Posts by elDog

Microsoft winnows: Layoffs hit software engineers hard

Re: The MS Enshitiffication Project

"ensure its survival and ultimate victory"? Agree with the over-used "enshittifcation", but I hope your comment was written with a sardonic look on your face.

Europe plots escape hatch from enshittification of search

DDG which relies on Bing

I liked DDG for quite a while but I started to notice that its search results favored sites like LinkedIn. It took me a while but then I realized that it was just repackaging Bing search results.

Switched to kagi about six months ago. It works the way I want a search engine to work (altavista anyone?). Faceted (lens) searches, decent date/time specs, etc.

CISA mutes own website, shifts routine cyber alerts to Musk’s X, RSS, email

Re: Big up RSS

I've been using inoreader (inoreader.com) for years. It has perhaps too many features that I don't know I need.

It amazed me when many US gov't agencies used twitter. Not amazed they are forced to use the xitter.

Taking over the sewer pipe of propaganda.

Workday handed no-bid deal to fix staffing meltdown at Uncle Sam's uber-HR agency

We're sure that this contract is being let in pure transparency and sunlight.

The operatives that work for trump are known for being honest and not motivated by personal profit. There were probably no nice dinners, trips to exotic locations such as merdelargo, baubles and beads.

If this doesn't work out as outlined on that back-of-the-napkin deal, the US taxpayers will gladly chip in. (If there are any left.)

Trump's wind farm funding freeze is so much hot air, say states as they blow sueball to Washington

Just put a windmill in front of his upper orifice. Clean the blades every hour or so.

I won't comment on the lower orifice.

Re: They might be able to stop offshore projects

I'm guessing your "using" was meant to be "suing". So much difference in a single transposition!

Super spyware maker NSO must pay Meta $168M in WhatsApp court battle

"... and numerous security operations that have saved many lives ..." Ask Khashoggi's relatives, ...

Pegasus has probably been used for many such operations. They can cloak their terms in statements that it should only be used by benevolent "state actors" but everyone knows, everyone knows that the darkest forces on earth will also be using it.

This is why state-mandated back-doors into privacy functions will be ultimately used for ill purposes. Whether by the states or by the rest of the criminals.

From Russia with doubt: Go library's Kremlin ties stoke fear

Seems so easy to hide the underlying provenance of the code

While a .RU TLD might raise some eyebrows, it is childishly simple to have 2 or more levels of indirection as owners/maintainers to the code base.

It seems obvious (to me) that anyone that delivers software or hardware from within the USSR would be highly suspect. Just like any news coming from that autocratic state. Easily co-opted.

Since the US is apparently a vassal state with Putin as its behind-the-curtain leader, I'd question a lot of American products also.

Computacenter IT guy let girlfriend into Deutsche Bank server rooms, says fired whistleblower

Re: "What was the plan, showing her his big iron?"

Perhaps the in-house security people were enjoying watching their interfaces via CCTV? Pay-per-view?

CISA slammed for role in 'censorship industrial complex' as budget faces possible $500M cut

I imagine putin's instructions can now be sent in plain-text

since everyone knows who is calling the shots. No need to go to the trouble of encryption, etc. Besides, the bumbling idiots on the American side can't even figure out how to use it.

Signal chat app clone used by Signalgate's Waltz was apparently an insecure mess

Helluva demotion, waltz. You're foisted onto the UN - a backwater in the middle of nowhere.

This is a good way to show the United Nations how seriously trmp thinks of them. First he proposed a congress-critter-liar named Stefanik who had to be withdrawn. Guess it's like an FBI agent assigned to Juneau, AK. Or a russian dissident assigned to Siberia.

Teens maintained a mainframe and it went about as well as you'd imagine

A similar situation on a brand new IBM 360 and a brand new 2nd shift operator

Most of my duties were receiving paper-tape, reading it, punching cards and passing them through a mechanical sorter and then collator, and then reading these back onto the tapes on the 360 where they were further massaged. An incredibly tortuous way that had been slowly improvised on over the years.

