- wlug - University of Waikato Mail Lists

What Keeps Developers Happy? Contributing to Open Source
by Peter Reutemann 03 May '20

03 May '20

'This week long-time open source advocate Matt Asay warned employers that the best way to keep their developers happy was to let them contribute to open source projects: SlashData recently surveyed over 16,000 developers to see what makes them tick... what they care about. The data is collected in SlashData's State of the Developer Nation, though let me give you the tl;dr: 59% of developers contribute to open source software today. Why do they contribute? The top two reasons are: To improve coding skills and because they believe in open source. Want to keep those developers happy and employed with you? Let them contribute... [Y]our employees want to contribute both code and knowledge — they want to be part of something. Talking to Bert Hubert, founder of PowerDNS, a supplier of open source DNS software, services, and support, he stressed that an open source project must be "a fun place where people feel that they are learning things, that they're contributing things, that they're being valued." Perhaps not surprisingly, these are the same elements developers expect from their employers. By making open source a valued part of workplace expectations, employers tick both boxes. Is it an absolute requirement that you encourage your developers to contribute to open source projects? No. But many of your best developers will chafe at keeping their talents locked up behind the firewall, and other developers simply won't apply if you have a reputation for being an open source scrooge. The article was written by Matt Asay, a former COO of Canonical now working at AWS. (Right before becoming Canonical's COO, Matt answered questions from Slashdot readers). The survey he cites also found that out of 17,000 developers they talked to, just 3% said they were paid to contribute to open source. The other 97% contributed for free.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/05/03/1746244 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Copyleft and the Cloud: Where Do We Go From Here?
by Peter Reutemann 03 May '20

03 May '20

'Free software evangelist Jeremy Allison - Sam (Slashdot reader #8,157) is a co-creator on the Samba project, a re-implementation of SMB/CIFS networking protocol, and he also works in Google's Open Source Programs Office. Now he shares his presentation at the Software Freedom Conservancy's "International Copyleft Conference." He writes: The Samba project has traditionally been one of the strongest proponents of Copyleft licensing and Free Software. However, in the Corporate Cloud-first world we find ourselves, traditional enforcement mechanisms have not been effective. How do we achieve the goals of the Free Software movement in this new world and how do we need to change what we're doing to be successful ? Traditional license enforcement doesn't seem to work well in the Cloud and for the modern software environment we find ourselves. In order to achieve the world of Free Software available for all I think we need to change our approach. Both GPLv3 and the AGPL have been rejected soundly by most developers. I would argue that we need a new way to inspire developers to adopt Free Software goals and principles, as depending on licensing has failed as licensing itself has fractured. Communication and collaboration are key to this. Stand-alone software is essentially useless. Software interoperability and published protocol and communication definitions are essential to build a freedom valuing software industry for the future The talk's title? "Copyleft and the Cloud: Where do we go from here?"' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/05/02/180237 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Google's reCAPTCHA Is Being Used To Hide Phishing Pages
by Peter Reutemann 03 May '20

03 May '20

'New research from Barracuda Networks has revealed that cyber-criminals are increasingly using official reCAPTCHA walls to disguise malicious content from email security systems and trick unsuspecting users... [S]ophisticated scammers are beginning to use the Google-owned service to prevent automated URL analysis systems from accessing the actual content of phishing pages, and to make phishing sites more believable in the eyes of the victim, Barracuda Networks warned. In fact, the security solutions provider observed a single phishing campaign that sent out 128,000 emails to a variety of organizations and employees using reCAPTCHA walls to conceal fake Microsoft log-in pages. This campaign used the lure of a voicemail receipt to fool users into solving the reCAPTCHA wall before being redirected to the malicious page, with any log-in info entered then sent straight to the scammers.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/05/03/1613229 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Join me in taking action
by Roderick Aldridge 01 May '20

01 May '20

I just took part in an Electronic Frontier Foundation campaign titled "Help Stop the Sale of Public Interest Registry to a Private Equity Firm". Will you join me? Take action here: https://act.eff.org/action/help-stop-the-sale-of-public-interest-registry-t… In case you haven't seen this. I expect a lot of FOSS people and organisations are at risk. Roderick

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ISP
by john 01 May '20

01 May '20

Hi All, I am convinced that my ISP has reduced the throttle on my UFB. They wrote and told me that due to the virus I was to get unlimited use (I had nearly 2TB of rollover) I used to think it a lucky day if I got 1.5MB but recently speeds over up to 3 MB are common. Cheers John

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Xiaomi Found Recording 'Private' Web and Phone Use, Researchers Claim
by Peter Reutemann 01 May '20

