May 2020
Ubuntu/Debian/Misc. Leftovers
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of May 2020 11:54:41 PM Filed under

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Free software activities in May 2020
The Open Source Initiative held their twice-annual multi-day 'face-to-face' board meeting — this time held virtually — and participated in the accompanying conversations on strategy, tactical and governance issues, as well as the usual discussions regarding licensing and policy (minutes pending). I also attended the regular monthly meeting for Software in the Public Interest (minutes).
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Sparky news 2020/05
The 5th monthly report of 2020 of the Sparky project:
• Linux kernel updated up to version 5.6.15 & 5.7-rc7
• added to repos: Riot-desktop which replaces Riot-web, Xdman, RadioStation (a fork off Radiotray-Lite), Beaker Browser
• Sparky 2020.05 of the rolling line released
• Sparky 2020.05 Special Editions released
• new app: ‘spterm’ (Sparky Terminal) – a very simple terminal emulator (a fork of k3rmit) which will be used by Sparky tools
• new desktop: Openbox Noir – a variant of the Openbox, which provides dark and modern looks and feel of a lightweight desktop; by lami07 -
OpenOCD snapshot uploaded to Debian experimental
One of the things I maintain in Debian is OpenOCD. I say maintain, but it’s so far required very little work, as it’s been 3 years since a release (0.10.0). I’ve talked about doing a git snapshot package for some time (I have an email from last DebConf in my inbox about it, and that wasn’t the first time someone had asked), but never got around to it. Spurred on by some moves towards a 0.11.0 release I’ve built a recent snapshot and uploaded it to the experimental suite in Debian.
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Full Circle Magazine: Full Circle Magazine #157
This month:
* Command & Conquer
* How-To : Python, LivePatch, and Rawtherapee
* Graphics : Inkscape
* Graphics : Krita for Old Photos
* Linux Loopback
* Everyday Ubuntu : Turbogfx 16
* Ubports Touch : OTA-12
* Review : Ubuntu, Lubuntu and Budgie 20.04
* Ubuntu Games : Eagle Island
plus: News, My Story, The Daily Waddle, Q&A, and more. -
May 2020: OpenSMTPD 6.7.1p1 release, table-procexec and many PoCs
TL;DR: Worked on the OpenSMTPD 6.7 release; Did a lot of work on the new table API; Wrote several PoCs;
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OSS Leftovers
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of May 2020 11:50:10 PM Filed under
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Stop ‘Reinventing The Wheel’: Almanac Creates Open-Source Templates Library With $9M Seed Round
Almanac, a cloud-based platform for professionals to create, collaborate and share open-source work documents, announced a $9 million seed round of funding on Thursday led by Mike Maples Jr., a Floodgate partner.
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How open source fostered the community spirit in the tech world
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RudderStack raises $5M seed round for its open-source Segment competitor
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The Apache Software Foundation Announces Apache® CloudStack® v 4.14
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Five Ways Open-Source Software Can Benefit You and Your Research
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10 Best Open Source and Free App Builders -- Plus, The Top App Development Agencies to Hire in 2020, According to App Developers Rating Platform
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Beyond Linux and macOS: The best alternatives to Windows
FreeDOS is, as its name allows us to guess, an heir to MS DOS. A free and free version If you are looking for alternatives to Windows pro, you don’t want multitasking or a graphical interface. Here you can run all MS-DOS programs and enjoy the classic adapted to the times. It receives continuous updates and works on any standard PC if you want to use any of the old code and classic operating system programs.
[...]
Among the best alternatives to Windows is ReactOS and so much so that from their website they promise that you wouldn’t notice the change. It came in the late nineties to imitate the windows operating system and it is an open source system compatible with most Windows applications and drivers. It was launched in 1996 as a clone of Microsoft and now, more than twenty years later it is still a good free option and with continuous updates, with a window system … it may seem retro algo’And obsolete at times but it can be a good option if you are looking for something new. You can download it from its website and, like most of this list, you will find the instructions and all doubts about its operation from the website itself. community behind ReactOS.
