* Posts by mark l 2

2409 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2009

US consumer protection bureau goes after tech support scammers' alleged payments processor

mark l 2 Silver badge

I have seen those fake AV scans myself, The funny part was that I had booted a PC from a live Linux distro and went online to try and find a driver yet it was claiming it found a virus on my C: drive and needed to fix the registry. So they clearly aren't sophisticated enough to detect when the user is running anything other than Windows OS.

It only took four years and thousands of complaints but ICANN finally kills off rogue Indian domain registrar

mark l 2 Silver badge

Whois has for a long time be a bad implemented, as having it open for all to see means it just gets picked up by scammers and bad actor who use the info to try and scam people or just spamming them. I know because I had one of those fake renewal notices sent to the postal address shown on the whois info, trying to get me to pay $250 for a renewal that was only $20. So after that I opted to use privacy whois where the registrar no longer showed my real email and address in the whois.

That is always how it should have been set up, legitimate need to contact the domain owner could go through a email forwarding address, and law enforcement agencies can get a warrant to get the registrar to provide the registrants billing address details should they need it.

Hidden text in MacOS 11.3 beta suggests removal of Rosetta 2 compatibility layer in some countries

mark l 2 Silver badge

Surely emulating another CPU/System has been around for so long that any patents would now have expired and lots of prior art would exist for newly granted patents to make them invalid? I remember having emulators on my Amiga 500 in the late 80s which were emulating other CPUs such the Z80 used the Speccy but i suspect emulators go back well before even then.

Linux Mint emits fix for memory-gobbling Cinnamon – and future version may insist on some updates

mark l 2 Silver badge

I never really bothered with Cinnamon on Linux Mint. When I first installed Mint on a PC back in around 2010 the specs of the PC were not really up to running Cinnamon so i went with Mate. And even though my laptop is now more than capable of running Cinnamon, ive still stuck with Mate versions as I didn't really see the need to change while Mate works for my needs.

Seagate UK customer stung by VAT on replacement drive shipped via the Netherlands

mark l 2 Silver badge

I seems that when Seagate gave the details of the price to the courier (probably for insurance cover Seagate for loss or damage in transit) they gave the full retail price, where as it probably should have been priced at zero since it was not a sale but a warranty replacement for a faulty unit.

Digital trust-busting time? US lawmakers mull how to tame giga-corps Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook

mark l 2 Silver badge

The US authorities will do sweet FA just like they did with the anti trust investigation into Microsoft, who were definitely a monopoly but were allowed to continue without being broken up.

The lobbying powers of these megacorps allows them to get away with slaps on the wrist, and that underlying problem with the US political system is what needs to be addressed before you will be able to successfully do anything about the power these companies hold.

Microsoft unveils swappable SSDs for Surface Pro 7+ but 'strongly discourages' users from upping their capacity

mark l 2 Silver badge

That sort of tactic used to be common on HP laptops in the mid to late 2000s where they would have bios locks which stopped you replacing the WIFI card with non HP approved ones. HP used to claim it was because the devices were FCC approved with only their wireless cards, but as other manufactures didn't have those restrictions and were still able to sell their laptops, that didn't wash with most people who just saw it as the attempted vendor lock in it was.

Facebook and Australia do a deal: The Social Network™ will restore news down under and even start paying for it

mark l 2 Silver badge

I still think it is wrong for a nations law to specify that it only applied to two specific companies. Why doesn't other services such as Yahoo, Bing, etc also have to pay for linking to news in Australia?

Linux Mint users in hot water for being slow with security updates, running old versions

mark l 2 Silver badge

I wonder if a lot of the stats that the Mint developers have collected might actually be from people running Mint in a VM which they just run up occasionally or a live boot from DVD/USB? As I doubt many people would still be running version 17 as a daily driver and also not have bothered to change the default webpage on Firefox.

UK Supreme Court declares Uber drivers are workers, not self-employed: Ride biz's legal battle ends in a crash

mark l 2 Silver badge

Re: I notice that

Yes there is a difference between a worker and employee.

"Only employees are entitled to all statutory employment rights. For example, a worker cannot claim unfair dismissal or a statutory redundancy payment. Workers are entitled to some statutory rights, including those in relation to the national minimum wage, working hours and annual leave."

https://www.xperthr.co.uk/faq/what-is-the-difference-between-a-worker-who-is-an-employee-and-one-who-is-not/24398/

Microsoft announces a new Office for offline fans, slashes support, hikes the price

mark l 2 Silver badge

Re: I think. although maybe harsh

I believe students at school age get Office 365 for free via their school in the UK at least, I can't speak for other countries.

