Posts by G2

FYI: BMW puts heated seats, other features behind paywall

Re: making notes

of course... but this is basically the same support model that Samsung / Huawei / HTC / Sony / Lenovo / ASUS / etc... pretty much all connected electronics vendors are using, so it's nothing new.

Phones, laptops, motherboards, smart TVs, connected vehicles .... you name it, once their initial warranties are expired they become obsolete as far as the manufacturer is concerned and it's no longer their problem.

Once warranties end for a model / year... they no longer publish any updates at all and after another year or two, when you unbox a "new, old stock" phone (or other smart connected device), you can't even get to install the updates they have already published in the past - this is because they have now nuked the server instance that was tasked with serving updates for that year of launched models.

In 2015, my less-than-7-months old Moto phone was declared by them to be "no longer supported" despite the fact it was launched in the same year at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (early march 2015).

Planned obsolescence at its finest.

I had to root it and managed to install LineageOS on it... it still runs today but is stuck with LineageOS 17.1 (Android 10) latest version is from february 2022, quite a good stretch, for a device launched in 2015 and abandined by its manufacturer during the same year.

Re: Dave at the garage can sort you out

the police won't have to plug anything... it's all done remotely via radio.

These days they can already check tachograph systems remotely, including driver cards and work schedules... but the communications protocol is actually designed for all vehicles (V2X) not just tachograph devices.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32016R0799

Re: Support nightmare?

nope..support is really easy: each year model probably gets a year-specific server / virtual machine instance to keep connected services management at a predictible, uniform stable version and that also allows for easy termination of services when all that year's model vehicles are definitely out of warranty: just shut down the virtual machine.

They will likely only support it for the warranty period and will shut down the server instance that supports that year's model after all the vehicles of that year are out of warranty (3 or 5 years usually).

If they really have (literal) hot-seat subscribers for that year's model they will probably keep the virtual machines for that series running a bit longer, to milk the subscription fees, but as soon as the subscriber count drops below a "profitable" number they will announce it's no longer economically viable to provide those services and will terminate all remaining subscribers for that year / version.

San Francisco cops want real-time access to private security cameras for surveillance

what exactly is the definition of "Historical video footage"?

they make a mess of purposes and apply different criteria to "live" vs "historical" video footage, without defining these terms.

what exactly is considered "historical video footage" under the new law?

are video images from one millisecond ago considered "historical" since they are already from the past?

How about from 1 second ago? 5 seconds ago? 1 minute ago? 5 minutes ago?

where is the cut-off mark? since they decided to apply different purposes/justifications for different categories of footage they should also define this threshold point.

Isaac Asimov published in 1956 a short story called "The Dead Past" about chronoscopy and it applies quite well to the live vs historical video footage issue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past

"Happy goldfish bowl to you, to me, to everyone [...]"

Soviet-era tech could change the geothermal industry

what if ...

wait wait... so there's a beam that can drill 20 km down into the earth's crust+mantle?

how fast can it drill? what if instead of drilling into 20 km of the earth's crust+mantle we use it to drill into something much more thin...

... let's say 30 centimeters of steel.

how fast can it drill through 30cm of steel? and how small can the device get? how far from the object being drilled into can the beam emitter stay? can it be used from.. let's say, 100 meters away?

if it's reasonably small and can be mounted on a drilling rig for 20 km then i imagine it can probably be made a bit smaller when it's needed to operate on a material thickness much smaller than 20 km and from just 100 meters of distance...

.

.

if it's fast on 30 cm and reasonably portable then i can see an immediate, more practical use: steel plate drilling... specifically, tank armour drilling...

this could become the ultimate anti-tank weapon... especially if it ends up deployed against soviet-type tanks.. imagine the irony.

..

.

edit: oh.. or the opposite of shrinking the device: increase its mass and operating range and mount it on a satellite. It can become the ultimate space-based weapon - a tank-melting beam dropped down from space.

Indian government issues confidential infosec guidance to staff – who leak it

Re: bans the use of 3rd party ntp servers

not to mention DNS servers... not even root-servers.org /.net are allowed to be used as the root servers are considered a "3-rd party"... and also that national DNS server is mandatory because it allows easier man-in-the-middle redirection and/or interception.

