Posts by nonpc

Developer puts Windows 7 on a crash diet, drops it to down to 69 MB

Re: Weather...

"That sounds risky, we need a guinea pig:

America First"

Groundhog - looped?

YouTube's AI moderator pulls Windows 11 workaround videos, calls them dangerous

Re: I only use Windows for work

" Re: I only use Windows for work

I posted a video about making seafood sandwiches but it got taken down"

Better than thrown up?

Marks & Spencer swaps out TCS for fresh helpdesk deal

Similar for me but I got out pre-Covid. Mine was IT for a small company that I kept in house on premises before going cloud based and outsourcing IT support (within UK provider) just before I left. Shortly after I left they lost their Cyber Essentials accreditation that I had achieved for them for their government contract.

You have one week to opt out or become fodder for LinkedIn AI training

Re: I've been poisoning Linkedin profile for years

Perks of the job?

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

Re: Oh my days

It was a shilling in my day - put another bob in the meter.

Jaguar Land Rover engines ready to roar again after weeks-long cyber stall

What's the scuttlebutt

... on what was the actual attack and how/why did it have such a universal and long-lasting effect across the company?

SonicWall breach hits every cloud backup customer after 5% claim goes up in smoke

...and the pessimist in me says that when the documention system is borked and you want to recover it from the backup, you need the encryption key which is stored in...

Analagous to the story of the key to the fireproof safe which was stored on the premises and melted in the fire.

Microsoft lets bosses spot teams that are dodging Copilot

Re: Goodhart's law

It was called 'moving the meter' in my time (decades back). It keeps the high-ups happy and leaves you free to do what really needs to be done (provided the meter shows green).

Law firm email blunder exposes Church of England abuse victim details

Re: FFS ... this is not acceptable !!!

They should have some form of data loss prevention firewall which should trap this anyway. Does the Outlook recipient count check work with mailing list groups (does it expand these and count them before sending)?

I narrowly escaped a job in IT for an American law firm a couple of decades ago...

Re: "Church of England still has more to do to rebuild the trust ..."

The Saesneg version of the Welsh national anthem

My hen laid a haddock on top of a tree,

Glad barks and centurions throw dogs in the sea,

My guru asked Elvis and brandished Dan’s flan,

Don’s muddy bog’s blocked up with sand.

Dad, Dad! Why don’t you oil Aunty Glad?

When oars appear, on beer bottle pies,

Oh butter the hens as they fly.

What the Plex? Streaming service suffers yet another password spill

Excellent marketing ploy by Jellyfin!

Google outfoxed by crafty squatters in $1B London HQ's rooftop garden

Re: They should be celebrating

Almost certainly foxes - fhe cctv doesn't lie! Glis glis (edible doomice) are more likely scavengers than squirrels round here. The squirrels concnetrate on the bird feeders. The cats deal with all three!

Re: Fox News

Never understood how Lynx was a successful product. Try Polecat? Skunk is already taken elsewhere...

Re: The Tale of the Red Rascal

... and the stone reappear in the droppings. I hae heard that there is a coffee whose beans have a similar history, but fox coffee would be really funky.

Re: Fox's or Fox'es?

In my garden the cat wins every time.

Tape, glass, and molecules – the future of archival storage

Re: 'Write only'?

... and we still don't know what Stonehenge was all about!

Tesla FSD ignores school bus lights and hits 'child' dummy in staged demo

Ah - you are a local then?

Victoria's Secret website laid bare for three days after 'security incident'

Re: Have the hackers revealed

Trans

Paid scanty regard for security, perhaps?

Shortly to be going for a thong?

Microsoft's May Patch Tuesday update fails on some Windows 11 VMs

"Your PC/Device needs to be repaired. The operating system couldn't be loaded because a required file is missing or contains errors. File: ACPI.sys. Error code: 0xc0000098." '

Microsoft unsure ... 'if there's a workaround other than removing the patches.' which of course reqires a bootable system.

Helpful as always. Still, there's always System Restore. 'System Restore did not complete successfully. Your computer's system files and settings were not changed'.

Praise the Lord for the ability to do bare metal restores from an independent backup system.

Here's what we know about the DragonForce ransomware that hit Marks & Spencer

Re: "off limits"

I wonder what happens if you try the Israelis?

Everyone's deploying AI, but no one's securing it – what could go wrong?

Re: Conflation of issues?

"Clearly a Very Bad Idea to insert automated bullshit-generation into your business." - I thought that was Marketing?

