Government backdoors?

Quite a few people have approached me and asked my opinion on government-implemented backdoors in open-sauce software. Well, I usually refer to this youtube-clip:

Utvikling, drift og Linux

Fant dette utsagnet i en artikkel om Linux-desktop vs Windows:

"De fleste hardwareleverandørene har, på et litt dypere teknisk nivå, nesten alltid et forhold til Linux fordi operativsystemene tradisjonelt sett har hatt god rot hos utviklere og driftsfolk. Selskaper som Cisco og IBM bruker også Linux som primæroperativsystem for å kjøre utvikling og testing."

Dette er uttalelsen jeg har letet lenge etter, og til slutt fant jeg det. Kunne ikke uttrykt det bedre selv ;) Kan også nevne at f.eks. Google også bruker Linux internt som primæroperativsystem (Google's egenutviklede Linux distribusjon), Android som mobilplattform og som annonsert diverse plasser på nettet: Chrome OS, som mer enn sannynligvis blir et Linux-basert system.

Linux Mint maintainer

Clement Lefebvre is the BDFL and core maintainer of Linux Mint (an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution I'm considering to implement on my mom's, and my dad's computers because of the Windows 7-hysteria).

I really like this guy, coz he's had a very similar Linux-experience as I have since the 90's. Here's a little quote to exemplify:

I started using Linux in 1996. It was Slackware(!) and I was quite happy with it. I learnt a lot about the internals of the system thanks to that distribution. A few years later more and more distributions became available and at the same time people started to get fast Internet at home with faster and faster download speeds. So I started distro-hopping... a lot :) I enjoyed many different distributions and for different reasons.

As I became more experienced with Linux I started asking myself how I could contribute back. I spent a lot of time helping out on different IRC channels and writing tutorials and reviews on the web. Eventually I even got paid for it and started writing for LinuxForums.com (you can still read some of my contributions here). I specialized more and more on distribution reviews and after a while I became expert (or so I thought anyway :) at seeing pros and cons in each one of them.

Looking at all the other distributions, I got a very precise idea of how I would make the perfect desktop if I was to do it myself. And because everything is easy when you're having fun, it wasn't long until I was producing my first ISO files.

So, to put it all together, we started using Linux about the same time, AND we used the same distro.

And by reading his blog-posts on linuxmint.com, I realized he has a lot of the same ideas as me, quite similar development guidelines, etc.

Linux Mint appealed to me basically ;)

OS X utsatt for botnet-orm

http://www.itavisen.no/811025/forste-botnet-for-os-x

Nå er det i hvert fall ikke trygt å bruke Mac lenger...

Mac / Apple har siden 70-tallet vært trendsetter på data-markedet, så det var ikke et spørsmål om "hvordan" eller "hvis", men "når". Visste det bare var et tidsspørsmål. Og det har jeg sagt lenge, så lenge det finnes en merkbar markedsandel med folk som bruker visse typer systemer, vil disse da bli mål for cyber-kriminelle (crackere).

Botnets har lenge vært et problem med Windows-maskiner. Mac-folket har lenge ment at noe tilsvarende ikke kan skje med deres maskiner. Dels fordi de er en minoritet få virusmakere gidder å bry seg med, og dels på grunn av at Apples operativsystem OS X er bygget på Unix - en plattform som av mange regnes som sikrere enn Microsofts.

En nedlastbar fiks fra Apple, kalt "iWorksServices Trojan Removal Tool", kan hentes ned herfra.

For å videre beskytte Mac- / Apple-maskiner fra slike trusler, bør en installere anti-virus og evt. anti-spionvare programmer (og her gjelder KISS-prinsippet, mer enn ETT anti-virus eller anti-spionvare program på samme maskin byr på mer problemer enn nytte).

Oh man, I can REALLY relate XD

I have numerous stories similar to the following article by Carla Schroder @ linuxplanet.com.

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/6728/1/

My monitor gave up the ghost in the middle of the workday, naturally when I had deadlines and a half-dozens things to do right now. It turned out to be a fried video card, and I took the long way to figure it out, but I was able to keep working until I had time to troubleshoot and fix it, thanks to Linux's easy remote networking.

I came back from a break to find it in a hard lockup. Well OK, this is inconvenient, but at least with Linux a hard crash usually doesn't have bad side effects like mangled system files, unlike a certain other inexplicably popular but frail operating system.

I remember a totally useless IBM ThinkPad laptop I had lying around, which did NOT accept any of the M$ products I tried to force into it. It had a smashed LCD display, so it really didn't serve any purpose as a personal computer.