Tencent completes 50 million core migration of its own apps to its own clouds

what could possibly go wrong?

I can't shake a feeling of déjà vu... all those eggs, in one giant basket.

That's one giant omelette just waiting to happen.

Next major update of Windows 11 prepares for launch

Re: Win11 22H2 hardware requirements will be relaxed

update: Microsoft took back its toys...

https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/09/windows_11_requirements/

apparently Microsoft accidentally turned off hardware requirements for Windows 11... ROFL.

Windows Update now says again that my computer is not compatible with Win11.

Re: Win11 22H2 hardware requirements will be relaxed

FYI from what i noticed over the years, intel uses the first digit of the series as a yearly counter and when they had 4 digits for model numbers it corresponds roughly to the year of the general commercial availability. (not actual launch)

Just add "2010" as a starting point to that number and you get a general manufacturing year.

i5-8250 ... the 8 + 2010 = 2018 (it actually launched in 2017, but sold a lot of units in 2018)

i5-3570 ... the 3 + 2010 = 2013 (launched by Intel in 2012... i bought it in 2013..)

the same general rule is still valid now when Intel uses 5 digits for CPU series/model numbers... but is slightly affected by the pandemic crazy sales / lack of stock.

i5-10600 ... the 10 +2010 = 2020 (launched 2020)

i5-12600 ... the 12 +2010 = 2022 (launched 2022... this year)

q.e.d.

Win11 22H2 hardware requirements will be relaxed

i think that those hardware requirements are relaxed by a lot for Win11 22H2...

why? my CPU here is an Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570 CPU @ 3.40GHz with 16GB of RAM and Windows 10 x64 booting in legacy boot mode - my PC motherboard does not quite work right in UEFI Boot mode...

... and Windows Update has started this week to tell me that Microsoft has determined that my computer is compatible to migrate to Win11 22H2 ... WTF?

Last week it was still telling me that my computer is not compatible with Win11... and now it is?

note: i'm logged in with a Microsoft Account set for Windows insider - Release preview updates access.

New York to get first right-to-repair law for electronics

Re: A start

it's simple: This is not a right-to-repair bill, it was hijacked to become a deny-any-repair bill.

Please read the actual version of the law that was passed (A7006B) and not the one linked by TheRegister ( S4104 )

...S4104 is the initially proposed version, before it was nuked by ammendment "B" - yes.. the "B" version is important here.

https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2021/A7006/amendment/b

This new version "B" law is what was actually voted by the Assembly and it excludes practically all electronic devices - they use the language "INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO" when listing appliances (copy pasted text there, my caps lock is not stuck)

And under federal US law an "appliance" can be practically ANY device used in a home.

Laptops? LED TVs? they can be perfectly described as "appliances" because they fit the federal definition of what an "appliance" is:

24 CFR § 3280.802 - Definitions

(i) Appliance means utilization equipment, generally other than industrial, normally built in standardized sizes or types, which is installed or connected as a unit to perform one or more functions [...]

Google keeps legacy G Suite alive and free for personal use

Re: Not if you registered to upgrade...

i had also "upgraded" to Starter (in the early days of this month) and even foolishly decided to use the "pay early" option, to cover at least a year of service for my account, just to make sure that my domain keeps working

(all my home utility bills are tied to dedicated email addresses in this domain, they are collected via a catch-all mail routing rule in a single account mailbox)

i had to contact Google Support for going back to GSuite legacy and for getting a refund for that "pay early" rushed payment... but they didn't actually do anything yet for me :(

They just told me i was added to a queue for GSuite legacy rollback and that i had to wait for them to get back to me and with that refund.

I guess that means they are now flooded with requests for rollback from users... we'll have to wait and see...

