Posts by Reeder

FTC urged to stop tech makers downgrading devices after you've bought them

The great M$ OSes seem to be missing from this list

Every computer I have ever bought has been bricked because the M$ OS no longer runs on it. I have three computers that are not connected to the Internet - one runs Windows XP Pro, and two run Windows 7 Pro - each running because they have software that would not run on the "new" shiny OS. I'm getting ready to add to that threesome because I have some Windows 10 apps that will not run on windows 11. And I also have an old desktop that runs windows 95. why don't I run VMs you ask? Because of the security risks. I thought If I protected them with a firewall at the perimeter they would be safe - no, there is always someone who has thought of that!!!!LOL Anyone with alternative ideas - please post and let me know what the alternatives are.

Have we stopped to think about what LLMs actually model?

Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence

I heard about the eggs, laptop, bottle, and nail experiment and then found this paper - "Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence. - Early Experiments with GPT-4" - https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.12712 - and when I read about the cat experiment and CPT-4's extended comments, I freaked. The drawing experiment was also scary - it knew where the head was (https://www.rose-hulman.edu/class/cs/csse413/schedule/day29/GPT4AGI.pdf) !! I don't think the people who wrote this article have read about this and taken these advances into account.

Michigan probes Musk-backed PAC website that weirdly tried and failed to help register people to vote

And the Deep fake Kamala Harris video and other lies

And he has created two deep fake videos of Kamala Harris - he claims they are parodies but are not labeled as such. He has posted them to his X-cretment account and it is fortunate that few news media or anyone of importance has posted the link. The man is a very sick dude - wants to populate the earth with his offspring, thinks women who don't want to have children have it all wrong, has issues with the mothers of his 12 children, hates LGBTQ people even though his one daughter has transisioned, is shouting about civil war in the UK... I think Canada and the USA need to review his citizenship status - I think he lied about something or many things. This voting scam only came after he had a meeting with the convicted felon - so money promised for something - what? Did the convicted felon promise him NASA? Or access to DOD inner mechanisms? something... Remember he promised the oil people anything for a US1Billion donation....????

Feds hit coding boot camp with big fine for allegedly conning students

Other for profit and non-prfit "educational" businesses should be held accountable

The institutions that sell their "education" to people should be held accountable for the financing of education. Often they push students into financing their education through various loans which end up costing people for many years to come as they pay back these loans. For example, Keiser "university" and other similar organizations claim they find people work when in actual fact they count the student's current job as "finding employment". Also, helping people find jobs often consists of inviting employers like Waffle House and other service industries to the campus to speak to students about jobs - usually serving jobs or working behind the counter selling food. These are students studying IT-type courses - selling donuts at Dunkin Donuts or working as a server at Waffle House is not an IT job. Why aren't those organizations required to pay back the money in worthless student loans rather than the taxpayers giving out loan debt forgiveness ??

Microsoft's do-it-all IDE Visual Studio 2022 came out late last year. How good is it really?

M$ Visual Studio is a hijacker

I have deliberately not used MVS as my IDE - I made the mistake of following a course offered by Mark Lassoff - yes, the course required MVS IDE! So I installed it. Whoa! big mistake.

I finished the course and tried to uninstall it.. It did uninstall until the next boot up and then all hell broke lose. My system started spewing messages that files were missing, access was denied, XXX was unable to run...so I ran a repair and lo-and-behold MVS was re-installed by then I was faced with a rude message that I needed to sign into my M$ account in order to activate the software. Of course, I did not.

I returned to my tried and trusted Netbeans and Atom because it was easy for me and it does what I need it to. I deliberately did not associate any files for projects with it. But - BUT - a day does not go by when the unwanted installation tries to open my projects, rudely informs me I am not signed in or do not have a license to use MVS and it uses an inordinate amount of space on my hard drive. No, I cannot uninstall it because the M$ geniuses have decided win10 needs it for something. Plus it is one of the first pieces of software to be updated when my system boots up - Wireshark all but spews out connection after connection as if it is ready to choke!

So avoid it if you can.

Iran sent threatening pro-Trump emails to American Democrats, Russia close behind, says US intelligence

Why surprised this happened? States sell voter registration and other data

Anyone can buy voter registration data, driver registration data and criminal/felon data as well as a host of other data from most states. Why is even a story? This data includes full name, usually full address, sometimes DOB, voter party registration...link this to the state criminal data base info - usually also available from most state law enforcement agencies, sheriff's offices and the courts - as with business registration data...And you have a grove of data on US citizens - for free.

It's been five years since Windows 10 hit: So... how's that working out for you all?

Necessary evil

I have kept my Win 7 Pro machine separate and off the network and use it for all the useful software it has. I was forced to upgrade to Win10 but often wonder why M$ needs a copy of my installation, why it searches my contacts, why it pings home with some very interesting information scraped from my installation - yes, Wireshark and Ethereal have revealed some really off-putting data being sent to M$ under the cover of "improvement" and "diagnostic" purposes. In addition, M$ win 10 has prevented the download and installation of some software identifying it as "potentially harmful" - TOR browser was the latest victim but I have a word-around.

So - necessary evil but on the up side I am now an Apple and Linux convert!! And I have found several ways to run Window$ software on Linux and MacOS.

If you can read this, your Windows 10 2004 PC really is connected to the internet no matter what the OS claims

this registry entry is interesting

No meaning to hijack this discussion but has anyone reviewed this key...especially the Internet key? Why 131.107.255.255 and all the other interesting addresses?

Smart fridges are cool, but after a few short years you could be stuck with a big frosty brick in the kitchen

This is happening already

My router's firmware is not being updated despite being a year old...the best one The Verge reported that Spectrum had stranded customers...https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/13/21063596/spectrum-home-security-discontinued-service-charter-cable-cost-refund.

