Posts by xanadu42

Microsoft eggheads say AI can never be made secure – after testing Redmond's own products

Security By Design

So, "...the work of securing AI systems will never be complete"

But the "...cost of attacking AI systems can be raised..."

(As argued by Mark Russinovich) By using "... defence-in-depth tactics and security-by-design principles"...

I know that Mark Russinovich is the original author of a number of the Sysinternals applications (some of which I use on a semi-regular basis) so he has a good understanding of Windows' inner workings...

Unfortunately the large number of issues related to Windows 11 updates over the last few months (which appear to be increasing over time) suggests that Micro$oft is a LONG, LONG, LONG way from correctly implementing "... defence-in-depth tactics and security-by-design principles" that actually work

US watchdog sticks probe into 2.6M Teslas over so-called Smart Summon crash reports

It is an ASS...

... and I mean that in the context that it is stupid...

Question is whether or not the person who chose "Actually Smart Summon" as the feature/product name could see the issue with the naming?

Or was it deliberate and indicative of Tesla's (aka Musk's) contempt for those who bought their cars?

/s

Australia lays fiendish tax trap for Meta – with an expensive escape hatch

Nice to see that the Australian Government has "the balls" to tackle Big Tech...

Big Tech will probably try kicking them in the balls...

Abstract, theoretical computing qualifications are turning teens off

Re: Another "R" - suggestions

Reasoning...

Some may say "Critical Analysis"...

Paraphrasing the various references I have read for the meaning of "Reasoning" it is basically the process of forming/drawing conclusions, judgements, or inferences from facts, evidence or premises

Paraphrasing the various references I have read for the meaning of "Critical Analysis" it is basically the process of understanding the meaning of information and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the information...

That said it seems that "Critical Analysis" relies upon "Reasoning"

So "Reasoning" would be a good "Fourth R"...

And, if the Education System is working properly (??), the basics of teaching of Science, English and Mathematics should cover the Technology aspect...

Eek - the STEM that everyone in governments around the world seem to talk about as being the "Basics of Education"

Problem seems to be that, for many years (at least 2-3 decades, maybe more), children have not been properly taught all of the beauty of Science, English or Mathematics (due to cuts in spending on Education) and are, as a result, falling into the traps of the technology they use without any understanding of the pitfalls and think, in their ignorance, they are better-educated in "tech" than their parents...

How US Dept of Justice's cure for Google could inflict collateral damage

Outside the box thinking...

Outside the box thinking such as the following may level the field a bit:

Make it a requirement that Alphabet/Google:

1) Remove ALL Tracking features and Google Account Linking from Google Chrome;

2) Make ALL their proprietary code open-source;

3) Donate funds to the main developers of ALL current non-proprietary web browser engines. (and, for that matter, make all other mega-corps that make proprietary web browsers do the same)

4) Advertise on ALL their varied products ALL of the current non-proprietary web browser engine producers

So instead of everyone who doesn't use Google Chrome seeing adverts to use Google Chrome when visiting an Alphabet/Google -owned site they will see adverts (paid for by Alphabet/Google) for alternate web browsers along the lines of "This web browser may be more suitable for you..."

Probably all too altruistic... and a one-in-a-trillion+ chance

And waiting for the down-votes

Now’s your chance to try Microsoft’s controversial Windows Recall ... maybe

Re: Seems something's semantic somewhere

Agreed, precisely what is meant by "sensitive material"?

If a computer user searches for information related to a minority group or a medical procedure (only two examples of way too many to list) that is "illegal" in their region will Recall not record it?

For example, and only considering the USA: a trans person or a pregnant woman seeking medical information...

Will Recall not record such "sensitive material" on a state-by-state basis in the USA?

And what about countries where a person searching for "sensitive material" may be put to death because of same?

Will Recall not record such "sensitive material" on a country-by-country basis?

Micro$oft's statements appear extremely disingenuous

Microsoft accused of 'greenwashing' as AI used in fossil fuel exploration

Windows 11 (Artificial) Requirements ...

