* Posts by bombastic bob

10515 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Faking incontinence and other ways to scare off tech support scammers

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Freak 'em out !

"But what happens when they do want to be your friend?"

get full contact info, then thank them and tell them you're going to send all of that info to the cops (to avoid callbacks). Then do it (along with the time of day and a proper summary).

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Quick solution

"I'm doing this way:"

"wait to make sure I detect a Sound detection algorithm"

Have the word "Hello" followed by a pause on the answering machine. I do that, and turn off the ringer. The message is short and to the point, so legit callers don't have to wait long. If I hear a human [that I want to], I pick up the phone. Otherwise, I don't need the disturbance in my day.

Phones are not fires. Phones are not floods. Phones are not incoming tornados nor meteors hurtling down on top of my head. Phones are not gushing blood spewing out of a serious life-threatening wound.

A ringing phone is NOT an emergency. I leave my phone ringer OFF.

Windows 10: Triumphs and tragedies from Microsoft Build

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

A "Windows skin" for an underlying Linux codebase

you used to be able to buy a windows subsystem for Mac...

So, you know, they COULD do that for Linux. But it would have to be seamless with the X11 window manager. And you wouldn't be *RESTRICTED* to "the Store". And people would be ENCOURAGED to write NATIVE Linux appLICATIONS. And Microshaft would LOSE CONTROL. They don't want to lose control. THAT is at least PART of the motivation behind Win-10-nic. It's about "the CONTROL" and "the SPYING" etc..

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: What Is Microsofts End Game ?

"That is what Windows 10S is designed to do: force users* to only buy from the store so that developers have to follow or lose market share."

the bigger market share right NOW is WINDOWS 7. just sayin'

Here's a thought: What if WE (the people, the devs) take Micro-shaft's own tactics and use them against Win-10-nic and "the Store" ? you know, we pressure the computer makers to ship LINUX versions at LOWER prices than Windows, and THEN offer the software people NEED to RUN on those machines natively, never mind running at ALL on Win-10-nic. It would be fun to watch Micro-shaft scramble to produce on OS that people actually WANT.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: "Focusing"

"They need to get a GUI that is simple - W2k or XP - and not something that causes eye strain by being all white"

yeah, focusing MY EYES on "that interface" causes me eye strain.

Micro-shaft forgot about USABILITY and ACCESSIBILITY when they took the customizations out. I had always created a really READABLE interface that minimized eye strain.

BLUE LIGHT (and that includes bright white backgrounds) is *VERY* *HARD* on the eyes. It can (and probably will) result in PREMATURE MACULAR DEGENERATION, due to the depletion of the orange pigment in the macula [I did some work for an Optometrist a while back, on a machine that analyzes this]. A work environment with bright white lights gives you eye strain BECAUSE of this. 'Yellowing' the screen slightly so that it's still visible cuts WAY down on the eye strain. but I don't think that's in Micro-shaft's "pre-defined color set" last I looked. Basically you want lower temperature colors, like an incandescent bulb. It's more natural, like the Sun. And high contrast based on relative 'Y' brightness, and not chroma balance, helps TREMENDOUSLY [I sometimes want to shoot Linux devs who pre-assign colors to 'ls' and 'grep' because of this... I always 'unalias' those because they're FRICKING UNREADABLE with those color choices].

Anyway, THAT way of pre-assigning our color schemes (like Win-10-nic does) reflects the "INEXPERIENCED YOUTH" aspect of the development. People who must stare at a screen all day and are over 40 will recognize the STUPIDITY of that. Arrogant millenials want "to do it OUR way now, because we CAN, because it's OUR TURN, NEW! SHINY!". And so we have THAT abomination known as "Windows 10".

