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FreeBSD on 96-core 64-bit ARMv8

A couple of year’s back I managed to compile and run FreeBSD/Apache/BIND on an ARM-based Raspberry Pi. It was fun, but I have to admit it’s been left on the shelf ever since. A solution waiting for a problem.

Since then the ARM has been a specific target for FreeBSD 11. Do you really need FreeBSD on your smartphone? However much I like BSD, the Linux-based Android does well enough. But wait…

ARM has a 64-bit turbo-nutter-bastard version waiting in the wings, for server use. The ARMv8 is scalable to at least 48 cores per socket and intended to go like the clappers in SMP applications. FreeBSD has long been considered to have the edge over the Linux kernel when it comes to SMP. This is getting interesting.

Cavium-ThunderX
Cavium ThunderX ARMv8 board board.

A team including Semihalf has now got FreeBSD 11 stable running on a twin-CPU monster using the Cavium ThunderX ARM chips, each of which has 48-cores. For details see their blog. With a lot of serious web applications running FreeBSD in preference to the freewheeling Linux, there could be a very ready market for this kind of box.

I would be in danger of being extremely jealous, as my budget for playing with ARM chips doesn’t stretch much past the Raspberry Pi. However, in the 1980’s Atari Research gave me an ATW transputer box with 128 discrete CPUs to help implement an OS on, so I’m still 32-cores ahead. There wasn’t much of a market for the ATW back then, but Cavium could be on to a winner with the approach nearly thirty years later.

Footnote

Does anyone know what happened to the big transputer box prototype that was knocking around the Cambridge office? When the ATW/Abaq was released it was greatly scaled down with no more than 13 transputers, and lacked the glass case with all the flashing lights.

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Microsoft plans to dump OneDrive unlimited and Windows 7

Microsoft continues to lose the plot. This week saw the announcement that OneDrive customers have a year to shift their data way, and business have a year to switch from Windows 7 to Linux Windows 10.

The problem they’re having with OneDrive is that when they sold it on the basis of “unlimited” storage, they didn’t realise the punters would actually believe them. After all, who believes what Microsoft says about any of their products? But, apparently, some credulous customers have been using it for backing up all their stuff and this has caught the folks in Redmond by surprise. So they’re withrawing the product, and users have a (at least) year to shift their stuff off, after which the Office365 subscription would have lapsed anyway. The maximum storage available after that date will be 1Tb, but they have yet explain what will happen to the excess.

And in the same week, Microsoft announced that Windows 7 will no longer be available in a year. It may surprise some to hear that it’s still available, as anyone buying a domestic PC from the high street has only had Windows 8 since 2013. However, if you buy a business machine from a business supplier, chances are it will still have Windows 7 pre-installed, with a set of Windows 8 downgrade disks in the box to satisfy an “everything now ships with Windows 8” clause in some OEM deal. Businesses don’t want Windows 8, and voted with their cheque books to keep Windows 7.

Microsoft now plans to take that choice away, and force everyone on to Windows 10. This is hardly unexpected, but now it’s official. The reasons aren’t clear to me. Okay, Windows 10 has the creepy doll sending user data back at Redmond, in order to deliver a richer user experience (and targeted adverts) and make the world a better place (for Microsoft shareholders). Possibly a case of corporate Google-envy? Is Microsoft so keen on the Google business model that they’d risk hacking off the loyal customers who’ve been buying Windows XP and Windows 7 for years? Ironically, Google is pushing it’s paid-for cloud apps, and I suspect, would like to get a larger revenue stream from selling SaaS.

Listen up, Microsoft. People buy Windows because it runs the applications they want. It has nothing to do with whether the like the colour scheme. Windows XP runs DOS stuff; Windows 7 does, just about, because it has XP emulation. This is a concept known as Backward compatibility, and Intel knows all about exploiting this and making mega $$$ if you need a reminder. Lightweight home users and kids might be impressed by the new and shiny, but business wants something that works, and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The beneficiaries of this will probably be Linux (including Android), Google GDrive and other cloud storage providers, and alternatives to Office: (Google Docs, OpenOffice.org and smaller companies like SoftMaker. The latter has just released SoftMaker Office 2016, with an offer to make it free for use in schools.

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TalkTalk Ransom Demand

So, the head of TalkTalk (Dido Harding) has received a ransom demand following the latest hack? From a bunch of Islamist gangsters? I don’t think so. Okay, she probably received an email extortion attempt. Several in fact. It’d be form for Islamist gangsters to have a go, amongst the usual suspects. But the idea that whoever is behind the attacks also sent the ransom demand does not sound like the normal MO. It smells wrong to me. Extortion attempts of this kind generally follow a demonstration that the criminals can disrupt a web site, not after a long-term outage.

