KDE Usability & Productivity: Week 72

Week 72 in Usability & Productivity initiative is here and it’s chock-full of goodies! We continue to polish Plasma 5.16 ahead of its release in two weeks. There was one point in time when veteran KDE developer and author of the new notifications system Kai Uwe Broulik was literally committing fixes faster than I could add them to this blog post! In addition, features for Plasma 5.17 as well as many of our apps are starting to trickle in. Check it out...

Iran & Iraq Are Embracing GNU Health Project | Dr Axel Braun

In this episode of Let’s Talk, Dr Axel Braun talks about the new features and updates of the GNU Health project. He also talked about the increasing adoption of the project. Also: The Man Behind OpenSUSE Conference – Douglas DeMaio

GNOME 3.33.2 released!

Hello GNOME developers,

GNOME 3.33.2 is now available. This is the second unstable release
leading to 3.34 stable series.

I had to disable gnome-contacts, gnome-calendar and gnome-maps because of the not-very-well coordinated evolution-data-server transition.

If you want to compile GNOME 3.33.2, you can use the official
BuildStream project snapshot.

https://download.gnome.org/teams/releng/3.33.2/gnome-3.33.2.tar.xz

The list of updated modules and changes is available here:

https://download.gnome.org/core/3.33/3.33.2/NEWS

The source packages are available here:

https://download.gnome.org/core/3.33/3.33.2/sources/

WARNING!
--------
This release is a snapshot of development code. Although it is
buildable and usable, it is primarily intended for testing and hacking
purposes. GNOME uses odd minor version numbers to indicate development
status.

For more information about 3.34, the full schedule, the official module
lists and the proposed module lists, please see our 3.33 wiki page:

https://www.gnome.org/start/unstable


Cheers,

Abderrahim Kitouni,
GNOME Release Team

Security Leftovers

• Serious Security: Don't let your SQL server attack you with ransomware [Ed: Article focuses on things like Windows and RDP. SQL Server is proprietary software that runs on a platform with NSA back doors. So if you choose it, then you choose to have no security at all, only an illusion of it. Why does the article paint Windows issues as pertaining to MySQL?]

  Tales from the honeypot: this time a MySQL-based attack. Old tricks still work, because we're still making old mistakes - here's what to do. [...] As regular readers will know, one of the popular vehicles for malware crooks at the moment is Windows RDP, short for Remote Desktop Protocol.

• How Screwed is Intel without Hyper-Threading?

  As it stands Microsoft is pushing out OS-level updates to address the four MDS vulnerabilities and you’ll get those with this month's Windows 10 1903 update. However, this doesn’t mitigate the problem entirely, for that we need motherboard BIOS updates and reportedly Intel has released the new microcode to motherboard partners. However as of writing no new BIOS revisions have been released to the public. We believe we can test a worst case scenario by disabling Hyper-Threading and for older platforms that won’t get updated this might end up being the only solution.

• SandboxEscape drops three more Windows 10 zero-day exploits

  SandboxEscaper also indicated that she was in the market to sell flaws to "people who hate the US", a move made in apparent response to FBI subpoenas against her Google account.

• Huawei can’t officially use microSD cards in its phones going forward

  The SD Association is also by no means the first to cut ties: Google, ARM, Intel, Qualcomm, and Broadcom are also among the companies that have stopped working with Huawei due to the ban. The Wi-Fi Alliance (which sets Wi-Fi standards across the industry) has also “temporarily restricted” Huawei’s membership due to the US ban, and Huawei has also voluntarily left JEDEC (a semiconductor standards group best known for defining RAM specifications) over the issues with the US as well, according to a report from Nikkei Asian Review. All this could severely hamper Huawei’s ability to produce hardware at all, much less compete in the US technology market.

• Huawei barred from SD Association: What’s that mean for its phones and microSD cards?

  As such, companies that aren’t on the SD Association’s list of members can’t officially produce and sell devices with SD card support that use the SD standards. According to SumahoInfo, the member page showed Huawei a few weeks ago, but no longer lists the firm this week.