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Business users

"Linux as a file server, but for very simple needs, is really outdated"

clueless. Actually I use FreeBSD, but it's basically the same userland software. It handles my e-mail repo (IMAP), source repository (SVN), and file-based backups and archival storage, as well as internet firewall, internet gateway (PPPoE for a DSL connection), IPv6, DNS server (for a domain), web server, and stores it all using ZFS [the most reliable file system that I'm aware of]. And it does all of that on an older Intel Core Duo running at 1.6Ghz with only 4G of RAM, and I don't have even a REMOTE case of performance issues with it. Good luck getting THAT to work with a windows server, ha ha ha ha ha! And it has Samba running on it for windows shares [all read-only except for a couple - when I want to write to it I use rsync via Cygwin, which is a lot better/safer - in case of a 'wannacry' problem that decides to go after network shares]. And it doesn't expose ports 135-139 nor 443 (by default) to the intarwebs (unlike a windows server).

So, _THAT_ is "outdated"? Hah, I laugh in your general direction!

"Visual Studio is far better than any development solution on Linux, especially those based on vim"

vim? ha ha ha where have YOU been! I prefer using pluma/gedit to VIsual Studio anyway, since visual studio GETS! IN! MY! WAY! most of the time. The last decent MS developer studio was VS98. After that it got all "Visual BASIC" on us, and you have to mousie-clickie-mousie-clickie and move your hand off of the keyboard all the time, especially with the dialog box editor. "property" drop downs, what a freaking joke! I liked the old class wizard dialog-based interface because I had the hot keys memorized and could fill a dialog box with accurately aligned controls in minutes, without wearing my right hand out doing mousie-clickie-mousie-clickie. And that mousie-clickie process SLOWS! ME! DOWN!!

FYI in case you hadn't seen, there are also a couple of other IDEs out there, some written in Java (like Arduino, Eclipse). Eclipse is very popular with Java programmers. It's quite good, actually. It lacks some of the C++ support I'd like to see, but hey, you can't have everything.

Then of course there's Qt, a commercial toolkit. I haven't used it but I hear good things.

"Anyway, developing applications for three platforms would have unbearable costs"

No, it doesn't. wxWidgets. Qt. GTK. All 3 of those are cross-platform toolkits. code to one of them, and it's "good to go".

"especially under Linux w[h]ere very few are willingly to pay, and especially until the desktop gets a unified API" (ha ha ha not a chance) "and a single decent widget set, not that mess Gnome and KDE are."

Gnome and KDE might be 'a mess'. but 'Mate' and 'Cinnamon' are pretty good.

As for 'a single decent widget set', I like having CHOICE. And I'm working on my own... [with an IDE to wrap around it].

So yeah, much of what you said here is the same FUD as always. Since I've been using BSD as my daily OS since around 2004, and doing primarily non-windows development since 2005, I've seen Windows in decline and it's turned ugly, and mean.

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Business users

From the article "Windows is in better shape with businesses than with consumers and that looks set to continue"

My answer: in WHAT universe? But 'looks set to continue' is still accurate.

"LibreOffice is nowhere near functional parity with Microsoft Office. Not even close."

It works exceptionally well for me. What functions is it missing??? I haven't seen anything in Micro-shaft Orifice that I would WANT, particularly their "ribbon bar" and (probably, haven't seen it) new 2D FLUGLINESS. Thanks, I can run Libre on windows systems AND linux/BSD systems, and therefore I standardize on it. And "cloudiness" 365 solutions are HIGHLY overrated...

[might as well just use the 'google doc' editor, which stinks on ice, if you must have cloudy documents, as it costs you NOTHING and works on Linux, BSD, Mac, and *cough* windows]

The ONLY thing that is driving Win-10-nic adoption these days is that YOU! CANNOT! PURCHASE! A! NEW! COMPUTER! WITH! WINDOWS! 7! ON! IT! ANY! MORE!!!

(or maybe you can, and I just missed them?)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: The store is unattractive for developers ...

who needs "the store" when you have your own web site already?

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Putty ....

