Posts by Sandtitz

AI slop hits new high as fake country artist hits #1 on Billboard digital songs chart

First they came for the Country Music

And I did not speak out.

When Debian won't do, Devuan 6 'Excalibur' Linux makes the grade

"it didn't successfully install the GRUB bootloader"

Liam, Why did that (not) happen? Lack of proper QA testing?

Installing a boot loader is something I would just expect to... work.

You write that this isn't distro for beginners (true) but that's no excuse since the install routine tries and fails.

NHS left with sick PCs as suppliers resist Windows 11 treatment

Re: Question is

"It's a long, long time since I saw a kernel panic happen."

So? Is there a guarantee of them not happening anymore?

A kernel panic happeninng only rarely - and causing a death - is apparently ok.

I haven't seen a BSOD for a long time either.

Re: Question is

"The only reason I can think of, is to guarantee more expensive service call-outs for the manufacturer."

Why would any other OS be any cheaper service call-out for the manufacturer on an embedded system?

"BSOD really means death"

...but Kernel panics do no? Ludicrous.

Microsoft drops surprise Windows Server patch before weekend downtime

Re: Only a serious vulnerability if you've already lost your mind.

The MS CVE article talks about using the host's own (Windows) firewall to block access until patching is done. Shirley no-one is exposing WSUS to internet.

This is about zero trust. All your systems should be siloed microsegmented with only the minimum required inbound/outbound access allowed. WSUS should be in its own VLAN, different to the client computers anyway, so you can control and monitor all connections with a firewall.

"Why would anyone, except for reasons of insanity, expose ANY ports on a Windows machine to the Internet at large?"

Please explain how e.g. latest patched Apache Tomcat is more secure when served from Linux instead of Windows.

Apple's ultra-thin iPhone flops as foldable iPad hits a crease

...every preloaded 3rd party software uninstallable, around 10 years of OS support, killing of Adobe Flash...

But tt's not all roses on this side of fence.

Draconian rules to enforce only the hindered Safari browser engine (and many other things). The expensive lightning cables should have been replaced at least 5 years before it happened. Apple fanboys. Hurdles to prevent using your own ring tones or watching your own DVD rips, requiring usage of iTunes. Also:

The creators of iTunes are a "bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes". I dare anyone here to defend this piece of shit software.

Re: Vindication

"I was downvoted to hell when I lamented it's launch saying who needs a thinner phone.."

Your post history says you got 13 upvotes and 2 downvotes for your post. Perhaps you need a thicker skin if that's your idea of hell.

New Linux kernel patch lets you cancel hibernation mid-process

Re: Who actually uses Hibernation?

"But with faster SSDs and CPUs I gave up using it"

With SSD's the hibernation is much faster than with HDD's back then, getting close to suspend speeds. Restoring e.g. 16GB of memory content is just a couple of seconds with an NVMe SSD, and not very laborious for a SATA SSD either. The downsize of course is the required disk space to house the (compressed) memory contents.

"being curious about why other people might find this useful?"

Leaving programs open and continuing work later? Browser tabs waiting in the same state you left them?

People leave apps open on phones and tablets all the time, and usually reboot them only when OS updates are installed. Why should it be any different with computers?

Re: "... hibernation support is a somewhat neglected area of Linux support"

"So fixing that before adding new features might not be such a bad ides. But maybe that's just me..."

Not just you. I'm also curious why Linux hasn't managed this yet.

Windows has had a working hibernation implementation since W2K.

Ruby Central tries to make peace after 'hostile takeover'

Re: R

I found REXX a useful scripting language for OS/2.

Suited me well.

Literal crossed wires sent cops after innocent neighbors in child abuse case

Re: You should never cooperate with the police

"Do not forget that many (most?) police forces in the UK have been deemed to be institutionally racist, institutionally sexist, institutionally homophobic, and institutionally corrupt.

I would like to see the evidence to that claim.

You're always asking for bulletproof evidence when China and Russia is implicated, surely you set the same standards to yourself. No?

"None of them have been found to be institutionally free of the aforementioned. None."

Proven innocent? In which country is that the norm?

'Highly sophisticated' government goons hacked F5, stole source code and undisclosed bug details

Re: Buzzword bingo

It goes on an on. All the usual words. All the usual platitudes. But once again it is an account which announces itself as providing "Voice of Truth" that can't keep its own lies in order.

