Posts by Doctor Syntax

MOVEit body count closes in on 400 orgs, 20M+ individuals

There needs to be a recognition that as much of the data as possible needs to be invalidated when breaches take place. Names,addresses, dates of birth etc can't be changed but bank account numbers, passport numbers, driving licence numbers, national insurance numbers (or SSNs as appropriate can be if the need is recognised - which it ought to be - and the systems put in place to deal with it. As a lot of these are government systems they ought to take the lead in doing so to set an example to the banks. Given the general competence of government IT contracts it looks like the criminals will win hands down.

Mint 21.2 is desktop Linux without the faff

Re: The best

"Since most computers come with Windows preinstalled"

From what I can see Office, at least for consumers, is now subscription unless you have an old copy or buy what seems to be a grey-market Office 2001 with the regular buy-once office horrendously priced.

At what point does Windows also become subscription if you want features such as security updates?

My friends who run W10 now use LibreOffice or one of the other free office suites. Consumer moves in this direction mean that MS are only going to make money out of the original sale and the only way they can correct this, from their PoV, will be to move Windows to subscription.

"(and require Windows for their (obligatory) firmware updates)"

How many home users do you know who install firmware updates?

Re: The best

Like I said, Jake: Stockholm Syndrome.

Re: Just Works

Before anyone jumps in to say that that's not what most users do with home PCs let me add that my Linux usage is totally different:

Mostly local history and a bit of family history research. It includes preparing out-of-print books from our local history group as PDFs to make available online.

Throw in preparing the weekly handout PDFs for my wife's needlework class.

Writing - LibreOffice of course.

Talks - LibreOffice again.

Graphics & maps - Gimp, Pinta, KolourPaint & Gwenview (must try to get more into Inkscape & Krita).

Diagrams - Dia.

Then there are handy commandline tools such as ocrmypdf and pdfunite.

Re: The best

And, of course, the Stockholm Syndrome is immensely powerful. It has to be. I got a document camera yesterday. There are three options to use if in the Debian/Devuan repository but i decided to fire up the dual boot laptop with W10 to try out the vendor's option.

Oh wow! I thought I'd put it through the monthly patch cycle last week but it turns out it hadn't finished. In addition to the hours spent last week it went through at least another half hour of spinning dots with no indication of what it was doing, spinning dots whilst configuring, counting up to 100%, going back to 0% and then counting up again cleaning up and finally displaying the login backdrop for a while before displaying the password prompt. There was, of course, another reboot in the middle of this. Why on Earth - how on Earth - do Windows users put up with this?

Re: The best

"gets a commercial level of support from a well funded backer"

What commercial level of support do you get from Microsoft?

Social media is too much for most of us to handle

Re: You get out what you put in

"I use Facebook to keep in touch with distant friends and family"

Something for which email an mailing lists served just as well long before Zuckerberg went to Harvard.

Re: I did something similar

"I had tens of thousands of connections to world leaders, scientists, famous, and presidential candidates. Was instantly connected to world renown journalists and such."

Connected in what way? In any way more meaningful than just watching a news channel, for better or worse depending on the channel and people connected with?

ChatGPT study suggests its LLMs are getting dumber at some tasks

Bearing in mind that these systems are essentially probabilistic a reasonable solution would be to keep a fairly short list of prime numbers and then answer "no" to any number above that, the length of the list depending on the acceptable error rate.

Days before its earnings call, Infosys announces $2B in new business

A 'B' can look like an '6' when you're scanning headlines. I thought the Sunaks would be really worried if $28 had become something to celebrate.

Tech support scammers go analog, ask victims to mail bundles of cash

"That's another point, as they'd have to mix them thoroughly before using it"

And while they're doing that they might find one of their exchanges collapsed because that had been scammed.

"And, the elderly relatives have no problems spotting social engineering."

It depends. A couple of years or so ago we had a book launch in a local hotel for one of the history group's books. The writer told me that before I arrived she'd had a call from her husband saying not to ring her on the land-line because he was waiting for the bank to call back. She quickly realised he'd fallen for a scam, called the bank, got the transaction cancelled having been able to confirm her identity by a recent card transaction - she'd just bought a coffee at the bar. Her husband is an ex-maths teach, in fact I believe an ex-headmaster so you'd think he should have been able to spot it. But he's well into his nineties and, as she explained to me, from a family of bank managers so inclined to trust anyone who claims to be from a bank.

Meet the guy trying to drag HM Treasury's data strategy into the 21st century

"Those groups tend to work quite independently; analysts tend not to share common ways of performing that data analysis."

I'd have thought that would be a good way to avoid group think, even if the end product is PowerPoint slides.

Linux has nearly half of the desktop OS Linux market

Re: "typical Linuxes are tools for nerdy hacker types" -- ?

What are you trying to install if you need to watch videos to tell you how?

Re: "typical Linuxes are tools for nerdy hacker types" -- ?

"Mint is end user friendly to such an extent that it can beat Windows."

You're right, of course but to be fair, it's a low bar.

Re: Why though?

"My money is on that most Linux ( okay, maybe not most, but fucking far to many ) don't actually have a fucking clue as to what Linux actually is."

