Linux Action News

Docker Hub gets hacked, Nextcloud 16 has a new feature to prevent hacks, and France's 'Secure" Telegram replacement gets hacked within an hour.

Plus who is spending $30m a month on AWS? Docker on ARM, and some LinuxFest Northwest thoughts.

Links:

• Docker Hub hack exposed data of 190,000 users — Docker Hub usernames, hashed passwords, GitHub and Bitbucket access tokens exposed in the hack.
• Docker developers can now build Arm containers on their desktops — The main idea here is to make it easy for Docker developers to build their applications for the Arm platform right from their x86 desktops and then deploy them to the cloud (including the Arm-based AWS EC2 A1 instances), edge and IoT devices.
• Neoverse N1 – Arm
• Rancher looks to rope in Kubernetes users with new OS distro — It hasn’t been that long since Rancher announced k3s, a Kubernetes distribution for resource constrained environments. Just two months on, the project now gets its own operating system – k3OS.
• Rancher Labs combined Linux with Kubernetes in new OS platform
• Apple spends upwards of $30m a month on AWS — According to US media reports, Apple is spending upwards of $30m a month on procuring cloud services from Amazon Web Services
• Nextcloud 16 introduces machine learning based security and usability features — Suspicious Login Detection uses a locally trained neural network to detect attempts to login by malicious actors.
• France's 'Secure' Telegram Replacement Hacked in an Hour — The French government said that it still plans to require its use in lieu of WhatsApp and Telegram, for any informal communications between government employees, agencies and some handpicked non-governmental organizations.

Ubuntu 19.04 is released we share our take, OpenSSH has an important release, and Mozilla brings Python to the browser.

Also WebThings is launched and we think it might have a shot.

Links:

• Ubuntu 19.04 'Disco Dingo' Released — Improved performance is what defines the ‘Disco Dingo’
• Open infrastructure, developers and IoT are 19.04's focus — Ubuntu 19.04 integrates recent innovations from key open infrastructure projects – like OpenStack, Kubernetes, and Ceph – with advanced life-cycle management for multi-cloud and on-prem operations – from bare metal, VMware and OpenStack to every major public cloud.
• Ubuntu 19.04 Flavours Available to Download
• Introducing Mozilla WebThings — Project Things is graduating from its early experimental phase and from now on will be known as Mozilla WebThings.
• WebThings Documentation
• Pyodide — Pyodide is an experimental project from Mozilla to create a full Python data science stack that runs entirely in the browser.
• OpenSSH 8.0 released — This release contains mitigation for a weakness in the scp(1) tool and protocol (CVE-2019-6111).
• Presenting search app and browser options to Android users in Europe — Following the changes we made to comply with the European Commission's ruling last year, we’ll start presenting new screens to Android users in Europe with an option to download search apps and browsers.  

Google's important news this week, why Linux is fueling PowerShell Growth, and the Matrix breach that might be worse than it sounds.

Plus more good work by Mozilla, and the Chinese crackdown on Bitcoin mining.

Links:

• The 6 most important announcements from Google Cloud Next 2019 — Anthos is the new name of the Google Cloud Services Platform, Google’s managed service for allowing enterprises to run applications in their private data center and in Google’s cloud.
• PowerShell growth fueled by Linux use — PowerShell Core usage has grown significantly in the last two years. In particular, the bulk of our growth has come from Linux usage
• Teaching machines to triage Firefox bugs
• Mozilla still on track to enable DNS-over-HTTPS by default in Firefox
• Protections Against Fingerprinting and Cryptocurrency Mining Available in Firefox Nightly and Beta
• Matrix suffers security breach — An attacker gained access to the servers hosting Matrix.org. The intruder had access to the production databases, potentially giving them access to unencrypted message data, password hashes and access tokens.
• Archive of deleted GitHub Issues lodged by the hacker
• Chinese government proposes ban on bitcoin mining — A Chinese ban on cryptocurrency mining would be a huge deal for the global bitcoin community.

Chef goes 100% open source, and this recipe has an old twist, plus the real cost of abandoning the VMware lawsuit.

A new way to run Android apps on Linux using Wayland, Sailfish and Mer merge, and more.

