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Microsoft Excel Has Become A Threat To Democracy
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 07 Jun '23

07 Jun '23

Austria’s Social Democratic Party recently held an election for a new leader, according to <https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/06/austria_election_excel_blunder/>. Trouble was, two days after announcing the result had gone one way, they then had to report that in fact it was the other way round, owing to a stuffup involving an Excel spreadsheet. I suppose the only good news is that this was strictly an in-party election, not something involving any level of Government.

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The State Of Fibre Broadband In The USA
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 07 Jun '23

07 Jun '23

Came across this report <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/internet-users-love-fiber-servi…>, which is interesting to compare with conditions in NZ: In terms of availability, the Federal Communications Commission broadband map indicates that about 38 percent of US residents can get fiber. The percentage drops to 29 percent when including only fiber services that offer gigabit download speeds and at least 100Mbps upload speeds. Basically, US broadband is dominated by companies with heavy investments in cable (and some ADSL), who have no interest in obsoleting that investment any sooner than they have to. Moral: there are places where a free market works, but strategic infrastructure buildouts is not one of them.

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Trouble Accessing .nz Sites, Anybody?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 May '23

30 May '23

Seems some people have had trouble accessing various .nz sites since last night, and into this morning <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/banking-apps-some-websites-down-as-inte…>. The explanation at the end seems to indicate that InternetNZ is rolling out DNS security, and caching inconsistencies on ISPs’ servers are leading to hiccups for users. Hopefully this will be resolved soon as the outdated DNS entries get flushed.

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Microsoft Releases Azure Linux
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 May '23

26 May '23

Microsoft has announced a commercially-supported product it calls “Azure Linux” <https://devclass.com/2023/05/25/azure-linux-released-at-build-where-microso…>. This is essentially the same code as its custom “CBL-Mariner” distro that it runs internally on its Azure servers. While this is RPM-based (the same package manager used in Red Hat), it is not a fork of Red Hat, but is built specially from the ground up. Project lead Jim Perrin explains why: “The reason we chose not to fork a different distro … Microsoft has kind of a history with Linux. … I think the Balmer quote is from 2001, but a lot of the sentiment still lingers even today. Part of the reason we did not choose to start with a distribution and then fork it for our needs is we didn’t want to be seen as doing the embrace and extend thing again, we didn’t want to wake any of that up, we figured, build it from scratch, we can tailor it to our needs … we’re scratching an itch we had and offering the solution back to the community.” The “Ballmer quote” being the infamous phrase “Linux is a cancer” that then-CEO Steve Ballmer uttered back in 2001. Yes, nice to see some past sins are still kept in mind, at least in some corners of Microsoft ...

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Fast Restart For Java Apps
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 May '23

23 May '23

Java continues to be popular for server-side apps. But one problem is that starting a Java app can be slow. So if you have some Java code that performs a service on demand, runs for a short while and then shuts down again, that hurts performance. Enter “CRaC”, or “Coordinated Restore at Checkpoint” <https://devclass.com/2023/05/22/azul-makes-openjdk-with-fast-start-crac-gen…>, from a company called Azul, which seems to centre its entire business around OpenJDK <https://www.azul.com/about/>. This system lets the app dump its state to disk in a form that allows for quick resumption. This state cannot include things like open files/network connections, so the app itself needs to implement handlers to close these before the dump and reopen them after the restore, saving enough state as part of the dump to allow this to happen with minimal impact on the rest of the application. Interestingly, this system is built on another piece of software called “CRIU” or “Checkpoint/Restore In Userspace” <https://criu.org/Main_Page>, which is Linux-only. As Azul’s CTO says: “We submitted CRaC to OpenJDK as an idea for a project … and they’ve included it as one of the many project they have. The reason it isn’t in the mainstream yet, and I’m not even sure it will make it into the mainstream, is that we rely on the CRIU technology underneath on Linux, and there isn’t an equivalent that we’re aware of on Windows or on Mac. So you lose that cross-platform functionality … ” But as the article says, that may not such a big showstopper any more: Java applications are often developed on Windows or Mac, but most often deployed to Linux, suggesting that the lack of cross-platform support is not a deal-breaker for everyone.

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Fibre Connection -- Separating Modem & Router Functions
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 May '23

16 May '23

Most people probably have their internet connection provided through a single box. There are two separate functions going on: * “Modem” (layer 2) -- handling the low-level signalling with whatever is at the other end of the wire (whether copper or glass); * “Router” (layer 3) -- routing TCP/IP packets between your house LAN and your ISP, which provides the connection between there and the rest of the Internet. At one point I was running a cheap little Conexant AccessRunner USB box (bought from Dick Smith) on my ADSL connection; while this could also perform both functions in one, I found a version of the firmware that implemented only the modem function. Plugging this into a Linux box caused it to appear like an additional network interface (the drivers are already in the standard kernel). I could then control this via the “ppp” package <https://ppp.samba.org/>, using its PPP-over-ATM plugin to implement the correct low-level signalling (just VPI/VCI selection, really). I could then exploit the full power of the Linux network stack on that box to manage the connection to the rest of my house LAN. Anyway, as my own house gets wired up for fibre (soon...), I was curious as to whether something equivalent could be done for a fibre connection. And the information I’ve found so far (e.g. <https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=81&topicid=274586>) indicates it might actually be simpler than this. The “ONT” (“Optical Network Terminator”) box that gets installed in your house has phone ports and Ethernet ports on it, and it appears that (once you have your ISP connection up and running) the Ethernet connection behaves just like a regular LAN connection, with a DHCP server (and ISP’s router) listening on the other end. So instead of an Internet router at your end, you can plug a regular PC directly into that port, pick up an allocated address, and have it immediately connected to the Internet. In short, there is nothing fibre-specific about the Internet router that the ISP provides to you at all. However, there might be issues with VLAN-tagging of the Ethernet frames, and this is not standardized between ISPs. (By the way, I see several folks claiming there is no “modem” in a fibre connection. Of course there is.) Not sure whether I’ll try this right away. Might be safest to do things the ISP-provided way, at least to begin with.

