p0f,
the passive OS fingerprinting tool, is a
networking utility application that runs from a standard command
line interface.
It was written by Michal Zalewski, William Stearns, and others.
p0f has been released under version 2.1 of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). p0f is cross-platform code, it runs on all of the major
Unix variants and Windows.
The project's
README file
explains how p0f works:
The passive OS fingerprinting technique is based on analyzing the
information sent by a remote host while performing usual communication
tasks - such as whenever a remote party visits your webpage, connecs to
your MTA - or whenever you connect to a remote system while browsing the
web or performing other routine tasks. In contrast to active
fingerprinting (with tools such as NMAP or Queso), the process of passive
fingerprinting does not generate any additional or unusual traffic,
and thus cannot be detected.
Captured packets contain enough information to identify the remote OS,
thanks to subtle differences between TCP/IP stacks, and sometimes certain
implementation flaws that, although harmless, make certain systems quite
unique.
Some of the uses of p0f include profiling, policy enforcement,
network troubleshooting, and seeing through a firewall.
Version 2.0.4 of p0f
was announced
this week, it features bug fixes, performance enhancements,
and fingerprinting support for several additional
network protocols including RST+ACK, SYN+ACK, masquerade and IP sharing.
The
README file
has more information on what's new in this version.
It is also a good place to read about the many command line options
that p0f supports.
Building p0f 2.0.4 was a breeze, it involved downloading the code,
un-tarring, and typing make. It built and ran with no trouble on several
machines that were tested. If you are interested in improving the
accuracy of p0f, click on the
fingerprint submission page and give the developers some
feedback on whether it identifies your system correctly.
Comments (2 posted)
System Applications
Audio Projects
The
latest changes from the
Planet CCRMA audio utility packaging project include updates to the CMT LADSPA Plugins, Xmms-ladspa, and the addition
of the Planet CCRMA application meta packages for Fedora Core 2.
Comments (none posted)
Version 1.1 rc 1 of the Vorbis audio codec is out.
"
We're gearing up to the next full release of the Vorbis codec; I've
just tagged a release candidate in SVN in order to encourage wider
testing toward final 1.1 release."
Full Story (comments: none)
Database Software
Version 0.8.7 of Glom, a database table definition GUI, is out
with field definition changes, bug fixes, and improved translations.
Full Story (comments: none)
Stable version 0.7 of Knoda, a database frontend for Mysql,
Postgresql, SQLite and ODBC, is out.
Changes include a new GUI, a query by example GUI, an SQLite driver,
storage for queries, forms, and reports, and bug fixes.
Full Story (comments: none)
Version 3.4.1 of phpPgAdmin, a web-based PostgreSQL database server
admin tool,
is out with several bug fixes.
Comments (none posted)
The July 12, 2004 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is available
with the latest PostgreSQL database news.
Full Story (comments: none)
Interoperability
Stable version 1.2.2 of dosemu, the DOS emulator, is out.
Changes include backported features from the development version,
support for GCC 3.4 and Fedora Core 2, and lots of bug fixes.
Full Story (comments: none)
Developer version 1.3.1 of dosemu, the DOS emulator, is out
with many changes and bug fixes.
Full Story (comments: none)
Version 3.0.5rc1 of Samba is available.
"
There have been several bug fixes since the 3.0.4 release that we feel are
important to make available to the Samba community for wider testings."
Full Story (comments: none)
Security
Version 1.2.23 of logcheck, a logfile security checker, is available.
Changes include non-root operation, new rules, a testing mode,
bug fixes, and more.
Full Story (comments: none)
Web Site Development
Version 1.0 RC7 of eGroupWare, a multi-user, web-based groupware suite,
is available.
"
RC7 will be the last release candidate for eGroupWare 1.0. When we don't have
critical bugs in RC7, eGroupWare 1.0 will be released in the next days.
Testing is encouraged."
Comments (none posted)
Version 3.2.19 of the
mnoGoSearch web site search
engine is out with several bug fixes. See the
Change Log
for details.
Comments (none posted)
Desktop Applications
Accessibility
Version 0.9.6 of gnopernicus, a GNOME screen reader for the visually
impaired, is available.
Changes include new and improved translations,
improvements to the magnifier, speech, and presentation sections,
and more.
Full Story (comments: none)
Desktop Environments
The Beta 1 release of KDE 3.3
has been announced.
"
As another step towards the aKademy in late August, this release is
named Klassroom. This beta release shows astonishing stability, so the KDE
team asks everyone to try the version and give feedback through the bug
tracking system. For packages, please visit the KDE 3.3 Beta 1 Info Page and
browse the KDE 3.3 Requirements list. The Konstruct build toolset has been
updated for this release."
