Showing all newswire headlines

The FormSpy trojan does not use any Firefox security flaws to infect computers. Instead, it is downloaded and installed automatically by a piece of Windows malware known as Downloader-AXM, which exists solely for the purpose of surreptitiously downloading and running trojan horses. Once downloaded by Downloader-AXM, FormSpy installs itself in Firefox by directly modifying Firefox user profile files, completely bypassing the standard Firefox extension installation mechanism (and warning messages).

[Emphasis added. The reports in the news, coming from McAfee, make it sound like Firefox is providing the means for this malware to attack users. As usual, the culprit is Microsoft Windows. -- grouch]

[...] Kraus estimates a Web 2.0 company can start up with an investment of around $100,000 (£50,000) - a reduction by a factor of 30! One reason? Open source software like the LAMP software stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl/Python) now provide Web 2.0 businesses with a robust, low-cost platform to start trading - while providing built-in scalability as the business grows.

SSV Embedded Systems is shipping a tiny processor module targeting complex industrial communications applications. The ARM9-based DNP/9200 single-board computer (SBC) comes pre-installed with Linux, and is available in a Starter Kit that includes an evaluation board with a socket for a GSM/GPRS modem and SIM card.

The Fedora Legacy Group finally ends support for Red Hat 9 and Fedora Core 2, as well as the earlier versions of both popular Linux lines.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Google is scheduled to announce hosting for open source projects on Google Code today during Greg Stein's talk at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON).

Why pick one distro instead of another? One reason is security. Not the security of the code itself, but how fast security patches get applied and published.
Therefore, all other things being equal, security managers would prefer a Linux distribution with a record of speedy publication of fixes for security issues.

Another vendor reaching a significant milestone in Q2 was second-placed, and second-fastest growing, Motorola, its position achieved primarily from shipments of more than a million Linux-based smart phones in China in the quarter.

Your editor has, once again, had the opportunity to add to his collection of Ottawa Linux Symposium T-shirts. OLS2006 was a fun and interesting event, a testament to the increasing professionalism of its organizers, speakers, and attendees. And also, of course, to the energy and vitality which drives the Linux community.
[...]
LinuxWorld may be the place to go to see what companies are doing, but OLS has clearly established itself as the event to attend to learn about what the development community - and the kernel development community in particular - is up to.

[...]

This year's keynote speaker was Greg Kroah-Hartman. [...] The talk covered topics like hardware support (Linux is now second to none, says Greg), the illegal and unethical nature of closed source kernel modules, various aspects of the kernel development process, and more. The talk is very much worth a read.

Google believes that open source is one of the strongest ways to preserve industry competition, and its goal is to help this industry remain healthy and keep injecting fresh blood into it, said Chris DiBona, Google's open source program manager, in a presentation at the annual O'Reilly Open Source Conference here July 26.

[ Wonder what they would think of an open source search engine - hkwint]

Motorola will abandon the proprietary "P2K" OS used in the Razr and other currently or soon-to-be shipping models, such as the Rizr, Krazr, and RazrMaxx. Additionally, the world's number-two handset vendor will transition future feature-phones to Linux, starting with a Scpl ("scalpel") model due in October, according to a PC Magazine article.

Scalix has taken the open-source plunge and will contribute parts of the source code for its messaging infrastructure platform to the community.

There could be a vulnerability in Wordpress. First I read about it here (via Planet Debian), then on the OP (original poster)’s blog

Adobe developer Mike Melanson has been tracking the development progress of Flash Player 9 for Linux users. A recent post on his Penguin.SWF blog listed the APIs being used in this version of the software.

[ Though no big fan of Flash, I would be glad to see Flash 9 on Linux, because a lot of sites don't work at the moment since they require Flash 8 - hkwint]

Mozilla Corp. on July 26 started urging Firefox users to install a newly released version of the browser, v1.5.0.5, which includes some essential security fixes.

A couple of years ago, my employer, a large state university, was looking for an open source replacement for CiscoWorks to assist us in backing up our network configurations. We found RANCID (Really Awesome New Cisco config Differ), tried it, and have used it ever since.

In a move that could potentially prove my theory explained in my previous Google OS article here at OSWeekly.com, the evidence is stacking up that the GDrive may in fact be much more than a silly rumor. As I mentioned previously, Google has no intention of creating a Google OS - we've already provided it for them with existing means. Each one of us.

The Linux Professional Institute will provide certification testing during LinuxWorld Conference & Expo San Francisco, August 15 - 17, 2006 at Moscone Center North

On March 1st, Wikipedia, the online interactive encyclopedia, hit the million-articles mark, with an entry on Jordanhill, a railway station in suburban Glasgow. Its author, Ewan MacDonald, posted a single sentence about the station at 11 P.M., local time; over the next twenty-four hours, the entry was edited more than four hundred times, by dozens of people.
[...]
It is also perfectly configured to be current: there are detailed entries for each of the twelve finalists on this season’s “American Idol,” and the article on the “2006 Israel-Lebanon Conflict” has been edited more than four thousand times since it was created, on July 12th, six hours after Hezbollah militants ignited the hostilities by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers.

Rock Linux is a collection of tools to build a GNU/Linux distribution from scratch. There are also ready-for-use versions of Rock Linux available like Crystal Rock, Generic Rock and a Live CD. The developers released Rock Linux 3, in which a lot of things are improved compared to version 2.0.3, the last available version. The announcement together with the English changelog looks as follows:

[Site is in Dutch, though the article contains a fair amount of English - dcparris]

[Sloppy translation by hkwint - hkwint]

Firefox users are being warned to watch out for a new Trojan that that pretends to be an extension for the web browser.

If you have to maintain legacy OSes, you might have some concern for this one. Not much, but it's better to be aware. LXer recommends upgrading all legacy OSes to modern, robust OSes with greatly reduced vulnerabilities, such as GNU/Linux or one of the BSDs. - dcparris]