Links:

• Chef goes 100% open source — “In the open core model, you’re saying that the value is in this proprietary sliver. The part you pay me for is this sliver of its value. And I think that’s incorrect,” he said. “I think, in fact, the value was always in the totality of the product.”
• Chef’s Different Recipe
• Linux developer abandons VMware lawsuit — For over 10 years, VMware was accused of illegally using Linux code in its VMware ESX bare-metal virtual machine hypervisor. After a German court dismissed the case, the Linux programmer behind the lawsuit has called it a day.
• Court not happy case was initiated for ideological reasons — Since Hellwig's complaint was evidently motivated by idealistic motives - as the judge himself noted at the trial.
• Conservancy statement
• New way to run Android apps on Linux — It's now possible to run Android applications in the same graphical environment as regular Wayland Linux applications with full 3D acceleration.

Mozilla’s new Android app, Google wants you to adopt AMP for Email, and our reaction to LVFS joining the Linux Foundation.

Plus Debian's generous gift, Red Hat crosses the $3B mark, and the Open Source Awards are nigh!

Links:

• Firefox Lockbox comes to Android — Today, we are excited to bring Firefox Lockbox to Android users, a secure app that keeps people’s passwords with them wherever they go.
• AMP for email launched — Google today officially launched AMP for Email, its effort to turn emails from static documents into dynamic, web page-like experiences
• Register with Google to send dynamic emails
• Ubuntu 19.04 Beta is Now Available
• Ubuntu MATE 18.04 Beta 1 for Raspberry Pi
• Ubuntu Studio to Remain Officially Recognized Ubuntu Flavour — The release of Ubuntu Studio 19.04 will remain on-course. Beta is scheduled for March 28th, Release Candidate for April 11th, and Final Release scheduled for April 18th.
• Red Hat crosses $3B revenue mark — Red Hat recorded revenue of US$2.9 billion for the last fiscal year which ended in February 2018.
• LVFS joins Linux Foundation — The Linux Foundation welcomes the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) as a new project.
• Handshake donates $300,000 USD to Debian — This significant financial contribution will help Debian to continue the hardware replacement plan designed by the Debian System Administrators, renewing servers and other hardware components and thus making the development and community infrastructure of the Project more reliable.
• UK Open Source Awards 2019 — The Awards Event will be The Informatics Forum of the University of Edinburgh and will take place on Wednesday 12 June 2019.

Is Linux gaming really being saved by Google's Stadia platform? We discuss the details and possibilities.

Plus good news for KDE Connect users, Intel begins work on next-generation open source video drivers, and much more.

Links:

• Google launches game streaming service called Stadia — Google CEO: "We're building a game platform for everyone."
• Killed by Google - The Google Graveyard & Cemetery
• How OpenXR could glue virtual reality’s fragmenting market together — “OpenXR since the beginning has had a lot of positive energy and urgency," Trevett continued. “I think people kind of realize everyone can benefit. Obviously it's not going to be magic, but I think it can make a difference, because everyone wins."
• Intel Xe Graphics Being Part Of The First US Exascale Supercomputer Is Great For Linux — With Aurora expected to run Linux, this means the Linux driver support for Xe Graphics will have to be up to par by 2021.
• Albert Vaca Cintora on Twitter — "KDE Connect has been removed from @GooglePlay for violating their new policy on apps that access SMS [1]. The policy has an explicit exception for companion apps (like KDE Connect), but it was removed anyway and *there's no way to talk to Google*."
• Albert Vaca Cintora on Twitter — "To close this thread, I want to say that KDE Connect finally got approved, and SMS support is back in version 1.12.4, both on the Play Store and F-Droid! Thanks everyone who spread the voice (this thread got half a million impressions on Twitter!) and helped make it happen :D… https://t.co/OTLY5KJdI6"
• Android Developers Blog: Providing a safe and secure experience for our users
• Google forced into Android browser choice — Now we’ll also do more to ensure that Android phone owners know about the wide choice of browsers and search engines available to download to their phones. This will involve asking users of existing and new Android devices in Europe which browser and search apps they would like to use.
• Antitrust: Commission fines Google €1.49 billion — Antitrust: Commission fines Google €1.49 billion for abusive practices in online advertising
• EC fines Google €1.49bn for abusing ad market dominance
• Google now pays more in EU fines than it does in taxes

We try out the latest GNOME 3.32 release, and why it might be the best release ever. New leader candidates for Debian emerge, we experience foundation inception, and NGINX is getting acquired.