Comments (none posted)
The July 9, 2004 edition of the
KDE-CVS-Digest is online.
"
In this week's KDE CVS-Digest:
Query designer in Kexi now has the ability to switch between visual and SQL
mode.
KPresenter improves page effects.
Krita adds computing histograms.
amaroK adds support for streaming over any supported KIO protocol.
Many bugfixes in aKregator, Kopete and Umbrello."
Comments (none posted)
The latest
KDE Quickies
article looks at the Logical Desktop, Digikam, and more.
Comments (none posted)
KDE.News
looks at
three new GUI-based configuration tools,
Kiosk Admin Tool, KConfigEditor, and KCfgCreator.
"
We introduce three applications which let administrators
and developers take full control over their desktops."
Comments (none posted)
Version 4.06 of the lightweight XFce desktop environment
has been announced.
"
This is a maintenance release, aimed at bug-fixing."
Comments (none posted)
Financial Applications
Version 2.4.0f of SQL-Ledger, a web-based accounting package,
has been announced.
A long list of improvements are included in this release.
Comments (none posted)
Games
Version 0.90 of mapacman, a multiplayer online pacman clone,
is out.
"
This
is the last release of mapacman because as you know our goal is to create a
real online multiplayer RPG and not a pacman game :)"
Comments (none posted)
GUI Packages
Version 2.3.8 of Bakery, a C++ Framework for creating document-based GNOME applications, is out with one bug fix.
Full Story (comments: none)
Version 1.0.4 of Fl_PlotXY, an XY plotting widget for FLTK,
has been released.
The changes are:
"
Has Major bug fixes, and some added features.
Development will now slow as it is suitable for what I designed it for."
Comments (none posted)
Version 2.4.4 of GLib, the low-level core library for GTK+ and GNOME,
is out.
Changes include bug fixes, documentation updates, and improved translations.
Full Story (comments: none)
Version 2.4.4 of GTK+ is available with lots of bug fixes and other
improvements.
Full Story (comments: none)
Version 0.6.12 of PyGTK, the Python bindings to GTK, is available.
"
This version includes a small number of bugfixes and two API additions
which have been incorporated during the last two years of stability."
Full Story (comments: 1)
Trolltech has
announced a "technology preview" release of the Qt 4 libraries. Qt 4 has a lot of new stuff, including the "Arthur" painting framework, a new Unicode text renderer, more container class templates, and "a modern action-based mainwindow/toolbar/menu and docking architecture."
Comments (17 posted)
Instant Messaging
A new project, the Gaim-RSS-Reader,
has been announced.
"
This is the initial beta release of gaim-rss-reader, a RSS feed reading
plugin for the popular multi-protocol chat client GAIM."
Comments (none posted)
Interoperability
Issue #230 of
Wine Traffic is online with more Wine project news.
Comments (none posted)
Music Applications
Version 0.6.2 of BEAST/BSE, the BEdevilled Audio SysTem
and the Bedevilled Sound Engine, is out.
"
This new development series of BEAST comes with a lot of
the internals redone, many new GUI features and a sound
generation back-end separated from all GUI activities.
Outstanding new features include support for skins, many sample
file formats, MIDI file import abilities, an improved piano roll
widget, the track editor which allows for easy selection of
synthesisers or samples as track sources, loop support in songs
and unlimited Undo/Redo capabilities."
Full Story (comments: none)
Version 0.7.1 of libgig is available.
"
libgig is a C++ cross-platform file loader library for Gigasampler and DLS
Level 1 and 2 files."
Full Story (comments: none)
Office Applications
Version 0.0.6 of criawips, a presentation application for GNOME, is
available.
"
This version improves the text handling for people who are using the
main window to preview presentations.
The text scales with other elements when zooming and the text is
automatically resiyed to the correct size when opening a presentation."
Full Story (comments: none)
Version 0.12 of Planner, a project management application for GNOME,
is out. Changes include
undo support, better printing and HTML export, usability fixes,
bug fixes, and more.
Comments (none posted)
Office Suites
KOffice 1.3.2 is out; see
the release notes for details and downloads. This is mostly a bugfix release, but there are also some filter enhancements and a translation for the
Upper Sorbian language.
Comments (2 posted)
Web Browsers
Version 1.3.2 of Epiphany, a web browser for GNOME, is out
with bug fixes and translation work.
Full Story (comments: none)
Version 1.1.1 of the Epiphany extensions is available
with bug fixes, new translations, and more.
Full Story (comments: none)
A new
Firefox 1.0 roadmap has been posted. The plan calls for the first 1.0 release candidate to come out on August 10, with the final release scheduled for September 14.
