• Akademy 2018 – Vienna

  The last Akademy I attended was in 2015, in A Coruña, Galicia, Spain. I skived off Berlin 2016, when I was burned out working as a consultant at Quby, and again Almería 2017, when I was struggling with the Krita Foundation’s tax problems. But this year, we could afford to go, and Akademy is in Vienna this year… And I’ve always wanted to see some works in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum — Cellini’s Salt Cellar, Rogier van der Weyden’s Crucifixion, Cranach’s Saxon Princesses... Things I’d only ever seen in books.

• Akademy 2018 Tuesday BoF Wrapup

  Tuesday continued the Akademy BoFs, group sessions and hacking. There is a wrapup session at the end of the day so that what happened in the different rooms can be shared with everyone including those not present.

• Sketchnotes at Akademy 2018

  During the conference part of this year's Akademy, I tried myself for the first time at live sketchnoting of all the sessions I attended. I didn't do it only for a handful of them mainly because I was chairing and you can't really sketchnote at the same time.

• GSoC 2018 - Third month status

  In this version of dialog I got rid of the icon label. The dialog has three sections displaying information about signature validation status, signer, and document revision.

• Porting KTextEditor to KSyntaxHighlighting => Done :=)

  During Akademy there was finally enough time to finalize the porting of KTextEditor to KSyntaxHighlighting.

  Thanks to the help of Dominik and Volker, the needed extensions to the KSyntaxHighlighting framework were done in no time ;=)

  Thanks for that!

  The branch for the integration was merged to master yesterday, unit tests look OK and I am using that state now for my normal coding work. Beside minor glitches that should now be corrected, no issues came up until now.

• Downloading Kate Highlighting Files

  Starting with the KDE Frameworks 5.50 release we decided to remove the capability in Kate/KTextEditor to download / update syntax highlighting files from the Kate homepage.

• Git Quick Start Guide

• Shuffling Letters and Words

• What is ETL: Extract, Transform, Load

• How to Root the LG V30 with Magisk and TWRP

• How to Ping IPv6 Address from Windows and Linux CLI

• How to Install LimeSurvey on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

• How to Install Apache Maven on Ubuntu and Debian

• How to Find Your IP Address in Linux

• Creating M3U Playlists in Linux Terminal To Play Files in Specific Order [Quick Tip]

• Can You Host a Web Server on Your Home Internet Connection?

• Learn Git Command with Practical Examples on Linux – Part 2

• new* helpers can read from stdin

• Top-down 3D action-adventure game Sikanda gives you a shape-shifting weapon

  Sikanda seems like a pretty interesting top-down action-adventure, one that gives you a shape-shifting weapon that takes inspiration from some well-known titles.

  It's another that's currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter, although it primarily seems to mention Nintendo Switch it is also planned to release on Linux too according to the FAQ page. When digging a little further, they said this in the comments on their Kickstarter page:

• Time Traveling Raptors is a 16-bit inspired action-platformer where you're trying to fix the timeline

  Time Traveling Raptors looks all kinds of nuts, an action-platformer where you're facing people as well as dinosaurs as you attempt to fix a broken timeline. Currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter and planned for Linux.

• Prepare to set sail as seafaring strategy game 'Nantucket' is now officially supported on Linux

  After being in Beta since April, Picaresque Studio have now given the Linux version of the seafaring strategy game Nantucket some official support.

• Isometric university management game 'UniverCity' has entered Early Access, developed on Linux

  UniverCity from developer Matthew Collins who develops on Linux is a new in-development university management game, it's now available in Early Access on Steam. Note: Steam key provided by the developer to our Steam Curator.

• The Humble Jackbox Party Bundle is out, some of their games have hidden Linux beta versions

• CodeWeavers Joins The Khronos Group Along With IKEA

  In addition to the many technical accomplishments of Khronos this week at SIGGRAPH 2018, they were also celebrating the milestone of crossing 140 members to this industry standards group.

  The Khronos Group membership count has largely stayed about the same in recent years as while they get new members, it's largely been through acquisitions within the industry that their headcount hasn't grown too much. But recently they welcomed several new members to this standards group developing Vulkan, OpenCL, OpenGL, OpenXR, SPIR-V, etc.

Variety is a cool utility available for Linux systems which makes your dull desktop look great, every day. This free wallpaper changer utility replaces your wallpaper in your desktop in an interval. You can set it to change wallpaper in every 5 minutes also!