BOFH: The Geek's Countergambit – outwitted at an electronics store

sooo, is this story about Newegg's warranty service?

interesting... this almost looks like Newegg's scammy warranty service policy is now featured in a BOFH episode...

i'm impressed... Simon managed to have this story published at around the same time that Gamers Nexus posted their episode 2 video about Newegg's malicious RMA process and fraud - they intentionally sold a rejected RMA product as a functional product - even if it has a damn sticker on it from the manufacturer that says it has bent CPU pins...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL-eB_Bv5Ik

Canon: Chip supplies are so bad that our ink cartridges will look as though they're fakes

Canon Europe official Europe-wide page to complement the German one.

fyi:

Canon has an official Englsh-language page to complement the German one... there's no need to mess with the German tentacle (unless you're into tentacle anime... in which case.... we need pics :p )

https://www.canon-europe.com/support/business-product-support/interim-toner/

Windows takes a breather in London's Spitalfields

that command prompt is stuck in text selection mode.

that's a touch screen large display (see where it says "touch to explore"?) - looking at the photo it's obvious that somebody was using it when the CMD window popped up and the "click" action of the touch was intercepted by the command prompt.

... and since clicking in a cmd prompt usually PAUSES everything indefinitely because it switches to TEXT SELECT mode... thus it got stuck in text selection mode - notice the "Select" keyword in the title bar and the white rectangular selection cursor in the command prompt window - that's where the window intercepted the touch click action of the user.

(To get out of text selection mode you usually have to press either ESC or enter. Clicking on X in the corner to close the window and terminate the script would also work)

James Webb Telescope launch delayed again, this time by weather

unusually bright star?

"appearance of an unusually bright star"... hmm, would that be the [second stage of the] rocket blowing up?

As famous expressions go, a rapid unscheduled disassembly tends to be unusually bright.

Intel audio drivers give Windows 11 the blues and Microsoft Installer borked following security update

This article is a bit incomplete (and i could say somewhat misleading) because Intel is in the process of transitioning driver numbers from 4 digits to 7 digits...

Intel Graphics drivers versions (which also include intel audio for HDMI audio) have already rolled over to the new numbering scheme, and in their case the full last seven digits must be taken into account, not just the last 4 digits. (those are just the build number)

Last week i manually installed Graphics driver 30.0.101.1069 and Windows Update immediately "updated" it to 27.20.100.9664 happily ignoring that Intel's driver numbering scheme rolled over 9999 ... so i had to rollback from 9664 to 1069.

For reference here is Intel's official guide to driver version numbering, with a quote from Intel:

The driver version numbering has rolled over from 100.9999 to 101.1069. This requires the use of all 7-digits instead of 4-digits for identifying the driver build number.

https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/support/articles/000005654/graphics.html

Google Groups kills RSS support without notice

article quotes taxes = so long RSS ...

since Google killed earlier this year the possibility to embed a group in an IFRAME on other sites, for me RSS becoming unavailable is not a big surprise either.

https://support.google.com/a/answer/9687393#deprecated

Also, since some countries start to get crazy about applying taxes for every article quote or piece of news ... killing RSS feeds it's probably another logical measure taken to make publisher's lives more difficult?

Feeds from other sites into Google News / search snippets will most likely become the next victim scheduled to be eliminated.

let me rephrase that... it's probably another measure taken to satisfy beancounters. (yeah, definitely :p). Articles and/or content reuse can now be easier accounted manually, since it's no longer automated via RSS. :) (*grin*)

https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/14/google_fine_france/

GitHub's npm gave away a package name while it was in use, causing rethink

Re: domain name system

yes, but even with hierarchies the basic original questions still remain: is the email point of contact for the hierarchy management still valid? When was the last validation done?

Thus the need for periodic email revalidations still remains, even if names are not deactivated/reused, it's useful to know that someone is actively managing things and that that hierarchy is not just running on inertia without any management.

domain name system

if package namespace maintenance is such a clusterf**k then they should adopt maintenance methods somewhat similar to domain names because that's the very reason they were developed: we need yearly "renewals" - even if it's free they should make them validate each name via email validation links every year.

If one of the yearly validations is not completed even after an entire year passed then the name should become inactive and not usable by anyone, but not released - it should remain in quarantine for yet another year - only the original owner should be able to 'revive' it from quarantine during this time.

Only after these 2 years (1 waiting for re-validation and 1 quarantine) they should release the name for reuse.

