Posts by Doctor Syntax

Microsoft Global Device Identifier fingers Scattered Spider suspect

It should certainly be a wakeup call for those concerned with data sovereignty. It's not just the server hosting you need to worry about.

Re: Aaaand it's systemd for the win. Again.

It appears to be systemd that is responsible for putting machine-id in /etc so my Devuan laptop doesn't have that. A quick check in /var/lib/dbus revealed that machine-d there was created at boot time. There was also a machine-id with a random-looking suffix on the file name and different contents from 2022, possibly dating from the current version OS install*. Deleting that didn't cause the sky to fall in. I then made a copy of machine-id and rebooted. The new version differed from the copy but not as completely as one might expect for a random string of that length, there was a matching sequence of 5 characters close to the end.

So it looks as if there's a semi-permanent machine-id that can be safely deleted and another than can be replaced at boot time but the contents of the latter do not appear to be completely random.

* Comparison with a more recently updated Devuan laptop suggests this is the case.

GitHub cuts short offer to burn repos on CD after mockery ensues

Re: Backwards firing joke...

And how many CDs would it take for a sizeable project?

I used to run a couple of HP-UX boxes with Informix installed. Every 6 months there were a pair - one for each box - of update CDs for both the OS & RDBMS. We had plenty of old ones, they did get used for coaster so it wasn't just AoL give-aways.

Re: Physical media has benefits.

If you think something will become a retirement project you're obviously not yet retired. You'll find out....

Government's cyber pledge lands 60 signatories, including M&S and, somehow, Capita

"The pledge is entirely voluntary, so their absence doesn't necessarily say anything about their security posture"

What does presence say, apart form some box-ticking.

Microsoft flips Windows Backup to on by default unless you're in the EU

Re: EU? By who's definition?

IIRC GDPR was written into UK law as part of a new Data Protection Act. Unless there have been changes it's still there.

Confidential computing's trust mechanism is broken. The fix may not exist

Re: Own servers.

Oops. Should also have pointed out the NextCloud and LibreOffice are EU based.

Re: "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch..."

"Before worrying with all that stuff just get out of the situation where a US president can, on a whim, sanction you"

Perfect is the enemy of good enough.

Re: Eternal, err ... now, what was it again?

Paranoia. Vigilance is not enough. (Len Deighton)

Re: Own servers.

"If you use open source, where are the repositories based?"

Have you heard of mirrors? Or EU-based distros such as Suse, Devuan, Ubuntu, Mint and Zorin? Open source, of course, is part of getting out of that situation.

"Because they will also ban you if based in the US."

And just how do they know who's sending an apt get and on whose behalf they're doing it.

Before worrying with all that stuff just get out of the situation where a US president can, on a whim, sanction you ant tell your service providers to close your account.

MFA-optional banks leave safe doors (and accounts) wide open for thieves to pillage

Re: Passkey issue

Devices, phones, passkeys, whatever can be stolen. SIMs can be swapped. Somebody intending to commit a crime has no qualms about committing another crime to aid it.

My approach is to use a unique email address for every service which involves money with a password manager generating passwords that look like line noise and, of course, storing them encrypted. At least my bank uses proper IDs instead of email addresses.

"Phishers can also trick you into giving up your OTPs by creating a fake website that looks like your bank’s login page."

And here is one place where banks and others who should know better (including my local council) by sending out emails with embedded links to their sites.

They should (a) not do this and (b) in every email explain that an email that appears to come from them but has such a link must be a forgery and it is extremely dangerous to click such a link.

Don't train users to be phished, train them NOT to be phished.

User swore hacker called General Failure had invaded his PC

Re: PC LOAD LETTER

US exceptionalism as usual.

Re: General P. Fault outranks them all

Now writing his memoirs.

Re: Have your users misinterpreted an error message? Calling Dr. Judson.

You wouldn't have had that message with FORTRAN. The result would have been more subtle.

Ans son of Mother Board

Re: Linux problem?

"Is General Failure superior to Colonel Panic?"

Maybe, but not as scary as General Alarm.

NASA says it will isolate volunteers from the outside world for a year

Re: Can we sign up

One year good, two years better.

Pacemaker manufacturer Medtronic warns patients cybercrooks may have swiped health data

Re: Not Funny!

SWMBO also has one. So far she has received no warning from them.

Startup targets datacenters with 3D-printed nuclear reactor module

3D printing silicon carbide? How do they manage that?

Re: So many questions

TFA says it's dependent on an external neutron source for operation so just remove that, shield it or so whatever the chose control operation might be.