Of course not. A lot are running an Android userland. Others aren't aware of using anything because it's tucked away inside their router, or their TV. As you point out Linux is the kernal.

"Linus is the kernel."

No, Linus is the original developer and continuing head honcho. These days I'm inclined to pass on typos because I make too many myself but I'll make an exception as you seem not to have learned that it's possible to make a point more clearly and more forcefully without expletives.

Re: everything is junk

Downvotes because many of us have installed Linux a lot of times and know that the only way that can happen is if the display has had to fall back to some very basic driver few have us have ever seen and there are few circumstances which can cause that. One is that it's being installed in a VM which isn't offering a better functioning emulated graphics device; that says more about the VM or the abilities of whoever configured it than about Linux. Another is that you've chosen a really hair-shirt distro that contains few drivers and not one for your H/W or maybe one where you actually have to nominate the driver you want and have selected none or the wrong one - just use a mainstream distro. A third is that you have a bleeding edge graphics device for which there are, as yet, no available drivers.

With any of the mainstream distros you have to put some real effort into dropping the installed into a mess it struggles with. The OP told us how he did that - with a VM.

From what you said, maybe you haven't tried installing Linux in the last 20 years.

Re: everything is junk

You gave us a clear hint as to why things are going wrong - you're using a VM so the installer is having to put up with whatever unrealistic settings you've provided. Free up some disk space and let the installer install into that.* The it will have the real disk, the real display H/W and the real memory rather than whatever simulations and short measures the VM you configured provides.

* It's possible that some installers won't give you that choice and want to use the whole disk- if so, back away from them. I haven't looked for years, but does Windows still fall into that category? It used to be that if you wanted a dual or more boot Windows and anything else you had to install Windows first, shrink the partition and then install whatever other OSes afterwards.

Re: Full Linux kernel

amazed that people still store their data locally

Just lop "locally" off that phrase to get to the reality. Either you store your data or someone else stores it. What amazes me is that people trust someone else to store their data for them, not as a backup* but as the only store.

* There's scope to have concerns about that as well.

Re: A MILLION different Linuxes,...

"and the Linuxi still can't understand why Windows is on more PCs than ever."

Oh, I understand that. It's a whole lot of commercial strong-arming of H/W vendors. What I still can't understand is why it's tolerated.

Having Windows and Linux on the same H/W I know from experience that Linux Just Works and Windows Only Just Works - somewhat reluctantly and very lethargically. At best Windows is slow, possibly because something is chewing up disk usage (even when nothing is apparently running the disk drive is in constant use) and when it comes to updates -- Windows folks, it doesn't have to be like that.

Re: User agents

Unfortunately NextCloud user forum sits on it. I haven't logged in for ages but if I click on one of the links in the occasional email feeds it gets arsey unless I use one of their choice of browsers. Unfortunately NextCloud itself seems to be going that way as although it doesn't complain it just doesn't present an login prompt.

Re: I'd just like to interject for a moment

What you don't know can't Hurd you.

I haven't looked to see if it's still true but once upon a time Windows also had that - hidden in a tab somewhere in network configuration because they used the BSD networking stack.

Re: Installfest

"Kind of arrogance that gives linux a bad name."

If the midcap fits, wear it.

Re: ChromeOS is a fake linux

"Having a choice of a thousand distros"

With an Android phone you have a choice of a thousand apps, all wanting to slurp more data than they need. What a choice.

The reality of Linux desktops, of course, is that for a daily driver you have a choice of a very few distros from which you can pick one that suits you best. You can ignore all the projects that either (a) all offer the world's smallest footprint or (b) aim to completely revolutionise the desktop in particularly odd ways.

This, of course, is still more choice than Windows which only offers two choices: take it or leave it.

I have a laptop with W10 and Devuan on it so I can compare the two. If I have a quick job to do I could fire up the Devuan, do the job and be closing down in the time that W10 takes to spin little dots and then display the login background while it has a think about displaying the actual login prompt over the top. My W10 choice is inevitably leave it.

Re: ChromeOS is a fake linux

"all my data remains Not With Me"

If you're a traveller this is a good idea but if I were a traveller using it for anything sensitive I think I'd want to have a choice of where the data remains with the device completely amnesiac about where it expects for find it. That way any inquisitive border official can be presented with an innocuous target on Google whilst the confidential stuff remains on a private NextCloud server I'm not sure whether the Chromebook does that.

Re: ChromeOS is a fake linux

"Chromebooks are the Netbooks of the 2020's. Designed to be used a bit and thrown away"

I have a netbook from the Windows 7 era I've not thrown it away because I wanted it to use, and still do use it, when the need is for something physically compact. It still works because, of course, I'm running Linux on it.

Re: User agents

"A lot of sites absolutely lose their shit when they see a non-Windows/non-Apple UA"

Or just complain about the browser and it's not only banks. <Stares hard at Discord and also at NextCloud for using it.>

Re: I'd just like to interject for a moment

Your fourth alternative: note the first post, the handle, and admire the pastiche.

