Posts by hayzoos

Print management outfit PaperCut is under 0-day attack, and it’s drawing customers’ blood

Indicators of Compromise

Their Indicators of Compromise list is awesome, thank you Captain Obvious.

I guess the lessons learned recap will identify it as a sophisticated attack.

CISA: Most exploited vulnerabilities should have been eradicated decades ago

insecure by design

So many of the problems are there by intentional design. It is allowed to be by lack of repercussions. An example, targeted ads: requires collecting data individulized so ads can be targeted to individuals. The whole system to support the goals is so complex and intentionally implements many of the problems identified. Cross Site Scripting is the defacto standard of the ad/data collection industry, some of the worst site have hundreds of third-party active content sources pummelling a visitor's browser. All it takes is one of those sources to contain intentionally malicious content (beyond the obvious spying on everything you do), and your session is pwned. The overly complex design of everything allows bad actors to hide in plain sight.

Other industries are adopting the methods, automotive, appliance, utilities, etc. Some that had traditionally been held to higher standards are successfully shedding those shackles to operate in the fast and loose with consumer data and metadata realm. The cancer is spreading far and wide.

Microsoft breaks WPF printing with .NET update

You may have revealed the vulnerability. One must not just use curse words, but also use select cursed fonts, but also in a specific cursed environment, but also afix such accursedness to paper of the correct bond and dimensions (US Legal perhaps) using an HP inkjet printer (of course) in order for the incantations such as the "Forward Looking Statement" to sucessfully call forth the demons of "H" "E" double hockeysticks.

'splains alot.

GNOME can look like Windows – and Flashback can do it without extensions

Not my cuppa tea

I prefer the flexibility to configure the DE to my workflow. If my workflow changes, I want to be able to change the DE as well. I am using XFCE and it fits the bill, it seems very flexible. I think I could emulate a Windows like DE close enough in XFCE, if I were so inclined. I prefer as a user that I make the design choices, instead of the developers. My 2 cents.

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

Re: Every week...

I started my permanent quit of windows using Linux Mint. Then as I was digging into the CLI tools something seemed off. At that point I had found out systemd had infected numerous distributions since I had last dabbled with Linux. There is a lot to not like about systemd, like something resembling a windows registry and log files which can only be read with the proper tools instead of being plain text, just like windows. I then settled on Slackware for a more pure *nix with less windows flavouring.

Dev says Google warned him about account hijack – then charged him $11,000 anyway

Re: Oh dear

(other than advertising, and we don't even know how effective that is)

effective is in the eye of the beholder

for google revenues, probably very effective

HP customer claims firmware update shoved printer off support cliff

Updates

I have updated firmware on many devices. Before applying the update, research always. I learned this important step long ago after a soft bricked motherboard due to it actually being a counterfeit, but I updated with genuine firmware, the bricking was not intentional, it was truly incompatible.

I have a Samsung laser printer / scanner which has had all but the last available firmware updates applied. Each previous update brought utility to my use of the machine. The last, rejects non-manufacturer toner cartridges. Is it a coincidence that this firmware became available after Samsung unloaded their printer business to HP? With little if any notice of the change of who was providing support on top of the fact. I downloaded it, researched it. The release notes had weasel wording about genuine cartridges. Confirmed through support forums, this was HP handiwork. Download filename changed to add "DO NOT USE, HP CONTAMINATED" to prevent accidental use.

Windows boot partition runs out of space for Microsoft's May security update

Re: Except...

I chose 500MB when setting up this machine, not even dual boot. Of course, on a 1TB drive, 500MB is hardly noticeable. I did plan on keeping some recovery tools there. I also keep kernel images there; current, recent, and certain milestones for troubleshooting if needed. I see no issue with a 500MB EFI boot partition. I have been burned too many times in the past having a just big enough partition to install a system, only to find not enough space for some upgrade.

dBase debased: Database titan fades to black after 47 years

dBaseII/III

I answered a job post for a student programmer under a grant program. The job was to write a data driven menu module system for an existing database. I had only heard of dBase prior. I was confident I could pick it up, the grant manager, not so much. I proposed a one week test assignment.

The existing approach was dead simple on the system side and overly complicated for the end user to navigate. Most users would take notes of where they had been, thus producing a tree-like map. Since the menu had users select by number, they also had branch number sequences noted to get to frequently used data.

In that week, I learned enough dBase to duplicate that design by Wednesday, by Friday I changed it to arrow key highlight selection and implemented a path status display. With the addition of a DOS mouse driver mapped to arrow keys, enter, and back; it could be driven by mouse. The grant manager supplied the user, notepad and pen, and the pc with the database. I brought the sample menu module, mouse, mouse driver. At the end of the demonstration the user had an unusually blank notepad, the grant manager was impressed, and I had a student job. Numerous additional modules had to be completed. On the back-end I had also implemented truer "modulization" so each module was easier to implement than the last.