... and the e-waste that results from the said "artificial" requirements when people are "required" to upgrade their perfectly fine computers to run Windows 11...

(All the varied work-arounds that allow Win11 to run on machines that do not meet the Win11 requirements is proof enough for me that the Win11 requirements are "artificial")

So M$ "greenwashing" is not a surprise

Obviously no care for our environment - only the bottom line

Add to that the extremely poor quality of Updates that have been reported over the last year, or so, for BOTH Win10 AND Win11 and it indicates that M$ simply does not care...

The horror that is VHS revived for horror movie release

Don't forget Vinyl

The soundtrack will be available on Vinyl from November

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien:_Romulus_(soundtrack)

https://variety.com/2024/music/news/alien-romulus-score-benjamin-wallfisch-vinyl-1236106988/

Luckily brand new record player's are still widely available - I have seen many listed at less than AUD$100 which will play at 33⅓, 45 and 78 rpm (not that I would pay that little if I were in the market)

Western Digital wasn't the only one - Windows 24H2 update bluescreens Asus systems

Singing the "Microsoft Blues"

Me wonders why vendors, whose product was working fine for many prior versions of Windows, have to issue a "fix" after a Microsoft Update?

Seems to me EVERYONE is paying for M$ f**kups (== total lack of Quality Assurance)

Tesla FSD faces yet another probe after fatal low-visibility crash

Early May 2021 Elon Musk revealed he has Asperger's on Saturday Night Live

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57045770

https://www.newsweek.com/snl-read-full-transcript-elon-musks-opening-monologue-saturday-night-live-1589849

This may explain a lot about his decidedly unusual behaviour...

Internet Archive user info stolen in cyberattack, succumbs to DDoS

Wayback Machine Timeout

Just tried https://web.archive.org/ and got a timeout :(

Seems like their issues may be quite serious

https://www.isitdownrightnow.com/web.archive.org.html

Also reports site is down

Mozilla patches critical Firefox vuln that attackers are already exploiting

Re: Yes but...

A quick duckduckgo search indicates macOS Sequoia affecting Firefox and Google Chrome

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255795609?sortBy=rank

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/problems-with-firefox-connecting-to-local-sites-on-my-network.2439635/

AI agent promotes itself to sysadmin, trashes boot sequence

Re: I think Forrest Gump distilled...

Or to paraphrase: "AI is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

Competition watchdog accuses Google of abusing ad dominance

Google Search Recommends Google Chrome as a "more secure and faster" web browser

And who has forgotten way back when Google Chrome was a new product, Google aggressively advertised their new web browser in their search results?

The way that it was done implied to the "average user" that the web browser they were using wasn't secure and was slow...

So the "average user" installed Google Chrome which then changed the default web browser without need for admin access...

Little did the "average user" realise that Google Chrome was sending all their activity back to Google

NOTE: "average user" means one using Windows before M$ properly implemented UAC

Datacenters to emit 3x more carbon dioxide because of generative AI

how many r's in strawberry

Ask ChatGPT this question (re-tested at time of post)

The answer: The word "strawberry" has 2 r's.

So AI is going to cause more adverse climate effects which will cause strawberries to be smaller

(See https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-16/climate-change-small-strawberries-warmer-nights/100071954 )

Maybe ChatGPT is predicting this by stating the lesser number of r's?

After asking ChatGPT "how many r's in strawberry" ask ChatGPT "count the r's in strawberry"

The answer I got: I see what you mean. There is actually only 1 R in "strawberry."

Yep - strawberries are getting smaller by the moment

SQL king Larry Ellison becomes sequel sultan with controlling interest in Paramount Global

I imagine that Lucille Ball and Gene Roddenberry will not be pleased with where Star Trek will "boldly go" in a Larry Ellison inspired future

Twitter must pay over half a million to unfairly dismissed Irish exec

Check the maths...

YES I know (F)Elon's "earnings", as I describe following, are not "real money"... but if he were to "cash out" tomorrow then it WOULD be "real money" (and probably f*ck many stock exchanges at the same time)...

