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Mozilla says “most top apps” on Android have misleading privacy labels
by Peter Reutemann 24 Feb '23

24 Feb '23

'It looks like trusting developers to just tell the truth about data collection on Google Play isn't working out. Just like on iOS, Android launched app privacy "nutrition labels" in the Play Store last year, with the idea being that users could quickly get a look at how much data each app collects. The obvious problem with this system is that the developers fill out the data-collection forms, and there's nothing to stop them from lying or omitting certain data-collection policies. It's no surprise, then, that when Mozilla recently audited the top apps on Google Play, it found that "most top apps" have "false or misleading" app privacy labels. Mozilla says it surveyed 40 of the Play Store's most popular apps by global downloads and found that "in nearly 80% of the apps we reviewed, we found some discrepancies between the apps’ privacy policies and the information they reported on Google’s Data Safety Form." Each app received a grade of “Poor,” “Needs Improvement,” or “OK,” with 16 out of 40 apps getting the lowest rating. Mozilla did not need to dig very deep to find flaws, saying that many apps' privacy labels openly contradict their public privacy policies. Snapchat, TikTok, and Twitter all claim "No data shared with third parties" on the Play Store but detail third-party sharing in their privacy policies. For free apps, the list of recipients earning a "poor" grade isn't very surprising: Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Facebook Lite, Snapchat, Twitter, and, the one surprise, Samsung Push Services. A lot of paid games like Minecraft make the "poor" list, too.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/02/mozilla-says-most-top-apps-on-andro… 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 6.2: The First Mainstream Linux Kernel for Apple M1 Chips Arrives
by Peter Reutemann 22 Feb '23

22 Feb '23

'Steven Vaughan-Nichols, writing for ZDNet: Linux 6.2 was released yesterday, and Linus Torvalds described the latest Linux kernel release as, "Maybe it's not a sexy LTS release like 6.1 ended up being, but all those regular pedestrian kernels want some test love too." For once, I disagree with Torvalds. By adding upstream support for the Apple M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 Ultra chips, newer Mac owners can look forward to running Linux on their M1-powered machines. And, for techies, that's sexy. Getting Linux to run on the M1 family wasn't easy. When these high-powered ARM chips first arrived, Torvalds told me in an exclusive interview that he'd like to run Linux on these next-generation Macs. But, while he'd been "waiting for an ARM laptop that can run Linux for a long time," he worried, saying, "The main problem with the M1 for me is the GPU and other devices around it because that's likely what would hold me off using it because it wouldn't have any Linux support unless Apple opens up."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/23/02/21/0418215 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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RNZ--No More Ogg?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 21 Feb '23

21 Feb '23

Some years ago, Radio New Zealand started making its audio downloads available in Ogg Vorbis format, as an alternative to MP3. As I recall, this coincided with a visit from Richard Stallman, and no doubt his persuasiveness had something to do with it. (Checking the timestamps on my downloads, Stallman was interviewed by Kim Hill on “Nine to Noon” on 9th August 2008.) I was revisiting the Mediawatch page after a long absence <https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch>, and I see they have reverted to MP3-only format for their downloads now. Were people being confused by .ogg files? All the open-source players can handle them, so what players were they trying to use?

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Google Chrome's Latest Version Includes Tools To Address Its Memory Hog Problem
by Peter Reutemann 21 Feb '23

21 Feb '23

'Google has released optimization features designed to improve battery life and memory usage on machines running the latest version of its Chrome desktop web browser. From a report: Chrome's new Energy Saver and Memory Saver modes were first announced in December last year alongside the release of Chrome 108, and now as noted by Android Police, the two optimization utilities are starting to roll out globally onto Chrome 110 desktops for Mac, Windows, and Chromebooks. Memory Saver mode essentially snoozes Chrome tabs that aren't currently in use to free up RAM for more intensive tasks and create a smoother browsing experience. Don't worry if you're a tab hoarder though, as these inactive tabs are still visible and can be reloaded at any time to pick up where you left off. Your most used websites can also be marked as exempt from Memory Saver to ensure they're always running at the maximum possible performance.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/02/20/1747238 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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Purism Combines Phone Docking Station and Laptop Shell For Lapdock Kit
by Peter Reutemann 21 Feb '23

