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upstart writes:

Impressive distro is somewhere between a tech demo and a power user's tool:

While many Ubuntu remixes just switch the desktop or replace a few default apps, Zinc changes some of the fundamentals. The result is impressive.

Teejeetech is a small computer consultancy in Kerala, India, run by programmer Tony George. Zinc isn't the company's first distro, nor is this the company's first mention on The Register. We previously mentioned their earlier Unity-based remix, U-Mix, as well as originally developing the Timeshift backup tool included in Linux Mint. We thought we'd come back for a proper look at Zinc, the company's second-generation distro.

Unlike U-Mix, Zinc is a free download. It's based on the current long-term support version of Xubuntu, 22.04.1, so it uses a customized Xfce desktop, plus quite a few additional apps and changed components. Perhaps its biggest change from mainstream Ubuntu is in packaging tools: it includes neither Canonical's own Snap format nor the GNOME/Red Hat alternative Flatpak.

[...] For installing software from the Ubuntu repositories, Zinc has an improved command-line package manager called Nala, which we mentioned recently. Nala is a Python-based replacement for the apt command, which integrates some of the features of Fedora's dnf tool, such as parallel downloads and more readable output.

hubie writes:

Mysterious ripples in the Milky Way were caused by a passing dwarf galaxy:

Using data from the Gaia space telescope, a team led by researchers at Lund University in Sweden has shown that large parts of the Milky Way's outer disk vibrate. The ripples are caused by a dwarf galaxy, now seen in the constellation Sagittarius, that shook our galaxy as it passed by hundreds of millions of years ago.

[...] "We can see that these stars wobble and move up and down at different speeds. When the dwarf galaxy Sagittarius passed the Milky Way, it created wave motions in our galaxy, a little bit like when a stone is dropped into a pond", Paul McMillan, the astronomy researcher at Lund Observatory who led the study, explains.

[...] The researchers were surprised by how much of the Milky Way they could study using the data from Gaia. To date the telescope, which has been in operation since 2013, has measured the movement across the sky of approximately two billion stars and the movement towards or away from us of 33 million.

"With this new discovery, we can study the Milky Way in the same way that geologists draw conclusions about the structure of the Earth from the seismic waves that travel through it. This type of "galactic seismology" will teach us a lot about our home galaxy and its evolution", Paul McMillan concludes.

Journal Reference:
Paul J McMillan, Jonathan Petersson, Thor Tepper-Garcia, et al., The disturbed outer Milky Way disc [open], MNRAS, Volume 516, Issue 4, November 2022, Pages 4988–5002. DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stac2571

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The supply chain it needs simply doesn't exist, but that could work to GM's advantage:

Cruise never planned to make its own silicon. But in the quest to commercialize robotaxis — and make money doing it — those never planned pursuits can suddenly seem a lot more appealing.

Cruise realized that the price of chips from suppliers was too high, the parts were too big and the reliability of the third-party technology just wasn't there, Carl Jenkins, Cruise's vice president of hardware, told TechCrunch during a tour of the company's hardware lab last month.

Amid a hiring spree that began in 2019 and continued into 2020, Cruise doubled down on its own hardware, including its own board and sensors. The investment has helped the company develop smaller, lower cost hardware for its vehicles. It has also resulted in its first production board the C5, which is powering the current generation of autonomous Chevy Bolts.

When the company's purpose-built Origin robotaxi starts hitting the streets in 2023, it will be outfitted with the C6 board. That board will eventually be replaced with the C7 which will have Cruise's Dune chip. Dune will process all of the sensor data for the system, according to Cruise.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Linus Torvalds has announced the version 6.1 release candidate for the Linux kernel, and added a stern message to developers: stop submitting code at the last minute. 

This release isn't that big, Torvalds noted, as it only features 11,500 non-merge commits during the merge window, versus 13,500 last time. But he's been  dealing with hardware problems  while getting the infrastructure set up for developers to use the Rust programming language for updating the kernel. On top of these hardware glitches, he said he was "somewhat frustrated with various late pull requests." 

"I've mentioned this before, but it's _really_ quite annoying to get quite a few pull requests in the last few days of the merge window," wrote Torvalds in his usual Sunday evening update. Work started on Linux 6.1 at the beginning of October. 

