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Tag Archives: Linux

Severe WiFi security flaw puts millions of devices at risk

by: Steve Dent

Researchers have discovered a key flaw in the WPA2 WiFi encryption protocol that could allow hackers to intercept your credit card numbers, passwords, photos and other sensitive information. The flaws, dubbed “Key Reinstallation Attacks,” or “Krack Attacks,” are in the WiFi standard and not specific products. That means that just about every router, smartphone and PC out there could be impacted, though attacks against Linux and Android 6.0 or greater devices may be “particularly devastating,” according to KU Leuven University’s Mathy Vanhoef and Frank Piessens, who found the flaw.

Here’s how it works. Read more »

Linux genius at work

Take THAT, piece of 1980s-era infrastructure I've inexplicably maintained on my systems for 15 years despite never really learning how it works.

Religions and OSes metaphor of the day

Over-Extended Metaphor for the day
By Charlie Stross

Yesterday, after writing my way past the notional halfway point (both of the current novel manuscript, and of the trilogy it’s the middle volume of), I went and over-indulged in food and drink with friends.

Over the beer, the conversation turned—for no sane reason—to computer operating systems. There being some non-technical folks at the table, I then had to cough up a metaphor to contextualize the relationship between Mac OS X and UNIX, thuswise:

There is one true religion in operating systems, and it is UNIX. Or maybe it’s not the one true faith: there’s an earlier, older, more arcane religion with far fewer followers, MULTICS, from which UNIX sprang as a stripped-down rules-deficient heresy in the early days of the epoch. Either way, if MULTICS is Judaism (and the metaphor is questionable at this point, for unlike MULTICS, Judaism is still alive), then UNIX is Christianity. Read more »

Ubuntu preview coming to Nexus

Touch-based Ubuntu preview coming February 21st, will work on Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4 

London, 14th February 2013: Images and open source code for the Touch Developer Preview of Ubuntu will be published on Thursday 21st February, supporting the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4 smartphones.They are intended for enthusiasts and developers, to familiarise themselves with Ubuntu’s smartphone experience and develop applications on spare handsets. Tools that manage the flashing of the phone will be available on the same day in the Ubuntu archives, making it easy to keep a device up to date with the latest version of the Touch Developer Preview.
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