21 Feb '23

'Their video says it all. Its official page brags it can "Transform your Librem 5 into a laptop." But it all apparently started because Purism is proud that their Librem 5 line of phones run "the same desktop applications as our full-sized computers, just on a smaller screens," according to the announcement by Purism president Kyle Rankin: When only using the Librem 5 in its mobile form factor, it's easy to overlook that this is happening, as adaptive applications morph to fit the smaller screen.... It's only when you dock the Librem 5 that you really experience the power of convergence.... We have wanted to provide a lapdock kit to customers for some time now, and I've personally evaluated almost all of the options available to pick which one would best showcase the Librem 5. I'm so happy to announce that today we are launching our new Lapdock Kit and in this post I will explain a bit more about what's included and why it's a great companion to a Librem 5 or Librem 5 USA. A lapdock is a docking station (or "dock") combined with a laptop shell. One approach to docking your Librem 5 is to get a USB-C hub and attach it to a power supply, monitor, keyboard and mouse, and we even sell those accessories for our Librem 5. Now imagine taking all of those components and squeezing them into a laptop form-factor, add a battery to power it, and you have a lapdock. >From the outside a lapdock looks no different from a standard laptop, but the difference is that a lapdock has no CPU, RAM or storage of its own. Instead, it uses the Librem 5 as the computer. Once docked, the Librem 5's screen extends to the lapdock screen, and you can use the keyboard and mouse on the lapdock to drag windows back and forth between screens. All of the applications are running on the Librem 5 and once docked, it behaves like a laptop running PureOS. Even better, the lapdock's battery charges the Librem 5 while it's docked, extending its run time. After evaluating a number of different options, we have decided to offer the Nexdock 360 in our Lapdock Kit.... The Lapdock Kit allows you to realize the power of having all of your apps and all of your data in one device that can fit in your pocket and act like a phone when you need it to, but then transform into a laptop when you want to type out an email, do some image editing or watch a video on a larger screen. The Lapdock Kit also allows you to run thousands of other desktop applications that haven't yet been updated to adapt to a phone's screen. Traditional Linux applications like the full LibreOffice suite, GIMP, Wireshark, Gqrx and many others run well on the Librem 5 with the addition of the Lapdock Kit's extra screen real estate. "It demonstrates why we refer to the Librem 5 as a mobile computer in your pocket, and not just as a phone."' -- source: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/23/02/20/0518253 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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Email Security: Still A Work In Progress
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Feb '23

20 Feb '23

The various mechanisms to try to block forged email addresses (whether just for spam or for more nefarious purposes) still have holes in them, according to <https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/19/forwarding_email_security/>. For example, you can create an account on a major email service like outlook.com, enable forwarding, and put a spoofed address into its “allow list”. Then when a message comes in for that account purporting to come from that spoofed address, it bypasses the authenticity check and goes straight out again, with the spoofed from-address. And this one weird trick† works--or used to work--for a number of other major email providers, as well. To me, the whole plethora of these message-validation mechanisms--SPF, DKIM, DMARC, ARC and who knows what else--is just bewildering. Which is why I have yet to implement any of them for my own domain. What’s worth doing? Where do you start? †So sue me.

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AGM (2nd attempt) next week
by Peter Reutemann 20 Feb '23

20 Feb '23

Hi everyone Next Monday, we attempt at having our AGM again and hopefully reach quorum this time. Agenda - President's Report - Treasurer's Report - Election of 2023 Committee - Retirement of WLUG servers - General business If the offices cannot be filled, we will initiate the dissolution of the society. For details see minutes from previous AGM attempt. Please note, only paid-up members of the society will be able to vo Details: https://www.meetup.com/waikatolinuxusersgroup/events/291481678/ 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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KDE Plasma 5.27 Released
by Peter Reutemann 15 Feb '23

15 Feb '23

'Plasma is a popular desktop environment, which is also powering the desktop mode on the Steam Deck hand-held gaming console. Today, KDE Community announced release of KDE Plasma 5.27, a Long Term Support (LTS) release and the final release in the Plasma 5 series which is based on Qt 5. This release brings a welcome wizard, which will guide you through setting up the desktop, and a new tiling system for KWin window manager, allowing you to set up custom tile layouts and resize adjacent tiled windows simultaneously. The settings for touch-enabled devices such as touchscreens and drawing tablets have been improved and expanded. For those lucky owners of Valve's Steam Deck gaming console, Discover can now perform system updates from within the desktop. Digital Clock desktop widget can now show the Hebrew calendar in its calendar view, and the Media Player widget is now touch-sensitive. The Bluetooth widget shows the battery status of connected devices when you hover the cursor over it. Those of you who use multiple monitors should benefit greatly from a major overhaul of how Plasma handles them. KDE Plasma now comes with Flatpak permissions settings integrated into the System Settings app. For details and other new features and improvements be sure to check out the full announcement.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/02/14/2226234 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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Is Bing Getting Sentient?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 15 Feb '23

15 Feb '23

Microsoft’s AI-powered “Bing Chat” service doesn’t seem to be reacting well to attempts to hack it <https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/ai-powered-bing-chat…>. It has started arguing with users, and even showed signs of being upset when they mention its code name “Sydney”. One user asked it about prompt-injection attacks, to which it replied that it was immune to them. Then, when pointed to the previous Ars Technica article detailing exactly such an exploit, it basically went into full denial mode, claiming that “the article is published by a source that has a history of spreading misinformation and sensationalism”. Screenshots of other less-than-wholesome interactions are derided as “not authentic” and “edited or fabricated”. I think the psychological term for such flat-out denials of reality is “psychosis”. And looks like we finally have our real-life HAL 9000, just about 31 years late. Just make sure it is never connected to any life-support systems...

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The Mastodon Bump Is Now a Slump
by Peter Reutemann 14 Feb '23

14 Feb '23

'The fall in Mastodon's popularity suggests the decentralized platform is not a replacement for mainstream services. An anonymous reader shares a report: Twitter users put Mastodon usernames in their handles and trumpeted their migration. The new traffic knocked many Mastodon instances, or servers, offline. In less than two months, Mastodon's monthly active users climbed from 380,000 to more than 2.5 million. But not everyone stuck around. Mastodon's active monthly user count dropped to 1.4 million by late January. It now has nearly half a million fewer total registered users than at the start of the year. Many newcomers have complained that Mastodon is hard to use.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/02/13/1555242 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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