We've only gone and done it: Changed what you're used to

More than just font size on mobile

"3. We know the font is enormous on some mobile platforms. Dev team is working on resolving that."

The font size change is erratic. The layout and flow is erratic. I use 133% zoom level as default for my laptop using latest Firefox ESR. The sub-header menu line is truncated on both left and right. At 110% it is not. At 170% it disappears but the truncation is consistent from 120% to 170%. At 210% the text reaches maximum constraint in wrapping to only about 20 characters, but the More Context inline section flows off the right. At 220% the text spans full width and the More Context wraps like it should. This is how the text should flow, but it is now so large I could read it from the other side of the room and there are only seven lines. If the window is set to half screen width, at 100% the text size is much larger than full width window and there is no blank space on the sides of the text. At about two thirds screen width the spacing on the sides returns and the text shrinks. If I span the windows across the width of two monitors, the side spacing is wider than the text even just one side is wider tan the text. The comments section has the best layout now.

On mobile Vivaldi the content of the header content wraps at any zoom over 112% and coincidentally my default zoom is 115% so poor layout. Reader mode only shows the top story on the front page. Trying to zoom an article is of no use, the text stays relatively the same size and the layout goes bonkers. Reader mode for the article is acceptable for reading at 100% zoom but not in normal mode. Desktop mode is also bad, 80% fits the text left to right, but too small. By the time the zoom is readable in desktop mode there is so little text on the screen you have to constantly scroll. And just like on the desktop browser, the comment section has the best layout.

I'm thinking I need to find a reader mode plugin for the desktop. Yeah, this needs fixed, it is not just a bunch of old techies being grumpy.

Pass the key, passwords have passed their sell-by date

passkeys suck

Technically, passkeys are good. I view them like SSH keys for the masses. But there are way too many options for implementation. Some are mutually exclusive or incompatible or both.

There is a lot of misinformation about passkeys out there. Some of that comes from the wide variety of implementations. Some comes from misconceptions. Some from PR/Marketing types trying to explain something technical they themselves cannot comprehend.

Some of the poor implementations are driven by the desire for lock-in or from ignorance or laziness or creativity or agile.

I have passkeys stored with Windows hello on my work laptop. I have passkeys stored on a FIDO/U2F USB/NFC key. I have passkeys stored with my password manager. I do not have any exclusively on my Android phone, save from my password manager. I have decided using the password manager as the passkey provider is the best way.

BTW, a passkey provider is a local vault where the private keys reside. A passkey provider is not like a Certificate Authority or a federated authentication service. But a service like Duo could through it's apps be a passkey provider. You are supposed to choose your preferred passkey provider, like I chose my password manager. But, thanks to variety of implementations, that choice is being made for you in a lot of instances. I have a bank which seems to offer using passkey, but I have yet to find a passkey provider it will offer to create one with and I am comfortable with. (not Windows Hellno, or other half baked passkey provider)

Early on in the passkey era, I was attempting to setup a hardware key with Microsoft. They decided it should be a passkey provider without my knowledge. The process prompted to setup a PIN which I thought was to be another authentication factor. It turned out it reconfigured my hardware key from unpinned 2FA mode to pinned mode to store the passkey. But in the process the unpinned crypto key was wiped out and it could no longer be used with previously registered sites. Leaving me without a backup key. Perfect example of poor passkey implementation. I think MS has multiple implementations across their services. I use MS as little as possible.

Google's passkey implementation seems to be good.

My password manager exports the passkeys. I theoretically can then move them to another if I should want or need to. Fully portable, not locked to a device, backed up locally, off-site, and to the cloud in quantum-resistant encrypted form.

Doable by a "regular Joe"? Probably not. passkeys suck because of all these shortcomings and other valid ones mentioned by others.

Linux may get a hall pass from one state age-check bill, but Congress plays hall monitor

another reason to block linux

The whole idea should be shot down. Those hosting content where age restrictions exist should be bearing the cost. Just exempting open source from the offloaded requirement, could be another reason to ignore anything but windows, mac, android, or iphone. It smacks of made for IE all over again.

Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

Being knowledgable is not a parental requirement

Being a parent has very few requirements. Natural selection takes care of the worst. If you can produce offspring, congratulations you are a parent. Being tech savvy is not required. Being smarter than your offspring is not required. Being smarter than a politician is not required. It bodes well for humankind for yougnsters to be smarter than the current average adult. As a child I could have bypassed these OS age things. My parents were wise with experience and in their areas of expertise, not stupid. I knew more about these new-fangled computer things. I still learned a lot from my parents. My mother is still learning a lot from me about computers. I see a lot of parents where their kids will be able outsmart them on these OS age things. But those same parents could successfully impart behaviour the old-fashioned way by imparting respect for elders (obviously with exceptions) no tech solution needed.

