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More Linux Phones, More Mint Hack & Just Plain More…

By Christine Hall on February 26, 2016 |

Browsers, Community, Copyright, Distros, Mobile, Obits, Operating Systems and Security

More Linux Phones, More Mint Hack & Just Plain More…

FOSS Week in Review

As Linux Mint scrambles to get security back on track, numerous prototypes of Linux phones are on display and Ubuntu gathers awards at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona.

What a week in the FOSS world. So much has happened since our last Week in Review that I think I’ll skip the idle chitchat about the weather and such and get straight to business. Well, I will take the time to tell you that it’s been damned cold in these parts and I’m more than ready for spring…

Linux Mint LogoThe Great 2016 Linux Mint Hack: The hack at one of the crown jewels of Linux distros has undoubtedly been the biggest story this week. I’ll not bore you by repeating details which most of you have probably already read by now, but will direct those of you who don’t know to FOSS Force’s coverage on Sunday, and to our report on Monday in which Freedom Penguin Matt Hartley helps me take a look at the nature of the crack/hack.

The good news is that things are slowly — very slowly — returning to normal for the Mint team. By midweek, things were under control enough that the switch could be flipped on Mint’s server, putting the website back online. On Thursday I had a very brief email discussion with the distro’s project leader Clem Lefebvre — “very brief” because Lefebvre was more than little busy at the time. He and his team are in up to their elbows, working to make sure that everything works and plays well with the hardening they’ve done to Mint’s server, as well as working overtime to find any niggling security issues. In other words, they have it all under control, even as they work to get it more under control.

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Poll: You Vote to Outlaw Tracking by Advertisers

By FOSS Force on February 25, 2016 |

Business, Media and Polls

The FOSS Force Poll

Our latest poll indicates that our reader’s would support legislation that would prohibit tracking by advertisers.

Back on February 15 when we ran an article calling for a ban on advertisers’ practice of tracking users who just happen to drive by an ad, much less click on it, we ran a poll to find out what you think. Actually, we were pretty sure we already knew what you thought. You tell us everyday, either in the comments section to our articles or by blocking ads here on FOSS Force. The poll was mainly to put some numbers to what we already knew.

The poll was pretty straight forward. “Should advertisers and ad agencies be forbidden to track users as they surf the web?” we asked. There were three answers offered, “Yes,” “No” and “With exceptions.”

As far as FOSS Force polls go, the numbers were pretty low on this one. In all, 143 of you took the poll, a minuscule sampling by any measure, but with conclusive results: You’re completely against having your journeys through cyberspace tracked.

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Speaking on BSD: The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

Speaking on BSD: The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

By Larry Cafiero on February 25, 2016 |

Community, Humor and Operating Systems

Larry the BSD Guy

The BSD devil resides in a penguin’s DNA.

After answering various calls for presentations to a few upcoming shows, it stands to reason that Tom Petty is right: The waiting is the hardest part.

Because I now use PC-BSD on a daily basis, the idea going forward is to pitch talks about the conversion from one side of the Free/Open Source Software street to the other; the uplifting situations and occasional hurdle such a conversion brings, and to outline the similarities (lots) and differences (few, but relatively significant) between Linux distros and BSD variants.

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Software Freedom Conservancy, Others, Makes Case for FOSS at NY City HallKaren Sandler Free Software Conservancy

Software Freedom Conservancy, Others, Makes Case for FOSS at NY City Hall

By Christine Hall on February 24, 2016 |

Community, News and Politics

On Tuesday, representatives of four FOSS friendly agencies testified before a New York City committee considering bills that would mandate the use of FOSS by city government.

“Free and open source software has many advantages over proprietary software,” Karen Sandler, the executive director of the Software Freedom Conservancy, testified Tuesday before the New York City Council Committee on Contracts. “Studies show that, over time, free software is safer from vulnerabilities. Free software is auditable — security and functionality can be verified upon inspection. Anyone can independently assess the software and its risks. Developers can more easily and quickly repair discovered vulnerabilities or bugs (and bugs are very common in all software – the Software Engineering Institute estimates that an experienced software engineer produces approximately one defect for every 100 lines of code). Free software removes dependence on a single party, as anyone can make changes to their version of the software. And municipalities can hire any contractor on the open market to work on the software.”

Karen Sandler Free Software Conservancy
Karen Sandler, executive director of Software Freedom Conservancy and others at Tuesday’s hearing before the New York City Committee on Contracts.
She was speaking in support of two bills: the Free and Open Source Software Act, which “would minimize city contracts for proprietary software in favor of free and open source software that can be shared between government agencies and bodies,” and the Civic Commons Act, which “would encourage the collaborative software purchasing of free and open source software among agencies, cities and states to pool resources, avoid duplicated effort, create portable expertise, grow jobs, and reduce costs.” Both bills are sponsored by New York City councilman Ben Kallos, and both were originally introduced on May 29, 2014.

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Tomorrow’s Veterinarian Using Linux TodayCow and girl

Tomorrow’s Veterinarian Using Linux Today

By Ken Starks on February 23, 2016 |

Community and Operating Systems

The Heart of Linux

In Southeast Texas, a young girl easily harnesses the power of GNU/Linux as she prepares for her future as a veterinarian in America’s heartland.

