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HP Says The Quiet Part Out Loud
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Jan '24

23 Jan '24

You’d think, if you were buying a printer, you were the one making the investment, and expecting an outcome of suitable print quality (and quantity) in return. But not, it seems, if you buy an HP printer. Company boss Enrique Lores has made it quite clear <https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/19/hps_ceo_spells_it_out/>: "Every time a customer buys a printer, it's an investment for us. We are investing in that customer, and if that customer doesn't print enough or doesn't use our supplies, it's a bad investment." If you think this is some offhand remark, taken out of context or something, how about this statement from December, by their CFO of the time: "We absolutely see when you move a customer from that pure transactional model ... whether it's Instant Ink, plus adding on that paper, we sort of see a 20 percent uplift on the value of that customer because you're locking that person, committing to a longer-term relationship." In short, they are going to squeeze you for as much ink revenue as they can. Third-party ink cartridges are obviously a threat to this business model, that must be exterminated. I wonder, if they could figure out how to make you get the paper from them as well, they wouldn’t do that ... oh wait ... she already mentioned paper ...

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Timezone Data Changes
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Jan '24

23 Jan '24

The maintainers of the timezone database (tzdata) have been cleaning up some things lately. Namely, removing all the alias names that are not of the common IANA «region»/«city» form, but refer to specific countries, from the core package. NZ’s two timezones, “NZ” and “NZ-CHAT” were among these special cases. Also the ones beginning “US/” for the various timezones in the USA. <https://tracker.debian.org/news/1451157/accepted-tzdata-2023c-8-source-into…> <https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1040997> <https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1056908> These latter names are still available if you install the “tzdata-legacy” package. So you need to have that installed if you want to continue setting “TZ=NZ”. Either that, or learn to start saying “TZ=Pacific/Auckland” instead.

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All This AI Stuff Costs A Lot Of Money
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 21 Jan '24

21 Jan '24

According to this article <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/alexa-is-in-trouble-paid-for-alexa-…> (based on anonymous sources), Amazon is on a struggle to make money out of its Alexa service, particularly a new, “Generative-AI”-based version coming out at some non-yet-publicly-disclosed point. I was flabbergasted at this: Amazon has to do something to turn Alexa into a viable revenue source. In late 2022, Insider reported that Alexa was on track to lose Amazon $10 billion that year. The following months were filled with numerous layoffs at Amazon ... $10 billion!? I wonder how much of that is *not* the electricity bills for running all the servers ...

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Rust-Written Linux Scheduler Continues Showing Promising Results For Gaming
by Peter Reutemann 21 Jan '24

21 Jan '24

'"A Canonical engineer has been experimenting with implementing a Linux scheduler within the Rust programming language..." Phoronix reported Monday, "that works via sched_ext for implementing a scheduler using eBPF that can be loaded during run-time." The project was started "just for fun" over Christmas, according to a post on X by Canonical-based Linux kernel engineer Andrea Righi, adding "I'm pretty shocked to see that it doesn't just work, but it can even outperform the default Linux scheduler (EEVDF) with certain workloads (i.e., gaming)." Phoronix notes the a YouTube video accompanying the tweet shows "a game with the scx_rustland scheduler outperforming the default Linux kernel scheduler while running a parallel kernel build in the background." "For sure the build takes longer," Righi acknowledged in a later post. "This scheduler doesn't magically makes everything run faster, it simply prioritizes more the interactive workloads vs CPU-intensive background jobs." Righi followed up by adding "And the whole point of this demo was to prove that, despite the overhead of running a scheduler in user-space, we can still achieve interesting performance, while having the advantages of being in user-space (ease of experimentation/testing, reboot-less updates, etc.)" Wednesday Righi added some improvements, posting that "Only 19 lines of code (comments included) for ~2x performance improvement on SMT isn't bad... and I spent my lunch break playing Counter Strike 2 to test this patch..." And work seems to be continuing, judging by a fresh post from Righi on Thursday. "I fixed virtme-ng to run inside Docker and used it to create a github CI workflow for sched-ext that clones the latest kernel, builds it and runs multiple VMs to test all the scx schedulers. And it does that in only ~20min. I'm pretty happy about virtme-ng now."' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/24/01/20/0716232 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Network Time Man's Time Has Ended
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Jan '24

20 Jan '24

Dave Mills, creator of NTP, the Network Time Protocol that keeps all our computer clocks synced to within hundredths of a second, has passed away at the age of 85 <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/inventor-of-ntp-protocol-that-keeps…>.

