools, genuine Motorola-branded replacement parts, and instructions on how to fix your device. iFixit is currently selling replacement batteries, screens, and digitizer assemblies. "Motorola is setting an example for major manufacturers to embrace a more open attitude towards repair," iFixit wrote in a blog post announcing the partnership. "For fixers like us, this partnership is representative of a broader movement in support of our Right to Repair. It's proof that OEM manufacturers and independent repair can co-exist. Big business and social responsibility, and innovation and sustainability, don't need to be mutually exclusive."' -- source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/10/23/1526248 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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Rockstar Patent Consortium
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Oct '18

23 Oct '18

Hi folks. In our discussion on patents last night, I was trying to think of the name of this consortium that had acquired the patents from Nortel when it went bust. I was pretty sure it was called “Rockstar”, and I was right: <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131101/15353825101/patent-troll-shell-c…>. The outfit is/was owned by Microsoft and Apple, and one of the first things it did was to sue Google and a bunch of major makers of Android devices.

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Now Apps Can Track You Even After You Uninstall Them
by Peter Reutemann 22 Oct '18

22 Oct '18

'If it seems as though the app you deleted last week is suddenly popping up everywhere, it may not be mere coincidence. From a report: Companies that cater to app makers have found ways to game both iOS and Android, enabling them to figure out which users have uninstalled a given piece of software lately -- and making it easy to pelt the departed with ads aimed at winning them back. Adjust, AppsFlyer, MoEngage, Localytics, and CleverTap are among the companies that offer uninstall trackers, usually as part of a broader set of developer tools. Their customers include T-Mobile US, Spotify Technology, and Yelp. Critics say they're a fresh reason to reassess online privacy rights and limit what companies can do with user data. "Most tech companies are not giving people nuanced privacy choices, if they give them choices at all," says Jeremy Gillula, tech policy director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocate. Some providers say these tracking tools are meant to measure user reaction to app updates and other changes. Jude McColgan, chief executive officer of Boston's Localytics, says he hasn't seen clients use the technology to target former users with ads. Ehren Maedge, vice president for marketing and sales at MoEngage Inc. in San Francisco, says it's up to the app makers not to do so. "The dialogue is between our customers and their end users," he says. "If they violate users' trust, it's not going to go well for them." Adjust, AppsFlyer, and CleverTap didn't respond to requests for comment, nor did T-Mobile, Spotify, or Yelp. Uninstall tracking exploits a core element of Apple's and Google's mobile operating systems: push notifications. Developers have always been able to use so-called silent push notifications to ping installed apps at regular intervals without alerting the user -- to refresh an inbox or social media feed while the app is running in the background, for example. But if the app doesn't ping the developer back, the app is logged as uninstalled, and the uninstall tracking tools add those changes to the file associated with the given mobile device's unique advertising ID, details that make it easy to identify just who's holding the phone and advertise the app to them wherever they go.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/18/10/22/1956257 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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Linus Torvalds is Back in Charge of Linux
by Peter Reutemann 22 Oct '18

22 Oct '18

'At Open Source Summit Europe in Edinburgh, Scotland, Linus Torvalds is meeting with Linux's top 40 or so developers at the Maintainers' Summit. This is his first step back in taking over Linux's reins. From a report: A little over a month ago, Torvalds has stepped back from running the Linux development community. Then, in a note to the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML), Torvalds has said, "I need to change some of my behavior, and I want to apologize to the people that my personal behavior hurt and possibly drove away from kernel development entirely." To do, this he took time off "to change some of my behavior, and I want to apologize to the people that my personal behavior hurt and possibly drove away from kernel development entirely. I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people's emotions and respond appropriately." That time is over. Torvalds is back. Whether he'll be a kinder and gentler Torvalds remains to be seen. In the Linux 4.19 announcement, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linux's temporary leader and maintainer of the stable branch, wrote: "Linus, I'm handing the kernel tree back to you. You can have the joy of dealing with the merge window :)"' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/10/22/1145234 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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And Now, For Something Remarkably Soothing ...
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Oct '18

19 Oct '18

Here is Brian Eno’s famous Windows 95 startup sound, slowed down by 40:1, so it is now nearly 4 minutes long: <https://soundcloud.com/ideoforms/windows-95-startup-sound>.

