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06.04.14

Focusing on the Lesser Dangerous Security Problems

Posted in Free/Libre Software, Security at 11:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The obsession with security flaws that are immediately addressed by FOSS developers helps distract from deliberate flaws in proprietary software (back doors)

FOSS-hostile sites/tabloids like ZDNet happily cover security issues when they are already fixed and briefly affected Free software. The latest GnuTLS flaw (flaws in it are nothing new and they get addressed quickly [1, 2]) is starting to receive coverage in expected places (other than Microsoft-connected [1, 2, 3]). It is not just CBS sites but also Condé Nasty, another neighbour of Wall Street (where all those large media companies are based). There are provocative photos as usual from Dan Goodin, not to mention the Linuxwashing of this cross-platform issue. IDG does this, but IDG [1] also alludes to back doors in Windows without naming them as such.

Why don’t they spend more time covering deliberate back doors from Microsoft/NSA or even Apple? It does not seem to serve their sponsors as much as FOSS FUD. Ever since the NSA leaks came out (it started a year ago) it seems like much of the technology/corporate media looks the other way and tries to turn every little bug in FOSS into headlines, claiming that FOSS is less secure. Perhaps there is fear that many people will walk away from software with back doors, necessitating alternatives (spooks cracking in more clever ways, trying hard to put back doors without being noticed in freely-available source code). █

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. Beware the next circle of hell: Unpatchable systems

    Microsoft’s decision to end support for Windows XP in April was met with a collective gulp by the IT community. For good reason: Approximately 30 percent of all desktop systems continue to run XP despite Microsoft’s decision to stop offering security updates. Furthermore, a critical security flaw in Internet Explorer 8 disclosed recently by HP’s TippingPoint Division opens the door to remote attacks on XP systems that use IE8.

Media Bias Against GNU/Linux, Android, and FOSS

Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Google at 11:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Examples of dubious media coverage about GNU/Linux, Android, and FOSS matters

There is a disturbing new pattern in the corporate media other than Microsoft openwashing [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] (Microsoft actively recruits and pays for this perceptions-distorting campaign), as we last covered yesterday with an example from CNET (its chief editor became some kind of Microsoft propaganda front). Well, compare to this mirror of a new article to the original from CNET and notice how the editor deleted mentions of Linux.

The article used to say “The $130 Linux-based Crock-Pot”, but it sure looks it the editor has quietly deleted Linux (unless the author rewrote the article hours later to that effect, which is unlikely). Something fishy is going on at CNET. The CBS-steered openwashing of Microsoft seems to be more than just an editorial preference and one has to pay careful attention to what editors do when accepting sponsors (e.g. advertisers). It’s hard doing version control (other than mental, i.e. observations-based) without access to the back end/CMS, seeing exactly how censorship (like watering down of text) really works. This time my wife caught it and showed it to me. I saw it from the inside as a writer for Datamation over half a decade ago. Writers are not allowed to criticise certain companies or use ‘strong’ opinions. In CNET, Linux may have become a forbidden word, apparently with the goal of appeasing the sponsors, if not because of some warped ideas in the editor’s mind (one deserves the blame here).

Speaking of openwashing, Black Duck, which has openwashed Microsoft for years (it is connected to and partly funded by Microsoft), rears its ugly head again with the whole compliance FUD. The opening seems promising: “Open source software has become ubiquitous, which means CXOs need to understand its benefits and its challenges, says Black Duck Software execs. Find out which open source trends to follow.” From there onwards it is subtle FUD and the FOSS-hostike site is happy to give it a platform.

A platform is given to Microsoft mouthpieces also at ECT, which helps the seeding of negative spin about Android, using an article that is quoting extensively FOSS-hostile and Microsoft-linked people or groups, notably Yankee Group and Rob Enderle. There is also a Russia angle. Why is Richard Adhikari choosing known Microsoft moles to be quoted as experts on Linux matters? Well, with Enderle it’s complicated because ECT gave him a platform for years (even as author) and Yankee people have been quoted on occasions also. Have they learned no lessons? They are seeding FUD and they hide the conflicts of interest.

There is generally much of the same rhetoric in some other sites, including from Microsoft boosters like Reisinger, who chose the headline “Samsung’s Tizen-Based Z Handset Poses Future Challenge to Android”. His colleague Michelle Maisto published a more balanced article.

