An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: In a new study, published Monday in the journal npj Flexible Electronics, an international team of researchers revealed it has engineered a system to remotely control the legs of cockroaches from afar. The system, which is basically a cockroach backpack wired into the creature's nervous system, has a power output about 50 times higher than previous devices and is built with an ultrathin and flexible solar cell that doesn't hinder the roach's movement. Pressing a button sends a shock to the backpack that tricks the roach into moving a certain direction. Cockroach cyborgs are not a new idea. Back in 2012, researchers at North Carolina State University were experimenting with Madagascar hissing cockroaches and wireless backpacks, showing the critters could be remotely controlled to walk along a track. The way scientists do this is by attaching the backpack and connecting wires to a cockroach's "cerci," two appendages at the end of the abdomen that are basically sensory nerves. One on the left, one on the right. Previous studies have shown electrical impulses to either side can stimulate the roach into moving in that direction, giving researchers some control over locomotion. But to send and receive signals, you need to power the backpack. You might be able to use a battery but, eventually, a battery will run out of power and the cyborg cockroach will be free to disappear into the leaf litter. The team at Riken crafted the system to be solar-powered and rechargeable. They attached a battery and stimulation module to the cockroach's thorax (the upper segment of its body). That was the first step. The second step was to make sure the solar cell module would adhere to the cockroach's abdomen, the segmented lower section of its body. [T]he Riken team tested a number of thin electronic films, subjecting their roaches to a bunch of experiments and watching how the roaches moved depending on the thickness of the film. This helped them decide on a module about 17 times thinner than a human hair. It adhered to the abdomen without greatly limiting the degree of freedom the roaches had and also stuck around for about a month, greatly outlasting previous systems. "The current system only has a wireless locomotion control system, so it's not enough to prepare an application such as urban rescue," said Kenjiro Fukuda, an expert in flexible electronics at Japan's Riken. "By integrating other required devices such as sensors and cameras, we can use our cyborg insects for such purposes." Fukuda notes the design of the ultrathin solar cell could be applied to other insects, like beetles and cicadas.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Microsoft has published a knowledge base article acknowledging a problem with encryption acceleration in the newest versions of Windows that could result in data corruption. The company recommends installing the June 2022 security updates for Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022 "to prevent further damage," though there are no suggested solutions for anyone who has already lost data because of the bug. The problems only affect relatively recent PCs and servers that support Vector Advanced Encryption Standard (VAES) instructions for accelerating cryptographic operations. Microsoft says affected systems use AES-XTS or AES-GCM instructions "on new hardware." Part of the AVX-512 instruction set, VAES instructions are supported by Intel's Ice Lake, Tiger Lake, Rocket Lake, and Alder Lake architectures -- these power some 10th-generation Core CPUs for laptops, as well as all 11th- and 12th-gen Core CPUs. AMD's upcoming Zen 4 architecture also supports VAES, though by the time these chips are released in the fall, the patches will have had plenty of time to proliferate. Microsoft says that the problem was caused when it added "new code paths" to support the updated encryption instructions in SymCrypt, Windows' cryptographic function library. These code paths were added in the initial release of Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022, so the problem shouldn't affect older versions like Windows 10 or Windows Server 2019. The initial fix for the problem, provided in Windows' June 2022 security update package (Windows 11 build 22000.778), will prevent further damage at the cost of reduced performance, suggesting that the initial fix was to disable encryption acceleration on these processors entirely. Using Bitlocker-encrypted disks or the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol or accessing encrypted storage on servers will all be slower with the first patch installed, though installing the July 2022 security updates (Windows 11 build 22000.795) should restore performance to its previous level.

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Microsoft says the Outlook email client will crash when opening and reading emails with tables such as Uber receipt emails. BleepingComputer reports: "When opening, replying, or forwarding some emails that include complex tables, Outlook stops responding," the company explains in a support document. To make matters worse, emails with the same table contents will also cause the Microsoft Word app to stop responding. While the known issue affects Microsoft 365 customers in the Current Channel Version 2206 Build 15330.20196 and higher, it can also trigger freezes in current Beta and Current Channel Preview builds. The Microsoft Word team has already developed a fix that will be released to Beta channel customers soon, after undergoing verification. Microsoft added that customers using Outlook versions in the Current Channel would receive the fix as part of this month's Patch Tuesday, on August 9, 2022. For those unable to wait for the fix, Microsoft has provided a workaround that requires users to revert to an older build.