• Antiquated Patenting Trick: Adding Words Like ‘Apparatus’ to Make Abstract Ideas Look/Sound Like They Pertain to or Contain a ‘Device’
• Open Invention Network (OIN) Member Companies Need to Become Unanimous in Opposition to Software Patents
• President Battistelli ‘Killed’ the EPO; António Campinos Will ‘Finish the Job’
• Links 14/8/2018: Virtlyst 1.2.0, Blender 2.8 Planning Update, Zorin OS 12.4, FreeBSD 12.0 Alpha

• The Internet of Torts

  Rebecca Crootof at Balkinization has two interesting posts:

  • Introducing the Internet of Torts, in which she describes "how IoT devices empower companies at the expense of consumers and how extant law shields industry from liability."
  • Accountability for the Internet of Torts, in which she discusses "how new products liability law and fiduciary duties could be used to rectify this new power imbalance and ensure that IoT companies are held accountable for the harms they foreseeably cause.

  Below the fold, some commentary on both.

• Password Analyst Says QAnon’s ‘Codes’ Are Consistent With Random Typing

  “The funny thing about people is that even when we type random stuff we tend to have a signature. This guy, for example, likes to have his hand on the ends of each side of the keyboard (e.g., 1,2,3 and 7,8,9) and alternate,” Burnett wrote in his thread.

• Uber taps former NSA official to head security team

  Olsen, who served as the counterterrorism head under President Obama until 2014, will replace Joe Sullivan as the ride-hailing company's top security official.

  Sullivan was fired by Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi over his handling of a massive cyber breach last year that happened during former CEO Travis Kalanick’s tenure.

• Malware has no trouble hiding and bypassing macOS user warnings

  With the ability to generate synthetic clicks, an attack, for example, could dismiss many of Apple's privacy-related security prompts. On recent versions of macOS, Apple has added a confirmation window that requires users to click an OK button before an installed app can access geolocation, contacts, or calendar information stored on the Mac. Apple engineers added the requirement to act as a secondary safeguard. Even if a machine was infected by malware, the thinking went, the malicious app wouldn’t be able to copy this sensitive data without the owner’s explicit permission.

• Caesars Palace not-so-Praetorian guards intimidate DEF CON goers with searches [Updated]

• Amazon Echo turned into snooping device by Chinese hackers [sic]

  Cybersecurity boffins from Chinese firm Tencent's Blade security research team exploited various vulnerabilities they found in the Echo smart speaker to eventually coax it into becoming an eavesdropping device.

• Hackers can take control of MILLIONS of brand-new Android smartphones because of vulnerabilities with pre-installed ...

• Man-in-the-Disk attacks leave Android users exposed to data manipulation

• Samsung 'Galaxy Wearable' app updated w/ Android Pie & Galaxy Watch support, new name

• A hidden Android Pie security setting everyone should enable

• How to Prevent the Buggy Android Pie Update on Your Pixel XL

• Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1 gets an Android Pie (Android 9) port

• Google still tracks you even with 'location history' turned off — here's how to disable that completely on iPhone and ...

• How to download Xbox One captures on Android

• 5 tips to boost your Android experience

• Top 10 iPhone and Android accessories

• Motorola P30 leaks, and it's basically another iPhone X clone running Android

• 5 extremely useful Android apps you didn't know you needed

GNOME has been my favorite desktop environment for quite some time. While I always make it a point to check out other environments from time to time, there are some aspects of the GNOME desktop that are hard to live without. While there are many great desktop environments out there, GNOME feels like home to me. Here are some of the features I enjoy most about GNOME.

The Amiga community remains one of the most passionate and inventive we have ever seen, even now, decades after Commodore’s demise. A couple of weeks back, we featured just a few recent projects that were designed to breathe new life into aging Amiga systems, or at the very least ensure they remain repairable for the foreseeable future. Our article explaining how to build a cheap Amiga emulator using a Raspberry Pi was immensely popular as well. Today, however, we stumbled across a video that encapsulates the ingenuity of many of the more technical folks in the Amiga community. What it shows is an Amiga 3000UX, equipped with a Voodoo 3 card and BigFoot Networks Killer NIC M1, running some software – including Quake – on the Killer NIC’s on-board Power PC processor.

• Linux-friendly embedded computer runs on Apollo Lake power

  Axiomtek has released a rugged, Ubuntu-ready “eBOX627-312-FL” embedded PC with a dual-core Celeron N3350, 2x GbE, 6x USB, and 4x serial ports plus mini-PCIe, HDMI, SATA, and “Flexible I/O.”