I get the vibes that TalkTalk doesn’t know what happened, and take everything they say with a pinch of salt. The only certainty is that their web site was toppled. Data theft, or script kiddies? I suspect the latter, actually. They floated the possibility of widespread data theft, which is very responsible of them until it’s figured out what exactly happened. This is a possibility in any attack.

Meanwhile, people are now questioning whether the stolen data (if there was any) was encrypted, and if not, why not. On a live system, data can’t be encrypted. Think about it! This is allegedly a hack of a live system, so the criminals would have access to the same data that he live system would.

This whole story has been hyped up way beyond the facts. No one (including TalkTalk) wants to suggest it may be overblown for fear of being branded irresponsible by a technically illiterate news media and opportunistic politicians. But it smells all wrong to me. How much more embarrassing if it was was actually script kiddies getting lucky, rather than the APT being hinted at.

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No talk from TalkTalk

Charles Dunston’s budget ISP TalkTalk has been hacked again. Yawn. This time it’s big news on TV; the headline story in fact. Their website has been KOed for a couple of days, but it’s back online with a front page showing a different news agenda. They get their feed from AOL (also part of the Carphone Warehouse family), who probably just missed the kerfuffle; there’s no celebrity connection after all. Not yet, anyway.

If you’re a TalkTalk retail customer (or possibly a business customer – who knows how their systems interrelate and what data’s been pilfered), and you’ve used the same password with TalkTalk as any other sites, change your password on those sites NOW. The popular media is full of speculation as to what’s been compromised but they’re not mentioning passwords, presumably because TalkTalk will have told them that any passwords would have been encrypted. But if the criminals have got hold of the hashes, which is likely, it’s only a matter of time before they crack them.

How worried should customers of other ISPs be? Pretty worried, as on the serious side of the business they’re known as Opal Telecom, a significant LLU operator providing the link between the last time and the data centre for a large number of Broadband providers.

I can, of course, only speculate as to why this keeps happening to them. One reason might be related to several conversations I’ve had with people from ISPs TalkTalk has taken over along the way. Apparently they really don’t like hard stuff like UNIX/Linux, and within months of a takeover they force a switch to Microsoft before making all the UNIX people redundant. Any fool can use Microsoft – low levels of technical understanding are required, meaning cheap engineers and lower costs. But do their Microsofties actually know what they’re doing? I dare say that some of them do, and some of them don’t. But the bar for a point-and-click Microsoft house going to be lower.

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The spammed malware attack continues, but Microsoft SE has been getting it wrong

Kudos to Microsoft Security Essentials for picking up the nasty attachment being pumped out like crazy by the clean-skin botnet recently, while most of the other scanners failed to detect it. However, it was wrong about the identity of the malware. It’s not  Peals.F!plock, as I originally reported with skepticism. It’s now detected as a variation of something known as Troj/DocDl-YU (to use the name give by Sophos). Read about it here:

https://www.sophos.com/en-us/threat-center/threat-analyses/viruses-and-spyware/Troj~DocDl-YU/detailed-analysis.aspx

This uses Microsoft’s Office macro language to download further malware from the Internet and install it on the victim’s PC, so if anyone activates it there’ll be more than just this Trojan downloader to worry about. As it’s a Microsoft Word document, people tend to open it. If the government really wants to spend money telling the public how to avoid falling victim to cybercrime, they should start by warning about sending documents by email, instead of the current nonsense. Microsoft might get the hump, though, and as I understand it, they’re acting as advisors.

If people have macros disabled on Word, they’re probably okay as long as they don’t get tricked in to enabling them. I’m not hopeful in this regard.

Meanwhile, those behind it are changing the message tweaking the payload to avoid detection – quite successfully! The latest incarnation reads:

From: UUSCOTLAND@example.com

Subject: Water Services Invoice

Good Morning,

I hope you are well.

Please find attached the water services invoice summary for the billing period of 22 September 2015 to 22 October 2015.

If you would like any more help, or information, please contact me on 0345 #######. Our office is open between 9.00am and 5.00pm Monday to Friday. I will be happy to help you. Alternatively you can email me at UUSCOTLAND@example.com

Kind regards

Melissa

Melissa Lears

Billing Specialist

Business Retail

United Utilities Scotland

T: 0345 ####### (#####)

 

They appear to be updating it every morning at around 0800Z. Let’s see what we get tomorrow.

