News

The number of people who are reading printed books is declining. But reading isn’t. According to the Pew Research Center, we're buying Kindles and Nooks and reading more e-books at a rapidly growing rate.

Happy Holidays, All!


If something groundbreaking comes up over the next week or so we'll post it, otherwise, be excellent to each other.

2012 was a very quiet, but very successful year for Linux. How successful? The most popular end-user operating system is now Linux.

From the Yikes dept.:
Researchers have tested Google's app verification service (included in Android 4.2 last month), and found that it performed very poorly at identifying malware in apps. Specifically, the app verification service identified only ~15% of known malware in testing — whereas existing third-party security apps identified between 51% and 100% of known malware in testing.

Boston, Massachusetts, USA -- Thursday, December 20th, 2012 -- Today, FSF activists visited a local Microsoft store during its "Tech for Tots" session to wish passersby happy holidays with copies of the Trisquel GNU/Linux operating system, a free software replacement for Windows 8. The activists were accompanied by a gnu (free software's buffalo-like mascot) and sported Santa hats in the spirit of the season. Their action drew smiles from mall-goers who had expected to see costumed people giving gifts, but not quite like this.

On its campaign site, http://fsf.org/windows8, the FSF criticizes Windows 8 for restricting computer users' freedom to modify and share the software on their computers. This action follows a similar one at a Windows 8 launch event in October, when the FSF made international news announcing its campaign to ask computer users to skip Windows 8 in favor of free software.

FSF executive director John Sullivan said, "Tablets and laptops are popular gifts for the holidays, but people often overlook the restrictions that manufacturers slip under the wrapping paper. These restrictions end up locking people into one company's products, and complicating things that should be simple like moving programs from an old laptop to a new one. We invite people to join us by going to http://fsf.org/windows8 and signing the pledge to switch to a free operating system. If you already use one, help a friend or family member switch."

The Prudential Center's Microsoft store is one of many that Microsoft has opened in recent months to promote Windows 8 and its new line of tablets. The aggressive Windows 8 marketing campaign is rumored to cost more than a billion dollars. Windows 8 has drawn criticism for its difficult interface and for being more restrictive than previous versions of the OS. In fact, many of Microsoft's Windows 8 devices have crippled firmware that prevents them from running free operating systems, even alongside Windows.

Along with the free GNU/Linux operating system, holiday shoppers received a copy of the FSF's holiday giving guide. The guide, online at http://fsf.org/givingguide, compares widely known but restrictive tech products with replacements that give users more freedom.

Today's action ended when Prudential Center security arrived on the scene. FSF campaigns manager Zak Rogoff said: "We were prepared for the Microsoft store to ask us to leave. Our Windows 8 campaign is reminding Microsoft that many software users do care about their rights to run a free 'as in freedom' operating system, and will not tolerate digital handcuffs. Microsoft's business model is predicated on these handcuffs, so they don't like what we're doing. If more people knew that free software was an option and had a chance to try it, this store would have a different logo over the door."

The FSF asks supporters to keep their eyes peeled for more appearances by the gnu in coming months. The FSF also expects to release a whitepaper formalizing its critique of Windows 8, as well as a new campaign Web site dedicated to Windows 8.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at http://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.

About Free Software and Open Source

The free software movement's goal is freedom for computer users. Some, especially corporations, advocate a different viewpoint, known as "open source," which cites only practical goals such as making software powerful and reliable, focuses on development models, and avoids discussion of ethics and freedom. These two viewpoints are different at the deepest level. For more explanation, see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html.

About the GNU Operating System and Linux

Richard Stallman announced in September 1983 the plan to develop a free software Unix-like operating system called GNU. GNU is the only operating system developed specifically for the sake of users' freedom. See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html.

In 1992, the essential components of GNU were complete, except for one, the kernel. When in 1992 the kernel Linux was re-released under the GNU GPL, making it free software, the combination of GNU and Linux formed a complete free operating system, which made it possible for the first time to run a PC without non-free software. This combination is the GNU/Linux system. For more explanation, see http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html.

Media Contacts

Zak Rogoff and Libby Reinish
Campaigns Managers
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
campaigns@fsf.org

From the Damage to Route Around dept.:
China, Russia and others have withdrawn controversial proposals at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) 2012 that would have given them greater control over the Internet, following a public backlash from dismayed onlookers.

A leaked document from WCIT had indicated a number of nations, also including the United Arab Emirates (UAE and Saudi Arabia, wanted to have more power over the Web’s laws and infrastructure. Much of the power over the working of the Internet currently lies with US bodies.

From the 77 million brute force attempts per second dept.:
A presentation at the Passwords^12 Conference in Oslo, Norway, has moved the goalposts on password cracking yet again. Speaking on Monday, researcher Jeremi Gosney (a.k.a epixoip) demonstrated a rig that leveraged the Open Computing Language (OpenCL) framework and a technology known as Virtual Open Cluster (VCL) to run the HashCat password cracking program across a cluster of five, 4U servers equipped with 25 AMD Radeon GPUs communicating at 10 Gbps and 20 Gbps over Infiniband switched fabric. Gosney's system elevates password cracking to the next level, and effectively renders even the strongest passwords protected with weaker encryption algorithms, like Microsoft's LM and NTLM, obsolete. In a test, the researcher's system was able to generate 348 billion NTLM password hash checks per second. That renders even the most secure password vulnerable to compute-intensive brute force and wordlist (or dictionary) attacks. A 14 character Windows XP password hashed using LM for example, would fall in just six minutes, said Per Thorsheim, organizer of the Passwords^12 Conference. For some context: In June, Poul-Henning Kamp, creator of the md5crypt() function used by FreeBSD and other, Linux-based operating systems, was forced to acknowledge that the hashing function is no longer suitable for production use — a victim of GPU-powered systems that could perform 'close to 1 million checks per second on COTS (commercial off the shelf) GPU hardware,' he wrote. Gosney's cluster cranks out more than 77 million brute force attempts per second against MD5crypt.