So please bear with me

(F)Elon was recently awarded USD$46,000,000,000 for effectively doing F-All...

Aggrieved ex-employee awarded USD$607,000

Aggrieved ex-employee received about 0.0013% of (F)Elon's award - around 7 minutes "(F)Elon time"...

Reminds me of the old Q/A joke about Bill Gates (and I'm paraphrasing - the joke came out a LONG time ago):

Q: "What would Bill Gates do if he accidentally dropped a $100 bill?"

A: "Nothing - based on his hourly income it would cost him more to pick up the $100 bill than what it is worth"

There are around 525,600 minutes in a year - so (F)Elon received around USD$87,520 a minute for his "award" (I assume for 'that particular year') - so, again, bear with me...

At maximum (my "best case" scenario) I can earn around AUD$135 per hour (AUD$2.25 a minute!) - at current rates that's USD$89.50 per hour (USD1.49 a minute)

(F)Elon (has effectively) earned around 58,738 times the amount I can earn in the same time...

Even assuming the "worst" [for (F)Elon that is] and spread (F)Elon's award over 20 years...

Still means (F)Elon (in worst case scenario) has been awarded around 2,937 (per unit time) than my "best case" scenario...

If I've f*ck up on the maths, I apologise - have had a few beers...

Users call on Microsoft to update Outlook's friendly name feature

The current version of Thunderbird (v128) by default now includes the email address of the sender in the email list...

If the "Show only display name for people in my address book" option is enabled only the "friendly name" is shown

Even so, the email preview has, for as long as I can remember, included the email address in the "From" field

M$ Outlook has always made it difficult to show the actual sender email :(

Bugging out: 53 years since humans first drove a battery-powered car on the Moon

Only 18km/h...

From what I remember of watching the "Moon Buggy" zooming around it certainly looked like the driver (or is that pilot - seeing that "Driving the rover was actually more like flying an airplane...") was a maniac!!!

Granted I was in my very early teens and didn't think about (nor fully understand) the difference in gravity but, surely, the "effective speed" I saw was more like 108 km/h...

A hell of a ride on such a rough surface...

Irrespective of my (very) poor maths and (even poorer) understanding of gravity both the designers AND drivers of the LRV deserve a belated beer :)

Secure Boot useless on hundreds of PCs from major vendors after key leak

NOT FOR PRODUCTION USE

I remember seeing NOT FOR PRODUCTION USE displayed during the BIOS boot process on machines as far back as the late 1990's on desktop machines using either a Phoenix or Megatrends BIOS

So the key issue with Secure Boot BIOS's is no surprise...

Apple Maps escapes orchard into web browser wilds

Re: Remember the days...

Just visited the site using Firefox and up popped the "browser not supported"

Changed the User Agent to simulate Chrome and all appeared to work ok when comparing with the same check using Chrome...

So it would seem that "browser not supported" is an outright lie...

Microsoft 365 remains 'degraded' as Azure outage resolved

Re: Hitting Australia as well

Affected infrastructure includes Banks, Petrol Stations, Airports, Airlines, Fast-Food "restaurants", TV stations and supermarkets - and the list seems to be growing by the hour...

So much for putting everything into one basket - er, "cloud"

The M$ cloud seems to work exactly opposite to how they claim it works...

Maybe they should rename Azure to "Egg Basket"?

Just wonder how many managers are now regretting getting rid of their "real" IT teams and moving everything to the "cloud"?

Thunderbird is go: 128 now out with revamped 'Nebula' UI

Thunderbird vs Outlook

Based on all above comments it appears that Thunderbird has fewer issues (UI and/or functionality) than Outlook (when solely examined as an email client)

Let the down-votes flow...

Microsoft to intro checkpoint cumulative updates for Win 11

Re: I'm not sure

"If they want to improve the speed of patching, my guess would be making the registry into a proper database that allows multiple threads to make changes in parallel would be a far bigger win than anything that reduces the bandwidth consumed by downloading updates."