Cygwin's ssh is better anyway, in my bombastic opinion

Don't gripe if you hand your PC to Geek Squad and they rat you out to the Feds – judge

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

offers $500 bounties

keep this in mind next time you want some 3rd party individual to fix your computer

Nukes tests caused space weather, say NASA boffins

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Thermionic valves ...

tubes/valves still have a lot of use in electronics. In many ways there's no better way to get really high power in an RF circuit than with a water-cooled power tube (like commercial radio transmitters). I don't believe there are any megawatt UHF MOSFETS out there, though it's possible I haven't kept up...

What modern tech can do is make them smaller, and use exotic materials to make them last longer.

As for learning electronics with valves/tubes, sometimes it just looks cool to see glowy bottles that look like they're doing something.

(there's also a lot of audio purists and musicians who swear by their tube amplifiers)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: Fallout @bearbonez

I think pretty much everyone now agrees that above ground testing is bad, and being close to a ginormous radiation source like an atomic bomb increases your chance of getting cancer. Then again, so does smoking, asbestos, certain industrial chemicals, and so forth.

And the truth about fallout: within a short period of time, nearly all of it decays into low-level or non-radioactive materials. A few things like Co-60 hang around for longer, but they all end up being washed away by rain, blown away by wind, and diluted to statistically "un-detectable" levels. At that point, they don't do squat.

In a localized area, fission products from 50 lbs (or so) of uranium is pretty nasty. evenly distributed around the world, not so much. Thermonuclear devices would create a lot more material as neutron-activated "whatever used to be where the crater now is". But that's likely to be short-lived as well, except for things like Co-60 [which would be formed from Fe-59 + neutron]. Fortunately that, too, will eventually be washed or blown away, to levels "significantly below background".

/me points out that radioactive material is naturally occuring, including "natural reactors" formed by naturally occurring Uranium and other fissionable materials. The sun is the #1 radiation source on the planet, and you'll get more additional exposure flying during the day at 20k feet than from any amount of fallout remaining from cold war nuclear tests. Or Chernobyl. Or Fukushima. (unless you go there and directly expose yourself, but that would be kinda dumb)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Norks "getting instantly flattened"

"thousands of containerized cruise missiles each."

or a couple of U.S. submarines outfitted with a few hundred... [I bet that's already the case, parked offshore waiting for the 'go ahead' orders]

No need to underestimate the capability of the U.S. military. >20 years ago, when I was in the Navy, we had some serious capability (my boat helped to test tomahawks and GPS). I can only imagine that it's improved "that much more" since then, and whatever Kim Jong Fatass is working on now looks like 1950's tech...

that being said, I would expect our tech for resisting EMP is pretty good, too.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Tubes vs. transistors vulnerability

protection diodes on the external pins is definitely the case for modern components, even for discrete MOSFET components. However, protection within the IC itself could be an issue.

But things designed to work on satellites have been surviving solar storms. I've heard of a few of them over the last decade or two, where people were predicting power outages [this has happened] and satellite outages, and nothing obvious happened. So maybe shielding and I.C. tech is adequate?

US court decision will destroy the internet, roar Google, Facebook et al

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: What about abuse of fair use?

RE: what happens when an American abuses copyright on an English work...

I think there are treaties with respect to copyrights in foreign countries. but take a look at the list of copyrights at the ends of movies nowadays, and you can see a bunch of legalese terms, key words, and tricky phrases with specifics for specific places on the planet.

(edit: a U.S. citizen can be held liable for U.S. laws broken while overseas - one clear example of that is what's known as 'sex tourism' and I'll leave it at that)

one of the more interesting 'fair use' exceptions (in the USA anyway) is PARODY. I did a funny parody of Kim Jong Un lookling like Cartman (respect my authoritah) using gimp to color in his suit so that it's red, and stuck a 'cartman' cap on his head (with additional cleanup needed because of his redonkulous hairstyle). Implications obvious. yet the thing I did is FUNNY. The photo was credited to fox news naturally, where it came from, and so forth. Parody. A clear 'fair use' exception under the USA copyright laws.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: No reasonable person can ever know if I have permission

"Attach a permissions clause to the EXIF?"

oh, my various dieties, NO! let's not go there, ok? we dont' want some kind of "attach legalese" requirements on intarweb content. What's next, "pre-coitus" legal documents to legally ensure you're not raping a girl before having sex with her? No, wait...

there are TOO MANY LAWYERS already. last thing we need to do is EMPOWER them even MORE.

