● 03.17.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 17/3/2022: Many Security Patches Released

Posted in News Roundup at 1:46 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Instructionals/Technical

• Nvidia Corporation is an American multinational technology company incorporated in Delaware and based in Santa Clara, California. It is a fabless company which designs graphics processing units (GPUs) for the gaming and professional markets, as well as system on a chip units (SoCs) for the mobile computing and automotive market. Its primary GPU line, labeled “GeForce”, is in direct competition with the GPUs of the “Radeon” brand by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Nvidia expanded its presence in the gaming industry with its handheld game consoles Shield Portable, Shield Tablet, and Shield Android TV and its cloud gaming service GeForce Now. Its professional line of GPUs are used in workstations for applications in such fields as architecture, engineering and construction, media and entertainment, automotive, scientific research, and manufacturing design.

• In addition to GPU manufacturing, Nvidia provides an application programming interface (API) called CUDA that allows the creation of massively parallel programs which utilize GPUs. They are deployed in supercomputing sites around the world. More recently, it has moved into the mobile computing market, where it produces Tegra mobile processors for smartphones and tablets as well as vehicle navigation and entertainment systems. In addition to AMD, its competitors include Intel and Qualcomm.

• The iostat command in Linux allows users to monitor system i/o statistics on the device. It is based on how long the devices are operating at the average baud rate to monitor the input/output of the system. Based on reports, system configurations can be changed to optimize CPU performance. This command is in the sysstat package.

• fwbackups is a feature-rich user backup tool that allows you to backup your essential documents anytime, anyplace using a simple, powerful interface with support for scheduled backups and remote backups.

• MakeMKV is a free, open-source tool that can convert video clips from DVDs and Blu-rays, usually encrypted. The output will have most information preserved but not changed; it’s perfect for people who want their media without hassle or headache caused by software limitations like those found with some other transcoder apps.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install or upgrade to the latest version of MakeMKV on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish using a recommended Launchpad PPA repository by the MakeMKV team to provide the most up-to-date version using the command line terminal.

• Glances System Monitor is free, an open-source command-line tool for process monitoring, system resources such as CPU, Disk I/O, File System, Load Average, Memory, Network Interfaces and processes. Glances are built with Python language. Glances support cross-platform monitoring, which can be used with a web-based interface.

• One of the excellent features Glances supports is setting thresholds in the program. You can set careful, warning, and critical in the configuration file, which will then relay information in colors that can show alerts to systems resources bottlenecks, system resources issues, and much more. Glances, by default, comes with a pre-set list of colors, but you can modify and add additional configs.

• The following tutorial will demonstrate how to install Glances System Monitor on AlmaLinux 8 workstation or server using the command line console, create a systemd service file, create a web service and secure with firewalls, and lastly, some basic commands and maintenance tips.

• The Linux set and pipefail commands dictate what happens when a failure occurs in a Bash script. There’s more to think about than should it stop or should it carry on.

• Apache Guacamole is a free, open-source, clientless, remote desktop gateway. It supports standard protocols like SSH, RDP, and VNC. It does not need any third-party plugins and clients to work. You can access your machine using a web-based gateway. It can be put behind a proxy server which allows you to access your servers from anywhere in the world.

• As a Linux administrator, you often have to work with files, folders, symlinks, etc. And sometimes you need to know more information about individual elements in a path for example file type, owner, …

• For that matter, the namei command appeared. Now we’re gonna teach you to use the namei command in Linux.

• Temporary files are used to temporarily store data that the operating system needs temporarily during operation and will disappear when no longer needed. they will disappear on their own after reboot.

• This command in Linux allows the user to make a temporary file or directory in the tmp folder. Now we’re gonna teach you to use the mktemp command in Linux.

• In simple terms, Anaconda is an open-source package and environment manager that houses thousands of predictive analysis, machine learning, and data science packages. Its purpose is to provide scientific libraries and dependencies for Python programmers. Anaconda is frequently used for the development of machine learning and artificial intelligence applications.

• Anaconda makes package distribution and administration easier. It comes with various tools such as conda and Jupyter Notebook that provide you with a smooth and fast package and environment development. Anaconda also supports the creation of a basic, controllable environment, making any project deployment straightforward.

• In this article, you will learn how to install, use, and remove Anaconda from your Ubuntu operating system.

• Once in a while, you will encounter the above error after making changes to /etc/hostname. And the resolution of this error is pretty simple.

• The new kid in town in Python land is pipx. With pipx, you install and run Python applications in a convenient way. Under the hood, it automatically creates a virtual environment for the Python application and adds the executable, to a location on your user’s PATH. You can think of pipx as Flatpak, but then dedicated to install and run Python applications. This hands-on article teaches you all you need to know about how to install Python applications with pipx.

