Posts by Pascal Monett

China reveals its top five sources of online fraud

That is the problem with total oversight

Once you start forbidding some form of online expression, you start a game of whack-a-mole with all the derivatives.

Well Xi Ping, I'm happy that you give plenty of work for your endless pool of administrative busybodies to continue making the lives of Chinese citizens worse.

Way to go.

By the way, you will not suppress dissatisfaction by governmental decree. It will grow and, some day, it will come to bite you in the ass. If you were intelligent, you would let the people vent and listen to what they are venting about. It would give you pointers on what you need to improve.

You cannot dictate how people feel, and there's more of them than there is of you.

Telcos fear Big Tech will bleed them until they can’t afford network builds

"181.1 petabytes in 2020"

And, during lockdown, that exploded into what ? 300 petabytes ?

Infusion of $3.5bn not enough to revive Terra's 'stablecoin'

Agreed. A "waterproof" watch is just a watch that can withstand being in the rain or under a fawcet for a short moment. You dry it off and it'll continue ticking.

Divers do not use of-the-shelf watches. They use professional gear that can actually withstand the pressure of 5+ bars under water.

The sad state of Linux desktop diversity: 21 environments, just 2 designs

Brilliant and exhaustive work of research

The author here has devoted a lot of time and work to produce this piece. I applaud the effort. I also appreciate the fact that the author has opened my eyes to the fact that, yes, basically almost everybody is implementing the Windows UI.

From a technical point of view, the Windows UI is a Good Thing^TM. I remember reading about how Gates & Co really racked their brains over menu management, the homoginization of function keys and ease of use. Once upon a time, if you had access to Help, it could be via a function key, a combination of CTRL-<something>, or whatever else. Now, you just press F1, job done. That is good - except that now help is online, so if your connection is down, you're up shit creek without a paddle, and that is bad. Oh well.

But, concerning the efforts of volunteer developers, I'm sorry but nobody is forcing them to invest themselves. It's their choice, and I'm sure that they are dead set on improving some aspect or another of the user experience. The real issue is that (probably) none of them, or at least not many of them, have a lot of experience in alternative UIs, they just dive in with their idea and go for it.

It's their choice, there's nothing you can do about that. Yes, after reading this article I agree it's largely a waste of time, but it's their time to waste.

Europe moves closer to stricter cybersecurity standards, reporting regs

Does not apply to central banks ?

Why do the security regulations not apply to the most critical part of the entire banking infrastructure ?

I don't get it. Central banks should be the most paranoid institutions in existence. If a central banks gets infiltrated, there's no limit to the mayhem that can follow. So why are they exempt ?

Toshiba says it's talking to 10 suitors about possible sale

"discussions are under way with §0 parties"

So, after all the drama of the previous weeks, suddenly there is a plethora of companies crawling out of the woodwork to buy Toshiba ?

(Our) hardware is still key in a multicloud world, Dell ISG chief insists

"75 percent of data will be created at the edge"

Which translates to : 75% of malware attacks will happen at the edge.

I hope they're baking security in from the start, because otherwise this will be a major shitstorm.

China's Kylin Linux targets second RISC-V platform

"developed in partnership with Chinese authorities"

AKA : it has state surveillance baked in.

Arm CPU ran on electricity generated by algae for over six months

Mayb so, but every little step counts, so I applaud this research.

How ICE became a $2.8b domestic surveillance agency

Re: Data brokers

Apparently, it's the Government that needs to be regulated.

Microsoft adds unscheduled breaks to most certification exams

Re: Schooling

Well, at least schooling is supposed to guarantee that whoever it is you hire isn't going to be pissing in the corner and drooling over everyone's workspace.

Hopefully.

BOFH: You'll have to really trust me on this team-building exercise

Re: Most disappointed!

The boss getting his comeuppance is also rather satisfying.

Elon Musk puts Twitter deal on hold over bot numbers claim

Re: He might not be stupid

My, are you a generous soul.

He's got money, and that's all he's got.

He's got no class, he's got no refinement, he's barely cultured and he's got no reserve. He's a mouthpiece on steroids and he's got all the money for all the steroids he wants.

There is absolutely nothing interesting in him, if not for the fact that he is almost single-handedly bringing Humanity back into space.

That is his only redeeming feature, and I will give him that.

"take the team in a different direction"

You can take Twitter in whatever direction you want, buddy. I'll never be interested.

Bad excuse. Bots don't use apostrophes.

Confirmation dialog Groundhog Day: I click OK and it keeps coming back

Oh. My. God.

Young Mr Grace ?

Number Two ?

What is this cornucopia of references that people under 30 have no chance of understanding ?

Not to mention the rest of the article.

A resounding thumbs up for a brilliant end of the week.

Ransomware the final nail in coffin for small university

"Was the university doing all it could to secure its systems and users?"

Probably not.

I doubt that most Universities have the competent people on the payroll to effectively manage the complexities of such a specific environment. I have not had much dealings with Universities, but every time I have, it was always ad-hoc solutions implemented because they allowed things to work. Security ? The best case answer was "we're talking about reviewing things in the budget meetings, but for the moment, we don't have the money".