All in all, let’s hope that journalists will choose to write more objective articles or speak to people who are objective, rather than those who are paid by Microsoft to smear Microsoft’s competition. █

Links 4/6/2014: More Tizen Devices, Fedora Linux Project Leader Matthew Miller

Posted in News Roundup at 10:38 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Zettaset Orchestrator Enhances Open Source Big Data Security

    Zettaset has expanded its Big Data security offerings with the announcement of support for Hortonworks and other open source Hadoop 2.x distributions in its Orchestrator management and security platform.

  • Intel storage : Open source + software-defined expectations
  • Why open source development is getting more secure

    With fewer defects being found in major open source projects than in large proprietary software packages, what are the security strengths and weaknesses of open source development?

  • HP clarifies views on OpenDaylight, open source

    It was HP Networking’s Senior Vice President Bethany Mayer who said seven months ago that she couldn’t see why anyone would use an OpenDaylight controller in their SDN. But it was also Bethany Mayer, now senior vice president and general manager of HP’s Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) business, who drove HP to raise its membership investment and participation in OpenDaylight just two weeks ago.

  • Continuuity, AT&T Labs to Open Source Real-Time Data Processing Framework
  • New Fedora Leader, Open Source Security, and Saving TrueCrypt

    In today’s Linux news, a new project manager is named for Fedora. Nick Heath says Open Source is more secure because of a “heightened focus on quality controls.” And a team of developers are trying to save TrueCrypt one way or another.

  • openQRM Community Summit 2014: Talks and presentations online!
  • Perforce open-sources popular version control tools

    Perforce Software todayannounced it has released open source versions of P4CLI, its core command line interface to the company’s powerful versioning engine, and P4Web, its popular web-based versioning client. The newly released source code will allow developers to further customize these popular clients for their specific needs, giving them the power to adapt the clients to their evolving environments. All open source projects are available immediately on Perforce Workshop, an open source community built and hosted by Perforce.

  • Events

    • Video app challenge and hackathon at Kaltura Connect

      Kaltura Connect is a conference all about open source video. From June 13-18 in New York City, 1,000+ attendees including developers, experts, thoughts leaders and executives from small businesses to global enterprises, universities and educational organizations, healthcare, media broadcasters and new-media publishers.

  • Web Browsers

    • A high-profile fork: one year of Blink and Webkit

      In 2013 the browser wars sprouted a new rendering engine: Blink. When Blink forked in April 2013, Webkit had a total of 1.8 million lines of C++, 2,500 commits per month and was the most popular browser engine. On mobile, Webkit backed the top 3 browsers (Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Android Browser), accounting for the majority of mobile eyeballs. This post is a look at the Blink/Webkit fork one year later: how have the projects diverged, who is driving them, and what are they up to?

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Education

    • Launch of “What is open education?” resource on Opensource.com

      At Opensource.com, we love sharing stories about the ways open source tools and principles are changing the nature of teaching and learning today. Over and over, we’ve seen how approaching education the open source way can transform classrooms all over the world.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GNU Tools Cauldron 2014: GCC/LLVM Collaboration, HSA, Accelerators

      This year’s GNU Tools Cauldron is taking place next month at the University of Cambridge where some very interesting compiler-related discussions will be taking place.

    • Pre-lunch – Richard Stallman’s talk

      His talk was quite how I expected it to be. He was idealist – Aditya and I discussed that he had to be it, as the face and primary driver of Free software. Richard spoke of the advantages of Free software, where he pointed out the numerous back doors that have been found in proprietary software to spy on users. He spoke of the GNU time line, how he had started it, how Emacs and other things came about. At some point of time, he expressed his annoyance to the fact that people confuse GNU and Linux, and free software and open source software. He spoke of how people think Linus is the father of free software etc. I quite enjoyed his talk. At some points, though, I couldn’t help but think that he didn’t really need to use negativeness to put his point across. He didn’t just differentiate between free and open source software, and he didn’t just say how free software is better than the open source philosophy, he went on to stress on why open source wasn’t good enough. If you’ve seen his sessions, you’ll probably understand what I mean.

    • grep-2.20 released [stable]

  • Openness/Sharing

Leftovers

  • Hardware

    • Thermal Issues Appear To Cause My ASUS Zenbook Linux Woes

      Given this ASUS ultrabook is only a few months old, hopefully the ultrabook will be able to work out fine until the mobile Broadwell processors hit the market when I decide on my next laptop/ultrabook or end up back with a MacBook Pro.

