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Wednesday, January 30th, 2013
| Time |
Event |
| 2:21p |
China, GitHub and the man-in-the-middle (Greatfire) The Greatfire.org site has a
detailed analysis of a man-in-the-middle attack apparently directed against Chinese Github users. " It’s clear that a lot of software
developers in China rely on GitHub for their code sharing. Completely
cutting access affects big business. GitHub may just be too important to
block. That leaves the authorities in a real pickle. They can’t
selectively block content on GitHub nor monitor what users are doing
there. They also cannot block the website altogether lest they hurt
important Chinese companies. This is where man-in-the-middle attacks make
their entrance. By faking SSL certificates, the authorities can indeed
intercept and track traffic to encrypted websites." | | 2:44p |
Booting Linux using UEFI can brick Samsung laptops (The H) The H reportsthat booting with UEFI can brick some Samsung laptop models; this can happen regardless of whether secure boot is enabled. " The Ubuntu
development team has held talks with Samsung staff, who have identified the
kernel's samsung-laptop driver as the prime suspect. This driver has
previously had issues – it had caused problems for other Samsung laptop
owners when booting Linux using UEFI. Also involved in analysing the
problem is Intel developer Matt Fleming, who posted two kernel changes for
discussion a week ago." | | 2:53p |
Kdenlive 0.9.4 released Version 0.9.4 of the Kdenlive video editor is out with a number of new features. " Kdenlive can now parse your clips to find the different scenes and
add markers or cut the clip accordingly. The process is currently very slow
but it's a start... Kdenlive can also now analyse
an object's motion, and the result of this can be used as keyframes for a
transition or an effect. For example, you can now have a title clip that
follows an object." | | 4:02p |
[$] Glibc and the kernel user-space API We are accustomed to thinking of a system call as
being a direct service request to the kernel. However, in reality, most
system call invocations are mediated by wrapper functions in the GNU C
library (glibc). These wrapper functions eliminate work that the programmer
would otherwise need to do in order to employ a system call. But it turns
out that glibc does not provide wrapper functions for all system calls,
including a few that see somewhat frequent use. The question of what (if
anything) to do about this situation has arisen a few times in the last few
months on the libc-alpha mailing list, and has recently surfaced once more. | | 6:39p |
Wednesday's security updates Debian has updated rails (multiple
vulnerabilities).
Fedora has updated proftpd (F18; F17; F16: privilege escalation), asterisk
(F18; F17;
F16: denial of service), corosync
(F18; F17:
denial of service), and perl (F18: code
execution).
openSUSE has updated libqt4 (11.4:
confusing SSL error messages).
Ubuntu has updated nova (access
controls bypass), glance (information
leak), and inkscape (multiple
vulnerabilities). | | 10:28p |
[$] LCA: Serval at the mobile miniconf Linux on mobile devices is a perpetually hot topic, but the discussion
typically centers around Android, webOS, MeeGo, and other
commercially backed operating system projects. The Mobile FOSS
miniconf at linux.conf.au 2013
offered a decidedly different program,
highlighting projects that pushed mobile computing in directions of
little interest to phone carriers, such as the Serval project, which
focuses on freeing mobile phones from the cellular infrastructure
altogether.
Click below (subscribers only) for the full report from LCA 2013. |
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