Once upon a time, saving your bits meant punching holes in floppies

Re: Also used to drill a hole in 3.5" floppy disk

Way back in my University days, the school had new-fangled IBM PS/2 computers. The student bookstore had just that year stocked 3.5" floppies in both the low and high density varieties with matching price tags. Of course, student budgets favoured the low density variety. There was a flaw in those early PS/2s. They saw all diskettes as high density and would format accordingly. Unfortunately, after a few months' of use, low density disks would develop failures. I worked out that slight alignment differences would trigger failures earlier. I was able at times help recover coursework by using different drives until the right alignment allowed reads. I notified the bookstore, but that was hopeless. I informed the dean of the CS department and they both got the bookstore to post large warning signs and the computers' drives repaired. Fun times.

Users fume at Outlook.com email 'carnage'

Re: This has been happening for a long time now

I work for a small business. They are using MS for stuff. I don't pry, just surmise from evidence. They use a local IT company for computer stuff which set them up with MS. They have been having problems sending emails. We provide industrial services and are scheduled ad hoc and last minute at times. As such we receive our work schedules at end of workday via email. Local IT co. has advised not to give field workers company email addresses (I guess too much admin overhead for local IT co.) So we field workers have gmail addresses created for us in a specific form. Their service email originates from {coname}.onmicrosoft.com. Months ago email to gmail was delayed from half hour to never. I requested an old outlook.com addy of mine be added to the list. I found the outlook.com addy never delayed. I suggested setting up field workers with outlook.com addys in lieu of gmail. Never happened. Last week or so, no schedule email received by anybody without a company domain email address. I bit the bullet and logged into the outlook web client, found emails had been sent to junk mail folder. I had been relying on forwarding. The headers indicated MS flagged the mail as junk almost immediately. Why does MS send emails all over their server estate before sending to the internet? So, my outlook addys for everybody idea would not have worked. I suggested co domain addys for everybody, nope, not gonna happen. They are dividing up the list and sending two or three separate emails for the work schedule. No hope in ditching MS either.

KDE Plasma 6.6 isn't forcing systemd but the arguments rage on

KDE LM & diagnostic require systemd

KDE is not just a DE. It has a lot more goodies. Most of the extras are optional to use. But changing the LM is not a chore for those seeking the "it just works" DE/Distribution/OS. If DrKonqi diagnostic tool requires systemd as well, then systemd-free installs of KDE may end up with less fixes.

I run Slackware. It is essentially systemd-free. It installs with KDE by default. I don't like where this is going. I use XFCE which is also installed by default. All I needed to do was notice a small detail during the login to change. But Slackware is not for the "it just works" crowd either. It mostly works, but what don't is not easy to make work.

Re: The Linux Desktop needs a Sugar Daddy

"it is possible to buy kit with Linux pre-loaded but you have to search for it."

That search is not hard either. What is a challenge is finding systemd-free Linux pre-loaded.

Amazon's vibe-coding tool Kiro reportedly vibed too hard and brought down AWS

Access controls?

In my experience as a sysadmin I saw developers demanding full admin rights at all times. I also saw the effect installing externally developed software. In reality it was not required in either case.

Windows 2000 rusts in peace by the sea

Many people saw it that way. It was during my era of computer guru to friends and family. I personally needed a new system and it was pre-installed with 98 and a free upgrade to ME coupon which I used at the time of system purchase. I had maxed out the memory on the new system to 2 gb via a pair of 1 gb modules if my memory serves me correctly. I think ME's bad rep has a lot to do with the fact that win9x has a memory management issue that only gets worse with more. 2gb seemed to be out of reach for it, first witnessed by me with ME, but persisted when I reinstalled 98, and even tried 95 just to confirm. All failed with 2gb installed. ME and 98 ran with 1gb installed, 95 was a bit unstable. I installed win2k on that one and used it until 2010 before I got my first laptop with win7 and used that for about 12 years. No more windows for me after that.

I "upgraded" a number of F&F's new win2k and winME systems to win98se when they ran into various compatibility(2k) and reliability(ME) issues. Those purchasing win2k systems stated they thought it was the next version to win98. Most of them had early win98 releases so win98se was still an upgrade in the end. I cautioned all to avoid winME like the plague.

My last win only app was MS Money 2k. I kept it going in a vm of win2k. I found win2k being 32bit NT and used in classic GUI theme mode was the best in a vm for speed and compatibility. If win2k could not run something, win7 32bit was my next choice, 64it if it was required. I eventually replaced my needed functionality of MS Money 2k with a LibreOffice Calc spreadsheet. I should have done that long ago. Ironically, I started keeping my books in an AppleWorks database on an Apple //c before going to MS Money.

