A weakness has been discovered in the random number generator used by OpenSSL on Debian and Ubuntu systems. As a result of this weakness, certain encryption keys are much more common than they should be, such that an attacker could guess the key through a brute-force attack given minimal knowledge of the system.

This particularly affects the use of encryption keys in OpenSSH. This vulnerability only affects operating systems which (like Ubuntu) are based on Debian. However, other systems can be indirectly affected if weak keys are imported into them.

We consider this an extremely serious vulnerability, and urge all users to act immediately to secure their systems. The following Ubuntu releases are affected: Ubuntu 7.04 Ubuntu 7.10 Ubuntu 8.04 LTS

This advisory also applies to the corresponding versions of Kubuntu, Edubuntu, and Xubuntu.

Please see usn-612-2 for the latest information regarding updating your system and taking appropriate protective measures. More information will be released within 48 hours.

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 89 for the weeks April 27th - May 3rd, 2008 is now available. In this issue we cover: Ubuntu Open Week, Intrepid Ibex: Open for Business, FLISOL Nicaragua 2008, Launchpad 1.2.4, gNewSense release of DeltaH(based on Hardy Heron), Fox New Responds to Linux Community, Ubuntu 8.04 vs. Windows Vista Power Usage, Interview with Donald Knuth, and much, much more!

• Ubuntu Open Week Review
• Intrepid Ibex: Open for Business
• Ubuntu Stats
• LoCo News
• Launchpad News
• Ubuntu Forum News
• In the Press & Blogosphere
• In Other News
• Upcoming Meetings & Events
• Updates & Security

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News please submit it via email or on the wiki !

UWN is brought to you by the Marketing Team.

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 88 for the weeks April 20th - April 26th, 2008 is now available. In this issue we cover: Hardy Heron Release Parties, Ubuntu Open Week, Ubuntu 8.04 press release translations, Forum Interviews & Tutorials, Preinstalled Ubuntu PCs for Russia, Ubuntu UK Poadcast, Full Circle Magazine, Team Meeting Summaries, and much, much more!

• Ubuntu 8.04 Released!
• Hardy Heron Release Parties
• Ubuntu Open Week
• Ubuntu 8.04 Press Release Translations
• Northeast Louisiana Regional Ham RadioFest
• Full Circle Magazine Issue #12
• Ubuntu Stats & Bugs
• Ubuntu Forum News & Tutorials
• In the Press & Blogosphere
• In Other News
• Team Meeting Summaries
• Upcomoing Meetings & Events
• Updates & Security

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News please submit it via email or on the wiki !

UWN is brought to you by the Marketing Team.

Ubuntu 8.04 (sometimes known to its friends as Hardy Heron) has been released.

8.04 is a Long Term Support release and will be supported for 3 years on the desktop and five years on servers.

And, as usual, Ubuntu 8.04 is also the basis for new 8.04 releases of Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Edubuntu. Kubuntu 8.04 is not a LTS release and will be supported for 18 months.

Helping Shape Ubuntu

If you would like to help shape Ubuntu, take a look at the list of ways you can participate.

Developers should consider attending the upcoming Ubuntu Developer Summit in Prague, Czech Republic starting 19 May. More information is available at the UDS-Intrepid page.

Check out the following announcement for the news:

• Desktop edition
• Server edition

• Ubuntu 8.04 - Bengali
• Ubuntu 8.04 - Brazilian Portuguese
• Ubuntu 8.04 Server - Catalan
• Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop - Catalan
• Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop - Danish
• Ubuntu 8.04 Server - Danish
• Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop - Dutch
• Ubuntu 8.04 Server - Dutch
• Ubuntu 8.04 Server - Finnish
• Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop - Finnish
• Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop - Hungarian
• Ubuntu 8.04 Server - Hungarian
• Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop - Italian
• Ubuntu 8.04 Server - Italian
• Ubuntu 8.04 - Polish
• Ubuntu 8.04 - Spanish
• Ubuntu 8.04 - Tamil

Monday 28 April 2008 - Saturday 3 May 2008

The always popular Ubuntu Open Week returns this month and we welcome everyone from all walks of life, distros, skills, opinions and curiosities to come along and get involved. The aim of the week is to help grow the Ubuntu community, and we have an awesome set of topics ready for you to attend. If you’ve considered getting involved in Ubuntu and don’t know where to start, thent his is a great opportunity to jump in.