Changing the registry to a "proper database" wouldn't improve this much as the updating of the registry files would still be a bit of a bottleneck...

I think a better solution would be to revert back to INI files - say one for each of the various subsystems...

And think of the benefits... Backup one small INI file (a few kilobytes) before implementing a change and if the change stuffs up do a restore - much quicker than backup/restore of the 100 or so megabytes of registry...

And you could even use a text editor of your choice!

Google can totally explain why Chromium browsers quietly tell only its websites about your CPU, GPU usage

No wonder Google/Alphabet dropped their "Don't be evil" motto...

Their new motto ("Do the right thing") is just as meaningless unless it actually means "Do the right thing by/for us"...

TeamViewer says Russia broke into its corp IT network

Re: Hello, we’re a technology company

Based on recent reports about security failures from many of the "major players" cyber security is the least of their concerns ...

... until someone else notices the failures...

Police allege 'evil twin' of in-flight Wi-Fi used to steal passenger's credentials

Connecting to "free" WiFi...

Surely before connecting to "free" WiFi you ensure you are using a VPN?

An arc welder in the datacenter: What could possibly go wrong?

Re: Let's start a fight with the Welders

"You could teach a child to do it [welding]"...

Not based on my experience as a child...

If you are talking about "Gas Welding" (aka Oxyacetylene welding) I can agree as I learned to do this in my very early teens (late 1970's) at my Dad's Sheet Metal Fabrication business (at school my teachers couldn't believe how good I was in the Metalwork classes with Oxyacetylene welding).

If you are talking about the other techniques of welding by hand such as Stick (Shielded Metal Arc Welding), TIG (Tungsten Inert Gas Welding) and MIG (Metal Inert Gas Welding) then I have to disagree...

My Dad (who excelled at these techniques) eventually gave up on teaching me Stick and MIG welding after a few years - I couldn't get the hang of it...

My Dad said my (not Oxyacetylene) Welding always looked like Cocky Shit Droppings - and I had to agree :)

Study employs large language models to sniff out their own bloopers

Monkeys and Bananas...

So we have two groups of monkeys (and I apologise to monkeys for the LLM analogy)

Group One monkeys (a Model) produce a response to a question (Language) based on their analysis of collected data (Large database)...

Group Two monkeys (another Model) are asked to analysed the Group One monkeys' response (another Language) based on their (as in Group Two) analysis of collected data (another Large database)...

Result: Bananas .... (and again apologies to monkeys as I know that not all monkeys like, or have access to, bananas)

Mozilla defies Kremlin, restores banned Firefox add-ons in Russia

David vs Goliath?

So Logic Wins over the "Might is Right" philosophy...

Microsoft cancels universal Recall release in favor of Windows Insider preview

Re: Recall of Recall...

But wasn't that "recall" because of some Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey mind f*ck?

Recall of Recall...

I cannot recall a time when a recall of (a) Recall has ever been initiated...

Unless I recall incorrectly

Tesla shareholders agree to pay Musk staggering sum of $48B

Pay the workers better?

48,000 workers given USD$1,000,000?

or 480,000 workers given USD$100,000

this would have been a much better wealth share?

But no, workers were axed to help giving USD$48,000,000,000 to ONE F***wit

Read AI about it... OpenAI does deal with News Corp

Does this mean that ChatGPT will soon be spewing extremist content?

US watchdog chases Waymo robocars to catch violations

Re: Oh got to love US tech bros

I have a feeling that a kangaroo bouncing over a road is just a tiny bit more challenging and complex...

AI red-teaming tools helped X-Force break into a major tech manufacturer 'in 8 hours'

" ... a flaw in the manufacturer's HR portal..."

It would be the HR portal...

Isn't the flaw the whole HR Department?

You want us to think of the children? Couldn't agree more

"Think of the Children" is a term also being used to promote many forms of xenophobia (eg antisemitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, etc, etc, etc, etc) by extremists (and politicians that pander to same for their own political gain)

The fact that "security forces" and other politicians (not pandering to extremists) are now following suite is not surprising :(

These are the same group of people/organisations who would be the loudest complainers if E2EE was compromised and their private communications channels were published...