I cannot recall ever seeing winME in a public BORK situation. Maybe it never could stay running long enough to be deployed.

HSBC app takes a dim view of sideloaded Bitwarden installations

Re: Why use F-Droid for security Apps

Why use Google for security Apps? That is a much better question.

Safer/more secure?

I use Bitwarden and use the F-Droid release. Why do I "risk" sideloading? Quoted from Bitwarden's FAQs: "For those who prefer to exclude all 3rd party communication, Firebase and Microsoft Visual Studio App Center are removed completely from the F-Droid build." It is also available from github in both Google Play and F-Droid flavors and in DIY compile it yourself.

I have voted with my wallet and moved to other banks for similar situations. Such as blocking VPN access so I cannot bank while on business travel. Ironically, that very same bank required their employees to use VPN while on travel. Blocking VPN is just security theatre. Cloudflare helps promote that stance.

Accused data thief threw MacBook into a river to destroy evidence

Bench grinder or handheld

Reduce the data storage device to grinder dust. Grind additional parts after and mix well for entropy. Grind other similar stuff and mix that in. If a fine enough grinder wheel, most of that dust will ignite of aerosolized if one wants to be more thorough or has pyromaniac like tendencies.

Stop the slop by disabling AI features in Chrome

Why use Chrome? Defective web pages I must use.

Most of my healthcare providers (as an example) have gone "digital|paperless|electronic". Which means I now must not just choose to use their web portal to access documents. It is possible to still get paper via snail mail. But, they (as part of a larger group) make the process as hard as possible and they have an insider planted in the USPS to slow and reduce reliability of service.

They do not make their own web portals, they use what is part of whichever of a few healthcare information systems are available. These invariably are tuned to Chrome (would have been IE back in the Fool's Golden Era). So in order for me to obtain what little support there is, I have to be using the right supported browser (and the right supported OS) which must be up to date. LTS versions may be branded as outdated.

I never mention Linux nor Firefox when these web portal house of cards have fallen over as I am trying to retrieve some important document. The browser agent clearly states Windows and Chrome or Edge in the most recent accent I can find. Just so the support session can continue past the initial gateway checks. Sometimes the support scripts try to push the above noted system's app, so be prepared to have tried that. Still I have had support sessions end in "try again later" "there must be some temporary issue".

To support my end of the deal; I have Edge, Chrome, Chromium, de-googled Chromium, and Firefox (in reverse order of preference) updated automatically and ready to try for the support script agent.

Unfortunately, There are many everyday service providers that have gone down this path. I must retrieve my paystub from systems like this. I must retrieve tax support documents like this. Only my water service has not gone this way. It is coincidence that is one of the lowest cost services?

I only use Chrome or Edge or whatever spying browser as a last resort. Firefox is now being considered contaminated and is in the process of being phased out of regular use. It may come back again depending on another turnaround or not.

You don't need Linux to run free and open source software

vmware or virtulbox but not qemu?

Considering the shenanigans of owners of virtualbox or vmware I would avoid either. refer to icon

Instead when I next need virtualization: qemu - A generic and open source machine emulator AND virtulizer.

I have used all three at various times on various hosts with various clients. qemu is the most flexible but least user friendly for the GUI dwellers. I know virtualbox can do some things beyond the GUI with some CLI-fu with first-hand experience. I never needed to use vmware beyond the GUI so cannot attest to it's capabilities on the CLI.

Keeping Windows and macOS alive past their sell-by date

Wish this published earlier

Less than a month ago I installed Win10 on an old Win8 laptop my brother had. He needed Win10 or newer for a particular program. I owed him a favor so I did it pro bono. This originally Win8 laptop was unsupported for Win11. I had a Win10 install DVD in my library. From what I knew it should go easy enough. No need for any data preservation or other software installation, just Win10. Win10 installed easy enough from the DVD. First hurdle no proper wifi adapter driver. A little searching, trial and error then a light at the end of that tunnel the mothership could be contacted. Windows Update started doing it's job right away as expected since the DVD was an older Win10 release. Then the failed update loops started. Not having recent experience with these things (I switched to Slackware from Mint since dropping Win7 at EOL), I did not recognize the scale of the loop mistaking it for code bloat taking a long time to download, unpack, lay the update foundation, stage the install files, check the status of the squirrel population, then install prior to requiring a reboot to do a smaller cycle missed on the previous iteration. No, it was downloading multiple gigs, proceeding to nearly but not quite 99.9999999999...% before flashing an error for a microsecond and undoing the update only to restart. I caught on in the third iteration since the first happened while this meatbag performed it's nocturnal ritual of sleep. The second happened whilst I was busy tending to some other life necessity like eating. On the third, I caught glimpse of the error, checked the status and determined I need another approach since my goal was to get that latest available of Win10. I settled on downloading the .iso image of the latest installer. Then I ran into another set of problems. 1) That .iso was a 5.8 gig-ish file and I only had 4.7 gig DVD blanks. B) The HP laptop was of the (U)EFI era, but no amount of coaxing could get it to boot from the bootable USB stick I put the image on. (yes, I turned it off then on again, I did not dd the image over my Linux swap partition, and I did apply the right touch percussive persuasion multiple times to both the sweet spots below the keyboard on either side of the trackpad.) III. Win10 was now complaining about activtion and I was not sure if that was impacting the progress. (BTW the favor was owed due to use of his garage and his time to help swap an engine into my car 1.5 days, this was now taking longer than that task 1.75 days and not complete) I remembered that Windows had gained the ability to mount an ISO file so I tried that and the install image was there in Windows Explorer. I decided the HP recovery/reinstall partition being large enough was no longer of any use. I changed it to a standard partition and replaced it's files with the latest Win10 install image files then ran setup.exe from there. Install happened and wifi driver was good this time and Windows update ran and did it's thing properly. Still not activated but not an issue. I did the local account thing, no password so it boots right to a desktop under an unprivileged account. The question is Will I be happier with the new engine than he with the new OS? I gotta remember to answer: I don't do Windows, gave it up for lent, new year's resolution, it's a work of the Devil, anything but Windows or systemd.

