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Showing posts from August 26, 2018

Blocklist-Update.sh

Blocklist-Update.sh is a script that I wrote to manage blocklists from bluetack etc to be used in conjunction with Transmission torrent downloader in Linux/MacOS. The script can be taylored to work with Qbittorrent as well, but the placement of the blocklists means you'd have to redirect the blocklist to go somewhere locally manageable as Transmission uses its own blocklist directory in .config. I believe there are about 10 lists there now. It works well for my needs. It can be ran weekly using crontab in standard user profile.  To download:  blocklist-update.sh To download the others:  Github

MOZILLA TO IMPLEMENT CONTENT BLOCKING FEATURE IN UPCOMING FIREFOX AND OTHER SECURITY ENHANCEMENTS

Firefox 63 marks a big turning point for Firefox, not only will it see a new Content blocking feature implemented which will automatically allow users to block all kinds of tracking scripts and cookies(even slow ones) which will improve performance as well as security, but they are also working on a potential option to help secure users’ DNS traffic within the browser as well. This will use DoH or DNS over Https which will encrypt DNS data. The feature is in Nightly versions now and is not enabled by default, but users who wish to try it out can do so. Also, as with Google Chrome Canary, the browser is also trying to eliminate its future use of Symantec certificates. In the past, malicious apps and sites have used signed certificates from trusted websites such as Verisign and even Symantec. The Symantec certs will no longer be valid in Firefox and Chrome after the nightly/Canary versions become stable. Meanwhile, the browser is also undergoing minor UI and backend change

INTEL MICROCODE UPDATES IN LINUX

A week ago, it was revealed that Ubuntu and its derivatives would be releasing patches to the Linux kernel to try and prevent a critical flaw with the L1TF or a flaw directly affecting memory cache found in L1 of an intel cpu core which was exposed to malicious code running in the background which would steal personal information and reveal it to attackers. This was patched previously, however, Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu didn’t actually fix everything. There was an apology released by Canonical for in fact mucking some things up with their previous patch. It was revealed that there would be another patch to the kernel which came through about a week or so ago, however, this didn’t fix everything either. Intel Microcode is CPU instruction code which is updated by the CPU vendor to add security patches and new instructions to the CPU. Intel aren’t as forthcoming as some might like for them to be about their company’s updates to their CPU firmware. Intel has in th