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Welcome to ChefConf Online Week
Welcome to ChefConf Online week! On the surface, this year’s event looks a lot different than years past. While we’ve moved to a new online format, what hasn’t changed is creating the opportunity for the Chef community to gather in one place, learn about what’s new in the DevSecOps and Automation space, get best practices and expert guidance from your peers, and have some fun and celebrate what makes our community so special.
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Open Source Vet Joins Taylor English IP Team In San Antonio
Taylor English Duma LLP announced this week it has hired a veteran intellectual property attorney from Dykema Gossett PLLC who is experienced with open source software to the firm's intellectual property practice in San Antonio, Texas.
Van Lindberg joined Atlanta-based Taylor English as partner in March after serving as a member at Dykema Gossett for about three years, where he represented companies in high-stakes litigation and inter partes reviews.
Before that, Lindberg made his name in the open source community by serving as general counsel, vice president of technology and vice president of intellectual property at cloud computing service company Rackspace,...
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How open standards guide us in a world of change
As I write this article in my home office in Beaverton, Oregon, a Portland suburb, I'm relying (and reflecting) on years of work that went into standards like TCP/IP, HTTP, NTP, XMPP, SAML, and many others, as well as open source implementations of these standards from organizations such as the Apache Software Foundation. The combination of these standards and technologies is literally saving lives, as many of us are able to work from home while "flattening the curve."
Nothing has dominated the news more in 2020 than COVID-19. Yet, in the midst of challenging time, I've found opportunities for personal and industrial renewal. By fortunate (some may say unfortunate) timing, I found myself switching roles in the middle of this crisis from helping to build and run Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs) to becoming the executive director at OASIS Open, a standards development organization that is helping bring standards and open source together in practical and productive ways.
Looking through the many articles on Opensource.com related to standards (and there are quite a few), I went on an interesting journey through the different thought processes—and sometimes biases—that people involved in each community have. What stood out most was this: both standards professionals and open source advocates want the same thing—better technology that we all can rely on.
As I was transitioning to this new role at OASIS, some colleagues and friends in the open source world that I've been a part of for many years questioned my motivations for making this move. In explaining why I took this job, I reflected on the larger role I think the intersection of standards and open source can play, especially in the current crisis we all face.
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Openwashing and Entrapment (Microsoft GitHub)
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of May 2020 11:45:49 PM Filed under
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Unicon Technologist to Facilitate and Deliver 7 Presentations at the Open Apereo 2020 Conference
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SD Times Open-Source Project of the Week: spark-inequality-impact [Ed: Managers from Microsoft who face many lawsuits for discrimination are openwashing a publicity stunt]
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Atlassian makes employee survey open-source
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Goa Electronics floats plan to convert earlier land records to open source [Ed: No, this is not what "open source" means: "proprietary software to an open source format."]
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Government Quells Surveillance Concerns, Makes Arogya Setu App Open Source For Developers [Ed: Nope, only those who participate in Microsoft's Ppoprietary software prison, GitHub]
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India’s contact tracing app is going open source – News Brig
India said it will publicly release the source code of its contact tracing app, Aarogya Setu, in a relief to privacy and security experts who have been advocating for this ever since the app launched in early April.
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India's Contact Tracing App Is Going Open Source
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To counter privacy concerns, govt makes Aarogya Setu app open source
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Source code & privacy — how Aarogya Setu compares with contract-tracing apps of 5 nations
India is the only democracy among these six countries to keep the software source code of its Covid contact tracing closed to public scrutiny.
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COVID-19 Contact Tracing apps: India’s Aarogya Setu goes open source, while Sweden and Italy test Google/Apple’s Exposure Notification API [Ed: GAFAM surveillance for 'health' and 'safety']
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Aarogya Setu becomes open source; Govt highlights transparency, privacy & security as core principles of app
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Aarogya Setu Goes Open Source
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Aarogya Setu App Is Now Open-Source, Govt Announces Bug Bounty Reward Program
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Government makes Aarogya Setu an open-source app for Android users, looks to allay privacy concerns [Ed: Sending the code to a Microsoft prison won't improve privacy]
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Explained: What making Aarogya Setu open-source means [Ed: It means Microsoft now controls the code]
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Red Hat Fluff and News
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of May 2020 11:33:50 PM Filed under
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Q&A: How open source made Kubernetes appealing to enterprise app developers
A: We are at an interesting inflection point right now with computing. We went from physical hardware to virtual machines to containers and to concepts like serverless computing. And we’re asking questions like, “Can it get even smaller?”