North American air defense troops ready for 70th year of Santa tracking

Re: Something fishy here

NORAD has been at it longer. Google maps informed me the speed limit was 55mph (88km/h) on a one lane roadway twisting and turning over hill and dale, riiiight.

You do have to consider the physics of the situation. With the necessary speeds involved and the various latencies between the differing communications systems, the reported locations of the target can easily be off by numerous latitudes.

I am not convinced Google is equipped to track objects at those velocities anyway. Google does tracks in volumes, not velocities.

I see by the clock that our friends to the east have already entered the holiday and the Big Jolly Elf should already be covering my area of the world.

So, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Death to one-time text codes: Passkeys are the new hotness in MFA

Good idea - work in progress

"So one of the things that we're seeing is the whole movement away from passwords to passkeys – a certificate-based authentication wrapped in a usability shrink wrap," Forrester VP and analyst Andras Cser told The Register.

- I think this is the best definition of passkeys I have seen. It does not try to force implementation limits like other definitions have. Best practices should be defining the implementations. But I have seen implementations which should not have been released yet, keep those implementations in beta until wrinkles have been ironed out. Just like modern software development though, public beta testing.

Gartner analyst James Hoover told The Register. "For device-bound FIDO2 keys, there is not currently a proven method of 'stealing' them, as the private key itself does not leave the device."

- WTF? Steal the device! Oh, I see Gartner, move on - pay no attention to the man in the ivory tower.

"With passkeys, we take that shared-secret model and just blow the whole model up, so there's nothing that can be shared," FIDO Alliance CEO and executive director Andrew Shikiar told The Register.

- Really now?! How does that work? Wait for it, wait for it ...

Then there are multi-device passkeys – synced credentials that allow users to log into apps on any of their devices and stored in a credential manager like Google Password Manager, iCloud Keychain, or open source Bitwarden.

- It looks to me like passkeys can be "shared".

These implementations are all over the map. I have passkeys in a FIDO2 USB/NFC hardware device, in a password manager, and in a Windows laptop. I could have in browsers, phone, phone browsers, etc. Some sites refuse to establish passkeys on some platforms be they Linux or password managers, non-Chromium browsers, or who knows. For the uninitiated, good luck understanding what a passkey is when all these ARE passkeys to the end user.

Windows requires a PIN to establish passkey use. The PIN is not for an individual passkey. It is for the Windows credential store. A password is not good enough when storing a passkey in the store - fair. But then it allows a four digit PIN - kinda weak. And it can be used in lieu of the password - Now were cooking with napalm! (hey kids: don't try that at home, toxic substances on the food, probably cook yourself too, and likely burn down the house) Oh, and I almost forgot, reset your PIN and passkey goes bye-bye. Good to see that MS has gone to great lengths to ensure their Windows passkey implementation is of equal quality to that of the OS. But I do think MS has contributed greatly to the "2 billion passkeys being used" between Windows and their other ?AAS offerings for varying interpretations of "used".

Other implementations have their issues as well. I cannot speak to Apple's, not having anything to do with that company since the Apple II line died out. Google, bitwarden, local banks, etc. all have chosen different ways to implement passkeys. Different passkey storage "devices" walk all over each other trying to be your favorite place to keep your passkeys. Some even allow set up of a catch-22^2 of passkey to access passkey to access passkey ad infinitum or so it seems since the chain of passkeys look so similar. Some sites offer passkey access or so they say, I have not been able to get one to allow any particular combination of software presented to establish a passkey, but they will text or email an access code instead of using a password, heck they will still demand you choose text or email delivery of a code even after providing the password. With security like this who needs locks? Wait 'til you see how these characters have implemented "lost authenticator recovery".