"Yes, the merge window is two weeks, but that's very much to allow me time to look things over, not "two weeks to hurriedly put together a branch that you send Linus on Friday of the second week". The whole "do an all-nighter to get the paper in the day before the deadline" is something that should have gone out the window after highschool. Not for kernel development."

[...] "With some slack for 'life happens', of course, but I really get the feeling that a few people treat the end of the merge window as a deadline, missing the whole 'it was supposed to be ready before the merge window'."

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://www.leadedsolder.com/2022/10/15/pwp50sx-nec-mini5-psu-repair-pickup.html

In order to get a copy of Tetris for the NEC mini5 series of word processors, I had to buy it along with a whole word processor set from the previous owner. This LCD-based mini5SX is sleek, attractive, surprisingly heavy, and broken. Very, very broken. Let's see if we can fix up this grey beast, and dump its ROMs.

[...] Unlike some other computers in the hoard, the mini5SX was bought on Mercari, where it was being sold by the owner and not some nth-generation reseller or junkyard. This person was nice enough to explain the fault in the ad. Their word processor used to work, and they'd test it once in awhile, but the last time they took their beloved companion out (to play Tetris of course,) it wouldn't start up. There would be a dim flicker of the power light, it would extinguish, and then no response. Thus, the sale.

[...] Not knowing much about the mini5's internal structure, I decided to start by opening it up and finding the power supply. I hoped that I would find something incredibly obvious to replace, like a vented capacitor.

[...] Although I bought this machine only to get Tetris, I couldn't bear to see it in such poor condition. Now I have two Bungos, which I think we can all agree is what makes a house a home.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

James A. McDivitt, who commanded the Apollo 9 mission testing the first complete set of equipment to go to the moon, has died. He was 93.

McDivitt was also the commander of 1965's Gemini 4 mission, where his best friend and colleague Ed White made the first U.S. spacewalk. His photographs of White during the spacewalk became iconic images.

He passed on a chance to land on the moon and instead became the space agency's program manager for five Apollo missions after the Apollo 11 moon landing.

McDivitt died Thursday in Tucson, Arizona, NASA said Monday.

In his first flight in 1965, McDivitt reported seeing "something out there'' about the shape of a beer can flying outside his Gemini spaceship. People called it a UFO and McDivitt would later joke that he became "a world-renowned UFO expert." Years later he figured it was just a reflection of bolts in the window.

upstart writes:

Glut of Fake LinkedIn Profiles Pits HR Against the Bots:

A recent proliferation of phony executive profiles on LinkedIn is creating something of an identity crisis for the business networking site, and for companies that rely on it to hire and screen prospective employees. The fabricated LinkedIn identities — which pair AI-generated profile photos with text lifted from legitimate accounts — are creating major headaches for corporate HR departments and for those managing invite-only LinkedIn groups.

Last week, KrebsOnSecurity examined a flood of inauthentic LinkedIn profiles all claiming Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) roles at various Fortune 500 companies, including Biogen, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Hewlett Packard.

Since then, the response from LinkedIn users and readers has made clear that these phony profiles are showing up en masse for virtually all executive roles — but particularly for jobs and industries that are adjacent to recent global events and news trends.

[...] Lathrop said that about two months ago his employer noticed waves of new followers, and identified more than 3,000 followers that all shared various elements, such as profile photos or text descriptions.

"Then I noticed that they all claim to work for us at some random title within the organization," Lathrop said in an interview with KrebsOnSecurity. "When we complained to LinkedIn, they'd tell us these profiles didn't violate their community guidelines. But like heck they don't! These people don't exist, and they're claiming they work for us!"

upstart writes:

CPU requirements are holding many systems back:

Windows 11 has been known for its onerous system requirements since before it launched. A new report claims those requirements are keeping a significant number of systems from upgrading and that Windows 11 adoption is lagging. Other reports are far less dire but still not optimistic.

[...] In the initial run-up to Windows 11's launch, much controversy centered on its requirement for TPM 2.0 and a relatively recent CPU. Microsoft wants users to have at least an Intel 8th gen or AMD Zen 2 processor, but the company is considering allowing some Intel 7th-gen chips and Zen 1s. According to Lansweeper, those requirements are the main roadblock for ineligible systems.

The RAM requirement[*] isn't a problem – 92 percent of surveyed workstations meet it. Conversely, only 57 percent of systems meet the CPU requirement, and 64 percent have the necessary TPM. Many of those workstations may be compatible with TPM 2.0 but might not have enabled it since some systems must engage the feature manually. While not great, these numbers represent a 12 percent improvement over 2021.