One day the consol popped up a message about SYSVOL being out of space. Since I had spent idle time reading every IBM manual I could, I knew that our particular operation didn't need to have a fancy BAL library that was stored on the SYSVOL. So I deleted it. Everything continued to run fine until one day a chap from Chicago shows up to build and load some new software. Boom!

I learned enough in those few months to start a 50+ year career - and still loving it!

DARPA to 'radically' rev up mathematics research. Yes, with AI

Isn't the promise of LLM for helping in this endeavor really applying advanced pattern recognition

on many different inputs. Not just text; not just existing mathematical equations.

But also applying these recognition analyses on some of the alternative sources mentioned such as the audio-visual one or geometric modeling seems like a logical extension.

I remember when we were using PCRE to try to decode genetic sequences via the protein alphabet. This technique kept improving but it was still mainly an initially hand-created algorithm. Same with the tensor models which have expanded to handle so much more for which it was constructed.

Today's LLMs craft exploits from patches at lightning speed

Re: Fast patching, and deployment anytime

So perhaps we should add in a "Patch Friday" every now and then. And require the system to be rebooted. And pray that the boot disk can still be read, etc.

ChatGPT burns tens of millions of Softbank dollars listening to you thanking it

I think that is along the same concept that 'some' used to hijack the TIA/NSA/CIA/snooping

Mainly after that 9/11 incident, but I'm sure well before also.

'some' of us might have added some interesting words to our email/AIM/etc. exchanges to get the agents all hot and bothered. Perhaps words like jihad, bomb, explosives, riots, subvert elections, foster an insurrection, russia, russia, russia, trump.

Krebs throws himself on the grenade, resigns from SentinelOne after Trump revokes clearances

It is so refreshing and hopeful to see some people with integrity and a backbone.

Thank you, Mr. Krebs. May your battle with the bastards not grind you down!

Uncle Sam kills funding for CVE program. Yes, that CVE program

When wet dreams become reality.

Lots of fun characters around the world are looking to create some new mischief. Cue the NORKs, the "Internet Research Agency" in the USSR, etc.

Since a lot of the CVEs have to do with industrial control systems this could be a fun time to handle crises at major utilities.

Satellite phone tech coming to your mobe this year – but who pays for it?

Re: What is cheaper for the telco in rural areas ?

And here in the poor old USofA there are large areas that aren't reached by cell service and the states have "committed" to 100% broadband access by 20xx. Local communities (speaking of Vermont) are pretty vehement about not allowing new cell towers. This may allow the states to say they have fulfilled their commitments by just showing that it is available via these cell-phone satellite capabilities.

Bad luck, Windows 10 users. No fix yet for ransomware-exploited bug

It used to be that I'd look at all the Microsoft CVEs and get worried.

But I found out how to "Don't worry, be happy." Switch to linux.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU

Oracle says its cloud was in fact compromised

No problem. Leisure Suit Larry has donated to DJT's private bank account

There's no regulation anymore in Doge City. Larry will probably have to suffer through a budger dinner with slobby as penance.

And I'm sure that DJT wouldn't use risky software like Oracle to manage his off-shore holdings!

Raw Deel: Corporate spy admits role in espionage at HR software biz Rippling

And all the mucky-mucks at Deel will pay, right?

I'm sure there must be some lower echelon scamp who can take the charge.

We people wearing Rolexes and shark-skin suits wouldn't know nothing about this!

Check Point confirms breach, but says it was 'old' data and crook made 'false' claims

Circle the wagons, boys. No more talking to the media!

We'll handle this in the C suite. (Need to prepare for SEC filings, etc.)

Cyber-crew claims it cracked American cableco, releases terrible music video to prove it

Like many ISPs, WOW has portrayed itself as being worthy of your trust...

"Like many criminal gangs, Arkana has tried to give itself a veneer of respectability by saying it's actually in the security business."

I don't know why this one sentence seemed so apropos:

Let's not forget the mantra: "We care deeply about our customers and take your trust in us very seriously."

Judge halts DOGE's union personal data grab at OPM, Treasury, Education

I'm not sure that the "judicial" branch really understands that the data has long flown the coup.

The infiltration by the boy musk nerds to implant spyware and devices on the networks in the first few hours was completed early in this attack.