We're calling it now: FCC votes 2-1 to rip up net neutrality on Thurs

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: I wish I were pyrokinetic...

"So every time I heard a politician or corporate bastard lying I could set their pants on fire."

extend that to 'fake news' organizations like CBS, ABS, NBS, CNNBS, MSNBS, etc. and I'm with ya.

(yes the network names ending in 'BS' are, of course, a joke, and require no spelling corrections)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: (unsurprising)

the only parts of the intarwebs owned by the USA are in the USA. And most of that is privately owned anyway, so "owned by the USA" is somewhat misleading. And gummint regulates it, just like anything else. Outside of the USA, it's covered by ICANN, Internic, W3C, and others.

and those organizations are slowly becoming independent.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Despite more than a million comments opposing it

as I understand, the e-mail and comment "flood" campaign was determined to be (yet another) astro-turfing attempt, probably by paid activists. again. just like the paid anti-Trump demonstrators. It represents a small fraction of the people. Pai knows this. That's why he's ignoring it.

Dear George Soros (the most likely financier of these kinds of things): you are being a pain in our butts. you do NOT represent the majority. You only represent your own self-interests. You are a former Nazi collaborator. You broke the bank of England (and others) doing currency manipulation. In short, you're evil. Just go away.

Yo, patch that because scum still wanna exploit WannaCrypt-linked vuln

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

"I fail to understand not just why, but how, there are so many windows machines with SMB open to the internet."

a) dialup

b) clueless user with old-style "everybody gets a static IP" setup [there may still be a few out there]

c) cable or DSL modems that aren't NAT routers

d) someone set up IPv6 on a windows box, thinking "new, shiny", and it now acts like an un-firewalled connection because it's NOT behind a NAT barrier

And, FYI, it does NOT have to be 'a server'. All windows workstations (since '95 ?) would open up port 445, particularly XP, and it's basically "windows file sharing".

I wonder how many of those open 445 ports were on IPv6 addresses but firewalled on IPv4?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: It's worth following the link in the article

"clueless owner" might be dial-up connections. people still use them occasionally. OK it's impossible to use anything "the cloud" over dial-up, but you can still get e-mail and browse SOME web sites that way.

/me had to do the 'dialup' thing last year when my connection was down, bad copper, phone company finally replaced it, took several outages before they just ran me a new line from end to end. Web mail is IMPOSSIBLE to read due to excessive CDNs and scripting [thanks Micro-shaft, for screwing up hotmail], so you basically can't do it without a POP mail client. But the 90's called and it still "works".

Robot lands a 737 by hand, on a dare from DARPA

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: first they came for the co-pilot...

"First they came for the drivers, of course."

Hi! I'm Johnny Cab.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Huh?

"It will still need to be customised for every type of plane"

not if it's "human enough". Then an ODB-II type connection for aircraft, and you're all set!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Needs a cute name

Or... RUFUS!

(from a ridiculously funny sci-fi book I read decades ago, which I can't find anyplace - called "Hey, down there!" - the computer picked a name for itself, 'Rufus')

(you know the jokes are geeky enough when you have to explain them)

MP3 'died' and nobody noticed: Key patents expire on golden oldie tech

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: MP3 is good enough for 90% of people.

"use solid core mains cable for speaker wire because it's cheap"

type of wire OBVIOUSLY doesn't alter sound quality, yeah, unless it's corroded. Solid may be less susceptible to this. But corrosion will happen regardless. After all, you're running electricity across a junction of dissimilar metals in an atmosphere with moisture in it. Give it time, and you'll need to clean or replace the wires. until then, enjoy!

and cheap wires save money. and probably last just as long.

and gold plating rubs off and doesn't stop the corrosion. it just looks shiny.

