Posts by Rory B Bellows

Microsoft Copilot to hijack your browser... for your own convenience

Was it something you said?

Has microsoft EVER responded to an El Reg question?

AWS-hosted tech providers urge Middle East customers to fail over now

If lightning strikes

was always the phrase we used when discussing redundancy and failover scenarios... In reality, it's drones and missiles you have to watch out for these days. Sad.

AWS says drones hit two of its datacenters in UAE, urges users to move resources to different regions

Re: Armed data centers

My original thought was there would be something like a building specific iron dome or patriot missile defense. It would only react if the incoming trajectory was going to impact the data center its self. A dystopian scenario where the data centers AI determines that an incoming projectile that will hit the hospital 2 blocks over is of no concern and a waste of it's own ammo. But if the data center is going to suffer a direct hit, then it reacts.

Armed data centers

will we be seeing armed data centers in the near future? Capable of launching defensive interceptor missiles.

Was going to use Joke Alert, but now I'm not sure if I'm joking.

Motorola partners with GrapheneOS for future phones

Re: Any GrapheneOS users here?

I picked up a cheap pixel 6a a few years back and put graphene on it just to try it out. It was a fun little project just to try installing a different OS on a smart phone. These days I mainly just use it for wigle war driving on road trips. But if my primary phone ever fails I will have something to use without having to buy something.

Firefox 148 adds master switch for browser bot bother

I also switched to LibreWolf recently and have been quite happy with it.

Linus Torvalds and friends tell The Reg how Linux solo act became a global jam session

Re: Amazing, the article actually mentioned GNU

Post no bills ?

Re: Hardcore Penguinista

I'd all but forgotten about NDISWrapper... it was the only way I could get the wireless on my old Acer Aspire laptop to work under Linux. Good times!

Memory price explosion triggers PC buying spree

Re: meanwhile, if you just need a simple 8G RAM 2-4 core box to run Linux...

I did something similar myself. I went to a government auction website and picked up 4 HP G5 EliteDesks for around $50 CAD a piece The starting bid was $10. This was in Jan 2025. One had a failed motherboard, but other components are all fine so I have spare parts now. All 3 are running Linux and one is my daily driver at home. Exceptional value!

That same website had similar systems listed a few weeks ago, starting bid was $400.

Next-gen nuclear reactors safe enough to skip full environmental reviews, says Trump admin

Unrequested fission surplus

"Controlled nuclear fission is a demanding mistress" - Mr Burns

DRAM prices expected to double in Q1 as AI ambitions push memory fabs to their limit

Loophole

Just increase your swap/page file size.

Agents gone wild! Companies give untrustworthy bots keys to the kingdom

déjà vu - yet again

This idea of putting AI agents everywhere reminds me of when people just began connecting all of the things to the internet. Water treatment plant? Connect it to the internet. Critical manufacturing processes? Connect it to the internet. Hydro electric dam? Connect it to the internet.

While I'm sure that made some peoples lives easier, it wasn't the best idea from a security stand point. Now we're doing it all over again, this time with AI.

Cops get more facial recognition vans as UK bets big on AI policing

2 + 2 = 5

2,077 alerts

- 962 arrests

= 10 false positives

I used AI to check the math and it's correct.

Don't click on the LastPass 'create backup' link - it's a scam

The password managers one weakness... the password

Ireland wants to give its cops spyware, ability to crack encrypted messages

"Programs must be used proportionally, with a judge's approval, and with stringent oversight."

Phew... was worried there for a second.

Sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that! PCs refuse to shut down after Microsoft patch

Re: Suggestions?

I like the USB option... it works on a psychological level.

Sadly, I've never actually shot at a powered on windows PC. I'm curious now if it would BSOD and stay powered on unless you hit the power supply. Further research needed.

Re: Suggestions?

Then wait for the 6 or 7 hours of battery to drain? I suppose one could start removing screws to get at the battery.

Suggestions?

I'm curious if any other reg readers have a creative way to persuade a stubborn Windows system to shut down, other than the command mentioned in the article.

Google pushing Gemini into Gmail, but you can turn it off

"The data is processed to give you an answer, and it never leaves that secure boundary."

I was worried there for a second that it could potentially leave that secure boundary. Thankfully that will NEVER happen.

Hegseth needs to go to secure messaging school, report says

Best practice

He should route all his communications through a server in his basement.

Apply here to win a Microsoft Ugly Sweater. It's uglier than ever

Bill Gates Jumping over a chair

Don't send me the sweater

FCC sounds alarm after emergency tones turned into potty-mouthed radio takeover

Pump up the Volume

Eat your cereal with a fork, and do your homework in the dark

AI does a better job of ripping off the style of famous authors than MFA students do

Ode to Spot

Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature.

An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature.

Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses

Contribute to your hunting skill and natural defenses.

A poem by Lieutenant Commander Data

China's CR450 bullet train clocks 453 km/h in pre-service tests

334.7 km/h

SpaceX rockets toward next Starship launch, set for October 13

Gulf of...

SpaceX, an American company, will no doubt be planning to send it into the Gulf of America after demonstrating a burn with five engines...