China sets goal of running single-stack IPv6 network by 2030, orders upgrade blitz

re: address randomisation

@richardcox13

IPv6 address randomisation is actually a thing too, look up RFC 8981, 4941 and 3041. Randomised MACs have their purpose, randomised IPv6 addresses have a slightly different purpose.

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8981

such an address

- does not depend on the device using a randomised MAC address or not.

- has been supported by the Linux kernel for quite some time.

https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+IPv6-HOWTO/ch06s05.html

Russia's ISS Multipurpose Laboratory Module launches after years sitting on a shelf, immediately runs into issues

"Nauka" = "neukъ" ?

in many eastern-european languages that have words with proto-slavic etymological roots in the term "neukъ" the adopted word usually has some meaning of "ignorant, uneducated, unschooled"

e.g.

in Bulgarian неук (neuk), Macedonian неук (neuk, “ignorant”), Serbo-Croatian neuk (“ignorant”), Serbo-Croatian nieuk (“dunce”).

or in Romanian: năuc (m or n) (feminine singular năucă, masculine plural năuci, feminine and neuter plural năuce) "disoriented", "confused", "bewildered"

So, i think we have the wrong translation for "Nauka" ... instead of "science" it should be "disoriented". It's a very accurate description in this case.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%83%D0%BA

Windows 10 to hang on for five more years with 21H2 update

404 error - windows edition not found

that Windows 10 2019 lifecycle link ends up in a 404 error page

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-10-2019-ltsc

.

at the moment, the link that's working for me appears to be:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-10-ltsc-2019

digging into the Wayback Machine shows that MS renamed the OS at the end of last week, from "Windows 10 2019 LTSC" to "Windows 10 LTSC 2019" - and thus we got the new webpage address.

Twitter U-turns after conferring society's highest honor – a blue check mark – on very obvious bot accounts

Re: Re: World Bollard Association

you forgot the Dalek bollards and their extermination guns :)

Mark it in your diaries: 14 October 2025 is the end of Windows 10

MS will probably nuke any x86 code too

given the history MS has with x86 builds of Win10 installation media, my guess of a major feature of the new OS that is coming is that it will be exclusive for 64-bit code and will drop all support for even running x86 binaries, not even x86 .Net Framework stuffs...

(but hopefully it will allow it in a Hyper-V virtual machine...)

BP Chargemaster's Pulse rebrand let crims send IcedID banking trojan from formerly legit mailboxes

where did they get list of targets from?

domain hijacking aside... the targets seem awfully precisely picked.

How did the crims get their mitts on the LIST OF TARGETS / customers to send their stuff to?

that's a sign that there's a biger data leak behind and that the entire company's customer database might have been compromised, with potential GDPR / DPA 2018 implications, complete with associated data protection fines from the Information Commissioner's Office

(That unattended mail server seems just a quickly make up reason to cover the database leak, no proper company would abandon its core IT assets like that.)

Microsoft promises end-to-end encrypted Teams calls for some, invites you to go passwordless with Azure AD

not for on-premises-only Active Directory... BOOOOOOOO :(

booooo....GTFO, MS.

"generally available" does NOT mean it's also available for on-premises Windows Servers who just want to deploy FIDO2 hardware keys for authentication in regular Active Directory systems, to get rid of passwords too.

If it has to be Azure-enabled... that means additional $$$$$, because Azure authentication management for hybrid Azure AD is not included with an on-prem Windows Server Standard license.

Azure Active Directory is a different kettle of fish than regular Active Directory.

Nurserycam horror show: 'Secure' daycare video monitoring product beamed DVR admin creds to all users

obvious words

"obvious words followed by 888"? Why hide the crap under such a mellow phrase?

"admin888" is the default admin password for a LOT of Chinese-made IPTV stuff, including Huawei / Hikvision / Dahua NVRs and cameras.

It's not something specific to the nursery cams, they just re-packaged the standard stuff that everyone ships from China.

Some Chinese-made devices don't even allow you to change the admin password... the "change password" option is simply missing on those.

e.g. i saw this thing on some Mio MiVue WiFi dashcams... they don't allow changing the WiFi password for the dashcam ("12345678" - wifi is used for admin access to the camera)

Also, their app for windows PCs only runs with administrative rights. It also downloads and executes software from Mio's website without using https or even at least digitally signed executables.

