Posts by el_oscuro

Signal shuts the blinds on Microsoft Recall with the power of DRM

Re: Tommy Flannagan of OSes

Our anything coming out of the of the Trump regime and his Confederate party.

Re: Block it all

You could set your pi-hole to block *.microsoft.com, *.microsoft, *.office.com, *.outlook.com and probably a few others. But they might work around that with other janky domain names or using hard coded IP addresses.

Re: Queue MS Update

I'm sure ICE, the Abortion Police, and Trump's praetorian guard will be very interested in all of that sweet data, and will pay Micros~1 well for it.

Re: Nanny security

If I was working for Signal, I would update the app so the API provided the O/S of the client it is running on. And flag Windows 11 clients as potentially insecure due to Total Recall. So if you are in a group chat discussing highly sensitive info such as women's health care, you can disable people running on Windows.

AI can't replace devs until it understands office politics

Re: It's going to happen

How is AI supposed to replace BOFH's and PFY's? You still need people to open the windows. For now.

https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/09/bofh_2025_episode_9/

Re: This is what I keep saying

The first time for me was FOCUS (for online computer users). Followed by

1. Case tools

2. Entity-relationship designers

3. GUI interfaces to various admin tools

4. Oracle appliances (The sales droid said: "Just fill in the host and database names and your cluster is completely set up"). We happened to have one of those appliances in our computer room that had been unpacked. I regret that I didn't ask him on the spot: "We got one of those, lets set up right now, its that easy correct?"

5. More recently: Devops, CI/CD, WS/XML, Microservices, and too many others to remember.

All of these just made more work for me.

LastOS slaps neon paint on Linux Mint and dares you to run Photoshop

Re: Bloatware Linux

Your post makes no sense because:

1. Flatpak is an installer format, similar to Microsoft's MSI, and is widely used when running Windows programs on Linux

2. Chrome is the browser most Windows users actually use, so including it here makes sense. In contrast Microsoft installs Edge and opens links in it - even if you have explicitly set Chrome as your browser in Group Policy.

3. Wine - it is what actually runs Windows programs on Linux so it is also needed here.

4. Image viewers and media players - every O/S comes with these.

Which just leaves BitTorrent and the CD burner tools. I wouldn't call these "bloatware", but they aren't really needed by most Windows users.

The nice thing about Linux is you can just uninstall things you don't need and they are actually gone. Another nice thing about Linux is if you don't like the tools supplied with a distro, just use a different one that doesn't have those tools.

US Copyright Office found AI companies sometimes breach copyright. Next day its boss was fired

Re: Confused

https://theonion.com/trump-administration-offers-free-at-home-loyalty-tests/

Linux in Excel? Sure, why not ruin both

Re: VBA

By a strange coincidence, 808 is about the same number of lines of C-64 basic I used to write a 6502 assembler. I also had to write a simple EDLIN style text editor as the C-64 didn't have any capability to edit plain text files. I did all of this because as a broke teenager, I couldn't afford the $35 macro assembler cartridge.

Windows isn't an OS, it's a bad habit that wants to become an addiction

Re: I'e already said this

I have installed on my System 76: Starfield, Indiana Jones, Planet Coaster, XCOM2, Control, The Expanse, Subnatica, and a lot of others. Some I haven't played much. Others I have over 1,000 hours on. All on Linux. Without any issues at all.

America's cyber defenses are being dismantled from the inside

Re: Centralized government

Inefficient? I wouldn't trust these idiots to secure a slide rule, much less anything involving cybersecurity.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/10/missouri-gov-calls-journalist-who-found-security-flaw-a-hacker-threatens-to-sue/

Windows 2000 Server named peak Microsoft. Readers say it's all been downhill since Clippy

Re: Ah, ya know what?

Uh, the Year of The Linux Desktop was about 2009. That is when Android really took off. And by desktop, I mean computers that most people actually use, i.e. their phones. Microsoft lost the desktop war when their MS phone failed.

Today, Windows desktops are mostly used by corporations and PC gamers. And even in PC gaming, Windows is losing share. Steam proton practically runs every game on Linux without issues. A year ago, I needed a new gaming rig and couldn't tolerate the Windows 11 spyware, I so I picked up a sweet System 76 rig. And now I run Indiana Jones and Starfield on Linux without issues.

Re: Microsoft isn't Windows anymore

As an example of this, I conduct all of my MS Teams meetings on a Linux laptop. Actually works better.

Microsoft total recalls Recall totally to Copilot+ PCs

Re: Sensitive information?

Back in the day when we went to the DEFCON hacking conference in Las Vegas, the standard rule was to use a burner phone and laptop. Now we have to do it when traveling anywhere.

