Full disk encryption, FDE, has long been an integral part of Ubuntu’s security strategy. Its mission is straightforward: to mitigate the risks of data breaches due to device loss and unauthorised access, by encrypting data while stored on the computer’s hard drive or storage device. For 15 years, Ubuntu’s approach to full disk encryption relied on passphrases for authenticating users.

Any data-centric organisation faces the prospect of data growth at some point in their existence; it is estimated that more than 2,500 Petabytes (PB) of new data is created every day. While only a few organisations will ever have to deal with that kind of scale, it is important to plan ahead for your own organisation’s growth. Legacy appliance-based storage systems where hardware and software are closely coupled can be expensive to maintain, expand, and difficult to operate.

Few creatures from mythology have captured the imagination of mankind quite like the legendary Minotaur. A half-man, half-bull behemoth that is said to guard the halls of the impenetrable labyrinth of Crete. The ancient sagas stated that only the bravest of warriors would be able to match its incredible strength and escape its mystifying maze.

The Australian Federal Government is not alone in dealing with challenges like natural disasters, global pandemics and economic uncertainty. Like many governments, they are looking for new and innovative ways to tackle these challenges. FST Government 2023 is an exciting conference that brings over 200 government leaders together to explore how the latest advances in digital technology can help support better policy outcomes and citizen service delivery.

The Linux kernel has recently introduced the Rust programming language as an alternative to C for creating kernel modules. Rust is a strongly, statically typed programming language with a focus on memory safety features which produces extremely compact executable code. These properties, paired with its good tooling, make Rust a natural choice for creating many types of kernel modules, including device drivers, network protocols and filesystems.

Large language models (LLMs) are the topic of the year. They are as complex as they are exciting, and everyone can agree they put artificial intelligence in the spotlight. Once LLms were released to the public, the hype around them grew and so did their potential use cases – LLM-based chatbots being one of them. While large language models have been available for some time, there are still a lot of challenges when it comes to building your own project.

When the stakes are high and national security is on the line, every decision matters. Just ask the team at New Mexico State University’s Physical Science Laboratory (PSL). Founded back in 1946 to support the United States’ space and rocket programs, PSL has been on the leading edge of defence-oriented applied science for over seven decades. But when the Department of Defense (DoD) rolled out new cybersecurity guidelines, PSL found itself at a crossroads.

Deploying your application on a public cloud offers numerous benefits, including improved time to market, elastic capacity, and improved baseline security compared to on-premises solutions. However, this does not guarantee better security coverage for your application and data. For this reason, the major cloud providers provide a Shared Responsibility Model, which outlines the distribution of security responsibilities between the cloud service provider and its customers.

From pure voice to data, and now with the connectivity provided to devices and machines, telco systems make it possible to deliver digital services to society. Thanks to telecom systems, we can keep in touch with each other and reach the information sources we need at any time and anywhere. As we have become increasingly reliant on these systems, we also need to be vigilant about telecom security.

It has been a little while since we shared our vision for Ubuntu Desktop, and explained how our current roadmap fits into our long term strategic thinking. Recently, we embarked on an internal exercise to consolidate and bring structure to our values and goals for how we plan to evolve the desktop experience over the next few years. This post is designed to share the output of those discussions and give insight into the direction we’re going.