Zoom 在分享螢幕時會有資料安全性問題

看到「Zoom Screen-Sharing Glitch ‘Briefly’ Leaks Sensitive Data」這篇,講 Zoom 在分享螢幕時的安全性問題,發現問題的德國資安團隊所寫的 security advisory 可以在「SYSS-2020-044.txt」這邊看到,對應的 CVE 號碼是 CVE-2021-28133

安全問題出在,分享者要分享某個應用程式的畫面,但有可能會先分享到其他畫面,再切回來:

However, “under certain conditions” if a Zoom presenter chooses to share one application window, the share-screen feature briefly transmits content of other application windows to meeting participants, according to German-based SySS security consultant Michael Strametz, who discovered the flaw, and researcher Matthias Deeg, in a Thursday disclosure advisory (which has been translated via Google).

而目前的版本還是有一樣的問題:

The current Zoom client version, 5.5.4 (13142.0301), for Windows is still vulnerable to the issue, Deeg told Threatpost.

這個問題是去年十二月就通報了,過了三個月沒有回應,所以團隊公開出來:

Disclosure Timeline:

2020-12-02: Vulnerability reported to manufacturer
2020-12-02: Manufacturer acknowledges receipt of security advisory
2020-12-02: Manufacturer asks for more information
2020-12-03: SySS provides more information concerning the security issue
2020-12-03: Manufacturer confirms reproducing the security issue in both the Windows and the Linux client and asks further questions
2020-12-04: SySS answers open questions
2020-12-04: Manufacturer responds and will look into the reported security issue
2021-01-21: SySS asks for status update
2021-02-01: SySS asks for status update
2021-03-18: Public release of security advisory

不知道什麼時候會修正

Mattermost 推出可以自己架設的專案管理工具 Focalboard

Mattermost 推出了可以自己架設專案管理的工具 Focalboard,在 Hacker News 上可以看到討論:「Focalboard – a self-hosted alternative to Trello, Notion, and Asana (focalboard.com)」。

從界面上可以看出來抄 Notion 的專案部份,目前的功能還非常早期,沒有什麼整合能力... 然後從這個產品可以知道,這家公司應該就打算一直抄下去了 XD

GitHub 上的資料看起來是 GolangVue.js 寫的,設定裡看起來支援 PostgreSQLSQLite

預設的 telemetry 是開的 (在 config.json 裡面可以看到),建議可以關掉...

Dropbox 也要搞自己的密碼管理器

Dropbox 也要搞自己的密碼管理器 Dropbox Passwords:「Dropbox Passwords coming soon for all users」。

看起來只要是 Dropbox 的付費方案就可以無限使用,而免費版的則是 50 組。從下載頁看起來目前在 PC 上只支援 Microsoft WindowsmacOS,不支援 Linux

Come back to this page on a PC with Windows 10 or a Mac with at least macOS Sierra 10.12 to get the Passwords desktop app.

而行動平台就是 iOSAndroid

How do I use the Android and iPhone password manager?

Once you sign in to the Passwords app, it automatically fills in your usernames and passwords so you can access frequently used apps and websites on your mobile device.

從示意圖看起來有整合瀏覽器,而加密技術的部份沒有講太多,只說是 zero-knowledge encryption,先觀望看看...

AWS 推出 X2gd 機種,針對記憶體再提供更便宜的方案

AWS 推出了 X2gd 機種,用 ARM 的 CPU,然後給更少顆,disk 也更小,但換來的就是價錢更低:「New Amazon EC2 X2gd Instances – Graviton2 Power for Memory-Intensive Workloads」。

把兩個用 ARM 的主機拿出來看看 us-east-1 的價錢,第一個是這次的 x2gd.medium,只有 1 vCPU + 59 GB SSD,但有 16 GB RAM,現在的價錢是 $0.0835/hr。

另外一個 r6g.large 則是 2 vCPU + 16 GB RAM,然後 EBS only,則是 $0.1008/hr。

再來是 Intelx1e.xlarge,這邊是 4 vCPU + 12 GB RAM + 120 GB SSD,單價也差不多,不過記憶體少了點,$0.834/hr。