We’re trying to make the underlying platform more powerful, but less and less visible. So if it’s invisible to developers, do we just stop caring about it?
But you could make the same argument with Linux, right? If the application is done well, and Linux is doing its job, you shouldn't care about it. It's just running, it’s fast, it’s scalable. Kubernetes probably follows that path more than anything.
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How open source communities work and what enterprises can learn
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Inside Red Hat: Its open source heritage means big opportunity in cloud computing
The open source proposition has been embedded in Red Hat’s roots since the company’s founding in 1993 and has since remained at the core of its guiding principles, with Linux operating system (OS) at the heart of all its innovations. Vendor loyalty and clearly charted paths were the mantras many companies operated on for years, while “digital transformation” was barely on an enterprise’s short-term road map.
Then a decade ago, cloud adoption surged, creating the impetus to embrace more agile and flexible development models, and open source technologies emerged.
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While the topic of COVID-19 did not overtly dominate the discussions or significantly color the overarching Red Hat messaging, it became clear that the ability to pivot rapidly, embrace change and remain flexible will underscore Red Hat’s efforts to successfully promote transformation amid the pandemic. Red Hat’s reputation has historically been predicated on its open and agile approach to development and deployment, long before such attributes were considered valuable, let alone essential.
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Red Hat: Holding Its Own and Fueling Open Source Innovation
When IBM acquired Red Hat for $34 billion in 2019, it was considered the industry’s largest software acquisition. The synergy between the two companies led them to become one of the leading hybrid multi-cloud providers globally.
In most acquisitions, the acquired entity sometimes loses momentum and sheds some of its original luster. This does not seem to be the case with Red Hat.
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Audio and Video: GNU World Order, Test and Code, More
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of May 2020 11:28:34 PM Filed under


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GNU World Order 356
Learn a little Postscript in this episode about **Ghostscript**.
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Test and Code: 115: Catching up with Nina Zakharenko
One of the great things about attending in person coding conferences, such as PyCon, is the hallway track, where you can catch up with people you haven't seen for possibly a year, or maybe even the first time you've met in person.
Nina is starting something like the hallway track, online, on twitch, and it's already going, so check out the first episode of Python Tea.
Interesting coincidence is that this episode is kind of like a hallway track discussion between Nina and Brian.
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How to install Google Chrome on Pop!_OS 20.04
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Are Custom Linux Kernels Faster than Stock?
Are Custom Linux Kernels Faster than Stock? Benchmarks are done and will be compared using phoronix test suite. We will be analyzing 3 kernels, Liquorix, Mainline, and Xanmod.
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Linux Lite 5.0 Final Released
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of May 2020 11:22:27 PM Filed under
Linux Lite 5.0 Final Codename Emerald is now available for download and installation.
This is the most feature rich, complete Linux Lite release to date. This is the release many people have been waiting for.
See below for details.
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Open Data and GIS
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of May 2020 10:54:37 PM Filed under
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How Open-Source Data Can Drive Automotive Innovation
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LiDAR-Captured Road Data Now Publicly Available in Open-Source Machine Learning Dataset
Scale AI says COVID-19 has shown the value of autonomous vehicles for no-contact delivery. They're making real-world road data available to train machine learning models to this end.
Last week, Scale AI released PandaSet to the open-source community. According to Scale AI, PandaSet is the world’s first publicly-available machine learning dataset to include images from forward-facing solid-state LiDARs and mechanical spinning LiDARs. These two LiDAR technologies from Hesai will allow ML development teams to reap complex, real-world road data.
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Podcast: Why should you take a closer look into Open Source GIS?
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This German town replicated itself in VR to keep its tourism alive
Nicolai Reith, Head of the Control and Communication department and advisor to the Mayor of Herrenberg, told Cities Today: “You don’t have to make a decision and then see [what happens]; you can see before you make the decision what the effect will be via the digital twin. This makes it easier to make the right decision for our city council, politicians, and citizens.”Herrenberg is already using the digital twin, which incorporates super-computing and technologies typically deployed in advanced aerospace, to visualize city data and citizens’ emotional responses to inform better decision-making.