Online property ad reveals looted Nazi war art, triggers police raid

Real Estate Photos

are an endless source of entertainment. You see lots of crazy and wonderous things that people have in their homes. I never thought to keep an eye out for stolen Nazi artwork.

Musk 'texts' Nadella about Windows 11's demands for a Microsoft account

Re: The option is named following way

Thanks for this tip, I will have to check that out!

Kinda/sorta related... Malwarebytes 2024 state of malware report lists Rufus as the number 2 most impersonated brand for malvertising in search results. Weebly and notepadd++ were also on the list.

Tesla owners in deep freeze discover the cold, hard truth about EVs

irony

If the planet was warmer, we wouldnt have this problem

Racist malware blocks The Pirate Bay by tampering with victims' Windows hosts file

"where they had used just the N word, like, more than 1,000 times in the file to just fill space, and it was just gross and weird. And really offensive."

This is also done in rap music

Windows 10 Pro Anniversary Update tweaked to stop you disabling app promos

Re: Microsoft Account vs Local Account

you need to have a microsoft account to buy bridges

Microsoft Account vs Local Account

The full description of the feature states that it enables "personalized recommendations from Microsoft and notifications about their Microsoft account."

So this won't affect people using a Local account then?

Eat my reports! Bart ransomware slips into PCs via .zip'd JavaScript

To quote Homer

"Trusting every aspect of our lives to a giant computer was the smartest thing we ever did!"

- Homer Simpson

Good hacker uses vid vulns to spy on Quebec Liberal Party meetings

"We are working with our supplier."

We are reading the manual

'Windows 10 nagware: You can't click X. Make a date OR ELSE'

Not Vista

"One Reg reader grabbed the below screenshot from a relative's PC on Windows Vista."

Vista is not eligible for the free Windows 10 upgrade and doesn't get those pop ups. The screen shot looks more like Windows 7 to me.

End of extended support for Vista is April 11th 2017...

FBI ends second iPhone fight after someone, um, 'remembers' the PIN

Re: Users he was interacting with

@ Bloodbeastterror

"So I guess that any call or text wasn't logged with its destination number in the guy's call logs held by his phone service provider and freely available to the police?"

these days a lot of people communicate with apps over wifi, the phone service provider would have no info from those...

Larry Ellison's Brit consortium in 'advanced talks' to buy Aston Villa

We want our Villa back...

FBI Director defends iPhone 5C unlock tool that's obviously going to leak into wrong hands

Hacking Team

Not the best at protecting things, but certainly aligned with rogue governments...

How Microsoft copied malware techniques to make Get Windows 10 the world's PC pest

Helpful comment

I used the GWX control Panel tool from Ultimate Outsider several months ago on both win 7 and 8 machines, and i've never seen or heard from a windows 10 pop up since... It was brought to my attention by a fellow El Reg reader in the comment section of a previous article on this topic. Whoever it was, I owe you a beer...

Microsoft to OneDrive users: We're sorry, click the magic link to keep your free storage

They've done this before... With Skydrive

As an early adopter of the original "Skydrive" I was given 25GB of free storage. This was a few years ago at a time when 25GB was a huge amount for free cloud space. One day I logged in to find that all of my content had been deleted and my space was down to 2gb or 5gb or whatever the basic amount was. One or two folders were still there, but they were empty. I had everything backed up offline, but I have no trust in the cloud... Things can vanish.

Outsourcer didn't press ON switch, so Reg reader flew 15 hours to do the job

can you spell IT ?

Responding to a call out for 'network problems' I once drove 2 hours into the treacherous snow covered mountains of western Canada only to find that the machine in question was in WORKGRUOP. 2 hours there, 2 hours back, plus one hour of on-site (even though it took about 2 minutes to solve). Our troubleshooter did ask over the phone, but unfortunately there still hasn't been dyslexia for cure found.

Nuclear exploit kit seen chucking CryptoWall 4.0 at late patchers

Anti Exploit

Malwarebytes make a free program (and also a paid version) that is designed to protect against this sort of threat. Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit

Hacker predicts AMEX card numbers, bypasses chip and PIN

How i met your girlfriend

Samy gave a great talk at Defcon 18 called "How I met your girlfriend"... it's on youtube and i'm sure the average Reg reader would enjoy it...

Facebook! You've got 48 hours to stop tracking people

Privacy Badger

Nothing can stop the Privacy Badger from eating cookies when it's hungry!

From: https://www.eff.org/privacybadger

"Privacy Badger currently knows how to replace the following widgets if they are observed tracking you: AddThis, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Stumbleupon, and Twitter"

The bucks stop here: NYSE freezes trading, blames 'technical issue'

Gremlins?

@YourAnonNews tweeted yesterday: "Wonder if tomorrow is going to be bad for wall street... we can only hope."

LastPass got hacked: Change your master password NOW

The password managers one weakness... the password...

German watchdog rips off Facebook's thumbs after online fracas

Can they hear me now?

Is the Facebook circle logo on this article the same thing as a 'thumbs up' button? There's also another one in the bottom right area of the comments section... I'm not on facebook so I don't know what clicking on either of them does...

Google picks five teams to share $6 MEEELLION funding in Lunar X Prize

Team El Reg?

Send a vulture to the moon ?