British govt agents step in as Harrods becomes third mega retailer under cyberattack

Re: We can't continue to regard these simply as "IT Problems"

"What an odd statement. It's literally the way beancounters think - statistics probabilities and risks. That's what they do. They analyse, interpret, draw conclusions and make budgetary decisions based on these conclusions."

No - actuaries (certainly for forecasting and assessing pension fund liabilities) do that. Oddly actuaries deal in in theoreticals and bean counters deal in actuals... Bean counters apply the 'you didn't spend it last year so you didn't need it and won't therefore need it next year' in budget forecasting.

Don't open that JPEG in WhatsApp for Windows. It might be an .EXE

Re: It's 2025....

My RAC/ACU motorcycling instructor used this phrase and it has stood me well throughout my riding - and driving - career.

Re coding, assume that all users are as idiotic as computers and will maliciously misinterpret any instruction given. A lawyer complimented me for spotting an ambiguity in a document he had prepared for my company and said that I had a fine legal mind. Not sure if that really is a compliment, but it was created by a career of testing and code inspection.

Does this thing run on a 220 V power supply? Oh. That puff of smoke suggests not

Re: "built to survive minor accidents"

Could you get discounts on seconds?

You didn't work at Newbury Labs, did you? We had a spate of large smoothing capacitors reversed on PSUs, so when one VDU started hissing while on soak test I was very cautious before putting my head in to the (switched off) monitor housing to see what was what. A colleague duly banged on the outside, causing peripheral damage to my head on its rather swift withdrawal. Luckily another colleague who had seen what was happening caught hold of my elbow before I lumped the miscreant, while wiping the tears from his eyes. When the red mist had faded I appreciated the skill and timing of the stunt, which of course I would have done myself given half the chance (apart from the fact that I was the team leader).

Eggheads crack the code for the perfect soft boil

Re: "a total duration of 32 minutes"

Adds an olympian element to the old tale of the wife walking into the room, ravishing her husband then walking out. On being asked what that was all about she replied that she was boiling an egg...

China's DeepSeek just emitted a free challenger to OpenAI's o1 – here's how to use it on your PC

Is it fair to ask a Chinese AI 'How many "R"s are in the word strawberry?'?

Tech firms to pay millions in SEC penalties for misleading SolarWinds disclosures

I think Prince Andrew has set a Royal precedent?

Feeld dating app's security too open-minded as private data swings into public view

Puts penetration testing in a new light?

The future of AI/ML depends on the reality of today – and it's not pretty

Alas I tried reading it but I am far too old for the gushing verbiage. A summary would be useful.

Palo Alto Networks execs apologize for 'hostesses' dressed as lamps at Black Hat booth

When someone mentioned reflecting company standards they thought they meant standard lamps?

Facebook prank sent techie straight to Excel hell

Our variation (on a VAX VMS system to give an indication of age) was am email admitting irrestable urges of undying love for to prettiest (or not) programmer (stage 1), or to the next level female, or a 100 line email of 'I must not leave my unlocked terminal unattended' to their immediate manager.

I found myself with an autorun message of 'No!' and a logoff when I made the same mistake and trying to log back in. I learnt a lot in trying to find how to circumvent it without help from those responsible or who would hold me to ridicule.

Microsoft's Azure networking takes a worldwide tumble

I've found that tallikg quickly works better than the English habit of talking loudly and slowly to Johnny Foreigner. They are not designed for processing slow speech. Gabbling works well, even if the axis of head wobble causes confusion.

Angry admins share the CrowdStrike outage experience

Re: Modern life

The IT version of the physical problem when the fire safe survives the fire but the key to the fire safe had melted...

Re: Sports Sponsorship

I remember seeing that at Brands Hatch in the 70s. On asking what the connection was between car racing and Durex, I was told it was the heat, the excitement and the smell of burnt rubber...

Azure VMs ruined by CrowdStrike patchpocalypse? Microsoft has recovery tips

Re: Safe Mode

I don't have Azure experience but with VMWare you just roll back to the previous snapshot.

CrowdStrike file update bricks Windows machines around the world

Reply Icon Why on Earth do people roll out everything in production without testing it? I was once told to never do that...

This was an antivirus update and because of zero day exploits it has become the habit (or indeed the default setting from most providers) for these to be applied automatically, invisibly and 'seamlessly'. Before I retired from IT I always used a sacrificial goat (my PC, test servers) for any Windows updates with a roll-back/bare metal restore option if needed. Day to day AV updates were just applied automatically - major releases treated as Windows updates.

