Tuesday, November 27th, 2012

Time	Event
2:49p	German government issues white paper on secure boot A press release from FSF Europe (issued November 20) welcomes a white paper from the German federal government on trusted computing and secure boot. "Another demand by the FSFE is addressed by the government's white paper. That before purchasing a device, buyers must be informed concisely about the technical measures implemented in this device, as well as the specific usage restrictions and their consequences for the owner: 'Trusted computing security systems must be deactivated (opt-in principle)' when devices are delivered… And 'Deactivation must also be possible later (opt- out function) and must not have any negative impact on the functioning of hard- and software that does not use trusted computing functions.'" The white paper is in essence a non-binding call to manufacturers, but is significant as a statement from a major national government against restrictions imposed via secure boot that may foreshadow more significant government action. The white paper is available in both English and German. (Comment on this)
3:38p	Backdoor inserted into Piwik The Piwik web server analytics package was given an undesirable feature — a backdoor — as the result of a compromise of the piwik.org server. "You would be at risk only if you installed or updated to Piwik 1.9.2 on Nov 26th from 15:43 UTC to 23:59 UTC. If you are not using 1.9.2, or if you have updated to 1.9.2 earlier than Nov 26th 15:40 UTC or from Nov 27th, you should be safe." The announcement has details on the backdoor and how to detect it. (Comment on this)
5:29p	[$] Ubuntu on the Nexus 7 Your editor recently related that, thanks to the generosity of the folks at Google, he had come into possession of a second Nexus 7 tablet. There are many advantages to that state of affairs, not the least of which being that one can install questionable software on one tablet without breaking the other; it's possible to have your tablet and hack it too. Never one to turn down such an opportunity, your editor decided to give the recently announced Ubuntu Nexus 7 port a try. (Comment on this)
5:40p	Tuesday's security update Today's lone advisory is from Ubuntu for libssh (code execution). (Comment on this)
5:50p	Fedora 18 Beta is out After much delay, Fedora 18 "Spherical Cow" beta is available for testing. "Fedora 18 offers a brand-new version of the Gnome desktop, version 3.6, straight from the upstream development process. Updates have also been made to the KDE, XFCE and Sugar desktop environments; additionally, the MATE desktop is available for the first time in Fedora. Fedora's new installer user interface enhances the anaconda installer with improvements in ease of use and installation." (Comment on this)

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