Then I tried installing Slackware Linux (this was in the v7-8 days of Slackware), and figured I could use it as a headless webserver/fileserver or something in that manner. And, to my own surprise, it was really effective. I had network connectivity (allthough without a GUI, the command-line more than sufficed for my needs. web-surfing included, even if it was text-based ['lynx']), remote network access, local network access, and it ran fine for like 3-400 days non-stop.., right up to the day it kicked the bucket of fatigue.

This remarkable stability and security was unknown to me up to this point. Since I've been fiddling with computers since the mid-80's, I've been around a few operating systems over the years. But none could ever aspire to be what Linux is for me today.

After seeing how Linux performed as a server, I was keen to see it's performance as a desktop. So, I decided I was running ONLY open-source software on every technical doo-dad I owned. But as Linux has one of the steepest learning-curves out there, this did not happen overnight.

Actual time spent learning the building-blocks of Linux came to a total of at least 10-11 years!

My ambition was not realized until very recently actually. My whole home-setup runs Slackware Linux, derivatives, or some kind of embedded Linux. And it's all grand! ;-P

Here is another similar, what I'd like to call: "wish-I-did-not-push-Enter"-story:

http://blog.eracc.com/2009/04/16/kill-linux-unix-system/

One thing I like about Android™

The developer's choice ;)

This is a compilation of videos of the Android developers, telling about their favourite functions in Android.

Nysatsingen på åpen kildekode

Da ser det ut som det blir Bergensområdet som først får benyttet alle de vidunderlige åpne kildekode-prosjektene som finnes rundt om i verden, i et offentlig samarbeid "for åpne standarder i offentlig sektor" (som ble nevnt tidligere i en-eller-annen artikkel/offentlig dokumentasjon).

Nytt kraftsenter på åpen kildekode - digi.no : Bedriftsteknologi

Bergen kommune, it-ekspertene Avenir, Høgskolen i Bergen (HiB), Universitetet i Bergen (UiB) og lokale it-miljøer går sammen for å gjøre Bergen til et kraftsenter for utnyttelse av åpen kildekode i utviklingen av fremtidens it-løsninger.

Initiativet understøtter både Regjeringens satsing på økt bruk av fri programvare og ønsket om styrket samhandling mellom offentlig og privat sektor.

Gartner spår at innen 2012 vil 80 prosent av alle it-løsninger inneholde elementer av åpen kildekode. De fastslår at virksomheter som velger å ignorere denne utviklingen, automatisk vil stille seg to skritt bak konkurrerende virksomheter.

Bergen Kommune, Avenir, HiB, UiB, og store lokale it-miljøer som DnB Nor, NextGenTel og EDB Business Partner ønsker å ligge i forkant i utnyttelsen av åpen kildekode.

IBM kjøper teknologien som berget Apple

IBM kjøper teknologien som berget Apple - digi.no : Bedriftsteknologi

Det var Transitive-teknologi – kalt «QuickTransit» – som berget Apple da all Mac-programvare skulle overføres fra PowerPC-prosessoren til Intel-prosessorer.

Hmm, voldsomt så IBM kjøper opp for tiden? Vel, at IBM henvender seg til Apple av alle firmaer er jo noe ekstraordinært i seg selv (eller?).

Uansett, at IBM nå tar til seg kryssplattform-verktøy for å konvertere Linux/x86 kode, til Linux/PowerPC betyr i alle fall at de nå har muligheten til å oppskalere brukte plattformer/arkitekturer (bruke større dataanlegg, flere hard-prosesserende maskiner og/eller forskjellige/større systemer/anlegg, alt etter applikasjonshensiktene/brukerlasten i gjeldende firma) siden de nå kan kjøre samme kode overalt.

OS/2 lives on :)

The oldschool types never really die, they update and evolve ;) The 90's operating system: OS/2, was a development collaboration between Microsoft and IBM, to introduce the 2nd generation operating system to accompany IBM's second generation personal computers of the early 90's. Today you would assume the OS was long since dead and forgotten.., well, you'd be wrong.

OS/2 lives on to this day, and is represented by Serenity Systems as "eComStation 2.0 RC6a" (2 pictures below).





