Free Software Leftovers

• From Clean & Green Mockup to OpenBSD cwm(1) desktop

  If the words CGA or Hercules raise sweet memories from your far away youth, the Mockup Clean & Green from u/awareofdistractions may hit you right in the heart. And if you like it so much, it may be used for real-life desktop environment using OpenBSD stock and ports material.

• Learning more about our users

  At the Tor Project we practice user-centered design. This means we put our users at the heart of our development process, making a conscious effort to understand the contexts in which people use our tools and paying particular attention to the bumps they encounter along the way.

  Many digital product companies rely heavily on data gathered from invasive tracking scripts to better understand their users’ behavior, further fueling the surveillance economy. However that’s not how we do things at Tor – instead, we aim to conduct research that respects the basic principles of privacy and consent.

• New Release: Tor Browser 10.5a11

  Tor Browser 10.5a11 is now available from the Tor Browser Alpha download page and also from our distribution directory.

  Note: This is an alpha release, an experimental version for users who want to help us test new features. For everyone else, we recommend downloading the latest stable release instead.

• FSFE20 +++ IloveFS +++ Job vacancy

  In our February Newsletter, we interview our founding president Georg Greve as part of our publication series to celebrate 20 Years FSFE, we reflect on I love Free Software Day and our FOSDEM participation, we advertise our new job vacancy and as usual we report on our diverse community activities.

• Keeping platforms open

  My previous article, Whatsapp and the domestication of users, got more attention than I was expecting. Some responses gave me a lot to think about,1 especially regarding actions we can take. I suggest reading that article first; it explained what “user domestication” is and why it’s a problem. It enumerated three countermeasures: FOSS, simplicity, and open platforms.

  Hard problems, by definition, lack easy solutions. Simply choosing (or creating) a platform that avoids user domestication isn’t enough if that platform can change. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance; in addition to settling on the right platform, we must ensure that it honors its users in both the present and the future. Keeping a platform FOSS and simple is more straightforward2 than keeping a platform “open”.

  How do we keep an open platform from becoming a closed platform in the future?

Programming Leftovers

• 6 Top Data Analysis Tools for Big Data

  Big Data is an all-inclusive term that refers to data sets so large and complex that they need to be processed by specially designed hardware and software tools. The data sets are typically of the order of tera or exabytes in size. These data sets are created from a diverse range of sources: sensors that gather climate information, publicly available information such as magazines, newspapers, articles. Other examples where big data is generated include purchase transaction records, web logs, medical records, military surveillance, video and image archives, and large-scale e-commerce. There is a heightened interest in Big Data and Big Data analysis and the implications they have for businesses. Big Data analysis is the process of examining huge quantities of data to find patterns, correlations, and other useful information that can help firms become more responsive to change, and to make better informed decisions. Big Data analysis can be performed with data mining software. However, the unstructured data sources used for big data analysis are not necessarily suitable for investigation by traditional data mining software.

• 50 Years of Pascal

  Pascal was easy to teach, and it covered a wide spectrum of applications, which was a significant advantage over Algol, Fortran, and Cobol. The Pascal System was efficient, compact, and easy to use. The language was strongly influenced by the new discipline of structured programming, advocated primarily by E.W. Dijkstra to avert the threatening software crisis (1968).

• How to use Django Serializers – Linux Hint

  Serializer is used in Django to convert the model instances or querysets into python supported data types that can be easily rendered into JSON, XML, or other formats. The deserialization can also be done by serializers to get back the original data from the serialized data. This feature is available in Django REST Framework. So, the users have to install this framework to use the serializers. Any webpage of the website may contain HTML, CSS, and data from the database tables. But the API does not understand these types of content, and it can understand the raw data only, that is, JSON data. How the serializers can be used to convert the model instance into JSON format has shown in this tutorial.

• How to use queryset in django – Linux Hint

  Most of the web applications are implemented with the database now. queryset is used in the Django application to retrieve records by filtering or slicing or ordering the database table without changing the original data. The model used Django to create the table in the database. So, the knowledge of using the model in Django is necessary to understand the use of queryset. The main function of the queryset is to iterate the records of database tables by converting them into SQL queries. It can be used from the python command line or by writing the python script to display the browser’s output. The uses of queryset for retrieving data from a database table in different ways have been explained in this tutorial.