The exfiltration of data from the various databases and servers started right away. The end-points for this exfiltration will not return the data - even if they could be identified.

As the president of El Salvador said when planes landed with illegally exported people - ordered back by the US courts: "Oopsie, Too Late".

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/03/oopsie-too-late-el-salvador-president-mocks-judge/

US Space Force warns Chinese satellites are 'dogfighting' in space

Re: Trump is on record saying he wants to cut military spending in half

they already have. Perhaps not 20-yo or "force", but the Pentagon is riddled with travelers. Witness Flynn as just an example.

CISA fires, now rehires and immediately benches security crew on full pay

No, it's much simple than that.

Musk and putin want to destroy the US. Economy and society. And along the way weaken any pro-democracy countries that may stand in the way of the USSR finally gaining its rightful ownership of Eurasia.

Developer wrote a critical app and forgot where it ran – until it stopped running

Re: Buried an old PC running a proxy server in a wall in my townhouse.

Right you are. I've stopped thinking about those ancient money-making gimmicks now the phone companies are draining our accounts with cell phones.

Buried an old PC running a proxy server in a wall in my townhouse.

Used it to remote into another system that was outside of my LANA (US area-code registry) and would incur huge telecom bills if I dialed in directly.

Totally forgot about it since it was working so well.

Sold the townhouse to a nice couple. A few days later got a call from a US Government number asking about the hidden server and the extra phone line coming in. Turns out the couple worked for a 3-letter agency in Langley, Virginia.

Flang-tastic! LLVM's Fortran compiler finally drops the training wheels

Re: FORTRAN IV rings an ancient memory bell

I remember those handheld card punchers. They were sometimes needed to fix (patch) a binary punch-card deck that was used to cold boot one of those room-filling beasts (in my case GE-635.

It was an extremely difficult task on one or more cards that needed patch tape (to turn an on-bit to off) and use of the punch. One small error and your dead cold machine wouldn't start back up.

Microsoft adds another Copilot hotkey – this time for AI voice chat

Re: We are back to morse code?

dit-dit-dit dah-dah-dah dit-dit-dit

Translated: Gawd Help Us!

An important application is signalling for help through SOS, " ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ". This can be sent many ways: keying a radio on and off, flashing a mirror, toggling a flashlight, and similar methods. The SOS signal is not sent as three separate characters; rather, it is a prosign SOS, and is keyed without gaps between characters.[45]

Ex-Googler Schmidt warns US: Try an AI 'Manhattan Project' and get MAIM'd

Fat chance that any country, or any large company, will follow guidance based on these authors

or even a state-issued edict.

Reminds me of what was happening in the beginning of the gene-editing days where quite a few cerebral organizations made pronouncements about how/when/where/etc. modifying the human germ genome should only be done with serious reflection and consultation with these learned organizations.

Then one scientist in China decided to do so anyway. Same will happen with AI - inside the USA (or USSR) and outside.

Oh Brother. Printer giant denies dirty toner tricks as users cry foul

Re: " Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."

I was just about to remark on this type of behaviour with my Canon color laser printer. MF733CDW. I guess they all go to the same golf country club.

MITRE Caldera security suite scores perfect 10 for insecurity

Re: Help me understand

I'm just a rando in the internet space but my understanding is that there are many organizations that expose http and https endpoints in order to interact with the outside world. As in "doing business".

You seem not to be in the world where external access to your platform is necessary. Orders and payments delivered by postal mail? Sales inquiries over the POTS? Good for you!

Beta of Unix version 2 restored to life

B (from the University of Waterloo) was my first "bracketed" language.

I had coded in Algol and Jovial but they were the begin....end types.

We were so glad to switch from B to C (this was on a GE-600 / Honeywell 36-bit machine) since we could actually address "characters" instead of "words". Note that for us "characters were 9-bits and "words" were 36 bits - an exasperating mismatch with the rest of the world which was quickly coalescing around the powers-of-two.

Re: tech museum

But what is El Register than a series of tangents through life?

Data is very valuable, just don't ask us to measure it, leaders say

And to whom would the CIOs turn to give them the results of the benefits of data analytics?

