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The story of computing
by Thomas Milne 01 Feb '15

01 Feb '15

Interesting podcast: http://gu.com/p/45ba6

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The Smallest Game of Chess Takes Up Just 487 Bytes
by Thomas Milne 28 Jan '15

28 Jan '15

The Smallest Game of Chess Takes Up Just 487 Bytes http://tpt.to/a53GWHp

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Purism Aims To Build A Philosophically Pure Laptop
by Thomas Milne 26 Jan '15

26 Jan '15

http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/23/purism-aims-to-build-a-philosophically-pur…

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[OT] Security of ssl popmail over wifi?
by Walter Dnes 26 Jan '15

26 Jan '15

How secure is popmail over wifi, using ssl? The specific package I use on my desktop is "getmail", with config option "type = SimplePOP3SSLRetriever". I've cloned the important parts of my home directory onto a USB stick (encrypyed with cryptsetup). I'd like to use it with my laptop when travelling. -- Walter Dnes <waltdnes(a)waltdnes.org>

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NetDev 0.1 in Ottawa, Linux networking development conference Feb 14-17
by Richard Guy Briggs 24 Jan '15

24 Jan '15

Dear local Linux user groups, There is a world-class community-driven Linux networking development conference happenning within driving distance from your LUG in about 4 weeks. Sorry for the late notice... There is a hotel discount deadline today and paper submissions deadline tomorrow, so read through this now if you are interested. Netdev 0.1 (year 0, conference 1) is a community-driven conference geared towards Linux netheads. Linux kernel networking and user space utilization of the interfaces to the Linux kernel networking subsystem are the focus. If you are using Linux as a boot system for proprietary networking, then this conference may not be for you. Why you should register ========================== If you yearn for the old community tech driven conferences where you mingle with fellow geeks (only these would be Linux networking geeks) then this would be it. There will be no marketting flashy openings. There will just be a pure feed of Linux networking. netdev 0.1 will be held back to back with netconf 2015, the by-invite Linux kernel networking workshop (http://vger.kernel.org/netconf2015.html) So gurus of all sorts will be there mingling and giving talks. While there will be heavy Linux kernel influence we expect a lot of user space presence as well. Please spread the news. Forward this email appropriately. Location: ========================== Downtown Ottawa, Canada Confirmed keynote speaker: ========================== David S. Miller - The Current State of Linux kernel Networking. Accepted talks, workshops, tutorials and BOFs: ========================== 17 talks, 1 workshop, 4 BOFs, 3 tutorials so far... The content of the Tutorials/BOFs/talk continues to be updated at: https://www.netdev01.org/sessions All of the accepted proposals are new work. A couple of proposals have been returned for rework prior to acceptance. There are still more excellent proposals currently making their way through the technical committee vetting process. The committee has so far been very impressed with the quality of proposals submitted. Scope: ========================== The netdev conference this year is structured to be 50/50 by-invitation talks and talk submission. We are making sure that we reach out to speakers who have interesting relevant topics because we recognize most of these folks would typically not be submitting papers to a conference. The invitation will be made by the technical committee to the individual speakers both for paper and tutorial sessions. Anyone is welcome to attend. The call for papers is for the 50% submission portion of the conference for both paper submission as well as tutorials. We *highly discourage* submission of recycled talks. Current topics include - wireless - performance analysis and improvement - networking hardware and offload - netfilter - traffic control - different networking layers (L2/3, etc) - internet of things - security - additional topics can be suggested We encourage submission of papers and tutorials. Unlike other conferences, we are going to try and accommodate as many submissions as possible - but please stay within the relevant topic focus and tie to Linux networking to make it easier for the technical committee to provide quick feedback. In order to give a talk you must be registered. If your proposal is accepted you will not be charged a conference fee or your conference fee will be refunded to you when your talk gets accepted. We expect minimum of 2 parallel tracks but likely more depending on the (quantity of submissions) in all phases i.e during tutorials, workshops and main talks. How to submit a proposal (deadline tomorrow, Jan 24) ========================== Send email to netdev01(a)lists.netfilter.org with a paragraph or two of your proposal. For paper proposals, if your submission is accepted we will provide you a template to use. A minimum of two pages is needed so as to to allow people to skip the burden of writing a large paper. The maximum page limit is 10 pages. Hotel discount rates deadline today ========================== Today is the last day that the Westin Hotel will be holding a block of rooms for Netdev01 at a guaranteed rate of $159.00 or $179.00 (depending on the type of room required) and there are still rooms available. Please dont procastinate and book now. We are trying to negotiate with the hotel to see if they can extend the deadline but so far we have not been successful. We are competing against a few tourist activities for hotel rooms going on around the area at the same time (example: http://www.ottawafestivals.ca/events/winterlude-2/) so we can assure you the prices will go up. Avoid disappointment and do your reservations at: https://www.starwoodmeeting.com/StarGroupsWeb/res?id=1412035802&key=1AC9C1F8 Registration: ========================== https://onlineregistrations.ca/netdev01/ $100/day, or $350 for 4 days (Cdn dollars). (online reg closes Feb 12th) Please register as early as practical. Registering helps us plan properly for numbers of attendees, ensuring venue sizes and supplies are appropriate without wasting resources. Important Dates: ========================== December 2, 2014 Call for Papers opens December 10, 2014 Registration opens January 23, 2015 Hotel discount rates deadline January 24, 2015 Call for sessions deadline February 12, 2015 On-line registration closes February 14-17, 2015 Conference days Sponsors: ========================== We'd like to thank our sponsors: https://netdev01.org/sponsors Verizon http://www.verizon.com/ Cumulus Networks http://cumulusnetworks.com/ Mojatatu Networks http://mojatatu.com/ Qualcomm http://www.qualcomm.com/ Google http://www.google.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE Technical Conference on Linux Networking, February 14-17, 2015, Ottawa, Canada https://netdev01.org/ Contact: info(a)netdev01.info Main site: https://www.netdev01.org/ Announcement: https://www.netdev01.org/announce CFP: https://www.netdev01.org/cfp Travel/hotel/weather/clothing: https://www.netdev01.org/travel RSS feed: https://netdev01.org/atom Follow us on Twitter: @netdev01 https://twitter.com/netdev01

