Forbes takesa look at Cyanogen, and its prospects in the phone market."Cyanogen has a chance to snag as many as 1 billion handsets, morethan the total number of iPhones sold to date, according to someanalysts. Fifty million people already run Cyanogen on their phones, thecompany says. Most went through the hours-long process of erasing anAndroid phone and rebooting it with Cyanogen. [Kirt] McMaster is now persuading a growing list of phone manufacturers to make devices with Cyanogen built in, rather than Google’s Android. Their phones are selling out in record time. Analysts say each phone could bring Cyanogen a minimum of $10 in revenue and perhaps much more."
Worth a read: this postfrom Arjan van de Ven on the difficulty of removing old, insecurecryptographic algorithms from a Linux distribution. "But more, andthis is a call to action: If you're working on an open source project thatuses crypto, please please don't opencode crypto algorithm usage. Thealgorithm may be outdated at any time and might have to go away in ahurry."
It seems it was about time for another certificate authority horror story;the Google Online Security Blog duly delivers."CNNIC responded on the 22nd to explain that they had contracted withMCS Holdings on the basis that MCS would only issue certificates fordomains that they had registered. However, rather than keep the private keyin a suitable HSM, MCS installed it in a man-in-the-middle proxy. Thesedevices intercept secure connections by masquerading as the intendeddestination and are sometimes used by companies to intercept theiremployees’ secure traffic for monitoring or legal reasons. The employees’computers normally have to be configured to trust a proxy for it to be ableto do this. However, in this case, the presumed proxy was given the fullauthority of a public CA, which is a serious breach of the CAsystem."
Ars Technica is one of several news outlets to report on a change announced in Microsoft's Windows 10 plans. Though the headlines (including Ars Technica's) paint a rather bleak scenario, the details are not as clear-cut. The UEFI "Secure Boot" mechanism was introduced with Windows 8, at which time Microsoft's OEM-certification rules mandated that hardware must include a means for the local user to disable Secure Boot. The Windows 10 certification rules does not include the mandated disable switch. Writes Peter Bright: "Should this stand, we can envisage OEMs building machines that will offer no easy way to boot self-built operating systems, or indeed, any operating system that doesn't have appropriate digital signatures. This doesn't cut out Linux entirely—there have been some collaborations to provide Linux boot software with the 'right' set of signatures, and these should continue to work—but it will make it a lot less easy." Note, also, that the only source for this story appears to be a presentation from a Microsoft event in Shenzhen, China. Bright adds that he has contacted Microsoft seeking clarification, but has so far received no reply.
Firefox 36.0.4 has been released. This update includes security and bugfixes, support for the full HTTP/2 protocol, and more. The releasenotes contain the details.
Linus has released the 4.0-rc5 prepatch,saying "There's nothing particularly worrisome going on, although I'm stilltrying to think about the NUMA balancing performance regression. Itmay not be a show-stopper, but it's annoying, and I want it fixed.We'll get it, I'm sure."
Juho Snellman has an interesting treatise on the oft-overlooked challenges that face developers attempting to release an existing, proprietary codebase under open-source terms. "As soon as you get outside of the "one self-contained file or directory" level of complexity, the threshold for releasing code becomes much higher. And likewise every change to a program that was made in order to open source it will make it less likely that the two versions can really be kept in sync in the long term. In this case the core code is maybe 2k-3k lines and won't require much work. It's all the support infrastructure that's going to be an issue." Snellman also reflects on possible strategies for writing internal code that may some day be released to the public.
Over at Opensource.com, Daniel Walsh writes about applying various Linux security technologies to Docker containers. In the article, he looks at using user namespaces and seccomp filters to provide better security for Docker. "One of the problems with all of the container separation modes described here and elsewhere is that they all rely on the kernel for separation. Unlike air gapped computers, or even virtual machines, the processes within the container can talk directly to the host kernel. If the host kernel has a kernel vulnerability that a container can access, they might be able to disable all of the security and break out of the container.The x86_64 Linux kernel has over 600 system calls, a bug in any one of which could lead to a privilege escalation. Some of the system calls are seldom called, and should be eliminated from access within the container."
