Posts by SotarrTheWizard

Chinese defence boffins ponder microwaving Starlink satellites to stop surveillance

And then Elon. . . .

. . .starts adding Titaniium Rods to StarLink Birds, , , and the ability to do a targeted mass de-orbit. And suddenly a fairly defined area gets a rain of small Rods from God. . . .

Yukon UFO could have cost unfortunate balloon fan $12

Re: Republicans have a lot to answer for

Get it right. It was 'those meddling kids and their stupid dog'. . . . (grin)

Renewables are cheaper than coal in all but one US location

Re: Don't remind me. .

Well, because at the last three member meetings (we're in a Electric Co-op), the board voted down proposals for expanded peak generating capacity at existing sites, rather than buy electricity from other groups on the spot market as needed. . .

Don't remind me. .

. . . my current Utility penalizes me for any electricity use beyond 60% of the "Average American Household', by charging an additional 50% penalty on all "excess" usage between May 1st and October 31st. It's supposedly an incentive to "conserve". They wouldn't be doing it if they had sufficient generating capability. . .

FAA grounds all US departures after NOTAM goes down

Re: NOTAMS Alternatives

No. You look up airports on and along your route.

Re: "but which aren't known about enough in advance to publicize by other means"

According to ICAO, it's still "Notices to Airmen". The PC version is purely US. . . .

Microsoft’s Nadella: Tech is in for a rough two years

Re: Oct 2025 Win10 End of Life. There's going to be so much obsolete Win10 h/w that can run Linux

Also, the Check is in the Mail, I'll respect you in the morning, and 'Read My Lips: No New Taxes". . . . . ;)

Meet the merry pranksters who keep the workplace interesting, if not productive

We had a manager who loved his buzzwords. . . .

. . . and never, ever locked his desktop. We added a few words to his auto-correct settings. He was particularly fond of the word "petabyte". Which we arranged for MS Word to 'correct' to 'pedophile' . . . .

Voice assistants failed because they serve their makers more than they help users

Re: Alexa:

Alexa, open the Pod Bay Doors. . . .

. . .and Alexa **will** answer.. . .

Guess the most common password. Hint: We just told you

I noticed that "ChuckNorris" isn't on the list. . .

. . . .simply because **everyone** knows you can't beat Chuck Norris. . . (grin)

(And yes, I know the story of how Facebook, in the early years, used a munged version of Chuck Norris as their main internal password. . . )

Jaguar Land Rover courts coders caught in big tech layoffs

If what Elon stated was correct. . .

. . . .most of the Twits who were let go were manglement, not coders.

Time will tell. . . .

Look! Up in the sky! Proof of concept for satellites beaming energy to Earth!

Re: You also get the problem ....

The late Dr. Jerry Pournelle described it this way:

“Out there in space it's raining soup, and we don't know about soup bowls.”

I, for one, am willing to invest in Soup Bowl Technology. . . (grin)

Re: You also get the problem ....

Solar Thermal in orbit is workable, although I would think it would be more likely a liquified metal used for thermal transfer, rather than water.

Gartner thinks enterprise IT will be immune to recession

'Entering' a recession ??

. . .last time I checked, the definition of a recession was 2 or more consecutive quarters of negative GDP Growth. . Per the US Bureau of Economic Analysis the change in the US GDP so far this year is:

Q1 2022 (3rd) -1.6%

Q2 2022 (3rd) -0.6%

We've been in a recession for 6+ months now. . . .

AI recruitment software is 'automated pseudoscience', Cambridge study finds

I guess "Competence" isn't a consideration. . . .

"They argue the new tools could remove human biases and help companies meet their diversity, equity, and inclusion goals by hiring more people from underrepresented groups."

Whatever happened to hiring the most qualified candidate ???

If someone weaponizes our robots, we'll be really, really sad, says Boston Dynamics

First Rule of Security. . .

. . . .if your "Bad Actor" has physical access to the tech, they **will** find a way to exploit and modify it. . .