Re: Alleged Use Case

True. The US has the Best-est, Biglyest scammers in the entire world.

Re: Awesome!

Just make sure it is running Linux. Because Micros~1 will probably still add the database and tracking, but without the AI search.

Users hated a new app – maybe so much they filed a fake support call

Re: Geography fail

Well I once worked at a job where we had databases globally. And I needed to perform maintenance on a database in Halifax, so I shut it down. When my manager screamed at me for shutting it down while people were still working, I said "they're still working? It's 9PM in Scotland."

While my very first assignment working for Oracle wasn't that bad, it had it's moments. Oracle had hired me and I was waiting on a consulting contract to start. While I was waiting, I hung around the HQ and fiddled with PCs. One day about 15 minutes before Beer O'clock, my manager comes in and says: "We need you onsite in Norfolk tomorrow morning to do an install and migrate a database". Norfolk was of course 250 miles away. First thing I asked was if the client already had the installation CDs. They of course hadn't thought of that, but managed to get me a set before I left. So I set out that evening, somehow managing to find a hotel.

The next morning I arrived at the clients site - to find the server still in boxes. So i twiddled my thumbs all day and played with PCs while they set the server up. Forget the migration, I barely had time to run the installer. I had to be back at HQ the next day. So 500 miles to spend 30 minutes running an installer.

M365 Family users wake up to notice 'Your subscription expired'

Re: The Cloud FTW!!

I use it every day because I have to through my corporate account. And based on that experience, you are not missing anything.

1. Zoom or WebEX both work better than Teams

2. Any email client capable of downloading attachments works better than the "new" outlook

3. LibreOffice works better than the rest of Office 357

No joke: Microsoft foolishly published inaccurate price list on April 1st

Re: Microsoft Morons

Normally, their marketing department would be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. But in this timeline, they would have to wait in a very long line.

Windows intros 365 Link, a black box that does nothing but connect to Microsoft's cloud

Re: high-fidelity Microsoft Teams meetings

Don't get me started about the "New" outlook. The outlook client looks almost like the web based version, but actually has less functionality. Something that is missing is the ability to download attachments to my PC. So I can work with them locally. Like I have been doing for over 30 years.

The thing is, 365 Government is fully supported on my old laptop - running Linux.

To avoid disaster-recovery disasters, learn from Reg readers' experiences

As a DBA, I have had a saying over the last 25 years: "If you haven't practiced your restores recently, you don't have backups". And I have been prove right so many times, I have forgotten.

I make it a point to incorporate restores into routine operations. Need to clone that database? Don't use the VM cloning utilities. Mount your backup media on the new server - and restore it. If you use a split mirror technology like EMC, have your backup script open the mirrored copy read only. Not only do you validate your backups, you can use them as a reporting database. The list goes on and on. Every time you need to make a copy of something, restore it from your backups. You are continuously testing your backups, as well as practicing your own skills.

So when the shit hits the fan and everything breaks, you won't scramble looking for the restore SOP - because you just did one a few days ago.

Feds drop bomb on Multiplan in legal war over healthcare 'price-fixing' algorithms

Re: This one should be interesting

Twice? I wish. Everything costs 10x here what it costs elsewhere. A box of insulin pens can cost as much as $1,110, while I can buy those exact same pens from Canada for $99. Canada Drugs Direct sells Azopt glaucoma eye drops for $25 a bottle. That same bottle costs between $250 and $300 here. I got an $800 bill for a routine cholesterol test. A co-worker suffered a mild concussion and went to the ER. The doctor suggested an overnight stay for observation, and the bill was over $20,000. I could write a book with examples, but the 10x formula seems to apply everywhere in our "healthcare" industry.

OTF, which backs Tor, Let's Encrypt and more, sues to save its funding from Trump cuts

Re: Not hurting the right people?

The price of things now during Trump 2.0, at my local grocery store

Eggs: $13

Dawn dish soap: $19

Wait until his 25% car tariffs take effect. At least we will have less traffic because no one will be able to afford one.

#TRUMPFLATION

I'm in the middle class and my taxes actually went up. So no, "everyone" didn't get a tax break.

Microsoft's many Outlooks are confusing users – including its own employees

My dad predicted that 25 years ago. At that time, the term he used was: "Microsoft wants to rent Windows".

Re: mutt -- it sucks less.

Is that actually in the mutt man page? I sure hope so.

Missing feature from "New" outlook

Tried to use the "New" outlook recently, but found one feature missing: The ability to download attachments. Seriously. There is no option to download email attachments like plain text files, anything that isn't a MS Office file. This is functionality I have been using for 30 years, and makes the "New" outlook unusable to me.

