- wlug - University of Waikato Mail Lists

Dyn.com Ends Free Dynamic DNS
by Peter Reutemann 07 Apr '14

07 Apr '14

"For the last 15 years, all of us at Dyn have taken pride in offering a free version of our Dynamic DNS Pro product. What was originally a product built for a small group of users has blossomed into an exciting technology used around the world. That is why with mixed emotions we announced the end of that free hostname program today, officially turning down on May 7th." -- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/04/07/1450222 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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Raspberry Pi Compute Module Release
by Peter Reutemann 07 Apr '14

07 Apr '14

"The Raspberry Pi Foundation has developed a new product. It is basically a Raspberry Pi model A processor memory and flash memory on a DDR2 style SODIMM connector. Also available will be a development board that breaks out all the internal connections. The board design will be open sourced so you can develop your own devices using the BCM2835 processor. No network, but support for 2 HDMI displays and 2 cameras, so 3D TV is a possibility." -- source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/04/07/1637249 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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Nautilus Terminal: An Embedded Terminal for Nautilus File Browser in GNOME
by Peter Reutemann 07 Apr '14

07 Apr '14

"Nautilus Terminal is a Nautilus file browser embedded terminal, which follows your movement and automatically cd to your current directory. Nautilus Terminal makes it possible to work in command line while navigating in Real GUI." -- source: http://bit.ly/1mSdyYs 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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Three Alternatives to Ubuntu One Cloud Service
by Peter Reutemann 07 Apr '14

07 Apr '14

"Many of us had hoped it was an April Fool's prank. But Ubuntu One will, in fact, no longer be available as of June 1, 2014 and all data will be wiped July 31, 2014. This will leave a great number of Ubuntu users without a cloud service. Fear not, intrepid users, there are plenty of cloud services and tools available - each with native Linux clients - ready and willing to take your Ubuntu One data and keep it in the cloud." -- source: http://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/769023 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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Linux Developers Consider On-Screen QR Codes For Kernel Panics
by Peter Reutemann 05 Apr '14

05 Apr '14

"Linux kernel developers are currently evaluating the possibility of using QR codes to display kernel oops/panic messages. Right now a lot of text is dumped to the screen when a kernel oops occurs, most of which isn't easily archivable by normal Linux end-users. With QR codes as Linux oops messages, a smart-phone could capture the display and either report the error string or redirect them to an error page on Kernel.org. The idea of using QR codes within the Linux kernel is still being discussed by upstream developers." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/14/04/05/2228251 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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NYU Group Says Its Scheme Makes Cracking Individual Passwords Impossible
by Peter Reutemann 03 Apr '14

03 Apr '14

"Researchers at New York University have devised a new scheme called PolyPassHash for storing password hash data so that passwords cannot be individually cracked by an attacker. Instead of a password hash being stored directly in the database, the information is used to encode a share in a Shamir Secret Store (technical details PDF). This means that a password cannot be validated without recovering a threshold of shares, thus an attacker must crack groups of passwords together. The solution is fast, easy to implement (with C and Python implementations available), requires no changes to clients, and makes a huge difference in practice. To put the security difference into perspective, three random 6 character passwords that are stored using standard salted secure hashes can be cracked by a laptop in an hour. With a PolyPassHash store, it would take every computer on the planet longer to crack these passwords than the universe is estimated to exist. With this new technique, HoneyWords, and hardware solutions all available, does an organization have any excuse if their password database is disclosed and user passwords are cracked?." -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/14/04/03/1440211 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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Brendan Eich Steps Down As Mozilla CEO
by Peter Reutemann 03 Apr '14

03 Apr '14

"Brendan Eich has chosen to step down from his role as CEO. He's made this decision for Mozilla and our community. Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard ..." -- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/04/03/1924250 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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Canonical Shutting Down Ubuntu One File Services
by Peter Reutemann 02 Apr '14

02 Apr '14

"Wanting to focus their efforts on their most important strategic initiatives and ensuring that the company is not spread too thin, Canonical is shutting down Ubuntu One file services. With other services now regularly offering from 25 GB to 50 GB of free storage, the personal cloud storage space wasn't a sustainable place for Canonical. As of today, it will no longer be possible to purchase storage or music from the Ubuntu One store. The Ubuntu One software will not be included in the upcoming Ubuntu 14.04 LTS release, and the Ubuntu One apps in older versions of Ubuntu and in the Ubuntu, Google, and Apple stores will be updated appropriately. The current services will be unavailable from 1 June 2014; user content will remain available for download until 31 July, at which time it will be deleted. For a spark of solace, the company promises to open source the backend code." -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/04/02/1355244 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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New Apache Allura Project For Project Development Hosting
by Peter Reutemann 01 Apr '14

01 Apr '14

"Today the Apache Software Foundation announced the Allura project for hosting software development projects. Think GitHub or SourceForge on your own servers -- Allura has git, svn, hg, wiki, tickets, forums, news, etc. It's written in python and has a modular and extensible platform so you can write your own tools and extensions. It's already used by SourceForge, DARPA, German Aerospace Center, and Open Source Projects Europe. Allura is open source; available under the Apache License v2.0. When you don't want all your project resources in the cloud on somebody else's walled garden, you can run Allura on your own servers and have full control and full data access." -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/04/01/213243 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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Why Arguing That Windows is Better Than Linux Makes You Look Silly
by Peter Reutemann 31 Mar '14

31 Mar '14

'It seems as though you can't throw a rock on the internet without hitting an article which argues for the superiority of Windows over Linux. With titles like "Five reasons I'd rather run Windows 8 than Linux", these articles are a dime a dozen. ... Are these sorts of articles a wee bit pointless? Sure. It's really just preaching to the choir, so to speak. But they're fun to read. They're almost like the tech-nerd equivalent of a gossip rag.' Read Bryan Lunduke's full article, it's quite funny... -- source: http://www.linux.com/news/software/applications/768257 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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