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"An actively exploited Microsoft zero-day flaw still has no patch," Wired wrote Friday (in an article they've designated as "free for a limited time only.") Microsoft first received reports of the flaw on April 21st, the article points out, and researchers have now seen malicious Word documents exploiting Follina for targets in Russia, India, the Philippines, Belarus, and Nepal. Yet "The company continues to downplay the severity of the Follina vulnerability, which remains present in all supported versions of Windows." Researchers warned last weekend that a flaw in Microsoft's Support Diagnostic Tool could be exploited using malicious Word documents to remotely take control of target devices. Microsoft released guidance on Monday, including temporary defense measures. By Tuesday, the United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency had warned that "a remote, unauthenticated attacker could exploit this vulnerability," known as Follina, "to take control of an affected system." But Microsoft would not say when or whether a patch is coming for the vulnerability, even though the company acknowledged that the flaw was being actively exploited by attackers in the wild. And the company still had no comment about the possibility of a patch when asked by WIRED [Thursday]. The Follina vulnerability in a Windows support tool can be easily exploited by a specially crafted Word document. The lure is outfitted with a remote template that can retrieve a malicious HTML file and ultimately allow an attacker to execute Powershell commands within Windows. Researchers note that they would describe the bug as a "zero-day," or previously unknown vulnerability, but Microsoft has not classified it as such. "After public knowledge of the exploit grew, we began seeing an immediate response from a variety of attackers beginning to use it," says Tom Hegel, senior threat researcher at security firm SentinelOne. He adds that while attackers have primarily been observed exploiting the flaw through malicious documents thus far, researchers have discovered other methods as well, including the manipulation of HTML content in network traffic.... The vulnerability is present in all supported versions of Windows and can be exploited through Microsoft Office 365, Office 2013 through 2019, Office 2021, and Office ProPlus. Microsoft's main proposed mitigation involves disabling a specific protocol within Support Diagnostic Tool and using Microsoft Defender Antivirus to monitor for and block exploitation. But incident responders say that more action is needed, given how easy it is to exploit the vulnerability and how much malicious activity is being detected. The Register adds that the flaw works in Microsoft Word even when macros are disabled. (Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Z00L00K for sharing the story!) Friday Microsoft went into the vulnerability's official CVE report and added this update. "Microsoft is working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release."