• This Week In Rust: This Week in Rust 379 [Ed: The usual paradox of developing "openly" while requiring people to get an account with Microsoft and then use proprietary software of Microsoft, which attacks Free software.]

  This Week in Rust is openly developed on GitHub.

• What Is BC in a Bash Script? – Linux Hint

  BC, which stands for Basic Calculator, is a command in Bash that is used to provide the functionality of a scientific calculator within a Bash script. This can be useful for scripting with various arithmentic use cases and scenarios. This article shows you how to use BC in a Bash script.

Security Leftovers

• How often should I rotate my ssh keys?

  My story for today is about ssh and how even public keys, while much better than simple passwords, are still not a perfect solution.

  The danger is credential theft, which is a fancy way of saying “someone stole your private keys.” Back in the 1990s, that problem was pretty far from our minds; Windows 98 didn’t even have the concept of a separate administrator account, never mind the idea of app sandboxing or the inkling that someone might intentionally want to load malware onto your computer and encrypt all your files for ransomware. Those were the days when some people thought ActiveX controls (essentially loading .exe files from web sites) might be a good idea. Actually, maybe even a great idea as long as there was an “are you sure?” dialog box first.

• 4 of the Best LastPass Alternatives

  LastPass has recently changed its free account usage policy to be only available on one device, and a lot of its users are not happy about it. If you are a LastPass Free user and are looking to switch, here are four great LastPass alternatives you should check out. These services reserve their pricing tiers for more advanced, business-oriented users while still leaving free users with a powerful set of features to safeguard their online accounts data.

• Security updates for Thursday

  Security updates have been issued by Arch Linux (ansible-base, keycloak, mumble, and postgresql), Debian (firefox-esr and nodejs), Fedora (dotnet3.1, dotnet5.0, keylime, php-horde-Horde-Text-Filter, radare2, scap-security-guide, and wireshark), openSUSE (postgresql, postgresql13 and python-djangorestframework), Red Hat (Ansible, firefox, and thunderbird), Scientific Linux (firefox and thunderbird), SUSE (php7, postgresql-jdbc, python-cryptography, rpmlint, and webkit2gtk3), and Ubuntu (dnsmasq, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.4, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.4, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-gke-5.4, linux-gkeop, linux-gkeop-5.4, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.4, linux-raspi, linux-raspi-5.4, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-hwe, linux-azure, linux-azure-4.15, linux-dell300x, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-4.15, linux-gke-4.15, linux-hwe, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-raspi2, linux-snapdragon, linux, linux-aws, linux-azure, linux-gcp, linux-hwe-5.8, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux, linux-aws, linux-kvm, linux-lts-xenial, linux-raspi2, linux-snapdragon, linux-oem-5.10, linux-oem-5.6, screen, and xterm).

• Biden signs executive order calling for semiconductor supply chain review

  President Biden signed an executive order Wednesday addressing growing concern over a global semiconductor shortage hampering the production of goods like automobiles and smartphones.

  The White House’s executive order directs the federal government to conduct 100-day reviews of supply chains in four sets of products, including computer chips and large capacity batteries, like those used in electric vehicles, according to administration officials.

• Biden Orders Review to Shore Up Supply Chain Resiliency

  On top of the 100-day review of the four key industries, Biden’s order will also direct yearlong reviews for six sectors: defense, public health, information technology, transportation, energy and food production.

  Biden said his administration will implement the recommendations as soon as they are available. “We're not going to wait for the review to be completed before we start closing the existing gaps,” he said.

• Technology Executives Say All Evidence Points To Russia In Major Hack Of Computer Networks

  Smith told the committee that the true scope of the intrusions is still unknown because most victims are not legally required to disclose attacks unless they involve sensitive information about individuals.

• Finnish IT Giant Hit with Ransomware Cyberattack [iophk: Windows TO]

  Norwegian business journal E24 reported the attack on Espoo, Finland-based TietoEVRY on Tuesday, claiming to have spoken with Geir Remman, a communications director at the company. Remman acknowledged technical problems with several services that TietoEVRY provides to 25 customers, which are “due to a ransom attack,” according to the report.

  Remman told E24 that the company considers the attack “a serious criminal act.” TietoEVRY turned off the unspecified services and infrastructure affected “as a preventative measure” until it can recover relevant data, and restart systems “in a controlled manner,” he said.