Citibank accidentally wired $500m back to lenders in user-interface super-gaffe – and judge says it can't be undone

mark l 2 Silver badge

Hmm I don't agree with the judges decision, a mistake was made and money was transferred to someone who wasn't entitled to it, the recipient was informed it was a mistake but they are refusing to return it, surely that is just theft?

I expect this will get overturned on appeal as it opens up a whole host of problems going forward if it is allowed to stand. What happens if it were the judge making a wire transfer and he accidentally transferred to the wrong person? From his own judgement that person wouldn't be required to return it and I am sure he wouldn't lie down and take that if it were his own money on the line.

Australia facepalms as Facebook blocks bookstores, sport, health services instead of just news

mark l 2 Silver badge

Re: What, no Google?

Considering Facebook owns Instagram how come it gets to still carry news without paying for the links when Facebook proper cannot?

Facebook bans sharing of news in Australia – starting now – rather than submit to pay-for-news-plan

mark l 2 Silver badge

Re: Interesting take on this

I am not sure I would personally use the phrase 'trusted Murdoch proper newspapers' as remember this is the same person who owned the News of the World and still runs Fox news.

Recovery time objective missed by four weeks, but Parler is back online

mark l 2 Silver badge

I guess now it remains to be seen if Parler's plan for volunteer content moderation is enough to stop them eventually being kicked off Skysilk for breach of their T&Cs. As if Skysilk end up getting too many abuse to the hosting provider for illegal content hosted on Skysilk servers that Parler fails to deal with then Skysilk will no doubt decide its not in their interest to carry on hosting them.

Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai get back on the phone with Australia for more pay-for-news talks

mark l 2 Silver badge

Its just big tech funding big media companies, no doubt News Corporation and similar will be pushing politicians to implement this in other countries where they are the dominant media outlets for news.

President Biden to issue executive order on chip shortages as under-pressure silicon world begs for help

mark l 2 Silver badge

Why should US tax payers money be spent on aiding Intel, AMD, Qualcomm etc build new US fabs when these are companies worth billions so shouldn't need state aid. Giving them grants or tax cuts just makes their shareholders more money.

Biden administration pauses pursuit of TikTok and WeChat

mark l 2 Silver badge

Where you could reasonably argue that Huawei kit on 5G networks could be a threat to national security if there are backdoors in the kit. It never really washed with the general public that Tiktok is a threat to national security. Even if the Chinese government was spying on its users, the information would be of little use to them considering its an app primarily used by teenager to share dancing videos and memes.

Dev creeped out after he fired up Ubuntu VM on Azure, was immediately approached by Canonical sales rep

mark l 2 Silver badge

I would expect this behaviour from a service MS offered for free such as Outlook.com or Skype. But when you are paying for a service such as Azure you would think it would be an opt in for it to share any data. But its clear these companies can't resist making some extra money by selling your personal info to the highest bidder at any opportunity.

Microsoft's underwhelming, underpowered dual-screen Surface Duo phone arrives in the UK this month for £1,349

mark l 2 Silver badge

I just don't see how it can justify the price of purchasing. You could get a better specification phone from the likes of Samsung, all be it with only one screen. But with all that leftover money you could get a decent tablet or another low to mid range second phone if you really must be looking at two apps simultaneously. And still have change left over.

In case there was any doubt about using legacy Edge, Microsoft 365 throws its weight behind WebView2

mark l 2 Silver badge

Re: IE is the Internet!

I agree (although usually get downvoted for saying) that there is no reason why IE needs to be installed by default on every new Windows 10 installation. A lot of people don't need it any more, far more than do. So it should be optional to install it for those that still have legacy sites that require it and not burden the rest of us with its awfulness.

As for MS pushing Chrom-Edge on everyone even I don't agree with that either. I never use old Edge so why take my internet bandwidth, cpu cycles and disk space to install your latest browser I won't use. Just give people the option to download new ChromEdge if they happen to open the old version after support ends

Facebook and Google’s Australian pay-for-news nightmare finds a European admirer

mark l 2 Silver badge

I don't look at news site other than the BBC and ElReg from a desktop browser, but using the Google news app on my phone it shows maybe the first couple of lines of the article and to view the rest you have to go to click the link where it takes you to the news site where you are faced with a shed load of adverts or even a pay wall.

