Submission Summary: 0 pending, 20 declined, 14 accepted (34 total, 41.18% accepted)
Submission + - The file /var/lib/dbus/machine-id matters for your privacy (and Devuan fixed it)
jaromil writes: A few days ago Devuan ASCII 2.1 was announced and one update has been overlooked by most media outlets: our dbus patch to re-generate machine-id at every boot. This patch matters for everyone's privacy and I hope more distributions will follow our example, let alone Debian. We are dealing with important privacy implications: non-consensual user tracking is illegal in many countries and is not even mentioned in the machine-id documentation so far.
Submission + - Devuan Jessie 1.0.0 stable release candidate announced (devuan.org)
jaromil writes: Devuan 1.0.0-RC is announced, following its beta 2 release last year. The Debian fork that spawned over systemd controversy is reaching stability and plans long term support. Devuan deploys an innovative continuous integration setup: with fallback on Debian packages, it overlays its own modifications and then uses the merged source repository to ship images for 11 ARM targets, a desktop and a minimal live, vagrant and qemu virtual machines and the classic installer isos. The release announcements contains several links to project that have already adopted this distribution as a base OS.
Submission + - Devuan releases beta of systemd-free "debianfork" base system (devuan.org) 1
jaromil writes: Devuan beta is released today, following up the debianfork declaration and progress made during the past 2 years. Devuan now provides an alternative upgrade path to Debian, switching is easy both from Wheezy and Jessie.
Submission + - Apple settles a $347M fine with Italian authorities for tax evasion
jaromil writes: Apple Italy, a subsidiary of Apple Sales International based in Ireland, has managed for years the company's sales on the Italian Peninsula. As Italian tax authorities noticed the company did not file any income tax declarations between 2008 and 2013, they opened a court case for an estimated debt of €880M. Apple Italy has now settled for a fine of €318M, while three managers involved in the tax fraud still need to face court.
Submission + - Tomb, a successor to TrueCrypt for Linux geeks (well, dm-crypt, basically...) (dyne.org)
jaromil writes: Last day we released Tomb version 2.1 with improvements to stability, documentation and translations. Tomb is just a ZSh script wrapping around cryptsetup, gpg and other tools to facilitate the creation and management of LUKS encrypted volumes with features like key separation, steganography, off-line search, QRcode paper backups etc. In designing Tomb we struggle for minimalism and readability, convinced that the increasing complexity of personal technology is the root of many vulnerabilities the world is witnessing today — and this approach turns out to be very successful, judging from the wide adoption, appreciation and contributions our project has received especially after the demise of TrueCrypt.
As maintainer of the software I wonder what Slashdot readers think about what we are doing, how we are doing it and more in general about the need for simplicity in secure systems, a debate I perceive as transversal to many other GNU/Linux/BSD projects and their evolution. Given the increasing responsibility in maintaining such a software, considering the human-interface side of things is an easy to reach surface of attack, I can certainly use some advice and criticism.
As maintainer of the software I wonder what Slashdot readers think about what we are doing, how we are doing it and more in general about the need for simplicity in secure systems, a debate I perceive as transversal to many other GNU/Linux/BSD projects and their evolution. Given the increasing responsibility in maintaining such a software, considering the human-interface side of things is an easy to reach surface of attack, I can certainly use some advice and criticism.
Submission + - Another community gets split by systemd: Devuan is "forking" Debian (devuan.org)
jaromil writes: The so called "Veteran Unix Admin" collective announces that the "fork" of Debian will proceed as a result of the recent systemd debacle. The reasons put forward are not just technical, included is a letter of endorsement by Debian Developer Roger Leigh mentioning that "people rely on Debian for their jobs and businesses, their research and their hobbies. It's not a playground for such radical experimentation."
The fork is called "Devuan", pronounced "DevOne". A website is up on https://devuan.org/ with more information.
The fork is called "Devuan", pronounced "DevOne". A website is up on https://devuan.org/ with more information.
Submission + - Running Tor on your TV (dyne.org)
Submission + - Microsoft investing in "open source" labs (gmanews.tv)
jaromil writes: "Following up its cozing up to OSCON, now Microsoft is launching its first "open source" lab in the Philippines, paying for a huge media coverage. From the press release it seems they are also advertising the issue of "interoperability" to outnumber one of the strongest features of open source in Asia: recycling old computers. Any suggestions for good stories about MS interoperability so far? :)"
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