Red Hat CEO Becomes IBM Chairman

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January 30, 2020

IBM chief executive Ginni Rometty is stepping down in April, the company announced Thursday. Arvind Krishna, noted as a key architect of the company’s Red Hat acquisition, will become CEO upon Rometty’s exit. Rometty will serve as executive chairman through 2020 and then retire. Red Hat’s CEO Jim Whitehurst was named IBM president. Krishna currently serves as the SVP for IBM’s cloud and cognitive software unit. In a prepared statement, Rometty — who has served as CEO of IBM since 2012 — praised Krishna’s track record with IBM and his ability to lead the company through its next era.

Source: ZDnet

Linux 5.6 Is The First Kernel For 32-Bit Systems Ready To Run Past Year 2038

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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January 30, 2020

On top of all the spectacular work coming with Linux 5.6, here is another big improvement that went under my radar until today: Linux 5.6 is slated to be the first mainline kernel ready for 32-bit systems to run past the Year 2038!

On 19 January 2038 is the “Year 2038” problem where the Unix timestamp can no longer fit within a signed 32-bit integer. For years the Linux kernel developers have been working to mitigate against this issue also commonly referred to as the “Y2038” problem, but with Linux 5.6 (and potentially back-ported to 5.4/5.5 stable branches) is the first where 32-bit kernels should be ready to go for operating past this threshold.

[Source: Phoronix]

Why the $150 PinePhone is not ready to replace my Android device

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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January 30, 2020

The PinePhone–mention that device to any Linux and open source enthusiast, and you’ll see their face light up with possibility. Mention that same device to anyone outside that realm, and you’d be lucky to get a shrug.

For those who don’t know, PINE64 has been working on an open source smartphone that can run nearly any flavor of Linux. But this isn’t just vaporware or a pipe dream–units have begun to ship. The units are called the BraveHeart edition, and they are something special. But special isn’t always a good thing.

[Source: TechRepublic]

Dremio CEO: Open Cloud Data Lake Levels on the Rise

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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January 30, 2020

Cloud data warehouses are an improvement from the legacy on-premises versions, but they’re still just data warehouses, according to Tomer Shiran, co-founder and CEO of data lake engine company Dremio. Shiran says the cloud crusades will escalate this year, particularly in the realm of modern open cloud data lakes, as big data adoption continues to explode.

The maturation of the technology stack, in addition to more machine learning frameworks entering the mainstream, has both accelerated cloud data lake adoption and sparked an evolution on two fronts: open cloud data lake storage and proprietary cloud data warehouses. “We believe the former will eclipse the latter,” Shiran said.

[Source: SDxCentral]

Open source email client Thunderbird finds a new home

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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January 30, 2020

If you prefer to access your email through a desktop client, then Thunderbird is one of the better choices. However, the future of the open source tool has been a little rocky in recent years after the Mozilla Corporation decided to stop supporting it.

However, there’s a lot of love for Thunderbird out there, and it’s managed to survive, and even grow thanks to user donations. And now the email client has found a new home. Thunderbird’s Philipp Kewisch says: “As of today, the Thunderbird project will be operating from a new wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, MZLA Technologies Corporation.”

[Source: BetaNews]

Google Makes It Easier To Flash Android Open-Source Project On Phones

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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January 30, 2020

Flashing the Android Open-Source Project (AOSP) onto devices is now a lot easier thanks to the Android Flash Tool. Deploying the open-source build of Android onto smartphones/tablets has been a chore with various manual steps involved from the command line, but now the Android Flash Tool makes it easy to flash builds produced via the Android Continuous Integration Dashboard onto supported devices. Android Flash Tool makes it much easier for those wanting to run AOSP builds on hardware.

Interestingly, Android Flash Tool is browser-based. This flashing tool makes use of WebUSB in Google Chrome for being able to flash devices solely via the web browser. Currently supported are recent Google Pixel devices and HiKey reference boards.

[Source: Phoronix]

Kali Linux 2020.1 Now Available for Download

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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January 29, 2020

Kali Linux 2020.1 is now live with a long list of improvements, including the highly-anticipated non-root by default that’s supposed to add an extra layer of security by using a standard unprivileged user. Beginning with this release, if you run the live version of Kali, both the default user and password are “kali.” On the other hand, if you install the distro, you are prompted to create a non-root user with administrative privileges.

[Source: Softpedia]

CBS All Access serves ads, but not content, to Linux users

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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January 29, 2020

As of this month, the CBS All Access streaming-video platform—home of popular shows including The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and now Star Trek: Picard—stopped working on Linux PCs, regardless of the choice of browser. Ten years ago, this would have been just another day in the life of a Linux user, but it’s a little surprising in 2020. We were originally tipped off to the issue by a few irate readers but quickly found it echoed in multiple threads on Reddit, Stack Exchange, and anywhere else you’d expect to find Linux users congregating.

[Source: Ars Technica]

RCE in OpenSMTPD library impacts BSD and Linux distros

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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January 29, 2020

Security researchers have discovered a vulnerability inside a core email-related library used by many BSD and Linux distributions. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2020-7247, impacts OpenSMTPD, an open-source implementation of the server-side SMTP protocol.

The library is normally included with distros that are designed to operate on servers, allowing the server to handle SMTP-related email messages and traffic. The OpenSMTPD library was initially developed for the OpenBSD operating system, but the library was open-sourced, and its “portable version” has also been incorporated into other OSes, such as FreeBSD, NetBSD, and some Linux distros, such as Debian, Fedora, Alpine Linux, and more.

[Source: ZDNet]

Uncovering Vulnerabilities in Open Source Libraries

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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January 29, 2020

In recent articles, ForAllSecure has discussed how we were able to use our next-generation fuzzing solution, Mayhem, to discover previously unknown vulnerabilities in several open source projects, including Netflix DIAL reference, Das U-Boot, and more. In this post, we will follow up on a prior article on using Mayhem to analyze stb and MATIO by reviewing three additional vulnerabilities found in another open source library. Prior to detailing these new vulnerabilities, we will examine some of the factors which can help to identify code which is a good candidate for fuzzing.

[Source: Security Boulevard]