So now basically Rupert Murdoch has managed to convince the Australian government that he needs even more money by getting Google and Facebook to pay to link to articles on his crappy tabloid websites because no one is buying his newspapers any more.

Bitcoin surges, exchanges flooded after Tesla says it bought $1.5bn in BTC, hopes to accept it as payment soon

mark l 2 Silver badge

Bitcoin isn't an alternative to fiat currency any more as people are just buying it to invest and not spending it on stuff and so eventually the bubble will burst. Especially as the transaction fees are now ridiculously high for small transactions that it can only really be used for large expensive purchases, and who wants to take the risk of selling something expensive for bitcoin when the market could crash the day after the sale and you are left with nothing but some worthless virtual money.

Elon Musk has enough money to be able to afford to risk $1.5bn on Bitcoin and loose it all and still have enough in the bank to never have to work another day of his life should he choose.

Vote machine biz Smartmatic sues Fox News and Trump chums for $2.7bn over bogus claims of rigged 2020 election

mark l 2 Silver badge

Rudy Giuliani better get down to 4 seasons landscaping for another urgent press conference

Chrome zero-day bug that is actively being abused by bad folks affects Edge, Vivaldi, and other Chromium-tinged browsers

mark l 2 Silver badge

Re: Atchoo!

There are more than 2 browser engines. So its not just Firefox users that can benefit from not being based on the Chromium based browser.

The biggest none Chromium based browser is Safari which comes as the default browser on every Apple device so has millions of active users.

I use Linux though so its not available on that platform, but I could install Konqueror and set it to use webkit engine

Chromium cleans up its act – and daily DNS root server queries drop by 60 billion

mark l 2 Silver badge

Considering the UK and other countries use the DNS lookups to block access to illegal sites then you could run the risk that a innocent search term you start to type might actually send a DNS query for an illegal website.

Think typing a search for 'dog sex in a Labrador pup' would at some point send a DNS look up to your ISP for dogsex domain which could actually exist and be on the banned list

Ever wanted to own a piece of the internet? Now you can: $1 for a whole gTLD... or $2.8m if you want a decent one

mark l 2 Silver badge

Re: .hiv?

Surely the use case for a HIV as a TLD is down to maybe a few medical research organisations, charities or HIV awareness groups, and it was always going to be a very limited uptake so why did it ever get green lighted for a new TLD?

Unless of course HIV means something else in other languages other than English which would make it more desirable?

Microsoft backs Australia’s pay-for-news plan, risks massive blowback over a lousy $3bn and change

mark l 2 Silver badge

Re: short termist

I doubt that millions of Aussies would suddenly decided to go to Bing if Google pulled out of Australia. As what would that actually mean? They would close and Australian offices and data centres but neither Google or the AU Gov would be foolish enough to completely block access to Google services, more likely they would probably just put up some notice on the google.com.au site that they no longer operate in Australia, and redirect people to Google.com

I am sure there are already several countries where Google don't have offices or data centres but the citizens can still access Google, Gmail, Maps, Youtube etc and Google still makes profits from users clicking on ads

Google's cloud services lost $14.6bn over three years – and CEO Sundar Pichai likes that trajectory

mark l 2 Silver badge

It looks like the costs to make any money from cloud services is high and not many companies can afford $14bn losses before they make any profits. So the chances of new comers being able to take on the incumbents it very small.

Of course Google strategy could well be to lock as many customers into Googles clould before ramping up the prices once they are hooked on the Google services. As although you could migrate from Google to Azure or AWS, its not an easy task once you are already setup on Google.

Missing GOV.UK web link potentially cost taxpayers £50m as civil servants are forced to shuffle paper forms

mark l 2 Silver badge

I used to have to deal with the UK environment agency a few years previously, and their website was full of dead links and pages that would 404. 9/10 times when you would follow a link from Google to a page that lead to the Environment agency you would find the link was no longer working.

Google allows 15 more nations to offer gambling in the Play store

mark l 2 Silver badge

"Google won’t take a cut because such apps must be free, and Google Play In-app Billing is forbidden to developers of such apps."

So clearly some apps are allowed to have their own in app billing then and not use Googles? Just not ones from Epic games

Google QUIC-ly left privacy behind in its quest for a speedier internet, boffins find

mark l 2 Silver badge

The story isn't really about how Google can monitor your internet usage, they don't need QUIC for that if you are using Chrome and signed in with a Google account then your already sending them all the data they need.