Al Capone was just a famous tax evader, right?

Weird ideas welcome: VC fund looking to make science fiction factual

Re: Star Trek tech

What about replicators/transporters & gravity generators. These are all fundamentally impossible (to even define)

Never say never. These are impossible now. Many of the technologies you use daily would have been impossible 150 years ago. "Indistinguishable..." and so forth. I think Star Trek happens much further in the future.

Replicating something would in essence require scanning source atom-by-atom (for example) and then reconstruct in a fancy 3D printer with source material transmutated into other. (LHC has transmutated lead into gold - supposedly impossible alchemy). Or the printer has access to multiple chemical elements to pick.

Transporter would be just replicator with move command instead of copy - with hopefully no extra flies in the target pod.

Gravity generator could be on the table if gravitons do exist and their nature understood.

Yes, it's all science fiction now.

It's trivially easy to poison LLMs into spitting out gibberish, says Anthropic

Re: A demonstration of how art imitates nature

Came here to say the same thing. A few well places doctored articles / images / videos can undo a lifetime of knowledge, wisdom and education in many people.

Ex-US cyber boss slams politics getting in the way of preparedness

Re: I can offer some tips for free

I normally don't bother with idiots, but...

"1. Do not use Cisco."

Why? What do you recommend?

"2. Assume that American backdoors can be found by $bogeymen."

Which backdoors would they be? I'm sure any Chinese backdoors are also found be others.

"3. Stop spying on the world as though it is yours, then getting butt hurt when somebody does it to you."

This article is about cyber attacks perpetrated by criminals. It's not done because of "spying", they're doing it for the money.

Are you trolling or intellectually challenged?

Hunt for RedNovember: Beijing hacked critical orgs in year-long snooping campaign

Re: Nice load of propaganda there

"(may I call you Sand?)"

No.

"wrestling with a pig - you both get mucky, and the pig enjoys it."

Well, you are right, but the stooges here are turning this fine forum slowly into a dung heap.

As in real life you can either act, or just stand by and watch. Voting a pesudonym down is meaningless, the pigs don't care.

Re: Nice load of propaganda there

"I don't waste my time discussing with idiots."

Neither do I, but I will make an exception with you.

"I cannot remember even one American company that has come forward with information uncovering American spying."

You seem to imply that American cyber spy ops are uncovered frequently. Where do you base that?

USA, China and Russia all have spies in foreign countries, I'm not disputing that. Do you?

"It is America that is doing the diverting."

Perhaps. One can only guess the reasons for you playing a defender for China.

"Every time I read yet another article in The Register about a new China spy crew being uncovered, I wonder where are the articles about American spy crews."

So, you are saying that El Reg is part of a greater conspiracy to not print stories American spy crews?

If you just happen to be adept at say, Chinese or Russian languages, perhaps you can point us to these uncovered American spy crew stories in (credible) Chinese/Russian media? No?

Re: Nice load of propaganda there

"Nice load of propaganda there"

Which parts of the report were untrue? What makes it propaganda?

"doesn't seem to find any American hacking around the globe."

You seem to be trying to divert the conversation from the numerous Chinese state-sponsored hacking cases.

Perhaps USA just doesn't have as many state-sponsored hacking crews as Russia, China et.al.

"If it turns a blind eye to American hacking it cannot be trusted."

The magic word in that sentence is the first one. "If your aunt had bollocks, she'd be your uncle."

Your tirade here is called whataboutism, itself a typical propaganda measure to change the focus of discussion to something different.

I'm ready to continue this discussion further. Are you?

EU starting registration of fingerprints and faces for short-stay foreigners

Re: Oh no it won't...

"Did you really like entering contact details for every person every time?"

Did I like it? No. Obviously I'd prefer no pre-vetting at all, but this was relatively simple.

I've had to apply for visas for different countries before and having to take a couple photos and sending/taking the passport to an embassy for a few days is much more tedious.

"Taking a photo of a passport which won't stay open on its own and having to restart if it didn't recognize there was a problem?

I don't remember having problems taking photos of the passports.

"Having to take a selfie with the front camera and being told it's unsuitable when someone could have taken a better photo with the back camera?"