• Kakoune is highly inspired by Vi therefore it looks slightly similar to experienced developers and system admins. Kakoune is a modal code editor, it binds Vi keystrokes into a text editing language. It does a great job of editing files either on a local system or a server.

• Now we will observe how Kakoune is installed on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS edition. I will use Ubuntu repositories to fetch the libraries. It can also be installed from source.

• Linux Kernel 5.15 was released as the newest Long Term Support (LTS) kernel release on Oct 31,2021. It provides new enhancements and features including a new NTFS driver and built-in support for Intel’s Alchemist discrete graphics.

• New to Linux command line and wondering how to make a bash script or some other file executable? Here’s how to do it.

• Linux screen command is one of the most useful command whenever you perform a long-running task like zipping a huge directory or exporting a database from Linux terminal without getting interrupted by sudden connection drop or the SSH session termination. Well, this happened to everyone of us at some point. This is where the screen command comes in that allows us to resume the sessions and save us while working on big process.

• In this guide you are going to learn how to use the Linux screen command and perform your tasks.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install OpenLiteSpeed on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, OpenLiteSpeed is a fast open-source web server application that comes with a built-in fast PHP module. One of the main advantages of LiteSpeed is that it can handle more than a hundred thousand concurrent connections with low resource usage (CPU and RAM). OpenLiteSpeed also provides a web-based user interface to manage web servers from the web browser.

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of the OpenLiteSpeed web server on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).

• When it comes to firewall protection for your system, the default Ubuntu UFW program is a great option. It is short for “uncomplicated firewall.” It allows users with little knowledge on how Linux IPTABLES so you can secure your home network or server without the need to learn complicated long-tail commands that is more for the sysadmin side of things.

• The tutorial is aimed more at new Ubuntu desktop users, but servers can also use the same commands on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish. You will learn how to check, enable and disable the UFW firewall and, for desktop users, install the firewall GUI to better control UFW for users that do not want to use the terminal in the future.

• GIMP or GNU Image Manipulation Program is an open-source program used for many different purposes. Its primary function is to center around graphic design and editing images and transcoding between various image formats, free-form drawing, and many more specialized tasks. GIMP is released under GPL-3.0-or-later license and is available for Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn to install the GIMP on Rocky Linux 8 workstation using two methods with appstream dnf package manager or the flatpak package manager, both of which are installed natively on your workstation, along with some tips in maintaining or removing GIMP into the future.

• Redis is an open-source (BSD licensed), in-memory key-value data structure store used as a database, cache, and message broker. Redis supports data structures such as strings, hashes, lists, sets, sorted sets with range queries, bitmaps, hyperlog logs, geospatial indexes, and streams. Redis also provides high availability with Redis Sentinel software logic, creating automatic partitioning across Redis nodes with Redis Cluster.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Redis on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish using the terminal command line and some basic setup instructions to get you started.

• Rust is an open-source systems programming language that focuses on speed, memory safety, and parallelism. Developers use Rust to create a wide range of new software applications, such as game engines, operating systems, file systems, browser components, and simulation engines for virtual reality. Rust is syntactically similar to C++ but can guarantee memory safety by using a borrow checker for validating references.

• For users, especially developers wanting to try out Rust Programming language, the following tutorial will teach you how to import and install the latest version on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish, along with how to engage the Rust terminal with some essential tips such as updating and removing the software using the command line terminal.

Games

• Valve makes a few more small tweaks to the Steam Deck in the latest client update out now and ready to download. Not a big update but still quite a welcome one, as it fixes up a few minor issues plus the size of the client is now reduced.

• Building up a settlement on the go is going to be a reality soon for RimWorld fans, as a fresh Beta version is now available and ready for testing with the Steam Deck.

• Planned to release in full on April 6, they’re giving mod creators a little extra time to prepare as it’s upgraded a lot of the internals for the Steam integration so quite a few mods could break with this Beta. They said everything but a few mods should work, and you can test by opting into the “steam_deck” Beta branch (no password).

• “The update focuses on Steam Deck changes and improvements. The UI changes make it easier to read on-screen text and type with the Steam Deck keyboard, and menus look a lot better. The controls make more sense now with improved scrolling, zooming, time control, and touch screen navigation. Overall, playing RimWorld on Steam Deck should be a lot smoother with more intuitive controls. There may be more changes on the way to get RimWorld a “Verified” status for Steam Deck.” — Ludeon Studios

• We can also plot the daily increase of new titles over time. Not sure if there is any particular reason but the number of new additions is markedly less this week compared to the previous week.

