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Posts published by “FOSS Force”

Video: Ken Starks’ & Ruth Suehle’s Keynotes at OLF

By FOSS Force on November 3, 2014 |

Community, Hardware, Operating Systems and Software

Video: Ken Starks’ & Ruth Suehle’s Keynotes at OLF

Here at FOSS Force we’re proud to be associated with Ken Starks. We’re proud because of the great articles he writes advocating Linux. We’re also extremely proud that he was chosen to be a keynote speaker at this year’s Ohio LinuxFest. But most of all, we’re proud because of his big heart, which he expresses through his work through Reglue, the nonprofit he founded in 2005 to give Linux computers, and training on how to use them, to financially disadvantaged school children in and around the Austin, Texas area where he lives.

Indeed, it’s this last aspect that was honored at Ohio LinuxFest, and the work Ken does with his “Reglue kids” was his focus during his time spent behind the podium. He called his presentation “Deleting The Digital Divide One Computer at a Time.”

** If you value this kind of coverage, please consider supporting our work through our FOSS Force Independence 2026 fundraiser. **

Lucky for us, his friend Randy Noseworthy put together a video of the presentation, which we’re happy to be able to offer here. We’re certain you’ll find it as inspiring as we do.

Continue readingVideo: Ken Starks’ & Ruth Suehle’s Keynotes at OLF

Tux Machines DDOS Attack Mostly Contained

By FOSS Force on October 29, 2014 |

Community and News

For nearly a month now, we at FOSS Force have had no trouble reaching the popular FOSS sites Tux Machines and TechRights. Both sites are published by Roy Schestowitz and both sites, especially the former, had been offline during much of September due to a prolonged DDOS attack.

On October 4th, when we last reported on this, accessibility to both sites was greatly improved but still somewhat spotty. During most of this month, however, we’ve had no noticeable difficulty reaching either site.

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According to Schestowitz, although the site continues to be under fire, he and his team have developed methods to deal with the attacks.

Continue readingTux Machines DDOS Attack Mostly Contained
Organizer Confirms Both POSSCON and ‘Great Wide Open’ in 2015POSSCON logo

Organizer Confirms Both POSSCON and ‘Great Wide Open’ in 2015

By FOSS Force on October 18, 2014 |

Community, News and Software

This year IT-oLogy, the organization behind the annual POSSCON conference in Columbia, South Carolina, cancelled the event in order to focus on launching the Great Wide Open (GWO) conference in Atlanta. At the time, some expressed fear that this might signal the end of the Palmetto State event, that Great Wide Open actually meant a move and new name for the conference. At the same time, others were speculating that GWO would be a one-off event, essentially making it a one year move by POSSCON to Atlanta, which would then return to its native home in Columbia, which is where IT-oLogy is headquartered.

** If you value this kind of coverage, please consider supporting our work through our FOSS Force Independence 2026 fundraiser. **
Continue readingOrganizer Confirms Both POSSCON and ‘Great Wide Open’ in 2015
Researchers Release USB Exploit & Incomplete Fix on GitHubUSB exploit

Researchers Release USB Exploit & Incomplete Fix on GitHub

By FOSS Force on October 8, 2014 |

Hardware, News and Security

Now that a working exploit of the USB vulnerability that’s baked-in to the USB standard has been released, it might be a prudent move to no longer employ any USB devices that aren’t already under your control until this situation has been fixed.

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The exploit was first made public two months ago at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas when Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell of Berlin based Security Research Labs (SRL) demonstrated an attack they called BadUSB to a standing-room-only crowd.

Continue readingResearchers Release USB Exploit & Incomplete Fix on GitHub
‘Tux Machines’ DDOS Attack Moves to ‘TechRights’Tux Machines logo

‘Tux Machines’ DDOS Attack Moves to ‘TechRights’

By FOSS Force on October 4, 2014 |

Media, News and Security

Editor’s note: This article was updated 9/4/2014 at 5:15 p.m. EDT to include latest update from Tux Machines publisher.

The DDOS attack that has rendered the popular Linux site Tux Machines virtually unreachable for nearly two weeks, now seems to be affecting sister site TechRights. Roy Schestowitz, publisher of both sites, told FOSS Force that the attack on TechRights began at about one o’clock Friday afternoon GMT.

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“…an hour ago I got some automatic reports and some messages from readers saying that Tech Rights had gone offline,” he said. “I then checked logs, grepped on ‘NT’ (all the zombies are [running different versions of] NT), and saw pretty much the same pattern as on Tux Machines.”

As of eleven o’clock this evening EDT, both site were reachable from FOSS Force’s offices in North Carolina, but we’ve been unable to determine if this is because the attacks have ended or if this is only a temporary reprieve.

Continue reading‘Tux Machines’ DDOS Attack Moves to ‘TechRights’

DDOS Attack Brings Tux Machines Down

By FOSS Force on September 29, 2014 |

Internet, Media and News

Editor’s note: This article was updated on 9/29/14 at approx. 5:30 p.m. to include update from Tux Machines publisher Roy Schestowitz.

** If our coverage matters to you, please consider supporting our work through our FOSS Force Independence 2026 fundraiser. **

Since sometime last week the popular Linux site Tux Machines has been under an apparent distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack. For the last several days, those trying to visit the site have been redirected to Tech Rights, another site operated by Roy Schestowitz, the owner of Tux Machines, to a post dated Saturday by Schestowitz which reads:

“Windows botnets have been hammering on Tux Machines for nearly a week. It got a lot of worse yesterday and the site became unaccessible much of the time. We don’t know who the attacker is and what the motivations are, but in the mean time the site can be read via the RSS feed. The RSS feed links to all the latest news and the pages ought to work as usual. We apologise for this issue and we are working hard to find a permanent solution.”

Continue readingDDOS Attack Brings Tux Machines Down
Are You Going Conferencing?All Things Open Conference

Are You Going Conferencing?

By FOSS Force on September 11, 2014 |

Media, Site News and Software

This year, we at FOSS Force are expanding our coverage of Linux, FOSS and OSS conferences. This got us wondering, in a self serving sort of way, how many of you regularly attend conferences?

At this point, it’s looking as if we’ll have boots on the ground at three conferences, all scheduled for late October. In fact, we’re already hard at work coordinating our efforts to cover these events.

** If you're finding this article useful, please consider supporting our work through our FOSS Force Independence 2026 fundraiser. **

All Things Open

First up will be our coverage of All Things Open (ATO), a two day conference to be held on October 22 and 23, which will be covered by Christine Hall. Last year, you might remember, we got our feet wet with Hall’s coverage of the inaugural bow of ATO. Hall says that last year was her first try at conference coverage, that she learned quite a bit and that this year’s coverage will be even better.

Continue readingAre You Going Conferencing?