Re: Point of pedantry

There was an Office 95 though, which I used for many years. I had opened a service request with Oracle about an issue with their middleware, and they mailed me a CD with a patch for it. But in addition to their patch, the CD had a directory named "Sparky" which had the complete unlocked enterprise edition of Office 95 in it. Not sure if Oracle had a license to ship Microsoft software, but I didn't really care.

Oracle Cloud says it's not true someone broke into its login servers and stole data

Re: Encrypted passwords?

If it is Weblogic, it isn't hashed. It is "encrypted" in a way that can be easily decrypted with a script. No secret key required. And oracle isn't the only one. Microsoft web.config files also contain "encrypted" passwords that can be decrypted if you know how to google the right command.

Re: Encrypted passwords?

Answer: The steaming pile of shit known as Weblogic. So many exploits and ways to do this. For example: https://github.com/maaaaz/weblogicpassworddecryptor.

France offers US scientists a safe haven from Trump's war on woke

Re: les queer studies?

And this is just the beginning. Meanwhile, our TX representatives have higher priorities than addressing the outbreak:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/03/texas-new-york-strip-steak-dan-patrick?CMP=share_btn_url

Re: les queer studies?

That is a lot different than when I was in the US military over 35 years ago. Back then our boot camp was only 8 weeks, then 12 to 20 weeks of MOS related training. My MOS was 74F, computer programmer/analyst.

Regardless of MOS, every solder needed to know the following just to pass boot camp:

1. Rifle marksmanship - 40 shots from a range of 50m to 300m. Needed a minimum of 23 hits to pass.

2. First aid - including first aid, tourniquets, burns, treating heat stroke and hypothermia

3. Bio/chemical weapons gear - know how do protective equipment like an M-17 mask

4. Claymore mine - install, set up, test and deploy one

There were plenty more tasks - these are a few of the main ones I remember. I think the test was 30 tasks you had to complete, and if you got over 3 NOGO's, you failed. I don't think setting up tents was one of them, but we all still had to do it.

This was just the 8 week boot camp. MOS training had far more tests. The failure/dropout rate for my MOS was over 50%.

Athena Moon lander officially FOADs – falls over and dies – in crater

Perhaps they should practice more with Kerbal Space Program. Everyone who has tried to land on the Mun has experienced this plenty of times.

Techie pulled an all-nighter that one mistake turned into an all-weekender

Re: Ouch!!!

Exactly. Years ago, we had a major production outage that I think might have made El Reg. The root cause turned out to a ImageMagick bug in a previously installed application that suddenly started getting heavy use, completely melting the CPUs. Because the app had been installed months ago and nothing recent had changed, it was difficult to find.

Once we did find it, I was completely knackered. I asked a co-worker to install Apache on some new servers so we could move the new app to them, freeing up the CPUs on the existing ones for the main app. Normally installing Apache on a new server is something I can do in my sleep, but since I hadn't had any, I needed my co-worker to do it. While all of this was going on, our system admin wanted evaluate SAN performance. I said "No, we identified the issue and that isn't needed. *My* CPU is fried, and I am going home."

Does terrible code drive you mad? Wait until you see what it does to OpenAI's GPT-4o

Only used "AI" once

I asked Copilot to generate an example web application query in PHP, hoping to get some good SQLi code. And waited... and waited... as the characters very sloooowly appeared on the screen, I was reminded of when the Heart of Gold's computer locked into a tight loop with the Nutrimat - to make Arthur Dent some real tea. While probably consuming enough electricity to power all of Gilford.

Unfortunately Copilot failed to produce the desired SQLi example, or really any code at all. It looked nicely formatted, but this is all it had.

<?php

$SQL="your sql query here";

// Connect to database

// Open cursor

// Process cursor output

?>

Here's the ugliest global-warming chart you'll ever need to see

Obligatory XKCD

For those of you that still don't understand climate change, XKCD has a much nicer graph than this one.

https://xkcd.com/1732/

Re: Just another alarmist global warming rant

Do you actually ever go outside? If you did, you would realize it is getting hotter *everywhere*, especially in Europe. Over on this side of the pond we couldn't go out for weeks during the summer due to all of the massive fires in Canada, while the DC area got hit with a 100 degree heatwave in September. Normal temperatures at that time of the year are in the 70s. Not to mention Los Angles getting hit by a hurricane, and of course the more recent fires.

Then there is Europe. I was station in West Germany in the 1980's there wasn't any A/C. They didn't need it as summer temperatures were usually in the 60s or 70s. I never saw a single day with a temperature above about 80. My daughter went there last year and the temperature was 90 every day. Every recent year has broken previous record temperatures, and recently there were simultaneous record heat waves on every continent.