• Want to try out a retro-styled arena survival FPS? Cathedral 3-D is now free to play so you’ve got nothing to lose. The free to play update included an overhaul of some gameplay elements like a redesigned magic system with easy teleportation.

• This is a very fast-paced game, with the idea that you need to protect a box that contains your heart. It’s absolutely manic and won’t be for everyone but if you love a challenge this might be a good pick for you, especially now it’s free.

• Love roguelikes? Want a modern game that looks good and feels great to play? Jupiter Hell is what you need. The developers just released a nice big free upgrade too.

• Version 1.3 Valhalla brings with it some pretty fun additions. There’s a rework to multiple parts of the level generation, especially for Valhalla Spaceport, which has a new tough boss fight included. The Callisto area also got a big rework to add in some more variation and special mechanics involved with some other improvements to the level generation there, plus some weapon additions to each part of Callisto too. Some new visuals have been added, smoke now slows people down but not for the technician character who is “master of smoke” they say and plenty more.

• For those who don’t use it and are confused: the whole idea is that it produces high-resolution outputs from lower resolution inputs. It’s one way to get good performance at 4K for example, for games that are a bit too resource intensive. It can work with many resolutions and the Steam Deck has FSR built-in.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• Speed, or rather, responsiveness is an essential part of the software usage experience. This applies to every technology and domain, snaps included. Indeed, when it comes to snaps, the equation is a bit more complicated and slightly less straightforward because snaps are packaged as compressed, standalone applications and wrapped in a number of security confinement mechanisms, which set them apart from the classical desktop programs. However, the speed and responsiveness imperative remains.

• Over the years, the snap development team has put a lot of effort into making snaps more accessible to the users. One of the main venues of focus has been the startup performance of applications. Notably, improvements in the use of the compression algorithm for snaps has led to 30-60% boost in startup times. Developers have started adopting the new LZO algorithm in their workflows, with positive results and feedback from the users. In today’s article, we want to share with you a fresh set of data from the KDE community.

Distributions

New Releases

• The Alpine Linux project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of the releases:

• 3.12.10 3.13.8 3.14.4

Debian Family

• The Free Software Fellowship team has recently blogged about Fedora’s relationship with Iran and Russia. Now it is our turn in the Debian Community News Team to look at Debian with the explosive leak of 185 emails from debian-private about the arrest of Dmitry Bogatov in Russia.

• Was Bogatov really a victim of the Russian state or was his arrest another example of smoke and mirrors, like a false-flag operation, encouraging western developers to show sympathy towards Russian cyberspies?

• Can we spot the machinations of psyops officers in these email discussions?

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• In preparation for the upcoming Ubuntu 22.04 Long-Term Support update, due in April, Canonical has unveiled a new Ubuntu logo.

• Ubuntu is, without a doubt, the most well-known desktop Linux distribution on the planet. Canonical, the Ubuntu creator, announced some exciting news yesterday: the Linux-based operating system is having a new logo!

• The original Ubuntu logo consisted of a black rounded lowercase wordmark positioned to the right of a stylish abstract emblem consisting of a ring of three segments with three solid dots attached.

Devices/Embedded

• Forlinx has launched a “FET3568-C” module that runs Linux on a quad -A55 RK3568 with up to 8GB DDR4 and 16GB eMMC. The module powers an “OK3568-C” SBC with triple displays, 2x GbE, 4x USB, M.2 B-key, PCIe Gen2/SATA, and PCIe Gen3 x4.

• Although Rockchip’s octa-core RK3588 has held center stage in recent weeks in product announcements such as Pine64’s QuartzPro64 SBC, the quad-core, Cortex-A55 RK3566 and more I/O rich RK3568 are the Rockchip SoCs that will dominate mainstream embedded Arm devices over the next few years. Forlinx has just released a FET3568-C compute module and sandwich-style OK3568-C dev kit built on the RK3568.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Gemini/Browsers

• There are a few cool bits. Lagrange itself works really well, at least after a few settings tweaks. The Quest’s hand tracking also works in Lagrange so there’s no need for controllers. Instead you can point at the screen and pinch the air to interact with it. That’s pretty neat but admittedly far from ergonomic. It gets tiring after just a few minutes with how much scrolling is needed.

• One plus is being able to resize the screen to however big you want it and move it anywhere in your workspace. Did you know that if you have a big enough screen, Lagrange will intelligently switch from the mobile UI to the desktop UI?