I didn't have any problems taking photos. Perhaps you didn't read the instructions of a plain background as such?

This was in June. Perhaps the App has deteriorated since then, or was much worse before that?

Re: Oh no it won't...

"the trouble I had getting the UK Passport Application system to recognise me as actually looking at the camera in my photograph was immense."

I didn't have any problem using my phone to register the whole family when we visited UK this summer. The app took the pictures and processed the data quickly. Smooth sailing.

It did however feel like a stupid money grab.

SIM city: Feds say 100,000-card farms could have killed cell towers in NYC

Nah, they hit their foot with my Lil' Hammer.

China's DeepSeek applying trial-and-error learning to its AI 'reasoning'

I suppose it will explain in beautiful prose how EU (and other West in general) are not fit for purpose.

UK telco Colt’s recovery from August cyberattack pushes into November

Re: Customers?

Why do you call them morons, Mr. Coward?

Data destruction done wrong could cost your company millions

Re: What if the SSD or Motherboard has failed?

"If you tell it to "delete everything" then, so far as I know, it just sets a bit somewhere to say that."

Secure Erase command - implemented in all modern SSD's for over a decade - instructs the controller to apply a higher erase voltage on the NAND chips that hold the data. This includes everything - the retired and re-allocated data blocks included. The process takes just a second or two.

"Especially in the case where (from the ordinary user's point of view) the unit has failed?"

If the SSD is not functional, the only feasible course of action for us normal users is to physically destroy the drive.

"A few years ago I bought a laptop from "PC Specialist" but the SSD failed after a few months, ie within warranty. The company refused to replace it unless I returned the faulty one."

Dell/HP/Lenovo (at least) business computers can be bought with a warranty where you can keep the defective drive.

"I refused to do this because it contained my digitial life"

Understandable, but the laptop manufacturer also gets refunds from the SSD manufacturers.

I'm sure you understand that if people never had to return defective SSD's, many people would take advantage and get extra drives for free.

I recommend keeping you hard drives always encrypted even in desktop computers. What if your computer is nicked?

Bring back your old Mac: 5 ways to refresh the OS on elderly Apples

Re: An alternative.

Something like these?

https://github.com/ttalvitie/browservice

https://github.com/tenox7/wrp

Think tank warns China's polysilicon subsidies are frying Western fabs

Re: Confused

"China has raised hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty. This is probably why the USA is jealous."

China has raised hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty. This is probably why VoiceOfTruth trolls in these forums.

Re: Nice bit of VoiceOfTruth propaganda there

I'm not American. Pointing fingers at America doesn't absolve other countries, including China.

Try using logic in your next reply. Harder.

Re: Nice bit of VoiceOfTruth propaganda there

No complaints when China wants to dominate everything. Here's the world's smallest fiddle: bzzzzz.

Nano11 cuts Windows 11 down to size, grabbing just 2.8 GB of disk space

Re: What does Windows 11 normally weigh in at ?

Windows allows uninstalling any previous update all the way back to when Windows was installed, and keeps all the old stuff in windows\winsxs folder which obviously grows in time. This folder is likely the one biggest space eater.

You can remove all those updates with this one-liner:

Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase

Expect the command to take a few hours, depending on your computer.

Re: I always thought .....

Ubuntu System Requirements from the same page:

25 GB of free hard drive space

Beijing went to 'EggStreme' lengths to attack Philippines military, researchers say

Re: VoiceOfTruth

Has it ever uncovered any Chinese wrongdoing? Or maybe that's rightdoing when China does its spying.

No more waiting for lines: New Windows keyboard shortcuts output em and en dashes with ease

That is clever! I hope the teachers have more aces in their sleeves since some cheaters will cheat again — 3000 word document with very short editing time in the metadata, perhaps?

Micros~1 Word automatically creates en dashes when you're using minus sign between two words as a dash, but deliberate em/en dashes require Ctrl + (Alt) + Numpad minus sign, which isn't simple to do in most laptops because of lack of numpad. And I guess most students use a laptop these days. The old 14" laptop I'm typing this doesn't have Number pad, but the functionality is implemented in the middle of the keyboard if I deliberately enable NumLock - very rarely - since I can use the +-*/ keys with the Fn key. At least some newer laptops do not have this feature anymore.

