The H Week - Browser de-anonymisation, FreeBSD, Linux updates and H.264

In the past week, The H had the latest news on how, even without cookies, web browsers and users can be identified, the latest Linux kernel developments with the Kernel Log, yet another vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser and more...

Features

On The H this week, a new regular column by Glyn Moody which, this week, asked if Apple's new iPad could be the new Firefox and a Health Check on the most accessible and popular of the BSD operating systems, FreeBSD. The latest editions of the Kernel Log looked at open source drivers for AMD's latest Radeon graphics chips and brought part 3 of the "Coming in 2.6.33" series detailing what's new in Linux graphics hardware support.

• Could Apple's iPad be the New Firefox?
• Health Check: FreeBSD
• Kernel Log: Open source drivers for new Radeon graphics chips
• Kernel Log: Coming in 2.6.33 (Part 3)

Open Source

MPEG LA announced that Internet Video encoded with H.264/AVC provided for free to end users will remain royalty free until 2016 and driver code for Google's Android OS was removed from the 2.6.33 Linux kernel code base. Tthe Danish parliament announced that it will adopt the OpenDocument Format (ODF) as its official document format and a recent study showed that more than 21% of German PCs run OpenOffice or one of its derivatives. The "Britain Loves Wikipedia" scheme to open up UK museums and galleries to the free online encyclopaedia launched and the European Union's Open Source Observatory and Repository announced that it now has two thousand open source and free software projects.

• H.264 for Internet video to be royalty free till 2016
• Android code removed from Linux kernel
• Denmark to implement ODF document standard
• Study: > 21% of German PCs run OpenOffice
• UK museums open up to Wikimedia
• EU public sector repository reaches 2,000 open source applications

Open Source Releases

• Mozilla releases Firefox for Maemo 1.0
• Symbian OS now completely open source
• HipHop: Facebook's PHP accelerator makes C++ code
• WordPress for Android 1.0 released
• MacRuby 0.5 adds HotCocoa support
• Apache HTTP Server 1.3's final update released
• Development of Rails 3 on schedule

Security

In security news this week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation launched an online service that allows internet users to find out how unique their browser is and an experiment by the International Secure Systems Lab examines how to identify individual users based on their membership of various social network groups. The Conficker worm caused the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) to disconnect themselves from Police National Computer (PNC), security expert David Litchfield demonstrated new vulnerabilities in Oracle's latest 11gR2 database and Elcomsoft released a beta for its iPhone Password Breaker that promises to recover the passwords of protected iPhone backups.

• EFF demonstrates a browser's "finger print"
• Indiscrete web browsers assist de-anonymisation
• Conficker cause of Greater Manchester Police disconnection
• Vulnerability in Oracle 11gR2 allows system privileges for all
• Password breaker for iPhone backups

Security Alerts

• iPhone OS 3.1.3 fixes vulnerabilities
• Microsoft confirms new vulnerability in Internet Explorer

To see all last week's news see The H's last seven days of news and to keep up with The H, subscribe to the RSS feed, or follow honlinenews on Twitter. You can follow The H's own tweeting on Twitter as honline.

(crve)