Posts by sixit

TeleMessage security SNAFU worsens as 60 government staffers exposed

Please Stop Using That Word Incorrectly

Sigh. The word you're looking for in the title is SNAG. The word SNAFU doesn't mean what you think it means.

Cloudflare broke its logging-as-a-service service, causing customer data loss

Not the Same

Dear folks,

Please stop confusing snag and snafu. They are not synonyms. SNAFU is an acronym for a situation report: situation normal: all fouled up (polite version). It's an adjective, not a verb.

Sincerely,

The rest of us who cackle when snafu is used incorrectly

Big browsers are about to throw a wrench in your ad-free paradise

uMatrix For The Win

The privacy concerns for Firefox are easily turned off. Moreover, GorHill also made uMatrix (which is currently abandoned, but does it really need updates?) which is a more secure product and nearly fully configurable. Is it perfect? No. Is it effective? Extremely.

The major downside is that it takes a hearty dedication to configuring it. The learning curve is steep. But I've honed my settings over years, and am quite pleased with the lack of analytics and advertisements that I encounter, as well as the safety it provides.

uMatrix is still available in the Firefox Add-Ons store, and you can fork your own version over at GitHub.

Unity closes offices, cancels town hall after threat in wake of runtime fee restructure

Irony is Sweet

Huh, wouldya look at that: just in time for those looking to flee Unity, Humble Bundle offer's a very large Godot software bundle! https://www.humblebundle.com/software/everything-you-need-to-know-about-godot-4-encore-software (training and resources, not actual software, though). Still, Unity will quickly find itself in the same dustbin as the *original* DIVX (player - look up the history) with this bone-headed move. The CEO needs to find another career; he's one of those greedy, inhuman scumbags that make capitalism worthy of disdain.

Infrastructure SNAFU results in French public being unable to contact emergency services

SNAG, not SNAFU

SNAFU isn't a noun, but SNAG is. In fact, SNAFU is an acronym: S.N.A.F.U.

Director, deputy director, CTO of Free Software Foundation quit after Stallman installation

I met...

... one of his ex-girlfriends who he'd made paranoid that he was snooping on her. That was 20 years ago. I had to check her computer for snoopware, etc. and didn't find any. But whatever he did to her was hella serious. I had been a fan of his up to that point, and the Epstein stance simply confirmed that girlfriend's experience with him.

FSF will soon stand for Farewall, Software Foundation!

Talk about a cache flow problem: This JavaScript can snoop on other browser tabs to work out what you're visiting

It's not necessary to block all JS, just the malicious one. And since this attack will certainly have many fingerprints identifying it, in very short order will there be tools to identify and remove or mitigate the threat.

In short, the only people who need to worry about this in the long run are those that don't take security seriously and / or people who run unpatched / insecure systems.

Web analytics outfit Mixpanel slurped surfers' passwords

Partly User Fault

Seriously, the user is partly to blame for not protecting themselves from spying online. It's ludicrously easy to blacklist Mixpanel and never have to worry about this again.

That said, time to start applying some heavy duty federal laws against these companies, starting with MixPanel, to drive them out of business.

Windows Fall Creators Update is here: What do you want first – bad news or good news?

Re: What is this fall sh*t

Microsoft's HQ is in the northern hemisphere. Get over it.

Inverted

Nearly everything you touted as good is a good reason to PASS! I don't want Cortana. I don't want XBox. I don't a store. I'd rather run Windows in Linux, not the other way around. The *only* thing I saw of interest was that Edge now runs inside a VM.

Microsoft needs two versions: one for the general user, and one for those of us who are more than capable of controlling the system 100%. Control isn't for Microsoft to take. Ask for, sure, but not to take. Same goes for user data points. There's too much spying on the Windows user, and not enough stopping of it.

No way in hell am I letting that on my computer.

Did ROPEMAKER just unravel email security? Nah, it's likely a feature

I Am Immune

This is a primary, though not even close to the only, reason I use plain-text only email. Microsoft, marketers - and lazy users - are the biggest reason this threat exists.

Tick-tick... boom: Germany gives social media giants 24 hours to tear down hate speech

Hitler did something similar back in the day

Tsk, tsk, Germany, your fascist roots are showing. It's irony that your hate-speech law can be itself considered hate-speech by some. Frankly, though, no one should have the right to make such a law.

Are you ready to be plunged into the black forest of the social media void your country will endure if the big social media companies simply decide Germany isn't worth allowing to be on their service? You, Germany, are looking at the equivalent of a Soviet-era Berlin firewall around your capital, should Twitter and Facebook choose to put something up between you and them for their safety. Stand down before the world yet again shows your ass to the floor by putting you back into the dark ages that was pre-internet connectivity.

UK copyright troll weeps, starts 20-week stretch in the cooler for beating up Uber driver

Re: 20 wks in prison! He's a kid for fucks sake!

To plead mercy because you make money and should be exempt from the law is insane. To consider such a vicious attack "a trivial matter" is insane. What he got was indeed a slap on the wrist. The next time someone beats the crap out of you, I suggest you appeal to the judge to let your attacker off with a written warning if this bothers you.

Associated Press sues FBI for impersonating its site to install spyware

Or, better yet, just turn off effing javascript!

The #1 cause of malware is the lack of user awareness or care about javascript, allowing any and all to run willy-nilly. Marketers also love this. Sadly, some people actually *bash* the turning off of javascript! Said people are morons, by the way.

