- wlug - University of Waikato Mail Lists

Firefox To Hide Notification Popups By Default Starting Next Year
by Peter Reutemann 03 Nov '19

03 Nov '19

'In a move to fight spam and improve the health of the web, Firefox will hide those annoying notification popups by default starting next year, with the release of Firefox 72, in January 2020, ZDNet has learned from a Mozilla engineer. The move comes after Mozilla ran an experiment back in April this year to see how users interacted with notifications, and also looked at different ways of blocking notifications from being too intrusive. Usage stats showed that the vast majority (97%) of Firefox users dismissed notifications, or chose to block a website from showing notifications at all... As a result, Mozilla engineers have decided to hide the notification popup that drops down from Firefox's URL bar, starting with Firefox 72. If a website shows a notification, the popup will be hidden by default, and an icon added to the URL bar instead. Firefox will then animate the icon using a wiggle effect to let the user know there's a notification subscription popup available, but the popup won't be displayed until the user clicks the icon. Mozilla is the first browser vendor to block notification popups by default, according to the article. It's already available in Firefox Nightly versions, but will be added to the stable branch in January. "I think Mozilla's decision is good for the health of the web," Jérôme Segura, malware analyst at Malwarebytes tells ZDNet.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/11/03/1646236 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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Does Linux Have a Marketing Problem?
by Peter Reutemann 03 Nov '19

03 Nov '19

'On Hackaday's hosting site Hackaday.io, an electrical engineer with a background in semiconductor physics argues that Linux's small market share is due to a lack of marketing: Not only does [Linux] have dominance when raw computing ability is needed, either in a supercomputer or a webserver, but it must have some ability to effectively work as a personal computer as well, otherwise Android wouldn't be so popular on smartphones and tablets. From there it follows that the only reason that Microsoft and Apple dominate the desktop world is because they have a marketing group behind their products, which provides customers with a comfortable customer service layer between themselves and the engineers and programmers at those companies, and also drowns out the message that Linux even exists in the personal computing realm... Part of the problem too is that Linux and most of its associated software is free and open source. What is often a strength when it comes to the quality of software and its flexibility and customizablity becomes a weakness when there's no revenue coming in to actually fund a marketing group that would be able to address this core communications issue between potential future users and the creators of the software. Canonical, Red Hat, SUSE and others all had varying successes, but this illistrates another problem: the splintered nature of open-source software causes a fragmenting not just in the software itself but the resources. Imagine if there were hundreds of different versions of macOS that all Apple users had to learn about and then decide which one was the best for their needs... I have been using Linux exclusively since I ditched XP for 5.10 Breezy Badger and would love to live in a world where I'm not forced into the corporate hellscape of a Windows environment every day for no other reason than most people already know how to use Windows. With a cohesive marketing strategy, I think this could become a reality, but it won't happen through passionate essays on "free as in freedom" or the proper way to pronounce "GNU" or the benefits of using Gentoo instead of Arch. It'll only come if someone can unify all the splintered groups around a cohesive, simple message and market it to the public.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/11/03/2012226 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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Incognito Mode For Google Maps Arrives On Android
by Peter Reutemann 01 Nov '19

01 Nov '19

'Incognito Mode for Google Maps is rolling out to Android users to prevent your search queries and real-time tracked location from being recorded onto your Google account. Engadget reports: It's not something you'll want to use all the time as some features will be disabled, and it's important to note that it doesn't turn off all tracking. The places you go won't be saved to your Location History (if you have that enabled), your searches won't be saved to your account and it won't use your information to personalize the experience. Still, you could be tracked by internet service providers, other apps, or if you're using Assistant and other Google services. Similar to incognito on Chrome, it's more useful as a depersonalized look at recommendations than as a full-fledged privacy protector, and a way to make sure that whatever you're searching for in this instance doesn't affect your recommendations later -- don't worry, we're not judging. ' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/11/01/0112223 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 Network Congestion Algorithm Isn't Fair, Researchers Say
by Peter Reutemann 31 Oct '19

31 Oct '19

'Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University say a Google algorithm designed help reduce internet congestion is mathematically unfair, resulting in network management systems that may disadvantage some traffic over others. From a report: Several years back, Google began work on a new open source congestion control algorithm (CCA) designed to improve the way the internet functions. The result was BBR, short for Bottleneck Bandwidth and RTT (Round-Trip Time). The goal of the project: to improve how network packets travel between servers to mitigate congestion on the internet. CCAs have long been used to help manage congestion -- ideally while treating all traffic equally. But in a study unveiled last week at the Internet Measurement Conference in Amsterdam, researchers revealed that BBR doesn't actually do a very good job of that last part. In fact, they found that during periods of congestion, BBR connections would take up 40 percent of the available bandwidth, leaving the remaining 60 percent to be fought over by the remaining users on the network.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/10/31/204226 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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Text Editor Releases 'Free Uyghur' Edition, Gets Swamped With Chinese Spam
by Peter Reutemann 31 Oct '19