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ARM will wrestle Intel to power the Internet of Things (interview)
by Thomas Milne 23 Jan '15

23 Jan '15

*ARM will wrestle Intel to power the Internet of Things (interview)* http://news360.com/article/275687717 Shared via News360 <http://www.news360.com/app>

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LibreOffice Viewer Beta - Android Apps on Google Play
by James Knott 23 Jan '15

23 Jan '15

There's now a LibreOffice viewer available for Android. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.collabora.libreoffice

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Crypto Question: Where do you get your entropy
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 20 Jan '15

20 Jan '15

[Scott asked that we post our questions from tonight's meeting] Where do you get your entropy? Entropy (real bytes of random numbers, not pseudo-random numbers) is key for cryptography. - when generating keys for public-key cryptosystems (RSA, ECC, ...) - when generating session keys via a Diffie-Hellman exchange - challenging the other side in various ways (eg. proving liveness or proving possession of a private key) - probably other cases that I'm not remembering at the moment In many cases a Cryptographic Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG) is good enough, but not these. Sometimes a Cryptographic PRNG can be used to "stretch" entropy: kind of like stretching soup by adding water or milk. Adversaries can easily break your cryptosystem if you don't have sufficient entropy. It's that bad. What sources do you use? /dev/random and /dev/urandom are the Linux channel for entropy. There are various sources that can be pooled by the kernel: - timing of unpredictable event (e.g. user keystokes, disk seek timing, ethernet packet timing, ...). The only one I kind of trust is the keystrokes thing, and that doesn't work for servers. Others might be controlled by or predictable to foes. Keystrokes are not as good as one would like. For example, USB keyboards have keystroke timing quantized by the USB scanning rate. - Recent Intel CPUs have true RNGs. (Assuming that they were not subverted by the US Government or something else. Or just plain buggy, something that might not be detectable) - external entropy source. - Scott mentioned several. One DIY example: harvest the americium pellet from a smoke detector and place it directly on a camera sensor. This makes a kind of Geiger Counter and Geiger Generator (I made that second term up). Physicists think that radioactive emissions are unpredictable (except for chain reactions) and thus should be good entropy generators. - Chris mentioned a Kickstarter(?) project that has produced what they claim is an entropy generator on a USB stick.

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scary article about DRAM
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 20 Jan '15

20 Jan '15

It seems that certain access patterns can induce memory errors. <http://www.zdnet.com/article/flipping-dram-bits-maliciously/> This also links to a five year old article which shows DRAM errors are not as rare as I thought/hoped. <http://www.zdnet.com/article/flipping-dram-bits-maliciously/>

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Just how cheap is an OEM license for Windows 8.1 with Bing?
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 20 Jan '15

20 Jan '15

This disclosure is interesting: <http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-much-does-microsoft-make-from-pc-makers-wi…> I commented on this article: What is a "configuration discount"? Is it just some fig leaf to claim that this isn't free? If I were DoJ's anti-trust folks, I'd be very interested. Microsoft is giving OEMs Win8.1bing while trying to charge those that use Android.

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