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Data Storage

ZFS Hits an Important Milestone, Version 0.6.1 Released 99

sfcrazy writes "ZFS on Linux has reached what Brian Behlendorf calls an important milestone with the official 0.6.1 release. Version 0.6.1 not only brings the usual bug fixes but also introduces a new property called 'snapdev.' Brian explains, 'The snapdev property was introduced to control the visibility of zvol snapshot devices and may be set to either visible or hidden. When set to hidden, which is the default, zvol snapshot devices will not be created under /dev/. To gain access to these devices the property must be set to visible. This behavior is analogous to the existing snapdir property.'"
Linux

Adobe Released 64-bit Flash For Linux 274

kai_hiwatari writes "Adobe has been taking quite a bashing from Linux supporters of late. First, there was the issue of them dropping AIR for Linux and then came the bashing because of the lack of updates on the experimental 64-bit Flash for Linux. Well, guess what! They have just released Flash 11 and it includes native 64-bit support for Linux as well. When they discontinued their experimental 64-bit Flash earlier this year, Adobe promised to release a 64-bit version of Flash for Linux when they release the next major version. They have kept that promise."

Comment Re:Once again, benchmarks fail (Score 2, Informative) 268

Sorry, sir

From Phoronix:

"The tests that were carried out under FreeBSD 7.2, FreeBSD 8.0 RC1, and Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 6 included timed ImageMagick compilation"

From freebsd-current mailing list:

> Hi,
>
> I would like to ask that the FreeBSD 8.0-RC1 ISO-s free from the
> debugging features (WITNESS, malloc debugging, etc.)? Or these
> services are still being active?

They are gone, for the most part. r197065: http://svn.freebsd.org/viewvc/base?view=revision&revision=197065

Remove extra debugging support that is turned on for head but turned off for stable branches:

- shift to MALLOC_PRODUCTION
- turn off automatic crash dumps
- Remove kernel debuggers, INVARIANTS*[1], WITNESS* from
GENERIC kernel config files[2]


[1] INVARIANTS* left on for ia64 by request marcel
[2] sun4v was left as-is
BSD

FreeBSD 8.0 vs. Ubuntu 9.10 Benchmarks 268

An anonymous reader writes "Phoronix has brought benchmarks comparing the FreeBSD 8.0-RC and Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 6 operating systems. FreeBSD rather ends up taking a wallop to Ubuntu Linux, but there are a few areas where FreeBSD 8 ran well. They also posted benchmarks comparing this near-final FreeBSD 8.0 build to that of FreeBSD 7.2 to show performance improvements there but with a few regressions."
Security

New Linux Kernel Flaw Allows Null Pointer Exploits 391

Trailrunner7 writes "A new flaw in the latest release of the Linux kernel gives attackers the ability to exploit NULL pointer dereferences and bypass the protections of SELinux, AppArmor and the Linux Security Module. Brad Spengler discovered the vulnerability and found a reliable way to exploit it, giving him complete control of the remote machine. This is somewhat similar to the magic that Mark Dowd performed last year to exploit Adobe Flash. Threatpost.com reports: 'The vulnerability is in the 2.6.30 release of the Linux kernel, and in a message to the Daily Dave mailing list Spengler said that he was able to exploit the flaw, which at first glance seemed unexploitable. He said that he was able to defeat the protection against exploiting NULL pointer dereferences on systems running SELinux and those running typical Linux implementations.'"

Comment Re:I wouldnt make plans to deploy it either (Score 2, Informative) 429

"Right, it just means 6/10 don't plan to deploy it by the end of next year."
False. Read the fine PDF:

Which below represents the most accurate statement about your plans to deploy Windows 7?

We have no current plans to deploy Windows 7 59.3%
We will likely deploy Windows 7 by the end of 2010 34.0%
We plan on deploying Windows 7 by the end of 2009 5.4%
We have already deployed Windows 7 1.4%

According this 59,3% will skip Windows 7 completely. 34,0% will likely deploy Windows 7 by the end of 2010. Likely.