The Ubuntu Open Week will take place from Monday, 28 April to Saturday 3 May on #ubuntu-classroom on Freenode.

We have sessions on all kinds of subjects including Reporting and Triaging bugs, Building Upstream Kernels, Kubuntu Development (including KDE4!), Bazaar, Packaging 101, Ubuntu Mobile, Merging Packages, Launchpad Personal Packaging Archives, Ubuntu Server, Security, Xubuntu, Community Q+A, Packaging Firefox Extensions, Artwork, Producing Podcasts, Training, Preeseeding d-i/Ubiquity, the Future of Ubuntu Desktop, Community support with the Forums, Python Packaging, Ask Mark, Wubi, Unwinding Stacktraces, Documentation, and much more!

Remember, being part of Ubuntu does not have to be a technical, hardcore, programming or packaging job. You can be involved with artwork, marketing, advocacy, local community teams, documentation, translations and more. If you are interested in being a part of the Ubuntu project, there is sure to be a session for you, take this time to join the Ubuntu Community and become part of the world-class team that puts Ubuntu together. We are keen that everyone with every discipline can be a part of our growing community.

The session schedule can be seen here.

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 86 for the weeks April 6th - April 12th, 2008 is now available. In this issue we cover: Ubuntu 8.04 LTS archive freeze, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS LoCo Team CDs, Brainstorm update, Ubuntu UK Podcast #3, Euro-Parliament testing Ubuntu, and much, much more!

• Ubuntu 8.04 LTS archive freeze
• Ubuntu 8.04 LTS LoCo team CDs
• Brainstorm update
• Ubuntu Stats
• In the Press & Blogosphere
• Ubuntu UK podcast #3
• Euro-Parliament testing Ubuntu
• Upcoming meetings & events
• Updates & Security

Digg it.

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News please submit it via email or on the wiki !

UWN is brought to you by the Marketing Team.

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 84 for the weeks March 23rd - March 29th, 2008 is now available. In this issue we cover: new MOTUs, Ubuntu 6.10 End-of-Life, Xubuntu refocuses, Ubuntu countdown graphics, Launchpad 1.2.3, Launchpad logo contest closing, Ubuntu UK Podcast #2, Reside@HOME: Linux Health Care, PWN To OWN (Ubuntu wins), and much, much more!

• MOTU Team news
• Ubuntu Stats
• Launchpad news
• Ubuntu Forum news
• In the Press & Blogosphere
• Ubuntu UK Podcast #2
• Reside@HOME: Linux for Elderly Health Care
• Automatix discontinued
• Full circle Magazine #11
• CanSecWest PWN2OWN 2008 - Ubuntu Wins!
• Meeting & Events
• Updates & Security

Digg it.

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News please submit it via email or on the wiki !

UWN is brought to you by the Marketing Team.

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 83 for the weeks March 16th - March 22nd, 2008 is now available. In this issue we cover the Ubuntu 8.04 beta freeze, Ubuntu Classroom team, the return of Ubuntustats.com, LoCo projects from the Jordanian, New Mexico, and UK teams, Ubuntu Studio at Sheffield University, and, as always, much, much more!

• Ubuntu & Kubuntu 8.04 LTS Beta Releases
• Ubuntu 8.04 Release Parties
• Interview with Jerome Gotangco, former Community Council member
• Launchpad News
• Ubuntu Forum News
• In the Press & Blogosphere
• In Other News
• Team Meeting Summaries
• Upcoming Meetings & Events
• Updates & Security
• Bug & Translation Stats

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News please submit it via email or on the wiki !

UWN is brought to you by the Marketing Team.

LugRadio Live USA 2008 is taking place on the 12th and 13th April at The Metreon in San Francisco (101, 4th St., San Francisco, 94103), and there will be a strong Ubuntu presence and an opportunity to meet lots of other Ubuntu fans and some well known Ubuntu celebrities.

