Re: [GTALUG] Suggestions for stopping occasional spurious use of commercial wi-fi

[James Knott via talk]

On 09/17/2018 04:48 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
> - Turn off the modem's WiFi and put it in bridge mode.  You may have
>   to repeat this after a power failure or a (generally unannounced)
>   firmware update.

I've had my Rogers modem in bridge mode for several years and a few
different  models.  I've never seen that.

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[GTALUG] [GTALUG-Announce] AGM Call for Candidates

[hi--- via talk]

# AGM Call for Candidates

October, 9th is GTALUG's Annual General Meeting

We are making the Call for Candidates for the Board.
There will be two seats opening, for 2 year terms (2018-2020).

Please consider running for the board, and keep in mind the following.

The formal qualifications that must be satisfied:
   - Must be a member in good standing
   - Must not have any undischarged bankruptcy

It is also important to be able to be available most months for
Board/Operations meetings where we plan GTALUG meetings
and activities.

Board members are involved in and support the following activities.
   - Finding speakers for our monthly presentations
   - Running our internet infrastructure (website and mailing lists)
   - Organizing and running our annual Linux in the Park picnic

If you are interested, we'd appreciate it very much if you can submit
your intention to run to bo...@gtalug.org

The current list of Candidates (Alphabetical by Lastname):
- Chris Browne
- Alex Volkov

Potential Candidates are welcome to announce their intention all the up to the 
AGM it's self.

-- 
Scott Sullivan
GTALUG President
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Re: [GTALUG] Online Course for Lex/Yacc?

[Stewart Russell via talk]

On Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 15:36 William Park via talk,  wrote:

>
> Language is C; environment is embedded board of consumer/business
> printers
>

So is this embedded as in "limited memory" and printers like "horrid binary
protocols"? This might not fit with that kind of parser.

Stewart

>
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Re: [GTALUG] Suggestions for stopping occasional spurious use of commercial wi-fi

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

| From: David Collier-Brown via talk 
| To: UU , GTALUG Talk 

I don't think that it is great to post a message once to two public
mailing lists.  It can lead to odd entanglements.  It's fine to
separately post the same message to two lists.  I'm violating this 
suggestion with this message.

| I have a Rogers-supplied router and cable modem package, which twice has shown
| significant usage when I was out, once with the original unit and once with
| their replacement Cisco.  That makes me suspicious of the current state of
| authentication for wi-fi schemes (and I use the term "schemes" advisedly: they
| used to horribly leaky (;-))

Wow.  Interesting.

If it were me, I'd try to figure out who was doing this.  But in
reality that's probably more work than it is worth.

| What's a good approach? I have considered
| 
|  * MAC address lists,

MACs a so spoofable.  Why bother?

If I remember correctly, OSX now has a feature that lets you use a
random MAC on your wireless just to avoid other people tracking you.

|  * no wi-fi (strictly wired doesn't work with solid concrete walls),

I don't imagine your threat models are so severe that this matters.
But for the paranoid: even traffic analysis (without decryption)
reveals a lot.

|  * a second router with a more secure protocol (/is/ there such a
|protocol? And will my wife's Mac speak it?))

I think that the best compromise for most individuals who care even a
bit is:

- Turn off the modem's WiFi and put it in bridge mode.  You may have
  to repeat this after a power failure or a (generally unannounced)
  firmware update.

  Why: Rogers has 100% control of the modem (remote provisioning,
  firmware updates).  They have (if they choose) access to your LAN
  unless you put something between the modem and the LAN.

- use your own wireless router.  Choose one that has a decent radio
  and is well supported by OpenWRT.  Run OpenWRT on it.

  Why: firmware from the manufacturers is crappy in known and unknown
  ways.  Other third party firmware providers are badly constituted
  (dictatorships, NDAs, glued together bits of binary stuff).

- alternatively use a little PC and install whatever amuses you as
  software to make it a router.

  Why not: takes more resources than just using OpenWRT on consumer
  router hardware.  Cost, time, electricity, noise, heat, risk of
  misconfiguring, maintenance effort.

  Why: more flexible, more controllable.  Sometimes better
  performance.  Can perform server roles (email, web, ...).

  This is what I do.  I run CentOS an two of my three consumer-grade
  internet connections.  I run Fedora 28 on the other -- that adds to
  the maintenance burden (so many updates!).

- alternative: 
  I'd like this to be a great solution but I don't know whether it is.
  It's not as inexpensive as I'd like.

One of my connections is gigabit from Rogers.  Ordinary wireless
routers cannot pass 1G though unless proprietary NAT hardware
acceleration is used.  That hardware is not supported by OpenWRT.
Even if it were, there are serious restrictions on what can be done to
the packet before it gets punted to the software path.

My little PC solution seems to handle gigabit just fine.  I use Zotac
ZBoxes that come with two gigabit ethernet ports (only a few do).  My
gigabit gateway is an RI323Nano (out of production).  My others
(untested for gigabyte throughput) are both CI321NANO.  These cost me
about the same as an expensive router.  I don't use them for providing
WiFi.  I use a couple of consumer WiFi routers as (just) APs.

As for WiFi passwords: make them long and replete with entropy.  I use
the mkpasswd command that is part of the expect package.  Don't use
the magic button on the router to make the password crap easier: it
can make you vulnerable.  Typing these is very error-prone so I use a
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Re: [GTALUG] Linux 4.19-rc4 released, an apology, and a maintainership note

[Michael Hill via talk]

On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 3:52 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk
 wrote:

> This has low reliability, so take it with a large grain of salt, but
> the only time I met Lennart Poettering (before systemd) he did seem
> arrogant.

Depends on the context, I guess. I've been to a number of Lennart's
talks, but I've also seen him at social events surrounding the
conferences (Devconf, FOSDEM, Desktop Summit, this year's GUADEC).
He's the personal friend of some of the GNOME docs people I know, and
they know him as a regular guy.