I think we can expect to see lots of this type of thing in the future!

Landmark US net neutrality decision reveals that both sides won and lost out

Re: Pai-faced lies

And this is the same person who has declared the US has wide-spread broadband internet because ONE (1) household in 1000 sq miles has some sort of internet (usually DSL) - ergo "everyone" has broadband.

This link displays Miami-Dade. FL.. https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/#/area-summary?version=jun2018&type=county&geoid=12086&tech=acfosw&speed=25_3&vlat=25.55916672792003&vlon=-80.45817700000003&vzoom=8.319271028791471 Look at the Miccosukee Indian Village map - tell me that area has uniform internet access ≥ 25/3 Mbps !!??

John Oliver FCC II segment is fun to watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vuuZt7wak - go to 7:39 and see the "mug" he uses!!!

Dropbox reinvents itself as a collaborative workspace – no, not the WeWork kind (phew)

captcha hell - a quick segway :(

I used to use DropBox for my stuff - especially when sharing - but am I the only one that gets into captcha hell with the new Dropbox login?? I can never get the images to rotate just enough to satisfy the verification process. and the sound option is horrible!! WeTransfer is definitely an easier option!!

This weekend you better read those ebooks you bought from Microsoft – because they'll be dead come early July

another DRM story

Many moons ago I purchased a digital book from Borders and was assured that I would be able to read it because it used Adobe digital rights. Well, they forgot to mention the digital rights were only as good as the company paying for the digital rights server availability. When Border was bought out/taken over by BooksaMillion, my ability to read the book vanished. I've never been able to convince BAM that I legally bought the book despite having a store recipt, and verified credit card purchase receipt. so now I only buy paperbacks or find paper or hard back books at the thrift store (goodwill is very well stocked) or our library. They may be a bit worse for wear - but I can read them any time I want. My only problem is the size but since they are mine to read when and wherever I want to, I don't mind. I use library eBooks when I need to (when space/weight is an issue) because I can return them within 1 to 3 weeks....But DRM stripping software does a a nice ring to is!

Are you sure you've got a floppy disk stuck in the drive? Or is it 100 lodged in the chassis?

Floppy and Stiffy

In 1996, a work colleague - a South African now working in the US - referred to the 3.5" disk as a "stiffy". But when she described the incident to the IT help desk as "the stiffy had a virus...." those within earshot couldn't stop laughing.....Still makes me LOL to this day!

What was that P word? Ah. Privacy. Yes, we'll think about privacy, says FCC mulling cellphone location data overhaul

FCC, robo calls and bagpipe music - with thanks to John Oliver aka the rat-faced englishman

The FCC will never protect users when it comes to robo calls because the service providers want to be able to do whatever they want to do as long as there is money to be made. Also known as "doing business" or "capitalism" or "the american dream"....or "gaming the system" which is another way of saying you cheat.

The FCC commissioners recently started receiving robo calls with bagpipe music after John Oliver (Last Week Tonight) had his "tech guy" developed a robo-calling app which calls all five commissioners every 90 minutes with a pre-recorded message along with bagpipe music (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO0iG_P0P6M) in an effort to get them to ban robo calling (17:40 or so is the good stuff).

How to keep your flock of users secure: Let them know exactly who and where the wolves are

So how do we secure our...home network, phone (any), personal details....?

My biggest complaint is about home network security....I see tons of articles stating that home users should secure their home networks, secure their IoT devices, set up their TVs on separate networks...I could go on but you get the idea....And nowhere is there an easy guide on how to do it. I perform google searches on these terms and either the search returns generic, high level statements or someone ranting on about how one way is better than another, but still is few details.

Eyes glaze over when you talk about details...I like the one comment - when you buy a car you expect it to work... You have a key to start it, you have a lock to lock it.You put in gas (and oil) to make it go.

I've seen home networks set up by supposed experts at big brand stores who have actually changed WPA2 AES security to WPS because it was "easier for the user". Threat vectors, firewall rules, separate networks, VPNs, SSID, DHCP all sound great but few home users know what to actually do to implement security for those terms. The best example I have come across was a neighbor who proudly told me he had purchased a router through his ISP and the customer support/service rep who had enabled the firewall on the device. He asked me to check the settings. The product rules were set to "allow all" with a SSID broadcasting the customer's name and with PING, Telnet, SSH, UPnP enabled, and remote access enabled for the ISP.

Boss helped sysadmin take down horrible client with swift kick to the nether regions

Farewell....but sorry to see you go

I've always enjoyed your On Call column - definitely going to miss your quirky way of putting things. Hope your new endeavors go well and please let us know the links (if permitted) so we are able to follow...stalk???....you as you write your new columns.

Aaarrgh, zombie! Dead Apple iOS monopoly lawsuit is reanimated

Price fixing by Other "Monopolies"

If they have it in for Apple, perhaps they will take up the case of authors who publish with Amazon....Amazon takes 30 or more percent depending on where you are. And Amazon owns the characters in your books so Amazon write stories using them without the original author's approval. I know this is not the same thing but it still is a monopoly over publishing works with Amazon.

Back to Apple - the requirement to adhere to certain standards does make the Apple app store apps safer (mostly)...

As so the debate continues....

Apple ebook price-fix settlement: Readers get $400m, lawyers $50m

Re: and the result is...

Your comment is so true. In addition, what most people do not know is that Amazon has also shafted those who self publish. Aside from taking 70% (sound familiar?), the company has some rather creative ways to do what it wants with the work and, if Amazon decides, it can farm out the characters to writers of its own choosing - it does this if it does not like the way the original writer is sending the story line/characters and these new writers will write how Amazon wants it. The original writer does not receive anything from these derivative works. So who is the real monopoly?