Your daily round-up of some of the other stories in the news
Google adds UI to new ‘Fuchsia’ OS
Google has been quietly working on a new operating system for some time now, but until now it hasn’t been anything more than a command-line interface and a code repository on Github. However, now the OS – known as Fuchsia – has acquired a UI.
What’s interesting here is that Google has dumped the Linux kernel that Android and Chrome OS is built on, substituting it with its own kernel, called Magenta, instead.
The new UI, which Ars Technica has posted images of, is called Armadillo, and it’s built in Google’s Flutter mobile app SDK, which is used to create apps for both iOS and Android from a single codebase.
As The Verge points out, that means if you’re geekily inclined, you can compile Armadillo and run it on an Android device yourself. If you do, we’d love to hear what you make of it.
Microsoft patches ‘crazy bad’ vulnerability
Microsoft has pushed out a patch for the rel=”nofollow””crazy bad” vulnerability identified earlier this week by researchers at Google’s Project Zero in record time, fixing a “wormable” vulnerability in Windows’ Malware Protection Engine.
The researcher who identified the flaw, Tavis Ormandy, praised Microsoft’s “amazing response” on Twitter. Microsoft usually patches vulnerabilities once a month and rarely breaks that cycle, so the speed of the turnaround is particularly notable.
It seems that the problem was in Microsoft’s antimalware protection engine, which could have been tricked into running code delivered as a payload in an email, on a web page or via an instant message.
Microsoft said that the patch is available now via Windows update.
Austria orders Facebook to delete post
Austria has become the latest European country to crack down on Facebook, with a court in Vienna ruling that it must take down posts that defamed the leader of the country’s Green party, Eva Glawischnig.
What’s significant here is that the court has ruled that the posts must be completely erased rather than just being blocked in Austria. The court said that it was “easy” for Facebook to automate that process, although it noted that Facebook couldn’t be expected to try and find similar postings elsewhere on the platform. However, any verbatim repostings must be deleted, added the court.
Facebook hasn’t commented on the ruling, but it comes as Germany has threatened to fine the company €500,000 per fake news post, and as the UK government has called on Facebook and other social media providers to “do more” to combat terrorism.
Catch up with all of today’s stories on Naked Security
Simon
Of course it’s fuchsia, not fuschia. Unless the plant was named after Fusch.
Kate Bevan
Oh blimey, you’re absolutely right. Thanks, fixed … and always pleased to have a reason to use a picture of an armadillo.
Paul Ducklin
English people make this mistake a lot – I think it’s because they are taught at school to pronounce it “fyoosha”, presuambly because “fook-seeya” would cause the class to dissolve into sniggers.
Scott
Microsoft should not be overly credited for their quick turnaround time. Although I applaud the short turn around time period itself, Microsoft integrates engines updates into their definition updates. The big plus for Microsoft is that they could release an antimalware engine update and instead of going through the normal “Microsoft Updates” process, the engine was updated with the normal antimalware definitions.
I applaud the turn around time; however, what I am saying is that Microsoft should not been given too much credit, since their update procedure was a simple fix on their end and an even easier installation for the users.