OpenSSL has updates released today, with two vulnerabilities of"High" severity, as described in its advisory. One ofthe High vulnerabilities is a reclassification of the FREAK vulnerability due to the prevalence ofservers with RSA export ciphers available, the other is a denial of servicein OpenSSL 1.0.2.CentOS has updated freetype (C6:multiple vulnerabilities) and unzip (C6:multiple vulnerabilities).Debian has updated file (denialof service).Debian-LTS has updated mono(three SSL/TLS vulnerabilities).Gentoo has updated python(multiple vulnerabilities, two from 2013).Mageia has updated moodle(multiple vulnerabilities).openSUSE has updated gdm (13.2:screen lock bypass), glusterfs (13.2:denial of service), and libssh2_org (13.2,13.1: information leak).Oracle has updated unzip (OL7; OL6:multiple vulnerabilities).Red Hat has updated postgresql92-postgresql (RHSC1: multiplevulnerabilities) and unzip (RHEL6&7:multiple vulnerabilities).SUSE has updated kernel (SLE12:multiple vulnerabilities).
The Fedora project is looking for somebody to become its diversityadvisor. "The Fedora Diversity Advisor will lead initiatives to assess andpromote equality and inclusion within the Fedora contributor and usercommunities, and will develop project strategy on diversity issues. TheDiversity Advisor will also be the point of contact for Fedora’sparticipation in third-party outreach programs and events." Youhave to get to the bottom of the announcement to read that this is avolunteer position, though they hope to change that someday.
The OpenSSH6.8 release is available. New features include host-key rotationsupport (to allow graceful changes to host keys), an option to require twopublic keys for authentication, and quite a few more.
Debian has updated php5 (multiple vulnerabilities).Fedora has updated freexl (F21; F20:denial of service) and libgcrypt (F21: two vulnerabilities).openSUSE has updated vorbis-tools(13.2, 13.1: denial of service).Oracle has updated freetype (OL7; OL6:multiple vulnerabilities).Red Hat has updated flash-plugin(RHEL5,6: multiple vulnerabilities) and freetype (RHEL6,7: multiple vulnerabilities).Ubuntu has updated libxfont (privilege escalation) and php5 (multiple vulnerabilities).
The Salt Lake Tribune reportsthat the SCO Group's lawsuit against IBM is once again alive and moving inFederal court. "In addition to its claims of IBM misappropriation ofcode, SCO alleges that IBM executives and lawyers directed the company'sLinux programmers to destroy source code on their computers after SCO madeits allegations. The company's other remaining claims are that IBM'sactions amounted to unfair competition and interference with its contractsand business relations with other companies."
Qt 5.5 alpha has been released."With Qt 5.5, Canvas 3D is fully supported and a technology previewof long awaited Qt 3D is included. Qt 5.5 also introduces mapping supportwith a Qt Location technology preview. Qt 5.5 Alpha is the first steptowards Qt 5.5 final release planned to be available in May." Checkout the New Features inQt 5.5 page for more details.
When the schedulefor the 2015 Linux Storage, Filesystem, and Memory Management Summit waslaid out, its authors optimistically set aside 30 minutes on the first dayfor the thorny issue of memory-allocation problems in low-memorysituations. That session (covered here)didn't get past the issue of whether small allocations should be allowed tofail, so the remainder of the discussion, focused on finding bettersolutions for the problem of allocations that simply cannot fail, waspushed into a plenary session on the second day.With this article, LWN's coverage of the memory-management track at LSFMM2015 is complete; sessions from the filesystems track are being added aswell. It all can be found at the LWN LSFMM2015 page.
Debian has updated checkpw (denial of service), libxfont (privilege escalation), and tcpdump (multiple vulnerabilities).Debian-LTS has updated gnupg (multiple vulnerabilities) and tcpdump (multiple vulnerabilities).Gentoo has updated adobe-flash(multiple vulnerabilities) and file(multiple vulnerabilities).Red Hat has updated kernel(RHEL6.2: multiple vulnerabilities) and kernel-rt (RHE MRG2.5: multiple vulnerabilities).Ubuntu has updated libav (12.04: multiple vulnerabilities).
The New Yorker notesthe 30th anniversary of the GNU Manifesto. "Stallman was one of the first to grasp that, if commercial entitieswere going to own the methods and technologies that controlled computers,then computer users would inevitably become beholden to thoseentities. This has come to pass, and in spades. Most computer users havebecome dependent on proprietary code provided by companies like Apple,Facebook, and Google, the use of which comes with conditions we may notcondone or even know about, and can’t control; we have forfeited thefreedom to adapt such code according to our needs, preferences, andpersonal ethics."
The fourth 4.0 prepatch is out for testing.Linus says: "Nothing particularly stands out here. Shortlog appended,I think we're doing fine for where in the release cycle we are."