It basically runs unsigned remote code directly, without any origin authentication for the executables.

All you have to do is spoof and change on-the-fly anything coming from http://download.mio.com/dvr/pctool/tw/version.ini

(yep, China doesn't do https - just in case they need to deliver remote execution state-controlled shitware)

... and if you feed it a high enough version number so that it trips the automatic update mechanism, their app will execute with administrative rights any executable that you feed it via that INI file, without even checking for a digital signature.

Samsung floats autonomous ships as ready to sail in 2022

Re: How secure is GPS ?

Inertial navgation is not really usable for long distances when you're on a ship that's constantly rocked by waves, pushed around by winds or even dragged by sea currents.

It works better for submarines in immersion because they only have to deal with underwater currents, which are relatively constant.

What's left for a civilian ship is GPS or automated celestial navigation, both can be unreliable.

Linux maintainer says long-term support for 5.10 will stay at two years unless biz world steps up and actually uses it

support life?

it's actually not just about kernel support life and more about support contracts for warranties and publishing updates for devices.

... or more exactly, about raking in fees for support and at the same time NOT bothering to publish updates for devices in warranty (or post warranty) while claiming that a device X is still running "current" firmware because... see.. it's still running an actively supported kernel. (*cough* f.u. TP Link *cough*)

This is why they like the long 6-year support cycles, they get to claim that their device X is "current" when running a particular kernel version from 3 years ago that's still "supported" and that's proof that they "care" about updates and support contracts. Managers signing on those contracts don't usually check the minor versions or patch numbers, they just check the version numbers that match their contracts.

The moment the kernel becomes obsolete, it will become much easier to reveal such scams in support contracts and the lack of support / firmware updates, by simply pointing at the kernel version.

If it were up to me i would even trim the LTS tails of all those 6-years versions down to 2-years.

You would expect a qualified electrician to wire a building to spec, right? Trust... but verify

China's 220V vs Europe's 230V

China still uses 220V a.c. as the nominal mains voltage - this is why a lot of e-crap that's designed only for the Chinese internal market - thus only for the 220V standard, with very tight voltage variation tolerance, will end up in smoke quite faster than intended when used in an European power socket. (where 'very tight' means they build the devices for just +/- 5% voltage tolerance)

This is usually (ab)used by the tat bazaar online sellers to not honour the warranty since it was technically a fault created by the end user - using an appliance rated only for 220V on an electrical network with different nominal voltage levels can be grounds for immediate termination of warranties.

BOFH: Are you a druid? Legally, you have to tell me if you're a druid

armed robots...

sooo... they pulled a Dalek from the basement cold storage, armed it with (almost) weapons-grade devices and chemicals and set it loose in the building..

i suppose it's "normal" that it started to do the traditional Dalek extermination thing?

Crooks social-engineer GoDaddy staff into handing over control of crypto-biz domain names

these days you can even leave them out of the loop and register domains directly through Cloudflare.

https://www.cloudflare.com/en-gb/products/registrar/

Yorkshire authority seeks £3m 'modern, cloud-based, future-proof ERP solution' in as few products as possible

future proof?

future proof... ERP? i suggest they try hieroglyphs instead on anything from the computer age.

we have accounting records that have lasted since the time of the pharaohs, in hieroglyph form, engraved on stones.

the same cannot be said about modern information storage methods... most computers today can't even read a 3,25 inch floppy disk - usually because it was accidentally erased when stored behind the loudspeakers in the archive room.

.uk registry operator Nominet responds to renewed criticism – by silencing its critics

"Robust conversations"?

quote: “Robust multi-stakeholder discussions and debates are a critical part of what we do and member voices are key.”

translation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyesJQ3lsto

translation presented by Louis Rossmann

The future of signage is here, and it wants an update

Re: re:future of signage

you seem to miss the fact that this is a digital window sign, not a plain paint and wood/plastic one.

smart window signs are starting to be equipped with a built-in camera for analytics. They are deploying it for eye tracking, viewer demographics and other such statistics. Also, some of them can even do facial recognition and change what they display based on a central database with informations about what that person likes or dislikes or, as it is in China, data pulled from their official Social Credit System ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System )

That's pretty much right up the alley of GDPR.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD3067JJujY

https://www.wired.com/2007/06/eye-tracking-device-lets-billboards-know-when-you-look-at-them/

re:future of signage

actually Windows 10 can stay on the list imho, but only if the user deploying it knows what they are doing... which in this case it's obvious they did not know and just used the cheapest plug-and-play thing off the nearest shelf.

