For those who haven’t seen, there is a local root exploit in what appears to be every Linux kernel from 2.6.1 through to 2.6.24, the bug is fixed in 2.6.24.1 which is out now.
Category Archives: News
Earthquake near Lake Kivu (Updated)
The USGS has reported a magnitude 6.0 quake in the area of Lake Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Lake Kivu is one of three known “exploding lakes“, and Wikipedia says:
The trigger for lake overturns in Lake Kivu’s case is unknown but periodic volcanic activity is suspected. The gaseous chemical composition of exploding lakes is unique to each lake; in Lake Kivu’s case, methane and carbon dioxide due to lake water interaction with a volcano. The risk from a possible Lake Kivu overturn would be catastrophic, dwarfing other documented lake overturns at Lakes Nyos and Monoun, since approximately 2 million people live in the lake basin.
The USGS maps show the epicenter on dry land, but with a possible error margin of over 4 miles it could just be under the southern part of the lake. Even in the current location the USGS shake map shows a large area of the lake that could be affected.
The BBC has the first reports of casualties, though thankfully no reports of a lake overturn.
Nokia to buy TrollTech ?
Nokia and TrollTech (the people who write QT, the widget library that KDE uses, and who are a supporting sponsor of LCA 2008) are working out a purchase agreement (PDF joint letter).
Given that Nokia don’t seem to have a clue about open standards (Theora “proprietary” indeed) this doesn’t sound like a particularly promising deal to me. 🙁
Google to host Open Source scientific data sets
Now this sounds really interesting..
Sources at Google have disclosed that the humble domain, http://research.google.com, will soon provide a home for terabytes of open-source scientific datasets. The storage will be free to scientists and access to the data will be free for all.
They may also provide data viz tools..
Building on the company’s acquisition of the data visualization technology, Trendalyzer, from the oft-lauded, TED presenting Gapminder team, Google will also be offering algorithms for the examination and probing of the information.
There is more information (including about why Google intend to import data by shipping RAID arrays around the world) here and (more up to date) here.
We live in exciting times!
KDE 4.0.0 is released!
So the announcement is up on the KDE website, Kubuntu has announced its packages and for the past week or so I’ve been running KUbuntu Hardy Heron (currently in alpha, will be 8.04) with it installed and trialing it with a “kde4” test user!
Not bad actually, the final release seems like a massive improvement over earlier versions and I’m not running into the killer bugs that I found previously (to much relief!). The new desktop effects in KDE4 work well with this Intel G33 graphics card (once I’d dropped the Xorg acceleration method back to the old XAA from EXA) and I must admit to being sorely tempted to try it out as my main desktop. I think I might create yet another user for that an experiment first though with a copy of my .kde files.. 🙂
Electronic voting report in Ohio
Ohio has published a report on an investigation into electronic voting machines, Wired reports on it, summarising one particular finding thus:
They found that a voter or poll worker with a Palm Pilot and no more than a minute’s access to a voting machine could surreptitiously re-calibrate the touch-screen so that it would prevent voters from voting for specific candidates or cause the machine to secretly record a voter’s vote for a different candidate than the one the voter chose. Access to the screen calibration function requires no password, and the attacker’s actions, the researchers say, would be indistinguishable from the normal behavior of a voter in front of a machine or of a pollworker starting up a machine in the morning.
…and if you think that’s bad enough, then here’s an interesting comment from a collection of complaints about voting in Florida in 2006 that were assembled after an FOI request:
Vote for one candidate registered as vote for different candidate
Upon opening ballot for first time voter saw “x” by Katherine Harris’s name though voter had not touched screen yet.
So the machines are quite capable of getting things wrong without a malicious attack (well, assuming that wasn’t the cause in the above events).
So, who would you like to win today ?
(Via Bruce Schneier)
Labor wins government in Australia
Finally, a change of government here!
Now it’s just a question of whether John Howard will loose his seat as well.. 🙂
South Africa adopts ODF as government standard
The government of the Republic of South Africa has published (( on the RSA Open Source Software in Government website )) the latest version (4.1) of its Minimum Interoperability Standards (MIOS) for Information Systems in Government, which now includes ODF as their document format:
The main thrust of the framework (in line with international best practice), is the adoption of a structured approach with regard to information systems. To achieve this approach, and to ensure the enhancement of interoperability across Government, a minimum set of standards are included in this document as a required Government-wide standard. To this end, this updated version of MIOS contains an explicit definition of Open Standards as well as the inclusion of the ISO (International Standards Organisation) Open Document Format.
It also says that they will consider open source software favourably for their IT systems:
In developing open information systems, open source based solutions are to be considered before proprietary ones
This is expanded upon in their new Policy on Free and Open Source Software use for South African Government, which codifies it as:
1) The South African Government will implement FOSS unless proprietary software is demonstrated to be significantly superior. Whenever the advantages of FOSS and proprietary software are comparable FOSS will be implemented when choosing a software solution for a new project. Whenever FOSS is not implemented, then reasons must be provided in order to justify the implementation of proprietary software.
2) The South African Government will migrate current proprietary software to FOSS whenever comparable software exists.
3) All new software developed for or by the South African Government will be based on open standards, adherent to FOSS principles, and licensed using a FOSS license where possible.
4) The South African Government will ensure all Government content and content developed using Government resources is made Open Content, unless analysis on specific content shows that proprietary licensing or confidentiality is substantially beneficial.
5) The South African Government will encourage the use of Open Content and Open Standards within South Africa.
They are also being reassuringly pragmatic about it, rather than dogmatic, as the justification says:
This is not to say that FOSS/OC solutions are currently available or appropriate in every situation or for every user, a reality accommodated in the revised policy.
So, all in all, quite a positive outcome!
Magnitude 6.8 quake on NZ coast
The USGS is reporting a magnitude 6.8 earthquake off of the coast of the South Island of New Zealand, near the inlet to Milford Sound and 64 miles from Queenstown (which is a way inland).
You can get an idea of where it was from this Google Map link and it looks like the coastal area is all national park, with no settlements marked.
Chilli anaesthetic
Some hot news in from New Scientist..
Clifford Woolf and his colleagues at Harvard Medical School have now discovered a way of blocking just the pain neurons using capsaicin – the active ingredient in chilli peppers – along with a version of lignocaine that can’t diffuse through cell membranes unassisted. [….] Woolf’s team is testing other chemicals that can activate the TRPV1 receptor, since people may not like the initial pain of a dose of chilli pepper. Tests on volunteers are expected within two years.
I can think of a couple of people who might want to volunteer for testing.. 🙂