We data people may be the best to demonstrate the old adage about data, statistics, and lies.

Having worked in a few shops that are responsible for producing fancy presentations for my customers, I know very well how to let other interested parties know how valuable my work is/not.

GitLab and its execs sued again and again over 'misleading' AI hype, price hikes

Apparently gitlab relied on its "AI" masters to write the sales pitch for its "AI"

Nothing like getting a self-serving robot to decide what is best for its existence.

Is gitlab going to divulge how many dollars/efforts it expended to implement this? (That is a question to the chatGPT embedded within.)

Healthcare outfit that served military personnel settles allegations it faked infosec compliance for $11M

It's going to be an exceptional event when we can find one individual's information

that hasn't been compromised.

Probably the same probability of Methuselah living past 100.

Having worked in US federal and state agencies that deal with health data, sometimes the desire to to the right thing is there, but the actuality is far less than perfection.

Palo Alto firewalls under attack as miscreants chain flaws for root access

It's become that any company with a product that has firewall/security/defender/etc.

in it's name is probably the easiest place for these types to attack.

Beware market hype.

Nearly 10 years after Data and Goliath, Bruce Schneier says: Privacy’s still screwed

Re: It Is Worse Than You Think......................

No. Musk and his minions are there to set up backdoors into these US government systems so the data and logic can be manipulated by external entities.

Also, your "gummet drones" have gone through security checks. Elon's kidz have zero qualifications, other than hackers.

If you dread a Microsoft Teams invite, just wait until it turns out to be a Russian phish

Oh, it's so much more convenient to just install a mole (or a musk) at the head of the government.

No need to go through these contortions to trick people into sharing their credentials!

Hello, Four Eyes - are your watching?

Veterans Affairs reboots Oracle health records project for $330M

Re: Doh! Don't they know what's about to hit them?

Doesn't matter. Larry "Leisure Suit" Ellison will still get his money and pay the necessary tithe to trumusk (in digital coin, natch.)

Microsoft to kill off Defender VPN this month

Hard to believe that anyone would rely on Microsoft to provide a VPN to improve privacy

Just saying.

Perhaps security at some level, but privacy - hell no.

Obviously they had forged "relations" (means money transfers) with some of the companies (Meta, etc.) that they didn't even bother handling. Of course MS customers aren't the most discerning types.

You're going to do what to the feature? Microsoft defines what it means by 'deprecation'

Re: Forced hardware upgrade? No thanks

May I suggest linux with WINE? Or Steam's Proton?

https://www.howtogeek.com/738967/how-to-use-steams-proton-to-play-windows-games-on-linux/

Garmin pulls a CrowdStrike, turns smartwatches into fancy bracelets

Re: The glitch is not a good look for Garmin

Even I could pen a better response:

"As you all well know, Garmin is committed to providing the absolutely best experience to our valued customers. We work 24 hours a day to make your lives as productive as possible. This update was made to help you get back to experiencing real life instead of fixating on your stupid baubles."

Google Maps to roll out Trump-approved Denali and Gulf of Mexico rebrands

Re: Not for the developed world, shirley

I'm guessing that would be a Sprout of Brussel.

Windows 10's demise nears, but Linux is forever

Re: I agree with the majority of the article...

Not sure why you got a down vote - your comment seems spot on to this elderly geek.

US freezes foreign aid, halting cybersecurity defense and policy funds for allies

It's mind-boggling that people like Noem (or Rubio) can talk about these issues with any authority.

Unless their authority comes from the Christo-Fascist coven of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Federalist Society which are all riddled with Catholic wing-nuts and supported by filthy-rich plutocrats from the US and everywhere.

Oh, I guess it makes sense when I think about it.

Welcome Dark Ages, dear old friend.

Here we go again.

DeepSeek limits new accounts amid cyberattack

"National security reasons"? Perhaps Trump-Muskian reasons.

I'm pretty sure those confabs at the Merde-Largo strip mall with the big tech bros included discussions of how the US chief honcho could benefit from the AI tech craze. Now those damn Chinese have thrown rice in the gears.