  • Health/Nutrition

  • Security

    • Beware the next circle of hell: Unpatchable systems

      Microsoft’s decision to end support for Windows XP in April was met with a collective gulp by the IT community. For good reason: Approximately 30 percent of all desktop systems continue to run XP despite Microsoft’s decision to stop offering security updates. Furthermore, a critical security flaw in Internet Explorer 8 disclosed recently by HP’s TippingPoint Division opens the door to remote attacks on XP systems that use IE8.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • ‘Muddying a Murky Picture’: NYT’s Ukraine Kremlinology

      There is a tendency to believe that Russian president Vladimir Putin is orchestrating the unrest in eastern Ukraine, sending in irregular Russian forces to stir up pro-Russian separatist sentiment.

      As guesses go, this might not be a bad one–but journalism is supposed to be about presenting evidence to confirm such speculation. The New York Times clearly has a hunch about deep Russian involvement in Ukraine. The ways it tries to confirm this hunch are curious.

      [...]

      What you’re left with from the Times is the suggestion that the lack of direct evidence is probably proof that Russia is up to something– i.e., “leaving no fingerprints.”

      During the days of the Soviet Union, Kremlinologists spent their time poring over state propaganda in an attempt to understand what was really going on in the USSR. It bears some resemblance to what one might be seeing in the New York Times now.

    • Horrific Stories of Two Babies Victimized by the War on Drugs

      The multi-decade, trillion dollar waste that we call the drug war has become increasingly unpopular, with everyone from Nobel Prize winning economists to leaders from the religious and civil rights communities calling for its end. Those who defend arresting, incarcerating and militarizing our way into even more disaster, often claim that it’s all in the name of protecting children. Yet, the war on drugs is waged with a shocking disregard for human rights, and even babies and children are not spared.

    • California State Sen. Leland Yee charged with promising guns, missiles from Muslim group to agent for campaign donations

      The California State Senator, Leland Yee, has been charged with the conspiracy to deal firearms, as well as wire fraud. Yee was arrested for promising shoulder-fired automatic weapons and missiles from a Muslim separatist group to an undercover FBI-agent in exchange for donations towards his campaign. The allegations towards Yee outlined in an affidavit from an FBI agent were not only pointed towards the Senator, but to twenty-five other people as well. According to the court documents, the allegations against Yee included a number of favors that he had requested in exchange for campaign donations. He also performed “official acts” in exchange for donations to get himself out of a $70,000 debt that he acquired during a failed San Francisco mayoral bid.

    • World starts to love UK again as memories of the war in Iraq fade

      The Country Ratings Poll asked more than 24,500 people from 24 nations whether they felt positive or negative about 16 countries and the EU. The UK finished third, with 56 per cent of those surveyed saying they thought it was having a good influence internationally.

    • Donald Trump and Neocons Bash Deal that Freed U.S. Soldier from Taliban Custody

      On Saturday, Donald Trump took a break from retweeting delusional sycophants begging him to run for president to comment on the successful rescue of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the United States’ last (and only) prisoner of war in Afghanistan.

    • Microsoft demos real-time voice translation using Skype

      The Fierce Take: There is no doubt that Skype Translate could be an invaluable business tool, though the skeptic can’t help but wonder if the NSA would also utilize this to bolster its various wiretapping efforts.

    • Richard Clarke Uses Fiction to Criticize Our Use of Drones

      In that sense, we as a country are paying another price as a consequence of the Republican clown show. Blind trust in government is never a good thing for a civilized and free society. But when the opposition is so blinded by its own ideology that it is deaf to the facts and mute to a constructive discussion to prevent mishaps from occurring again, it means they cannot be trusted to hold the government accountable.

    • Former Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clarke: US Drone Program Under Obama “Got Out of Hand”

      Richard Clarke served as the nation’s top counterterrorism official under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush before resigning in 2003 in protest of the Iraq War. A year before the Sept. 11 attacks, Clarke pushed for the Air Force to begin arming drones as part of the U.S. effort to hunt down Osama bin Laden. According to Clarke, the CIA and the Pentagon initially opposed the mission. Then Sept. 11 happened. Two months later, on November 12, 2001, Mohammed Atef, the head of al-Qaeda’s military forces, became the first person killed by a Predator drone. According to the Bureau for Investigative Journalism, U.S. drones have since killed at least 2,600 people in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Clarke has just written a novel about drone warfare called, Sting of the Drone. We talk to Clarke about the book and his concerns about President Obama’s escalation of the drone war. “I think the [drone] program got out of hand,” Clarke says. “The excessive secrecy is as counterproductive as some of the strikes are.”