1st: NEVER use Win Home in a company - this thing is not even GDPR compliant, it can barely be used in a private home because it relies on the fact that household usage is excepted from GDPR rules. (quote: "by a natural person in the course of a purely personal or household activity;").

Any auditor worth its money will raise a major GDPR compliance stink if they find any Home edition in use by a company.

2nd: do not use Win 10 Pro unless it is for a system that can be easily accessed AND managed. (note the "and" here, it's not an optional "or" !)

3rd: for systems that must be deployed for unattended usage, make sure to use either an IoT or Enterprise edition of Win10 and also to deploy WSUS for proper and coordinated OS patch management. Only push patches to those systems groups when they have a maintenance window scheduled.

No maintenance scheduled? then configure that machine (via gpedit) to never check automatically for updates. Maybe also configure http://127.0.0.1 as a dummy update server to use... this way it will only check for updates when told manually.

USA decides to cleanse local networks of anything Chinese under new five-point national data security plan

Re: R.I.P. Synology

Unfortunately, in Europe companies are not consumers and are not protected by consumer protection laws at all. Only some natural persons can be considered "consumers", but not all.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02011L0083-20180701

quote: For the purpose of this Directive, the following definitions shall apply:

(1) ‘consumer’ means any natural person who, in contracts covered by this Directive, is acting for purposes which are outside his trade, business, craft or profession; /quote

This is why you can still see warranties of only 1 month or 90 days or so for some brand new products - those are never sold to consumers, only to other companies.

e.g. Allied Telesis: the default warranty for all their rackable switches sold in Europe is only 90 days. If you want longer warranty or even firmware updates then you must pay a subscription (NetCover) and renew that anually. If the subscription lapses then so does the warranty and you are not allowed to renew an expired subscription. Out of warranty devices are generally not allowed to receive firmware updates - unless it's a really bad bug with eye-bleeding CVE ratings and they already have developed some sort of a fix.

Re: R.I.P. Synology

quote:

Synology are Taiwanese. (ROC not PRC)

/quote

but that still doesn't explain why they have such a wide-reaching section 7 in their EULA. They designed it so that any government body (or contractor) that handles sensitive (HIPAA) or even classified data (e.g. the various US Senate commisions, if not even those 3-letter-agencies) have already agreed in writing to a contract that basically says they can access and send overseas whatever data they want, whenever they want.

R.I.P. Synology

Synology is most likely also targeted by this because you are forced to agree to their EULA before being able to use their NAS devices... and that EULA says, among other things:

--- Section 7. Audit. Synology will have the right to audit your compliance with the terms of this EULA. You agree to grant Synology a right to access to your facilities, equipment, books, records and documents and to otherwise reasonably cooperate with Synology in order to facilitate any such audit by Synology or its agent authorized by Synology.---

yep... that includes EVERYTHING, including data that is not even stored on a Synology NAS and highly classified data that's stored on other devices.

They are able to use their product firmware (which is an "agent authorized by Synology" in this case) as a data exfiltration tool.

--- Section 15. Termination. Without prejudice to any other rights, Synology may terminate this EULA if you do not abide by the terms and conditions contained herein. In such event, you must cease use of the Software and destroy all copies of the Software and all of its component parts. ---

surprise: your data that's stored on the NAS is a "component part" of that NAS. They can terminate the functions of the NAS if you block the "audits" conducted by their firmware and your data is "terminated" too.

