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Greg Kroah-Hartman Chastises Critic, Says Linux Foundation Strongly Supports Kernel Developers
by Peter Reutemann 09 Oct '23

09 Oct '23

'It started when Linux blogger Bryan Lunduke complained about how the Linux Foundation was reducing the six-year long-term support (LTS) window for the Linux kernel to two years. Lunduke argued that the Foundation seemed more interested in funding compliance best practices — as well as artificial intelligence and blockchain projects. In an online discussion, Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman had this response: Did anyone think to actually ask the developer who is maintaining the long-term support kernel versions why he made that change (back in February?), i.e. me...? No, I guess that would take too much effort, and wouldn't result in such a click-bait headline. "LTS kernels are no longer supported for 6 years because it turns out no one used them." doesn't have that same fun sound... In a second comment Kroah-Hartman also clarified that in fact "The amount of resources and other stuff that the Linux Foundation provides to the Linux kernel community has increased over the years, including last year. " Just because new people are brought in with new projects (that the LF member companies want to host) does not mean that somehow less is being given to the kernel community at all. It is not a zero-sum game here at all, that's not how the LF works in any way. Again, this would have been easy to verify if someone just asked us. So to repeat, no "abandonment" is happening here at all, the opposite is happening, just like it has for the entirety of the Linux Foundation's existence, support has grown every year. ' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/23/10/08/0131214 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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Red Hat, Ubuntu, Debian, and Gentoo Release Patches for 'Looney Tunables' Linux Vulnerability
by Peter Reutemann 09 Oct '23

09 Oct '23

'Thursday ZDNet reported... As security holes go, CVE-2023-4911, aka "Looney Tunables," isn't horrid. It has a Common Vulnerability Scoring System score of 7.8, which is ranked as important, not critical. On the other hand, this GNU C Library's (glibc) dynamic loader vulnerability is a buffer overflow, which is always big trouble, and it's in pretty much all Linux distributions, so it's more than bad enough. After all, its discoverers, the Qualys Threat Research Unit, were able to exploit "this vulnerability (a local privilege escalation that grants full root privileges) on the default installations of Fedora 37 and 38, Ubuntu 22.04 and 23.04, and Debian 12 and 13." Other distributions are almost certainly vulnerable to attack. The one major exception is the highly secure Alpine Linux. Thanks to this vulnerability, it's trivial to take over most Linux systems as a root user. As the researchers noted, this exploitation method "works against almost all of the SUID-root programs that are installed by default on Linux...." The good news is that Red Hat, Ubuntu, Debian, and Gentoo have all released their own updates. In addition, the upstream glibc code has been patched with the fix. If you can't patch it, Red Hat has a script that should work on most Linux systems to mitigate the problem by setting your system to terminate any setuid program invoked with GLIBC_TUNABLES in the environment.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/23/10/08/2133244 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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Linux Tries To Dump Windows' Notoriously Insecure RNDIS Protocol
by Peter Reutemann 05 Oct '23

05 Oct '23

'ZDNet: Microsoft's proprietary protocol, Remote Network Driver Interface Specification (RNDIS), started with a good idea. It would enable hardware vendors to add networking support to USB devices without having to build them from scratch. There was only one little problem. RNDIS has no security to speak of. As Greg Kroah-Hartman, the Linux Foundation fellow responsible for stable Linux kernel releases, wrote in November 2022 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML), "The Microsoft RNDIS protocol is, as designed, insecure and vulnerable on any system that uses it with untrusted hosts or devices. Because the protocol is impossible to make secure, just disable all RNDIS drivers to prevent anyone from using them again." He added, in another message, "The protocol was never designed to be used with untrusted devices. It was created, and we implemented support for it, when we trusted USB devices that we plugged into our systems, AND we trusted the systems we plugged our USB devices into." That's no longer the case. Kroah-Hartman concluded, "Today, with untrusted hosts and devices, it's time just to retire this protocol. As I mentioned in the patch comments, Android disabled this many years ago in their devices, with no loss of functionality." [...] But now, sick and tired of having a built-in Windows security exploit in Linux, Kroah-Hartman has decided that enough was enough. He's disabled all the RNDIS protocol drivers in Linux's Git repository. That means that while the RNDIS code is still in the Linux kernel, if you try to build Linux using this new patch, all your RNDIS drivers will be broken and won't build. This is one step short of purging RNDIS from Linux.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/10/04/2119243 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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Vulnerabilities in Supermicro BMCs could allow for unkillable server rootkits
by Peter Reutemann 05 Oct '23