Mike
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Re: [GTALUG] Linux 4.19-rc4 released, an apology, and a maintainership note

[Dhaval Giani via talk]

On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 12:52 PM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <
talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

> | From: Dhaval Giani via talk 
>
> | https://lwn.net/Articles/764901/
>
> |
> https://www.jonobacon.com/2018/09/16/linus-his-apology-and-why-we-should-support-him/
>
> Thanks.  I hadn't noticed this.  A possibly big story.
>
> | On a more personal note, I have seen "hostile" behavior on many mailing
> | lists, which has led me from withdrawing from participating on them.
>
> Mailing lists are notoriously bad at communicating emothions.  I guess
> that causes some to just amp things up.  There have been many
> discussions of this phenomenon and I still don't have great insights.
>
> I have not found this mailing list to be a problem.  Have you?
>
>
Troubling patterns, yes. Not to me, not projects I participate in. But I
have noticed them. I debated about bringing it up, and then decided that it
wasn't worth my time or effort for clearly negligible gain.


> Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept
> from others.
>
> Jon Postel
>
> Some things can seem like slights even when there was no such intent.
>
>
I agree. You do however have to account for the fact that most software
development is a negative feedback loop (find bug, debug, fix, rinse,
repeat..). Add doing that in public, almost everything starts coming out
negatively.

A friend of mine had an interesting insight on this a few years back.
Paraphrasing him, written communication is always is read as more negative
than what it is written as. So, you have to write it as 2x postive for it
to be read as 1x positive.

Is it a sustainable goal, I am unsure. But I do think it is a problem.


> Death threats are hard to explain away.  I did not read Linus' comment
> about abortion to be a deat threat.  Just overly colourful swearing.
> I did not think it appropriate.  "Criticize the sin, not the sinner."
>
>
I think different incidents. Lennart (not Linus), had someone call him and
leave him a death threat. (He had shared the recording with me at that time)


> This has low reliability, so take it with a large grain of salt, but
> the only time I met Lennart Poettering (before systemd) he did seem
> arrogant.
>
>
I don't think that though is a reason to belittle him.


> I've not made any contributions to the kernel / netdev.  I've found the
> processs daunting / unwelcoming.  At least one "lieutenant" has been
> much more unpleasant than Linus.  Just fixing Linus isn't enough.
>
> Have a look at this thread, especially how it is left (in my mind)
> unresolved after I did the legwork to refute Miller's assertion.
>
> 
>

I am totally with you on that one. I really do wish the LKML was an easier
community to work with.

Dhaval
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Re: [GTALUG] Linux 4.19-rc4 released, an apology, and a maintainership note

[Dave Doyle via talk]

Just as a quick aside: On a personal level, as a developer, I have chosen
not to engage in certain communities and chosen not to use certain
technologies because of the toxicity of the community.

My mental well being is more important to me than engaging in certain
groups.  I'd be lying if I didn't say it has prevented me from sharing some
things with a wider audience because of the worry about these kinds of
things.
--
dave.s.do...@gmail.com


On Sun, 16 Sep 2018 at 23:52, Dhaval Giani via talk  wrote:

> https://lwn.net/Articles/764901/
>
> ...
>
> To tie this all back to the actual 4.19-rc4 release (no, really, this
>> _is_ related!) I actually think that 4.19 is looking fairly good,
>> things have gotten to the "calm" period of the release cycle, and I've
>> talked to Greg to ask him if he'd mind finishing up 4.19 for me, so
>> that I can take a break, and try to at least fix my own behavior.
>
> ...
>
> Jono Bacon's comments on it,
>
>
> https://www.jonobacon.com/2018/09/16/linus-his-apology-and-why-we-should-support-him/
>
> 
>
> Another interesting article that I read over the past few days was a
> Python keynote talk,
> https://snarky.ca/setting-expectations-for-open-source-participation/
>
> 
>
> On a more personal note, I have seen "hostile" behavior on many mailing
> lists, which has led me from withdrawing from participating on them.
>
> We tend to attack developers without thinking of the impact on them.
>
> This list is an example of attacks on systemd. While Lennart doesn't read
> this list personally, I do know of the impact systemd criticism has had on
> him. He has shared recordings of death threats because of systemd. I think,
> we can all agree that, systemd, or pulseaudio did not make linux worse, at
> least enough to justify death threats.
>
> They haven't even made it bad enough to justify the constant attacks on
> the software.
>
> Remember, if you have a better idea, you have the _freedom_ to implement
> it. You, however, do not have the freedom to expect them to drop what they
> want to do, to fix your problems, and when they don't want to, be subject
> to attacks from you.
>
> 
>
> I do hope, Linus taking some time off will make things better for him, and
> by extension Linux.
>
> Dhaval
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Re: [GTALUG] Online Course for Lex/Yacc?

[Alvin Starr via talk]

On 09/17/2018 03:35 PM, William Park via talk wrote:

On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 08:54:29AM -0400, Matthew Gordon via talk wrote:

I'd also recommend against Yacc. As others have said, it's a great tool and
very powerful but a recursive descent parser will do the job 99% of the
time and will be much easier. Writing a good unambiguous grammar for Yacc
can be tricky and is much more difficult to debug than a recursive descent
parser. A lot of languages now have "parser combinator" libraries which
make it even easier to write a recursive descent parser. I'd do a google
search to see if there's one available for your programming language of
choice.

Language is C; environment is embedded board of consumer/business
printers; and, the nature of work is QA, where I'm trying to introduce
more automation.  So, for C, what parser library would you use?  I take
it, there is difference between "parser generator" and "parse
combinator".
Having worked in building and supporting compilers years ago I would 
argue the Yacc and Lex are a better way to build a parser because it 
forces you to think a bit about design.
I tend to like tools that have a formal underpinning and work with a 
design over ad-hoc systems where the result is directly tied to the 
ability of the programmer to think ahead and avoid problems.