 

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iZettle now works with Apple iOS 9(.1)

I’ve just had a note to say that Apple has released a new version of its smartphone/tablet system that fixes the bluetooth bug in version 9.0 that prevented iZettle readers to connect using Bluetooth. So fanbois can now upgrade their fondleslabs without cutting of their revenue stream.

For details see here: https://www.izettle.com/gb/help/articles/2122036

On the Android front, teething problems with iZettle 3.0 software  – the one that works with contactless – seem to have been fixed with version 3.0.1, although 3.0.2 also turned up a couple of days ago. Given some harsh testing with me, it was impossible to get version 3.0.1 confused by turning things on in the wrong order. However, some people have taken to the play store to say it’s still broken. It could be that its incompatible with their handsets (they don’t say which version of Android they’re using) – it could also be that it’s the cable connected version, which always seemed to be on the cusp of working reliably at the best of times.

While they were at it, they’ve fixed a few oddities in the user interface, so you can now just put through a payment without having to add it to the cart first (one of the points I made in the original review).

I’d be interested to hear details if anyone is still having trouble, and I may be able to help.

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New botnet spammed malware – Peals.F!plock

This is a big one, coming from hitherto unlisted botnet addresses – and it’s coming right now. I’m cross referencing the blacklisted addresses now to see if I can see who’s had an expansion lately. Spamassassin isn’t that great at picking it up, with about 10% getting straight through and about 90% failing to reach five points.

It’s a Microsoft Word document, apparently containing controversial malware Peals.F!plock. Little is known about this, other than Security Essentials flagging it but others say it’s a false positive. Well someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to sent it a “false positive”.

The messages all claim to come from “Stephanie Greaves”, sgreaves at btros.co.uk, with a fixed subject of COS007202, which is unusual. You’d have thought that if you’re using a clean botnet you’d randomise things a bit. This is a genuine domain name (with no SPF – come on guys!) and for all I know, Stephanie Greaves is the name of a genuine victim. Their MX is a virtual server and they’re probably wondering why it’s been heavily loaded since 9am.

Whoever’s doing this has a pretty comprehensive spamming list, containing nearly all of my honeypots.

Update:

This same malware is now being sent out claiming to be from customerservices@ocado.com with the subject “Your receipt for today’s Ocado delivery”, and an HTML message looking like an Ocado receipt (as far as I can tell – I shop for my own groceries!) Again, Ocado doesn’t seem to have SPF set up.

The message text is:

 

HERE’S YOUR RECEIPT

Hello

Your receipt for today’s delivery is attached to this email. I’ll be delivering your 12:00-14:00 order and, so you’ll know it’s me, I’ll be driving the Lemon van.

Your order doesn’t have any substitutions, everything’s there.

See you later,

Paul

 

The fake bombardier one reads:

Good morning,
Please see attached purchase order.
Kind regards,
Stephanie Greaves
cid:image002.jpg@01D01077.BAC48BA0
Administration Apprentice
Bombardier Transportation (Rolling Stock) UK Ltd
Electronics, Cabling, & Interior Division
Litchurch Lane, Derby, DE24 8AD

 

Update: 20-Oct-15 11:22

The malware spam now looks like this:

From: Shaun Buzzard <shaunb@hubbardproducts.com>
To: <to_addr}}>  <-- Note error
Subject: Order

Hi ,

Please find attached order.

 

Kind regards.

Shaun Buzzard

 

 

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Is Northolt Aerodrome Dangerous?

Biggin Hill, a rival airfield to Northolt chasing executive jet traffic for London, has got hold of a 2012 report that says Northolt  doesn’t meet current CAA standards for obstacle clearance, especially at the east end of the runway. Northolt has been there for a hundred years, so shame on the local council for allowing this alleged dangerous development to have taken place.

It wouldn’t be the only airfield to lose its CAA license since new rules came in (e.g. Sandown and Bembridge on the IoW) but then again it’s a military/government field and is regulated by the MAA instead. The civil operators of Biggin Hill and Oxford reckon the CAA should take over regulation, and (presumably) shut their rival down. They would say that, wouldn’t they?

Of course, a cynic like me may wonder whether the value of a huge plot of land next to the A40 had a bearing on what interested parties have to say on the subject.

 

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Installing Apache 2.4 with PHP on FreeBSD for Drupal 8. It’s a Nightmare

I’ve been playing about the Drupal 8 (still in Beta) and one of its features is that it needs the latest version of PHP (5.5.9 or later). I have a server I keep for testing the latest whatever, and this includes Apache 2.4. So how hard can it be to compile in PHP?

