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Proprietary Software and New FUD

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Security
  • Back to windows after twenty years

    See, the whole reason I thought Windows might be a suitable alternative for me was all the enthusiasm around Windows Linux Subsystem (WSL). Basically putting all the *nix tooling at your fingertips, like it is on OSX, in a way that doesn’t require crazy hoops.

    But it’s just not there. The first version of WSL is marred with terrible file-system performance, and I got to feel that right away, when I spent eons checking out a git repository via GitHub for Windows. A 10-second operation on OSX took 5-6 minutes on Windows.

    [...]

    Windows still clearly isn’t for me. And I wouldn’t recommend it to any of our developers at Basecamp. But I kinda do wish that more people actually do make the switch. Apple needs the competition. We need to feel like there are real alternatives that not only are technically possible, but a joy to use. We need Microsoft to keep improving, and having more frustrated Apple users cross over, point out the flaws, and iron out the kinks, well, that’s only going to help.

  • These Machines Can Put You in Jail. Don’t Trust Them.

    The machines are sensitive scientific instruments, and in many cases they haven’t been properly calibrated, yielding results that were at times 40 percent too high. Maintaining machines is up to police departments that sometimes have shoddy standards and lack expertise. In some cities, lab officials have used stale or home-brewed chemical solutions that warped results. In Massachusetts, officers used a machine with rats nesting inside.

    Technical experts have found serious programming mistakes in the machines’ software. States have picked devices that their own experts didn’t trust and have disabled safeguards meant to ensure the tests’ accuracy.

    The Times interviewed more than 100 lawyers, scientists, executives and police officers and reviewed tens of thousands of pages of court records, corporate filings, confidential emails and contracts. Together, they reveal the depth of a nationwide problem that has attracted only sporadic attention.

  • Uber’s Self-Driving Car Didn’t Know Pedestrians Could Jaywalk

    The software inside the Uber self-driving SUV that killed an Arizona woman last year was not designed to detect pedestrians outside of a crosswalk, according to new documents released as part of a federal investigation into the incident. That’s the most damning revelation offered up in a trove of new documents related to the crash, but other details indicate that, in a variety of ways, Uber’s self-driving car work failed to consider how humans actually operate.

  • Libarchive vulnerability can lead to code execution on Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD [Ed: Very typical ZDNet FUD from Catalin Cimpanu, their drama queen hired from a lying site. To exploit the alleged bug one needs to run (and get) malicious files. But CBS tabloids with money from Microsoft don't let facts get in the way. Skip the headline and find "Exploitation scenarios include users who receive malicious files from attackers or local apps that use Libarchive's various components for file decompression."]
  • Former CIA Employee Who Allegedly Disclosed ‘Vault 7’ Files To WikiLeaks Challenges Espionage Act Charges

    Former CIA employee Josh Schulte, who is accused of leaking the “Vault 7” files to WikiLeaks, urged a federal court to rule the Espionage Act is unconstitutional. He also asked the court to dismiss the Espionage Act charges against him.

    The files Schulte allegedly released brought scrutiny to the CIA’s hacking arsenal, which targeted smartphones and computers. A program called “Weeping Angel,” that allowed the CIA to attack Samsung F8000 TVs and convert them into spying devices was exposed. They also showed how the CIA targeted Microsoft Windows, as well as Signal and WhatsApp users, with malware.

More on libarchive

  • Linux users warned to update libarchive to beat flaw [Ed: If users do not download malicious, dodgy files and then execute these, that might be fine. Same for macros in documents. It's not a major or critical issue.]

    The bug is identified as CVE-2019-18408, a high-priority ‘use-after-free’ bug when dealing with a failed archive.

    No real-world exploits have been detected but if one existed, it would attempt to use a malicious archive to induce a denial-of-service state or arbitrary code execution.

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