It sounds like your looking to try and build a domain-specific language 
and you may have more luck with finding an existing language that you 
can use.


Building and maintaining a programming language can quickly become a 
full time job and is an amazingly thankless job.




--
Alvin Starr   ||   land:  (905)513-7688
Netvel Inc.   ||   Cell:  (416)806-0133
al...@netvel.net  ||

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Re: [GTALUG] Linux 4.19-rc4 released, an apology, and a maintainership note

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

| From: Dhaval Giani via talk 

| https://lwn.net/Articles/764901/

| 
https://www.jonobacon.com/2018/09/16/linus-his-apology-and-why-we-should-support-him/

Thanks.  I hadn't noticed this.  A possibly big story.

| On a more personal note, I have seen "hostile" behavior on many mailing
| lists, which has led me from withdrawing from participating on them.

Mailing lists are notoriously bad at communicating emothions.  I guess
that causes some to just amp things up.  There have been many
discussions of this phenomenon and I still don't have great insights.

I have not found this mailing list to be a problem.  Have you?

Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept
from others.

Jon Postel

Some things can seem like slights even when there was no such intent.

Death threats are hard to explain away.  I did not read Linus' comment
about abortion to be a deat threat.  Just overly colourful swearing.
I did not think it appropriate.  "Criticize the sin, not the sinner."

This has low reliability, so take it with a large grain of salt, but
the only time I met Lennart Poettering (before systemd) he did seem
arrogant.

I've not made any contributions to the kernel / netdev.  I've found the
processs daunting / unwelcoming.  At least one "lieutenant" has been
much more unpleasant than Linus.  Just fixing Linus isn't enough.

Have a look at this thread, especially how it is left (in my mind) 
unresolved after I did the legwork to refute Miller's assertion.


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Re: [GTALUG] Online Course for Lex/Yacc?

[William Park via talk]

On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 08:54:29AM -0400, Matthew Gordon via talk wrote:
> I'd also recommend against Yacc. As others have said, it's a great tool and
> very powerful but a recursive descent parser will do the job 99% of the
> time and will be much easier. Writing a good unambiguous grammar for Yacc
> can be tricky and is much more difficult to debug than a recursive descent
> parser. A lot of languages now have "parser combinator" libraries which
> make it even easier to write a recursive descent parser. I'd do a google
> search to see if there's one available for your programming language of
> choice.

Language is C; environment is embedded board of consumer/business
printers; and, the nature of work is QA, where I'm trying to introduce
more automation.  So, for C, what parser library would you use?  I take
it, there is difference between "parser generator" and "parse
combinator".
-- 
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Re: [GTALUG] Linux 4.19-rc4 released, an apology, and a maintainership note

[Dhaval Giani via talk]

>
>
>>> Also on a personal note, you contacted me offlist to chastize me about
>>> some trivial comment I made about pulseaudio and at least one other person
>>> has named you pubically on this list for the same type of conduct.
>>>
>>>
>> I apologize for that.
>>
>
> Apology accepted and my own is offered up to you in return, for my own
> insensitivities in posting. Sometimes I forget the first rule of digial
> comment sensibility, wait and think before you hit send.
>

Thank you. I think we can all do be reminded of that from time to time!


>
>>
>>> Now you make this post as a maintainership note about why you leave
>>> hostile lists. What exactly do you define as hostile behaviour? I'd define
>>> it as being trolled offlist by someone who harvested my email and decided
>>> they had the right to contact me, just because they could.
>>>
>>> Systemd is a thing. Writing publically about a thing, even in criticism,
>>> even if you use words you can't say on TV, is so far removed from your own
>>> private ad hominem remarks offlist that I am raising your poor conduct, to
>>> remind you; just because you post a couple of true facts, that doesn't
>>> authenticate a third postulate you have formulated as some sort of
>>> gratification index.
>>>
>>>
>> I am just going to ignore the last bit. I bring up systemd, because it is
>> quite a bit my baby as well. I take every attack on it personally (rightly
>> or wrongly, and that is my problem, not _yours, as you have quite pointed
>> out later on in your email). Which quite brings to my point, you have folks
>> who are directly impacted by your words. Am I right in defending my baby?
>> Am I right in getting defensive about it? Am I right in not being able to
>> separate out the project from the person? These are all personal questions.
>>
>> All that matters is, everything people say, has an impact, and a result.
>> You might call it illogical (in your opinion), but it has happened. There
>> have been times where I felt I could participate in discussions and talk
>> about it.
>>
>> Spectre/Meltdown was one such. I talked about the importance of it, and
>> it was immediately shot down as corporate conspiracy. Of course, we are
>> still dealing with the fallout. What is my relation with this? For the last
>> many months, I have been part of the response force for my employer to deal
>> with the intel flaws. But feeling (note the word) attacked, doesn't make me
>> feel inclined to share. Certainly not my loss.
>>
>>  I'm not exactly sure what it is that you maintain
>>
>>
>> I don't actively maintain anything right now. I took time off for mental
>> health reasons. Part of it is physiological, but a lot of was exacerbated
>> by working in open source. That is a different story, and not the topic of
>> this email. If you want, ping me offlist, and I will send you a more
>> detailed email.
>>
>
> Stress is one of the most enduring problems in the modern corporste world.
> Sorry if I have added to your own at this time. I do appreciate the fact
> that it takes a particular kind of fortitude to continue to participate
> under such adverse conditions and I hope you understand my regret is
> sincere.
>

One of the things I would like to do some day is write down my thoughts on
this topic. (Probably not for sharing though). These days I manage a team
of open source developers, and a lot of my time is spent trying to look at
it from their point of view. "How this affect my career?" "How did my
working with person X affect my career?" (positively/negatively). There are
times they are unable to make progress, because we are all humans, and
communication is the hardest skill to learn, they view it as affecting
their career negatively. It is quite different from, just the black and
white of the technicalities.