UN warns of global e-waste wave as amount of gadgets dumped jumps 21% in 5 years

right to repair not allowed => e-waste

this crap is caused by the copyright maximalism culture coupled with planned obsolescence by design and lack of right to repair legislation to provide mandatory schematics and other diagnostic info.

https://repair.eu/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npd_xDuNi9k

Fasten your seat belts: Brave Reg hack spends a week eating airline food grounded by coronavirus crash

Re: Fix for ...

let me rewrite those lines:

Stop charging $5 for a few phone calls and $25 for each additional service. Charge what it used to cost back in the early '80s, $800+ a month minimum for that fancy land line phone. Four digits a month for anything resembling mobile phone usage.

Insist that phone users adhere to business attire... no more flipflops, shortshorts, and minimal bra top.

Phone calls will quickly drop to only what's really necessary.

Phone companies will be able to serve decent line quality and provide good services again.

/end of rewrite :p

"use by date"

*me: zooms on package label in photo*

So, probably they got them so cheap also because the "use by" date was rapidly approaching and there was no chance of ever selling them otherwise.

The company would have to throw the expired food away if that date was reached.

After huffing and puffing for years, US senators unveil law to blow the encryption house down with police backdoors

TSA locks

they want TSA "locks" all over again ... so that everyone and their grandma's poodle can unlock them.

Windows fails to reach the Finnish line as Helsinki signage pleads for help

wrong tool for the job

it has to be said: that's what happens when companies cheap out and use OSs that are designed for CONSUMERS to use. (or, generally, not intended for a particular mode of usage)

A company or a sign is not a consumer, there are dedicated editions of Windows out there that are designed for digital signage... but those people running that Finnish board obviously didn't bother with that.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/iot-core/windows-iot

Microsoft! Please, put down the rebrandogun. No one else needs to get hurt... But it's too late for Visual Studio Online

obligatory comment

Re-Brawndo ... it's got Electroly^H^Hspaces.

'Non-commercial use only'? Oopsie. You can't get much more commercial than a huge digital billboard over Piccadilly

Re: Free for non-commercial use?

P.S. direct-connections via IP address or LAN only connections (if in same VPN, they are considered as "same LAN") are not subject to their licensing checks which might be why your other laptops have not been infected yet by their "commercial use" flag.

Re: Free for non-commercial use?

@steviebuk: "[...]your clients, are free to install the free[...]"

wrong... unfortunately that's just a dream, but not how TeamViewer licensing is working. Their actual licensing mechanism is more like a virus infection / worm.

If a commercial licensed user, or a free user that's flagged in their system as an unlicensed commercial user connects to a free non-commercial user (or they connect to such a commercial user), then (after 2...3+ sessions from any such users) that free user is also "infected" and their system starts to flag their connections as "unlicensed commercial use".

What happens next is that the former free user that's now infected/flagged as "commercial user", if it uses TeamViewer to connect to other systems, it will now be spreading their "commercial use" virus/worm flag to other TeamViewer free systems.

Ans here's the shitty part: TeamViewer IDs are permanent. You can wipe, reinstall or change your storage drives all you want, your system's ID remains the same, and the "commercial use" infection too. I think they might be using the motherboard serial number or NIC hardware address to build that ID. If you want to change your ID you have to literally beg via a support ticket and pray & hope that they even decide to reply.

All of the above happened to me in February on my home PC that i mainly use to play World of Warcraft on... i dumped TeamViewer and switched to a much better system which supports 2FA with U2F hardware security keys.

TeamViewer is going to turn around and ignore what you're doing with its freebie licence to help new remote workers

too little, too late TeamViewer... i got infected by their 'commercial use detected' on my home pc that i mainly use to play world of warcraft and check up on my work computer and the connection was timing out in less than a minute... decided to try Google Remote Desktop instead... and it's much better imho... a lot less latency and also, since it's tied to a Google Account with OAuth, it can be configured to use FIDO U2F two-factor authentication hardware security keys for accessing the remote desks.

Thanks, TeamViewer, for forcing me to move over to Google Remote Desktop with FIDO U2F.

/sarcasm.

Y2K quick-fix crick? 1920s come roaring back after mystery blip at UK's vehicle licensing agency

Re: Another 20 (18) years...

hmmm... beancounters.... BOFH... sliding windows...

are those real sliding windows for expelling beancounters?

=D