From the They'll be Back dept.:
An effort by three U.S. senators to add an Internet sales tax amendment to a military spending bill has failed, at least for now.

Last week, Senators Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, and Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, proposed a version of the Marketplace Fairness Act as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, a large military spending bill.

But on Monday, the Senate voted to close debate on the defense bill and proceed toward a final vote without considering the sales tax amendment. The senators are unlikely to offer the amendment during final debate on the defense bill, a Senate staffer said.

If you still think MySQL is too entrenched to be moved from its spot as the number one, open-source DBMS, you might to look at what Wikipedia is doing.

From the Numbers dept.:
The Internet's addressing authority (IANA) ran out of IPv4 Internet addresses in early 2011. The IPv6 protocol (now 15 years old) was designed exactly for this scenario, as it provides many more addresses than our foreseeable addressing needs. However, IPv6 deployment has so far been dismal, accounting for 1% of total traffic (the high-end of estimates). A recent paper by researchers at the Cooperative Association for Internet Data analysis (CAIDA) indicates that IPv6 deployment may be picking up at last. The paper, published at the Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) shows that the IPv6 network shows signs of maturing, with its properties starting to resemble the deployed IPv4 network. Deployment appears to be non-uniform, however; while the 'core' of the network appears to be ready, networks at the 'edges' are lacking. There are geographical differences too — Europe and the Asia Pacific region are ahead of North America.

From the Any Half Baked Law is Bad dept.:
Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican congressman from California, has drafted a bill for the internet. The bill, aptly named the Internet American Moratorium Act (IAMA), is, 'a two-year moratorium on any new laws, rules or regulations governing the Internet.' In short it hopes to deny any new government bills related to lawmaking on the internet for the next two years. The bill was first made public on the website Reddit, and is currently on the front page of Keepthewebopen.com, a website advocating internet rights. 'Together we can make Washington take a break from messing w/ the Internet,' Issa writes on his Reddit post. The initial response to the bill has been mixed. Users of Reddit are skeptical of the paper's motives and credibility. As of now, the bill is just a discussion draft, whether it will gain footing in the future is up in the air.

Linux got its start on a 386 processor, but 21-years later, the Linux kernel developers have decided its time to say good-bye to the venerable Intel processor in its next major Linux kernel release: 3.8.

Oracle's enhanced open source database will be ready for general availability in early 2013 and the company is working on a future version with a pluggable UI, more NoSQL options and revamped architecture for web and cloud computing,

The release of Samba 4 will no doubt cut into Windows server business somewhat, but its interoperability capabilities will ease administrative and vendor support costs and preserve Windows servers and clients in the long run as open source transforms enterprise computing

From the JavaScript Engine News Day dept.:
Oracle has proposed a new project for OpenJDK – Nashorn, which aims to implement a high-performance yet lightweight JavaScript runtime that would run on Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

Nashorn will be headed by Jim Laskey, multi-language Lead at Oracle and the project will be sponsored by HotSpot group. The project proposes implementation of JavaScript such that it can run standalone JavaScript applications via the JSR 223 APIs. Nashorn’s design will enable it to take advantage of some of the newer technologies like MethodHandles and InvokeDynamic APIs.

From the More Faster, GO GO! dept.:
The biggest addition in this update is significant JavaScript improvements, courtesy of Mozilla’s new JavaScript JIT compiler called IonMonkey. The company promises the performance bump should be noticeable whenever Firefox is displaying Web apps, games, and other JavaScript-heavy pages.

IonMonkey has been a long time coming, with the primary aim of enabling new optimizations that are impossible with the current JägerMonkey architecture. It can emit fast native code translations of JavaScript functions on the ARM, 32-bit, and 64-bit platforms.

The latest major Linux kernel release is here and it includes features that ARM developers and network administrators will love

From the Keeps Coming Back dept.:
A US judge has ordered Apple to disclose details of its patent-sharing deal with HTC to its rival, Samsung.

...It said it was "almost certain" the deal covered some of the patents at the centre of its dispute with Apple.

The court ordered Apple to produce a full copy of the settlement agreement "without delay", subject to an "attorneys' eyes only" designation, meaning it will not be made public.

From the Catch Ya Later dept.:
Plans for 64-bit Firefox for Windows have been put on hold by Mozilla in a bid to concentrate more on the 32-bit versions it has been found.

The proposal of striking off the 64-bit nightly builds was put forward by Benjamin Smedberg, a Firefox developer, last week. Some of the reason that Smedberg cited for constant frustration include missing plugins for 64-bit version; lack of windowproc hooking which facilitates smooth functioning of whatever plugins are available; and inability to work on the crash reports submitted for the 64-bit versions because they were not on high priority.

From the dept.:
A new Linux rootkit has emerged and researchers who have analyzed its code and operation say that the malware appears to be a custom-written tool designed to inject iframes into Web sites and drive traffic to malicious sites for drive-by download attacks. The rootkit is designed specifically for 64-bit Linux systems, and while it has some interesting features, it does not appear to be the work of high-level programmer or be meant for use in targeted attacks.

The new Linux rootkit is loaded into memory and once there, it pulls out some memory addresses and then stores them for use later. It also then hooks into several kernel functions as a way to hide some of its files on the machine.