I am pretty sure these problems have been already been solved elsewhere. I
am curious to see how and to what extent.

Dhaval


>
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Re: [GTALUG] Linux 4.19-rc4 released, an apology, and a maintainership note

[Christopher Browne via talk]

On Mon, 17 Sep 2018 at 11:37, Dhaval Giani via talk  wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 3:11 AM Russell Reiter  wrote:
>> The Poettering hit man story is four years old. It didn't stop him from his 
>> own rant, they are after all just words.
>>
> They are just words for you. But you ignore a phone call from an unknown 
> number. And then you listen to voicemail, and it a voicemail threatening to 
> kill you because of systemd, at that point in time, it has stopped being mere 
> words. Yes, 4 yrs old. Has it stopped having impact? No.

It bothers me that it occurs to people to do this sort of thing.

Free software has this; SF fandom has this; I'm sure it exists in
plenty of places.

> I am just going to ignore the last bit. I bring up systemd, because it is 
> quite a bit my baby as well. I take every attack on it personally (rightly or 
> wrongly, and that is my problem, not _yours, as you have quite pointed out 
> later on in your email). Which quite brings to my point, you have folks who 
> are directly impacted by your words. Am I right in defending my baby? Am I 
> right in getting defensive about it? Am I right in not being able to separate 
> out the project from the person? These are all personal questions.

With regards to systemd, I'm not quite sure what to think.

I keep hearing troublesome things about scope creep and about
Poettering; what I can't tell is whether the troubling things are
being made up by the sorts of people whose edge cases include calling
in death threats, or just what.

Personally, I think I'm more or less with Torvalds; there certainly
seem to be some good things about systemd; the "good old init scripts"
needed to become something better.

I step back to the analysis process that Debian did when they took the
(rather controversial step) of adopting systemd; I was reasonably
satisfied by the analysis at the time, that they made the best
decision available.  (Here's a pointer into the debate material:
https://wiki.debian.org/Debate/initsystem)

I'm not sure how open the project is; it's always difficult to tell
from outside.  For sure, given that they've got evil monkeys outside
flinging poo, they can't just accept anything offered, as someone's
sure to fling in commits intended to cause trouble.

My own evidences...

- I have written a few service files; it has mostly not been terribly painful.

- I found it remarkable how long it took for service files to get
integrated into debian for ISC DHCPD, so apparently some things can be
problematic.

- I found it a pain when I wanted to force BIND9 to use IPv4, and
managing the configuration for that seemed to involve some fight
between BIND maintainers and systemd maintainers.

 I have to call my own situations a bit of a mixed bag.  Nothing
indicating systemd as being a full on disaster, but it's not without
some pains in the neck.

> All that matters is, everything people say, has an impact, and a result. You 
> might call it illogical (in your opinion), but it has happened. There have 
> been times where I felt I could participate in discussions and talk about it.
>
> Spectre/Meltdown was one such. I talked about the importance of it, and it 
> was immediately shot down as corporate conspiracy. Of course, we are still 
> dealing with the fallout. What is my relation with this? For the last many 
> months, I have been part of the response force for my employer to deal with 
> the intel flaws. But feeling (note the word) attacked, doesn't make me feel 
> inclined to share. Certainly not my loss.

That one's sufficiently hard to get a grasp on that I'm not surprised
that some would head straight down conspiracy road; it's way easier to
rant than to understand a difficult problem.

And of course, that means you're getting insults flung at you, which
is understandably no fun.
-- 
When confronted by a difficult problem, solve it by reducing it to the
question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"
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Re: [GTALUG] Linux 4.19-rc4 released, an apology, and a maintainership note

[Russell Reiter via talk]

On Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 11:37 AM Dhaval Giani  wrote:

>
>
> On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 3:11 AM Russell Reiter 
> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 11:52 PM Dhaval Giani via talk 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> https://lwn.net/Articles/764901/
>>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>> To tie this all back to the actual 4.19-rc4 release (no, really, this
 _is_ related!) I actually think that 4.19 is looking fairly good,
 things have gotten to the "calm" period of the release cycle, and I've
 talked to Greg to ask him if he'd mind finishing up 4.19 for me, so
 that I can take a break, and try to at least fix my own behavior.
>>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>> Jono Bacon's comments on it,
>>>
>>>
>>> https://www.jonobacon.com/2018/09/16/linus-his-apology-and-why-we-should-support-him/
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>> Another interesting article that I read over the past few days was a
>>> Python keynote talk,
>>> https://snarky.ca/setting-expectations-for-open-source-participation/
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>> On a more personal note, I have seen "hostile" behavior on many mailing
>>> lists, which has led me from withdrawing from participating on them.
>>>
>>> We tend to attack developers without thinking of the impact on them.
>>>
>>> This list is an example of attacks on systemd. While Lennart doesn't
>>> read this list personally, I do know of the impact systemd criticism has
>>> had on him. He has shared recordings of death threats because of systemd. I
>>> think, we can all agree that, systemd, or pulseaudio did not make linux
>>> worse, at least enough to justify death threats.
>>>
>>> They haven't even made it bad enough to justify the constant attacks on
>>> the software.
>>>
>>> Remember, if you have a better idea, you have the _freedom_ to implement
>>> it. You, however, do not have the freedom to expect them to drop what they
>>> want to do, to fix your problems, and when they don't want to, be subject
>>> to attacks from you.
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>> I do hope, Linus taking some time off will make things better for him,
>>> and by extension Linux.
>>>
>>
>>
>> The Poettering hit man story is four years old. It didn't stop him from
>> his own rant, they are after all just words.
>>
>>
> They are just words for you. But you ignore a phone call from an unknown
> number. And then you listen to voicemail, and it a voicemail threatening to
> kill you because of systemd, at that point in time, it has stopped being
> mere words. Yes, 4 yrs old. Has it stopped having impact? No.
>
>
>>
>> https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/lennart-poetterings-linus-torvalds-rant/
>>
>> "Open Source community is full of a**s, and I probably more than most
>> others am one of their most favourite targets. I get hate mail for hacking
>> on Open Source. People have started multiple 'petitions' on petition web
>> sites, asking me to stop working (google for it). Recently, people started
>> collecting Bitcoins to hire a hitman for me (this really happened!). Just
>> the other day, some idiot posted a 'song' on YouTube, a creepy work, filled
>> with expletives about me and suggestions of violence. People post websites
>> about boycotting my projects, containing pretty personal attacks."
>>
>> Also on a personal note, you contacted me offlist to chastize me about
>> some trivial comment I made about pulseaudio and at least one other person
>> has named you pubically on this list for the same type of conduct.
>>
>>
> I apologize for that.
>