05 Oct '23

'If your organization uses servers that are equipped with baseboard management controllers from Supermicro, it may be time, once again, to patch seven high-severity vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit to gain control of them. And sorry, but the fixes must be installed manually. Typically abbreviated as BMCs, baseboard management controllers are small chips that are soldered onto the motherboard of servers inside data centers. Administrators rely on these powerful controllers for various remote management capabilities, including installing updates, monitoring temperatures and setting fan speeds accordingly, and reflashing the UEFI system firmware that allows servers to load their operating systems during reboots. BMCs provide these capabilities and more, even when the servers they’re connected to are turned off. The potential for vulnerabilities in BMCs to be exploited and used to take control of servers hasn’t been lost on hackers. In 2021, hackers exploited a vulnerability in BMCs from HP Enterprise and installed a custom rootkit, researchers from Amnpardaz, a security firm in Iran, reported that year. ILObleed, as the researchers named the rootkit, hid inside the iLO, a module in HPE BMCs that’s short for Integrated Lights-Out. ILObleed was programmed to destroy data stored on disk. If admins reinstalled the operating system, iLObleed would remain intact and reactivate the disk-wiping attack repeatedly. The unknown attackers responsible took control of the BMCs by exploiting a vulnerability HPE had fixed four years earlier. In June, the National Security Agency urged admins to follow guidance to prevent such incidents.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/10/vulnerabilities-in-supermicro-bmcs… 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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Android 14 officially releases for Pixel phones
by Peter Reutemann 05 Oct '23

05 Oct '23

'Android 14 is out today, along with a new Pixel phone. The OS is shipping to supported Pixel devices now, which means the Pixel 4a (5G) and every variant of the Pixel 5, 6, and 7, plus the Fold and Tablet. The big feature this year is a somewhat customizable home screen. You can pick from several different lock screen clock styles and customize the two bottom app shortcuts. This feels like a response to iOS 16's lock screen widgets (a feature Android used to have back in the 4.2 days) but not nearly as customizable. It's honestly hard to highlight a second Android 14 feature because this is one of the smallest Android releases ever. The first feature Google mentions in its blog post is a new wallpaper picker. On the Pixel 8, Android now has a built-in text-to-image AI wallpaper maker, presumably a feature that lets the Android team adhere to Google's "mandatory AI" company mandate. There's also a new monochrome theme if you're tired of all those "Material You" colors. Next up, we have... a redesigned battery charging indicator in the status bar? Updates to Android's runtime? You can make the screen and camera LED flash when a notification comes in. There's Ultra HDR image support, a sharable "Health Connect" data repository for fitness apps, and that phone-as-PC-webcam feature is launching.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/10/android-14-officially-releases-for-… 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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Shift Happens: The History Of The Typewriter/Computer Keyboard
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 Oct '23

04 Oct '23

Everything you always wanted to know about typing keyboards, but were afraid to ask, has now been compiled into a two-volume work of over 1200 pages, which is available for preorder <https://arstechnica.com/culture/2023/10/shift-happens-is-a-beautifully-desi…>. Coincidentally or not, this year is also the 150th anniversary of the QWERTY keyboard layout. Did you know that, back in the latter 19th century, there was a battle over whether it was better to have fewer typing keys with more shift modifier keys, or to give more characters their own keys and use fewer shifts? The question was seemingly settled, not by any issue of technical superiority one way or the other, but just because models with fewer keys in total were popular in the marketplace for other reasons. But what was the significance of the key with the three dots on it on the first-ever typewriter with a proper QWERTY keyboard?

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shellcheck
by Peter Reutemann 04 Oct '23

04 Oct '23

Hi everyone Something useful I came across the other day: https://www.shellcheck.net/ finds bugs in your shell scripts. You can cabal, apt, dnf, pkg or brew install it locally right now. The above website lets you paste and analyze scripts, if you want to give it a spin. 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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Lichee Pi 4A: Serious RISC-V Desktop Computing
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Oct '23

02 Oct '23

This video on Christopher Barnatt’s “Explaining Computers” channel <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1apoFXZ9ad8> just came across my feed. It’s an unboxing and initial review of a Sipeed Lichee Pi 4A, a RISC-V-based rival to the Raspberry Pi. Seems the RISC-V desktop ecosystem is approaching maturity rapidly; he was able to boot up the preinstalled Debian system and run included apps like LibreOffice, GIMP and Chromium just fine (albeit with some audio/video performance hiccups in the last one). He says in the video that he was going to spend a week trying to do all his computing on RISC-V machines, with a report on the results due out on Sunday UK time (I suppose Monday our time).

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Vulnerabilities In Exim MTA
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Sep '23

30 Sep '23

This article <https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/09/critical-vulnerabilities-in-exim-t…> reports on six different security vulnerabilities in the Exim mail transfer agent (MTA), with uncertain status on their fixes. It seems like patches for three of them are available, but only in a private repo, with no clarification of who has access to this repo. Seems like there has been poor communication between Zero Day Initiative (the group that discovered the vulnerabilities) and the Exim project, going back over a year, on these issues. An MTA is the piece of software that receives mail from other machines for users on the local machine (or on other, related machines that it is responsible for), and also forwards mail sent from local users, destined for users on other machines. Exim is the default MTA you get on a Debian installation, if you don’t choose something else (e.g. Postfix). Not sure about Debian derivatives.

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Raspberry Pi 5
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Sep '23

28 Sep '23

Just heard about the new-generation Raspberry Pi. Here’s a video about a prerelease unit <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hYfQ7bRgZg> which I haven’t even watched yet.

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