Actually, it’s not straightforward. Apache 2.4 is fine, but PHP is another matter. First off, installing lang/php55 does not include mod_php for Apache. It’s not that the option to compile it hasn’t been set – the option has gone. With a bit of digging around you can find it elsewhere – in www/mod_php55. Don’t be fooled in to thinking you need to just build and install that though…

You’ll probably end up with stuff like this in your httpd error log:

Call to undefined function session_name()
Call to undefined function hash()

Digging further you’ll find www/php55-session and security/php55-hash in there, and go off to build those too. Then wonder why it still isn’t working.

The clue can be found with this log file error:

PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library '/usr/local/lib/php/20121212-zts/session.so' - Cannot open &quote;/usr/local/lib/php/20121212-zts/session.so&quote; in Unknown on line 0

(NB. The &quote appears in the log file itself!)

Basically, mod_php expects you to compile the ZTS (Zend Thread Safe) version of everything. And why wouldn’t you? Well it turns out that this important option is actually turned off by default so you need to configure the build to include it. Any extensions you’ve compiled up until now will not have been placed in a directory tagged with -zts, which is why it’s looking in the wrong place as shown by the error log.

If you’re reading this following a Google search, you’ve probably already fallen down the Pooh trap. You need to go back to lang/php55 and start again with the correct options. The best way to do this (in case you didn’t know) is:

make clean
make config
make
make install

When you run make config it’ll give you a chance to select ZTS, so do it.

Repeat this for compiling www/mod_php55 and then go back and compile www/php55-session, security/php55-hash and anything else you got wrong the first time, You don’t have the option to configured them, but they must be compiled again once the core of PHP has been compiled using ZTS.

Incidentally, if you haven’t had this pain before, you will probably need to switch to using the new pkg system if you haven’t already. Trying to build without it, it’ll put up a curt little note about it and go in to sulk mode until you do. Unfortunately, on an older FreeBSD, any attempt to compile this will result in an O_CLOEXEC symbol undefined error in pkg.c. This is actually a flag to the open() kernel function that was added to POSIX in 2008. What it means is that if your process subsequently makes exec call, the file handle will be automatically closed. It saves leaking fds if your execution path goes awry. But what’s the solution?

Well, if you’re using an older version of the kernel then it won’t support O_CLOEXEC anyway, so my fix is to delete it from the source and try again. It only appears once, and if the code is so sloppy that it doesn’t close the handle, it’s not the end of the world. The official answer is, of course, to upgrade your kernel.

If you are running Drupal 8, here’s a complete list of the ports you’ll need to compile:

lang/php55 (select ZTS option in the configuration dialogue)
www/mod_php55 (select ZTS option in the configuration dialogue)
www/php55-session
security/php55-hash
security/php55-filter
devel/php55-json
devel/php55-tokenizer (for Drupal 8)
databases/php55-pdo
databases/php55-pdo_mysql
textproc/php55-ctype
textproc/php55-dom
textproc/php55-simplexml
graphics/php55-gd
converters/php55-mbstring (not tested during setup)

All good fun! This relates to Drupal 8.0.0 RC1 – it may be different with the final release, of course.

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Safe Harbour Agreement on Data Sharing with Uncle Sam ruled unlawful

Causing trouble – Court of Justice of the European Union

The long awaited ruling about whether the Safe Harbour agreement allowing free transfer of data concerning European citizens to the USA is valid under European Law has  just been published. And it’s a doozie.

Basically a Safe Harbour agreement (note the use of the indefinite article here) means that you won’t be sent down the river for doing something that might otherwise be illegal. The specific Safe Harbour agreement in this case (2000/520/EC) says it’s okay for European data controllers to send whatever they like to the American’s because Uncle Sam is a good friend. This would otherwise be a no-no because you’d be giving up control over information that would otherwise be protected by European privacy laws.

This situation is currently being misrepresented in the popular press as being about Facebook (social media being their favourite subject after themselves); it’s not. It’s about all data. The case was brought by Austrian civil rights campaigner, Max Schrems in the Irish courts to test the legality of Facebook doing just this, as a high-profile example. A lot of American companies like to base their data centres in Dublin because, up until now, the Irish courts have been quite relaxed about what goes in compared with certain other European governments. (And lets not forget the tax breaks, and that Dublin is a nice place to be).

Hanging over this is the shadow of Edward Snowden (yet again), raising public awareness and anxiety over government access to PII. The fact that this PII is already in the hands of the likes of Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Twitter with the full knowledge of the subjects doesn’t seem to matter – it’s the principle of the thing!

Anyway, the ruling basically says that the initial ruling is incompatible with European Law, and we can’t trust the Yankees to look after it without further safeguards. Where this leaves American companies with European data centres remains to be seen.