Comments (none posted)
The July 8, 2004 edition of the Mozilla Links Newsletter is
available. Take a look for news about the Mozilla browser and
related projects.
Full Story (comments: none)
The July 12, 2004 edition of the Mozilla
Independent Status Reports are available. Here's the content
summary:
"
The latest set of status reports includes updates from deskCut, Launchy,
Dictionarysearch, Citations and Mnenhy."
Comments (none posted)
Word Processors
Issue #203 of the
AbiWord Weekly News is online. Here's the content summary:
"
Tables now have the ability to summarise rows & columns. The
AbiMath handler has just been branched to be incorporated with 2.3/2.4.
And, naturally, we have GUADEC information (no one posted picture this
time :*( )"
Comments (none posted)
Miscellaneous
Version 0.3.1 of Alexandria, a book collection management application
for GNOME, is out.
"
This is mainly a bugfix release. If you are using Alexandria you should
consider upgrading, since a lot of bugs have been discovered and are now
fixed."
Full Story (comments: none)
Version 12. of the Hardware Monitor applet is available.
This version now supports (and requires) Gnome 2.6.
Full Story (comments: none)
Version 0.8 of regexxer, a search/replace tool for the desktop user,
has been announced.
Changes include support for new libraries, UI improvements,
bug fixes, and more.
Full Story (comments: none)
Languages and Tools
Caml
The July 6-13, 2004 edition of the Caml Weekly News is available.
Take a look for the latest Caml language news.
Full Story (comments: none)
Lisp
Version 0.7.8 of CL-PPCRE, a Perl-compatible regular expression
library written in Common Lisp, is out.
"
This version
adds a new argument for REGEX-REPLACE(-ALL) and new compiler macro
functionality."
Full Story (comments: none)
Version 0.8.5 of LTK, the Common Lisp binding for the Tk
graphics toolkit, has been released.
"
This version includes new generic
functions for text and value widgets, new keywords, new widgets, and
more."
Full Story (comments: none)
Perl
Perl 5.8.5 RC2
has been announced.
"
This is a regular maintenance release for perl 5.8.x, providing bug fixes and
integrating module updates from CPAN."
Comments (none posted)
The July 5-11, 2004 edition of
This Week on perl5-porters has been published. Here's
the content summary:
"
Perl 5.8.5 approaches, and the two release candidates of this week prove it."
Comments (none posted)
The July 4, 2004 edition of
This Week on Perl 6 is out with another week's worth of Perl 6
development news.
Comments (none posted)
PHP
Ethan McCallum
shows how to build a PHP-based Front Controller on O'Reilly.
"
It's a rare web app that doesn't span multiple pages. It's also rare that
such an app doesn't have some common behavior. The Front Controller design
pattern can simplify processing, behavior, and the user experience. Ethan
McCallum explains how to use this in your applications."
Comments (none posted)
Python
Python 2.4 alpha 1 is out, and ready for testing.
"
In this release we have a number of new modules, a number of existing
modules that have been reimplemented in C for speed, a large number of
improvements and additions to existing modules and an even larger list
of bugs squished."
Full Story (comments: none)
The July 12, 2004 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! is online
with new Python language article links.
Full Story (comments: none)
The June 16-30, 2004 edition of the python-dev Summary is available
with another round of Python language articles.
Full Story (comments: none)
Scheme
Issue #1 of the Schemer's Gazette (formerly the Scheme Weekly News)
is available with a new collection of Scheme language articles.
Full Story (comments: none)
Tcl/Tk
Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! for July 13, 2004 is out with more Tcl/Tk
article links.
Full Story (comments: none)
IDEs
Benlast
reviews Boa Constructor, an IDE for Python.
"
The source Explorer is brilliance in a tabbed window, the self-building UML and Hierarchy views do just what they say on the tin. Much kudos to the developers. If I did wxWindows development, I'll warrant I'd find it even more useful; perhaps one day.
But where it falls down, it falls down hard. I mean, the sort of thing that will make you scream and use words that get you Looked At by your loving spouse."
Comments (none posted)
Version 3.1.0 of DrPython, an IDE for Python,
has been announced. Here are the changes:
"
Made some changes to the menu, DrScripts can now be added to the Pop Up Menu, and organized in Folders. Lots of under the hood changes and bugfixes, including Find History and a new Scrolled Message Dialog that closes on <ENTER>.
You can also add plugin functions to the pop up menu."
Comments (none posted)
Miscellaneous
MozillaZine
reports
that the
Bugzilla Project has released
version 2.16.6 of Bugzilla, which includes a number of security fixes. The
first release candidate of Bugzilla 2.18 is also available, with additional
enhancements.
Comments (2 posted)
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