Apology accepted and my own is offered up to you in return, for my own
insensitivities in posting. Sometimes I forget the first rule of digial
comment sensibility, wait and think before you hit send.

>
>
>> Now you make this post as a maintainership note about why you leave
>> hostile lists. What exactly do you define as hostile behaviour? I'd define
>> it as being trolled offlist by someone who harvested my email and decided
>> they had the right to contact me, just because they could.
>>
>> Systemd is a thing. Writing publically about a thing, even in criticism,
>> even if you use words you can't say on TV, is so far removed from your own
>> private ad hominem remarks offlist that I am raising your poor conduct, to
>> remind you; just because you post a couple of true facts, that doesn't
>> authenticate a third postulate you have formulated as some sort of
>> gratification index.
>>
>>
> I am just going to ignore the last bit. I bring up systemd, because it is
> quite a bit my baby as well. I take every attack on it personally (rightly
> or wrongly, and that is my problem, not _yours, as you have quite pointed
> out later on in your email). Which quite brings to my point, you have folks
> who are directly impacted by your words. Am I right in defending my baby?
> Am I right in getting defensive about it? Am I right in not being able to
> separate out the project from the person? These are all personal questions.
>
> All that matters is, everything people say, has an impact, and a result.
> You might call it illogical (in 

Re: [GTALUG] Linux 4.19-rc4 released, an apology, and a maintainership note

[Dhaval Giani via talk]

On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 3:11 AM Russell Reiter  wrote:

> On Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 11:52 PM Dhaval Giani via talk 
> wrote:
>
>> https://lwn.net/Articles/764901/
>>
>> ...
>>
>> To tie this all back to the actual 4.19-rc4 release (no, really, this
>>> _is_ related!) I actually think that 4.19 is looking fairly good,
>>> things have gotten to the "calm" period of the release cycle, and I've
>>> talked to Greg to ask him if he'd mind finishing up 4.19 for me, so
>>> that I can take a break, and try to at least fix my own behavior.
>>
>> ...
>>
>> Jono Bacon's comments on it,
>>
>>
>> https://www.jonobacon.com/2018/09/16/linus-his-apology-and-why-we-should-support-him/
>>
>> 
>>
>> Another interesting article that I read over the past few days was a
>> Python keynote talk,
>> https://snarky.ca/setting-expectations-for-open-source-participation/
>>
>> 
>>
>> On a more personal note, I have seen "hostile" behavior on many mailing
>> lists, which has led me from withdrawing from participating on them.
>>
>> We tend to attack developers without thinking of the impact on them.
>>
>> This list is an example of attacks on systemd. While Lennart doesn't read
>> this list personally, I do know of the impact systemd criticism has had on
>> him. He has shared recordings of death threats because of systemd. I think,
>> we can all agree that, systemd, or pulseaudio did not make linux worse, at
>> least enough to justify death threats.
>>
>> They haven't even made it bad enough to justify the constant attacks on
>> the software.
>>
>> Remember, if you have a better idea, you have the _freedom_ to implement
>> it. You, however, do not have the freedom to expect them to drop what they
>> want to do, to fix your problems, and when they don't want to, be subject
>> to attacks from you.
>>
>> 
>>
>> I do hope, Linus taking some time off will make things better for him,
>> and by extension Linux.
>>
>
>
> The Poettering hit man story is four years old. It didn't stop him from
> his own rant, they are after all just words.
>
>
They are just words for you. But you ignore a phone call from an unknown
number. And then you listen to voicemail, and it a voicemail threatening to
kill you because of systemd, at that point in time, it has stopped being
mere words. Yes, 4 yrs old. Has it stopped having impact? No.


>
> https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/lennart-poetterings-linus-torvalds-rant/
>
> "Open Source community is full of a**s, and I probably more than most
> others am one of their most favourite targets. I get hate mail for hacking
> on Open Source. People have started multiple 'petitions' on petition web
> sites, asking me to stop working (google for it). Recently, people started
> collecting Bitcoins to hire a hitman for me (this really happened!). Just
> the other day, some idiot posted a 'song' on YouTube, a creepy work, filled
> with expletives about me and suggestions of violence. People post websites
> about boycotting my projects, containing pretty personal attacks."
>
> Also on a personal note, you contacted me offlist to chastize me about
> some trivial comment I made about pulseaudio and at least one other person
> has named you pubically on this list for the same type of conduct.
>
>
I apologize for that.


