Microsoft joining the Linux Foundation comes down to one word: Cloud

Microsoft Linux cloud 

By Jack Wallen  | November 23, 2016, 9:02 AM PST

It's been reported over and over and over again. Yes, Microsoft has joined the Linux Foundation. This is an event, a real, serious event; something not one pundit, analyst, or Linux user would have even remotely considered not even five years ago. But there it is.

Don't believe me? Here's the announcement in which Microsoft has joined the LF as a Platinum Member. Upon joining, Scott Guthrie, Executive Vice President of the Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise Group had this to say:

"As a cloud platform company we aim to help developers achieve more using the platforms and languages they know... The Linux Foundation is home not only to Linux, but many of the community's most innovative open source projects. We are excited to join The Linux Foundation and partner with the community to help developers capitalize on the shift to intelligent cloud and mobile experiences."

A more subtle shift

Shortly after this union, the Linux Foundation made a subtle shift in their convention scheduling. LinuxCon, CloudOpen, and ContainerCon will now be combined under one umbrella event: The Linux Foundation Open Source Summit. I'm not saying this change was done simply to accommodate Microsoft, but considering some of the marketing material has also shifted from focusing primarily on Linux to open source, you might be able to draw a conclusion or two. That conclusion, I believe, has been long overdue; that both the Linux Foundation and Microsoft are embracing one another not only speaks to the power of open source, but how the platform has become a major driving force in computing on all levels.

A perfect union

The Linux Foundation has been doing amazing work serving as a bridge between the open source community and the rest of the world — not just enterprise business, but end users, home office, small business, mid-sized businesses, and governments. They've fostered important relationships that have helped to drive innovation in ways that may not have been possible otherwise. The Linux Foundation has hundreds of members and thousands of projects (some of which have become essential to enterprise business); it makes perfect sense that Microsoft would not only want to get in on the action, but would truly need to be a part of this union. Why? One word. Cloud.

That's right, the "C" word.

It is no great secret that Linux owns the cloud. Even from the Microsoft perspective, nearly 1 in 3 Azure virtual machines are Linux. Amazon Web Services, Apache CloudStack, Rackspace, Google Cloud Platform, and OpenStack are all powered by Linux. That is a piece of pie Microsoft wants to get the tines of their fork into. And why shouldn't they? Cloud is the thing and cloud is going nowhere but up.

But this isn't a one-way street. Ten years ago, had this same thing happened, everyone would be crying foul that Microsoft was only in this for themselves. However, I see a different shade of humble happening from Redmond these days. Microsoft understands one very important thing: As the cloud succeeds, so too does Microsoft. That sentiment is amended with the idea that the cloud cannot, in any way, succeed without open source. So it is in the best interest of Microsoft to ensure that open source does, in fact, succeed.

What better way to see to this than to join the cause?

The shift in strategy

Microsoft, the once very closed company, now:

• Has open-sourced parts of its own .NET platform
• Purchased, and subsequently open-sourced, Xamarin
• Partnered with Canonical to bring Ubuntu to Windows
• Worked with FreeBSD to release an image for Azure
• Partnered with Redhat and SUSE to bring Linux to Azure
• Has become a leading contributor on Github
• Announced the porting of SQL server to Linux
• Offers its own Linux certification

Those feats cannot be ignored. The company now delivers and is not showing any signs of backing down from its promise to embrace and extend. This is the same company that was once run by a man who said Linux was a cancer. What we have witnessed, over the last few years, is nothing short of a tectonic shift in strategy on the part of Microsoft...one that can help to redefine the reach and power of open source for years to come.

We have come a long way, baby.

A sizable win-win

I cannot help but come back to the Linux Foundation. A lesser organization might have scoffed at Microsoft's advances, citing the years of FUD and damaging business practices. Fortunately, the Linux Foundation is bigger and better than that. They know bringing Microsoft into the fold is a huge win for them, for open source, and for the Redmond company itself. In fact, this is a sizable win-win for everyone, from end users to the biggest enterprise companies on the planet.

Thanks to the tireless work on the part of the Linux Foundation, open source has a juggernaut champion in its corner. That tectonic shift in the open source landscape is the beginning of a new world order for users, IT, and business.

How to connect a Linux machine to Google Cloud Print

connect a Linux machine to Google Cloud Print

By Jack Wallen | November 14, 2016, 8:55 AM PST

For a quick and easy way to extend your Linux printer server to your Google Cloud Print account, follow the steps in this tutorial.

If you have a Linux printer server, and you need to enable users to be able to print to your cloud-based printers, one easy method is to attach CUPS to a Google Account for use with Google Cloud Print. Great solution, right? But how do you pull that off?


Someone in the Linux community has made it not only possible, but easy. Let me walk you through the steps of connecting your CUPS printer server to a Google Cloud Print account.