31 Oct '19

Something from the Windows open-source camp rather than Linux: 'This week, the developer of the popular text- and code-editing software Notepad++ released a new version update. Nothing seemed particularly strange about it, except maybe the name: Notepad++ v7.8.1 is the "Free Uyghur" edition. In a blog post announcing the updated version, developer Don Ho writes about the plight of the Uyghur people, an ethnic minority in China that's faced persecution from the country's authoritarian government. China operates internment camps that are used to detain Uyghur people throughout the country's Xinjiang region. Since the announcement, the software's GitHub "issues" page has been bombarded with spam, much of it in the Chinese language. "Stop sending meaningless political-related issues, it just makes you look like an idiot," reads one comment. Another one simply reads, "Bye ! Uninstall." There's a litany of curses, and one asks, "What do you know about China?" Others have moved in to criticize the Chinese government in response. Ho told The Verge that the software's dedicated site was also under a distributed-denial-of-service attack, but that it has been stopped by an anti-DDoS service provided by the site's host. Ho writes in the announcement that he anticipated potential pushback, saying "talking about politics is exactly what software and commercial companies generally try to avoid," but decided to take the step anyway. "The problem is," Ho writes in the announcement of the Free Uyghur edition, "if we don't deal with politics, politics will deal with us.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/10/31/0037247 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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Fedora 31 Released
by Peter Reutemann 31 Oct '19

31 Oct '19

'Fedora 31 has just rolled out the door. From a report: Is it an exciting release? No, not really. Sure, enthusiasts will find themselves thrilled withe inclusion of the GNOME 3.34 desktop environment (with Qt Wayland by default), Linux 5.3 kernel, and Mesa 9.2, but otherwise, it is fairly boring. You know what? That's not a bad thing. In 2019, Fedora is simply a mature and stable operating system that only needs to follow an evolutionary path at this time -- not revolutionary. It stands alone as the world's best desktop Linux distribution. "Fedora 31 Workstation provides new tools and features for general users as well as developers with the inclusion of GNOME 3.34. GNOME 3.34 brings significant performance enhancements which will be especially noticeable on lower-powered hardware. Fedora 31 Workstation also expands the default uses of Wayland, including allowing Firefox to run natively on Wayland under GNOME instead of the XWayland backend as with prior releases," says The Fedora Project.' -- sources: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/10/31/168259 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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Appeal
by john 30 Oct '19

30 Oct '19

Western community center has recently had all the computers upgraded. However there are ten machines but only five working mouse (mice?) I would find the job easier if there a couple of five port switches available. If any one feels they can help with either or both of these please contact me (can travel) Cheers John..

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New 'Unremovable' XHelper Malware Has Infected 45,000 Android Devices
by Peter Reutemann 29 Oct '19

29 Oct '19

'Over the past six months, a new Android malware strain has made a name for itself after popping up on the radar of several antivirus companies, and annoying users thanks to a self-reinstall mechanism that has made it near impossible to remove. Named xHelper, this malware was first spotted back in March but slowly expanded to infect more than 32,000 devices by August (per Malwarebytes), eventually reaching a total of 45,000 infections this month (per Symantec). The malware is on a clear upward trajectory. Symantec says the xHelper crew is making on average 131 new victims per day and around 2,400 new victims per month. Most of these infections have been spotted in India, the U.S., and Russia. According to Malwarebytes, the source of these infections is "web redirects" that send users to web pages hosting Android apps. These sites instruct users on how to side-load unofficial Android apps from outside the Play Store. Code hidden in these apps downloads the xHelper trojan. The good news is that the trojan doesn't carry out destructive operations. According to both Malwarebytes and Symantec, for most of its operational lifespan, the trojan has shown intrusive popup ads and notification spam. The ads and notifications redirect users to the Play Store, where victims are asked to install other apps -- a means through which the xHelper gang is making money from pay-per-install commissions. What's interesting about xHelper is that it gains access to an Android device via an initial app and installs itself as a separate self-standing service. Furthermore, you can't remove the app, as the trojan reinstalls itself every time, even after users perform a factory reset.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/10/29/2121244 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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How a months-old AMD microcode bug destroyed my weekend [UPDATED]
by Peter Reutemann 29 Oct '19

29 Oct '19

'This weekend, I was excited to deploy my first Ryzen 3000-powered workstation in my home office. Unfortunately, a microcode bug—originally discovered in July but still floating around in large numbers in the wild—wrecked my good time. I eventually got my Ryzen 3700X system working, and it's definitely fast. But unfortunately, it's still bugged, and there's no easy way to fix it. Not long after the product launch, AMD Ryzen 3000 customers started noticing problems with their shiny new CPUs. Windows users couldn't successfully launch Destiny 2 (due to a power-management bug, unrelated to the one sidelining my system), and Linux users in many cases couldn't even get their system to boot. Jason Evangelho covered the initial discovery and report of the bug at Forbes back in July, and an AMD representative provided him with a statement by email: "AMD has identified the root cause and implemented a BIOS fix for an issue impacting the ability to run certain Linux distributions and Destiny 2 on Ryzen 3000 processors. We have distributed an updated BIOS to our motherboard partners, and we expect consumers to have access to the new BIOS over the coming days." This sounds happy and upbeat, but the reality isn't quite so simple. When there's a bug in the CPU microcode, you're at the mercy of your motherboard vendor to release a new system BIOS that will update it for you—you can't just go to some download link at AMD and apply a fix yourself. AMD responded to the bug in July. As far as I can tell, AMD did so only by direct email response; there's no press release about it—and the company's response made it sound like everything would be fixed in a week or two. I have the unfortunate duty of reporting to you, three months later, that it is not.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/10/how-a-months-old-amd-microcode-bug-… 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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50 Years Ago, the Internet Was Born In Room 3420
by Peter Reutemann 29 Oct '19

29 Oct '19

'On October 29, 1969, a graduate student in a UCLA computer science lab logged into a computer hundreds of miles away at the Stanford Research Institute. It was the first connection via ARPANET, which -- after 20 years as a government and academic network -- evolved into the modern internet. Over at Fast Company, Mark Sullivan marked the anniversary by visiting the room where the historic login took place and talking to three of the people who made it happen.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/10/29/1557212 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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