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A bug in Google Docs is causing it to crash when a series of words are typed into a document opened with the online word processor. BleepingComputer reports: It's official -- Google Docs crashes at the sight of "And. And. And. And. And." when the "Show grammar suggestion" is turned on. A Google Docs user, Pat Needham brought up the issue on Google Docs Editors Help forum. [...] Another user, Sergii Dymchenko, said strings like "But. But. But. But. But." triggered the same response. Some also noticed putting any of the terms like "Also, Therefore, And, Anyway, But, Who, Why, Besides, However," in the same format achieved the outcome. Once crashed, you may not be able to easily re-access the document as doing so would trigger the crash again. BleepingComputer was able to reproduce the issue last night and reached out to Google. Google told us it is aware of the bug and working on a fix. [...] Until Google has an answer as to what causes this problem, it might be wise to turn off grammar suggestions by navigating to Tools, Spelling and grammar and unticking 'Show grammar suggestions.' If the bug has already been triggered and you're locked out of the Google Doc in question, there might be a workaround. Use the Google Docs mobile app to access the document, remove the offending words and the file should now open up gracefully on your Google Docs web version too.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: New research, published in the journal Physiological Entomology, suggests that the palm-sized Joro spider, which swarmed North Georgia by the millions last September, has a special resilience to the cold. This has led scientists to suggest that the 3-inch (7.6 centimeters) bright-yellow-striped spiders -- whose hatchlings disperse by fashioning web parachutes to fly as far as 100 miles (161 kilometers) -- could soon dominate the Eastern Seaboard. Since the spider hitchhiked its way to the northeast of Atlanta, Georgia, inside a shipping container in 2014, its numbers and range have expanded steadily across Georgia, culminating in an astonishing population boom last year that saw millions of the arachnids drape porches, power lines, mailboxes and vegetable patches across more than 25 state counties with webs as thick as 10 feet (3 meters) deep, Live Science previously reported. Common to China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea, the Joro spider is part of a group of spiders known as "orb weavers" because of their highly symmetrical, circular webs. The spider gets its name from Jorgumo, a Japanese spirit, or Ykai, that is said to disguise itself as a beautiful woman to prey upon gullible men. True to its mythical reputation, the Joro spider is stunning to look at, with a large, round, jet-black body cut across with bright yellow stripes, and flecked on its underside with intense red markings. But despite its threatening appearance and its fearsome standing in folklore, the Joro spider's bite is rarely strong enough to break through the skin, and its venom poses no threat to humans, dogs or cats unless they are allergic. That's perhaps good news, as the spiders are destined to spread far and wide across the continental U.S., researchers say. The scientists came to this conclusion after comparing the Joro spider to a close cousin, the golden silk spider, which migrated from tropical climates 160 years ago to establish an eight-legged foothold in the southern United States. By tracking the spiders' locations in the wild and monitoring their vitals as they subjected caught specimens to freezing temperatures, the researchers found that the Joro spider has about double the metabolic rate of its cousin, along with a 77% higher heart rate and a much better survival rate in cold temperatures. Additionally, Joro spiders exist in most parts of their native Japan -- warm and cold -- which has a very similar climate to the U.S. and sits across roughly the same latitude. [...] While most invasive species tend to destabilize the ecosystems they colonize, entomologists are so far optimistic that the Joro spider could actually be beneficial, especially in Georgia where, instead of lovesick men, they kill off mosquitos, biting flies and another invasive species -- the brown marmorated stink bug, which damages crops and has no natural predators. In fact, the researchers say that the Joro is much more likely to be a nuisance than a danger, and that it should be left to its own devices.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: When Erik Johnson couldn't get his university's mobile student ID app to reliably work, he sought to find a workaround. The app is fairly important, since it allows him and every other student at his university to pay for meals, get into events and even unlock doors to dorm rooms, labs and other facilities across campus. The app is called GET Mobile, and it's developed by CBORD, a technology company that brings access control and payment systems to hospitals and universities. But Johnson -- and the many who left the app one-star reviews in frustration -- said the app was slow and would take too long to load. There had to be a better way. And so by analyzing the app's network data at the same time he unlocked his dorm room door, Johnson found a way to replicate the network request and unlock the door by using a one-tap Shortcut button on his iPhone. For it to work, the Shortcut has to first send his precise location along with the door unlock request or his door won't open. Johnson said as a security measure students have to be physically in proximity to unlock doors using the app, seen as a measure aimed at preventing accidental door openings across campus. It worked, but why stop there? If he could unlock a door without needing the app, what other tasks could he replicate? Johnson didn't have to look far for help. CBORD publishes a list of commands available through its API, which can be controlled using a student's credentials, like his. But he soon found a problem: The API was not checking if a student's credentials were valid. That meant Johnson, or anyone else on the internet, could communicate with the API and take over another student's account without having to know their password. Johnson said the API only checked the student's unique ID, but warned that these are sometimes the same as a university-issued student username or student ID number, which some schools publicly list on their online student directories, and as such cannot be considered a secret. Johnson described the password bug as a "master key" to his university -- at least to the doors that are controlled by CBORD. As for needing to be in close proximity to a door to unlock it, Johnson said the bug allowed him to trick the API into thinking he was physically present -- simply by sending back the approximate coordinates of the lock itself. The vulnerability was fixed and session keys were invalidated shortly after TechCrunch shared details of the bug with CBORD.

