Posts by Danny 14

China's president Xi Jinping jokes about backdoors in Xiaomi smartphones

Id be more worried if they didn't have backdoors, that would mean they don't need them to get the data they require.

Network operator ponders building a new submarine cable – on land

or just threaten to chop it for protection money.

O2 cranks prices mid-contract, essentially telling customers to like it or lump it

99.5 is "up to 100"

lyca mobile is cheap with rolling contracts, an mvno of EE

NHS left with sick PCs as suppliers resist Windows 11 treatment

Re: Question is

e810 work just fine. zero bsod. RDMA enabled. cluster runs well.

Re: Oh please

or just use 2019 LTSC if it is critical. still supported till 2029. Not exactly ideal but at least it will work for another few years whilst the kit is replaced more cost effectively.

Windows 11 update breaks localhost, prompting mass uninstall workaround

Re: Of course we all know the permanent fix

well we moved to a hybrid OS system. We still use Microsoft A1 education, sharepoint, onedrive as primary storage but this is all free. we do pay for entra P1 and use extra for our 365 logons, but predominantly use Linux desktops managed with fleetdm, plus a bunch of ipads using intune education. papercut sorts printing.

Dropped all our onsite windows servers and desktops *there are 3 desktops running bespoke inventry terminals, a BMS machine plus a print server, all cloud storage apart from a local qnap NAS for local backups. licensing is soooo much lower now. so it can be done.

took 2 years to move a 15Tb 1250 user 400 machine site.

Re: Maybe intentional

nah, barney the dinosaur. That thing gave me nightmares.

Vodafone keels over, cutting off millions of mobile and broadband customers

traceroute to venerable 8.8.8.8 went whackamole round a dozen 192.168 addresses outside our network before barfing. Routing went mad but did occasionally work.

As companies race to add AI, terms of service changes are going to freak a lot of people out

Re: try the real world

but on the flip side, spooling up a database when a simple vlookup will do is a valid use case. Dont get me wrong, a database is the correct way to do many things but a spreadsheet can do lightweight tasks too. It depends on how you get your spreadsheet data. Look at Durham uni CEM exam analysis spreadsheets, they should probably be a database but sending those to schools would be a disaster in MDB so they have excel macros. Not ideal but portable for users.

Critics blast Microsoft's limited reprieve for those stuck on Windows 10

Re: ¿Nuke the License? No, I am 99.9999% sure not. But...

Browser office is just fine. Works well on chromebooks.

If you are a company and you are still running W10 on your vast fleet because the machines cannot take W11, then I would seriously look for another line of work as your company has serious cashflow issues. W11 runs on (roughly speaking) series 8 intel CPUs onwards. Refurb office grade dell series 8 machines are about £150 each.

A company that relies on a bespoke application that will not run on W11 (but runs on W10? thats odd, the codebase is the same, what on earth was this app developed on?) I know of a client who still uses a VB6 app successfully on W11, you need to register mscomctl and fiddle with it but it WORKS. Anyway, again I would look for another job as this is a security nightmare waiting to happen, especially if said app has not been updated in many years.

What games do you run on a machine not new enough to run windows 11? Im guessing they are not internet enabled games. Might as well run an airgapped machine on W10 for those 1999 games.

Either update to W11 or dont. Put linux on or dont. Technology moves on, the same as when we started needing a coprocessor to compete and 286s wouldnt run 3.1 citrix properly so you couldnt run most logons. Many packard bell machines wept on the scrapheap that year.

Re: "could use Windows Backup to sync their settings to the cloud"

then dont use W10, just install ubuntu desktop on grandads old PC and be done with. I really dont get why people complain as much. If you want to use W10 for whatever reason then jump through the MS hoops. Education? LTSC is software assurance on OVS-ES and EES so install that and be done till 2029 (2019, not 2022) on that ancient hardware. Home user? Then let MS slurp your data via their bing reward crap or pay up ESU, or buy a shady LTSC license from ebay, or install linux and stop using MS.

Yes it sucks to see a perfectly usable pc not able to run a stable OS whilst others can pay to carry on, but that is MS. Lay with stray dogs, get fleas.

Microsoft finally bids farewell to PowerShell 2.0

Re: Oh bullshit.

back then we used to use VBS instead of PS2, they ran faster too as it didnt need to load the PS overheads.

US Army’s laser obsession continues with yet another drone-zapper deal

oh you wanted to travel BACKwards, why didnt you say! We thought you wanted it LATEr

London's poor 5G blamed on spectrum, investment, and timing of Huawei ban

Re: More coverage, lower speeds

same. it flip flops badly unless i have a pretty unobstructed LOS outside. Inside, no chance.

Re: Pointless

I get brilliant 5G signal outside on a bench. 650 download, phenominal. But go inside and its back to 20M down 4g. It would be pointless for a broadband replacement, I would need to stump up a few hundred quid on an external antenna and router. So more expensive than wired.