Targeting the corporate algorithms that promote all the negative aspects of our society to "the Children" is the obvious solution ...

Unfortunately one country has "ancient", totally outdated, laws that protect said corporates

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

Were the Clicks Denied?

A few years ago, can't remember exactly, there was a big hoo-ha about using Google Analytics and privacy... (may have been here)

I read as much as possible about same over the next few days (weeks/months?? - it was years ago)

As the operator of my site (god mode) I thought the best approach would be to ask the users of my site whether or not they would like Google to track their access and their client access...

100% said NO so I removed Google Analytics...

For three months a Google Search for a "Unique" (deliberately listed on my site only with co-operation of author) did not appear on Google searches

Two days after my client placed the same listing on a "Northern American" website they saw results...

Which proved to them, in that single interaction, how the "big guys (US corporate) suggestions/advice" (adversely) affected how they could earn more...

Me now wondering why Win10/11 (by default) hides ALL of the REALLY IMPORTANT messages (from "real" Anti-Malware products warning of potential breaches) but allows "Crap Anti-Malware" demanding you buy additional protection which (many years ago was provided in the base package)...

How gullible can you be?

Latest figures show AMD chipping away at Intel's CPU dominance

Intel vs AMD

Based on the few AMD-based Windows 10 laptops I have experienced over the last few years it seems to me that AMD-based laptops perform significantly faster than the equivalent Intel-based laptops (based on what Windows 10 refers to as "Base Speed", "Cores" and "Logical Processors")... And the less available memory the bigger the difference in apparent speed appears to be...

This is not a definitive assessment as I did not have extensive contact with said machines as all devices belonged to my clients.

A few of the "cheapy" (sub $AUD500) AMD systems with 4GiB RAM, 2 Cores and Base Speed of 1.1GHz seemed to run much faster than my "main use/development" ($AUD 3600) Intel-based laptop with 32GiB RAM, 6 Cores and Base Speed of 2.6GHz when running as a "clean" Windows Install

I am now seriously considering looking for an AMD-based machine for my next purchase as my "main use/development"

My next purchases (next year for tax reasons) will be two "cheapy's" - one Intel-based and one AMD-based laptop with "as-equivalent" specs as possible...

At present I am finding it difficult (here in Australia) to find AMD-based laptops with similar specs to an Intel-based laptop ...

Is Intel still paying computer manufacturers to ensure their market dominance?

First 9front release of the year is called DO NOT INSTALL

shithub

And I used to call github "shithub" - now I can't because there is a real web site by that name :(

Same as I can no longer call facebook "fuckbook" because there is a real web site by that name :(

Not a Genius move: Resurrecting war hero Alan Turing as your 'chief AI officer'

Re: Turing misinformation

When I first read this article I was incensed and wrote a very long and very angry post...

At the time only a few comments had been posted and, after leaving the post sitting there waiting for me to click the "submit" button for a few hours, I came back and read all the additional comments that had been added in the interim... Gave me a better perspective...

That vitriolic post was never submitted - but I did feel better for having written it all down...

When I came out as a gay man to my parents in May 1989 (I was 26 and my 27th birthday was the next week) it was effectively illegal to be gay in Western Australia. Later that same year new laws were passed that made being gay "legal" from 1990 (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Western_Australia)

I was aware of Alan Turing at the time and I considered him a hero because of his ideas, philosophy and achievements with mechanical computers - it was many years later that I became aware that he was a gay man too! As well as all the crap he had to live though (somewhat similar to, but more drastic, than my experiences) He gained even more Hero status for me!

To use a simulacra of a genius Alan Turing in such a manner is abhorrent and offensive on many fronts - obviously not a single genius present at "Genius Group"

NASA's Psyche hits 25 Mbps from 140 million miles away – enough for Ultra HD Netflix

Re: Where is the "corrections"link?

