October 2017 - wlug - University of Waikato Mail Lists

by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

"The laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that," [Malcolm Turnbull] said on Friday. "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia." <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170714/10385237789/aussie-prime-ministe…>

2 years

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Net Un-Neutrality ... For Real

by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Some of those who have been following the net neutrality debate may remember a spoof poster that showed what might happen if ISPs were allowed to charge you differently, based on which sites you were allowed to visit. Well, in Spain, which has no laws against this sort of thing, a similar situation has actually happened: one ISP is selling you addons to a basic broadband cap based, not on the amount of extra data you want, but on what you want to use it for. Their “Vodafone Pass” product offers tiers like €3/month extra for a “Social Pass”, or €5/month for a “Music Pass”. <https://pplware.sapo.pt/informacao/vodafone-portugal-pacotes-smartnet/>, referenced from <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171030/12364538513/portugal-shows-inter…>

2 years, 10 months

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A Surge Of Sites And Apps Are Exhausting Your CPU To Mine Cryptocurrency

by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Noticed your machine getting slow after visiting certain websites? They could be running cryptocurrency miners in your browser. <https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/10/a-surge-of-sites-and…>: Coinhive's massive Web audience isn't lost on other companies. Collin Mulliner, a security researcher and developer of TelStop, said he recently received an e-mail from a startup called Medsweb inviting him to integrate a Monero miner into his creation. I got one of those e-mails too...

2 years, 11 months

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10 Best Lightweight Linux Distributions For Older Computers In 2017

by Peter Reutemann

Quick overview: 10. Peppermint 9. Lubuntu 8. Linux Lite 7. LXLE 6. CrunchBang++ 5. Bodhi Linux 4. antiX Linux 3. SparkyLinux 2. Puppy Linux 1. Tiny Core See here for full details: https://itsfoss.com/lightweight-linux-beginners/ 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/

2 years, 11 months

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Googler A Command Line Tool To Search Google

by Peter Reutemann

'Looking for information on the web has become something that we do day in and day out. Whether it is support you are looking for, looking for a product or news about a particular topic, all you have to do is search on the web. As a result, search engines have been designed so they can help us sift through or the garbage in order to get the information we seek. There are Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo just to mention a few. But what do all these have in common, well, to use these you need a browser such as Firefox or Chromium first. Well does no problem at all; except when all you have is a terminal and no GUI and browser. Also, you may have a GUI and a browser but you wish you did not have to leave the terminal just for that quick search, and thus comes Googler. ' -- source: http://www.linuxandubuntu.com/home/googler-a-command-line-tool-to-search-go… 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/

2 years, 11 months

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Appeals Court Keeps Alive The Never-Ending Linux Case, SCO v. IBM

by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

“Jarndyce v. Jarndyce” for the 21st century, anybody? <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/appeals-court-keeps-alive-the-n…>

2 years, 12 months

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How Kodi Took Over Piracy

by Peter Reutemann

'For years, piracy persisted mainly in the realm of torrents, with sites like The Pirate Bay and Demonoid connecting internet denizens to premium content gratis. But a confluence of factors have sent torrent usage plummeting from 23 percent of all North American daily internet traffic in 2011 to under 5 percent last year. Legal crackdowns shuttered prominent torrent sites. Paid alternatives like Netflix and Hulu made it easier just to pay up. And then there were the "fully loaded" Kodi boxes -- otherwise vanilla streaming devices that come with, or make easily accessible, so-called addons that seek out unlicensed content -- that deliver pirated movies and TV shows with push-button ease. "Kodi and the plugin system and the people who made these plugins have just dumbed down the process," says Dan Deeth, spokesperson for network-equipment company Sandvine. "It's easy for anyone to use. It's kind of set it and forget it. Like the Ron Popeil turkey roaster." Kodi itself is just a media player; the majority of addons aren't piracy focused, and lots of Kodi devices without illicit software plug-ins are utterly uncontroversial. Still, that Kodi has swallowed piracy may not surprise some of you; a full six percent of North American households have a Kodi device configured to access unlicensed content, according to a recent Sandvine study. But the story of how a popular, open-source media player called XBMC became a pirate's paradise might. And with a legal crackdown looming, the Kodi ecosystem's present may matter less than its uncertain future.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/17/10/30/1931208 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/

2 years, 12 months

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Firefox To Get a Better Password Manager

by Peter Reutemann

'Mozilla engineers have started work on a project named Lockbox that they describe as "a work-in-progress extension [...] to improve upon Firefox's built-in password management." Mozilla released the new extension for employee-use only at first, but users can install it by going to this or this links. Lockbox revamps Firefox's antiquated password management utility with a new user interface (UI). A new Firefox UI button is also included, in case users want to add a shortcut in their browser's main interface to open Lockbox without going through all the menu options. Support for a master password is included, helping users secure their passwords from unauthorized access by co-workers, family members, or others.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/10/30/1245202 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/

2 years, 12 months

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If We Can’t Trust Kaspersky, Should We Trust Microsoft?

by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

An opinion piece at Al Jazeera <http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/trust-kaspersky-trust-microsoft-17…> considers: A single malicious update pushed from Microsoft could cripple almost every government worldwide. ... That a small number of vendors have the capacity to remotely shut down government infrastructure, or vacuum up secret documents, is almost too scary to wrap your head around. And that's without pondering how likely they are to be pressured by their governments. In the face of future conflict, is the first step going to be disabling auto-updates for software from that country?

2 years, 12 months

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Early HP Archives Destroyed

by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard were the archetypal “two guys who started a business in a garage” from 1938. When the company they founded moved on to other things (computers, printers etc), the original test-equipment business they created was spun off as part of a company called Agilent, which in turn divested it as an outfit now known as Keysight. Now we hear that important historical paper archives from those early days, which were in the care of Keysight Technologies, have been lost in the recent deadly Santa Rosa wildfires. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/29/hewlett_packard_history_lost_to_san…>

2 years, 12 months

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wlug October 2017