Tuesday, September 2, 2025

Platform

To securely store and retrieve data in Apache Kafka using Kroxylicious, follow a step-by-step guide. Install required tools, set up a test environment, and generate sensitive data to be sent to Kafka. Configure Kroxylicious to encrypt the data and verify its correctness. Update the configuration file with a dynamic template to encrypt only specific topics.

TeslaMate instances without authentication can expose sensitive data, including GPS coordinates and software versions. The open-source project lacks built-in protection for critical endpoints, making it vulnerable to public exposure. To mitigate this risk, users can secure their TeslaMate installations by enabling basic authentication or running the service on a VPN, providing guidance on protecting these potentially exposed instances from unauthorized access to sensitive information.

The DEF CON 33 Payment Village event drew over 2,000 attendees for a weekend of talks, workshops, and challenges. The CTF challenge "Tag Ambiguity" tested participants' payment system knowledge, while the Capture the Flag competition saw 24 teams compete for top honors. Other activities included "Dumpster Diving" and talks on mobile payments, cryptocurrencies, and PCI-DSS standards, solidifying the event's success as a hub for payment security enthusiasts.

The Golden dMSA technique exploits vulnerabilities in Microsoft systems to create a new managed service account, granting unauthorized access to a domain. This attack vector uses brute-force attacks and Kerberos brute-force tools to crack passwords and establish persistence. Security teams should monitor for suspicious login activity, authentication failures, and TGT requests.

The author has shifted from using ZRAM to ZSWAP on their desktop system, citing swap demand beyond what ZRAM can comfortably handle and improved behavior during suspend/resume as reasons for the switch. The use of an NVMe drive also reduced latency penalties, making ZSWAP a more suitable choice for this setup.

Switching to the Xe Linux driver for Intel Arc A-Series graphics cards on Linux can significantly boost performance, particularly for OpenCL/GPU compute workloads. Benchmark results show notable gains when using the Xe driver compared to i915, with the latest Linux kernel (6.17) and Mesa 25.3-devel providing substantial improvements in performance.

Scroll is a window manager for the Sway desktop environment, offering features like tiling modes, overview mode, and trail marking. Its Lua API allows users to script custom behavior, while IPC events facilitate communication with other applications. The tool also provides debugging tools, including Sway's logging system, for enhanced functionality and control.

UNIX pipelines demonstrated fundamental principles of software composition, including isolation, control flow, language agnosticism, and transport layer elegance. Despite advancements, these principles remain relevant today, guiding robust system design. However, modern systems' capabilities surpass original designers' imagination, necessitating adaptation and leveraging existing language features for pipeline-style composition and improved architecture.

The FTC has warned major tech companies like Google, Meta, and Apple against applying the European Digital Services Act if it compromises US citizens' freedom of expression and safety. Chairman Andrew Ferguson's letter references the First Amendment and cites concerns over censorship and weakened encryption, requesting compliance reports from companies.

The Global South is rapidly embracing cleantech solutions to meet high energy demands and limited fossil fuel resources. With 70% of global renewable potential, the region can significantly increase electricity supply by up to 40% by 2040, driving a transition away from fossil fuels and fostering substantial growth in renewable energy sources.

The Linux kernel's Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) subsystem is creating a new development tree, DRM-Rust, to simplify the development of Rust graphics drivers like Nova and Tyr. This consolidation aims to ease coordination, reduce disruption, and provide a dedicated space for new features and infrastructure, expected to stabilize before being transitioned.

xterm-nvim is a shell wrapper that provides a sessioned neoVim client with terminal integration, including x-term emulator support and optional tmux usage. It outlines installation steps, dependencies, such as coreutils and neovim, and configuration options for users to set up this feature-rich NeoVim client with seamless terminal experience.