Free Software Sydney Melbourne

Gnews October 2015

To build your own slides:

pandoc -t slidy -s gnews.md -o gnews.html
        ^        ^           ^
        |        |           \--- -o <OUTPUT>
        \        \---- -s <SOURCE>
         \---- -t <TEMPLATE> (slidy,slidez,dz___,,,)

And the formatting is:

# <Title>     Single hash and space for new page

## <Title>    Double hash and space for new article - must be followed by blank line

- <Text>        Dash and space for article text

[<text>](<url>)           Square Brackets against Brackets for links

Things to do

Melbourne Knowledge Week

• Next week: 19 to 25 October 2015
• About MKW ... "Program"

Registrations open for linux.conf.au 2016 Geelong

• Monday 1st February to Friday 5th February
• Deakin University, Geelong Waterfront Campus,
• Miniconfs announced ... Register

Ruxcon 2015

• 24th to the 25th of October. Doors open at 8:00am.
• SMEP Bypass Techniques on Linux (Vitaly Nikolenko)
• Hardware Hacking Village ... Speakers

Open Source Developers' Conference

• OSDC covers all aspects of Open Source Technology, from software and systems to open data
• In Tasmania, from October 27-29 at the Wrest Point Convention Centre in Hobart
• "Finally, just remember -- a flight to Hobart can be cheaper (and quite possibly quicker) than a taxi home to the outer suburbs in Melbourne or Sydney ;)" ... Register

Tell us what's in the TPP & TPP Transparency

• We need to know what's at stake in the TPP. That is why we are calling on the Federal Government to bring the Australian public to the table and release the text before signing a final agreement. ... Still going

Free Culture

Free Software Awards

• Who is improving the world through free software?

The Free Software Foundation turns 30

• Interview with John Sullivan, executive director of the FSF
• Video of Stallman's speech

Video interview with Mark Shuttleworth

• 15.10 Highlights

Free Software Foundation is celebrating thirty years

• Party Network

LibreOffice Turns Five

• Italo Vignoli a founding member of The Document Foundation

Linux Foundation Announces Training Scholarship Recipients

• Toby Jee, 37, Australia - Toby is a software developer at Innovit in Sydney, who currently contributes to Linux development with his own projects on GitHub and Bitbucket.
• He hopes that formal Linux training will enable him to contribute to Linux documentation, especially around Fedora One - his preferred distribution.
• He is also passionate about education and would like to teach children about open source by showing them how to use Raspberry Pi’s with Pidora.

The Guardian artice by Richard Stallman

• Malware is not only about viruses – companies preinstall it all the time
• "The companies that sell malware are skilled at spinning the malfunctionalities as services to the consumer but they could offer most of these services with freedom and anonymity if they wanted to"

Jim Zemlin outlines his plans to improve open source security

• MS and Apple using OpenSSL
• “OpenSSL for a long period of time was essentially maintained by two guys named Steve. Think about that.”
• "Fellowships for the OpenSSL community to help them work full time... testing tools and has also launched accreditation programmes for projects"
• Due to forward secrecy the integrity of HTTPS Everywhere was not compromised by Heartbleed

FSF Campaign against Windows 10

• Close Windows, Open Doors

Licencing & Open Standards

Microsoft Announces VP9 Support

• VP9 is an open source codec that offers efficient compression to stream HD content at lower bitrates, and is well suited to UHD streaming
• Vorbis, Opus, WebM and VP9

Microsoft offering cloud customers support for selected Linux distros and open source software platforms on Azure.

• Includes: Ubuntu, CentOS, Oracle Linux, SUSE Enterprise Server, OpenSUSE and CoreOS.
• Tech support will help users with installation, configuration, networking and performance tuning... ha!
• Also supporting PHP, Java and Python. Also covered are the Apache and
• Tomcat Web servers, the MySQL database and the WordPress content management system (CMS).

Linux Foundation IT staff release internal IT checklists and policy guides

• Part of the “Useful IT Policies"
• eg. team communications: OpenPGP, X.509 and S/MIME, OTR
• Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 ... Code

Intel To Make Stephen Hawking's Computer System Open Source

• The software platform is what Hawking uses in typing out his messages. He also uses this to select from given options already programmed in the system, move a mouse, and command the computer to produce the speech output.

Open Hardware

FCC Could Ban WiFi Router Firmware Modification

• Mandating controlls to stop users flashing firmware.
• Ensure that the devices operate as authorized and cannot be modified

Eric Raymond says the FCC must not lock down firmware!

• "Present state of router and wireless-access-point firmware is nothing short of a disaster with grave national-security implications"
  
• "Mandated device upgradeability. Mandated open source for firmware. It’s not just a good idea, it should be the law"

The Right to Repair - WSJ

• "$20 deluxe repair kit, that included capacitors, a soldering iron and something called a solder sucker"
• Awareness of this consumer-hostile behavior, and frustration with it is going mainstream
• Tractor repair too

EPA opposed DMCA exemptions that could have revealed Volkswagen Fraud

• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) argued that users should not be able to access and modify the software on their own vehicles.
• In their estimation, this would enable users to violate emissions controls.
• Eben Moglen noted "If Volkswagen knew that every customer who buys a vehicle would have a right to read the source code of all the software in the vehicle, they would never even consider the cheat, because the certainty of getting caught would terrify them.”
• Central truth: DRM is not about copyright; it's about control. It's about dominating users. It's about spying on them.
• EPA letter

Eben Moglen a Prophet (or just a sensible guy?)

