Security News

• Don't Trust Consumer Routers

  Another example of why you shouldn’t trust consumer routers. d-link It isn’t just this specific d-link router. We’ve seen the same issues over and over and over with pretty much every non-enterprise vendor. Plus we don’t want our devices used by crackers to DDoS Brian Krebs anymore, right? We are Linux people. We CAN do this ourselves.

• D-Link DWR-932 router is chock-full of security holes

  Security researcher Pierre Kim has unearthed a bucketload of vulnerabilities affecting the LTE router/portable wireless hotspot D-Link DWR-932. Among these are backdoor accounts, weak default PINs, and hardcoded passwords.

• The Cost of Cyberattacks Is Less than You Might Think

  What's being left out of these costs are the externalities. Yes, the costs to a company of a cyberattack are low to them, but there are often substantial additional costs borne by other people. The way to look at this is not to conclude that cybersecurity isn't really a problem, but instead that there is a significant market failure that governments need to address.

• NHS trusts are still using unsupported Windows XP PCs

  AT LEAST 42 National Health Service (NHS) trusts in the UK still run Microsoft's now-defunct Windows XP operating system. Motherboard filed Freedom of Information requests with more than 70 NHS hospital trusts asking how many Windows XP machines they use. 48 replied within the allotted time, and a whopping 42 of them admitted that they still use the operating system that reached end-of-life status in April 2014. Some of the culprits include East Sussex Healthcare, which has 413 Windows XP machines, Sheffield's Children's hospital with 1,290, and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Trust in London with an insane 10,800 Windows XP-powered PCs. 23 replied to Motherboard's quizzing about whether they have an extended support agreement in place and, unsurprisingly, the majority said that they do not.

Games for GNU/Linux

• Just a heads up, Saints Row: The Third on Linux has broken co-op play

  The Saints Row: The Third [Steam] port from Virtual Programming looks like it could use some love, it seems the co-op play on Linux has been broken since release. It’s fantastic to see such games being ported, but it’s a massive shame when such big features just don’t work. I decided to check up on it myself and sure enough, it’s completely broken. No matter what you try, it seems it will not work.

• 'Sundered', a beautiful hand­-drawn action game coming to Linux next year

  Sundered [Official Site], is a really beautiful looking hand-drawn action game from the developers of Jotun. It's confirmed for Linux and due next year, come take a look.

• Rotate different shapes made out of blocks into holes in 'Security Hole', now on Linux

  'Security Hole' [Official Site, Steam] recently released for Linux and the developer sent in a key, so I took a look. It's a bit of an odd game, you're trying to help a virus made out of blocks fit into different shaped holes.

Android Leftovers

• Thank you: Android manufacturers finally listened to users in 2016

  We tech writers spend most of our time ranting about something or the other, so let me acknowledge something positive instead: 2016 has been by far the best year for Android phones. I don’t just say that as the usual yearly platitude, the way one might say ‘the iPhone 7 is the best iPhone ever” (2016 tech is better than 2015 tech, duh). I mean that after trying out nearly every flagship available in the US this year, it feels like 2016 is the year Android manufacturers actually listened.

• Yup, now the iPhone 7 is exploding

• This Guy Basically Turned His Mirror Into a Giant iPhone

• Android 7.0 Nougat: List of Mobile Devices Getting the New Mobile OS

• Unity game engine now supports Vulkan rendering on Android [Ed: Mono]

• Blackberry Bites the Dust - Yeah, we saw that one coming a LONG time ago

Licensing resource series: Free GNU/Linux distributions & GNU Bucks

When Richard Stallman set out to create the GNU Project, the goal was to create a fully free operating system. Over 33 years later, it is now possible for users to have a computer that runs only free software. But even if all the software is available, putting it all together yourself, or finding a distribution that comes with only free software, would be quite the task. That is why we provide a list of Free GNU/Linux distributions. Each distro on the list is commited to only distributing free software. With many to choose from, you can find a distro that meets your needs while respecting your freedom. But with so much software making up an entire operating system, how is it possible to make sure that nothing nasty sneaks into the distro? That's where you, and GNU Bucks come in.