Students don’t know what files and folders are, professors say

Strange as it may seem to older generations of computer users who grew up maintaining an elaborate collection of nested subfolders, thanks to powerful search functions now being the default in operating systems, as well as the way phones and tablets obfuscate their file structure, and cloud storage, high school graduates don’t see their hard drives the same way.

Source: Students don’t know what files and folders are, professors say | PC Gamer

CentOS Replacements For Your Production Linux Servers

If you are currently using CentOS 8, you will have to find an alternative operating system. This is because its end-of-life cycle has been cut short in December 2021. But if you use CentOS 7, you do not have to take any action right now. This is because CentOS 7 will reach its End-of-Life on June 30th, 2024.

Source: CentOS Replacements For Your Production Linux Servers

Stupid me installed CentOS 8 in December 2020 instead of 7 without reading the news about this.

CentOS Linux 8 is about to die. What do you do next?

The end of CentOS 8 Linux has been coming for awhile now, and the day is finally here. On December 31, 2021, Red Hat‘s CentOS Linux 8 will reach End Of Life (EOL). Since that falls right in the heart of the holiday season, Red Hat will extend CentOS Linux 8 zero-day support until January 31, 2022. Indeed, there will be one last CentOS Linux 8 release — perhaps even after CentOS 8’s official EOL. After that, it’s all over for CentOS Linux.

Source: CentOS Linux 8 is about to die. What do you do next? | ZDNet

Yikes!  Just heard about this.  Last year I chose CentOS 8 over 7 for this server so I would not have to deal with end of life issues for awhile.  It appears CentOS 7 will be good until 2024 and 8 ends today.  Ugh.

Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made

We will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to.

EFF, where are you?

Source: Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made | Network World

From August 2015

Sudo Flaw Lets Linux Users Run Commands As Root Even When They’re Restricted

What’s more interesting is that this flaw can be exploited by an attacker to run commands as root just by specifying the user ID “-1” or “4294967295.”

That’s because the function which converts user id into its username incorrectly treats -1, or its unsigned equivalent 4294967295, as 0, which is always the user ID of root user..

Source: Sudo Flaw Lets Linux Users Run Commands As Root Even When They’re Restricted

Computer historians crack passwords of Unix’s early pioneers

Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie’s was “dmac”, Bourne’s was “bourne”, Schmidt’s was “wendy!!!” (his wife’s name), Feldman’s was “axlotl”, and Kernighan’s was “/.,/.,”.

Source: Computer historians crack passwords of Unix’s early pioneers / Boing Boing

and Ken Thompson’s was “p/q2-q4!” (chess notation for a common opening move).

CentOS 8 is finally here

CentOS offers a bit of a different take on installing and updating packages. First off, the default package manager has migrated from YUM to DNF. The command structure for each is quite similar, so instead of running a command like:

sudo yum install httpd

You’d issue the command:

sudo dnf install httpd

For more information on DNF, see How to use the DNF package manager.

Source: CentOS 8 is finally here – TechRepublic