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Licensing Pirate Sites
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 07 Oct '17

07 Oct '17

Fun fact: pirating US-made movies is not a crime in Iran ... provided you have a licence from the Government. So *licensed* pirate sites get to dob in *unlicensed* pirate sites for breaking the law. Got that? <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171003/09314138334/iran-cracks-down-mov…>

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How to install Sogo Groupware Server on Debian
by Peter Reutemann 06 Oct '17

06 Oct '17

'Today we talk about Sogo. SOGo is a fully supported and trusted groupware server with a focus on scalability and open standards, is released under the GNU GPL/LGPL v2 and above. SOGo provides a rich AJAX-based Web interface and supports multiple native clients through the use of standard protocols such as CalDAV, CardDAV, and GroupDAV, as well as Microsoft ActiveSync. In this tutorial we'll install on Debian 8, a new version will be available soon.' -- source: https://www.howtoforge.com/tutorial/how-to-install-sogo-on-debian-8/ 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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OpenVPN And systemd Service Templates
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Oct '17

06 Oct '17

The OpenVPN package on Debian comes with some systemd .service files to make VPN connections easier to manage. These (all located in /lib/systemd/system/) are named openvpn-client(a).service openvpn-server(a).service openvpn.service openvpn(a).service Note the @-signs in the names of three of them: these indicate “template” services, each of which can be “instantiated” any number of times, to create multiple service “instances”. There seem to be two alternative ways of defining your OpenVPN services here: the first two .service files let you define and manage client-end and server-end connections individually, and require you to start and stop them separately, while the latter two don’t bother distinguishing between client-end and server-end (this is purely up to the respective OpenVPN configurations), they are all defined by instantiating “openvpn(a).service”. The non-template file, “openvpn.service”, can then be used to start and stop all these instances at once. (It could be that the first two represent an older way of managing connections, while the latter two are a newer, unified, more flexible way. But hey...) To illustrate how template instantiations work, I have been setting up a VPN link between a virtual private server at Rimu Hosting and the Internet router machine in my office. The VPS (with the fixed IP address) is the server end, while my office end is the client. On the server, I create a config file named /etc/openvpn/server/office.conf that appropriately defines the server end of the connection. The name “office” now automatically becomes the name of the instance: to start this, I just type systemctl start openvpn-server(a)office and systemd automatically fills in the name “office” in place of the “%i” placeholder in the contents of the openvpn-server(a).service template file, and executes the appropriate openvpn command. (One of the occurrences of %i is in the name of the config file.) At the client end, I create a config file named /etc/openvpn/client/vps.conf that appropriately defines the client end of the connection. Here the instance name is “vps”, so the systemd command to launch openvpn at the client end is systemctl start openvpn-client(a)vps and as before, instances of “%i” in the template are replaced with the instance name, “vps”. (As before, %i is also used to produce the name of the config file.) Of course, manually starting and stopping OpenVPN instances may be fine for testing, but for production use you want this to happen automatically at boot time. Just change the systemctl “start” commands to “enable”, and it’s done.

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Intel Versus AMD
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Oct '17

06 Oct '17

Comparing current high-end CPU offerings from the two x86 vendors <https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/09/intel-core-i9-7960x-review/>, it’s clear AMD has bounced back from many years in the “also-ran” back row with its “Ryzen” and “Threadripper” offerings: The difference is that AMD bet on a massively multicore future for consumers and prosumers, designing an architecture with dramatic scaling in mind, when Intel was still umming and ahhing whether to bring six-core chips to the mainstream. So if you make heavy use of multithreaded software, for example 3D rendering, video encoding, or large software builds, then AMD currently has a significant price/performance edge. Interesting that one of the benchmarks is “Blenchmark”, which involves using Blender to render a 3D BMW car model, while another builds Google’s Chromium browser from source.

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How Bulletproof Hosting Works
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Oct '17

06 Oct '17

“Bulletproof” hosting providers tout their ability to stay online in spite of the efforts of law enforcement to shut them down. Here is a report <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/05/bulletproof_hosting/> into some research detailing how they manage to keep operating: One service cited by the work is a cloud proxy network that abuses the services of legitimate providers including AWS and TenCent. The product ... typically costs $250/month/domain and maintains operations by cycling through an enormous number of providers – 230 in just nine days, according to the researchers. ... Another provider ...is still in business despite being raided three times ... Operating out of political hotspots gives some BPH operations another shield against takedown attempts.

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How Do Sysadmins Manage Patches?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Oct '17

06 Oct '17

The infamous Equifax breach (which has compromised the personal information belonging to 140 million Americans) was down to a vulnerability in an application library which had already been discovered and a patch issued months before, but the patch was never applied at the company. Why does this sort of thing keep happening? Here is a research survey <https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2017/10/04/avoid-an-equifax-like-breach-help-…> being undertaken to try to better understand the real-world constraints under which companies operate, with a view to making the software update process more effective (i.e. more likely to be followed).

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HP Shared ArcSight Source Code With Russians
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Oct '17

06 Oct '17

Bruce Schneier repeats a point that should be well-known about security and Open Source, but which some still have trouble grasping: This is one of the areas where open-source software has a security edge. If everyone has access to the source code -- and security doesn't depend on its secrecy -- then there's no advantage in getting a copy. As long as companies rely on obscurity for their security, these sorts of attacks are possible and profitable. <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/10/hp_shared_arcsi.html>

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Return Of The Algorithm Monster: YouTube Auto-Promoted Conspiracy Theory Videos
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Oct '17

06 Oct '17

During the [Wall Street Journal]'s Tuesday test, searches for hot-topic terms like "Las Vegas shooting" and "NFL anthem protest," along with the term "9/11," each brought up top-five video posts, specifically listed in the site's "Top News" box, whose titles and content were loaded with debunked and misleading content. The fifth result for "Las Vegas shooting" was titled "Proof Las Vegas Shooting Was a FALSE FLAG attack—Shooter on 4th Floor" and claimed that multiple shooters had been involved, in spite of Vegas officials stating otherwise. <https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/10/return-of-the-algorithm-monster-yout…>

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“Your Account eStatement For February”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 05 Oct '17

05 Oct '17

It took me a few seconds to parse this one. Dear Customer Attached is your provisional statement with the new charges. For your security it has been encrypted. This means that you will need a decoder to view your statement. Before you can view your statement, you must Download the attachment and install the decoder. Read that far, and initially thought “for crying out loud, another bloody piece of Windows-only software”. Then a few seconds later, it dawned on me that, while it claimed to come from the right bank, the from-address <JOhnEdwarD011(a)gaea.ocn.ne.jp> couldn’t be that of any bank. It wasn’t until after I’d filed it as a scam that I noticed the most glaring thing: “February”??

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World’s First 14TB Drive
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 Oct '17

04 Oct '17

Western Digital has announced a drive using shingled media recording to push the capacity up to 14TB <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/03/wdc_14tb_disk_drive_hs14/>. Unfortunately, this recording technique complicates (and slows down) writing, so it is meant for applications where data is read a lot, and updated less frequently.

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