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Just 10 lines of code can steal AI secrets from Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm GPUs
by Peter Reutemann 18 Jan '24

18 Jan '24

'As more companies ramp up development of artificial intelligence systems, they are increasingly turning to graphics processing unit (GPU) chips for the computing power they need to run large language models (LLMs) and to crunch data quickly at massive scale. Between video game processing and AI, demand for GPUs has never been higher, and chipmakers are rushing to bolster supply. In new findings released today, though, researchers are highlighting a vulnerability in multiple brands and models of mainstream GPUs—including Apple, Qualcomm, and AMD chips—that could allow an attacker to steal large quantities of data from a GPU’s memory. The silicon industry has spent years refining the security of central processing units, or CPUs, so they don’t leak data in memory even when they are built to optimize for speed. However, since GPUs were designed for raw graphics processing power, they haven’t been architected to the same degree with data privacy as a priority. As generative AI and other machine learning applications expand the uses of these chips, though, researchers from New York-based security firm Trail of Bits say that vulnerabilities in GPUs are an increasingly urgent concern. “There is a broader security concern about these GPUs not being as secure as they should be and leaking a significant amount of data,” Heidy Khlaaf, Trail of Bits’ engineering director for AI and machine learning assurance, tells WIRED. “We’re looking at anywhere from 5 megabytes to 180 megabytes. In the CPU world, even a bit is too much to reveal.” To exploit the vulnerability, which the researchers call LeftoverLocals, attackers would need to already have established some amount of operating system access on a target’s device. Modern computers and servers are specifically designed to silo data so multiple users can share the same processing resources without being able to access each others’ data. But a LeftoverLocals attack breaks down these walls. Exploiting the vulnerability would allow a hacker to exfiltrate data they shouldn’t be able to access from the local memory of vulnerable GPUs, exposing whatever data happens to be there for the taking, which could include queries and responses generated by LLMs as well as the weights driving the response.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/01/new-attack-steals-ai-secrets-from-… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Generating PDF Files From man Pages
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Jan '24

17 Jan '24

I’ve been writing documentation for some of my published scripts in the form of man pages. The troff/groff markup is not hard to get to grips with--the man pages for the relevant tools have a lot of useful info. And it’s easy to view the results without any special installation step, since the man(1) command includes the “-l” option to treat its argument as a file name. But if the topic name has any slashes in it, such treatment is automatic without even needing this option. Thus, in my project source directory, I can type something as simple as man ./render-batch.1 to view the man page I wrote for the “render-batch” command. Conversion to PDF is easy, too, using the underlying groff command that man itself uses to format the page, just specifying a different output “device” (i.e. format), e.g. groff -man -Tpdf «troff-file» >«output-file» Or, if I don’t want to save the output PDF file, but just pipe it straight to a viewer like Okular, this works: groff -man -Tpdf «troff-file» | okular - This is particularly useful, for example, for debugging the difference between dashes and hyphens. You are supposed to use “\-” for the hyphen-minus character (as used to prefix command-line options, for example), while hyphens in regular text should be written as “-”. The two look the same in a normal man-page view, but they get rendered differently in PDF files. However, I found that groff does not correctly render various Unicode UTF-8 characters when generating PDF output. For example, I like to use curly quotes “”. These look OK in regular man output, but get turned into junk in PDF output. After some searching online, it appears this is a known limitation of groff, because it uses various 8-bit byte codes internally for its own purposes, precluding their use as part of UTF-8 encoding. But there is a tool called “preconv” that can convert various encodings into a more groff-friendly text representation. For example preconv -e utf-8 «troff-file» | groff -man -Tpdf | okular - Since my locale is set to a UTF-8 one by default, I don’t even need the “-e” option: preconv «troff-file» | groff -man -Tpdf | okular - Or, if you want to save the output: preconv «troff-file» | groff -man -Tpdf >«output-file» Going back to the example filename I used before, these translate to something like preconv render-batch.1 | groff -man -Tpdf | okular - preconv render-batch.1 | groff -man -Tpdf >render-batch.pdf Another variation is to use preconv «troff-file» | groff -man -Tpdf | { okular - & } This spawns the Okular part of the pipeline in the background, so it comes back to the shell prompt immediately that starts running. This is convenient with a GUI tool like Okular, because I can run other commands while continuing to view the output PDF file. So how is it that groff is capable of handling these characters just fine when invoked via man? That I haven’t figured out yet ...

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Chrome Updates Incognito Warning To Admit Google Tracks Users In 'Private' Mode
by Peter Reutemann 17 Jan '24

17 Jan '24

'Ars Technica: Google is updating the warning on Chrome's Incognito mode to make it clear that Google and websites run by other companies can still collect your data in the web browser's semi-private mode. The change is being made as Google prepares to settle a class-action lawsuit that accuses the firm of privacy violations related to Chrome's Incognito mode. The expanded warning was recently added to Chrome Canary, a nightly build for developers. The warning appears to directly address one of the lawsuit's complaints, that the Incognito mode's warning doesn't make it clear that Google collects data from users of the private mode. Many tech-savvy people already know that while private modes in web browsers prevent some data from being stored on your device, they don't prevent tracking by websites or Internet service providers. But many other people may not understand exactly what Incognito mode does, so the more specific warning could help educate users. The new warning seen in Chrome Canary when you open an incognito window says: "You've gone Incognito. Others who use this device won't see your activity, so you can browse more privately. This won't change how data is collected by websites you visit and the services they use, including Google." The wording could be interpreted to refer to Google websites and third-party websites, including third-party websites that rely on Google ad services. The new warning was not yet in the developer, beta, and stable branches of Chrome as of today. It also wasn't in Chromium. The change to Canary was previously reported by MSPowerUser. Incognito mode in the stable version of Chrome still says: "You've gone Incognito. Now you can browse privately, and other people who use this device won't see your activity." Among other changes, the Canary warning replaces "browse privately" with "browse more privately." The stable and Canary warnings both say that your browsing activity might still be visible to "websites you visit," "your employer or school," or "your Internet service provider." But only the Canary warning currently includes the caveat that Incognito mode "won't change how data is collected by websites you visit and the services they use, including Google." The old and new warnings both say that Incognito mode prevents Chrome from saving your browsing history, cookies and site data, and information entered in forms, but that "downloads, bookmarks and reading list items will be saved." Both warnings link to this page, which provides more detail on Incognito mode.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/01/16/2110250 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Wine 9.0 Released
by Peter Reutemann 17 Jan '24

