Security Leftovers: WCry/Ransomwar, WannaCry, Athena

• Windows 7, not XP, was the reason last week’s WCry worm spread so widely [iophk: "yet look at the talking points against XP that the tech community spread"]

  Eight days ago, the WCry ransomware worm attacked more than 200,000 computers in 150 countries. The outbreak prompted infected hospitals to turn away patients and shut down computers in banks and telecoms. Now that researchers have had time to analyze the self-replicating attack, they're learning details that shed new and sometimes surprising light on the world's biggest ransomware attack. [...]

  Chief among the revelations: more than 97 percent of infections hit computers running Windows 7, according to attacks seen by antivirus provider Kaspersky Lab. By contrast, infected Windows XP machines were practically non-existent, and those XP PCs that were compromised were likely manually infected by their owners for testing purposes. That's according to Costin Raiu, director of Kaspersky Lab's Global Research and Analysis Team, who spoke to Ars.

• Companies use kidnap insurance to guard against ransomware attacks

• NSA Was Concerned About Power Of Windows Exploit Long Before It Was Leaked

• CIA's Windows XP to Windows 10 malware: WikiLeaks reveals Athena

OSS Leftovers

• Nextcloud 12 Officially Released, Adds New Architecture for Massive Scalability

  Nextcloud informs Softpedia today about the official availability of the final release of Nextcloud 12, a major milestone of the self-hosting cloud server technology that introduces numerous new features and improvements. The biggest new feature of the Nextcloud 12 release appears to be the introduction of a new architecture for massive scalability, called Global Scale, which is a next-generation open-source technology for syncing and sharing files. Global Scale increases scalability from tens of thousands of users to hundreds of millions on a single instance, while helping universities and other institutions significantly reduce the costs of their existing large installations.

• ReactOS 0.4.5 Open-Source Windows-Compatible OS Launches with Many Improvements

  ReactOS 0.4.5 is a maintenance update that adds numerous changes and improvements over the previous point release. The kernel has been updated in this version to improve the FreeLoader and UEFI booting, as well as the Plug and Play modules, adding support for more computers to boot ReactOS without issues.

• Sprint Debuts Open Source NFV/SDN Platform Developed with Intel Labs

  AT&T has been the headliner in the carrier race to software defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV). But Sprint is putting its own stamp on the space this week with its debut of a new open source SDN/NFV mobile core solution.

• Google’s New Home for All Things Open Source Runs Deep

  Google is not only one of the biggest contributors to the open source community but also has a strong track record of delivering open source tools and platforms that give birth to robust technology ecosystems. Just witness the momentum that Android and Kubernetes now have. Recently, Google launched a new home for its open source projects, processes, and initiatives. The site runs deep and has several avenues worth investigating. Here is a tour and some highlights worth noting.

• Making your first open source contribution

• Simplify expense reports with Smart Receipts

  The app is called Smart Receipts, it's licensed AGPL 3.0, and the source code is available on GitHub for Android and iOS.

• How the TensorFlow team handles open source support

  Open-sourcing is more than throwing code over the wall and hoping somebody uses it. I knew this in theory, but being part of the TensorFlow team at Google has opened my eyes to how many different elements you need to build a community around a piece of software.

• IRC for the 21st Century: Introducing Riot

  Internet relay chat (IRC) is one of the oldest chat protocols around and still popular in many open source communities. IRC's best strengths are as a decentralized and open communication method, making it easy for anyone to participate by running a network of their own. There are also a variety of clients and bots available for IRC.

Tizen News: Phones and TVs

• Tizen 3.0-powered Samsung Z4 now available with offline retailers in india

  The Samsung Z4, the fourth smartphone in Samsung’s Z series and a successor to the Z2 (and not the Z3, as many would assume), has been formally announced and made an appearance at the Tizen Developer Conference (TDC 2017) this past week. The Z4 was rumoured to make its way to India on May 19th (Friday) and it did – arriving with offline retailers after launching in the country last Monday (one week ago).

• Samsung 2017 QLED TVs World First to support autocalibration for HDR

• Samsung approves You.i TV video platform for Tizen TV app development

  While Samsung has developed Tizen TV apps using JavaScript, You.i TV’s Engine Video app runs on Native Client (NACL), a web technology that does not only allows C++ applications to run in a standard browser but is said to be 24 times faster than JavaScript. Now that Samsung has approved You.i TV’s video engine platform, developers can craft more video content for Tizen Smart TV owners.

• Samsung Smart TV gets a new Glympse app that enables location sharing on the TV

  Samsung Smart TV, powered by the intuitive, self-developed Tizen operating system, has gotten a cool new app which enables consumers to view the location of their friends, loved ones or even a pizza delivery or cable technician in real-time directly from their home’s largest screen. The new app is developed by Glympse, the leading real-time location services platform.

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