There are now plans to develop the emerging area of virtual tourism for the town, which has a population of around 31,000.
“We have a very beautiful city center so tourists can explore it in a digital way with VR glasses before they come to Herrenberg, which is an interesting benefit for the future,” Reith said.
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The team then added in geographic information system (GIS) data and traffic control systems data to incorporate topography, road geometry , and detailed traffic flows. Using the open-source fluid dynamics code OpenFOAM — which is typically used for modeling fuel injector sprays or airplane aerodynamics —they also created realistic models of the movement of wind and emissions through the city.
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Development Boards and Open Hardware/Modding
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of May 2020 10:40:20 PM Filed under
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Cucumber ESP32-S2 Development Board Comes with USB OTG Port, Optional Sensors
Yesterday, I wrote about LilyGO TTGO ESP32-S2 WiFi IoT board, but one commenter mentioned it missed one of the key features of ESP32-S2 chip: a USB OTG port. While USB OTG is accessible through the header pins, it’s not the most convenient to use.
I also quickly mentioned Cucumber ESP32-S2 development board in that post, but I did not expand too much since I thought it should only ship within Thailand. But the board does include two USB Type-C ports, one for the usual USB UART connector, and the other for USB OTG, and I found out the board is available worldwide.
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TTGO ESP32-S2 WiFi IoT Board Comes with Optional MicroSD Card and Battery Support
All ESP32-S2 boards I’ve seen so far were from Espressif Systems themselves including ESP32-S2-Saola-1 and ESP32-S2-Kaluga-1, but LilyGO TTGO ESP32-S2 is the first third-party board for sale so far.
The tiny board is somewhat similar to ESP32-S2-Saola-1 board and comes in two versions with a similar form factor, but a completely different pinout and the presence of a MicroSD card socket and a battery connector on one of the boards.
[...]
The boards are a bit more different than I expected at first look. Please note that specifications should be seen as preliminary, as there were obvious mistakes such as Bluetooth support (not available for ESP32-S2) which I did not included in the specs above, but there may be others which I missed.
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CR Deck Mk.1 Is An Open Source AR Headset Based On Project North Star With Ultraleap Hand-Tracking
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Open Source Ventilators Helped by Electronic Design Software
In the early days of the pandemic, the first major challenge facing nations was a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators. The former helps safeguard hospital personnel from potential contamination; the latter are necessary to keep the most critically ill patients breathing once the virus attacks their respiratory systems.
Ventilators are traditionally large and very costly devices; smaller ventilators—known as field emergency ventilators (FEVs) have been used in emergency settings, including combat missions and in Third World nations for decades to help keep patients alive as they await transport to hospitals for intubation.
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NASA JPL Team Fires up Open Source PPE Respirator Designs
Does it really take a team of rocket scientists to rapidly engineer a top-notch line of personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect against COVID-19 spread? And then to open source its production designs for the benefit of anyone with access to a 3D printer?
The answer: not necessarily, but it sure can help.
That’s the latest good news on the pandemic front from the technology and innovation team at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
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NASA and other innovators work to redesign ventilators for Covid-19 patients
NASA scientists as well as other innovators are busy developing alternatives to the traditional ventilator being used worldwide to treat severe cases of Covid-19. The movement is in response to growing evidence that in some cases ventilators can cause more harm than good in some patients with low oxygen levels. Statistics tell the story: 80% of patients with the coronavirus die on such machines.
This comes just a few months since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, when U.S. healthcare providers said that they needed ventilators to accommodate the flood of new patients, and lots of them. The crisis triggered the Trump administration to activate the Defense Production Act so manufacturers including Ford, GM and GE could start ventilator production to produce these medical devices for the U.S. government.
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Software: NetworkManager, Google's Chrome/Chromium, Best Linux Remote Desktop Tools, RapidDisk and Mastodon
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of May 2020 10:26:12 PM Filed under
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NetworkManager 1.26 Development Progressing With New Functionality
NetworkManager 1.25.2-dev is the latest development version of this important Linux networking component in the road towards NetworkManager 1.26.