LugRadio Live USA 2008 is an event that provides a very different atmosphere to most computer conferences. The organisers specifically go out of their way to produce an event that is very social, fun and loose, with an incredibly inclusive, approachable atmosphere. Organised and run by the cult-hit podcast LugRadio, LugRadio Live USA 2008 brings over 35 speakers, 30+ exhibitors and lots of fun sessions, events, prizes and other attractions. In addition to this, a live recording of LugRadio will happen in front of the audience.

Ubuntu is well represented at LugRadio Live USA 2008. Jono Bacon, our community manager, is the co-founder of LugRadio and one of the organisers of the show, so he will be there, but there will also be Ben Collins, leader of the Ubuntu kernel team, Matthew Garret, power management and kernel legend, and Belinda Lopez and Emma Jane Hogbin from Ubuntu Women. In addition to this, Nathan Haines and Neal Bussett from the Ubuntu California LoCo team will be there running a booth and showing off Ubuntu. Jorge Castro, who works for Jono at Canonical, will also be there. We are keen to invite as many Ubuntu users along for a big meet and greet. LugRadio Live USA 2008 is a great opportunity to meet other Ubuntu users and developers.

In addition to Ubuntu speakers and exhibitors the event also includes these speakers:

• Miguel de Icaza (Mono / Novell / Co-Founder Of GNOME)
• Ian Murdoch (OpenSolaris / Founder Of Debian)
• Robert Love (GNOME / Google)
• Aza Raskin (Mozilla / Humanized)
• Benjamin Mako Hill (Ubuntu / Debian / FSF)
• John Buckman (Magnatune)
• Val Henson (Kernel / VAH consulting)
• Christopher Blizzard (Mozilla / GNOME)
• Mike Linksvayer (Creative Commons)
• David Schleef (GStreamer)
• Matthew Garrett (Power Management / Kernel)
• Danese Cooper (Intel / OSI)
• Aaron Bockover (Banshee / Novell)
• Liana Holmberg (Second Life / Linden Lab)
• Emma Jane Hogbin (Hick Tech)
• Joe Zonker Brockmeier (OpenSuSE / Novell)
• Kristen Accardi (Kernel)
• Joe Born (Neuros)
• Selena Deckelmann
• Stewart Smith (MySQL)
• Dan Kegal (Wine)
• Ben Collins (Ubuntu / Kernel)
• Jason Kridner (Texas Instruments)
• Jeremy Allison (Samba / Google)
• Christian Hammond (VMWare)
• Ian McKeller (Songbird)
• Alison Randall (Parrot / Perl / OSCON)
• David Huffman (LVM)
• Brian Will (Pigeon)
• Belinda Lopez (Ubuntu)
• Ilan Rabanovich (SoCal Linux Expo)
• Eddy Mulyono (Packaging)
• Matthew Walster (Demo Scene)

Exhibitors confirmed at present include Ubuntu, Google, Dice, GNOME, PostgreSQL, O’Reilly, OpenSuSE, Linden Labs, Magnatune, Neuros, Sun, Texas Instruments, South California Linux Expo, Komputers 4 R Kids, San Francisco LUG, BytesFree.org, Ontario Linux Fest, Frets on Fire, OpenNMS, One Course Source, Haiku, Hyperic, BitRock, OpenStreetMap, The Digital Tipping Point and FreeBSD.

Because LugRadio Live USA 2008 is organised by and run for the community, the price is incredibly low - $10 for the full weekend. That is two days worth of fun and games. It is recommended that you pre-register your ticket here, although tickets are available on the door. For more details, see the LugRadio Live USA 2008 Website.

If you are going, spread the word, and lets have a great Ubuntu presence at LugRadio Live USA 2008!

The next meeting for the Ubuntu Desktop Training team is taking place this Thursday 6th March at 16:00 UTC on #ubuntu-training (@ freenode.net).

If you are interested in getting involved, this Thursday’s meeting will be a perfect opportunity as there will be a tutorial by Torsten Spindler on how to contribute using blueprint in Launchpad. More details about the meeting and project can be found on their wiki page.