Infosec pro Troy Hunt HasBeenPwned in Mailchimp phish

but it shouldn't matter. log into mail chimp from your bookmarks, not from email links. never trust email links.

because it's a mail client and he's reading email?

not really. he should know better. good for owning up but bad for blind link clicking.

Your days of driver sync via Windows Server Update Services are numbered

Re: What a dick move ...

WSUS days have been numbered for a while and lets face it, WSUS was not the ideal platform for driver installation either. Did anyone actually use WSUS for drivers? Patches yes but not drivers.

WUFB is far more reliable than WSUS ever was and you can get more data back. The downside to WUFB is the time lag on reporting.

Bank of England Oracle Cloud bill balloons – but when you print money, who's counting?

Re: For that kind of money...

Sage? Nah, outsource it to Capita, their sales folk will PROMISE it will be fine. Surely?

Avaya hangs up on users with fewer than 200 SaaSy contact center seats

Re: 200 Seats

Mitel here. Not the most innovative but it works and has a decent license model.

Why did the Windows 95 setup use Windows 3.1?

Re: Why ?

I dunno, im glad I dont have to play with genius 2000 network cards and their terminators from hell. Im also glad I dont need to play IRQ roulette when you want a SCSI scanner, sound card, IDE card, serial (for the plotter) and parallel (for the zip disk). Talking through jumper swapping with people on the phone when production sent a replacement CD drive with MASTER instead of SLAVE jumper set.

or even older for those of us who are ancient. Formatting a drive needed geometry data that was printed on the winchester.

Re: Why ?

the parallels of PE to 11 mirror those of DOS to 95 though. There is still elements of 95 lurking in 11 too. It is an article, and there are quite a few of us who have been admins throughout these times.

Re: Win 3.0

NT 3.51 and NT4.0 were the innovators. Ironically it was the drivers that were hardest to get sorted on our production lines at the time. We were writing borland C programs and our NT4 boxen were rock solid for the time.

yes, and check out the icons in shell32.dll

Re: A Mess

an hour? I was testing a new laptop last week. this was on a fairly low spec i3 13th gen HP laptop. I was testing it for driver compatibility. I flattened the laptop, installed base 11 (about 6 minutes from a USB stick), then let it Autopilot via intune to install office, Adobe, a few apps (about 20 minutes) - yes I DO run a script to force Intune update from the hidden OOBE shell screen, otherwise I would have had to leave it about 15 minutes to phone home on its own - i was being impatient). I was on the desktop usable in around 40 minutes (update took about 5 minutes with one restart). This would be much faster without the Autopilot segment but certainly not as automated, internet connection is fairly irrelevant as I find Autopilot to be throttled by Microsoft.

This was for one laptop of course. I have another 50 that I will be setting up (automatically as those are registered in Autopilot ready to go).

On the contrary, I installed Ubuntu on an 11gen i7 HP laptop before Christmas, this was being given away. This took around 5 minutes to install. Then another 15 minutes to manually install software (open office and browser), plus certificates, proxy configuration, network configuration etc. I admit that I have no idea how I can script this to work on 50 laptops remotely and securely.

So for 50 laptops, I needed to spend about an hour in Intune setting up my policies and software. The rest is completely automated short of adding an initial WIFI code before the certificate/WIFI policy is enacted by Intune. For Ubuntu I would need to hand feed 50 laptops, at the minimum I would need to run scripts at certain parts. But for Ubuntu I would have no idea how I could do this for a machine that is being delivered to someone's house 200 miles away.

MS might be evil but it works for us.

Re: Makes sense

I dont see any adverts on our PE. The datagrab is exactly why I use PE, so I can get donated machines initially onto our Autopilot in the correct groups.

Backup software vendor Veeam deleted forum data after restoration SNAFU

Re: Didn't backup frequently enough?

not really. Data will now be lost either way. You lose the delta between old backup and new data, or lose the delta between the new backup and new data. Not all databases can be merged cleanly in these situations, depends how complicated your IDs are. Restore plus increment of IDs would be great in hindsight of course, but since this was a mistake rather than a need to restore I can see why this happened. Still, it shows their restores work fine, their development practices not so much.

Craig Wright admits he isn't the inventor of Bitcoin after High Court judgment in UK

Re: Live by the sword, die by the sword.

In a similar vein, everyone knows 'Rouge' is the best class.

Researchers call out QNAP for dragging its heels on patch development

QNAP have gotten progressively worse. They used to be reasonable boxes for backup repositories, cheap CCTV units (you got 8 free licenses which is better than most).

But over time the vulverabilities got worse, the apps started to be milked for cash. Better off building your own box with opensource options if you cannot afford proper kit.

As OP say, dont leave them open to the internet.

Hey, Reddit. Quick question. All those clicks on my ads. Were they actually real?

Re: The good clickAI

yes but we did have those annoying tripod scrolling flashing banners and animated gifs of people digging.