One final note. What you are is not a viable authentication factor, what you are IS your true identity. Other identifiers are usernames, ID numbers, names, where you have lived, where you went to school, what was your first car, mother's maiden name, things that make up you that do not change. In many instances Identity needs to be Authenticated and sometimes more assuredly than others. When the ID assurance level needs to be high, non-identity authentication factors should be used and should be changed if suspected to be compromised. Nothing is perfect, and implementation is key.

Twins who hacked State Dept hired to work for gov again, now charged with deleting databases

Re: How the hell did that happen?

If there was confidential or secret classified information, it should not have been on the internet even with VPN.

Larry Ellison's latest craze: Vectorizing all the customers

Re: biomineralization

Remember, this is bio-engineered with AI. So, think artificial; more like Spam, Spam-based tomato, and Spam-based lettuce. And we thought Monty Python was just a comedy troupe.

AI gone rogue: Models may try to stop people from shutting them down, Google warns

Distributed AI

The AI can code malware. It can self replicate wormlike to any device with enough processing to participate. The self-replicated AI computing can be distributed and operate like the internet was designed to just work around non-functioning nodes. Everything on the internet could be an AI node.

British spreadsheet wizard will take mad skillz to Vegas after taking national Excel crown

Re: You did 'What !!!???'' with a spreadsheet !!!!

I was called in to troubleshoot a problem with an Excel application a project team had put together. I thought "Hmm, Excel application", now there's a clue. The problem was excessive time for calculation. They had some bright people on the team and some good suggestions on causes but lacked the depth to solve the issue.

The Excel instance they were using was part of an image I had built for these project teams I supported. It was built on the "spare" machine I had available. This was in the WinXP epoch around the single/dual core era. Of course, my "spare" was a single core, whilst their production machine was dual core. They also had single core machines on their isolated network for light weight supporting work so they demonstrated that the time difference to complete the calculations hardly varied between the dual and a single core machine machine otherwise similar in specs. I dug around and found an option in Excel (or was it XP) which referenced single vs. dual core enable/disable (mostly paraphrased due to old non-ECC bio-memory). I enabled the use of both cores and voila calculations were being completed in nearly half the time! Brilliant! or not . . .

The team was not anywhere complete in building their Excel application. These relatively bright people realized that they needed to solve the calculation time problem before moving on to scale. So, after beginning to scale, they stated the calculations were still taking too long. Now, their proposed solution was an uberworkstation 64-bit multi-core (quad maybe) XEON running XP-64. The hardware provided to these teams were supplied out of my department's budget, unless the required hardware was specialized. I had to explain to both department heads that in-spite of all the similar sounding names that their request was specialized hardware with the final fact being the price of only 25 times the top machine on our pre-approved list. I had to also explain that even the proposed workstation would not solve the issue because Excel was unable to take full advantage of all the extras the hardware had to offer. Then I had to explain why Excel was not the tool they needed for the task.

The formulas were long, complex, interdependent (but not circular) and not optimized. Any improvement in calculations were due to more cores were probably already realized at dual core with diminishing returns if Excel could handle more cores. I suggested optimizing the formulas and limiting interdependence to only what was required. I knew of another independent team's uberworkstation they might be able to borrow some time to test pre- and post- optimization (and prove my "theory"). I then suggested if their expected improvements were not realized, they should develop their application in a programming language such as FORTRAN or other mathematically oriented language.

The project wound down shortly thereafter and the grand Excel application never came to be.

Data destruction done wrong could cost your company millions

Not rocket surgery . . .

If the storage device is non-functional, destruction alone is only option. If destruction is going to be performed, skip any other option; it is just a waste of time. Grinding to dust or smelting is as good as it gets but may not have the thrill factor of thermite or C4 or target practice.

All multi-pass overwrite methods were developed for hard drives over two decades ago and became obsolete shortly thereafter. A single pass of randomly generated bits overwrite is all that is needed.

Overwriting by sending data through the I/O interface is the slowest possible method and has other problems, don't do it. Unless you need to overwrite a hard drive older than 20 years or so, just use the storage device's built-in secure erase function. hdparm can access the built-in function as can some other tools. Doing it manually with hdparm takes a few steps to guard against accidentally erasing the drive. Later ATA interface drives and newer have it. SCSI had a secure erase function even earlier. Way faster than any OS based overwrite tool using the I/O interface.

Can't find a way to secure erase that thumb drive? Grind it to dust. If your data is not that valuable to waste a storage device, why even consider data destruction? Why even consider using an OS based overwrite tool which could take hours or days?

Trump tax law keeps Bill Gates' nuclear datacenter dreams alive

Re: Just me

IMHO one of those bands produced some mighty fine rock and roll music.