• EPIC board boasts 4x GbE ports and PCIe x4

  Aaeon is rolling out a new EPIC form-factor “EPIC-KBS9” SBC with 6th or 7th Gen Core S-series chips, 4x GbE ports, up to 32GB DDR3, and mini-PCIe and PCIe x4 expansion.

  Aaeon’s EPIC-KBS9 follows two other EPIC-KBS SBCs to support Intel’s 6th “Skylake” or 7th “Kaby Lake” generation S-Series processors: the EPIC-KBS7, which emphasized real-world ports, and last month’s EPIC-KBS8, which is a bit more feature rich but with fewer coastline ports. Unlike these earlier models, the KBS9 offers 4x GbE ports, up to 32GB DDR4-2133, and a full-size PCIe x4 slot, which supports NVMe storage.

• Spectre-Like Flaw Undermines Intel Processors' Most Secure Element

• Researchers Disclose New Foreshadow (L1TF) Vulnerabilities Affecting Intel CPUs

• Three more data-leaking security holes found in Intel chips as designers swap security for speed

• ​Beyond Spectre: Foreshadow, a new Intel security problem

• Understanding L1 Terminal Fault aka Foreshadow: What you need to know

• A deeper look at L1 Terminal Fault aka Foreshadow

  In our last post, Jon Masters offered an overview of L1 Terminal Fault aka Foreshadow. In this video blog, Jon offers a deeper technical explanation of the vulnerability.

• Managing risk in the modern world

  Things can be pretty scary out there today. There are a lot of things that could occur that make even the calmest amongst us take pause. Everything we do is a series of risk-based decisions that we hope leads to happy outcomes. “Should I get out of bed today?”, “Should I eat this sushi they are selling in this gas station?”, “Can you hold my beverage?”. The challenges of modern-day existence can be very daunting.

  With this blog, I’m sharing how I’d advise organizations to consider IT-related risks and how Red Hat Product Security aims to help customers make informed decisions with data.

• Laura Abbott: Flock 2018

• Kevin Fenzi: Flock 2018: Day 1

• Kevin Fenzi: Flock 2018: Day 2

• Kevin Fenzi: Flock 2018: Day 3

• Kevin Fenzi: Flock 2018: Day 4

• Kevin Fenzi: Flock 2018: The journey home

  I took the train from dresden to frankfort and then on to Utrecht. It was about a 10 hour journey, but it was nice. I went with Patrick and Randy and we had a bunch of discussions and watched the landscape go by. In Utrecht I got a hotel for overnight and we went to a great little resturant along the canal. Great place. My only regret it that it got too late for me to see Patrick’s place, so I just went to bed and got up the next morning for my flight.

• Power Management Updates Land In The Linux 4.19 Kernel

  Intel's Rafael Wysocki has submitted the ACPI and power management updates today for the Linux 4.19 kernel which were subsequently merged by Linus Torvalds.

• Linux 4.19 Git Contains a lot of Performance Impacting Spectre Mitigation Updates

  Another round of commits regarding anti-Spectre security have landed up in the Linux 4.19 kernel git tree, which may have possible performance impacts for the kernel.

  While Spectre is still only a somewhat theoretical threat, as its entirely too slow to be used in a serious attack, many folks are taking its future potential quite seriously and arming up against it.

• Linux 4.19 Kernel to Receive a Ton of Audio Hardware Updates for Improved Linux Sound Capabilities

  Linux audiophiles may have something to rejoice about, as a recent pull request from SUSE’s Takashi Iwai focuses on a plethora of sound subsystem updates for the Linux 4.19 kernel, including a lot of latest hardware support and overall improvements for Linux’s audio capabilities.

• Updated Vega 20 Open-Source Driver Patches Posted, Including PSP & PowerPlay Support

  Back in May AMD posted initial open-source "Vega 20" patches and support for that yet-to-launch graphics processor was subsequently merged for the Linux 4.18 kernel. More of the Vega 20 AMDGPU kernel driver enablement has now been posted.

  This latest 69,910 lines of code -- before fretting, most of that is auto-generated header files for the GPU -- notably adds PSP (Platform Security Processor) and SMU (System Management Unit) for Vega 20. With the SMU enablement code, it's also now wired in to enable Vega 20 PowerPlay support as well as related power/clocking-functionality like OverDrive overclocking is also available.