NetworkManager 1.25.2-dev was bumped this weekend as another milestone towards the upcoming 1.26 stable release of this widely used component for configuring wired and wireless networking on Linux and other platforms. Some of the changes building up so far for NetworkManager 1.26 include:
- A new "firewalld-zone" option that is enabled by default that will install a firewalld zone for connection sharing and put the IPv4/IPv6 shared mode interfaces in this zone.
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Chrome Is Reaching The Point Of Good X11 + Wayland Support In Same Build
Google's Chrome/Chromium web browser is finally reaching the stage where having both the X11 support and Ozone abstraction layer for Wayland can be enabled concurrently in the same build.
Thanks to the work by Google, Igalia, and others, the Chrome/Chromium code-base is nearly at the stage where the traditional X11 support can be built along with the Ozone platform support concurrently. Ozone is the platform abstraction layer being worked on for years for handling low-level input/graphics and necessary for Wayland support as well as various embedded use-cases and other platform abstraction capabilities. An overview of the Ozone code can be found here.
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Best Linux Remote Desktop Tools For Ubuntu 20.04 LTS To Share Your Desktop In 2020
7. KDE Connect
KDE Connect helps you to enable remote desktop sharing with the help of Android and Linux applications.8. VNC Connect
VNC Connect is a simple and secure remote desktop sharing tool for Linux. VNC Connect is equipped with 256 bit AES session encryption and it uses Remote Frame Buffer protocol to remotely control another computer. -
RapidDisk version 6.1 released
RapidDisk is an advanced Linux RAM Disk which consists of a collection of modules and an administration tool. Features include: Dynamically allocate RAM as block device. Use them as stand alone disk drives or even map them as caching nodes to slower local disk drives.
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Experience With Mastodon
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Share PeerTube Videos on Mastodon
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Security and Proprietary Issues
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of May 2020 10:13:51 PM Filed under
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10 open source cloud security tools to know [Ed: The moment you choose 'clown computing' you've already disowned your own infrastructure and lost privacy, security, control. So this is sort of missing the point of "open" (the environment itself is proprietary).]
Pacu is written in Python and maintained by Rhino Security Labs, a penetration testing provider.
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Cisco security breach hits corporate servers that ran unpatched software
Six servers Cisco uses to provide a virtual networking service were compromised by hackers who exploited critical flaws contained in unpatched versions the open source software service relies on, the company disclosed on Thursday.
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Zoom to Strengthen Encryption for Paying Customers: Reuters
In response to queries, Zoom pointed to its May 27 report that said its focus is to build the so-called end-to-end encryption for its meeting product, which may be later rolled out for its chat, phone and webinar offerings. “Only our paid users will have access to end-to-end encryption for their meetings,” it said. “However, all users will use the 256-bit GCM encryption on May 30 regardless of their license type.”
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Zoom paid accounts reportedly will get strong encryption for calls
Zoom published a draft paper May 22nd outlining some of its encryption plans.
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Zoom Publishes Draft Design of End-to-End Encryption Offering
Once we have assessed this feedback for integration into a final design, we will announce our engineering milestones and goals for deploying an end-to-end encryption offering for Zoom users.
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Exclusive: Zoom plans to roll out strong encryption for paying customers
The company, whose business has boomed with the coronavirus pandemic, discussed the move on a call with civil liberties groups and child-sex abuse fighters on Thursday, and Zoom security consultant Alex Stamos confirmed it on Friday.
In an interview, Stamos said the plan was subject to change and it was not yet clear which, if any, nonprofits or other users, such as political dissidents, might qualify for accounts allowing more secure video meetings.
He added that a combination of technological, safety and business factors went into the plan, which drew mixed reactions from privacy advocates.
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NHS contact tracing undermined by hackers sending fraudulent warnings to public
The new NHS test and trace programme is being undermined by hackers sending out phishing scams falsely warning the public they may have Covid-19.
Public Health England have warned potential contacts to check suspicious messages against the Government website after a flurry of reports of Britons being falsely informed they may have coronavirus.
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Free, Libre, and Open Source Software Leftovers
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| How to Install yay AUR Helper in Arch Linux [Beginner’s Guide]
This beginner’s guide explains the steps to install the Yay AUR helper in Arch Linux.
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