Its more how your ISP or authoritarian government could use it to finger print you, and considering this research was done by some people from China they probably have more to worry about the rise of QUIC compared to HTTPS than the rest of us.

In a trial run, Google Chrome to corral netizens into groups for tailored web ads rather than target individuals

mark l 2 Silver badge

Advertising has been a necessary evil since the hay day of print media when people were actually paying for the content through buying magazine, newspaper, and then later on TV for commercial channels.

While there are people who will create content and not expect anything in return because they are passionate about the topic, most people who creating content and then letting people to view it for free online want a way to get money back in return. And so far no one has come up with a better option than advertising. Even ElReg where we are all on now, wouldn't be around if it weren't for the ads around the content.

The issue I have is not with adverting but with the tracking and privacy concerns that come with it and how intrusive ads have become. If i had the option to dismiss ads i wasn't interested in and can choose topics that I was wanting to see ads about and they were just text or images, not full of javascript and other content that slows down my PC then I would be happy with the content/ads balance if it keeps website which I find useful free to use.

No cards, thanks, we're contactless-less: UK supermarket giants hit by card payment TITSUP*

mark l 2 Silver badge

Re: cashless society

I if I went in somewhere that refused to accept cash then they would loose out on a sale, so more stupid of them. This story shows that payment providers, banks, telcos can have problems which means card payments stop working so its good to have a cash backup option available.

And when it comes to small independent shops such as convenience stores or cafes ill always try and pay in cash, as paying for a loaf of bread or a coffee with card can mean they can be loosing out on a big chunk of their profit to merchant fees

Smartphones are becoming like white goods, says analyst, with users only upgrading when their handsets break

mark l 2 Silver badge

There isn't a lot of new features coming out when companies realise a new flagship phone these days. It all increments such as slightly better camera, a bit faster CPU or more memory. So there is less incentive to upgrade.

As for security updates, I think the majority of end users don't even know whether they should be getting security updates or not. And that is partly because they have become like white goods like the article mentions. No one thinks about whether their washing machine or fridge needs any updates. And as long as the apps people want to use still work, they will carry on using the phone even if they no longer receive security patches. None of the phones i have had haven't informed me that there were no more security updates when it reached EOL, they just stop coming.

Fedora's Chromium maintainer suggests switching to Firefox as Google yanks features in favour of Chrome

mark l 2 Silver badge

With more competition from browsers based on Chromium I suspect Google will move more and more stuff into Chrome proprietary builds and not include them in Chromium as things go forward, just like they do already on Android with Google Play Services.

Going, going, gone... until March: UK comms regulator delays 5G spectrum auction over pandemic logistics

mark l 2 Silver badge

I don't really see why i can't go ahead as surely the 'auction' would not be everyone sat in a room with an auctioneer with a hammer like something from Flog it. I am guessing the auction bidding is done electronically so what advantage is there in pushing it back another couple of months?

We'd rather go down in Down Under, says Google: Search biz threatens to quit Australia if forced to pay for news

mark l 2 Silver badge

I personally doubt Google will pull out of Australia completely, but they may kill the news app and specific news feed for Aussies and make google.com.au only show the headline with no snippet to avoid having to pay as a publisher. I guess the main issue for Google is the requirement to tell the news site when they change their algorithms. I suspect that is the red line for them.

But even Google did pull out of Australia, its not like the Aussie government are going to block people visiting google.com, youtube, gmail etc. As I that would be political suicide for the government as there would be millions of Aussie who use these daily, some of them for their businesses.

Judge denies Parler an injunction to force AWS to host the antisocial network for internet outcasts

mark l 2 Silver badge

Amazon and other hosting providers have their T&Cs for what they will allow on their servers. If this had been pronhub or some other adult website that Amazon decided to pull the plug on because they felt that hosting it was breaching their terms and conditions. It would not be making headlines.

In regarding to a lot of posts on Parler being 'free speech' Threats to kill would not be protected under the right to free speech in the US. Just like shouting FIRE in a crowded room when there was no fire wouldn't be protected either.

Negative Trustpilot review of law firm Summerfield Browne cost aggrieved Briton £28k

mark l 2 Silver badge

Yeah, I don't think this legal firm has taken on what the consequences might be of the negative publicity something like this could cause them. They would have been much better to offer the guy his £200 back and asked him to remove his review as although they have come out £28k better off, they might find it costs them much more than that from the negative publicity.