01 May '20

'According to an exclusive report from Forbes, cybersecurity researcher Gabi Cirlig discovered that his Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 smartphone was watching much of what he was doing and sending that data to remote servers hosted by Chinese tech giant Alibaba, which were ostensibly rented by Xiaomi. From the report: The seasoned cybersecurity researcher found a worrying amount of his behavior was being tracked, whilst various kinds of device data were also being harvested, leaving Cirlig spooked that his identity and his private life was being exposed to the Chinese company. When he looked around the Web on the device's default Xiaomi browser, it recorded all the websites he visited, including search engine queries whether with Google or the privacy-focused DuckDuckGo, and every item viewed on a news feed feature of the Xiaomi software. That tracking appeared to be happening even if he used the supposedly private "incognito" mode. The device was also recording what folders he opened and to which screens he swiped, including the status bar and the settings page. All of the data was being packaged up and sent to remote servers in Singapore and Russia, though the Web domains they hosted were registered in Beijing. Meanwhile, at Forbes' request, cybersecurity researcher Andrew Tierney investigated further. He also found browsers shipped by Xiaomi on Google Play -- Mi Browser Pro and the Mint Browser -- were collecting the same data. Together, they have more than 15 million downloads, according to Google Play statistics. Cirlig thinks that the problems affect many more models than the one he tested. In response to the findings, Xiaomi said, "The research claims are untrue," and "Privacy and security is of top concern," adding that it "strictly follows and is fully compliant with local laws and regulations on user data privacy matters." A spokesperson did however confirm it was collecting browsing data, claiming the info was anonymized and users had consented to it. Cirlig and Tierney pointed out that Xiaomi "was also collecting data about the phone, including unique numbers for identifying the specific device and Android version," reports Forbes. "Cirlig said such 'metadata' could 'easily be correlated with an actual human behind the screen.'" The researchers also say they found their Xiaomi apps to be sending data to domains that appeared to reference Sensor Analytics, which Xiaomi says "provides a data analysis solution for Xiaomi," adding that that the collected anonymous data "are stored on Xiaomi's own servers and will not be shared with Sensor Analytics, or any other third-party companies."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/04/30/237249 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Virtualization on the Linux desktop—Gnome Boxes vs virt-manager
by Peter Reutemann 01 May '20

01 May '20

'In the comments of our recent GhostBSD review, reader Enduzzer casually mentioned trying out the distribution in a Gnome Boxes VM. Linux's Kernel Virtual Machine has been a mainstay of my own system administration for more than a decade—but I use virt-manager, an excellent and deeply sysadmin-ish graphical management interface. I generally describe virt-manager as "simple"—and in many ways it's much simpler than Boxes is—but there are different ways to interpret simplicity.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/virtualization-on-the-linux-desktop… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Distro Showdown May
by tom butz 01 May '20

01 May '20

I have just checked microphone/camera on my Toshiba laptop running Mint 19.3: they're both ok for a remote meeting. What I could do is talk about the various Linuxes I have used, starting witn Tiny Linux, then Arch-Linux, then OpenBSD, then FreeBSD and finally Mint as well as Ubuntu14 as well as Sparky Linux. Maybe also a bit about my trials with GhostBSD. Why am I using more than 1? Mint 19.3 is the workhorse, Sparky does movies using conventional openshot as well as avidemux and Ubuntu 14 supports USB-tethering out of the box. USB-tethering is way faster than the alternatives and also very secure (as long as no-one nicks your phone). Tom Butz.

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Google Play has been spreading advanced Android malware for years
by Peter Reutemann 30 Apr '20

30 Apr '20

'Hackers have been using Google Play for years to distribute an unusually advanced backdoor capable of stealing a wide range of sensitive data, researchers said on Tuesday. Researchers from security firm Kaspersky Lab have recovered at least eight Google Play apps that date back to 2018, a Kaspersky Lab representative said, but based on archive searches and other methods, the researchers believe malicious apps from the same advanced group seeded Google’s official market since at least 2016. Google removed recent versions of the malware shortly after the researchers from Kaspersky, and earlier fellow security firm Dr. Web, reported them. Apps from earlier were already removed, and it’s not clear what prompted the move. Third-party markets have also hosted the backdoored apps, and many of them remain available. Command-and-control domains were registered as early as 2015, raising the possibility the operation goes back earlier than 2016. Code in the malware and command servers it connects to contain several overlaps with a known hacking group dubbed OceanLotus (aka APT32, APT-C-00, and SeaLotus), leading researchers to believe the apps are the work of that advanced group.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/04/sophisticated-androi… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Fairphone 3 Now Available With 'de-Googled' Android /e/OS
by Peter Reutemann 30 Apr '20

30 Apr '20

'Fairphone, the European manufacturer of mobile phones with a reduced environmental impact, has announced a partnership to offer /e/OS, the most "de-Googled" and pro-privacy Android OS, on their latest model Fairphone 3. An interesting move that reminds me of the recent introduction of the Google-free Huawei Mate 30. A pithy explainer of its "privacy by design ecosystem" -- and the point of "Android without Google" -- further notes: "We have removed many pieces of code that send your personal data to remote servers without your consent. We don't scan your data in your phone or in your cloud space, and we don't track your location a hundred times a day or collect what you're doing with your apps." According to TechCrunch, the e/OS variant of the Firephone 3 ships from May 6, priced at just under 480 euros -- "a 30 euro premium on the Googley flavor of Android you get on the standard Fairphone 3." The report adds that existing owners of the Fairphone 3 can manually install /e/OS gratis via an installer on its website.' -- source: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/20/04/29/2131230 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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