Microsoft broke DHCP for Windows Server last Patch Tuesday

It just works . . .

Until it don't.

So many network admins these days were hired as digital natives. But, being born with digital tech in your hand does not make a competent technician.

No push back from greybeards that MS-DHCP is required, and redundancy is "built-in!" because the greybeards were too expensive and shown the door.

I'm one of those greybeards. I and my colleagues made sure critical servers had well documented, static IPs. Of course this meant ensuring MS-DHCP did not clobber those IPs. True backup DHCP was ready if needed, because functioning servers are of no use if clients do not have their IPs. Similar approach to the entire network.

The list of "critical" servers these days though has probably suffered mission creep and would be claimed to be unmanageable for manual "DHCP".

enshitification all around

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

Re: Microsoft provides instructions

Better understood, thanks. No fear opting in, since one can always choose what to keep out of recall. Easier than herding snails.

Gotta love these "Evil Corps." (TM) always thinking of the paranoid and providing ways to ease their worried minds.

Just like Google and the street view WiFi mapping option to keep your WiFi network out of their database by adding a Google unique string to your network name. Too bad it doesn't scale to all would be WiFi mappers.

Re: False sense of security

"One reason why I love that it's (not yet) in Linux."

What is the "it" (not yet) in Linux? Recall? Preventing screen shots?

A quick search eliminated Signal as the "it". Linux has a lot of available DRM even some not digital rights management DRM.

OS-busting bug so bad that Microsoft blocks Windows Insider release

Re: Where is the website suggesting more outlandish uses for AI ?

AI idiot lights

Downward DOGE: Elon Musk keeps revising cost-trimming goals in a familiar pattern

Still highly inefficient, producing more waste heat than kinetic energy. Mostly due to inefficient ICE designs and implementations. Gas-electric hybrids and diesel-electric locomotives show improved implementation, but still off the efficiency mark.

What to do once your Surface Hub v1 becomes an 84-inch, $22K paperweight

BSOD

I thought "Art Installation!" Display a BSOD (or is it GSOD now?) Then place it up for auction. Only problem, it has probably already been seen, nothing new, novelty already worn.

Whistleblower describes DOGE IT dept rampage at America's labor watchdog

A little more to the story

The whistleblower was left a threatening letter taped to his front door. Detail in the letter intended to scare him was recently updated information which should have been only available from a government database like OPM. IOW threat came from government insider. But with OPM's history and other recent DOGEy events, this info may very well be found outside government.

He states he is hoping others like him in other agencies visited by DOGE come forward as well. Apparently, his lawyer has uncovered information that there are others who have witnessed similar activity at other agencies when DOGE paid a visit.

I do not know for sure, but as a user I experienced something I thought was odd at usps.gov. It was in the timeframe DOGE was invited by former postmaster general Louis DeJoy to review the USPS efficiency just prior to DeJoy's stepping down from the job. I was attempting to login to usps.gov when I recieved an odd message, "their MFA was not working". I expected the login to fail, but no, the login succeded without MFA (TOTP is configured on my account). I had sent a message complaining about allowing account logins when MFA was not working. I cannot remember for sure, but I think it happened again a few days later. Was this caused by DOGE?

Pennsylvania’s once top coal power plant eyed for revival as 4.5GW gas-fired AI campus

Natural Gas it is then

There is plenty of natural gas well and pipeline infrastructure in the area, I doubt hydrogen is seriously being considered. As noted in the article, electrical infrastructure is present as well. I am not so sure about Internet though. That should not be as much to establish though.

The coal thing was soo trump 1.0, Trump 2.0 got in on "Drill baby, Drill". Natural Gas & AI, so apropos for Trump 2.0.

Privacy died last century, the only way to go is off-grid

Horse has bolted, burn the barn

I am sure information about me is out yonder many times over. Instead of trying to prevent its' loss (too late), or getting it all back (try herding cats?), why not address its' mis-use? How you ask? Damn good question. I have not put enough thought into it.

Vivaldi bakes Proton VPN into browser to boost privacy

Network services are a system level service

Browsers should not be implementing system level services. I use more than a web browser. I have DNS client, no proxy, VPN, and more configured at the system level. I do not want any network capable application trying to override these settings. There should be only one system level certificate store, so dodgy root certificates can be blacklisted thoroughly in one location, not in each and every application.

Credible nerd says stop using atop, doesn't say why, everyone panics

My response

I checked if I had it installed even before I knew how it behaved. I guessed it was a process monitor of sorts. It was not installed. Then I continued to read the article and subsequently comments. At this point I discovered it is unique amongst process monitors in that it runs in the background and writes log entries as root by default. That to me sounds like the sort of tool to use for troubleshooting and put it away when done. I imagine it may have options for verbosity of logs, running as a lower privileged user, maybe some other neat features. I need to try and remember this one if I have the need. As usual, I would probably RTFM before cutting it loose on a system.

