The H Roundup - Skype surveillance, Linux exploit & Android Studio

Welcome to The H Roundup, your rapid review of the week with the most read news on The H, the security alerts and open source releases, and the essential feature articles – all in one quick-to-scan news item. This week: Microsoft is reading what you type in Skype's chat, a new way to exploit the Linux kernel is discovered, Google unveils its new IDE for developing Android applications, Ubuntu shuts down Brainstorm, and the International Space Station uses more Linux.

Features

Dj Walker-Morgan sat down with 10Gen CTO Eliot Horowitz and talked about the technical philosophy of MongoDB, while Glyn Moody investigated the future of mapping services and how the OpenStreetMap project fits in.

• The H Half Hour: 10Gen CTO Eliot Horowitz
• Location, location, location

Top News

The H's associates at heise Security made a discovery this week that caused somewhat of a controversy when they exposed what seemed to be Microsoft probing URLs that were posted in Skype chats. As the week went on, further research into this behaviour unearthed some more facts and raised further questions.

• Skype with care – Microsoft is reading everything you write
• Skype's ominous link checking: facts and speculation
  

This week it was also discovered that a bug in the Linux kernel that had already been quietly patched actually presented a security vulnerability and now the major distributors are working to ship the patch with their kernels. Meanwhile, Ubuntu has decided to close its Brainstorm community feedback site and Google has revealed the future of Android app development at its I/O conference.

• Exploit for local Linux kernel bug in circulation - Update
• Ubuntu to stop Brainstorm
• Android Studio opens its doors
  

Firefox 21 has arrived and is rather light on new features, the Antergos developers have unveiled their freshly renamed successor for Cinnarch and Oracle has detailed its plan for changing Java's version numbering scheme to make room for security updates.

• Feature light Firefox 21 lands
• Cinnarch successor Antergos arrives
• Oracle to change Java version numbers

The International Space Station is running more Linux but, contrary to other reports, it's still not a Windows-free satellite. In spite of staunch resistance, the W3C is going ahead with its plan for a standard for DRM in HTML5 and the New Yorker has launched an anonymous drop site for informants, designed with the help of the late Aaron Swartz.

• International Space Station to use Linux on more laptops
• W3C presses ahead with DRM interface in HTML5
• New Yorker opens Strongbox - a Tor-based anonymous drop site
  

Open Source Releases

Open source releases this week included a new version of Google's Go, the new Reactor framework from SpringSource and a fuzzing library from the Fraunhofer Institute.

• Go 1.1 brings better performance and a race detector
• Dart now compiling in-browser with Dart based Dart compiler
• SpringSource fires up the asynchronous Reactor framework
• ProcessMaker 2.5 includes TinyMCE
• Fraunhofer FOKUS institute releases Fuzzino fuzzing library
• Talend 5.3 focused on Hadoop usability
• Catching hackers with virtual industrial plants
  

Development releases included a beta version of the next PostgreSQL, a beta of Firefox 22 and a release candidate for the next version of Linux Mint.

• PostgreSQL 9.3 begins beta cycle
• Firefox 22 beta delivers WebRTC and more
• Qt 5.1 enters beta
• Linux Mint 15 "Olivia" gets release candidate
• Terra and Lua offer new high performance computing strategy
  

Security Alerts

Important security alerts to watch out for are Adobe's and Microsoft's Patch Day releases, critical fixes for Firefox and security updates for the ownCloud application suite.

• Urgent security patches for ColdFusion, Adobe Reader, Acrobat and Flash
• Microsoft closes 33 security holes in May
• Mozilla's Firefox update fixes three critical holes
• ownCloud fixes critical security vulnerabilities
  

For everything The H has published in the last week, check out the last seven days of news. 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.

(fab)