SILVER, on the other hand, tends to oxidize into a material that is reasonably conductive, but it's black and doesn't "look pretty". So, how come nobody is doing THAT for consumer gear? The military uses solid silver connectors in critical applications for this very reason. it's uber-reliable.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: My old teacher...

"Sometimes good kit, which need not be expensive, is too good for stuff which was recorded years ago that the engineers then couldn't hear."

many recording formats required some form of level compression to avoid distortion and poor SNR . Cassette tape would've been the worst in this regarde. Vinyl ALWAYS sounded better than cassette [I used to tape my old vinyl on good quality tape, which sounded better than pre-recorded, but still "different" than vinyl). And when you listen to some of the old stuff that sounded GREAT on vinyl, but it was digitized to CD without the level compression, you hear things that weren't there before. "better dynamic range" isn't always "better sound".

so maybe if I run it through Audacity and convert to MP3 or OGG...

Why Microsoft's Windows game plan makes us WannaCry

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

If anything good comes from WannaCrypt

(deserves its own topic)

and, a review of how Micro-shaft has a pretty BAD history of releasing potential zero-day vulnerabilities within their code in the FIRST place.

I mean, they've had more than a DECADE to review their OS and fix these things. Instead they did:

a) windows vista

b) windows 7 (which was good, but kept a few elements of vista that I don't really like)

c) windows "ape" and "ape point 1" (apparent re-writes, big waste of time)

d) win-10-nic

If they'd taken the SAME amount of effort in some serious line-by-line code review, INSTEAD of just saying "new, shiny, let's do it OUR way since it's OUR turn now" (i.e. the millenials in charge, now) then they would have FIXED this flaw [buffer overrun - duh] and we'd have XP SP8 or WIn 7 SP4 or something instead of *THAT*

/me facepalms. no 'doh' about it.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

"So are Linux versions from 2001 still being supported by their vendors?"

not directly, but since it's open source, you could fork it and do it yourself.

Additionally, the upgrade is MUCH LESS PAINFUL for Linux than for windows. In short, to upgrade a typical Linux, a tar backup of the home dirs, and a list of installed packages is MOST of the work. That assumes you'll have to do a complete re-install. Most of the distros I've seen have a way of upgrading to a new release that's moderately painless.

What Windows "upgrade" gives you is a bit like 'sticker shock' except it's "stick-it-to-you" shock, from removed customization to 2D FLATSO FLUGLY to SPYWARE and ADWARE and blatant ADVERTISING built into the OS.

Wanting to stay on XP to avoid all of the "up"grades is actually a good idea. I wish _I_ could have done that...

(I wish I could fork XP and release it to the world with a kickstarter campaign - instead, I'll have to do what I can promote Linux, as the only REAL alternative to Windows for the average desktop user, and that INCLUDES dealing with the FUD)

More UPNP woes: Crashable library bites routers and software

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

Why is ANYONE allowing UPNP to run on his router?

Keep in mind that UPNP enabled on a router can allow a malware application to open up a LISTENING PORT that punches through a firewall. And that's part of the NORMAL functionality.

It should be DISABLED out of the box by anyone with at least HALF a clue.

this article casts that particular functionality in a positive light. Read between the lines, and you'll see JUST how dangerous this kind of functionality can be, particularly with "click on the attachment" or web-based exploits.

https://www.codeproject.com/articles/13285/using-upnp-for-programmatic-port-forwardings-and-n

and for no OTHER reason (though the one mentioned in the article is certainly a GOOD one as well), UPNP should have been disabled a long time ago if you didn't do it already.

Microsoft to spooks: WannaCrypt was inevitable, quit hoarding

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Microsoft is actually right this time ('slow clap' again)

Microsoft is actually right this time - slow clap - Gummints should *NOT* hoard vulnerabilities and NOT disclose them, in order to abuse them later on for whatever reason they see fit.