What I liked about OS/2 was it's clean intuitive interface :) It even had pseudo-3D games! (chessboard in picture below)

From wikipedia.org:

Future

There is a community of OS/2 users and developers, along with loyal company customers, hoping that IBM will release OS/2 or a significant part of it as open source. Petitions to that end were made in 2005 and 2007, but IBM declined, citing legal, technical and strategic reasons.^[35] It is unlikely that the entire OS will be open at some point in the future, because it contains third-party code, much of it from Microsoft.

Also IBM made a deal with Commodore to license Amiga technology for OS/2 2.0 and above in exchange for the REXX scripting language.^[36] This means OS/2 may have code not written by IBM, which can prevent the OS from being open-sourced in the future.^[37][38]

Version 2.0 had such a long design cycle that its design started while OS/2 1.1 was still under development, and thus, portions of it were developed in conjunction with Microsoft, even though Microsoft never released a branded version of 2.0 (although they did release a beta in their name). IBM's contribution to versions 1.2 and earlier mostly resides in the GUI components; however, bug fixes and substantial performance changes to the entire system in 1.3 were made by IBM, and much more of the overall system (including the kernel) for 2.0 was developed by IBM.

The aborted PowerPC port did not involve Microsoft at all, and has been proposed as the basis for an open-source 64-bit version of OS/2.

Still, the community has suggested that, even if only the IBM portion of it is made open, the missing parts could be written by the same community to form a next-generation version of the OS. Code could perhaps be integrated from the Wine or ReactOS projects. Many developers believe that these missing parts include many of the legacy 16-bit components not revised since OS/2 1.x, and are exactly the parts that should be rewritten anyway. There is an ongoing petition to open parts of the OS arranged by OS2World.com.^[39]

With the possibility of an open-source future for OS/2, the OS may be given a new lease of life. IBM's current and heavy involvement with several open source projects indicate that opening parts of OS/2 will not be difficult for the company. But until then, OS/2's future remains in limbo.

Open source operating systems such as Linux have already profited from OS/2 indirectly through IBM's release of the improved JFS file system which was ported from the OS/2 code base.

OS/2 programs will eventually use emulators and compatibility layers for running programs dedicated for OS/2.

Asus 900 PC w/10hrs battery ;P

Hehe, my Asus Eee 900 PC with the 7,4V 10,4Ah battery case

(mildly oversized if you ask me, as shown in the 2nd picture below ↵)





A personal note about modifying this machine:

I cannot believe how easy it was to replace the RAM-module in this netbook! In contrast to the Acer Aspire One (AAO), this netbook was kids-play to open, remove the original RAM-module, and successfully replace with an upgrade.

Two screws opens an access hatch on the underside, which in turn gives access to both the single RAM-module and the miniPCI-express wireless card contained within ;) Both of which are not particularly wear resistant. So it was a blessing to be able to do this task in right under 5mins without having to dismantle the whole machine (as with the Acer Aspire One) to further risk electrostatic damage and so fourth...

I didn't really like Asus all that much before...but now, I LOVE Asus ;]

Among other nice features, it took my Huawei 220 3G USB modem out-of-the-box! No driver compilation, no additional kernel module...nothing. Just 'Plug-And-Play' ;P sweet!

På tide ordensmakten tar steget...

Vekk med Windows! - digi.no : Kommentarer

Diskusjonen går høyt om Mac OS og Linux er tryggere enn Windows, teknisk sett. Konklusjonen synes å være at ja, begge de to alternative operativsystemene er mer robust konstruert enn Microsofts markedsledende system. Men selv om det kan stilles spørsmålstegn ved dette (og det gjør Microsoft, selvsagt), så er det et faktum at systemer som få bruker ikke er så utsatt for virusmakerne som systemer som brukes av en minoritet.

Choosing the right flavour...

A lot of Linux enthusiasts argue/claim that Slackware Linux is an outdated and obsolete Linux distro.

Fair enough, if compared to more modern bleeding-edge distributions like Ubuntu, SuSe, Gentoo and the like.

Allthough Slackware is a vanilla-distro (little or no changes/patches to system packages what-so-ever), it can be TWEAKED to include whatever you'd like. It is one of the last "hands-on" distributions out there. ANYTHING can be hacked/tweaked to suit any needs.

Slack forces the user to learn Linux from the ground up, and by this learning-curve, makes the user able to do whatever on whatever distribution in question. However, there are custom-distro's that focuses on specific user-scenarios: Ubuntu serves as a good "out-of-the-box" operating system for "gnubies", Fedora is Red Hat-based and serves as a rock-solid server framework or a good place to start as a sysadmin, SuSe is very good at security and Gentoo for compilation-wizards and optimization-gurus.