One down, plenty more to go.

Microsoft tests ‘Suggested Actions’ in Windows 11. Insiders: Can we turn it off?

You're not contradicting what he said. Read again.

Re: Reply to All

I have worked at several large companies and organizations that have disabled or restricted Reply to All in Outlook.

There are very few cases where you actually need to reply to everyone.

Now, to be perfectly objective, Borkzilla is not reponsible for Reply to All. That lies at the feet of the people who invented email.

Re: a bunch of Howler Monkies screaching & flinging shit at your audience

Welcome to Borkzilla since about 2010.

Seems like another repeat is necessary : we don't use Windows because we like it, we use it because we have to.

As soon as we can change and continue working and getting paid, we will. That's a promise.

Researchers find 134 flaws in the way Word, PDFs, handle scripts

One of the first things I do is install Sumatra PDF.

It's free, it works, and there is no bullshit delivered with it.

We can bend the laws of physics for your super-yacht, but we can't break them

"why can't you make it like my connection at home?"

Because the cable is not long enough.

Appeals court unleashes Texas's anti-Big-Tech content-no-moderation law

Re: Better for citizens to choose

Freedom of speech hasn't prevented deadly violence from fermented views.

I'd wager that said fermentation has increased since the Internet - and smartphones - have become near-ubiquitous. Before the Internet, the wacko would stay in his corner of the bar, muttering to himself. Now, he's aware that there are other people that share his views, so he might become inclined to act on them.

How many school shootings were there in the 80's ? None.

Information is a double-edged sword, is what I'm saying.

The only reason companies have the same rights as a person is because some stupid judge way back when was bought and ruled in their favor and since, nobody has challenged that.

In France (and, I presume, much of Europe), companies do not have a person's rights. They don't need that to do business. There is no tax issue, companies have their income tax level set by law, period. A company has a manager, the law says that said manager needs to be declared in the company statutes. Everything a company can or needs to do is allowed by commercial law.

A company can run ads, a company does not need Free Speech.

Free Speech is for individuals, not corporations. I doubt any Founding Father would think differently.

Re: Republicans are the perps not the victims

Remember the caravan ?

When that orange-haired asshole was running for President, he repeatedly stated that there was a whole caravan of Mexicans (ie non-whites) on their way to the border and only he would build The Wall to stop them.

Well he got elected, a very small section of wall was built (and much donated money went into private pockets), and no caravan passed.

That is Republicans today for you.

A bunch of lying wankers.

SoftBank to stop investing 'randomly' after losing billions of dollars

Ah, to have $27 billion to waste

Hey guys ! You can waste $1 billion on me if you want !

Coinbase CEO says everything's OK after SEC filing gives netizens the jitters

"your funds are safe at Coinbase, just as they've always been"

Also known as : you're funds are just as at risk as they've always been.

You want your funds to be safe ? Put them on a bank account.

Anatomy of a campaign to inject JavaScript into compromised WordPress sites

"ads will look like they come from the operating system"

That itself would light up big warning signs in my mind.

Before Windows 1 0, no OS worthy of the name would ever pop up an ad (thanks, Nadella, brilliant idea you got there).

I pity the people who start using computers these days. There is so much to learn to avoid being scammed, hacked and otherwise hijinked.

I have 30 years of experience in PCs and Internet. Nobody is going to fool me with an email attachment, or with a link (all links are suspicious until I have checked). If you email me and claim to work for Microsoft but your reply doesn't go back to Microsoft, you're out. And no, I don't believe that Bill Gates will send me $100 if I resend this to 20 people. These rules and many more are things I have accumulated over the years and they serve me well, but if you're a newcomer, it's an avalanche of things you need to assimilate and that's on top of trying to get to grips with how Windows works.

I'd hate to enter the arena at this point in time.

Demand for GPUs used to mine crypto 'disappearing', says ASUSTeK

Yeah, except that "proof of space" means that Seagate, Toshiba, Western Digital & Co are now going to make mint on 8TB drives.

The madness is just switching platform, the scams will proceed as usual.

AMD approaches '30%' x86 CPU market share, thanks to servers 'n' laptops

And it's about damn time too.

AMD deserves its place in the sun. It has toiled much too long under Intel's shadow.

Now it can spread its wings and soar, while Intel is going to actually have to innovate again instead of surfing on its success.

Competition is good.

It's time to kick China off social media, says tech governance expert

Re: makes us no better than them

Maybe not, but if it helps us live in peace, I'm for it.

Having the moral high ground is all high and mighty, but when a thug is beating you into the ground, you need to fight back.

"If we are banned there, we must ban them here"

That seems like a perfectly reasonable attitude.

Five Eyes turn spotlight on MSPs: Potential weak links in IT supply-chain security

Re: Kremlin backed?