I have to wonder how long the U.S. gummint (or in particular the NSA and/or CIA) has known about THIS one. I would guess all the way back to 2003...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

"it doesn't help that they have history in (ab)using their update process to distribute unwanted changes.."

I cannot UP vote that one enough!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

"mandatory forced updates"

I cannot DOWN vote that enough...

For now, GNU GPL is an enforceable contract, says US federal judge

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: That doesn't matter

"Enforceable perhaps, but where?"

it would be enforceable within the USA. And a Korean company doing business in the USA would have to comply with U.S. laws for distributing their software inside the USA.

But if their software is ONLY distributed in Korea, then yeah, a Korean court would have to hear the case.

I didn't happen to see anything in the article with respect to the specifics of their product distribution though. Perhaps someone else has some insight on this?

and the article was a good analysis of the legal thingies involved, and I'm happy the judgement went in favor of the GPL.

/me also wonders why the software company didn't just say "oops" and hastily create a web page to download the source for the latest modified ghostscript version...

Oracle crushed in defeat as Java world votes 'No' to modular overhaul

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: Sun was always a little arrogant about Java

"we would still have to use archaic rubbish like C++ and PHP."

"archaic rubbish"? Seriously? You actually believe that?

Which brings up why _I_ am _VERY_ happy that 'modular' wasn't "just adopted": because the '.Not' that 'aberglas' apparently thinks was 'spawned' by Java, resulting in C-pound and a _LOT_ of pure ugliness, is *JUSTIFICATION* for *WHY* we must "put the brakes on" for "yet another new, shiny" being EXCRETED from the IMMATURE minds of INEXPERIENCED MILLENIAL CHILDREN.

Just because you CAN, does _NOT_ mean you SHOULD. In the past it was ".Not" and C-pound. In the present it is UWP, Win "Ape" and Win-10-nic. In the future it *WILL* *NO* *LONGER* *BE* Java "the Modular version".

(Thank whatever dieties and demons were involved in making THAT *NOT* happen!)

and a BIG down-thumb for calling C++ and PHP "archaic rubbish"

A bleary-eyed Microsoft wakes up after its cloud, IoT party, clears throat: 'Oh yeah, so Windows...'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Cross-Platform

can be achieved with wxWidgets, GTK, and Qt. Yes, it's C++. wxWidgets is also a lot like MFC, probably by design.

So, if you're like ME, and have been using MFC for windows programs since the 90's, *REFUSING* to jump on the "new, shiny" bandwagon and drink the coolaid of "C-pound" and ".Not" and now "UWP" (where 'P' stands for PATHETIC), you code in C++ and could (with some effort) port an existing MFC program over to wxWidgets [for example] at the source level, assuming there's no ".Not" in it.

C++ with wxWidgets, GTK, Qt... and of course the Java language stuff. *REAL* cross-platform tools that have been in use for QUITE some time now.

(if it won't run on Linux, BSD, and a Mac, it's not truly "cross-platform", and phone 'apps' aren't for the desktop anyway, and deserve their own separate implementations accordingly)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Go

Re: Too little too late.

"Also, fix the UI."

A *bit* TLDR but I thumbed-up your post anyway. I *hate* hamburger menus and both Chrome and Firefox swallowed THAT coolaid within the last couple of years... [at least in FF you can get a REAL menu back, but can't eliminate the blasted hamburger].

And don't forget getting rid of that 2D FLATSO FLUGLY mandate. Sinofsky deserves a special place in HELL for having INFLICTED that upon us all.

74 countries hit by NSA-powered WannaCrypt ransomware backdoor: Emergency fixes emitted by Microsoft for WinXP+

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: @sad_loser

"This whole thing is courtesy of Uncle Sam. "

no, just a select few in key places within gummint. "drain the swamp", and plug the leaks and 'unmaskings'.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: Risk Management

Sounds overly simple (simplistic?) to me.