But since Slackware is the oldschool-type, it is basically barebones.., it is the base, and it works!

Patrick Volkerding is the maintainer and "BDFL" of Slackware Linux.

The three S' o' Slack:

• Simplicity
• Stability
• Security

January 22. - remember this date fellow geeks!

This article @ computerworld.com, discusses and reflects on the software giants vs. open-source. It describes what situation the IT industry is facing taking the financial crisis into consideration.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/being_anti_linux_is_bad_for_your_business_health

Slackware-Current

Allright.
First off, this is my server/multimedia-top/desktop machine. I've been running Slackware Linux on it since revision bump 10.0. Lately I was running a heavily modified v12.1, with a custom HIDS and firewall automation solution. But with all my modifications/addons to the GUI, it was slowing down... massively. I was also experiencing kernel oops concerning OpenGL on quite a few applications as well.

Then again, the machine sports the following specs:
AMD Athlon 1.8GHz, 1.1GB RAM, nVidia GeForce 6600 GT 128MB AGP8x

To put it bluntly; I was getting tired, So I decided to upgrade it all to the ever-feared slackware-current branch. Which, in my opinion wasn't that hard a task at all. I just rsynced the current-directory on a close mirror, read the 'UPGRADE.TXT', and went along with the upgrade procedure.

I am now sitting and writing this post on my newly fresh installed Slackware-Current environment ( codenamed '12.2 RC1', it even has the '12.2' insignia in some configuration files in the /etc directory already ). Anyway, the screenshot is of my low-contrast themed KDE-4.1 desktop running Plasma desktop effects, and the background is called 'vanilla standard slackware-logo', an svg-file I made a while ago.

Upgrading to Slackware-12.1

A linux.com article reviewing the new Slackware release, click the post title to read.

Open Source Software FTW!

Promising, promising...

I can't wait until an OEM releases a cellphone with a fully implemented Android software stack. The embedded video below (sporting 2 developers from Google), demonstrates the (simple,sleak,usable) beautiful user interface and some of the current functions from Android. If the final released version even resembles what they show here, I'm _definately_ switching to an OSS Cellphone!

Actually, I'll probably switch most of my embedded equipment to OSS-driven products, and especially Android, because it's Google-sponsored. Giving me a "all-in-one" solution to; e-mail, browsing, text-messaging and telephony. And if they incorporate a Blogger-feature into Android, I'll be in techie-heaven! ;P

iPhone, eat your heart out!

http://code.google.com/android/

I love Google ^_^

Linux-Live: Pocket Operating Systems

I've tried a lot of different flavours (Knoppix,Belenix,CentOS,Linux Mint,etc...). And I've always gone back to my favourite every time I've tried a new one, mainly: Slax.

Since it's based on Slackware (of course), it basically gives me all the superuser functionality I demand from my computer systems, while also providing a simple (non-hardware-accelerated) KDE desktop and basic built-in applications.

I've used Slax before, but I wasn't quite satisfied with the storage mounting system not being fully configured in v5, to allow mounting of USB storage devices automatically (yes, I prefer _some_ automation for basic tasks). Version 5 also incorporated a package system (much like Slackware), only, the packages were built as modules, to be easily added/removed on-the-go. This was also one of the features I did not favour very much, as it would lock up the system at times as i was removing package-modules while the system was actively running X, but this also seems to have been fixed in v6.

Features:

• distribution has reached a more stable level compared with earlier releases.
  
• it is based on Slackware Linux 12.1 (running the 2.6.24.5 Linux kernel).
  
• system size is now reduced to a mere 195 MegaBytes, thanks to the merging of 7Zip-compression (LZMA) into the squashfs filesystem.
• it now has the ability to determine if it is running from a writable or unwritable media, and saves system configs accordingly.
  
• it includes an X Window System and a collection of general network-enabled applications (browser,mail,chat,ftp,games,utilities,etc.), all ready to be used out-of-the-box.
  
• it now includes gcc out-of-the-box, giving the ability to compile third party software, which can then be packaged into software-modules afterwards for quick installation/removal.
• software-packages do not occupy a lot of space thanks to 7Zip-compression (modules now has the '.lzm' file extension).
  
• installation of additional software is easy using the new 'Slax Module Manager', grabbing software-modules from online software repositories, or local media.
• it has procured a large user community, useful for third party support.
  
• and it can be burned onto a CD-R or copied to a USB memory dongle like most other linux-live distros, but apart from other distros, it includes very intuitive installers for these tasks as well.
  