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Unkillable UEFI Malware Bypassing Secure Boot Enabled By Unpatchable Windows Flaw
by Peter Reutemann 12 May '23

12 May '23

'Researchers have announced a major cybersecurity find -- the world's first-known instance of real-world malware that can hijack a computer's boot process even when Secure Boot and other advanced protections are enabled and running on fully updated versions of Windows. From a report: Dubbed BlackLotus, the malware is what's known as a UEFI bootkit. These sophisticated pieces of malware hijack the UEFI -- short for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface -- the low-level and complex chain of firmware responsible for booting up virtually every modern computer. As the mechanism that bridges a PC's device firmware with its operating system, the UEFI is an OS in its own right. It's located in an SPI-connected flash storage chip soldered onto the computer motherboard, making it difficult to inspect or patch. Because the UEFI is the first thing to run when a computer is turned on, it influences the OS, security apps, and all other software that follows. These traits make the UEFI the perfect place to run malware. When successful, UEFI bootkits disable OS security mechanisms and ensure that a computer remains infected with stealthy malware that runs at the kernel mode or user mode, even after the operating system is reinstalled or a hard drive is replaced. As appealing as it is to threat actors to install nearly invisible and unremovable malware that has kernel-level access, there are a few formidable hurdles standing in their way. One is the requirement that they first hack the device and gain administrator system rights, either by exploiting one or more vulnerabilities in the OS or apps or by tricking a user into installing trojanized software. Only after this high bar is cleared can the threat actor attempt an installation of the bootkit. The second thing standing in the way of UEFI attacks is UEFI Secure Boot, an industry-wide standard that uses cryptographic signatures to ensure that each piece of software used during startup is trusted by a computer's manufacturer. Secure Boot is designed to create a chain of trust that will prevent attackers from replacing the intended bootup firmware with malicious firmware. If a single firmware link in that chain isn't recognized, Secure Boot will prevent the device from starting.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/23/03/06/1854200 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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OpenOffice: The One FOSS Project That Deserves To Die, But Won’t
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 May '23

06 May '23

The ever-dependable Brodie Robertson has a look at the ongoing (!) development history of OpenOffice here <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdpMxmFvGBA>. Those of us on FOSS platforms moved to LibreOffice years ago. But among some sectors (my guess is, predominantly Microsoft Windows users?), OpenOffice still has the dominant name recognition. And just to add to the fun, the project actually continues putting out updates! Though these are just minor ones -- I don’t think there have been any major functional changes in the better part of a decade. The source code commit history also continues to bubble over, though a lot of the patches are tiny, almost trivial things, like fixing typos and making random-looking changes to whitespace.

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I used System76’s Pangolin for weeks, and Linux was not the biggest problem
by Peter Reutemann 05 May '23

05 May '23

'After using System76’s Pangolin as my primary work laptop for nearly six weeks, I can tell you this: If you need a 15-inch Linux-focused laptop, this is the one to get. The Pangolin is a solid device, designed more for dependability and convenience than ultrabook portability or cutting-edge parts, but it still has reasonably modern hardware (especially its 144 Hz screen). The Pangolin and its native Pop!_OS are a showcase for how remarkably normal Linux can feel as a daily driver in 2023. Normal, and with lots of ports. It’s hard to do a nuts-and-bolts comparison of the Pangolin to most other laptops, due largely to benchmark comparability between Linux and most laptops running Windows or macOS. But it’s also not entirely necessary. There’s only one real version of the Pangolin available—one processor, one amount of RAM, then variable, user-expandable storage. We’ll show you how the Pangolin did on a couple tests. But how this laptop works for you is much more about what you’re bringing to it and what you're willing to put into customizing it to your liking. I came to the Pangolin as someone who has made a few attempts at using Linux as a daily driver. I know enough command line, vim, and Unix-based architecture to be conversant, and I have two Raspberry Pis that are constantly being improved. Still, I'm more hobbyist than practitioner. And yet the Pangolin presented no real problems as I used it for almost any task I needed to get done. Its combination of solid software and practical hardware choices make it an easy system to recommend, so long as you know you need Linux. Its maker-made operating system, Pop!_OS, almost never gave me problems, except when I was trying to make it run benchmarks. Starting with a rock-solid Linux install, where every bit of hardware is supported and functional, made me more eager to poke at the edges and see what I could customize.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/05/review-system76-pangolin-is-a-solid… 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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'sudo' and 'su' Are Being Rewritten In Rust For Memory Safety
by Peter Reutemann 02 May '23

02 May '23

'Phoronix reports: With the financial backing of Amazon Web Services, sudo and su are being rewritten in the Rust programming language in order to increase the memory safety for the widely relied upon software... to further enhance Linux/open-source security. "[B]ecause it's written in C, sudo has experienced many vulnerabilities related to memory safety issues," according to a blog post announcing the project: It's important that we secure our most critical software, particularly from memory safety vulnerabilities. It's hard to imagine software that's much more critical than sudo and su. This work is being done by a joint team from Ferrous Systems and Tweede Golf with generous support from Amazon Web Services. The work plan is viewable here. The GitHub repository is here. ' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/23/05/01/0020239 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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