> Now you make this post as a maintainership note about why you leave
> hostile lists. What exactly do you define as hostile behaviour? I'd define
> it as being trolled offlist by someone who harvested my email and decided
> they had the right to contact me, just because they could.
>
> Systemd is a thing. Writing publically about a thing, even in criticism,
> even if you use words you can't say on TV, is so far removed from your own
> private ad hominem remarks offlist that I am raising your poor conduct, to
> remind you; just because you post a couple of true facts, that doesn't
> authenticate a third postulate you have formulated as some sort of
> gratification index.
>
>
I am just going to ignore the last bit. I bring up systemd, because it is
quite a bit my baby as well. I take every attack on it personally (rightly
or wrongly, and that is my problem, not _yours, as you have quite pointed
out later on in your email). Which quite brings to my point, you have folks
who are directly impacted by your words. Am I right in defending my baby?
Am I right in getting defensive about it? Am I right in not being able to
separate out the project from the person? These are all personal questions.

All that matters is, everything people say, has an impact, and a result.
You might call it illogical (in your opinion), but it has happened. There
have been times where I felt I could participate in discussions and talk
about it.

Spectre/Meltdown was one such. I talked about the importance of it, and it
was immediately shot down as corporate conspiracy. Of course, we are still
dealing with the fallout. What is my relation with this? For the last many
months, I have been part of the 

Re: [GTALUG] Boot setup issues

[Lennart Sorensen via talk]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 03:32:11PM -0500, o1bigtenor wrote:
> OK - - - good to know. For many years it was /boot, / (or /root),
> /usr, /var, /tmp,
> swap, /usr/local and /home. I've had enough issues because / was too small,
> ditto for /usr.
> So on a new system I can drop /boot and only add /efi or 

/boot/EFI I think is the usual mount point for the EFI boot partition
(which has to be some kind of FAT filesystem).

And any modern distribution seems like it has a fit if /usr is split
from / so don't do that anymore.  Disks aren't 20MB each anymore
after all.

/home split works well for some people.  I rarely do it, although I have
at least one system where I did it.

/var split is handy for database heavy systems, and probably some other
server cases.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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Re: [GTALUG] Attacks on MAC address lists (was: suggestions for stopping occasional spurious use of commercial wi-fi)

[Jamon Camisso via talk]

On 16/09/18 17:51, David Collier-Brown via talk wrote:
> I've set up MAC address lists, after a surprising number of reboots to
> unwedge the router  (did I even mention I hate flaky PC-style software?).
> 
> How can my hacker avoid them? Wait until my wife's Mac drops off-line
> and steal her MAC?

Actually I'd like to know more about your wifi setup. What kind of
security is/was in place?

I'd be somewhat dubious about a malicious hacker if you were using WPA2
with a decent passphrase. Ok, if WEP, well that takes a few minutes, but
if you're using WEP then all hope is lost..

If WPA2, try it out, fire up aireplay, capture the 4 way handshake and
then run wpacrack against it with a decent dictionary.

If you have a moderately ok passphrase, it will take days on a decently
speced machine to brute force it, if at all.

Howto here: https://aircrack-ng.org/doku.php?id=cracking_wpa

Are you sure something else isn't going on?
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Re: [GTALUG] [u-u] Suggestions for stopping occasional spurious use of commercial wi-fi

[Don Tai via talk]

I'm on Bell, who gave me a Home hub 3000. It has a log, so you can see
errors. You can even download the log, but the info is not very useful.
>From the Bell router I also use RJ45 to my personal router.

On Mon, 17 Sep 2018 at 10:22, Bill Duncan via talk  wrote:

> Hey Dave,
> I agree with Bruce on his first 2 points, not sure about LoRa..
>
> What I do is turn the bell wifi off, link it to my own router over the
> wire.
>
> It'll take a few years for manufacturers and device makers, but WPA3 has
> been released.  Doesn't help you now, but..
>
> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/07/wpa3.html
>
> https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/6/26/17501594/wpa3-wifi-security-certification
>
> Cheers.
>
> On Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 09:47:59PM -0400, UU wrote:
> > On Sun, 16 Sep 2018, David Collier-Brown wrote:
> >
> > |I have a Rogers-supplied router and cable modem package, which twice
> has shown
> > |significant usage when I was out, once with the original unit and once
> with
> > |their replacement Cisco.?? That makes me suspicious of the current
> state of
> > |authentication for wi-fi schemes (and I use the term "schemes"
> advisedly: they
> > |used to horribly leaky (;-))
> > |
> > |What's a good approach? I have considered
> > |
> > | * MAC address lists,
> > | * no wi-fi (strictly wired doesn't work with solid concrete walls),
> > | * a second router with a more secure protocol (/is/ there such a
> > |   protocol? And will my wife's Mac speak it?))
> > | * something I haven't thought of
> >
> >
> >   !. yes, allow only designated MAC addresses
> >   2. change SSID & don't broadcast it
> >   2. consider LoRa as a possible adjunct/replacement
> >  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa
> >
> >
> > O .   Bruce BeckerToronto, Ontario+1 416 410 0879
> >   o  _///_ // Email: b...@0123456789-abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvw.xyz
> ><`)=  _<<  Cave Pilus Cani
> >   \\\  \\ ( Beware of the Hair of the dog ;)
>
> > ___
> > u-u mailing list
> > u...@unixunanimous.org
> > https://unixunanimous.org/mailman/listinfo/u-u
>
>
> --
> Bill Duncan, | http://billduncan.org/
> bdun...@beachnet.org | - linux/unix/network
> +1 416 697-9315  | - performance engineering
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Re: [GTALUG] [u-u] Suggestions for stopping occasional spurious use of commercial wi-fi

[Bill Duncan via talk]

Hey Dave,
I agree with Bruce on his first 2 points, not sure about LoRa..

What I do is turn the bell wifi off, link it to my own router over the wire.

It'll take a few years for manufacturers and device makers, but WPA3 has
been released.  Doesn't help you now, but..