I'd add a 4th choice:

4) switch to a Linux-based solution by taking what WOULD be the extra cost for moving to Win-10-nic and hiring a team of software developers (through the copyright owners even, as needed) to get all of that software to work in Wine or re-write it to be native Linux applications.

Keep in mind that migrating everything to windows (which would probably end up being Win-10-nic) has its OWN costs and time associated with it. It's just as likely that XP versions of the software *WILL* need updating, at an inflated cost over "just upgrading to Win-10-nic" and/or new computers to run all of that.

Besides, if NIH were to abandon Micro-shaft's "solutions" they'd save tax money in the long run, and help lead the way in NOT getting locked into Micro-shaft for managing medical things.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: worthy of mention

"On stand-alone PC's, ensure you have an adequate AV solution"

The problem with this is that the signature for any new malware won't be available until the target has been released

and this:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/09/microsoft_windows_defender_security_hole/

where having "Defender" running to scan things is likely to create MORE problems than it solves...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

And we'd sure appreciate it if you could stop clicking on attachments

Don't "just open" attachments, period.

And oh by the way, Defender has a new (patched correctly yet?) security crater that can insert an exploit just by SCANNING an infected e-mail. Just to make things worse...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/09/microsoft_windows_defender_security_hole/

(more thanks to El Reg keeping us informed)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

worthy of mention

one source suggests that it spreads by accessing port 445, potentially from the internet.

https://www.hackbusters.com/news/stories/1532486-player-3-has-entered-the-game-say-hello-to-wannacry

and an e-mail attachment payload would give it access to your LAN. yeah, not good.

UK hospital meltdown after ransomware worm uses NSA vuln to raid IT

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: It appears the source IP address is...

scanning port 445, which SHOULD be blocked at the firewall. but apparently is NOT.

According to THIS web site, the worm in question scans for vulnerabilities on port 445. This is an old problem which most net-savvy people BLOCK for incoming packets of any type. Yes, you do NOT want "teh intarwebs" accessing your SMB ports. EVAR.

So it looks like blocking those SMB ports (445, 139) from "teh intarwebs", and (potentially) blocking SMBv1 access on your network PERIOD, are 2 ways of mitigating this problem.

some technical info here:

https://www.hackbusters.com/news/stories/1532486-player-3-has-entered-the-game-say-hello-to-wannacry

PC repair chap lets tech support scammer log on to his PC. His Linux PC

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Ideas for a new game

"Feel free to come up with even more twisted ideas..."

Just put the most hideous shock-site graphic you can find on the 'simulated' desktop as wallpaper. Or back-hack their machine and open up an infinite number of popup windows containing the "you are an idiot" flash bomb.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: VOIP

"you win against the scammers if they call you a mother [bleep] before they hang up."

OK this reminds me of a "troll point" list that was once posted to the alt.hacker newsgroup. In short, if you feed trolls to string them along, etc. you get points for the responses your trolls give you, such as (making this up as I go along):

a) attempts to DDOS you - 10 points

b) sends a windows virus to your Linux computer - 25 points

c) calls you on the telephone - 100 points

d) subscribes your e-mail address to dozens of mailing lists - negative 5 points

etc.

A similar list could exist for these phone scammers, such as:

a) provides you with contact information - 25 points

b) is actually at the number the provide you in 'a' - 100 points

c) calls back "later" when you ask them to - 10 points

d) tries to scan your Linux/BSD computer for vulnerabilities (knowing it's Linux/BSD) - 10 points

e) tries to VNC into your Linux/BSD computer - 10 points

f) gets caught in your honeypot after doing 'e' - 25 points

g) tries to install a windows virus/trojan on your Linux/BSD computer, even after it's obvious it's NOT a windows computer - 25 points

h) DDoS's you after the phone call ends - 100 points

etc.

(trolling the trolls)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"Even now it takes a court order , not a random email"

I've gotten responses to ISP complaints before, and seen what APPEARS to be an action from the information I give out (such as logs), but yeah without some real evidence they can justify taking action with, it's probably just going to be "noted".

