When you visit a web page, you might expect that the code and images from the page will make their journey through the tubes unmolested and unaltered, but according to security researchers, you would also be wrong 1.3 percent of the time.
Quoting from a recent article on Ars.Technica, researchers have found that up to 1.3% of web pages are altered in transit between the server and the requesting client. Not all the modifications are malicious though, the article notes. Some ISPs modify the page either by removing extra white space in the page, or further compressing images, thereby reducing bandwidth used and decreasing wait times. Alternatively, some service providers take the opportunityto serve ads instead.
70% of the modifications where caused by client-side proxy software, such as ad blockers and popup blockers.
46 IP addresses reported changes that were caused by an ISP, such as injected advertisements and modifications to reduce network traffic.
125 IP addresses were using proxies that caused them to be vulnerable to cross site scripting attacks.
3 IP addresses were affected by adware or worms.
I’m curious as to how this test would fare in Singapore. Are our local providers editing the pages we request on the fly? So here’s what, just for fun,
Sun held it’s Open Source Day at COM1 on Friday, as part of the Sun Technology Outreach programme.
On the kind invite of organisers, Wee Yeh and Neng Giin, linuxNUS set up a booth at the event to showcase Fedora 8 (along with Compiz Fusion goodies =). Thanks to Eugene, we also had nice printed Fedora DVDs to hand out to the crowd that dropped by our booth.
Our showcase comprised mainly of Compiz-Fusion demos, productivity suites (Microsoft Office-on-WINE and OpenOffice.org), and the nifty virtualisation of Nexenta within the recently Sun-acquiredInnotek VirtualBox. And indeed, while the audience had their productivity (and compatibility!) doubts resolved, and admired the flexibility of running an OS-within-an-OS, we have to say honestly, that the Compiz-Fusion demos were the star of the show.
We need to thank the organisers of the Sun NUS Open Source Day for inviting linuxNUS to set up a booth there, for it gave us quite a bit of publicity. And I’m not kidding when I say people have come up to me after watching the demos at the booth saying that they’ve fallen in love with Linux. Really! It’s true!
And if you’re one of those who came by our booth to say hi on Friday and pick up a Fedora DVD, here are a few links to get you started (if you haven’t found your way around already =)
You know, you hear a lot about “open source” these days, and if you’ve ever wondered how the Open Source community in Singapore is doing, here’s a handy tip, check out Planet LUGS.
Planet LUGS is an aggregation of a number of blogs from members in Singapore’s Open Source scene. Ranging from professionals in certain large companies, to your average student on the street, Planet LUGS collects their voices and brings them to you in one nice, easy read.
Date: 25 Jan, Friday
Time: 630pm
Venue: NUS, School of Computing 1, #03-17 [map]
Topic: Facebook Application Development with Django
Speaker:
- Harish Mallipeddi
One of our very own linuxNUS alumni, Harish will speak about developing Facebook apps with Django. Harish currently works with Circos.com, developing mainly in Django. He is also currently developing a Facebook application for the company using the same platform.
It’s been a busy week with midterms and all, hope everybody’s been doing well?
We’re pleased to announce our first social meetup session next Tuesday, 9 Oct, at 6pm , at the linuxNUS Clubroom at SoC #03-19.
Do feel free to come by, after all, the Clubroom is where it all happens for linuxNUS! As members, you’ll also have access to the linuxNUS Library, a collection of technical manuals contributed by members of our community. There is also spare hardware on which you can use to test various software packages if you so wish.
Greg Kroah-Hartman, one of the leading Linux kernel hackers has announced on his blog that his employer, Novell, has moved him to work full-time on a project he announced back in January this year to help device manufacturers write free Linux drivers for their devices, so long as they provided the device specifications.
As Kroah-Hartman noted, after putting up his offer,
It turns out that there were two large groups of people who responded to the announcement, companies wanting drivers, and developers wanting to help out.
He was unable to cope with the workload, trying to juggle a full-time job and hacking the kernel on the side.
However, Novell recently modified his postion at work to allow Kroah-Hartman to work full time on the project, which will hopefully lead to more drivers being developed for Linux. Kroah-Hartman is the kernel maintainer for the PCI, USB, I²C, driver core and the sysfs kernel subsystems, according to his Wikipedia entry.
In a recent submission to the European Commission, an European thinktank claimed that computer operating systems were “not a natual monopoly”, and that “Windows monopoly imposes an extra cost on virtually every EU business, as the price of operating systems would drop in a more competitive market”.
After exploring several alternatives, the paper concludes that the easiest way around these problems would be to unbundle Windows from the hardware, and require all desktop machines and laptops sold within the EU to be sold without operating systems in order to “foster a competitive market, increase consumer choice and reduce prices”.
Last week, AMD released register specifications for the RV630 and M56 parts into open source, thus allowing the OSS community to develop 2D (and theoretically 3D) drivers, given time. Current documentation for the project is available over at X.Org.
The specifications for ATI graphics hardware are finally open sourced and Novell has been quick to release an alpha-quality driver for the R6XX and R5XX series of cards.
Let’s hope this will be end of the frustration that many Linux users with ATI cards have been facing.