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/07/wpa3.html
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/6/26/17501594/wpa3-wifi-security-certification

Cheers.

On Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 09:47:59PM -0400, UU wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Sep 2018, David Collier-Brown wrote:
> 
> |I have a Rogers-supplied router and cable modem package, which twice has 
> shown
> |significant usage when I was out, once with the original unit and once with
> |their replacement Cisco.?? That makes me suspicious of the current state of
> |authentication for wi-fi schemes (and I use the term "schemes" advisedly: 
> they
> |used to horribly leaky (;-))
> |
> |What's a good approach? I have considered
> |
> | * MAC address lists,
> | * no wi-fi (strictly wired doesn't work with solid concrete walls),
> | * a second router with a more secure protocol (/is/ there such a
> |   protocol? And will my wife's Mac speak it?))
> | * something I haven't thought of
> 
> 
>   !. yes, allow only designated MAC addresses
>   2. change SSID & don't broadcast it
>   2. consider LoRa as a possible adjunct/replacement
>  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa
> 
> 
> O .   Bruce BeckerToronto, Ontario+1 416 410 0879
>   o  _///_ // Email: b...@0123456789-abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvw.xyz
><`)=  _<<  Cave Pilus Cani
>   \\\  \\ ( Beware of the Hair of the dog ;)

> ___
> u-u mailing list
> u...@unixunanimous.org
> https://unixunanimous.org/mailman/listinfo/u-u


-- 
Bill Duncan, | http://billduncan.org/
bdun...@beachnet.org | - linux/unix/network
+1 416 697-9315  | - performance engineering
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Re: [GTALUG] Online Course for Lex/Yacc?

[Matthew Gordon via talk]

I'd also recommend against Yacc. As others have said, it's a great tool and
very powerful but a recursive descent parser will do the job 99% of the
time and will be much easier. Writing a good unambiguous grammar for Yacc
can be tricky and is much more difficult to debug than a recursive descent
parser. A lot of languages now have "parser combinator" libraries which
make it even easier to write a recursive descent parser. I'd do a google
search to see if there's one available for your programming language of
choice.

Unfortunately I don't have any tutorial recommendations I still have my
compiler textbook from university (which is probably way more information
than you need) so I haven't personally needed the sort of tutorial you're
looking for.

On the other hand (and no promises), I've been trying to start a blog so if
you can't find a good tutorial on recursive descent parsing let me know and
I *might* find the time to write one myself.

Matt Gordon


On Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 1:47 PM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk 
wrote:

> Ater advising against YACC, I thought I should promote it a bit.
>
> YACC uses a formal declarative system for specifying a language
> grammar (Backus-Naur Form).  This has a number of nice features:
>
> - BNF is very well described and extensively used in the literature
>
> - it was invented to describe the programming language Algol 60.
>   That document is one of the classics of computer science
>   and is still a must-read.  Here's a copy:
> 
>
> - many bastardizations of BNF have been used.  The real thing is better
>   than most of its successors.
>
> - a BNF grammar is a context-free grammar (Chomsky's term.  Yes, that
>   Noam Chomsky)
>
> - if a grammar is ambiguous, YACC will tell you.  Not at runtime but
>   at table-building time.  This is really really useful because it is
>   very easy to inadvertently create an ambiguous grammar -- generally
>   a Bad Thing.  Informal recursive descent parsers never detect such
>   problems.
>
>   This feature is especially useful for those still learning about
>   language design.
>
> - YACC has features to resolve ambiguities.  They are short-cuts that
>   cloud the issues and I think that they are a Bad Thing.
>
> - an LR(k) grammar (invented by Knuth before LALR) means that a
>   deterministic Left to Right single-pass parser (i.e. one without any
>   backtracking) can "recognize" the language with only a k-symbol
>   look-ahead.  LALR(k) is a subset of LR(k) for which it is known how
>   to generate an efficient parser.  In practical terms, k should be 1.
>
> - when given a choice between a declarative and a procedural model,
>   always at least consider declarative.  Declarative is much easier to
>   reason about as the system gets even a little complicated.
>
> One learns a lot about language design by writing a BNF grammar and
> debugging it through YACC.
>
> lex is based on some theory (Chomsky Type 0 (Regular) languages) but
> is more ad hoc.
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Re: [GTALUG] Suggestions for stopping occasional spurious use of commercial wi-fi

[Alvin Starr via talk]

On 09/17/2018 09:07 AM, Howard Gibson via talk wrote:

On Sun, 16 Sep 2018 13:50:14 -0400
James Knott via talk  wrote:


On 09/16/2018 01:45 PM, David Collier-Brown via talk wrote:

What's a good approach? I have considered


Many people use separate routers, as they're not happy with the Rogers
hardware.  I run pfSense on a refurb computer.  All you have to do is
put the modem in bridge mode and connect your router.  Also, you may
want to get something other than a Cisco modem.  Rogers doesn't support
IPv6 on them.  I have a Hitron modem in bridge mode.

My DSL modem has a firewall feature that my vendor recommends not using.  I 
have a wireless router that serves as my firewall, and I have a long security 
key.  I am so glad I took typing in high school.


Take a  look at the TR-069 standard.
It allows a service provider to remotely manage and control the device 
at the customer location.
This can be a great thing if you have unsophisticated customers who need 
help but it does mean that you have complete control over their security 
and can do what you like with their device.


I would suggest that if your concerned about external hacks or access 
get a device that has the TR-069 removed or disabled.