• I managed to even get my Station client certificate imported, though that was quite the exercise. Apparently adb doesn’t have a good way of sending a piece of text to a connected device’s clipboard, otherwise I could send my certificate that way. The Quest also doesn’t have a built-in file browser, so copy pasting it from a file wasn’t an option either. I ended up starting a simple, local http server on my laptop that served my certificate as a text file. From there I could connect to it from the Quest and copy paste the certificate into Lagrange. Phew!

Leftovers

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

Security

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (flac, openssl, and openssl1.0), Fedora (nbd, pesign, and rust-regex), openSUSE (ansible, java-1_8_0-openjdk, libreoffice, and stunnel), Oracle (expat, glibc, and virt:ol and virt-devel:rhel), Red Hat (expat, redhat-ds:11.3, and virt:av and virt-devel:av), SUSE (atftp, java-1_8_0-openjdk, libreoffice, python3, and stunnel), and Ubuntu (apache2, bind9, firefox, fuse, and man-db).

• If Kubernetes is so complicated that even Google is automating its setup, then it’s worth paying attention when U.S. spy giant, the National Security Agency (NSA) points to strengthening it.

• Kubernetes, as the NSA points out, provides “several flexibility and security benefits compared to traditional, monolithic software platforms.” Unfortunately, that flexibility comes with a lot of moving pieces with their own cybersecurity considerations.

• The NSA and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently updated their Kubernetes Hardening Guidance [PDF] which, while designed for government agencies, is still a great set of recommendations for independent organizations.

• WordPress versions prior to 5.9.2 are affected by multiple vulnerabilities. Exploitation of some of these vulnerabilities could allow a remote attacker to take control of an affected website.

• The Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) has released security advisories that address vulnerabilities affecting multiple versions of ISC Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND). A remote attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities to cause a denial-of-service condition.

• CISA encourages users and administrators to review the following ISC advisories and apply the necessary updates or workarounds.

• OpenSSL has released security updates addressing a vulnerability affecting multiple versions of OpenSSL. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to cause a denial-of-service condition.

• CISA encourages users and administrators to review the OpenSSL Advisory and upgrade to the appropriate version.

• Drupal has released security updates to address vulnerabilities affecting Drupal 9.2 and 9.3. An attacker could exploit one of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system.

• I have uploaded new chromium 99 packages for Slackware. The chromium-ungoogled 99 packages are currently being built and will follow shortly.

• These new packages were triggered by a recent Google Chromium update which mentions a fix for a security hole which allows remote attackers to take control of your computer. Opening a malicious advertisement or web page is already sufficient, the vulnerability does not need any interaction to do its work. See CVE-2022-0971.

• Every month we review the work funded by Freexian’s Debian LTS offering. Please find the report for February below.

Privacy/Surveillance

• Senior human rights officials have repeated calls for a ban on the powerful Israeli spyware Pegasus until safeguards are in place to protect civilians from illegal hacking by governments.

• Calls for a moratorium on the sale and use of the military-grade spyware were made on Wednesday at a hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) into widespread unlawful surveillance using Pegasus spyware against journalists and activists in El Salvador.

• “There’s no doubt that malware marketed for complex security threats is being manipulated and used against the media and civil society … which is having a chilling effect on democracy,” said Scott Campbell, senior human rights and technology officer of the UN office of the high commissioner for human rights.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Despite being found guilty late last year for her role in sex crimes against minors, Ghislaine Maxwell, the “madam” and chief accomplice of the intelligence-linked pedophile and sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, may soon walk free. A juror in the case, Scotty David, subsequently took credit for the jury’s decision to find Ghislaine Maxwell guilty and “inadvertently” revealed that he had incorrectly answered a pre-trial questionnaire. As a result, the possibility of a mistrial, and Ghislaine walking free, now looms large.

• David has some interesting connections, as he currently works for the Carlyle Group – the global investment firm whose ties to the bin Laden family during the early 2000s have come under scrutiny. Carlyle’s executives often have ties to intelligence, with one example being its former chairman and then chairman emeritus, Frank Carlucci, who had been deputy director of the CIA and, later, Reagan’s Secretary of Defense. Carlyle’s current co-founder and co-chairman David Rubenstein, as noted in this article from Free Press Report, served on the board of the influential Trilateral Commission during the same time as Jeffrey Epstein, while his ex-wife Alice Rogoff (divorced in 2017) had a very close working relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell, including with her now defunct “charity” the TerraMar Project. Given the fact that there are known ties between David’s employer and Ghislaine Maxwell, why has this potential conflict of interest gone unmentioned by mainstream media?