17 Jan '24

'Version 9.0 of Wine, the free and open-source compatibility layer that lets you run Windows apps on Unix-like operating systems, has been released. "Highlights of Wine 9.0 include an experimental Wayland graphics driver with features like basic window management, support for multiple monitors, high-DPI scaling, relative motion events, as well as Vulkan support," reports 9to5Linux. From the report: The Vulkan driver has been updated to support Vulkan 1.3.272 and later, the PostScript driver has been reimplemented to work from Windows-format spool files and avoid any direct calls from the Unix side, and there's now a dark theme option on WinRT theming that can be enabled in WineCfg. Wine 9.0 also adds support for many more instructions to Direct3D 10 effects, implements the Windows Media Video (WMV) decoder DirectX Media Object (DMO), implements the DirectShow Audio Capture and DirectShow MPEG-1 Video Decoder filters, and adds support for video and system streams, as well as audio streams to the DirectShow MPEG-1 Stream Splitter filter. Desktop integration has been improved in this release to allow users to close the desktop window in full-screen desktop mode by using the "Exit desktop" entry in the Start menu, as well as support for export URL/URI protocol associations as URL handlers to the Linux desktop. Audio support has been enhanced in Wine 9.0 with the implementation of several DirectMusic modules, DLS1 and DLS2 sound font loading, support for the SF2 format for compatibility with Linux standard MIDI sound fonts, Doppler shift support in DirectSound, Indeo IV50 Video for Windows decoder, and MIDI playback in dmsynth. Among other noteworthy changes, Wine 9.0 brings loader support for ARM64X and ARM64EC modules, along with the ability to run existing Windows binaries on ARM64 systems and initial support for building Wine for the ARM64EC architecture. There's also a new 32-bit x86 emulation interface, a new WoW64 mode that supports running of 32-bit apps on recent macOS versions that don't support 32-bit Unix processes, support for DirectInput action maps to improve compatibility with many old video games that map controller inputs to in-game actions, as well as Windows 10 as the default Windows version for new prefixes. Last but not least, the kernel has been updated to support address space layout randomization (ASLR) for modern PE binaries, better memory allocation performance through the Low Fragmentation Heap (LFH) implementation, and support memory placeholders in the virtual memory allocator to allow apps to reserve virtual space. Wine 9.0 also adds support for smart cards, adds support for Diffie-Hellman keys in BCrypt, implements the Negotiate security package, adds support for network interface change notifications, and fixes many bugs. For a full list of changes, check out the release notes. You can download Wine 9.0 from WineHQ.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/01/16/2253237 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Google Is No Longer Bringing the Full Chrome Browser To Fuchsia
by Peter Reutemann 16 Jan '24

16 Jan '24

'Google has formally discontinued its efforts to bring the full Chrome browser experience to its Fuchsia operating system. 9to5Google reports: In 2021, we reported that the Chromium team had begun an effort to get the full Chrome/Chromium browser running on Google's in-house Fuchsia operating system. Months later, in early 2022, we were even able to record a video of the progress, demonstrating that Chromium (the open-source-only variant of Chrome) could work relatively well on a Fuchsia-powered device. This was far from the first time that the Chromium project had been involved with Fuchsia. Google's full lineup of Nest Hub smart displays is currently powered by Fuchsia under the hood, and those displays have limited web browsing capabilities through an embedded version of the browser. In contrast to that minimal experience, Google was seemingly working to bring the full might of Chrome to Fuchsia. To observers, this was yet another signal that Google intended for Fuchsia to grow beyond the smart home and serve as a full desktop operating system. After all, what good is a laptop or desktop without a web browser? Fans of the Fuchsia project have anticipated its eventual expansion to desktop since Fuchsia was first shown to run on Google's Pixelbook hardware. However, in the intervening time -- a period that also saw significant layoffs in the Fuchsia division -- it seems that Google has since shifted Fuchsia in a different direction. The clearest evidence of that move comes from a Chromium code change (and related bug tracker post) published last month declaring that the "Chrome browser on fuchsia won't be maintained."' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/01/15/2350230 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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