For quite a while now, I’ve been annoyed by the system notification
volume going to 100% on my Debian systems, regardless of my attempts to
set it to a lower level. For example, when I open the KDE System
Settings app, change something, then try to close the window, the sound
that accompanies the save/discard/cancel alert is always startlingly
loud.
I think I have finally found a fix: in your /etc/pulse/daemon.conf,
put in a line saying
flat-volumes = no
(You should find an existing comment “; flat-volumes = yes” that
indicates the default.)
You can make this new setting take effect in the current session
immediately without having to logout or reboot, by executing the
following as the currently-logged-in user:
pulseaudio -k
(This kills and restarts the PulseAudio daemon for your user session.)
There are several discussions of the pros and cons of this issue online,
going back some years. For example, here
<https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1265267>. Also a mention
about the “flat-volumes” setting in the ever-reliable Arch Linux Wiki
here <https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio>.
Been looking at various settings changes you can make in the
“about:config” page in Firefox. Here are a couple I have found useful:
* keyword.enabled -- set to false to stop Firefox trying to
do a search on the contents of the address box if it doesn’t match
a URL. This is why I have a search box separate from the address
box.
* browser.fixup.alternate.enabled -- set to false to stop it
helpfully tacking on “www.” and “.com” if the original URL you type
doesn’t work. I have occasionally been confused by it complaining
about not finding a URL, but showing a different one from the one I
typed.
By the way, when you first try to view this page, Firefox shows you a
warning to ensure you understand the consequences of messing
about with settings at this level. It remembers it has shown you this
warning by adding the following line to the prefs.js file in your
profile:
user_pref("browser.aboutConfig.showWarning", false);
Firefox seems to overwrite this file when it quits, and reloads it when
it is launched again.
The Charter
<https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/28/new_zealand_algorithm_charter/>
requires Government departments who sign on to it to “maintain
transparency” about the algorithms they use, but does not make them
reveal the actual details of these algorithms. Nor does it explain what
it means by an “algorithm”.
A pretty sobering read
<https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/how-qualcomm-shook-down-the-cel…>:
Qualcomm's first weapon against competitors: patent licensing terms
requiring customers to pay a royalty on every phone sold—not just
phones that contained Qualcomm's wireless chips.
Sound familiar?
Judge Koh draws a direct parallel to licensing behavior that got
Microsoft in legal trouble in the 1990s. Microsoft would offer PC
makers a discount if they agreed to pay Microsoft a licensing fee
for every PC sold—whether or not the PC shipped with a copy of
MS-DOS. This effectively meant that a PC maker had to pay twice if
it shipped a PC running a non-Microsoft operating system.
There’s a lot more--the article reads like a catalogue of gangster-like
tactics. All of which is perfectly all right under the US
interpretation of “Free Enterprise”, of course ...
Also, reading the details of how Qualcomm managed to sabotage Intel’s
efforts to develop 5G chips, it seems to me that Qualcomm is directly
responsible for the situation today where US companies are lagging
behind Chinese ones like Huawei in 5G capability.
Hi,
Has anyone had experience with configuring Postfix to allow inbound
client SMTP connections from NZ-based IP addresses that have been Policy
Block Listed (PBL'ed) by their ISP?
Spark have PBL'ed most or all of their home and small business
fibre/*DSL connection IP addresses.
2degrees have PBL'ed most/all of their cellular data IP addresses.
I'm trying to support a user to send email from their cellphone email
client.
Cheers
David
Seems a vulnerability has been found in everyone’s favourite bootloader
<https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/07/new-flaw-neuters-sec…>
which allows a bypass of the “Secure Boot” mechanism in modern
UEFI-based machines. But given that so many other bypasses already
exist, nobody seems especially worried about this.
For example, the article references an attempt by Microsoft to revoke
the certification of (an obsolete version of) a secure bootloader from
Kaspersky Lab with a vulnerability in it; the revocation caused so many
headaches for users that it had to be rolled back.
Hi everyone
Angus mentioned NoiseTorch at last night's meeting as a way of
avoiding noise from being recorded when using microphones:
'NoiseTorch is an easy to use open source application for Linux with
PulseAudio. It creates a virtual microphone that suppresses noise, in
any application. Use whichever conferencing or VOIP application you
like and simply select the NoiseTorch Virtual Microphone as input to
torch the sound of your mechanical keyboard, computer fans, trains and
the likes.'
-- source: https://github.com/lawl/NoiseTorch
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/
'Waydev, an analytics platform used by software companies, has
disclosed a security breach that occurred earlier this month. From a
report:
The company says that hackers broke into its platform and stole GitHub
and GitLab OAuth tokens from its internal database. Waydev, a San
Francisco-based company, runs a platform that can be used to track
software engineers' work output by analyzing Git-based codebases. To
do this, Waydev runs a special app listed on the GitHub and GitLab app
stores. When users install the app, Waydev receives an OAuth token
that it can use to access its customers' GitHub or GitLab projects.
Waydev stores this token in its database and uses it on a daily basis
to generate analytical reports for its customers. Waydev CEO and
co-founder Alex Circei told ZDNet today in a phone call that hackers
used a blind SQL injection vulnerability to gain access to its
database, from where they stole GitHub and GitLab OAuth tokens. The
hackers then used some of these tokens to pivot to other companies'
codebases and gain access to their source code projects.'
-- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/07/27/1918237
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/
Looking at the June Top500 list
<https://top500.org/lists/top500/list/2020/06/>, the current number 1,
Japan’s Fugaku, uses over 7 million A64FX cores and close to 5
petabytes of RAM.
Numbers 2 and 3 are based on IBM’s POWER architecture, while number 4
is a Chinese RISC-based machine, which might have some resemblance to
the DEC Alpha <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunway_(processor)>, or
MIPS, or not. It’s not until 5th place does x86 make an appearance.