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Linux programmers fixed bugs faster than anyone — in an average of just 25 days (improving from 32 days in 2019 to just 15 in 2021). That's the conclusion of Google's "Project Zero" security research team, which studied the speed of bug-fixing from January 2019 to December 2021. ZDNet reports that Linux's competition "didn't do nearly as well." For instance, Apple, 69 days; Google, 44 days; and Mozilla, 46 days. Coming in at the bottom was Microsoft, 83 days, and Oracle, albeit with only a handful of security problems, with 109 days. By Project Zero's count, others, which included primarily open-source organizations and companies such as Apache, Canonical, Github, and Kubernetes, came in with a respectable 44 days. Generally, everyone's getting faster at fixing security bugs. In 2021, vendors took an average of 52 days to fix reported security vulnerabilities. Only three years ago the average was 80 days. In particular, the Project Zero crew noted that Microsoft, Apple, and Linux all significantly reduced their time to fix over the last two years. As for mobile operating systems, Apple iOS with an average of 70 days is a nose better than Android with its 72 days. On the other hand, iOS had far more bugs, 72, than Android with its 10 problems. Browsers problems are also being fixed at a faster pace. Chrome fixed its 40 problems with an average of just under 30 days. Mozilla Firefox, with a mere 8 security holes, patched them in an average of 37.8 days. Webkit, Apple's web browser engine, which is primarily used by Safari, has a much poorer track record. Webkit's programmers take an average of over 72 days to fix bugs.

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ExpressVPN has updated its bug bounty program to make it more inviting to ethical hackers, now offering a one-time $100,000 bug bounty to whoever can compromise its systems. Bleeping Computer reports: Today, ExpressVPN announced that they are now offering a $100,000 bug bounty for critical vulnerabilities in their in-house technology, TrustedServer. "This is the highest single bounty offered on the Bugcrowd platform and 10 times higher than the top reward previously offered by ExpressVPN," the company shared in an email to BleepingComputer. The new $100,000 one-time bounty is offered with the following conditions: - The first person to submit a valid vulnerability, granting unauthorized access or exposing customer data, will receive the $100,000 bounty. This one-time bonus is valid until the prize has been claimed. - The one-time $100,000 bounty is only eligible for vulnerabilities in ExpressVPN's VPN Server. - Activities should remain in scope to the TrustedServer platform. If unsure that your testing is considered in-scope, please reach out to [email protected] to confirm first. ExpressVPN also invites security researchers to uncover possible ways to leak the actual IP address of clients and monitor user traffic. The bug bounty program is run through BugCrowd, which offers a safe harbor for researchers who attempt to breach ExpressVPN's servers as part of the program.

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T-Mobile has officially acknowledged a bug that has blocked some subscribers from using iCloud Private Relay when connected to cellular networking. In a statement to 9to5Mac, T-Mobile blamed this situation on a bug in iOS 15.2 and said that it has "not broadly blocked" iCloud Private Relay. From the report: It's also important to note that this bug is not only affecting T-Mobile subscribers, as the company says in its statement. Instead, it's a bug that seems to affect iOS 15.2 broadly rather than T-Mobile specifically. The issue is also still present in the latest release of iOS 15.3 beta. The full statement reads: "Overnight our team identified that in the 15.2 iOS release, some device settings default to the feature being toggled off. We have shared this with Apple. This is not specific to T-Mobile. Again though, we have not broadly blocked iCloud Phone Relay." A solution to the problem that has worked for 9to5Mac in testing is to go to Settings, then choose Cellular, then choose your plan, and ensure that "Limit IP Address Tracking" is enabled. Make sure to complete these steps while WiFi is disabled and you are connected to your cellular network. T-Mobile has, however, acknowledged that are situations in which it is required to block iCloud Private Relay due to technical reasons. Namely, if your account or line has content moderation features or parental controls enabled, you will be unable to use iCloud Private Relay when connected to cellular. [...] A source has also confirmed to 9to5Mac that this also applies to certain legacy plans that include the Netflix on Us perk and have Family Allowances enabled.