Games

Ubisoft CEO Says Next Gen Consoles Closer Than We Think 326

An anonymous reader writes "Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot tells CNBC that he believes the next generation of video game systems isn't as far away as the public has been led to believe. Guillemot noted that public demand for the best machine possible, as well as coming competition from companies such as OnLive could spur Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo to roll out new systems sooner than they want. That's not good news for publishers, though, as he says games in the next generation will likely cost $60 million to create."

Comment It can also be installed without physical access (Score 2, Informative) 325

From an interview with authors:

http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/442/2

"How can an attacker deploy it?

Nitin & Vipin: An attacker doesn't need to install, that's the way it has been designed. Just boot the system by placing the vbootkit media (containing vbootkit in bootsectors) in the drive, and start booting. After Vista boots, you can verify that you are running vbootkit, by checking the privilege of any running cmd.exe, the sample converts all low-privileged cmd.exe process to SYSTEM privileges. It also supports system compromise via PXE booting.

It doesn't need any privileges only physical access to the machine. It can also be installed to a remote system under some conditions (without physical access)."
Security

A Cheap, Distributed Zero-Day Defense? 116

coondoggie writes "Shutting down zero-day computer attacks could be carried out inexpensively by peer-to-peer software that shares information about anomalous behavior, say researchers at the University of California at Davis.The software would interact with existing personal firewalls and intrusion detection systems to gather data about anomalous behavior, says Senthil Cheetancheri, the lead researcher on the project he undertook as a grad student at UC Davis from 2004 to 2007. He now works for SonicWall."
Internet Explorer

Triple-Engine Browser Released As Alpha 181

jcasman passes along a heads-up on Lunascape, a Japanese browser company that is releasing its first English version of its Lunascape 5 triple-engine browser. It's for XP and Vista only. There are reviews up at CNET, OStatic (quoted below), and Lifehacker. Both the reviews and comments point out that, in its current alpha state, the browser is buggy and not very fast; but it might be one to watch. "How many web browsers do you run? If you're like me, you regularly use Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari. Each of those browsers, of course, has its own underlying rendering engine: Gecko (in Firefox), Trident (in Internet Explorer), and Webkit (in Chrome and Safari). Today, a Japanese startup called Lunascape has released an alpha version of its Lunascape browser ... that allows you to switch between all three of these prominent rendering engines. The company says that the Japanese version of Lunascape has been downloaded 10 million times and touts it as the fastest browser available."
Image

Woman Admits Sending $400K To Nigerian Scammer 857

svnt writes "Janella Spears wiped out her husband's retirement account, remortgaged their paid-for house, and took out a lien against the family car in an attempt to cash in on the deal. A undercover officer involved with the investigation called it the worst example of the scam he's ever seen. Thoughtfully, Spears has gone public with her story as a warning to others not to fall victim."
Security

Researchers Crack WPA Wi-Fi Encryption 311

narramissic writes "Researchers Erik Tews and Martin Beck 'have just opened the box on a whole new hacker playground, says Dragos Ruiu, organizer of the PacSec conference. At the conference, Tews will show how he was able to partially crack WPA encryption in order to read data being sent from a router to a laptop. To do this, Tews and Beck found a way to break the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) key, used by WPA, in a relatively short amount of time: 12 to 15 minutes. They have not, however, managed to crack the encryption keys used to secure data that goes from the PC to the router in this particular attack. 'Its just the starting point,' said Ruiu."
Security

Firefox Susceptible To QuickTime Security Flaw 231

Hugh Pickens writes "Apple's QuickTime media player software contains a previously undocumented security weakness in the way QuickTime handles the RTSP media-streaming protocol. The vulnerability is present in QuickTime versions 4.0 through 7.3 (the latest version) on both Windows and Mac systems. Symantec has tested the publicly available exploit code and found that it failed to work properly against Internet Explorer 6/7 or Safari 3 Beta but the exploit works against Firefox if users have chosen QuickTime as the default player for multimedia formats. Firefox users are more susceptible to this attack because Firefox farms off the request directly to the QuickTime Player as a separate process outside of its control, while IE loads the QuickTime Player as an internal plugin and when the overflow occurs, standard buffer-overflow protection is triggered, shutting down the affected processes before any damage can occur."

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