Tag Archives: Technology

CCleaner malware outbreak is much worse than it first appeared | Ars Technica

The malware backdoor in this story is quite intriguing. They are targeting specific companies (Samsung, Akamai, Cisco, Microsoft amongst them) and only attempting the second level attack if they are detecting they are being installed there.

The advice mentioned in the article is that anyone who installed the software on their system should REFORMAT THEIR DRIVE. Quite an extreme recommendation. My suggestion – stop using Windows.

Source: CCleaner malware outbreak is much worse than it first appeared | Ars Technica

Google/HTC deal is official, Google to acquire part of HTC’s smartphone team | Ars Technica

So Google has officially hooked up with HTC. How do I feel about this? Rather ambivalent, actually. On one side Google is already using their phones (Pixel), but HTC did roll over to Apple a long time ago without standing up to their bullying tactics – something that made me ditch HTC in favour of Samsung (and, tbh, I’m glad I did). However, this link up means Google gets a dedicated team to work on their phones. Whether this means they’ll become a decent competitor to the other devices, remains to be seen.

Source: Google/HTC deal is official, Google to acquire part of HTC’s smartphone team | Ars Technica

Linus Torvalds Invites Attackers to Join the Ke… » Linux Magazine

Torvalds is not a huge fan of the ‘security community’ as he doesn’t see it as black and white. He maintains that bugs are part of the software development process and they cannot be avoided, no matter how hard you try. “constant absolute security does not exist, even if we do a perfect job,” said Torvalds in a conversation with Jim Zemlin, the executive director of the Linux Foundation.

“As a technical person, I’m always very impressed by some of the people who are attacking our code,” Torvalds said. “I get the feeling that these smart people are doing really bad things that I wish they were on our side because they are so smart and they could help us.”

Source: Linus Torvalds Invites Attackers to Join the Ke… » Linux Magazine

Apache bug leaks contents of server memory for all to see—Patch now | Ars Technica

Another vulnerability hits the news. Whilst similar to heartbleed in leaking memory contents, it does not seem to be too risky if you’re running it as a single user, and the memory leak isn’t huge quantities.

Saying that, this vulnerability also may also affect cloud systems. For example, on AWS, (which has httpd), doing a version check:

$ httpd -v Server version: Apache/2.4.27 (Amazon) Server built: Aug 2 2017 18:02:45

However, without knowing how Amazon have setup Apache behind the scenes, are we able to say definitely that we are/aren’t affected?

Source: Apache bug leaks contents of server memory for all to see—Patch now | Ars Technica

This woman’s thank-you note to coffee stand staff will make you feel better about humanity

In a world of terrorists, idiots, and anti-democratic assholes, it’s nice to see there are some kind-hearted people out there.

Black, no sugar, with an extra shot of compassion please!

Source: This woman’s thank-you note to coffee stand staff will make you feel better about humanity

Android 8.0 Oreo, thoroughly reviewed | Ars Technica

Looking forward to when LineageOS can upgrade to Oreo. There’s a lot of new features that may make life a lot easier generally. Take a look in the article for details

We take a 20,000 word deep-dive on Android’s “foundational” upgrades.

Source: Android 8.0 Oreo, thoroughly reviewed | Ars Technica

Google Chrome : Hatsune Miku (初音ミク) – YouTube

This is an old advert by Google Chrome featuring Hatsune Miku, the Vocaloid virtual singer, following in the same line as Honda’s series of adverts featuring her too. Selling the idea that Miku is a virtual singer, but you can be anything else — Musician, Producer, Composer, etc.

(Only found out by some Tweets)

Hatsune Miku, Virtual Singer

Everyone, Creator