--
Alvin Starr   ||   land:  (905)513-7688
Netvel Inc.   ||   Cell:  (416)806-0133
al...@netvel.net  ||

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Re: [GTALUG] Suggestions for stopping occasional spurious use of commercial wi-fi

[Howard Gibson via talk]

On Sun, 16 Sep 2018 13:50:14 -0400
James Knott via talk  wrote:

> On 09/16/2018 01:45 PM, David Collier-Brown via talk wrote:
> >
> > What's a good approach? I have considered
> >
> 
> Many people use separate routers, as they're not happy with the Rogers
> hardware.  I run pfSense on a refurb computer.  All you have to do is
> put the modem in bridge mode and connect your router.  Also, you may
> want to get something other than a Cisco modem.  Rogers doesn't support
> IPv6 on them.  I have a Hitron modem in bridge mode.

   My DSL modem has a firewall feature that my vendor recommends not using.  I 
have a wireless router that serves as my firewall, and I have a long security 
key.  I am so glad I took typing in high school.  

-- 
Howard Gibson 
hgib...@eol.ca
jhowardgib...@gmail.com
http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson
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Re: [GTALUG] [u-u] Suggestions for stopping occasional spurious use of commercial wi-fi

[Jamon Camisso via talk]

On 17/09/18 08:37, James Knott via talk wrote:
> On 09/16/2018 09:47 PM, UU via talk wrote:
>> 2. change SSID & don't broadcast it
>>  
> 
> That's generally not effective.  It provides a false sense of security.

Likewise MAC address white listing. It is easy enough to use ip link set
dev address, or ifconfig hw ether to spoof a MAC address.

Anyone who has gone to the trouble to crack your WPA2 PSK security will
be able to spoof a MAC address. Their packet captures will contain
legitimate authenticated clients that can be copied.

arping can be used to hijack the MAC of a currently connected client as
well, no need to wait for them to be offline.

So there's really no benefit to white listing if someone is targeting
you - far more trouble to maintain, and very much encourages a false
sense of security.

Cheers, Jamon
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Re: [GTALUG] [u-u] Suggestions for stopping occasional spurious use of commercial wi-fi

[James Knott via talk]

On 09/16/2018 09:47 PM, UU via talk wrote:
> 2. change SSID & don't broadcast it
>   

That's generally not effective.  It provides a false sense of security.

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Re: [GTALUG] Linux 4.19-rc4 released, an apology, and a maintainership note

[Michael Hill via talk]

On Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 11:52 PM, Dhaval Giani via talk  wrote:

> This list is an example of attacks on systemd. While Lennart doesn't read
> this list personally, I do know of the impact systemd criticism has had on
> him. He has shared recordings of death threats because of systemd. I think,
> we can all agree that, systemd, or pulseaudio did not make linux worse, at
> least enough to justify death threats.

Thanks, Dhaval. Good reading.

Mike
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Re: [GTALUG] Linux 4.19-rc4 released, an apology, and a maintainership note

[Russell Reiter via talk]

On Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 11:52 PM Dhaval Giani via talk 
wrote:

> https://lwn.net/Articles/764901/
>
> ...
>
> To tie this all back to the actual 4.19-rc4 release (no, really, this
>> _is_ related!) I actually think that 4.19 is looking fairly good,
>> things have gotten to the "calm" period of the release cycle, and I've
>> talked to Greg to ask him if he'd mind finishing up 4.19 for me, so
>> that I can take a break, and try to at least fix my own behavior.
>
> ...
>
> Jono Bacon's comments on it,
>
>
> https://www.jonobacon.com/2018/09/16/linus-his-apology-and-why-we-should-support-him/
>
> 
>
> Another interesting article that I read over the past few days was a
> Python keynote talk,
> https://snarky.ca/setting-expectations-for-open-source-participation/
>
> 
>
> On a more personal note, I have seen "hostile" behavior on many mailing
> lists, which has led me from withdrawing from participating on them.
>
> We tend to attack developers without thinking of the impact on them.
>
> This list is an example of attacks on systemd. While Lennart doesn't read
> this list personally, I do know of the impact systemd criticism has had on
> him. He has shared recordings of death threats because of systemd. I think,
> we can all agree that, systemd, or pulseaudio did not make linux worse, at
> least enough to justify death threats.
>
> They haven't even made it bad enough to justify the constant attacks on
> the software.
>
> Remember, if you have a better idea, you have the _freedom_ to implement
> it. You, however, do not have the freedom to expect them to drop what they
> want to do, to fix your problems, and when they don't want to, be subject
> to attacks from you.
>
> 
>
> I do hope, Linus taking some time off will make things better for him, and
> by extension Linux.
>


The Poettering hit man story is four years old. It didn't stop him from his
own rant, they are after all just words.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/lennart-poetterings-linus-torvalds-rant/

"Open Source community is full of a**s, and I probably more than most
others am one of their most favourite targets. I get hate mail for hacking
on Open Source. People have started multiple 'petitions' on petition web
sites, asking me to stop working (google for it). Recently, people started
collecting Bitcoins to hire a hitman for me (this really happened!). Just
the other day, some idiot posted a 'song' on YouTube, a creepy work, filled
with expletives about me and suggestions of violence. People post websites
about boycotting my projects, containing pretty personal attacks."

Also on a personal note, you contacted me offlist to chastize me about some
trivial comment I made about pulseaudio and at least one other person has
named you pubically on this list for the same type of conduct.

Now you make this post as a maintainership note about why you leave hostile
lists. What exactly do you define as hostile behaviour? I'd define it as
being trolled offlist by someone who harvested my email and decided they
had the right to contact me, just because they could.

Systemd is a thing. Writing publically about a thing, even in criticism,
even if you use words you can't say on TV, is so far removed from your own
private ad hominem remarks offlist that I am raising your poor conduct, to
remind you; just because you post a couple of true facts, that doesn't
authenticate a third postulate you have formulated as some sort of
gratification index.

I'm not exactly sure what it is that you maintain but I think both Lennart
and Linus can look after their own issues without your or anyone else this
lists intervention.

Free speech is a cornerstone of progressive thinking, feel free to ignore
this post.


Dhaval
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