Libre Graphics World has a lookat the new release of OpenSCAD, the 3D solid-modeling tool often usedin conjunction with 3D printers. The new features include support forcomplex text layout, offset functions for manipulating polygons, andthe ability to generate height maps from PNG images. "The user interface got a few improvements as well: new startup dialog to quickly open recent files or examples from a library, new QScintilla-based code editor with folding support, SVG and AMF exporting, and more."
InformationWeek has alengthy look at the maintenance of the network time protocol (NTP)code. "Not all is well within the NTP open source project. Thenumber of volunteer contributors -- those who submit code for periodicupdates, examine bug reports, and write fixes -- has shrunk over its longlifespan, even as its importance has increased. Its ongoing development andmaintenance now rest mostly on the shoulders of [Harlan] Stenn, and that'swhy NTP faces a turning point. Stenn, who also works sporadically on his ownconsulting business, has given himself a deadline: Garner more financialsupport by April, 'or look for regular work.'"
Google has announcedthat the Google Code repository is shutting down. "As developersmigrated away from Google Code, a growing share of the remaining projectswere spam or abuse. Lately, the administrative load has consisted almostexclusively of abuse management. After profiling non-abusive activity onGoogle Code, it has become clear to us that the service simply isn’t neededanymore." New project creation has been stopped already; the finalpulling of the plug will be in January 2016.
openSUSE has updated cacti (13.2,13.1: multiple vulnerabilities).Oracle has updated kernel (OL6: multiple vulnerabilities).Red Hat has updated kernel(RHEL6: multiple vulnerabilities).Scientific Linux has updated bind(SL6,7: denial of service) and kernel (SL6:multiple vulnerabilities).SUSE has updated bind(SLES11 SP1: denial of service) and kernel (SLES11 SP2: multiple vulnerabilities).Ubuntu has updated kernel (14.10; 14.04;12.04; 10.04: privilege escalation), linux-lts-trusty (12.04: privilegeescalation), and linux-lts-utopic (14.04: privilege escalation).
Since opening its doors in 2008, GitHub has grown to become the largestactive project-hosting service for open-source software. But it hasalso attracted a fair share of criticism for some of itsimplementation choices—with one of the leading complaints beingthat it takes a lax approach to software licensing. That, in turn,leads to a glut of repositories bearing little or no licensingdetails. The company recently announced a new tool to help combat thelicense-confusion issue: a site-wide API for querying and reportinglicense information. Whether that API is up to the task, however,remains to be seen.
CentOS has updated bind (C6: denial of service).Debian has updated libssh2 (information leak), mod-gnutls (restriction bypass), and xen (multiple vulnerabilities).Debian-LTS has updated axis (verification bypass).Mageia has updated gnupg,libgcrypt (information leak), icu (codeexecution), pngcrush (denial of service), and vsftpd (unauthorized access).openSUSE has updated autofs(13.2, 13.1: privilege escalation), glusterfs (13.1: denial of service), percona-toolkit (13.2, 13.1:man-in-the-middle attack), and putty (13.2,13.1: information disclosure).Oracle has updated bind (OL6: denial of service).Red Hat has updated bind(RHEL6,7: denial of service).Ubuntu has updated ecryptfs-utils(information disclosure) and icu (12.04:regression in previous update).
As Michal Hocko noted at the beginning of his session at the 2015 Linux Storage, Filesystem, and Memory Management Summit, the news that thememory-management code will normally retry small allocations indefinitelyrather than returning a failure status came as a surprise to manydevelopers. In this session, the assembled group attempted to come up withways to safely change this behavior. Click below (subscribers only) forthe full report from LSFMM 2015.
The Project Zero blog looksat the "Rowhammer" bug. "“Rowhammer†is a problem with somerecent DRAM devices in which repeatedly accessing a row of memory can causebit flips in adjacent rows. We tested a selection of laptops and found thata subset of them exhibited the problem. We built two working privilegeescalation exploits that use this effect. One exploit usesrowhammer-induced bit flips to gain kernel privileges on x86-64 Linux whenrun as an unprivileged userland process. When run on a machine vulnerableto the rowhammer problem, the process was able to induce bit flips in pagetable entries (PTEs). It was able to use this to gain write access to itsown page table, and hence gain read-write access to all of physicalmemory." (Thanks to Paul Wise)
VMware has publisheda statement on the lawsuit filed by Christoph Hellwig allegingcopyright infringement. "On March 5, 2015, Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) announced a lawsuit in Germany, filed by Christoph Hellwig against VMware, alleging a failure to comply with the General Public License (GPL). We believe the lawsuit is without merit, and we are disappointed that the SFC and plaintiff have resorted to litigation given the considerable efforts we have made to understand and address their concerns.We see huge value in supporting multiple development methodologies, including free and open source software, and we appreciate the crucial role of free and open source software in the data center. In particular, VMware devotes significant effort supporting customer usage of Linux and F/OSS based software stacks and workloads."LWN recently covered the lawsuit. (Thanksto Emmanuel Seyman)
The Fedora Project has announced the release of Fedora 22 Alpha."The Alpha release contains all the exciting features of Fedora 22's editions in a form that anyone can help test. This testing, guided bythe Fedora QA team, helps us target and identify bugs. When these bugsare fixed, we make a Beta release available. A Beta release iscode-complete and bears a very strong resemblance to the third andfinal release. The final release of Fedora 22 is expected in May."