Microsoft's system requirements for Windows 11 aren't ironclad, however. Users may install the new OS onto ineligible systems, but they might not receive automatic updates.

[* Edit: 4GB of RAM apparently -- Ed.]

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The same app can pose a bigger security and privacy threat depending on the country where you download it, study finds:

Google and Apple have removed hundreds of apps from their app stores at the request of governments around the world, creating regional disparities in access to mobile apps at a time when many economies are becoming increasingly dependent on them.

[...] However, access to apps is just one concern. Developers also regionalize apps, meaning they produce different versions for different countries. This raises the question of whether these apps differ in their security and privacy capabilities based on region.

In a perfect world, access to apps and app security and privacy capabilities would be consistent everywhere. Popular mobile apps should be available without increasing the risk that users are spied on or tracked based on what country they're in, especially given that not every country has strong data protection regulations.

[...] While our study corroborates reports of takedowns due to government requests, we also found many differences introduced by app developers. We found instances of apps with settings and disclosures that expose users to higher or lower security and privacy risks depending on the country in which they're downloaded.

[...] Our study showed high amounts of geoblocking, with 3,672 of 5,684 globally popular apps blocked in at least one of our 26 countries. Blocking by developers was significantly higher than takedowns requested by governments in all our countries and app categories. We found that Iran and Tunisia have the highest blocking rates, with apps like Microsoft Office, Adobe Reader, Flipboard and Google Books all unavailable for download.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Scientists have been left perplexed after billions of crabs and crustaceans reportedly disappeared mysteriously in the Bering Sea off the US state of Alaska in the last several years.

Ben Daly, a researcher with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G), told US media outlet CNN the snow crab population shrank from about 8 billion in 2018 to 1 billion in 2021.

“Snow crab is by far the most abundant of all the Bering Sea crab species that is caught commercially,” Daly said. “So the shock and awe of many billions missing from the population is worth noting – and that includes all the females and babies.”

[...] “Environmental conditions are changing rapidly,” Daly told CBS News. “We’ve seen warm conditions in the Bering Sea the last couple of years, and we’re seeing a response in a cold-adapted species, so it’s pretty obvious this is connected. It is a canary in a coal mine for other species that need cold water.”

The sharp drop in their numbers forced the ADF&G last week announced the cancellation of the Alaska snow crab harvest for the first time ever in Alaska, the United States’ largest state.

It said that while there would be “substantial impacts” on harvesters, the department has to balance the impacts with the “need for long-term conservation and sustainability of crab stocks”.

[...] Jamie Goen, executive director of the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers said some crabbers will be going out of business as a result of the cancellation.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Sting against Deadbolt ransomware groups provides victims with a way to get encrypted files back without paying up:

Working alongside cybersecurity company Responders.NU, the Dutch National Police obtained 150 decryption keys from ransomware group Deadbolt. 

With the decryption keys now in the hands of law enforcement, some victims of Deadbolt ransomware attacks can retrieve encrypted files and servers without the need to pay cyber-criminal extortionists. 

[...] Police tricked Deadbolt by making Bitcoin payments for decryption keys, receiving the keys, then withdrawing the ransom payments – leaving the cyber criminals without their payments after they had provided the police and cybersecurity researchers with the decryption keys to aid victims of attacks. 

Describing it as a "nasty blow" for cyber criminals, Dutch Police said the operation demonstrates to cyber criminals that they're "in the crosshairs of international law enforcement authorities" and "attempts to move their criminal earnings are not without risks". 

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

The Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) has announced, with plenty of hints long in advance, that the ISC DHCP Server has reached EOL. The ISC's DHCP software has been available since the late 1990s and is widely used to automate the assignment of IPv4 addresses to a dynamic pool of clients. The article covers the ISC DHCP suite's history and evolution, along with brief biographies of its four main authors over its lifecycle. The main reasons for reaching EOL are that the codebase is very mature at this point and, significantly, the code base has not been designed for testability.

The 4.4.3-P1 and 4.1-ESV-R16-P2 versions of ISC DHCP, released on October 5, 2022, are the last maintenance versions of this software that ISC plans to publish. If we become aware of a significant security vulnerability, we might make an exception to this, but it is our intention to cease actively maintaining this codebase.