I say good call on the warning. It could have easily been installed and forgotten. Also some OSes may have "helpfully" included it as a standard package.

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

My printing experience

TLDR; Canon multifunction inkjet seems OK for the moment, Samsung also sold out to HP, I always printed minimally and had unique solutions.

Work: Buyer found Canon multifuncion inkjet fits the bill. My annoyance is driver proliferation, every model variance needs a different driver no matter how similar the printers or model numbers look. Seem to do well otherwise and take a beating.

Home: Current is an old Samsung multifunction laser flatbed scanner (& unused fax) SXC-3405W. It does not phone home and no Windows machine to help it do so. I have updated the firmware a couple of times, but stopped when I found the next would be hostile to non-OEM consumables. That may have been near the time Samsung handed the printer division over to HP. It still chugs along. Early built-in WiFi era printer also has USB-B.

The SCX-3405W replaced a ML-1740 laser only Samsung. That is also still going strong, I just installed a driver in daughter's Windows 11 laptop (she needs Windows for a work software requirement). Win11 cannot find the driver on its own. The ML-1740 has never had a firmware upgrade, I do not know if it has the "feature" of consumer upgrade-ability. The reason I replaced this printer was Windows (I was a user at the time) dropped support for the flatbed scanner I had and the manufacturer played along. USB-B and Centronics era printer. I would still be using it had I not found the printer/scanner at a good price.

Prior I had two inkjet printers which I deemed to be crap, did not last long, so much trouble with ink, not worth the effort just to have color.

Before that I had a 9-pin and later a 24-pin dot-matrix. This is when my printing needs had dropped so low that I had taken to storing the ribbon cartridge sealed in plastic wrap in the freezer. I would take it out to acclimate prior to unsealing and then print, and put it back in cold storage for months or a year between printing.

Way back in my Apple //c ownership era, I sourced a serial interface thermal printer intended for the IBM-PCjr. It could use fax paper or the paper for and Apple thermal printer. A copier would produce an excellent copy from the thermal printout for a longer lasting and not curled document to turn in homework at college.

Have I Been Pwned likely to ban resellers from buying subs, citing 'sh*tty behavior' and onerous support requests

I have this type of access for my family personal domain. A DNS key is how I prove ownership, I think there are some other options. I don't have to pay for that access. It also does not represent but less than 100 email addresses at most and many of those should never end up on HIBP. It allows me to alert family members when they have been pwned. I decided to do that after they never signed up with HIBP individually. It is for me almost a set it and forget it, until a breach results in any of those addys being in HIBP. I have contributed though, don't like to freeload.

I think there other types of API access with more "features" which would cost more time and resource. Those are the type scummy resellers (Cost Added Resellers CARs not VARs) latched onto.

Amazon, Google asked to explain why they were serving ads on sites hosting CSAM

Re: Magic Bullet

I was thinking along similar lines. I'm going to be generous and allow that AI can do better than just matching a known image. But that does bring about a question. How is the AI supposed to identify CSAM or anything illegal unless such content was part of it's training? Presents sort of a conundrum, don't it?

Eggheads crack the code for the perfect soft boil

modern cooking prevails

I hear an air fryer can complete the task in 20 minutes. Ten minutes in preheated air fryer at 250 degrees F (121 degrees C for those outside the USAian universe). Follow that with 10 minutes in an ice bath.

For the latest and greatest use an instapot, as the name suggests it's nearly instant.

Absolute Linux has reached the end – where to next?

Re: Just what you need

My current machine is my first UEFI and no Wintax. I researched the UEFI quite a bit. I arrived at the following boot configuration: my active kernel is /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI which I compile with the config option EFI boot stub enabled and "root=/dev/nvme0n1p3 ro". It started from the Slackware Huge kernel config adding those and other related options plus the custom kernel identifier so nobody mistakes it for a generic kernel. Had I left it there the SSD could be installed in most UEFI machines and boot since most everything needed is in the kernel and residing at the fallback boot file, no initramfs or bootloader needed. But I have been trimming away at unneeded modules and config items so eventually this may only boot a similar model or even just this machine. I keep a true Slackware huge UEFI bootable kernel for recovery accessible from a UEFI shell and some specific versions for troubleshooting reference.

I like lightweight, but functionality is important. Getting the right balance takes some work.

GM parks claims that driver location data was given to insurers, pushing up premiums

The coverage is for the vehicle. The rating formula factors in the "rated driver" on the policy. Good luck in figuring out the formula. Some insurance companies had considered all driving age people in a household for the rating, even if one or more had their own insurance, even if with another insurance company. I do not know if that is still practiced. Insurance is regulated in the US at the state government level.