另外 Intel 也有 r5.large,2 vCPU + 16 GB RAM + EBS only,$0.126/hr。

最後一個是 AMDr5a.large,跟 Intel 的 r5.large 也很像,2 vCPU + 16 GB RAM + EBS only,$0.113/hr。

這次推出的 X2gd 機種提供了只要記憶體的極端選擇,而且依照先前的經驗,Graviton2 真的很快,1 vCPU 未必會不夠用... 至少我 blog 的 PHPMariaDB 都是跑在 t4g 上面,看起來比之前放在 VPS 上快不少 :o

一個有趣的面試問題

Hacker News Daily 上看到「Performance comparison: counting words in Python, Go, C++, C, AWK, Forth, and Rust」這個有趣的面試問題,在 Hacker News 上的討論也可以看看:「Performance comparison: counting words in Python, Go, C++, C, Awk, Forth, Rust (benhoyt.com)」。

問題是這樣:

Write a program to count the frequencies of unique words from standard input, then print them out with their frequencies, ordered most frequent first. For example, given this input:

The foo the foo the
defenestration the

The program should print the following:

the 4
foo 2
defenestration 1

在面試時,重點不在於用哪個程式語言,而是在面試時一路往下問,像是 profiling 的部份,內部資料結構的部份,可以問得很深。

撇開面試,這個問題其實是個經典問題,當年 Donald KnuthDoug McIlroy 兩位大師都有玩過:

Incidentally, this problem set the scene for a wizard duel between two computer scientists several decades ago. In 1986, Jon Bentley asked Donald Knuth to show off “literate programming” with a solution to this problem, and he came up with an exquisite, ten-page Knuthian masterpiece. Then Doug McIlroy (the inventor of Unix pipelines) replied with a one-liner Unix shell version using tr, sort, and uniq.

不過當年玩的問題有點變形:

Given a text file and an integer k, print the k most common words in the file (and the number of their occurrences) in decreasing frequency.

他們當時其實一個是在示範 Literate programming,而另外一個在展現 pipe 的威力,都是借題發揮而已,跟上面的那些東西倒是沒什麼太大關係。

Google 釋出網頁版的 Spectre 攻擊 PoC,包括 Apple M1 在內

在大約三年前 (2018 年年初) 的時候,在讀完 Spectre 之後寫下了一些記錄:「讀書時間:Spectre 的攻擊方式」,結果在 Bruce Schneier 這邊看到消息,Google 前幾天把把 PoC 放出來了:「Exploiting Spectre Over the Internet」,在 Hacker News 上也有討論:「A Spectre proof-of-concept for a Spectre-proof web (googleblog.com)」。

首先是這個攻擊方法在目前的瀏覽器都還有用,而且包括 Apple M1 上都可以跑:

The demonstration website can leak data at a speed of 1kB/s when running on Chrome 88 on an Intel Skylake CPU. Note that the code will likely require minor modifications to apply to other CPUs or browser versions; however, in our tests the attack was successful on several other processors, including the Apple M1 ARM CPU, without any major changes.

即使目前的瀏覽器都已經把 performance.now() 改為 1ms 的精度,也還是可以達到 60 bytes/sec 的速度:

While experimenting, we also developed other PoCs with different properties. Some examples include:

  • A PoC which can leak 8kB/s of data at a cost of reduced stability using performance.now() as a timer with 5μs precision.
  • A PoC which leaks data at 60B/s using timers with a precision of 1ms or worse.

比較苦的消息是 Google 已經確認在軟體層沒辦法解乾淨,目前在瀏覽器上只能靠各種 isolation 降低風險,像是將不同站台跑在不同的 process 裡面:

In 2019, the team responsible for V8, Chrome’s JavaScript engine, published a blog post and whitepaper concluding that such attacks can’t be reliably mitigated at the software level. Instead, robust solutions to these issues require security boundaries in applications such as web browsers to be aligned with low-level primitives, for example process-based isolation.

Apple M1 也中這件事情讓人比較意外一點,看起來是當初開發的時候沒評估?目前傳言的 M1x 與 M2 不知道會怎樣...