This past Sunday I had scheduled a Reglue installation for a young lady a couple of towns east of Taylor. This part of Central Texas is dotted with small towns. Some towns flourished during the golden age of the railroad, some grew to support miners for a local aluminum mine, and even others gathered as a farming and cotton textile hub. I like spending some time in these places, since my small town is much like these. They are barely a shadow of their former selves, their industries having dwindled or disappeared, but for some reason they remain.

Caldwell, Texas
Photo: Billy Hathorn at en.wikipedia.

The upside to these small towns is almost always the presence of extremely good school systems. The class sizes are at most 20 kids, but most often, in the mid teens. Some teachers who began their teaching careers here remain until they retire, at least those who do not have to move away due to spousal employment circumstances. It is not rare to have a fifth grade teacher attending his or her student’s high school graduation.

When I visit kids from these heartland towns, I feel like I’ve stepped into an alternate time. Not of time past, but a different kind of time. A time where grade school kids are challenged by their homework assignments and look forward to that challenge, high school kids take food orders on roller skates evenings and weekends at the local Sonic drive-in, farm kids work the land with their parents, and almost every boy learns how to turn wrenches with his dad on Saturday mornings. A time where being referred to as “Sir” or “Ma’am” is the norm.

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Linux Mint: Anatomy of a HackLinux Mint compromised download page

Linux Mint: Anatomy of a Hack

By Christine Hall on February 22, 2016 |

Distros, News and Security

The hackers who compromised the Linux Mint site on Saturday were evidently not the brightest stars in the dark web, but they managed to create a mess for the Mint crew to clear away.

Everybody understands that none of a stage magician’s tricks are real. The one thing that is real, and which a successful illusionist must practice to perfection, is the art of misdirection — which evidently turned out the be the trick under the sleeves of the cracker/hackers who were responsible for compromising ISO downloads of Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon on Saturday.

In the FOSS Force news article on the hack which ran Sunday, we said “the hackers modified the ISO of the Cinnamon edition of Linux Mint 17.3 (Rosa).” We now know that’s not quite true, or at least not in the way we meant. The hackers didn’t bust into the Mint server and modify the binaries waiting to be grabbed by the mirror sites for downloads. Instead, this was a case of misdirection.

The hackers had a copy of Mint with their malicious payload in place, packaged as an ISO image and sitting on a Bulgarian server they controlled, waiting to serve downloads of what is arguably the worlds most popular version of GNU/Linux. The intrusion at Mint was a quick in-and-out to change the URLs in the anchor tags on Mint’s download page for the 64-bit Cinnamon version of Linux Mint 17.3 “Rosa.” Afterwards, users who clicked on a link to download from, say, the Internet Solutions mirror in South Africa, were taken to the hackers’ server in Bulgaria. Let the download begin. Wham, bam, thank you mam.

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Linux Mint Hacked: ISO for 17.3 Cinnamon Edition ModifiedLinux Mint Logo

Linux Mint Hacked: ISO for 17.3 Cinnamon Edition Modified

By FOSS Force on February 21, 2016 |

Distros, News and Security

An intrusion of the Linux Mint server on Saturday makes downloads performed on Saturday of version 17.3 Cinnamon potentially vulnerable.

Linux Mint project leader Clem Lefebvre revealed in a blog post today that the popular Linux distribution’s servers were hacked on Saturday. During the “brief” intrusion, the hackers modified the ISO of the Cinnamon edition of Linux Mint 17.3 (Rosa) and also gained access to the distro’s forum database. Only this particular ISO is affected; other editions or releases are considered safe. Only ISO’s downloaded Saturday are potentially vulnerable.

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#codeforaubrey, WebKit Linux Risk & More…Aubrey Howell

#codeforaubrey, WebKit Linux Risk & More…

By Christine Hall on February 19, 2016 |

Browsers, Community, Distros, Hardware, Mobile, News and Operating Systems

FOSS Week in Review

The good news this week is that the latest Linux vulnerability finally scared me enough to take the time to fix the issues I’ve been having with the updater on the Linux box we use here at the office and get our machine up-to-date with all the latest patches. Other than that, it’s just been the usual, which can be summed-up as waiting for Godot, who so far remains a no show…

Now for this weeks roundup:

Often the best place to find hope is in the middle of despair. I think somebody famous once said that; if not, I’ll take credit for it. Anyway, there’s been an example of that adage this week which has me feeling…well, full of hope, and at the same time, concerned for someone I’ve never met.

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Singing About the Year of the Linux Desktop

Singing About the Year of the Linux Desktop

By Robin "Roblimo" Miller on February 19, 2016 |

Humor and Media

In this riff, we leave no stone unturned as we trip through the past seeking portents of the elusive Year of the Linux.

The first song I heard about the Linux Desktop was Hold On, It’s Coming, released in 1971 by Country Joe McDonald. This was an amazing prediction, considering that Linus Torvalds was only two years old at the time. Is it possible that young Linus heard this piece and it spurred him to create the GNU/Linux operating system? We may never know.

Continue readingSinging About the Year of the Linux Desktop
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