Use a utility to reject javascript by default, and don't use Chrome. Keep yourself safe, folks.

How a chunk of the web disappeared this week: GlobalSign's global HTTPS snafu explained

Can we please stop using SNAFU incorrectly?

I'm sure the author meant "snag" not SNAFU. There is no such thing as "a" snafu; it is an acronym for Situation Normal: All F*cked Up!

The web is past peak innovation: It's all negative returns from here

Ads? Bad JavaScript? Where???

FlashBlock + NoScript + Ghostery on Firefox for the win!

I'd sooner use IE5 than Chrome these days, too. Google + Chrome are a large instigator of this issue.

Re: Lynx

"Cat pictures are never useless"

Only true when they're pictures of Lynx. And panthers.

Just a little FYI: Small town ISPs want out of FCC privacy rules

Nothing in these rules prevents them from hiring a company to do their mailing for them, and nothing prevents them from doing advertising themselves.

This is nothing more than a ploy to earn extra income by leveraging those customers' personal data.

Locky now top email menace

Plain-Text Wins Again

And this is just one reason I only read email in plain-text.

Chrome turning off pocket vibrator

Here's a thought: Don't Use Chrome.

Problem solved.

Harrison Ford's leg, in the Star Wars film, with the Millennium Falcon door

What Galaxy Is The Author Living In?

"best known for playing CSO Jack Stanfield in the 2006 cyber-thriller Firewall"

Huh? Best known for a fairly obscure movie? Not for the titular character in the Indiana Jones series of films or as dashing-yet-scruffy bad boy in a little franchise known as Star Wars (you know, the franchise mentioned in this article). Please tell me that statement is a bit of cheeky trolling in the way only Brits can cajole.

Welcome to the jumbo: Axl Rose tries to take a bite out of 'Fat Axl' internet meme

U.S. Copyright Law Is A Bit Different

The reason here in the U.S. that no one is minding the DCMA takedown notices is this little thing in Copyright Law called "Fair Use". Whilst in blightyland the addition of a heavy sans-serif font with sarcastic messages might not suffice to alleviate copyright claims, it's sufficient enough across the pond.

Further, attempts to take down clear Fair Use satirical images can have a detrimental effect on the company and/or Axl Rose by means of financial penalties they could face for the improper takedown notices.

Yes, it's sad that fat-shaming is still a thing. Yet, Mr. Rose has been a public figure for most of his life and should expect that shocked fans would take issue with his extraordinary change. At least it's pretty clear he's no longer on heroin.

Can ad biz’s LEAN avert ADPOCALYPSE?

Stop Being Creepy!

The biggest issue I have with ads, beyond being incredibly annoying (It was years before I saw a Flash-based ad), is the tracking. I recently created a new Firefox profile to do some site testing, and forgot that it was a 'virgin' profile without any of my addons. I went to one page, and was blindsided by full-audio video ads, which one in my haste I accidentally clicked on trying to turn it off. The next site I went to, completely unrelated, had ads related to the thing I had clicked on. That was amazingly creepy! I quit that profile, deleted it entirely, and created a new one to do my testing in.

I don't - and I won't ever - use Chrome, which is worse than IE 5 ever was, which was historically the most universally despised browser. Back then, I used Opera Pro (yes, I paid for it gladly) which had a button on the bottom status bar that had three settings: show everything, show cached images, no images. The latter could be set to show placeholders which would allow you to view the specific image. Naturally, I used this one, choosing only to see the relevant images. The pages loaded fast, my cache stayed trim and lean, and it never drew down advertisements.

Lately I tried Opera again, and it's just a reskin of Chrome. It's glory days are long since buried and eaten by worms.

Marketers:

- Don't use JavaScript.

- Don't set cookies.

- Don't use Flash or any other multimedia.

- Don't use audio.

- Don't use Unique IDentifiers.

- Don't use popups and popunders.

- Don't prevent my page or browser from closing.

- Don't open new windows or new tabs.

Maybe then I'll consider unblocking your ads.

Your mother has a smooth forehead, Klingon language lovers roar at Paramount

I'm confident it wasn't a paralegal but the actual lawyer who wrote it. Mr. Randazza seems to enjoy this type of stuff greatly; he seems pretty chuffed about it.

Many of you will enjoy this, er, brief connecting blog post

https://popehat.com/2016/04/28/marc-randazza-wrote-an-amicus-brief-about-klingon-and-its-magnificent/

Ho ho hosed: Asian biz malware pwns air-gaps, thousands of Androids

Why is the malware title masked?

Why the hell would The Reg obscure the malware title? Shame on you!

Help! What does 'personal conduct unrelated to operations or financials' mean?

$h*tty $h*tty bang bang

He was banging someone, or something, or multiples/mixtures thereof. Or maybe he just didn't shower.

So just what is the third Great Invention of all time?

Surely it is the Harnessing of Energy

Without the application of harnessed energy, the rest of civilization would not exist beyond what was found in simple tribes such as those found in New Guinea or Central/South America.

It goes far back enough to use fire, then later make fire. Later is the application of chemistry through chemical reactions. More recently it is harnessing electrons and protons. In the future, it will be harnessing components of those bits of matter and other bits we have only just glimpsed or not even conceived.

Next will be the manipulation of time and/or space. But we aren't there yet.

P.S.: Math isn't an invention - it is a series of discoveries. ;)