雙 Gigabit Ethernet 的 RPi CM 4 擴充卡

看到「Dual Gigabit Ethernet Carrier Board for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4」這個東西,一張可以接 Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 擴充的母卡。

這張卡有兩個 Gigabit Ethernet (1Gbps),以及兩個 USB 3.0 接口:

然後大家都想到類似的用途了,可以拿來當 router,還可以走 USB 拉出來,接個硬碟當個簡單的 NAS 用用:

The Dual Gigabit Carrier Board powered by Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 is equipped with Dual Gigabit Ethernet ports and dual USB 3.0 ports, making it suitable for soft router applications, while keeping the hardware to minimal.

不過無線網路的部份得自己搞,在買 RPi CM 4 的時候得選擇有無線網路的版本,母卡 (擴充卡) 本身不負責這塊業務。

翻了一下資料,以前 CM3 (不是 CM3+) 也有廠商推出兩個網路孔的板子,不過當時是兩個 Fast Ethernet (100Mbps):「Compulab IOT-GATE-RPi Industrial IoT Computer is Powered by Raspberry Pi CM3 Module」。

這次推出的板子跑起 software router 效能不知道怎麼樣,單純就可玩性來看似乎是頗有趣東西?

GTA Online 釋出官方修正,大幅改善啟動效能

看到「GTA Online load time fix released, shaves off actual minutes of waiting for some」這邊的消息,先前在「GTA 的啟動讀取效能問題」這邊提到 GTA Online 啟動速度很慢的問題,官方正式推出修正版本了:「GTAV Title Update 1.53 Notes (PS4 / Xbox One / PC)」。

抓了一些在 Reddit 的討論「Loading Times Have FINALLY been patched - Discussion Thread」。

這則降的比率與當時 workaround 的修正差不多:

Insane. GTA menu -> GTA: Online.

Dropped from 7 minutes to 1:57

i7-2600k,GTX1070,16GB RAM and the game is on HDD.

這個就有點誇張了,這是 90% 吧?

Dropped from 5-8 minutes to 35 seconds

這個差不多 70%~80%:

Loading time 2m 20s for online directly from steam. Before it was like 8-10 minutes for me. Damn

Edit: 50s for story mode. 35s from story mode to online. So it seems it's still faster to load into online from story mode.

這個也差不多 70%:

From 4-5 minutes to 1 a minute and 22 seconds. Y e s p l e a s e

然後 PS4 的版本原來也受到一樣的影響?

Currently tested on PS4 , from main menu to online : 3min 45 sec From story mode to online: 1min 20sec (😩 i can't tell for sure )

整體看起來是正面的,畢竟大家等這個問題等超久了... 另外也可以看出來當初的 workaround patch 其實相當精準的把問題都解掉了,官方的修正並沒有快更多。

來繼續關注 libc 那邊的問題...

Airtable 的 Open Source 替代方案 Baserow

Hacker News Daily 上看到的產品 Baserow,另外在 Hacker News 的討論也有蠻多有趣的東西:「Baserow.io – Self-hosted Airtable alternative (baserow.io)」。

Baserow 的後端是用 Django 寫的,前端則主要是用 Vue.js

可以看到討論裡 Airtable 的問題,先不講定價問題,只講其他的部份... (因為就如同討論裡面有提到的,有可能是公司故意把定價策略訂成讓不願意花大錢的人使用)

首先是每個月都有「穩定的 downtime」,不過這邊的描述到的數字明顯有問題,一個月當了七個小時也有 99% uptime (兩個九)。

不過先撇開這點,付費服務一般都可以看到 99.9% 的 Monthly SLA (三個九,一個月只允許 43.2 分鐘),這個情況的確是不太符合業界的標準:

Reliable 1-5 hours a month of downtime. There are months where it's literally 1 nine of uptime. Their status page was actually down for a while (I think they forgot to renew it?)

另外一個有很趣的是很奇耙的設計:

Booleans in the API are `true` or `undefined`. Seriously.

看起來要有蠻多背景知識才有可能知道為什麼這樣搞 XDDD

先丟給 data team 看看,如果他們有興趣的話再找機會架起來...