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Security researcher Trevor Spiniolas has discovered a vulnerability "capable of locking iOS devices into a spiral of freezing, crashing, and rebooting if a user connects to a sabotaged Apple Home device," reports The Verge. From the report: The vulnerability [...] can be exploited through Apple's HomeKit API, the software interface that allows an iOS app to control compatible smart home devices. If an attacker creates a HomeKit device with an extremely long name -- around 500,000 characters -- then an iOS device that connects to it will become unresponsive once it reads the device name and enter a cycle of freezing and rebooting that can only be ended by wiping and restoring the iOS device. What's more, since HomeKit device names are backed up to iCloud, signing in to the same iCloud account with a restored device will trigger the crash again, with the cycle continuing until the device owner switches off the option to sync Home devices from iCloud. Though it's possible that an attacker could compromise a user's existing HomeKit-enabled device, the most likely way the exploit would be triggered is if the attacker created a spoof Home network and tricked a user into joining via a phishing email. To guard against the attack, the main precaution for iOS users is to instantly reject any invitations to join an unfamiliar Home network. Additionally, iOS users who currently use smart home devices can protect themselves by entering the Control Center and disabling the setting "Show Home Controls." (This won't prevent Home devices from being used but limits which information is accessible through the Control Center.)

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Kalper (Slashdot reader #57,281) shares news from Bleeping Computer: Microsoft Exchange on-premise servers cannot deliver email starting on January 1st, 2022, due to a "Year 2022" bug in the FIP-FS anti-malware scanning engine. Starting with Exchange Server 2013, Microsoft enabled the FIP-FS anti-spam and anti-malware scanning engine by default to protect users from malicious email. According to numerous reports from Microsoft Exchange admins worldwide, a bug in the FIP-FS engine is blocking email delivery with on-premise servers starting at midnight on January 1st, 2022. Security researcher and Exchange admin Joseph Roosen said that this is caused by Microsoft using a signed int32 variable to store the value of a date, which has a maximum value of 2,147,483,647. However, dates in 2022 have a minimum value of 2,201,010,001 or larger, which is greater than the maximum value that can be stored in the signed int32 variable, causing the scanning engine to fail and not release mail for delivery. When this bug is triggered, an 1106 error will appear in the Exchange Server's Event Log stating, "The FIP-FS Scan Process failed initialization. Error: 0x8004005. Error Details: Unspecified Error" or "Error Code: 0x80004005. Error Description: Can't convert "2201010001" to long." Microsoft will need to release an Exchange Server update that uses a larger variable to hold the date to officially fix this bug. However, for on-premise Exchange Servers currently affected, admins have found that you can disable the FIP-FS scanning engine to allow email to start delivering again... Unfortunately, with this unofficial fix, delivered mail will no longer be scanned by Microsoft's scanning engine, leading to more malicious emails and spam getting through to users.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: As nostalgia goes, the Fisher-Price Chatter phone doesn't disappoint. The classic retro kids toy was given a modern revamp for the holiday season with the new release for adults which, unlike the original toy designed for kids, can make and receive calls over Bluetooth using a nearby smartphone. The Chatter -- despite a working rotary dial and its trademark wobbly eyes that bob up and down when the wheels turn -- is less a phone and more like a novelty Bluetooth speaker with a microphone, which activates when the handset is lifted. The Chatter didn't spend long on sale; the phone sold out quickly as the waitlists piled up. But security researchers in the U.K. immediately spotted a potential problem. With just the online instruction manual to go on, the researchers feared that a design flaw could allow someone to use the Chatter to eavesdrop. Ken Munro, founder of the cybersecurity company Pen Test Partners, told TechCrunch that chief among the concerns are that the Chatter does not have a secure pairing process to stop unauthorized phones in Bluetooth range from connecting to it. Munro outlined a series of tests that would confirm or allay his concerns. [...] The Chatter doesn't have an app, and Mattel said the Chatter phone was released as "a limited promotional item and a playful spin on a classic toy for adults." But Munro said he's concerned the Chatter's lack of secure pairing could be exploited by a nearby neighbor or a determined attacker, or that the Chatter could be handed down to kids, who could then unknowingly trigger the bug. "It doesn't need kids to interact with it in order for it to become an audio bug. Just leaving the handset off is enough," said Munro.