• How to Disable SELinux on CentOS 7

• How to set the Gnome Default Terminal Emulator on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

• How to Schedule Tasks on Ubuntu 18.04 Using Crontab

• 8 Ways To Get Help On The Linux Shell

• From the Vault: Quick and Dirty SSH Tunneling

• How To View A Particular Package Installed/Updated/Upgraded/Removed/Erased Date On Linux

• How to Install Prometheus and node_exporter on CentOS 7

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• Open-source Disclose.io framework bridges legal gap in bug reporting

  Earlier this month, Bugcrowd launched a new reporting framework that aims to further protect security researchers, create a “safe harbour” for ethical hackers, and address legal risks when it comes to disclosures.

  The Disclose.io project is a new set of open-source vulnerability guidelines written with both researchers and organizations in mind.

  In an increasingly digital world, companies and vendors are turning to white hat hackers to help bolster their security measures and protect their business.

• Adobe’s August Patch fixes 11 Flaws in Flash Player and Acrobat DC + Reader

• Synthetic UI Interactions on MacOS could generate Single Clicks for Privilege Escalation and Whole System Compromise

• Instagram Accounts Are Being Hacked, Lock Yours Down Now

  Attackers are compromising Instagram accounts and locking out users, so take a moment to lock down your account.

• Instagram users are reporting the same bizarre hack

  When she tried to log back in, she got a message that her username didn't exist. She soon realized her handle and photo had both been changed, as had the email address and phone number associated with her account. She tried to request a password reset, only to see the new email linked to her account was now a .ru email: she had been hacked.

Linux is a very powerful operating system, and that explains why it powers most of the servers on the Internet. Though it may not be the best OS in terms of user friendliness, its diversity is commendable. Everyone has their own need for Linux. Be it for coding, educational purposes or the internet of things (IoT), you’ll always find a suitable Linux distro for every use. To that end, many have dubbed Linux as the OS for future computing.

Because the future belongs to the kids of today, introducing them to Linux is the best way to prepare them for what the future holds. This OS may not have a reputation for popular games such as FIFA or PES; however, it offers the best educational software and games for kids. These are five of the best Linux educational software to keep your kids ahead of the game.

• Linux 4.18 brings support for Vega M, Volta GV100 and, er, SPECK

  AFTER A WEEK'S DELAY, Linux kernel 4.18 stable has arrived.

  Announcing the release on Sunday, head of Linuxing Linus Torvalds said: "One week late(r) and here we are - 4.18 is out there. It was a very calm week, and arguably I could just have released on schedule last week, but we did have some minor updates."

  One notable change is that there's been a lot of code ditched - around 100,000 lines of obsolete code has been slashed.

• The AMD Threadripper 2990WX shows even higher numbers when benchmarked on Linux

  Phoronix has done a performance comparison of the AMD Threadripper 2990WX in Windows 10 Pro and Linux and the results show Threadripper numbers significantly lower under Windows 10 Pro than in Linux. In some tests such as 7-Zip Compression, the Threadripper 2990WX posted almost 58% higher scores in Linux compared to Windows 10 Pro implying that Linux is a better OS of choice when testing high core count CPUs.

• Diversity Empowerment Summit Highlights Importance of Allies

  Diversity and inclusion are hot topics as projects compete to attract more talent to power development efforts now as well as build their ranks to carry the projects into the future. The Diversity Empowerment Summit co-located with Open Source Summit coming up in Vancouver August 29-31, will offer key insights to help your project succeed in these endeavors.

  Although adoption of diversity and inclusion policies is generally seen as simply the right thing to do, finding good paths to building and implementing such policies within existing community cultures continues to be challenging. The Diversity Empowerment Summit, however, provides hard insights, new ideas, and proven examples to help open source professionals navigate this journey.

• Hollywood rolls out red carpet for open source developers

  The launch of the ASWF is almost like creating a GitHub for the developers behind motion pictures, but open source is nothing new to the film industry. It dates back about 20 years, Andy Maltz, managing director of the Science and Technology Council at the Academy, told CIO Dive.

  Film "is the only art form that has a fundamental reliance on technology," he said. The film industry's use of tech dates back to photochemical technologies and proceeds to today's digital image capture.

• Sonatype Launches DepShield App to Democratize Open Source Governance [Ed: Sonatype spent years badmouthing FOSS. Now it is liaising/partnering with Microsoft to help Microsoft swallow FOSS.]

• Sonatype introduces DepShield for identifying vulnerable open-source components in GitHub [Ed: One additional lock-in for GitHub]

• Sonatype offers developers free security scan tool on GitHub [Ed: It is not free, it's like a way to sell proprietary software]

• Distributed Systems, Demystified: Cassandra, DataStax demo and FAQ [Ed: Microsoft is swallowing FOSS projects in an effort to get people stuck in and spied on within Azure. Microsoft nowadays wraps itself up in "Open" clothing while all of its core software is entirely proprietary and all those "open" things have one principal purpose: getting people 'hooked' on the proprietary stuff. Money buys narrative though.]