Someone just blew over $190k on a 4GB first-gen iPhone

I would have thought a "Holy Grail" iPhone would have to be one with provenance showing that it was the actual one brandished by Steve Jobs at a launch ceremony.

Typo watch: 'Millions of emails' for US military sent to .ml addresses in error

Re: medical data, identity documents

Because it's how everyone sends everything these days. Unencrypted SMTP ought to have been deprecated and its use replaced years ago.

Re: Technical solutions will never work

If it becomes common for the military to send a couple of MP*s round to every travel agent who sends a booking to .mil travel agencies will simply stop doing business with the military. The article makes it clear that, at least now, it's largely civilians who are the problem.

* Deliberate misunderstanding doesn't make you smart.

Re: What ?

"It is not possible to implement technical controls preventing the use of personal email accounts for government business"

Yes, it is. All you need is a bespoke mail client that has the proper restrictions in place.

But as Jake has pointed out, the article says that the problems almost entirely originate from personal or business emails, a lot of them from travel agents. Short of compelling everyone to use it a bespoke client isn't going to help. Even if government email domains were set up to refuse messages from the bespoke client it still wouldn't stop non-gov users sending messages intended for .mil to .ml instead by use of another client.

Re: The

Judicious snipping can be applied. Including to the message.

Re: The

"I'm no particular fan of Microsoft, but blame them for the things they are actually responsible for, not standards that they have had no input into."

When they indulge in stuffing ISO committees there are some standards they can be blamed for.

The pity is that although there is an RFC for encryption of email it's only for an extension. What's needed is an RFC that mandates encryption as standard, including a means of distributing private keys and deprecates the existing RFCs for email with effect from, say, a year of publication.

Re: I had/have a related problem

"one of those utterly worthless lengthy footers demanding that, should the email reach the wrong person, they should delete it unread"

A sure sign of brain failure on somebody's part. Or does someone habitually ready their emails backwards?

Apple seeks patent for devices with roll-up displays – iRoll?

Re: CAD FTW

To avoid being cluttered with too many perpetual motion machines.

Unidentified object on Australian beach may be part of Indian rocket launcher

Re: What, not alien ?

It's the northern hemisphere silly season - but maybe not in Oz.

First of Tesla's 'bulletproof' Cybertrucks clunks off production line

Re: There is no mutual exclusivity here.

Didn't offering to buy Twitter start out that way?

"In all of the years I have been driving, I've never damaged a wing mirror."

Well, somebody did, to the nearside wing mirror - that's the whole assembly - not to mention the door handles and paintwork.

Include the electrical gubbins that's included and it's not easy to find the correct version and not exactly just a cheap piece of glass either. And that was just a small Japanese car.

Re: VW Beetle

"Reboot of Mini"

The product may have been successful but calling it a Mini, and hence a reboot pure marketing hype. The original Mini was successful a really compact car. The newer vehicle masquerading as a Mini is far from mini, more maxi.

Whoosh!

a weighty metal ball thrown by chief designer Franz von Holzhausen was able to shatter the "armor glass" on the prototype

Credit for doing their testing in public.

Uncle Sam to put Aurora supercomputer to work on catalyst conundrums

Cicada wings

I wonder how that was discovered. I's not hard to imagine some apoplectic buffoon wanting to know why some damned idiot was wasting damned money investigating damned cicada wings. One of the great things about science is you never know what it's going to turn up next.

Twitter ad revenue has halved since Elon Musk took over

Re: What about censorship?

"The professionals, I've been listening to recently are Orwell, Huxley, Bradbury"

Writers of fiction. Explains a lot.

"While Zuckerberg's Threads reels in users at record rates"

You mean people are cottoning on?

Re: As someone who does not and will not ever have either a twatter or a zuck imitation account

He seems to favour option 2.

Post Office Horizon Inquiry calls for compensation to be brought forward

Re: They want to delay as long as possible ...

The essence of limited companies and especially of those listed on major stock exchanges is that the share ownership of widely distributed between those who play no part in the management of the company and share ownership is not limited to "powerful and rich people". In fact most of the ownership of PLCs is likely to distributed between pension funds and other investments. If you have any sort of pension fund including corporate pension funds and workplace pension schemes you will have a smidgeon of ownership of a lot of companies, possible even PO and Fujitsu. Does this make you a "rich and powerful person" and more to the point, if your pension scheme owns shares in these companies should you, personally, be prosecuted for their wrongdoings? A company might well be successfully sued for compensation or prosecuted for corporate wrongdoings but that, rightly, does not extend to those who, quite possibly unknowingly, hold shares in it.

Having said that there is no protection for individuals within a company if they knowingly and deliberately break the law in determining and following some course of action for their company. That would include any perjury in providing evidence,* any deliberate perversion of the course of justice or any conspiracy to do those things.

* I spent about 14 years in a job where providing evidence was the sole purpose. I was never in any doubt that the responsibility for the truth of that evidence was solely mine and not that of my employer.

Boris Johnson pleads ignorance, which just might work

Re: Please. No Bozo pictures

A turnip would be too plebeian, I suppose, even if well merited.

Re: surely the phone can be cloned

It's just that it's taken so long for th spooks to get their hands on it.