It must take some real work to ignore what you experience every day. Then again, MAGA types seem to do it all the time.

IBM Consulting workers told management wants to 'more closely align pay, performance'

Typo?

From the article:

Big Blue says it "continuously evolves its performance management systems," and as "our priorities and strategy have shifted to remain competitive in the market, it became clear that our performance experience needed to revolve too."

I wonder if that is a typo or IBM actually said that. I hope it is the later.

Mine is the one hanging by the revolving door.

HP ditches 15-minute wait time policy due to 'feedback'

Re: You couldn't make it up

By a strange coincidence, 27 years ago happens to be the last time I bought an HP printer. It was a LaserJet 5L and cost $500 back then. A complete steaming pile of shit. The gravity fed tray didn't work properly and it jammed all of the time. I literally couldn't print anything with it. I guess the LasterJet 5L was the beginning of HP's enshitification.

HP still makes printers? I thought they got bought out by Newscorp and mostly make Internet connected toothbrushes and sex toys now.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Insiders say IBM's broader return-to-office plan hits older, more expensive staff hard

Ironically, I recently got an unsolicited job offer for mainframe work (not from IBM), stuff like DB2/IDMS/CICS, managing 100TBs of DASD plus PBs of tape. Stuff I have done, but not on a mainframe. All of my mainframe skills are over 30 years old. Salary in the 6 figures, W2, and 100% work from home.

Why did the Windows 95 setup use Windows 3.1?

Re: A Mess

On all of my Linux desktop installs, the steps required are:

1. Select your WI-FI access point from the list

2. Provide your WI-FI password.

That is it.

I do have to admit that since I have set up a PI-Hole, I do have set the DNS server on the WI-FI network if I want the network to actually use it. Same as Windows.

Question for Windows users: If I set the Windows DNS to the pi-hole, will that block all of the MSFT advertising and spyware? Are there any good block lists for Windows spyware?

Re: " It took nearly an hour."

FUD? I have performed dozens of Linux installs on all sorts of random laptops over the last 20 years and all of them worked right out of the box - about 20 minutes. Linux Mint, Ubuntu, MX Linux. The process is usually the same - booting from the USB stick brings you up to a full usable desktop - without installing anything. You can play around with it, make sure you like it, before clicking on the "install button". 20 minutes later you have a working desktop with a full suite of applications, with everything fully up to date.

NASA’s radiation tolerant computer lives up to its name after surviving Van Allen belts

Those of us who have access to El Reg's handy standards converter know that a slice of bread is approximately 0.0005 NanoWales.

https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html

Google confirms Gulf of Mexico renamed to appease Trump – but only in the US

Re: Florida's name

We need to award a new contract to Bugs Bunny to saw off Florida and the rest of the south. Maybe name the newly created island "Magastan"?

Microsoft 365 price rises are coming – pay up or opt out (if you can find the button)

Perhaps they are not using the correct bread...

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

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

Happened to me too

I was in London to support the US in one of the old G-5 economic summits, and our job was to test all of the IT equipment we used. From computers, laptops, modems, power supplies, surge protectors, we had to test everything individually and as a complete set up.

Of like Japan, the US has 110v electricity, and we had power transformers to step the 240V London power down. So I plugged a laptop into one of the transformers and booted it up without issues. Then I plugged in a surge protector to that same transformer and it literally exploded and caught fire. The laptop must have had an international switching power supply because when we checked the transformer, it was putting out almost 400v.

I was told to make backups, not test them. Why does that make you look so worried?

Ah yes, DAT tapes. About 25 years ago, I piloted a new backup process at a remote site which backed up a database to a DAT tape. Fully tested restores, all of the rest. The site set up a two week rotation with 14 tapes, one for each day.

About 6 months later, the site was hit by a hurricane and the database server got the BSOD. The site contacted the central office for assistance and they tried to restore the backups to an older server. I got a panicked call from the central office admin who was saying that my backups were bad. They had tried to restore and said "bad tape".

So I asked them: That is an older server. What is the capacity of it's DAT drive? 4GB. I said: "you do realize that you can't restore these on that drive as they were written by a newer 20GB drive, correct?" Silence. Then they informed me that they had tried this with every backup tape. A terrifying thought occurred to me: What happens if you stick a 20G tape in a 4G drive? Did these idiots completely destroy all of my tapes before bothering to call anyone?

Fortunately, we didn't have to find out. The vendor of the original server had a BIOS recovery disk. We provided instructions to the remote site, which was able to use that to bring the server back up.