Does the UK have something like 'donotcall.gov' where you can report scammer calls?

Perhaps a nice log/capture of what you did on your computer, along with a play by play description, would do it? Dates and times would help, too. They need that to look up dynamic IP assignments.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: For the phone scammers ...

"I ask 'em if their mommy knows what they do for a living, and if mommy is proud of them."

I like this technique the best:

scammer: "You have a virus on your windows computer"

me: "What was the name of your company again"

scammer: "company name"

me: "I'm really busy right now, can I call you back? What's your phone number there?"

If I can troll enough information from ANYONE _DARING_ to phone me with _ANY_ kind of cold call, scam or otherwise, I then inform them that MY NUMBER IS ON THE NATIONAL DO-NOT-CALL LIST, and tell them to NEVER CALL BACK, usually with profanity attached.

Then I report them on 'donotcall.gov' with as many details as I was able to glean.

Yes, NOTHING is too good for our "friends" !

All that free music on YouTube is good for you, Google tells music biz

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pint

Re: not convinced

"They can't control what we listen to anymore."

"Maybe, just maybe, YouTube isn't the problem here."

you NAILED it! have a beer!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: not convinced

"By its nature youtube is not an optimal choice for actually listening to music for a long time"

Who here has NOT done this:

a) watch video with sound track that you like

b) use a 'download helper' to get a local copy of it

c) use something lke 'ffmpeg' to convert to an mp3 format

d) use something like 'Audacity' to do some final cleanup so you can put it onto your mp3 player.

You could do the same with a movie that's playing music during the ending credits.

You could do the same with a TV show that has a good song as part of its content or opening or ending

You could do the same by using a tool like 'streamripper' to capture streaming content

You could even do the same thing by using an FM stereo radio plugged into the sound port on your computer, and a quality audio recorder that doesn't skip recording things every time the OS burps or a screen saver pops up (but the post editing would be a bit more difficult than with the others)

In short, there are many venues for capturing (legitimately so, under 'fair use', in many cases) content, and many methods by which it can be made into an mp3 file for personal use.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: I don't get it

"a 'Lyrics' video that just scrolls the lyrics by as the song plays"

there are also a lot of anime-related "slideshow" videos that do similar things. They might have video clips from TV shows or movies along with the music content. Some of them are very well done (the old 'Aluminum Studios' videos come to mind) but it's hard to claim "fair use" on the sound track, yeah.

I still think the root of the problem is RIAA's revenue model. They need to _STOP_ doing the "recording contract" thing, and _STOP_ funding a dozen "crap band" contracts with ONE GOOD BAND contract. And THEN stop it with their monopolistic marketing practices, i.e. controlling what you hear, repeating the same CRAP [and rejecting everything else] until "you like it" well enough to buy it...

[except for short periods when they played music by bands like Muse, Metric, Smash Mouth, etc., I stopped listening to broadcast radio that isn't "classic rock" or a niche market like Jazz, because MOST of the stuff I heard was just, plain, CRAP, 'same old' CRAP even. At least on youtube you get a proper selection of things that aren't CRAP, legality notwithstanding]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Radio?

"Broadcasters do their best not to let you record a song from the beginning to the end as if it was from an album"

That's not really done deliberately. It's actually for the show format. A typical song will not end 'strong', but will fade or repeat or similar. And so, to cram more songs into an hour, a radio station (especially when AM still played music) does a fadeover, or cuts it short, or similar. 'Fadeover' is the old-school way of doing it, where you queue up the next song to start just before the old one is done, then quickly fade out the old one when the sound of the new one starts.

So the end result, to the listener, is a continuous "no dead air" sound feed.

and of course intarweb radio can be "streamripped" with reasonable success. Cutting off the head/tail of a song does not significantly reduce its value as being part of an MP3 player's song list. [you can use tools like 'Audacity' to clean them up a bit before putting them on your MP3 player]

and yeah, ffmpeg does a nice job of converting "youtube download" into "mp3 file".