    • Ex-Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clarke: Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld Committed War Crimes

      Richard Clarke, the nation’s former top counterterrorism official, tells Democracy Now! he believes President George W. Bush is guilty of war crimes for launching the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Clarke served as national coordinator for security and counterterrorism during Bush’s first year in office. He resigned in 2003 following the Iraq invasion and later made headlines by accusing Bush officials of ignoring pre-9/11 warnings about an imminent attack by al-Qaeda. “I think things that they authorized probably fall within the area of war crimes,” Clarke says. “Whether that would be productive or not, I think, is a discussion we could all have. But we have established procedures now with the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where people who take actions as serving presidents or prime ministers of countries have been indicted and have been tried. So the precedent is there to do that sort of thing. And I think we need to ask ourselves whether or not it would be useful to do that in the case of members of the Bush administration. It’s clear that things that the Bush administration did — in my mind, at least — were war crimes.”

    • May 2014 Update: US covert actions in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia
    • Relatives of Victims of Drone Strikes Drop Appeal

      The relatives of three United States citizens killed in American drone strikes without trial, including Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric, have decided not to appeal a federal judge’s dismissal of a lawsuit they filed against Obama administration officials.

    • Sen. Rand Paul Is Right to Oppose Targeted Killing of U.S. Citizens

      Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has quite rightly called on the Obama administration to publicly disclose its legal justifications for the claimed power to order the killing, without trial or hearing, of U.S. citizens abroad who are suspected of being terrorist leaders planning attacks against the United States. The dispute came up, most recently, in the context of David Barron’s successful nomination to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. As a lawyer in the Office of Legal Counsel, Barron reportedly co-authored at least two memos providing the legal rationale for the administration’s decision to order the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen and propagandist for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

    • Why we’re marching against the Nato gang of warmongers

      Wherever there is the threat of war there are always people banging the drum—and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) is among the worst.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Artist Stops Oil Pipeline Cold

      Alberta artist, Peter von Tiesenhausen, has effectively stopped oil corporations from putting a pipeline through his 800 acre property by covering it with artwork and copyrighting the top six inches of his land as an artwork.

    • Fukushima Disaster Still A Global Nightmare

      The corporate media silence on Fukushima has been deafening even though the melted-down nuclear power plant’s seaborne radiation is now washing up on American beaches.

      Ever more radioactive water continues to pour into the Pacific.

    • Ukraine conflict wake-up call for EU’s looming fuel and energy crisis – Oxfam

      Charity calls on EU to end reliance on imported and domestic fossil fuels and increase energy efficiency and boost renewables

    • Global Warming: Obama’s Failures Compared to China’s Real Action

      Emergency action is needed on carbon emissions, but Obama’s plan announced Monday is not a move to action, but more talk about potentially taking action. Critical time continues to be lost as the Earth heats up and the oceans acidify. As critical time is lost, if the proposal is even adopted, it could be overturned by any president who follows Obama within a little over a year of being adopted. To say this appears to be far too little too late is an understatement. Had Obama been serious about climate change he would have taken action as soon as he took power.

  • Finance

    • After Dinner at 11, will its working-class kids still have dreams at 20?

      Class and ethnicity, rather than ability, will probably determine the adult lives of Channel 4′s 11-year-old dinner guests

    • How I discovered I have the brain of a psychopath

      I found I had the brain imaging pattern and genetic make up of a full-blown psychopath while conducting research – and yet, I turned out to be a successful scientist and family man

    • Bruni’s ‘Middle’ = Corporate Tax Cuts and No Minimum Wage Hike?

      It’s well-established by now (Extra!, 7/06) that political reporters prefer to talk and write about Democrats who stay close to the “center” instead of placating the left-wing party base. This is simply smart politics, these observers note, since it’s always better to be in the middle, because that’s where most people are.

      The problem is that pundits’ idea of the “middle” doesn’t seem to correspond to reality.

      [...]

      How opposing a minimum wage increase and keeping taxes low for corporations and the wealthy centrist? These are not popular policies in general, and certainly not among Democrats in the state Cuomo governs. Nonetheless, Bruni is keenly worried that Cuomo may be promising too much to other Democrats, who might tug him away from this “middle” and “hijack his legacy.”