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OpenBSD 6.4 Released
by Peter Reutemann 19 Oct '18

19 Oct '18

'The 45th version of the OpenBSD project has been released, bringing more hardware support (Radeon driver updates, Intel microcode integration, and more), a virtualization tool that supports the disk format qcow2, and a network interface where you can quickly join and switch between different Wi-Fi networks. Root.cz also notes that audio recording is now disabled by default. If you need to record audio, it can be enabled with the new sysctl variable. An anonymous Slashdot reader first shared the announcement. You can download it from any of the mirrors here.' -- source: https://bsd.slashdot.org/story/18/10/18/2056242 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?
by Peter Reutemann 18 Oct '18

18 Oct '18

Hi everyone Any suggestions for a topic/presentation next Monday, the last meeting before the AGM in November? 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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Ubuntu Linux 18.10 'Cosmic Cuttlefish' Arrives
by Peter Reutemann 18 Oct '18

18 Oct '18

'Ubuntu 18.10 Cosmic Cuttlefish, the latest version of Ubuntu, is now available to download. From a report: Under the hood, the Cosmic Cuttlefish boasts the 4.18 Linux Kernel. This updates comes with better support for for AMD and Nvidia GPU, USB Type-C and Thunderbolt, a way for unprivileged users to mount Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) can be mounted by, and CPUfreq performance improvements. On top of this, you'll find the freshest version of GNOME 3.30. You can, of course, use other desktops, but GNOME, since Ubuntu 17.10, is Ubuntu's default desktop. You'll be glad to know that GNOME is faster than it has been for a while. That's because some nasty memory leaks have been patched. Canonical has also added some performance tweaks that didn't make it into the GNOME 3.30 upstream. Ubuntu 18.10 also comes with a new desktop theme, the Yaru Community theme installed by default, for your visual enjoyment.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/10/18/1840201 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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After $5 billion EU antitrust fine, Google will start charging for Android apps
by Peter Reutemann 17 Oct '18

17 Oct '18

'Google is adjusting to life in the EU after the $5.05 billion (€4.34 billion) antitrust fine levied against it by the European Commission earlier this year. Google is still appealing the initial ruling, which found that Google used Android to illegally dominate the search market, but for now Google will comply with the ruling and offer looser licensing agreements to Android device makers. In a post on the official Google Blog titled "Complying with the EC’s Android decision," Google outlined a few changes coming to the Google app licensing agreements that it offers to Android OEMs. As you might recall from the numerous times we've written about it, this announcement is a change to the secretive "Mobile Application Distribution Agreement" (MADA) document that is a requirement for getting access to the Play Store and other Google apps. What we think of as a commercial "Android" device comes in two parts. The core Android OS is free and open source—anyone can take it and do whatever they want with it without Google's involvement. If you want the Play Store, Google Maps, Gmail, and all the other Google apps you need to make a viable commercial smartphone, though, you need to talk to Google and sign a MADA, which comes with a ton of restrictions. Google's new MADA makes three big changes. First, Google's blog states "Android partners wishing to distribute Google apps may also build non-compatible, or forked, smartphones and tablets for the European Economic Area (EEA)." [...] Google says it will also unbundle Search and Chrome from the rest of the Google apps. [...] The last change is definitely a shocker. Breaking up Google's licensing agreement is going to have a financial impact on OEMs. As Google puts it, "Since the pre-installation of Google Search and Chrome together with our other apps helped us fund the development and free distribution of Android, we will introduce a new paid licensing agreement for smartphones and tablets shipped into the EEA." That's right, OEMs now have to pay to access the Google apps, but Google doesn't say how much. The core Android OS, Google says "will remain free and open source." [...]' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/10/google-to-charge-oems-for-android-a… 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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Researcher Finds Simple Way of Backdooring Windows PCs and Nobody Notices for Ten Months
by Peter Reutemann 17 Oct '18

17 Oct '18

' A security researcher from Colombia has found a way of gaining admin rights and boot persistence on Windows PCs that's simple to execute and hard to stop -- all the features that hackers and malware authors are looking for from an exploitation technique. From a report: What's more surprising, is that the technique was first detailed way back in December 2017, but despite its numerous benefits and ease of exploitation, it has not received either media coverage nor has it been seen employed in malware campaigns. Discovered by Sebastian Castro, a security researcher for CSL, the technique targets one of the parameters of Windows user accounts known as the Relative Identifier (RID). The RID is a code added at the end of account security identifiers (SIDs) that describes that user's permissions group. There are several RIDs available, but the most common ones are 501 for the standard guest account, and 500 for admin accounts. Castro, with help from CSL CEO Pedro Garcia, discovered that by tinkering with registry keys that store information about each Windows account, he could modify the RID associated with a specific account and grant it a different RID, for another account group. The technique does not allow a hacker to remotely infect a computer unless that computer has been foolishly left exposed on the Internet without a password. But in cases where a hacker has a foothold on a system -- via either malware or by brute-forcing an account with a weak password -- the hacker can give admin permissions to a compromised low-level account, and gain a permanent backdoor with full SYSTEM access on a Windows PC.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/10/17/1849255 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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