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Microsoft has notified earlier this month a select group of Azure customers impacted by a recently discovered bug that exposed the source code of their Azure web apps since at least September 2017. The vulnerability was discovered by cloud security firm Wiz and reported to Microsoft in September. The issue was fixed in November, and Microsoft has spent the last few weeks investigating how many customers were impacted. The Record reports: The issue, nicknamed NotLegit, resides in Azure App Service, a feature of the Azure cloud that allows customers to deploy websites and web apps from a source code repository. Wiz researchers said that in situations where Azure customers selected the "Local Git" option to deploy their websites from a Git repository hosted on the same Azure server, the source code was also exposed online. All PHP, Node, Ruby, and Python applications deployed via this method were impacted, Microsoft said in a blog post today. Only apps deployed on Linux-based Azure servers were impacted, but not those hosted on Windows Server systems. Apps deployed as far back as 2013 were impacted, although the exposure began in September 2017, when the vulnerability was introduced in Azure's systems, the Wiz team said in a report today. [...] The most dangerous exposure scenarios are situations where the exposed source code contained a .git configuration file that, itself, contained passwords and access tokens for other customer systems, such as databases and APIs.

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segaboy81 writes: Amazon Games is new to the AAA games space, finding tremendous success with their title New World. Since its release in September, YouTubers like Sethphir and Video Game Databank have begun to carve out their own niche in the New World community, seeing their subscriber base soar into the tens of thousands. However, YouTubers may begin to suffer under the watchful eye of New World's leadership. Recently, YouTuber Video Game Databank discovered a serious bug in version 1.2 regarding aptitude levels in a single crafting attempt which purportedly resulted in his loss of 40,000 coins. Dutifully, he reported the bug to Amazon customer support. When they didn't understand his complaint, he shared a video showing the bug in action. He goes on to call this a "fatal mistake" as just two hours later the video is removed from Youtube after a manual copyright claim was invoked by Amazon. While it could be a coincidence, it certainly seems like a hostile action on behalf of the games studio as it was not an automated, AI triggered task. Someone at the studio manually filed the claim.

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Companies and governments around the world rushed over the weekend to fend off cyberattacks looking to exploit a serious flaw in a widely used piece of Internet software that security experts warn could give hackers sweeping access to networks. From a report: Cybersecurity researchers said the bug, hidden in an obscure piece of server software called Log4j, represents one of the biggest risks seen in recent years because the code is so widely used on corporate networks. The Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued an urgent alert about the vulnerability and urged companies to take action. CISA Director Jen Easterly said on Saturday, "To be clear, this vulnerability poses a severe risk. We will only minimize potential impacts through collaborative efforts between government and the private sector." Germany's cybersecurity organization over the weekend issued a "red alert" about the bug. Australia called the issue "critical." Security experts warned that it could take weeks or more to assess the extent of the damage and that hackers exploiting the vulnerability could access sensitive data on networks and install back doors they could use to maintain access to servers even after the flawed software has been patched. "It is one of the most significant vulnerabilities that I've seen in a long time," said Aaron Portnoy, principal scientist with the security firm Randori. Security experts noted that many companies have other processes in place that would prevent a malicious hacker from running software and breaking into these companies, potentially limiting the fallout from the bug. Microsoft, in an alert to customers, said "attackers are probing all endpoints for vulnerability." Amazon.com, Twitter and Cisco were among the companies that have said they were carrying out investigations into the depth of the problem. Amazon, the world's biggest cloud computing company, said in a security alert, "We are actively monitoring this issue, and are working on addressing it."

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Rockstar has issued an apology for the "unexpected technical issues" that marred the release of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition last week and led to the quick removal of the PC version from Rockstar's online store. From a report: Last week, Rockstar said that the PC version of the game was being taken down "as we remove files unintentionally included in these versions." That led to reports that the package included copies of original soundtrack songs that had not been re-licensed for the new release. Other reports suggested that the original package accidentally included uncompiled source code and revealed some interesting programmer comments, including references to the infamous "hot coffee" scene that caused the game so much controversy back in 2005. Today, though, the developer admitted in a blog post that "the updated versions of these classic games did not launch in a state that meets our own standards of quality, or the standards our fans have come to expect." We noted some of the remaster's many issues in our initial impressions, which recommended that you skip the bundle for now. Since then, players have chronicled countless bugs and questionable "remastering" decisions. Those range from disturbing textures to eye-searing rainfall to hilariously broken cutscenes to car-inflating wiggles to odd-looking character models and plain old typos that weren't in the original game.