I will be doing this on a Ubuntu 16.10 machine. The necessary software is available for Ubuntu as well as rpm-based distributions, Arch Linux, Gentoo, Portage ebuild, OS X, FreeBSD, and more.
Installation

The first thing you must do is install the necessary package. To do this, we must add a repository. Open your terminal window and issue the command:sudo add-apt-repository ppa:simon-cadman/niftyrepo

Now, update apt with the command:sudo apt-get update



Finally, install the software with the command:sudo apt-get install cupscloudprint


Once the installation is ready, you can connect your server to the Google Cloud Print account.

Connecting to your account


The developer of cupscloudprint has made this task incredibly simple. Go back to your terminal window and issue the command:sudo /usr/share/cloudprint-cups/setupcloudprint.py

The first thing that will happen is you'll be prompted to enter the email address associated with the cloud account. Type that address and hit enter. Next you'll be given a link to copy and paste into your browser (Figure A).

Figure A


Copy and paste the provided link into the browser.

If you haven't logged into your Google account from this browser, you'll be prompted for that information; otherwise, you'll be asked to Allow CUPS Cloud Print to manage your printers.
Click Allow.
You'll be given a code; copy that code and paste it into the terminal window at the Code From Google: prompt.
The command will output the accounts you currently have configured for Cloud Print. If you're happy with that, type y and hit Enter.
You'll be asked if you want to add all the printers associated with your account. Type y and hit Enter.
Once the printers have been added, you'll be asked if you want to use a prefix for the printers. If you do, type y, hit Enter, and then enter the necessary prefix; otherwise, type n and hit Enter.

Any printer you have associated with Google Cloud Print is now available to your Linux printer server. Quite painless, wouldn't you say?
Extending your printer server


What better way to extend your Linux printer server than to connect it to your Google Cloud Print account? With this setup, you can easily print to different locations (even in different states), so you don't have to expend the resources connecting printers to VPNs or other, costlier and complex, solutions.

Shadow Brokers reveals list of Servers Hacked by the NSA

 Monday, October 31, 2016  Swati Khandelwal

The hacker group calling itself the Shadow Brokers, who previously claimed to have 

leaked a portion of the NSA’s hacking tools and exploits, is back with a Bang!

The Shadow Brokers published more files today, and this time the group dumped a list of foreign servers allegedly compromised by the NSA-linked hacking unit, Equation Group, in various countries to expand its espionage operations.

Top 3 Targeted Countries — China, Japan, and Korea

The data dump [Download / File Password: payus] that experts believe contains 306 domain names, and 352 IP addresses belong to at least 49 countries. As many as 32 domains of the total were run by educational institutes in China and Taiwan.

A few target domains were based in Russia, and at least nine domains include .gov websites.

The top 10 targeted countries include China, Japan, Korea, Spain, Germany, India, Taiwan, Mexico, Italy, and Russia.

The latest dump has been signed by the same key as the first Shadow Brokers’ dump of NSA exploits, though there is a lot to be done to validate the contents of the leaked data dump fully.

Targeted Systems — Solaris, Unix, Linux and FreeBSD

Most of the affected servers were running Solaris, Oracle-owned Unix-based operating system, while some were running FreeBSD or Linux.

Each compromised servers were reportedly targets of INTONATION and PITCHIMPAIR, code-names given for cyber-spy hacking programs.

The data dump also contains references to a list of previously undisclosed Equation Group tools, including Dewdrop, Incision, Orangutan, Jackladder, Reticulum, Patchicillin, Sidetrack and Stoicsurgeon.

The tools as mentioned above could be hacking implants, tools or exploits used by the NSA's notorious group.

Security researcher Mustafa Al-Bassam, an ex-member of Lulzsec and the Anonymous hacking collective, said the NSA likely compromised all the servers between 2000 and 2010.

"So even the NSA hacks machines from compromised servers in China and Russia. This is why attribution is hard," Al-Bassam added. 

Are Hackers trying to influence U.S. Presidential elections?

A message accompanying the leaked data dump calls for attempts to disrupt the forthcoming United States presidential election. The portion of message from the Shadow Brokers reads:

"TheShadowBrokers is having suggestion. On November 8th, instead of not voting, maybe be stopping the vote all together? Maybe being grinch who stopped the election from coming? Maybe hacking election is being the best idea? #hackelection2016."

Targeted victims can use the leaked files in an effort to determine if they were the potential target of the NSA-linked hacking unit.

Since the records are old, many servers should now be clean of infection. However, a brief Shodan scan of these domains indicates that some of the affected servers are still active and still running old, possibly-vulnerable systems.

The latest release comes after the FBI arrested Harold Thomas Martin, an NSA contractor, who was reportedly a prime suspect in The Shadow Brokers case.