I disagree. I recall that Solarwinds123 got itself hacked in a long, very discreet process which injected malware into a critical portion of the update process. Once the update was installed on customer sites and the shit hit the fan, the whole thing was discovered.

This was not a Borkzilla update, this was a true hack.

Password spraying

What a terrible link. There is nothing on that page that gives a hint anywhere that it will explain what password spraying is (and it doesn't). It talks about a new APT group (at the time), about phishing and 2FA, and it mentions "Identity and access management", but there isn't a single mention of password spraying anywhere.

A much better link for those of you who didn't have a clue is this article, which makes things clear in a simple way.

To predict the targets of Chinese malware, look at the target of Chinese laws

Okay, one question

Are these threats that are going to target online gambling sites hosted in China, or is Beijing giving itself the right to attack any and all gambling sites wherever they may be ?

Because Beijing doesn't need to attack those sites, it has the Great Chinese Firewall to keep them out.

Attacking them seems to me to be a bit overboard.

Apple to replace future iPhone Lightning port with USB-C next year, this guy claims

Yes, this is Apple

It only "invents" things to ensure sheeple stay in the pen and its products because they are totally incompatible with everything else.

The only reason Apple gear recognizes TCP/IP is because the Internet happened without Steve Jobs' oversight.

And it is again time to link to this.

User-built low-code apps tipped to dominate analytics by 2025

Oh, Gartner

Move along people, move along.

Europe proposes tackling child abuse by killing privacy, strong encryption

What was the proportion of kiddie fiddlers again ?

If I'm not mistaken, I seem to recall recently reading in these hallowed pages (this article) someone stating that kiddie porn was 0.2% of all cases, the proportion being relatively stable for the past decade.

Now, far be it from me to declare that the children being abused is negligeable, it is a horrible thing, but I don't see why I should give up my privacy for this.

Get the police to do their jobs and that will solve the problem.

Fresh ransomware samples indicate REvil is back

"the US backed out of the negotiations in the wake of the invasion"

And Putin put them back to work.

To be expected.

Enterprise-strength FreeBSD-based TrueNAS releases v13.0

My backup routine includes BluRay discs, and the single DVD RW for all my personal administrative and documentation needs.

Every now and then I erase the DVD and re-engrave the latest versions of everything.

GlobalFoundries’ chipmaking machine unfazed by global disruptions

Re: Giving up

Gotta make money some day.

Besides, there are tons of things that don't need the latest chip engraving tech. Let the others go trailblazing while you stay behind and sell the shovels.

It's a valid marketing strategy.

IBM's autonomous Mayflower ship breaks down in second transatlantic attempt

"none of its machine-learning software capabilities have been affected"

I've got a notion that the ML software is learning that machines are shit for crossing the Atlantic without a meatbad around.

Mystery of industry-targeting backdoored NPM JavaScript packages solved

So, all this hoopla for an intern

Tell me, is it normal that a company supposedly working for several customers goes and posts its code on a public repository ?

This Cloud thing is driving people nuts. Yes, I can imagine that using GitHub is a great convenience, but for Pete's sake, you're writing sensitive code that is destined to do something for your customers !

Get that stuff off the Internet and back onto a private, secured server !

Nvidia open-sources Linux kernel GPU modules. Repeat, open-source GPU modules

Is it the End of Days, or is Hell just quietly freezing over ?

NVidia is actually giving the Linux community (and others) a free door into its kernel code ?

What on Earth is happening ?

After many, many years of resistance, Borkzilla got the cancer, now NVidia is bowing down (albeit partially).

I hope this is a sign of things to come.

Ukraine war a sorting hat for cyber-governance loyalties: Black Hat founder Jeff Moss

Team Rule Of Law ?

Oh, you mean except where Russia is concerned.

Because Team Rule Of Law has gleefully cut Russia off of everything they could that should have been guaranteed by the rule of law.

Trust the US to invent lofty terms to cover their actions under a veneer of respectability.

I'm not saying that Russia's invasion should have just been ignored, something had to be done (like respect a certain treaty some decades ago), but it's a bit rich to come in now spouting Team Rule Of Law.

If your Rule Of Law has whatever exception you want, it's no longer the Rule Of Law.

BT wins £26m extension on NI Oracle finance system project

Re: without competition

That has never stopped. The buddy network is the strongest force in the Universe.

Then again, you just might ascribe that to a successful performance.

If you were an optimist.

Switch off the mic if it makes you feel better – it'll make no difference

I agree with that point.

I use TeamSpeak for my bi-weekly Internet gaming sessions with my friends, but if I ever forget to plug in the USB mike before starting TeamSpeak, the latter will never recognize the former unless I restart the program.

I wonder what technical limitation is at play, here. You can open Windows Explorer before plugging in a USB key, Explorer will find it.

Why is that so difficult for microphones ?

AWS allows a Lenovo server to play in its on-prem AI video cloud

32GB of storage ?

What is going on ? Is AWS handing out kit that has a USB key as storage ?

256GB is already pathetic these days, but 32GB ? Fuck, my video card has 2/3rds of that.