[...] The first release of the ISC DHCP distribution in December 1997 included just the DHCP server. Release 2 in June 1999 added a DHCP client and a BOOTP/DHCP relay agent. DHCP 3 was released in October 2001 and included DHCP failover support, OMAPI, Dynamic DNS, conditional behavior, client classing, and more. The 4.0 release in December 2007 introduced DHCPv6 protocol support for the server and client. The client and relay components reached their End-of-Life in January 2022.

The development of ISC DHCP paralleled the development of the protocol in the DHC working group (WG). The DHC working group was founded in 1989 by Ralph Droms, who also wrote IETF RFC 1531, the first version of the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol; it was standardized in October 1993. DHC is now the oldest WG that still functions.

How is networking managed in the computing environments where you operate? Often they are unavoidable. Which, if any, DHCP server have you switched to in those cases?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Apple's reliance on China put to test as political pressure freezes new chips plan:

Apple has been trying to rely less on China due to US government pressure. While BGR has been reporting that the Cupertino company is trying to diversify its supply chain from China to India, Taiwan, and other Asian countries, it seems Apple has another reason to keep doing that. A report indicates that the company's plans to use China's YMTC chips have been put on hold due to US political pressure.

According to Nikkei Asia, Apple will no longer use memory chips from China's Yangtze Memory Technologies Co (YMTC) in its products.

The publication explains that "the move comes amid the latest round of US export controls imposed against the Chinese tech sector and is a sign that Washington's crackdown is creating a chilling effect down the supply chain."

In March, it was reported by Bloomberg that Apple was considering for the first time adding a Chinese flash storage maker to its supplier roster:

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Almost nine in 10 software and DevOps professionals have either quit or considered quitting their job during the past 12 months, a new industry report suggests.

The results from Uniting Cloud's Software Engineer and DevOps Industry Report 2022 found that 50% of developers and DevOps professionals have moved roles in the last year. Of the 50% who have not moved roles, 71% had considered doing do.

Of the 400 UK software developers and DevOps professionals surveyed by Uniting Cloud, just 13% had not considered quitting their job for a new role – meaning 87% of tech professionals have either changed jobs in the past year of thought about doing so.

The survey once again highlights the challenges employers face retaining technology staff as hiring competition escalates.

Reasons for quitting given by respondents included taking advantage of high salaries and benefits packages being offered by employers in return for in-demand tech skills, as well as a reluctance to return to the office.

Survey respondents said they would expect to see a 21.5% increase in salary as a result of moving to a new role. According to Uniting Cloud's data, software engineers with 3-5 years of experience can expect a salary averaging up to £64,000, while professionals with both experience in both software development and DevOps can land a salary of up to £84,000.

"Seasoned" professionals with 6-10 years of experience and skills in both software engineering and DevOps see an average base salary of £97,000 – while professionals with the same years of experience in software development alone can expect £82,000.

Does this reflect your experiences in Europe, USA, or elsewhere?

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Researchers make cyborg cockroaches that carry their own power packs

Solar cell and a battery can keep the cyborg's electronics running for weeks.

Have you ever thought you'd be seeing a cyborg cockroach that runs on solar power and carries a backpack that looks like an electric circuit? A team of researchers at Japan's RIKEN research institute has turned a regular Madagascar hissing cockroach into a real cyborg insect by connecting a lithium battery, a solar cell, multiple wires, and a tiny electronic circuit. The cyborg can be controlled using Bluetooth signals, and the researchers suggest that, in the future, such robo-bugs could be employed for search-and-rescue missions.

The researchers refer to their cyborg as an insect-computer hybrid system, and it incorporates a living insect as a platform and a mini-electronic system as its controller. Basically, it's a biobot that can be controlled like a robot, but it has the power to explore and navigate a complex environment with the proficiency of an insect.

[...] Whenever the researchers want the cockroach to move, they send a Bluetooth signal to the circuit board, which transmits electric current to the legs via the wires.

[...] other scientists proposed additional types of biorobots ranging from moth robots to cyborg beetles. However, most of these cyborg insects lack energy-harvesting devices on their body because the area and load of the harvesting device considerably impair their mobility. So adding a suitable energy-harvesting device (the solar cell) for recharging the electronic controlling unit on a cyborg insect has been one of the main achievements of their research.

Forget search and rescue. Imagine a data center or giant brain designed to be filled with these for servicing.

Original Submission