Plus Android Q gets an official Desktop Mode, the story behind the new Open Distro for Elasticsearch, and more!

Links:

• GNOME 3.32 Released — Version 3.32 contains six months of work by the GNOME community and includes many improvements, performance improvements and new features.
• Leaderless Debian — What would happen if Debian were to hold an election and no candidates stepped forward? The Debian project has just found itself in that situation and is trying to figure out what will happen next.

Free Software does what commercial can't this week, getting a Debian desktop on more Android devices gets closer, and PureOS promises Convergence but is there more beneath the surface?

Plus Microsoft open sources Windows Calculator, and a quick recap of SCaLE 17x.

Links:

• Ubuntu Touch OTA-8 Released — OTA-8 is primarily a stability improvement release as we continue to work on using upstream technologies in Ubuntu Touch, increasing our project output.
• PureOS convergence — Purism’s PureOS showcasing adaptive convergent design
• Announcing Maru 0.6 Okinawa — In Maru 0.6 Okinawa, the game completely changes, laying the foundation to run Maru on nearly any Android device.
• Android app devs to get new monetisation method — Google Play is excited to announce rewarded products, a new product type now available in open beta in the Play Console.
• Google Glass’ second-gen enterprise model leaks — Google’s not-quite-there vision of the future is getting a second enterprise model
• Microsoft open-sources Windows Calculator — Today, we’re excited to announce that we are open sourcing Windows Calculator on GitHub under the MIT License.
• calc.exe is now open source

We sift Mobile World Congress to find just the best and most relevant stories, and discuss the Thunderclap vulnerability.

Plus we say goodbye to Koroa, find a reason to checkout GRUB nightlies, and how Android aims to kill passwords for good.

Links:

• LineageOS 16.0 released — We feel that the 16.0 branch has reached feature parity with 15.1 and is ready for initial release. With 16.0 being the most recent and most actively-developed branch, on March 1st, 2019 it will begin receiving builds nightly and 15.1 will be moved to weekly builds.
• XDA Coverage of LineageOS 16.0
• KaiOS now with 85M feature phones shipped — With 85 million phones now shipped in more than 100 markets with handset brands like Nokia and India’s Jio, KaiOS now has an expanded partnership to put more Google
• KaiOS is doing well in US too
• RISC-V Support Added To The GRUB Bootloader — As working towards this year's GRUB 2.04 update, we've known they have been on the finishing stretch for merging RISC-V support and as of this morning that milestone has been crossed.
• RISC-V Support in the FreeRTOS Kernel
• Bringing energy efficiency to IoT architecture
• The Challenge Of RISC-V Compliance
• Thunderclap and Linux — The authors built a "fake" network card2 and performed various DMA attacks and were able to temper with memory regions that their network card should have no access to whatsoever.
• [announce] Struck by a Thunderbolt
• [official site] Thunderclap
• RIP Korora — "Our @kororaproject website has been redirected to @fedora as we do not have any new releases coming. Thank you for your support over the last 13 odd years."
• We saw this coming

Linus pops another hype bubble, we go hands on with the new OnionShare, and some insights into Redis labs changing its license... Again.

And why KDE joining the Matrix, along with others might be establishing a new open source standard.

Links:

• KDE is adding Matrix to its instant messaging infrastructure — KDE is adopting non-proprietary and decentralized instant messaging services and is now running its own community-managed instance of Matrix.
• Matrix the basis for France’s Secure Instant Messenger app
• Interview with Matthew Hodgson: Matrix in the French State
• New Release: OnionShare 2 — OnionShare is an open source tool for securely and anonymously sending and receiving files using Tor onion services.
• Redis Labs changes its open-source license — again — “Some cloud providers have repeatedly taken advantage of successful opensource projects, without significant contributions to their communities.”
• Arm unveils new Neoverse chips for data centers — Arm claims that the design provides as much as 2.5 times more processing power for certain server workloads than the previous Cortex-A72 architecture.
• GCC 9 Compiler Support For The Arm Neoverse N1 + E1
• Linus' doubts
• Intel Confirms Apple Macs Will Switch to Arm CPUs by 2020, Says Report
• Wine Developers Release Hangover Alpha — Hangover 0.4 is the first (alpha) release from this project for running x86/x86_64 Windows programs now on 64-bit ARM Linux distributions.
• Linux Academy - Full Stack Ruby on Rails Developer (Remote)