• Session Lineup at Open Source Summit Europe and Embedded Linux Conference + OpenIoT Summit Europe Offers Complete Overview of the Open Source Ecosystem [Ed: This event has just been infiltrated by Microsoft yet again. Microsoft previously paid for it and it has just gotten a key talk placement. This is the Linux Foundation; Microsoft is even on its Board while blackmailing Linux firms. Money talks.]

• Retro Style Games on Linux [Ed: When Canonical starts its list with Microsoft and its proprietary game.]

  Gaming on Linux doesn’t have to mean buying a ludicrously priced GPU (thanks crypto miners!). Nor does it require a beefy CPU. There’s a real resurgence in retro style gaming going on right now. We’ve pulled together a selection of retro-inspired games for you to play today, on your beloved Linux machine.

• IAG open sources AWS frameworks [Ed: AWS is #surveillance, Amazon is all proprietary. So you just know this is openwashing. So-called 'Open' software whose sole goal or net effect is getting one stranded in a proprietary system such as AWS or Azure or Windows is not really "open" but an open bear trap.]

The Debian GNU/Linux project will turn 25 on Thursday, with the Linux distribution having made its debut on 16 August in 1993 under the leadership of the late Ian Murdock.

In its original manifesto, Murdock stated: "Many distributions have started out as fairly good systems, but as time passes attention to maintaining the distribution becomes a secondary concern."

Maintaining a Debian system was made simple after some developers created a package management system known as apt.

Apt — and its derivatives like aptitude and synaptic — have served to make the task of updating a Debian system simple. With apt, the secondary concern that Murdock referred to was effectively taken care of. Incidentally, there are now about 29,000 packages available in Debian.

Also new (Debian-related news):

• DebConf 18

• Google Summer of Code 2018- Final Report

  This project aims at developing tools and packages which would simplify the process for new applicants in the open source community to get the required setup. It would consist of a GUI/Wizard with integrated scripts to setup various communication and development tools like PGP and SSH key, DNS, IRC, XMPP, mail filters along with Jekyll blog creation, mailing lists subscription, project planner, searching for developer meet-ups, source code scanner and much more! The project would be free and open source hosted on Salsa (Debian based Gitlab)

  I created various scripts and packages for automating tasks and helping a user get started by managing contacts, emails, subscribe to developer’s lists, getting started with Github, IRC and more.

• [ANNOUNCE] libinput 1.11.902

  The second RC for libinput 1.12 is now available.

  First a heads-up, this is probably going to be a longer RC cycle than usual,
  just look at the commit count for rc1..rc2 below. I don't have any
  additional large features planned for 1.12, so the rest should just be
  bugfixing and polishing now.

• Libinput 1.12 RC2 Continues Working On Improving Linux Touchpad Behavior

  We've known libinput 1.12 is going to be a significant release and that's still holding true in looking at the second release candidate for this Wayland/X.Org input handling library.

  Libinput 1.12 RC1 was working on replacing its udev "hwdb" hardware database with its own quirk handling system, migrating documentation from Sphinx to ReadTheDocs, FreeBSD support, improved trackpoint code, various touchpad fixes and improvements, and other input handling tweaks.

• xf86-video-v4l X.Org Driver Sees First New Release In A Decade

  The xf86-video-v4l v0.3.0 driver was announced today as the first new release for this DDX driver in ten years.

  In case you don't have any recollection of this DDX driver, this "Video 4 Linux adapter driver" is used for registering generic X-Video (Xv) adapters that can be used in turn by any graphics driver.

• Intel Publishes New DRM Driver For Their Arria 10 FPGA System

  An Intel engineer has published the "Intel FPGA Video and Image Processing Suite" DRM driver today for Linux. This Direct Rendering Manager is intended for use with their Arria 10 FPGA system when combined with Intel DisplayPort IP.

• RADV Now Supports On-Demand Compilation Of Built-In Shaders

  For helping out the RADV Vulkan driver in cases where no shader cache is available, this open-source Mesa Radeon Vulkan driver now supports the on-demand compilation of built-in shaders.

  On cases like Android, ChromeOS, or sandboxes where no on-disk shader cache is available due to write/security permissions, RADV can take a while to start-up for some programs due to having to compile all of the built-in pipelines at start. RADV co-founder Bas Nieuwenhuizen says this process can take one to four seconds for the creation of a device.