Vim text editor game teaches you keyboard shortcuts with ice cream delivery

Vim is an abrasive cleaner.

Is it true that as a complete OS, EMACS includes a copy of vi?

Re: It's not like riding a bicycle

I still use vi a bit. The trouble with using more editing scheme is that you forget which command set to be using at any one time. I've found myself using u to undo something on kwrite or LO and ^Z on vi.

Reading music isn't a problem - it's transferring it to the keyboard at anything faster than 2 seconds per note that's the problem.

Oracle outlines all the ways it could lose the farm it bet on AI

Re: What’s their business model now?

They're Oracle. Doesn’t that answer most of your questions?

Re: The funny thing here is ...

"nobody working at oracle would know what a farm was"

They do know. It's a green field on which to build a data centre.

Nothing in there includes the big one: there isn't enough money in the world to buy the product at prices that would give an RoI.

Failed blockchain project ends with big fine for fibs about it being on track

Re: (road)blockchain

Depending on how carefully you looked at "solution".

Re: I might be a bit thick...

"However it's also irrelevant because gold also makes a shit currency."

I think it is relevant because AIUI the whole idea of Bitcoin mining getting harder was to mimic gold as a currency ...

AI bills are baffling the C-suite after shift to usage-based pricing

""These actions do not signal reduced confidence in AI. Rather, they suggest...."

.... inability to learn.

Re: Nearly a third of corporate leaders report difficulty understanding

Damn. Got there first.

Oracle E-Business Suite was under attack via critical flaw before the public exploit code was even released

Meanwhile Birmingham Council are hoping somebody will break in and fix it.

Cloudflare to block cynical search-and-scrape bots from ad-supported web pages

Cloudflare to block cynical search-and-scrape bots...

... and human users as well.

End of era as the BBC switches off Radio 4 Long Wave service

Re: What the hell Auntie?!!

It works until the ignoring of the 20% affects stuff the 80% had taken for granted.

Re: What the hell Auntie?!!

"but it's damned useful for the many who feed the nation."

We are governed by an urban class who have no idea where food comes from. They know it comes from a factory, but nothing beyond that.

Re: Irreplacable...

"Lots of the digital specs had forward-looking, future proof features, but they were often not implemented."

Standard IT industry standard.

"OK, we've got the MVP proof of concept working."

"Good. Ship it and start working on this new shiny."

Re: Irreplacable...

"there would be lots and lots of low power transmitters"

Just like the promise of 5G

Boffins peg narcissistic leadership as the real driver behind 'return to office' demands

Re: Doomed?

As I've said before, my daughter's current company is almost entirely work from home. They're specialists (clinical trials). They can and do recruit world-wide so as to get the best talent.

Former Microsoft engineer shrinks Notepad down to size

RICHEDIT50W?

Font selection?

That doesn't sound like plain text to me.

Re: it strips all the BS formatting off

And a pit of a Penistone.

How the AI bubble could pop and take down the global economy, according to the BIS

Re: but how to shore up to protect yourself?

"Thames Water is a zombie Corp that only lives on due to the carnage that would ensue in pension funds if it collapsed"

The carnage could actually reach the real world as well. Even the PM de jour might notice if the No 10 loo failed to flush.

"I stopped believing in article’s from the BBC at the turn of the millennium."

What was it that the article possessed that you stopped believing in?

Re: Claude

Don't do that!! It could be the trigger.

Re: Wealth is a meaningless word

Given fractional financing and all that circular investment that 20 trillion could turn out to have been 200 of the 300 trillion when it goes.

Large Hadron Collider goes offline to make room for its enhanced successor

The Larger Hadron Collider?

Microsoft to assist European Commission in defense of EU-US data-sharing agreement

At first glance at the headline I had hopes of it being along the lines of "a man is assisting the police with their enquiries." A bit disappointed.

UK firm bombarded debt-ridden people with 5.5M texts

Re: What am I missing here?

Yet again the solution to this is to set up an arrangement whereby the recipient reporting a spam call or text gets a credit to their account transfer charged to the sender/caller*. The telecom services would be able to add a fee to the amount being charged. If it passes through several service providers each adds their charge. Any service that fails to keep records of its sources gets to carry the can.

If HMG announced legislation for that it would be amazing how fast the industry would find it possible to solve the previously impossible task of stamping out spam via self-regulation. They'd know the cost of implementing the system would never be recovered because adding anything to the fractional price per spam would end the traffic immediately.

* Obviously need some statistical checks to filter out chancers reporting all calls etc.

Re: Porbably outside the remit of ICO, but:

They can be moved to sitting in a cell in Wakefield or wherever.