The same MSOffice keyboard combination would be great system-wide as well, but alas, Ctrl-minus is already user for zooming out in many programs.

Re: Great news

"Now, to fully use the OS you paid for, you have to download yet another bolt-on tool."

"...The latest Windows Insider builds in the Dev and Beta channels..."

It's in beta testing phase! The utility unlikely needed if/when released for the masses.

If you want special characters not found on your keyboard, the Character Map has been there since Windows 3.1 (if not earlier?), and the Alt codes came to exist when IBM PC came out...

Microsoft open-sources the 6502 BASIC coded by Bill Gates himself

Re: "Microsoft later, ahem, drew inspiration from CP/M"

"Multitask... the only way to get a Microsoft OS prior to NT4"

...was to get NT3.x ?

"and in consumer OSes Windows 2000, to actually multi task was to use to multiple computers."

That's just nonsense. People used multiple software concurrently since Windows 2.0 at least. You could even multitask in DOS. It just wasn't preemptive multitasking.

Re: Does it mention...

So you think that all software is fair game to copy and use for free, regardless of the time and money put into it by the programmers or the company behind it?

Re: Does it mention...

No mention of it.

Do you disagree with the letter?

US puts $10M bounty on three Russians accused of attacking critical infrastructure

Re: Thank goodness we got rid of Huawei

"I mean, thank God we only have Cisco bugs to contend with . . ."

Looking at CVE lists, Huawei has had its own share of vulnerabilities. Are you just trolling these days?

This is a 7-year-old vulnerability that was used. I'd blame the victim(s) as well as the Russkies.

"Oh, and well done with the bounty on Russian citizens you'll never get your hands on."

There's been enough cases where the bounty subjects have been catched while crossing border, for example.

I'm sure the perps are nervously laughing it off but I'm sure some other people are contemplating on how to get the juicy reward.

Trump threatens extra tariffs, tech export bans, for any nation that dares to regulate Big Tech

VoiceOfTruth and his logical fallacy

How do you propose you are proven wrong when you are talking about future.

Please prove you are right about the issue. Oh, you cannot? For the same reason?

You are just spreading FUD, your comments are not constructive.

Microsoft keeps adding stuff into Windows we don't want – here's what we actually need

Re: Some suggestions

"Yeah no, who would. But you're missing two things: 1) Some people might.

...and some people might not. This was an opinion article and people are voicing their opinions in this forum, me included. I can understand that some people want bundled Teams.

"2) And whether it comes with Windows or not, it's just an example: The OP (or someone else) might want to do stuff like that with any application, and what they're lamenting is the removal of the facilities for doing that from the OS."

Can you specify what exactly has been removed? There hasn't been macro recording / playback facility in Windows since Windows 3 era. Multiple 3rd party software exists for that exact purpose.

The OP asked for Excel VBA type macros which are not that dissimilar to Powershell. If you have the required coding skills you can create mouse events in both languages.

"Yeah, but that disregards the (rather obvious, IMO) fact that stuff you want to copy from Teams isn't just firstname-lastname pairs; it's the text the people behind those names sent, too. What's that script going to do, "every switch of pair around words"?"

I gave a really simple script tailored for a specific purpose the OP was having a problem with. Powershell scales into much more complex string conversion jobs if you like.

What are you suggesting? Can you give an example of a function in another OS that does what you want?

Re: Multiple clipboards

Windows keeps the last 25 clipboard objects in memory and they can be retrieved with Win+V combination...

"That was my first "oh god I'm too old for this" moment when I used Windows 11 and couldn't immediately find Task Manager"

Not too old - for the last 30 years Task Manager has launched with CTRL-SHIFT-ESC combination.

Re: Some suggestions

"1. A macro editor like Excel VBA. I am forever copying names out of Teams, removing formatting and then swapping the names around in first name, second name order."

This article is about Windows. I don't want Teams to be part of Windows installation. Sadly it is in current Win11... Your clipboard text switch is easy to implement into a keyboard shortcut.

