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POODLE Flaw Returns, This Time Hitting TLS Protocol
by Peter Reutemann 09 Dec '14

09 Dec '14

"If you patched your sites against a serious SSL flaw discovered in October you will have to check them again. Researchers have discovered that the POODLE vulnerability also affects implementations of the newer TLS protocol. The POODLE (Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption) vulnerability allows attackers who manage to intercept traffic between a user's browser and an HTTPS website to decrypt sensitive information, like the user's authentication cookies." -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/14/12/09/0423210 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Blockly Versus Scratch
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 09 Dec '14

09 Dec '14

You may have heard of MIT Scratch <http://scratch.mit.edu/>, a visual programming language oriented to teaching children programming. Initially I was put off by the non-Free licence (you couldn’t redistribute modified code), but that seems to have gone now, and the source is available <https://github.com/LLK/Scratch_1.4> under completely Free licences, the core being GPLv2, plugins under an MIT licence, and support materials/samples under CC-BY-SA. Google has its own alternative along the same lines, but Web-based, called Blockly <https://code.google.com/p/blockly/>. And Barack Obama has successfully used it to become the first US president to write a computer program <http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/08/barack-obama-just-became-the-first-us-pr…>.

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Linux 3.18 Released, Lockup Bug Still Present
by Peter Reutemann 08 Dec '14

08 Dec '14

"As anticipated, Linus Torvalds officially released Linux 3.18. The new version is now out there, though that nasty lockup issue has still yet to be resolved. Dave Jones is nearing the end of dissecting the issue, but since it also affects Linux 3.17 and not too many people seem to get hit by the lockups, Linus Torvalds decided to go ahead and do the 3.18 release on schedule. Linus was also concerned that dragging out the 3.18 release would then complicate the Linux 3.19 merge window due to the holidays later this month. Now the Linux 3.19 kernel merge window is open for two weeks of exciting changes." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/14/12/08/2020251 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Powerful, highly stealthy Linux trojan may have infected victims for years
by Peter Reutemann 08 Dec '14

08 Dec '14

"Researchers have uncovered an extremely stealthy trojan for Linux systems that attackers have been using to siphon sensitive data from governments and pharmaceutical companies around the world." -- source: http://goo.gl/JG2Jh3 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Fwd: [NZOSS-Openchat] LCA 2015 Keynote Session - Q&A with Linus Torvalds
by Peter Reutemann 08 Dec '14

08 Dec '14

Excuse the cross posting, but here is an amazing incentive to get to LCA 2015 in Auckland this year. - Way, way back in 2003, at LCA in Perth, there was a Q&A session with Linus Torvalds, Bdale Garbee and Andrew Tridgell. It’s time for a follow-up so at LCA 2015 in Auckland it’s going to happen! The Q&A session is scheduled for 09:00 am Friday, 16 January 2015 and will be moderated by Bdale Garbee with the assistance of Andrew Tridgell. Helsinki-born Linus, who simply calls himself a Software Engineer, was the principle force behind developing the Linux kernel. It all started from an initial usenet posting in August of 1991 and made what has proved to be a historic debut with the release of version 1.0 on March 14 1994. In June 2003 Linus started working for Open Source Development Labs. After merging with the Free Standards Group it became the Linux Foundation where Linus continues to work as the project’s coordinator and is Chief Architect of the Linux kernel. In 2005, after criticism for for his use and alleged advocacy of BitKeeper, proprietary software for version-control in the Linux kernel, Linus wrote a free-software replacement for BitKeeper called GIT which is now the most widely-adopted version-control system for software development. Linus is an accomplished diver and in 2011, frustrated with the lack of decent divelog software on Linux, he developed Subsurface (http://subsurface-divelog.org/) an Open Source divelog program that runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. We know that there are a number of beautiful diving spots not too far from Auckland... The LCA 2015 Auckland team would like to thank the Linux Foundation for their assistance in making this possible. -------------------------------------------- Steven Ellis - Technical Director OpenMedia Limited - The Home of myPVR email - steven(a)openmedia.co.nz _______________________________________________ Openchat mailing list Openchat(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz http://lists.nzoss.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/openchat -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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moving the mailing list - recap
by Peter Reutemann 02 Dec '14

02 Dec '14

Hi everyone >From what I can gather, the main reason for moving the mailing list (aggressive spam filtering), no longer seems to be an issue. Therefore, I think that we can end the discussion and leave things just as they are. Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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mailing list difficulties
by Ian Young 29 Nov '14

29 Nov '14

Greets, On the last occasion I tried to send a message to the list, it was impounded as there was a suspect word or somesuch in the subject line. Robo was wrong, utterly nonsensical. I think there was some reference in the rejection blurb to (possibly non-existent?) moderation. The message never appeared afaik. Never got around to following it up, but it was a nuisance. Subsequently I stopped bothering to post. And as I press Send now, I find myself wondering whether this message will ever appear. ~ IsY

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Computer History
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 Nov '14

29 Nov '14

Anybody interested in talks by and about computer pioneers should look at this YouTube channel <http://www.youtube.com/user/ComputerHistory>, run by the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. All kinds of fun stuff, from the experience of building a working version of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine No 2 (designed in the 1830s), to the 30th anniversary of the Cray-1 supercomputer, to an interview with Ward Cunningham, inventor of the wiki. And if you want to see how far computer graphics has come, try this one: <http://www.youtube.com/user/VintageCG/>. Some old classics there. But boy, have we come a long way since characters made out of spheres and cylinders...

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Shall We Talk About Moving This List To Another Server?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Nov '14

28 Nov '14

As I recall, the suggestion made last night was to put this list on Google Groups.

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Bitcoin uses the Bitcoin Core open source software
by Ian Stewart 28 Nov '14

28 Nov '14

Hi wlug folks, FYI: The latest release of Bitcoin is currently version 0.9.3 which was released 27 September 2014. You can download a suitable binary version of the Bitcoin Core from: https://www.bitcoin.org/en/download It is open source code and you can obtain it from: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin cheers, Ian. PS: This e-mail is a test to see if the spam filtering software blocks it being distributed to the wlug email list. From my experience about a year ago, I found that mails that contained the word "bitcoin" would be blocked.

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