• "Eben Moglen, tried to imagine what the world would be like if elevators were not built so that people could inspect them"
• "E.P.A. tests only 10 to 15 percent of new cars annually, relying instead on “self certification” by auto manufacturers"
• "Manufacturers said that opening the code to scrutiny could create “serious threats to safety and security.” And two months ago, the E.P.A. said it, too, opposed such a move"

EFF: DMCA Hinders Exposing More Software Cheats

• EPA is undermining its own ability to issue nuanced regulation in this space
• "The law shouldn't punish you for trying to understand how that device works and whether it is trustworthy"

DMCA may have let carmakers cheat

• "West Virginia University researchers drove the vehicles for thousands of miles"
• "That automakers can assert a DMCA claim against researchers is a deterrent to going in and actually looking at the code to understand what it's doing,"
• "EPA has also expressed concern that use of the DMCA and its copyright protection of "technological protection measures" could "slow or reverse gains made under the Clear Air Act""
• "In a letter dated July 17, 2005, the EPA wrote the U.S. Copyright Office stating that computer programs in motor vehicles controlling engine operations have been critical to achieving emissions reductions"
• "Ironically, the EPA also noted that copyright protections for vehicle software also keep it from enforcing laws to stop third-party vendors from tampering with code"

Users could have discovered cheating before the EPA did

• "Lack of transparency is one reason it took so long for the world to discover that Volkswagen had tricked emissions inspectors"
• "Tipped off in 2014 by road tests by West Virginia University and the International Council on Clean Transportation"
• "In 1998, Renault, Volvo and Ford settled with the EPA over devices installed in their cars"

Welcome to the era of open source cars

• Nice

Security / Privacy

Data Retention

• "October 13th, the new metadata retention law comes into effect in Australia"
• Local "hackerspace" organizer Robin Doherty on what you can do
• ... but don't worry they're not ready yet
• "84 per cent say they are not ready and will not be collecting metadata on time"
• "Two-thirds of them are still not entirely sure what type of metadata the Government wants"
• "Small ISPs say regulations putting them out of business"

Unfortunate Gnews

Linux Kernel Dev Sarah Sharp Quits

• Citing hostile culture Sarah Sharp leaves the Linux community
• Maintainer of the USB 3.0 host controller driver and Outreachy coordinator still continues to work on other open-source software projects
• Torvalds could not be reached for comment at the time this article was published... disapointing

Matthew Garrett "Forks" the Linux Kernel

• "Remembering how much I love the technical side of kernel development. "Remembering" is a deliberate choice of word"
• (Linus) couldn't be bothered asking questions about the reasoning behind a design before trashing it
• Implement a BSD-style securelevel interface and ongoing development

Debian Dropping Linux Standard Base

• "Attempt to require the correct versions of the libraries mentioned in the standard, but no one is actually checking that all of the symbols and data definitions are met as a result"
• "LSB 4.1 consisted of 1493 components, 1672 libs, 38491 commands, 30176 classes and 716202 interfaces,"
• "Minimalist set of tools will allow an interested user to start up the next Debian release and query whether or not it is LSB-compliant—and the answer will be "no.""
• Very commercial base

AMD Confirms Vulkan Driver For Linux

• But To Start Off As Closed-Source
• Closed-source is still relied on for workstation features, OpenGL 4.5, and OpenCL
• Basic support for their closed-source (Catalyst) OpenGL and OpenCL support riding atop the rest of the AMDGPU driver stack is complete.
• GPU scheduler optimizations, new display/power components, new hardware support, and then open-sourcing Vulkan and OpenCL components
• In the open-source NVIDIA / Nouveau space, there's no visible activity

Releases

GnuPG 2.1

• Repairs a regression that occurred when using EdDSA keys with SSH (Secure Shell)
• Re-implements the ability to send very large keys to key servers
• Adds support for exporting secret keys via Assuan.

OpenWRT 15.05

• A linux distro for embedded systems. Mainly for networking gear.
• Kernel updated to version 3.18
• Package signing architecture based on ed25519.
• Added support for jails.
• Support for hardened builds
• Driver Support

Adblock Plus Returns To Android

• Just because Google play blocked the app didn't mean it wasn't available. F-Droid App store always had the app ready to load.

Netflix Open Sources Sleepy Puppy XSS Hunter

• Injects cross-site scripting payloads into a target app and tracks the payload if it's reflected to a secondary application that makes use of the data in the same field
• Data on where and how cross-site scripting vulnerabilities propagate through various applications
• Last year, a number of tools were released, including Scumblr and Sketchy, search tools that comb social media and forums for hints of attacks, and Security Monkey, a tool used to analyze the security of AWS configurations

Turku backup soution

• More cient focused and flexible

Dhewm3 update v1.4.0

• SDL support, OpenAL for audio
• OpenAL EFX for EAX audio support
• 64-bit support (including 64-bit ARM),
• Better support for resolutions
• CMake build system support
• Linux / Windows / OS X / FreeBSD support

Ddrescue-GUI released

• Simple (add a ppa) install

Git 2.6 Release

• Lots of UI and Workflow fixes

Fdroid Client 0.96.1 released

• Bug-fix for Android 2.3.7 or older

FLIF - Free Lossless Image Format

• Outperforms most formats in most situations
• Uses progressive decoding to provide fully-formed lossy images from partial downloads in bandwidth-constrained situations.
• GNU GPLv3. ... for now

OpenGL releases version 11.0

• Support for the amdgpu driver, radeonsi and nvc0 drivers, and the i965 driver
• New OpenGL ES extensions supported
• OpenGL version supported by core Mesa from 3.3 to 4.2, five and a half years after OpenGL 4