A definate must for OS techies, and Linux followers. I'm building a USB-key version to carry around, keeping my favourite OS of choice close on my person at all times to be easily deployed on a system running other OSes I don't usually favour that much... ;P

It is also a very powerful rescue-tool, allthough you CAN use the Slackware install-disc to do the same tasks, Slax lets you boot into an X environment whereas Slackware restricts to the command line.

Why I love Slackware

A few minutes ago, I read an article ranting on about the recently released Slackware Linux v12.1, where the author expressed what he thought of Slackware as a Linux distribution.

[Slackware is (in conjunction with Debian) the oldest living Linux distro out there since the early 90's. Read my post about Slackware Linux in general.]

The author noted that Slackware (being an old-timer, has over 10 years of software maintainer experience in package-building) enforces strict packaging routines in the Slackware community; following source programmer instructions to the letter with regards to configure-options at compile-time, and standardizing the prefixes where the configuration and binary files are stored on the system.

This packaging method makes the packages extremely portable across different systems, as long as the systems retain the standard libraries and utilities included in the build-system (also known as a "vanilla base-system").

And the fact that it has only one maintainer at the top, having the final word on configuring and building of Slackware-software; the all-mighty (BDFL of Slackware Linux) Patrick Volkerding, makes it the closest distribution one can find to a "vanilla" system (or: "generic-type" "all-in-one" Linux base platform). Leaving plenty of room for: personal tweaking, custom branding, hacking, expansion and forking.

This focus on simplicity in maintenance, makes Slackware the perfect candidate for base-systems destined to fork-modifications. Therefore, a lot of distro-developers swear by Slackware as their base-system, as it allows for some major modifications without breaking as easily as other, heavily modified distributions that require a lot of dependancy-tracking.

• Now, it should be mentioned that Slackware does not include a packaging-system that incorporates dependancy-tracking, so it is not a distro recommended for 'non-tech-savvy' people (computer-n00bs) as it requires that you do all the command-line work manually.
• AND, you are _absolutely_ forced to learn the inner workings of the system to modify it without breaking any functionality. So it has it's caveats, but these caveats just improve your understanding of the system, making you (the developer), master maintainer and developer of the aspiring distribution being made.

It inspires exploration and tinkering, so you learn Linux from the ground up. I guess you could say it's a flavour for hackers, developers, scientists, technology hobbyists, professors and generally anyone interested in the specification and documentation aspects. Or as described in computer jargon: "SuperUsers".

Everything I've learned about Linux; was either read about in the included documentation, or found online in Slackware forums. So I've done my fair share of information investigation, which is also a required ability in the open source world.

Slackware 12.1 upgrade successfull

Successfully installed/upgraded my 3 computers with Slackware Linux 12.1! ;P

• (Desktop machine, "slamd-wifi")
• AMD Athlon XP 2200MHz | 1,1GB DDR RAM

• (Notebook machine, "slackbell")
• AMD Mobile Sempron 1800MHz | 1,1GB DDR2 RAM

• (Laptop machine, "paqslack")
• AMD Mobile Athlon XP 800MHz | 256MB DDR RAM

I'd wish I could have been done with this earlier, but I'm quite buzy nowadays.

Cisco Turns Routers Into Linux Application Servers

I've always had a good eye to Cisco's networking equipment, due to the fact that they are administered through a CLI (Command Line Interface), i.e.: POSIX-style ;^)

Now they're integrating a GPL'ed Linux environment on certain so-called "AXP" switches/routers to allow for hosted applications developed with the accompanying standardized SDK and API (which includes standard support for C, Java and Python).

From http://www.internetnews.com/:

"From a GPL perspective, we've taken all the things that are GPL and reciprocated the code back to the community," Conover said. "Obviously if a developer built an application on top of a GPL platform, that doesn't imply that they have to GPL that code. "

The GPL is a reciprocal license that requires any modification made be contributed back to the community.

Overall, Cisco expects the AXP to reduce the hardware footprint at branch offices and provide deeper network integration that provides IT managers with more control over what they can monitor.

I suppose they realized the potential for hosted applications on network equipment after releasing the WRT54** series of routers through their sister company "Linksys". These routers offer the possibility to flash the firmware, allowing home-brewed firmware/software to be deployed. I have a WRT54GL router @ home, running "DD-WRT" with a few cross-compiled custom apps for network monitoring. And I must say, it gives me monitoring capabilities I never could have imagined a few years ago ;)