Ransomware negotiator weighs in on the extortion payment debate with El Reg

Re: It is better to avoid a problem than have to fix it.

A brilliant answer from someone who has a lot of tech savvy. Totally useless for the vast majority of small business users as they simply dont have that skillset nor budget to employ someone with that skillset, so they outsource to the likes of crapita and guess what happens. Also if you are familiar with working with the home office with pending visa applications, you absolutely do need to keep digital copies of birth certificates, passports etc.

Copilot can't stop emitting violent, sexual images, says Microsoft whistleblower

This is exactly the way you stop these so called AI, you pollute its training. Make the training so useless that the product fails too much and you have won the game. It wouldnt surprise me if rivals are doing this to each other.

250 million-plus reserved IPv4 addresses could be released – but the internet isn’t built to use them

IPV6 is the future. just not the now. We moved our servers to ipv6 and itnisnt that hard, you juat need to get your head around "you dont nat your servers now" and get a decent firewall.

Rise of deepfake threats means biometric security measures won't be enough

Re: Baldur's Gate approach needed

DNA locks would work except you can end up with a Gattaca situation to fool it.

Re: Biometric Security

It depends what biometric security you are using.

Iris is quite secure if you are using a proper scanner and not a camera. webcam anything is not. Fingerprint scanners arent either but true palm readers are.

Travel app Kayak offers Boeing 737 Max 9 filter after that door plug drama

Re: Have they never heard of flanges

these are not just static plugs, they have full guide tracks, pins but are secured by bolts. They are mostly doors but without the ability to open, no mechanisms etc. The design of the door framing cannot be changed as this is the approved airframe.

The worry is if the natural vibration loosened the bolts allowing the door plug to "open"

Re: When a company

the why is down to type approval. The airframe was approved but there are various specifications. The door plug is a non opening door. It was fitted incorrectly.

Australia imposes cyber sanctions on Russian it says ransomwared health insurer

Re: Linked to ten-million-record leak

agreed. Just block the whole of Russia. I doubt ma y hard working regular Russians will be affected as all the oligarchy do more harm in the first place.

Just let Russia do its own thing on its own.

ValueLicensing tries to smack down Microsoft defenses in license reselling spat

Re: Its a great model

we have found the exact opposite. autopilot and intune for deployment, sure the gpo to intune policy was a little backward in respect to powerhell (sic) scripts but we are more flexible now. 2FA is much better with the online services now, we still have veeam backup and restore. Onedrive and sharepoint work seamlessly with our ipads and interactive screens too. Cost is about the same but flexibility and admin is easier.

New cars bought in the UK must be zero emission by 2035 – it's the law

it isnt just the grid, substations wont cope. Especially when they need to cope with EVs and heat pumps.

Re: Think of the Grid!

oh they most certainly do. Parcel companies use them. We know thia because the 4 public charging points in our village have 4 vans almoat permanently plugged in. Because there are very few cottages that have parking outside the house, most of our village park in two little car parks. EV simply wouldnt work unless there was a massive charging station (larger than a motorway services) put in. These would be public points so would not be cheap at all.

Re: Think of the Grid!

i used to work at the national grid (as was) in Penwortham back in the 90s. The demand vs max load vs availability was quite close most of the time. Infrastructure has not changed even if generation sites have.

there is a reason power stations are all over the place. The grid would not be able to handle the demand even if availability matched.

New York Times sues OpenAI, Microsoft over 'millions of articles' used to train ChatGPT

buy it, sack all the "journalists" and let the AI run the articles. continue slurping.

‘I needed antihistamine tablets every time I opened the computers’

Re: These stories are crazy

quite often units are independent franchises. these tend to have little physical storage so it is quite common to have a small comms cabinet with vpn/firewall, network and server under the POS.

In a company we worked at, one guy left a leaving present of a full crab in his base unit.

we had a call that gis base unit wasnt working. The smell when we opened the base unit was indescribable.Cue a job for the apprentice.

Superuser mostly helped IT, until a BSOD saw him invent a farcical fix

Re: USB memory sticks

glue gun. Glue the mouse trapdoor (like the fluff trap roller was ever going to be cleaned). then glue gun the 110/240 psu switch so that the magic smoke doesnt come out of the PSUs every thirsday ICT lesson.

i used recuva only a fortnight ago to recover student work. not backed up. we force onedrive use and have veeam immutable backups.

they still managed not to save their 365 document in the class teams or their own onedrive.

China bans export of rare earth processing kit

Re: Always worth listening to the other side too..

the US have friends?

Re: Oops!

rare earth extraction amd processing is very dirty business. lots of nasty chemicals and by products. that is the main reason other countries dont do it. There are plenty of viable reserves bit not the will to play with the stuff.

As for uranium, Australia has a lot of the stuff. More than anyone else in fact so the US wont have any issues procuring it.

Russian problems will come years down the line when the chinese come knocking for their loan repayments.