    • Three Things to Watch for Now That Seattle Has Passed a $15 Minimum Wage Law

      Yesterday afternoon, the Seattle City Council unanimously passed legislation enacting a phased-in $15 minimum wage in Seattle, the highest minimum wage in the country. Mayor Ed Murray is expected to sign the bill into law this afternoon, just after 1 p.m. in Cal Anderson Park. The first phase of the wage raise is scheduled to start April 1, 2015, and headlines around the country seem to be asking if Seattle, the progressive urban utopia, is just the beginning of a nationwide trend.

  • Censorship

  • Privacy

  • Civil Rights

    • 10 Photos of Amazon Chiefs’ Clash With Brazilian Police at World Cup Protests

      Hundreds of Amazon chiefs clashed with police in Brazil last week as the 2014 FIFA World Cup, which begins on June 12, draws closer.

      According to The Week, protestors said that the cup’s copy1 billion budget should have been used to support the country’s poorest regions through government funded programs.

    • Our prisons have mental health problems

      The government may not mean to kill people with mental disabilities but it’s deeds, not motives, that matter, and when the coalition subtracted political cost from economic gain, it found those with disabilities were the easiest people in Britain to dispose of.

      Mental health is the NHS’s Cinderella service, even in good times. In recession, it’s hammered. Simon Stevens, the new chief executive as NHS England, has given us his priorities. He gabbles that he wants to “future proof” the NHS “against challenges ahead”.

    • Florida Judge Erupts at Lawyer: ‘If I Had a Rock, I Would Throw It at You’

      Weinstock, who reportedly felt pressure from the judge to convince his client into waiving his right to a speedy trial, snapped back in defense. Then Murphy challenged Weinstock to a fist fight outside.

      “You know, if I had a rock, I would throw it at you right now,” Murphy says in the video above. “Stop pissing me off … If you want to fight, let’s go out back and I’ll just beat your ass.”

    • Time to Reopen the Case on CIA Torture

      He blew the whistle on CIA waterboarding, but the government keeps trying to sweep the issue, and him, out of sight. From prison, John Kiriakou says it’s time for a special prosecutor.

    • Father Sues School After It Brings In Cops To Question His Son About Drawing Of A Person Being Hanged

      Maybe if schools stop handing misbehaving students over to police officers, aggrieved parents won’t be nearly as aggrieved… or so likely to sue. Schools are publicly funded already, but that’s no reason to keep dipping into homeowners’ wallets to pay out settlements for schools’ bad decisions.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Rep. Latta Breaks New Ground In Introducing Anti-Net Neutrality Bill Where Almost Every Claim Is Laughably Wrong

      Rep. Bob Latta achieved an impressive feat last week in introducing some legislation, which he claims is to make sure the internet remains “open and free.” While we’re big supporters of an “open and free” internet, what’s most amazing here is that almost everything that Latta claims about the bill is not true — including the whole “open and free” bits.

    • Verizon Begs To Be Classified Under Title II For Subsidies; Screams About Parade Of Horribles Any Other Time

      If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the whole net neutrality fight, you’d know that the key issue is whether or not broadband services should be reclassified under Title II of the Telecom Act. In the early to mid-2000s, the FCC declared both cable and DSL broadband to be information services under Title I, rather than telecommunications services under Title II. This basically means they are not subject to common carrier rules, including non-discriminatory rules that are the key issue around net neutrality. And, of course, the telcos are putting up a big fight over this, listing out a supposed parade of horribles that would happen if they were reclassified under Title II.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Trademarks

    • Copyrights

      • OVERNIGHT TECH: Advocacy groups oppose DOTCOM Act

        A coalition of advocacy groups wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), urging the Senate to push back on an amendment to the House’s recently-passed defense funding bill that would keep the Obama administration from going forward with its plans to shift Internet oversight.

      • Company Hired By Ecuador Uses Bogus Copyright Claims To Censor Website Of Ecuadorian Newspaper

        We’ve written a few times about Spanish company Ares Rights, which presents itself as an “anti-piracy” firm, but rather than searching the internet for unauthorized movies and music, has a long history of working for Latin American governments, using questionable copyright claims to censor the internet and take down content those governments don’t like. The latest example may be the most extreme, as Ares Rights used a DMCA claim in the US to block the website of Ecuadorian newspaper La Republica for a period of four hours last week.

      • British Recording Industry Thinks ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ Proves Google Can Stop Piracy

        As the discussion over the EU’s decision to force Google to uphold a “right to be forgotten” continues, various industry heads have begun to weigh in on the subject, pointing to this as evidence that Google could do more to combat piracy.

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