Mandriva has updated kernel (multiple vulnerabilities).Oracle has updated 389-ds-base(OL7: multiple vulnerabilities), glibc(OL7: multiple vulnerabilities), hivex(OL7: privilege escalation), openssh (OL7:two vulnerabilities), and pcre (OL7: information leak).Red Hat has updated qpid-cpp (RHE MRG for RHEL7; RHE MRG for RHEL6; RHE MRG for RHEL5: multiple vulnerabilities).Scientific Linux has updated 389-ds-base (SL6: information disclosure).Ubuntu has updated apache2(multiple vulnerabilities), oxide-qt(14.10, 14.04: multiple vulnerabilities), and firefox (14.10, 14.04, 12.04: regression inprevious update).
A brief "codeof conflict" was merged into the kernel's documentationdirectory for the 4.0-rc3 release. The idea is to describe the parametersfor acceptable discourse without laying down a lot of rules; it also namesthe Linux Foundation's technical advisory board as a body to turn to incase of unacceptable behavior. This document has been explicitlyacknowledged by a large number of prominent kernel developers.
The 4.0-rc3 prepatch is out. "Backon track with a Sunday afternoon release schedule, since there was nothingparticularly odd going on this week, and no last-minute bugs that I knew ofand wanted to get fixed holding things up."
Debian project leader Lucas Nussbaum has confirmed the appointment of threenew members to the Debian technical committee. The new members are DidierRaboud, Tollef Fog Heen, and Sam Hartman; they will be replacing IanJackson, Russ Allbery, and Colin Watson.
At his blog, David Edmundson writesabout the state of high-DPI support in KDE. "For someapplications supporting high DPI has been easy. It is a single oneline in KWrite, and suddenly all icons look spot on with noregressions. For applications such as Dolphin which do a lot moregraphical tasks, this has not been so trivial. There are a lot ofimages involved, and a lot of complicated code around caching thesewhich conflicts with the high resolution support without some furtherwork." He is personally trackingthe progress of many applications, but notes that there are manyunsolved issues. "There are still many applications without a frameworks release even in the upcoming 15.04 applications release. Even in the next applications release in 15.08 August we are still unlikely to see a released PIM stack.Is it a good idea to add an option into our UIs that improves some applications at the cost of consistency? It's not an easy answer."This update is Edmunsdon's second post on the subject; the first, fromNovember 2014, is also quite informative.
The Samba team has announced the first release in the new stable 4.2.xseries. This release adds transparent file compression, access to"Snapper" snapshots via the Windows Explorer "previous versions" dialog,better clustering support, and much more. This release also marks the endof support for Samba 3.
When Karen Sandler, the executive director of the Software Freedom Conservancy, spokerecently at the Linux Foundation's CollaborationSummit, she spent some time on the Linux Compliance Project, an effortto improve compliance with the Linux kernel's licensing rules. Thisproject, launched with some fanfare in 2012,has been relatively quiet ever since. Karen neglected to mention that thissituation was about to change; that had to wait for theannouncement on March 5 of the filing of a lawsuit against VMware alleging copyright infringement for its use of kernel code.Subscribers can click below for the full story.
Fedora has updated bind (F21; F20:denial of service), lftp (F21:automatically accepting ssh keys), and rubygem-actionpack (F20: two information leaks).openSUSE has updated vsftpd(13.2, 13.1: access restriction bypass).Ubuntu has updated icu (14.10,14.04, 12.04: multiple vulnerabilities, some from 2013).
Thus far, this series on network-attached storage (NAS) distributions haslooked at three different approaches to the problem. OpenMediaVaultprovides a NAS server using traditional Linux filesystems, Rockstor baseseverything on the Btrfs filesystem, and FreeNAS is a FreeBSD-based systemusing ZFS. This fourth (and probably final) installment in this series goesback to Btrfs with a look at EasyNAS,which is another attempt to make the unique features of Btrfs available in a dedicated NAS distribution.
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