On his way out, Trump emits exec order suggesting US cloud giants must verify ID of all foreign customers

mark l 2 Silver badge

Here in the UK there is still no official photo ID card. Sure there are photo driving licenses and passports. But if you don't drive and have no desire to travel internationally, does that mean you wouldn't be able to sign up to AWS or Azure if this rule did come in?

As others have pointed out it would also be pretty trivial to fake an ID in Photoshop since the anti-counterfeiting technology on IDs usually only works when you can see the physical card, not a photo of the card. So unless you are going to give cloud providers access to all the worlds passport, ID cards and driving license databases they will have no way of verifying if its real, fake or even just a stolen ID card.

Top engineer who stole trade secrets from Google's self-driving division pardoned on Trump's last day as president

mark l 2 Silver badge

Obviously when the constitution was written the founding fathers never envisioned the pardon power being used in they way they have been more recently. It now basically allows people working for the president to commit crimes that would help out the his campaign knowing that they can then be pardoned for it afterwards.

Would the US people have put up with it if Trump had pardon sex offender Jeffery Epstein? He was after all a pal of Trump and was rich enough to grease the wheels with the right people should he have not died in jail.

Windows Product Activation – or just how many numbers we could get a user to tell us down the telephone

mark l 2 Silver badge

With a bit of editing in the bios you could get a royalty OEM version of XP to install without any activation required. (that's the Windows install CDs that came with PCs from Dell, HP, Acer etc)

I remember downloading a flash utility which would put a SLIC header for HP in most Award bioses. And Windows would find that info in the bios during installation and not require activation on first boot. It would even pass the Microsoft Windows authentication test as it would think it was the version pre-installed by HP at the factory.

It still work for installing a copy of XP in a virtual machine as you can now put the code into the config files for the software. Handy for when MS eventually turns off activation servers meaning you wouldn't be able to do it online

Brave bets on the decentralized web with IPFS browser support for a more peer-to-peer approach

mark l 2 Silver badge

Yes that is the problem, what happened when inevitably some illegal content is uploaded to IPFS how can it be taken down or is it there forever?

Euro cloud slingers fight for niches on their own doorstep as AWS, Microsoft and Google inhale market share

mark l 2 Silver badge

It doesn't help when the British government use AWS for a lot of their cloud computing needs. It is laughable that a company that goes out of its way to avoid paying as much tax as it can in the UK, should be hosting some of the systems used by HMRC.

Of course they are probably the cheapest option since they can undercut competitors who are paying higher rates of corporation tax than Amazon

Facebook tells Portuguese court that a biz called Oink And Stuff makes profile-harvesting browser extensions

mark l 2 Silver badge

I suspect there must be a underhand reason why Facebook has chosen to file court proceedings in Portugal against a company from Myanmar? As surely even if Facebook win the case, a Portuguese court has no power to order Oink and Stuff to do anything if they are indeed based in Myanmar.

Apple reportedly planning to revive the MagSafe charging standard with the next lot of MacBook Pros

mark l 2 Silver badge

I am not sure how many laptops are damaged through being dragged off desks from people catching on the power cords, but I can tell you that damaged power sockets inside the laptop are very much a real thing for those laptops that use a barrel jack.

When i worked a support desk we would regularly get users report their laptop battery was not charging or they have to wiggle the connector to get it to start charging. And it was because the solder joints have been damaged from the cord being pulled out at a funny angle and although it is a cheap fix to resolder the work usually involved stripping the laptop completely so took a while to do.

Attack of the cryptidiots: One wants Bitcoin-flush hard drive he threw out in 2013 back, the other lost USB stick password

mark l 2 Silver badge

Would a hard drive that had been living under several feet of rotting waste for 7 years would not now just be a rusty mess even if they could find it? And that is assuming its not be crushed by the compactor in the back of the refuse truck or those bulldozer with spiky metal wheels they use to flatten down the landfill.

Flash in the pan: Raspberry Pi OS is the latest platform to carve out vulnerable tech

mark l 2 Silver badge

I find the best bet to connect up a parallel port only printer to a computer without any parallel port is to buy a HP jetdirect 300x. This then allows you to print to it via Ethernet over your network. You can pick them up for around £10 second hand from ebay.

Pirate Bay co-founder criticises Parler for its lack of resilience

mark l 2 Silver badge

Re: Easy solution

Considering that when i last visited TPB some time ago, it was filled with ads for dodgy adult cam sites and dating sites I suspect they would take on hosting Parler if the money was good enough.

They are probably hosting in Russia or some other country that ignores the American world police DCMA take down notices.