Ubuntu to release Meltdown and Spectre patches January 9th, 2018

As we posted the other day from Reuters, two major CPU vulnerabilities were discovered recently that pretty much affects every electronic system with a processor in it. These vulnerabilities are called Meltdown and Spectre.

The unfortunate problem here is that it's actually a hardware and a manufacturing issue. Since it's not practical to replace every CPU in the world in every piece of hardware going back to 1995, bandaging the problem is now the job of operating system companies. Ubuntu Linux is no different.

In a recent Ubuntu Insights post, Dustin Kirkland from Ubuntu/Canonical said the following about Ubuntu's plans to patch on January 9th:

Canonical engineers have been working on this since we were made aware under the embargoed disclosure (November 2017) and have worked through the Christmas and New Years holidays, testing and integrating an incredibly complex patch set into a broad set of Ubuntu kernels and CPU architectures. 

Ubuntu users of the 64-bit x86 architecture (aka, amd64) can expect updated kernels by the original January 9, 2018 coordinated release date, and sooner if possible.  Updates will be available for:

• Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful) — Linux 4.13 HWE

• Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial) — Linux 4.4 (and 4.4 HWE)

• Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty) — Linux 3.13

• Ubuntu 12.04 ESM** (Precise) — Linux 3.2

• Note that an Ubuntu Advantage license is required for the 12.04 ESM kernel update, as Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is past its end-of-life

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic) will release in April of 2018, and will ship a 4.15 kernel, which includes the KPTI patchset as integrated upstream. 

Ubuntu optimized kernels for the Amazon, Google, and Microsoft public clouds are also covered by these updates, as well as the rest of Canonical’s Certified Public Clouds including Oracle, OVH, Rackspace, IBM Cloud, Joyent, and Dimension Data.

Another thing to note about this patch, as mentioned in the Inisghts Post, is that these kernel fixes that they will be releasing are not Livepatch-able. Long story short, these updates will require a reboot, so you should expect and plan for some downtime after applying the patches.

Some software vendors are reporting performance related issues to their patches. Kirkland said that Ubuntu does not currently have performance analysis information at this time for the Ubuntu patches.

Are you and your company preparing for the Meltdoan and Spectre vulnerabilities? Let us know about the sorts of things you are looking into, and want to know more about in the comments!

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Hello Neighbor on Xbox One

For those of you that don't know, my son has his own YoutTube channel that I help him out with. He publishes videos every week. He does all sorts of videos about video games, playing around our small town, toys and other fun stuff. His show is called The Adventures of Brizzle Fo' Shizzle!

This week Brizzle (aka Brayden) shows us his new video game that he saved up for and paid for himself! It's called Hello Neighbor, and it just recently became available for the Xbox One. Check it out!

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Most Influential in Blockchain 2017 – Charlie Lee, Creator of #Litecoin

After years of working at the first "Bitcoin Unicorn," Lee stepped out on his own in 2017 to take up arms against those who would delay bitcoin technical development. His weapon? The cryptocurrency network: litecoin.

With the network – once languishing, now revitalized – Lee pulled no punches, becoming the opinionated voice of reason in a market that's known for its insanity.

Via Coindesk

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Security flaws put virtually all phones, computers at risk

(Reuters) - Security researchers on Wednesday disclosed a set of security flaws that they said could let hackers steal sensitive information from nearly every modern computing device containing chips from Intel Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc and ARM Holdings.

One of the bugs is specific to Intel but another affects laptops, desktop computers, smartphones, tablets and internet servers alike. Intel and ARM insisted that the issue was not a design flaw, but it will require users to download a patch and update their operating system to fix.

“Phones, PCs, everything are going to have some impact, but it’ll vary from product to product,” Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said in an interview with CNBC Wednesday afternoon.

Researchers with Alphabet Inc’s Google Project Zero, in conjunction with academic and industry researchers from several countries, discovered two flaws.

The first, called Meltdown, affects Intel chips and lets hackers bypass the hardware barrier between applications run by users and the computer’s memory, potentially letting hackers read a computer’s memory and steal passwords. The second, called Spectre, affects chips from Intel, AMD and ARM and lets hackers potentially trick otherwise error-free applications into giving up secret information.

Continue Reading

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Men and the Power of the Visual

In the above video from Prager University, we learn why are men so attracted by a woman's legs, but not vice-versa? In five minutes, Dennis Prager explains why the answers to these questions reveal so much about male and female nature.

Via Prager U

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What is #Bitcoin backed by?

This question comes up all the time when discussing Bitcoin with people who are new to the whole idea of cryptocurrency. I mean, what is Bitcoin backed by anyway? Before we answer this question, let us ask you a question. What is the American Dollar backed by? I mean, up until 1971 the Dollar was backed by gold. Richard Nixon ended that.

Via Federal Reserve History:

President Richard Nixon’s actions in 1971 to end dollar convertibility to gold and implement wage/price controls were intended to address the international dilemma of a looming gold run and the domestic problem of inflation. The new economic policy marked the beginning of the end of the Bretton Woods international monetary system and temporarily halted inflation. 

The international monetary system after World War II was dubbed the Bretton Woods system after the meeting of forty-four countries in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944. The countries agreed to keep their currencies fixed (but adjustable in exceptional situations) to the dollar, and the dollar was fixed to gold. Since 1958, when the Bretton Woods system became operational, countries settled their international balances in dollars, and US dollars were convertible to gold at a fixed exchange rate of $35 an ounce. The United States had the responsibility of keeping the dollar price of gold fixed and had to adjust the supply of dollars to maintain confidence in future gold convertibility.

Here is Nixon giving his famous speech on the decision:



Since this decision was made, the Dollar hasn't really been backed by anything. In fact, this decision allowed The Federal Reserve (Which isn't a government entity by the way) to print as much money as they want, pretty much any time they want, for whatever reason they want. This actually causes the Dollar to be worth less and less over time.

So if the Dollar is not backed by anything, then why is it worth anything at all? Well, not unlike gold itself, the main reason the Dollar is worth something is because we all agree that it is worth something!

The difference between Bitcoin and the Dollar then, besides it being digital in nature, is that it is backed by the Blockchain cryptography technology, and there is a finite amount of Bitcoins available. Moreover, there will only ever be 21 Million Bitcoins in circulation, which creates scarcity. An individual can't just create more Bitcoins whenever they feel like it, which prevents inflation. Because transactions, and holdings are "logged" in the Blockchain and checked by miners, there can be no double-paying and everyone can account for all transactions.

To further explain, here is a video via Mainwashed of the Winklevoss twins talking about what Bitcoin is backed by, and how it compares to gold.

If this still doesn't make sense, don't worry. A lot of new technologies don't make sense at first. Just look at Katie Couric from 1994 trying to understand what The Internet is.



Like it or not, Bitcoin is here to stay in one form or another. You better stop resisting, and start trying to understand it better.

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#Bitcoin and top 6 alt-coins are up today

The top six cryptocurrencies are up according to coinmarketcap.com today! At the time of this writing Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) are up by 10.94% and 10.82% respectively.

Ethereum had the biggest change in 24 hours when it shot up last night by roughly $100.

Does this get you excited in 2018 or what? Let us know in the comments!

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