I wasn't wearing my glasses at the time :(

IMHO the more obvious locations for a "Send corrections" link would be on the same page as the article itself AND on the form where you post your comments...

Where is the "corrections"link?

"... when the spacecraft was 19 million miles (31 kilometers) ..."

Seems someone got the maths wrong

Microsoft dusts off ancient MS-DOS 4.0 code for release on GitHub

Considering that there have been many reports over the last few years of "decades old" bugs in Windows it is highly unlikely M$ would release ANY source code for ANY version of Windows...

Based on the reports it is easy to assume that even the latest versions of Windows are using code written way back in the 1980's and 1990's

Apple stops warning of 'state-sponsored' attacks, now alerts about 'mercenary spyware'

According to the Cambridge Dictionary ( https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/mercenary ) the adjective means "interested only in the amount of money that you can get from a situation"...

Sounds to me like how Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta (aka Facebook), Microsoft, X (formerly known as Twitter) and so many other "big corporates" operate

Outlook.com trips over Google's spam blocking rules

Gmail probably the issue...

Over the last few weeks I have had a number of my clients expressing concern about emails from one of their email accounts not being immediately received by one of their other email accounts and have been advising (to keep it "simple") that email is not guaranteed to be delivered "immediately" and can in fact take hours, or days, depending on the email account they are checking, etc, etc

Some of these email accounts were Outlook or Gmail Accounts...

Based on this article I checked the email logs of one of the sites I support and found that since the beginning or March Gmail has been delaying emails for hours...

Failed attempts to send emails reported:

"421-4.7.28 Gmail has detected an unusual rate of unsolicited mail originating 421-4.7.28 from your IP Netblock [<redacted>]. To protect our users 421-4.7.28 from spam, mail sent from your IP Netblock has been temporarily rate 421-4.7.28 limited. For more information, go to 421-4.7.28 https://support.google.com/mail/?p=UnsolicitedRateLimitError to 421 4.7.28 review our Bulk Email Senders Guidelines."

Needless to say the "Google Help" was not helpful - no mention of how to get around this "Netblock" issue :(

Based on this it is more likely that Gmail is the actual cause because someone has decided to prevent emails being accepted immediately if it is in some defined Netblock...

How big is this "Netblock"? 256 IP addresses? 65536? 16777216?

How are you supposed to fix an issue that is undefined?

Google bakes new cookie strategy that will leave crooks with a bad taste

A more simple solution...

Unless I am totally misunderstanding this issue there seems to me to be a very simple way to bypass this sort of "hack" - one that I have used for a number of years on some of the websites I operate...

I tie some visitor cookies (specifically related to those that are sellers [the site members] or buyers) to the IP address of the visitor when the visit is initiated - if the IP address changes during the interaction the visitor is advised that an error occurred and to re-try and the cookie is reset...

So far no complaints

So am I really dumb on relying on such an idea, or have I missed the point?

The Register meets the voice of Siri Down Under

And no mention of vioce...

Just check the URL of this story... "karen jacobsen siri gps vioce"

What a Siri mistake...

Google's AI-powered search results are loaded with spammy, scammy garbage

Re: "Around 99 percent of Google search results are spam free, we're told"

My experience of Google searches over the last 4-5 months suggest that results shown being "99% ... spam free" is far from reality!!!

Maybe 80% as a guesstimate...

But the results I see could be related to the fact that I live in rural Australia and Google appears to have no idea that there is any other country on the planet that have different ways of doing things...

For Example: For a Google Business listing why do they not have an option for "Closed on Public Holidays" relevant to the country I live In?

Sick and tired of Google emailing me asking if I am closed on Good Friday, Easter Monday, Australia Day, Christmas Day, New Years Day, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc

Google KNOWS where I live (based on info I provided), SHOULD know about Public Holidays in the locale I live in (based on the fact that I used Google to find out when there are public holidays in my locale) and so forth...

Toyota admits its engines are overrated – by its own power testing software

"Oh, What a Feeling"