I couldn't find the origin of my quote on testing above, but it could have been addressed at Crowdstrike. The issue there is one that Microsoft are familiar with - almost infinite variants of installations and thrid party addons which could interact. Mind you, this sounds to be a major sector affected, so a definite testing failure.

Former Fujitsu engineer apologizes for role in Post Office IT scandal

Selective with the truth

A software engineer of any worth would have dutifully read the lines 'the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth', or maybe that was commented out?

For the record: You just ordered me to cause a very expensive outage

Re: possible fix

... but if the instruction is to effing rip them out and clear the area...?

Fragile Agile development model is a symptom, not a source, of project failure

Re: Ok... How I do stuff

... or if time-constrained (what isn't?' be brutal on the 'that's phase 2' approach.

Re: "the right tool for the job"

In my (now completed) testing/QA career I often stated if you want it tested for bugs and correct function, then I'm your man. However, if you want it tested for immediate release or to a fixed timeframe... My mantra for upgrades was 'is it better or worse than what is currently in place, and can we live with the new bugs introduced?'

UK Surface owners can now take misbehaving laptops to Currys

Warranty sellers

My experiences of Dixons then Curries etc was that they were primarily sellers of enhanced warranties, and you had to be very hardheaded to make it out of the shop without succumbing. I took issue once where they would not let me take the warranty details home to read before purchasing...

Half of polled infosec pros say their degree was less than useful for real-world work

I'm old school/uni. When I got to university and gained my degree late '70's, I was therefore one of the top 10% of the population. In those days to get a good job you needed both qualifications and experience, and it was usually impossible to gain both simultaneously. A degree proved you had brains and could learn, experience showed you knew how to apply both.

My holiday job (needed to backfill my overdraft, spent mainly on beer rather than books) gave me a job after I left uni - and my (physics/science) degree was not actually a requirement for it (I had already proved myself). My tutor despaired, but I did scrape though my degree by ability rather than hard work and diligent application.

Once I had both experience and degree, doors were open, and I had the ability to make the most of whatever job and level I entered and could prove my worth and ability. I've now retired after starting my electronics/hardware/software/IT/security career before the advent of the IBM PC.

Nowadays if student fails, it is the fault of the course/teachers. Everyman and his dog now has the right to go to uni, whether they have the ability, application or intelligence for it.

Those of my friends and collegues who weren't academic did the apprentice/experience/vocational training route, which is no longer available as everything is now a uni. We all succeeded in our own ways, to the best of our abilities, and made the most of what we had.

After uni I did a Computer Studies evening class A level, got an A and I and another student working in IT taught the teacher and updated them as the syllabus was already (in the '80s) 2 years behind the industry. Programming was self-taught (Basic, Fortran, machine code). An OCD desire to refuse to let a piece of ironmongery beat me as I tried to bend it to my will stood me in good stead (and still keeps me amused).

To BCC or not to BCC – that is the question data watchdog wants answered

... but your corporate email logging would of course show the outgoing addressees even if BCCed as part of yoiur data leakage protection, wouldn't it?

Watt's the worst thing you can do to a datacenter? Failing to RTFM, electrically

The physics lab was also used as a hobby electronics lab, shared by two teachers, one good (who ran the electronics lab) and one bar steward.

The report and bullet-like motion of the casing of a small transistor that had been wired across the mains on a timer switch was impressive.

This was on a par with the wag who painted the floor of the chemistry lab with nitrogen tri-iodide. The teacher had been pleasantly suprised that we had politely waited for him to enter the lab first...

Re: Check the power supply

That's when I gave up buying hifi mags. The concrete bunker speaker installations for 'rock' solid bass I could just about believe, but the necessity of soldering every mains joint in the house wiring to reduce noise pickup and distortion escaped me.Presumably this quantum fuse fitted snugly into a standard cheap plastic mains plug...

UK admits 'spy clause' can't be used for scanning encrypted chat – it's not 'feasible'

Re: When it becomes possible

So ultimately when it is recognised that the biggest risk to humanity is humanity itself, our toys get taken away from us and we live in an AI driven care universe?

UK voter data within reach of miscreants who hacked Electoral Commission

Re: How was this made possible?

Do tell - how is the data protected when you are processing it? What steps to you take to prevent unwanted remote access to your PC and any LAN connection. In a commercial environment industrial-grade precautions (better than the Electoral Commission, one hopes) would be employed. From my decades in IT security, the weakest link is usually the human element when they bypass all the carefully crafted protections... Just sayin'

The number’s up for 999. And 911. And 000. And 111

Re: Why the down vote?

They are ok until some bug gets into the system...