Thank you for reading the LinuxSecurity.com weekly security newsletter. The purpose of this document is to provide our readers with a quick summary of each week's most relevant Linux security headlines.

Encryption: An Essential Yet Highly Controversial Component of Digital Security - If youve been keeping up with recent security news, you are most likely aware of the heated worldwide debate about encryption that is currently underway. Strong encryption is imperative to securing sensitive data and protecting individuals privacy online, yet governments around the world refuse to recognize this, and are continually aiming to break encryption in an effort to increase the power of their law enforcement agencies.

Linux: An OS Capable of Effectively Meeting the US Governments Security Needs Heading into 2020 - As Open Source has become increasingly mainstream and widely accepted for its numerous benefits, the use of Linux as a flexible, transparent and highly secure operating system has also increasingly become a prominent choice among corporations, educational institutions and government sectors alike. With national security concerns at an all time high heading into 2020, it appears that the implementation of Linux could effectively meet the United States governments critical security needs for application development and installations.

  ProtonVPN apps handed to open source community in transparency push (Jan 22)
 

ProtonVPN has handed over application code to the open source community in a bid to improve transparency and security standards.
  Police are about to deploy 'privacy destroying' facial recognition cameras across London (Jan 24)
 

Facial recognition cameras are set to be deployed across London for the first time, the Metropolitan Police has announced.The Police say the technology will help fight crime - but critics warn that the 'privacy destroying' scheme amounts to oppressive surveillance. What is your opinion on this decision?
  Why Artificial Intelligence Is The Smart Way to Form Real Bonds With Customers (Jan 22)
 

AI isnt going to replace us, but it will make it easier to deliver services that keep people safe.
  Amazon’s Ring blamed hacks on consumers reusing their passwords. A lawsuit says that’s not true. (Jan 20)
 

Are you an Amazon Ring user? Plaintiffs suing the company say they created unique passwords but were hacked anyway, and that Ring'sdevices lack widely adopted security and privacy precautions.
  The Performance Cost To SELinux On Fedora 31 (Jan 20)
 

Following the recent AppArmor performance regression in Linux 5.5 (since resolved), some Phoronix readers had requested tests out of curiosity in looking at the performance impact of Fedora's decision to utilize SELinux by default. Here is how the Fedora Workstation 31 performance compares out-of-the-box with SELinux to disabling it.
  Get ready for the emergence of AI-as-a-Service (Jan 24)
 

SaaS and PaaS have become part of the everyday tech lexicon since emerging as delivery models, shifting how enterprises purchase and implement technology. A new _as a service model is aspiring to become just as widely adopted based on its potential to drive business outcomes with unmatched efficiency: Artificial intelligence as a service (AIaaS). The emergence of AIaaS will play a critical role in AI adoption.
  ProtonVPN Applications are Now 100% Open Source (Jan 23)
 

Are you a ProtonVPN user? Have you heard that ProtonVPN applications are now 100% open source?
  Weakening Encryption Could Impact Election Security, Coalition Says (Jan 23)
 

An election security group has said the Justice Departments renewed calls for access to encrypted data could impact more than privacy, stating:Any effort to diminish the effectiveness of encryption will inherently diminish the security and, potentially, the integrity, of our elections. Hostile actors will likely direct similar efforts at campaign officials, political organizations, and politically engaged individuals in future elections." What are your thoughts?
  Linus Torvalds Releases Linux Kernel 5.5 With Better Hardware Support (Jan 27)
 

With the regular milestone of Release Candidate (rc7), Linus Torvalds has announced the first stable release of the Linux kernel 5.5 for the general public.Apart from the last-minute network driver fixes, Linux 5.5 includes various improvements for security,the new and upcoming hardware platforms such as Raspberry Pi 4, Intel processors, and Chromebooks.
  Free Software Foundation suggests Microsoft 'upcycles' Windows 7... as open source (Jan 27)
 

More than 10 years on from its campaign to persuade users to dump Windows 7 for a non-proprietary alternative, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has kicked off a petition to urge Microsoft to open-source the recently snuffed software.