$clipboard = Get-Clipboard

# Split into first name and last name

$parts = $clipboard -split ','

# Make sure there are two parts

if ($parts.Length -eq 2) {

$reversed = "$($parts[1]),$($parts[0])"

# Copy the new format to clipboard

Set-Clipboard -Value $reversed

Write-Output "Format changed: $reversed"

} else {

Write-Output "Error: Clipboard content is not in the format first,last"

}

Save the aforementioned script into a switcharoo.ps1 file, and drag a shortcut to Windows taskbar. You can launch pinned applications from taskbar simply with Win+<number>. Win+1, for example, would launch the leftmost app. Win+2 starts the second app and so on.

Because Powershell by default has script restrictions, you need to run the command Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope CurrentUser first.

"2. A better way of organising files. It is time to move on from C:\"

What is a better way? Just saying that we need a better <something> is not constructive. Typically users organise their files into the subfolders in their home folder, and all software default to these folders.

"4. AI model on my desktop that I train to do my work so I can watch cat videos all day."

Might take a while. That Powershell script was made by Copilot with a simple query. I'm afraid your employer will just replace you so you'll have plenty of time to watch pussies on the net.

"5. Teams to be rewritten in c++ so it doesn't need rebooting every single time you use it."

They should do it in assembly to make it run rather than crawl, but in my experience I don't need to restart Teams hardly ever. Usually when it stops working and most cases have been Microsoft having wobbly clouds.

"6. Able to run Android apps and have seamless workflow between Windows and Android"

What software are you missing in Windows? Use Bluestacks for clipboard sharing.

"7. 64 bit only to move on from legacy drivers"

Windows 11 is already 64-bit only. I am quite sure most Windows installation since Windows 8 at least have been 64-bit.

You can toggle Windows into 64-bit mode where 32-bit software cannot be run.

"9. A fun UI. The modern simple designs are boring and no longer new."

Example of an UI you would like to see? FSN from Jurassic Park?

"10. Get rid of control panel! It's been years!"

Yes.

"11. A replacement for Fax and Scan."

Or, you know, just remove it.

Re: Things I'd like to see

"and no voice control"

I have no need for accessibility features either, but there they are in the settings, not enabled by default, not bothering me one bit. Why is voice control bad?

"and random audio."

You hear voices? There is no random audio in Windows.

"who ever thought up tabs in notepad"

I didn't like tabs either in web browsers when they were introduced quarter century ago. I got used to them and find tabs better.

The lauded Notepad++ has had tabs since forever - a great feature. Closing NP++ and reopening continues where I left off. Now Windows Notepad mimics NP++ and suddenly all sorts of cockroaches come out "yelling at the cloud".

Basic projector repair job turns into armed encounter at secret bunker

Re: Tanks a lot!

"...down the steps and through the green door."

I've always wondered what was Behind the Green Door.

Never would have guessed it was just a canteen!

McDonald's not lovin' it when hacker exposes nuggets of rotten security

Re: "thanks to a faulty OAuth implementation"

Happens everywhere.

https://www.theregister.com/security.txt says:

Contact: mailto:[e-mail]

Expires: 2022-12-31T22:59:00.000Z

Preferred-Languages: en

Italian hotels breached en masse since June, government confirms

Re: Ho-Hum here we go again ... again !!!

"Such systems need to be ultra secure and that means spending money on making it so !!!"

What exactly is ultra secure?

There is no hack proof system. This hotel booking thing is obviously networked and likely accessed by end hotel workers, travel agencies, travel search engines and perhaps guests themselves, all of them using different API/user interfaces.

We do not know the state of security in this hotel booking system. It could have been lax or following good security practices. You jumped to a conclusion without any evidence.

Either way, insiders with proper credentials can still have access to the data and export it. Remains to be seen if the criminals' point of entry is ever found out.

Beijing doesn't want Nvidia's H20s anywhere near sensitive government workloads

Re: Hey, Beijing !

"Citrix does have backdoors and hardcoded passwords."

<citation needed>

Politically hot parts of US Constitution briefly deleted thanks to 'coding error'

Re: there's a lot to be said for plain text

Plain text? It's a rather hard-to-read cursive.

Pity they didn't have Comic Sans back then.

Mauritius investigates AFRINIC as African institutions show support ahead of new elections

Re: "the Police is investigating the matter"

"And what is the conclusion of the Police ?"

Says there in the the title you quoted:

"the Police is investigating the matter"