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An indie developer has found an interesting observation: Though only 5.8% of his game's buyers were playing on Linux, they generated over 38% of the bug reports. Not because the Linux platform was buggier, either. Only 3 of the roughly 400 bug reports submitted by Linux users were platform specific, that is, would only happen on Linux. PC Gamer reports: The developer, posting as Koderski for developer Kodera Software on Reddit, makes indie game [Delta] V: Rings of Saturn -- that's Delta V, or DV, for the non-rocket-science-literate. [...] Koderski says he's sold a little over 12,000 copies of his game, and about 700 of those were bought by Linux players. "I got 1040 bug reports in total, out of which roughly 400 are made by Linux players," says Koderski's post. "That's one report per 11.5 users on average, and one report per 1.75 Linux players. That's right, an average Linux player will get you 650% more bug reports." Koderski's numbers are a limited sample size drawn from one person's experience, but tell a compelling story. Koderski also says that very few of those bugs were specific to Linux, being clear that "This 5.8% of players found 38% of all the bugs that affected everyone." The bug reports themselves were also pretty high quality, he said, including software and OS versions, logs, and steps for replication. Multiple commenters on the post chalked this up to the kind of people who use Linux: Software professionals, IT employees, and engineers who would already be familiar with official bug reporting processes. It's a strong theory as to why this might be, though the sheer passion that the gaming on Linux community has for anyone who supports their favorite hobby may be another.

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"Apparently a bug in GPSD, the daemon responsible for deriving time from the GPS system, is going to trigger on October 24, 2021, jumping the time back to March of 2002," writes Slashdot reader suutar. "There's a fix that's been committed since August, but of course not everything is up to date." ZDNet's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols writes: This will be ugly. Or, as Stephen Williams, who uncovered the bug put it, "I have a feeling that there will be some 'interesting moments' in the early morning when a bunch of the world's stratum 1 NTP servers using GPSD take the long strange trip back to 2002." GPSD maintainer Gary E. Miller has acknowledged the problem, and a fix has been made to the code. To be exact, the fix is in August 2021's GPSD 3.23 release. So, what's the problem if the fix is already in? Well, there are two problems. First, it won't be backported to previous releases. If you're still using an older version, you may be out of luck. Second, as Miller observed, not all distros "pick up GPSD updates or upstream their patches. [This] is a very sore spot with me." So, just because your operating system is up to date does not mean that it will have the necessary GPSD fix. Miller suggests that you check it and do it yourself: "I [am] gonna fall back on Greg K_H's dictum: All users must update." Oh, wondering what the mysterious root cause of all this commotion GPS Week Rollover? It's a legacy GPS problem. The GPS signal GPS week number uses a 10-bit code with a maximum value of 1,023. This means every 19.7 years; the GPS week number rolls over to zero. Or, as Miller noted, "This code is a 1024 week time warp waiting to happen." So, check your systems now for this problem. And, if, like most of us, you're relying on someone upstream from you for the correct time, check with them to make sure they've taken care of this forthcoming trouble.

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LibreOffice and OpenOffice have pushed updates to address a vulnerability that makes it possible for an attacker to manipulate documents to appear as signed by a trusted source. Although the severity of the flaw is classified as moderate, the implications could be dire. BleepingComputer reports: The discovery of the flaw, which is tracked as CVE-2021-41832 for OpenOffice, was the work of four researchers at the Ruhr University Bochum. The same flaw impacts LibreOffice, which is a fork of OpenOffice spawned from the main project over a decade ago, and for their project is tracked as CVE-2021-25635. If you're using either of the open-source office suites, you're advised to upgrade to the latest available version immediately. For OpenOffice, that would be 4.1.10 and later, and for LibreOffice, 7.0.5 or 7.1.1 and later. Since neither of these two applications offer auto-updating, you should do it manually by downloading the latest version from the respective download centers -- LibreOffice, OpenOffice. If you're using Linux and the aforementioned versions aren't available on your distribution's package manager yet, you are advised to download the "deb", or "rpm" package from the Download center or build LibreOffice from source. If updating to the latest version is not possible for any reason, you can always opt to completely disable the macro features on your office suite, or avoid trusting any documents containing macros.

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