• Not only that, but – according to a family member of one of the women who testified against Maxwell during her trial – David was connected with the journalist who would publish the now infamous, post-verdict report via Vicky Ward. Ward has been denounced by Epstein victims and others close to the case for having had a past “chummy” relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell she declined to disclose for years and for subsequently telling Ghislaine that Epstein victim Maria Farmer had been the person who had first reported Maxwell and Epstein to the FBI back in 1996. Farmer later claims that Ward’s lack of journalistic integrity, after promising to keep Farmer’s identity secret, had put her life in danger and forced her into hiding.

• It seems that there is, yet again, a major cover-up in the works, one which involves major centers of financial and political power in New York City and beyond. In order to fully understand the sexual trafficking and blackmail operation that Maxwell and Epstein oversaw, and why powerful forces apparently continue to intervene in the case, one must first understand its genesis, particularly how and why Ghislaine Maxwell arrived in New York City. In this second installment of “Meet Ghislaine” (read Part 1 here), the beginnings of Ghislaine’s career – closely controlled by her father, Robert Maxwell, until his 1991 death – are followed in detail.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• We, the undersigned human rights and civil society organizations, are alarmed by Iranian parliament’s move to ratify the general outlines of the draconian “Regulatory System for Cyberspace Services Bill,” previously known as the “User Protection Bill” and referred to hereafter as “the Bill.” If passed, the Bill will violate an array of human rights of people in Iran, including the right to freedom of expression and right to privacy. We urge the Iranian authorities to immediately withdraw the Bill in its entirety. We further call on the international community, along with states engaged in dialogue with Iranian authorities, to ensure that the promotion and protection of human rights in Iran is prioritized, including by urging Iran’s parliament to rescind the Bill as a matter of urgency.

• While UN Human Rights Council member states will soon vote on whether to renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Iran, the Iranian parliament is attempting to further curtail the rights of people inside Iran with passage of this Bill. If implemented, this will carry grave risks of increased and even complete communication blackouts in Iran, and it is likely to be used as a tool to conceal serious human rights violations.

• Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine includes a broad range of cyberattacks, such as DDoS attacks on websites, blocking mobile connections, and other forms of deliberate disruption. Access Now and the #KeepItOn coalition are documenting these attacks, some of which represent internet shutdowns and/or acts of censorship. They are exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine — just as shutdowns have in other parts of the world.

• When governments like Russia’s interfere with internet access or block communications platforms, they prevent human right defenders, journalists, activists, and the public from getting access to information and reporting what is happening on the ground. It is often a deliberate attempt to hide human rights violations and atrocities and amplify state propaganda by removing access to alternative news sources. It is imperative that the international community, including U.N. bodies, tech companies, telecommunications providers, and other relevant actors, act now to protect and maintain the communications infrastructure in Ukraine and demand accountability for those who damage it.

• When Russia invaded Ukraine late last month, Dasha Tkachuk, like many Ukrainians, found herself relying on one app in particular: Telegram.

• “It is impossible not to be on Telegram [right now] — everyone uses it,” said Tkachuk, a 23-year-old sociologist living in Kyiv.

• Before the invasion, Tkachuk operated a channel on the app — which features instant messaging, public or private community-like channels, massive group chats and other social features — that shared studying opportunities for students. “We had a small audience of nearly 15,000 people, and advertisers were willing to pay nearly $30 for one post,” she said.

• Her revenue from the app dried up on Feb. 24, when Russian troops first entered the country and her clients stopped placing ads. But Tkachuk quickly found a new way to use the app — she got to work setting up several Telegram channels explaining what was happening in Ukraine for Russian-speaking users.

• “In Russia, people use Telegram to get the latest news just like Ukrainians do,” she said.

• The app’s popularity in the region was strong even before the ongoing war, with it serving as among the most popular sources of news among Ukrainians between the ages of 18 and 24.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

• If it has a microchip in it, chances are, there are issues fixing it. Our members — from repair, refurbishing and recycling businesses across every industry — have been raising the alarm about how manufacturers are pushing to monopolize repair of everything from appliances, to farm equipment, to servers and routers and even hearing aids.

• As we’ve built momentum for the Right to Repair across the country, supporting bills in 40 states, we believe it’s time for Congress to get off the sidelines.

• Yesterday, March 16, the Repair Association, along with more than 50 different organizations, sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, Ranking Member Jim Jordan; Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law Chairman David Cicilline, Ranking Member Ken Buck; and Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet Chairman Hank Johnson, and Ranking Member Darrell Issa calling for the full House Judiciary Committee to hold a hearing on the Right to Repair. The letter includes signatures from trade associations, small businesses, public interest groups, environmental advocacy organizations, and agriculture groups.

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