"The introduction of systemd has unilaterally created a polarization
of the GNU/Linux community that is remarkably similar to the
monopolistic power position wielded by Microsoft in the late 1990s.
Choices were stark: use Windows (with SMB/CIFS Services), or use UNIX
(with NFS and NIS). Only the introduction of fully-compatible
reverse-engineered NT Domains services corrected the situation.
Instructions on how to remove systemd include dire warnings that "all
dependent packages will be removed", rendering a normal Debian Desktop
system flat-out impossible to achieve. It was therefore necessary to
demonstrate that it is actually possible to run a Debian Desktop GUI
system (albeit an unusual one: fvwm) with libsystemd0 removed. The
reason for doing so: it doesn't matter how good systemd is believed to
be or in fact actually is: the reason for removing it is, apart from
the alarm at how extensive systemd is becoming (including interfering
with firewall rules), it's the way that it's been introduced in a
blatantly cavalier fashion as a polarized all-or-nothing option,
forcing people to consider abandoning the GNU/Linux of their choice
and to seriously consider using FreeBSD or any other distro that
properly respects the Software Freedom principle of the right to
choose what software to run. We aren't all "good at coding", or paid
to work on Software Libre: that means that those people who are need
to be much more responsible, and to start — finally — to listen to
what people are saying. Developing a thick skin is a good way to
abdicate responsibility and, as a result, place people into untenable
positions."
-- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/02/15/1959209
Cheers, Peter
--
Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174
'It provides a basic infrastructure for function "live patching" (i.e.
code redirection), including API for kernel modules containing the
actual patches, and API/ABI for userspace to be able to operate on the
patches (look up what patches are applied, enable/disable them, etc).
It's relatively simple and minimalistic, as it's making use of
existing kernel infrastructure (namely ftrace) as much as possible.
It's also self-contained, in a sense that it doesn't hook itself in
any other kernel subsystem (it doesn't even touch any other code).
It's now implemented for x86 only as a reference architecture, but
support for powerpc, s390 and arm is already in the works (adding
arch-specific support basically boils down to teaching ftrace about
regs-saving).'
-- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/02/12/1853215
Cheers, Peter
--
Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174
That sounds awesome, I'd personally LOVE to hear more on that. Peter, Ian,
does that suit you guys?
Ryan - The next wlug meeting is Monday, February 23, 7:30 PM, in MS4.G.02.
Can Baden make it?
*excite*
Thanks Eric. Yup we do use some of the tools from time to time. If you are
interested, we can arrange for my grad student Baden to talk about (and
demo) some of the tools. Only catch is that he is busy with his thesis
writing now - due next week.
Ryan
On 12 Feb 2015 15:44, "Eric Light" <eric(a)ericlight.com> wrote:
> I'm definitely not suitable - I have *no idea* what I'm doing.
>
> Let me check with Ryan and see if there's anyone doing the Masters of
> Cybersecurity who would be interested though...
>
> Ryan? We're just a small group of geeks, but if any of your guys use
> Kali, it would be awesome to have a quick demo :)
>
> Eric
>
> --------------------------------------------
> Q: Why is this email five sentences or less?
> A: http://five.sentenc.es
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 10:56 AM, Peter Reutemann <fracpete(a)waikato.ac.nz>
> wrote:
>
>> > ... No, really, it looks like there's a lot of new stuff in the 1.1
>> version.
>> > I'm experimenting with it here in my "free time".
>>
>> Ian Young volunteered to present some distros at the next meeting (Feb
>> 23). Do you or Paul feel like demoing Kali?
>>
>> Cheers, Peter
>> --
>> Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ
>> http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174
>> _______________________________________________
>> wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz
>> Unsubscribe: http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug
>>
>
>
"ownCloud <https://owncloud.org/>, a free software alternative to
proprietary web services such as Dropbox, Google Drive and others that you
can install on your own server, has reached version 8.0.0."
"http://www.webupd8.org/2015/02/owncloud-8-server-released-with.html"
I Have been running v7 on Fedora 21 Server for about 8 weeks works great,
this is a really nice solution if you are looking at running your own cloud
and don't want to dive into openstack.
Regards
Paul Wilson
"After almost two years of public development (and another year behind the
scenes), we are proud to announce our first point release of Kali Linux -
version 1.1.0. This release brings with it a mix of unprecedented hardware
support as well as rock-solid stability. For us, this is a real milestone
as this release epitomizes the benefits of our move from BackTrack to Kali
Linux over two years ago."
http://www.linuxscreenshots.org/?release=Kali%20Linux%201.1.0
For all those "Security Testers" out there this could be interesting....
Regards
Paul Wilson
'In a recent blog post, Mozilla announced its intention to require
extensions to be signed in Firefox, without any possible user
override. From the post: "For developers hosting their add-ons on AMO,
this means that they will have to either test on Developer Edition,
Nightly, or one of the unbranded builds. The rest of the submission
and review process will remain unchanged, except that extensions will
be automatically signed once they pass review. For other developers,
this is a larger change. For testing development versions, they’ll
have the same options available as AMO add-on developers. For release
versions, however, we’re introducing the required step of uploading
the extension file to AMO for signing. For most cases, this step will
be automatic, but in cases where the extension doesn’t pass these
tests, there will be the option to request a manual code review."'
-- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/02/11/210247
Cheers, Peter
--
Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174
'Every year on 14th February, the Free Software Foundation Europe asks
all Free Software users to think about the hard-working people in the
Free Software community and to show them their appreciation
individually on this "I love Free Software"-Day.
Like last year the campaign is dedicated to the people behind Free
Software because they enable us to use, study, share and improve the
software which enables us to work in freedom. This time the focus
especially lies on the small contributions to the big picture of the
Free Software community.'
-- source: http://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150209-01.html
Cheers, Peter
--
Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174
"Two weekends ago an update for VLC media player was shared during a
presentation in Brussels at FOSDEM. Lead developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf
covered VLC's continued vibrant development, as well as features that
are coming for VLC 2.2 and VLC 3.0. VLC 2.2.0 will feature automatic,
GPU-accelerated video rotation support, extension improvements, resume
handling, support for new codecs/formats and rewrites to some of the
existing formats, VDPAU GPU zero-copy support, x265 encoder support,
etc. Further out is VLC 3.0.0, which is planned to have Wayland
support, GPU zero-copy support for OpenMAX IL, ARIB subtitle support,
HEVC / VP9 hardware decoding on Android, a rework of the MP4 and TS
demuxers, and browsing improvements. The VLC FOSDEM 2015 presentation
is available in PDF form. The VLC Git shortlog can be used to follow
the development of the project."
-- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/02/11/0515244
Cheers, Peter
--
Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174
'Debian developer John Goerzen asks whether Linux has become so
complex that it has lost some of its defining characteristics. "I used
to be able to say Linux was clean, logical, well put-together, and
organized. I can’t really say this anymore. Users and groups are not
really determinitive for permissions, now that we have things like
polkit running around. (Yes, by the way, I am a member of plugdev.)
Error messages are unhelpful (WHY was I not authorized?) and logs are
nowhere to be found. Traditionally, one could twiddle who could mount
devices via /etc/fstab lines and perhaps some sudo rules. Granted, you
had to know where to look, but when you did, it was simple; only two
pieces to fit together. I've even spent time figuring out where to
look and STILL have no idea what to do."'
-- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/02/11/0444232
Cheers, Peter
--
Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174