Re: Bad actors

Ah. . .. but will it protect us from, say at least William Shatner ???

Modified version of Tor Browser spies on Chinese users

Sounds familiar. . .

. . .just another version of the milspeak "We can neither confirm nor deny <$foo>" . . .

BOFH: But soft! What light through yonder filing cabinet breaks?

Re: Hilarious!

Don't laugh. . . . One gig, we were dealing with late-90s Sparc Ultra 5s. . .running our firewalls. . . in 2005. Between the SparcStations, the Ultras, and the newer rackmounts, for a time, we were running everything from Solaris 5.6 (as I recall) to Solaris 9. . . .

REvil ransomware gang's websites vanish soon after Kaseya fiasco, Uncle Sam threatens retaliation

Re: Crossed the hallway

They can re-brand all they want. Unless they use an entirely different bag of tricks, and especially their code, their signatures would be mostly unchanged. And thus, easy to see that they just re-skinned under a new name.

Microsoft names Chinese group as source of new attack on SolarWinds

Re: Rarer than unicorns?

Not out of the box. Potentially, if flashed with DD-WRT or OpenWRT. . . but J. Random User lacks the knowledge, much less the skills to do so. . .

Otherwise, the only secure consumer routers are still in their original boxes, sealed and shrinkwrarr

America world’s sole cyber superpower, ten years ahead of China, says Brit think tank

As noted. . .

. . . .this is looking at national-level activities. As in, run by your local flavor of .gov.

But, overall, while .US may have a massive offensive cyber infrastructure (at least I hope they do, if not, why am I paying taxes for "Cyber Command" ??? ), defensively, we're crap.

The best allegory I can think of, is World War 2 Tanks. The US is a German Tiger II Panzer. Superb gun, amazing armor, technologically sophisticated. . . . and breaks down every 20 miles or so.

As opposed to the Russians, Chinese, etc, who bring massive fleets of T-34s to the field. Because Quantity has a Quality all its' own. And they rely on constantly Zerging targets. . . .

Microsoft releases Windows 11 Insider Preview, attempts to defend labyrinth of hardware requirements

Re: Windows 11 hardware requirements

. . .Because Running with Windows is ***far*** more dangerous than Running with Scissors (evil grin)

The world has a plastics shortage, and PC makers may be responding with a little greenwashing

Re: The world has plenty of plastic

According to several studies I've seen, the top oceanic plastic polluters are China, Indonesia, and the Phillipines.

Source: https://www.statista.com/chart/12211/the-countries-polluting-the-oceans-the-most/

I've also seen reports that put Phillipine rivers as the worst individual offenders:

https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics

And people wonder why I have a Filabot. I don't even need to buy plastic pellets to feed my 3-d printer, most months. . .

SEC still digging into SolarWinds fallout, nudges undeclared victims

Re: Team of 1000

. . . or that there was a lot of copy-pasta of stolen code in the exploit. . .

Good news for pentesters and network admins: US issues ransomware guidance asking biz to skill up security teams

And gee. . .

. . . .with all this supposed demand for Cyber experts. . .you'd think pay would be going up.

You would be wrong. . .

The common factor in all your failed job applications: Your CV

The ones that really bother me. . ..

. . . .are the pimps^h^h^h^h^h recruiters who demand to talk about your feelings and who you are as a person. Especially when you look up the vegetable-that-walks-like-a-man on LinkedIn, and found that only a few months before, they were running a Payless Shoe Store, or were a "Customer Service Manager" at a car rental firm. or, best of all, were a "Banquet Captain" at some Event Facility.

And then you find out about the ridiculous fees that the pimps charge companies that they procure for. . . . .

Ransomware victim Colonial Pipeline paid $5m to get oil pumping again, restored from backups anyway – report

Re: Maybe a new BOFH story here?

. . .that's a lot of Onion Bhajis. . . .

Once you pay the Danegeld. . .

. . .you never get rid of the Dane. . . .

Colonial Pipeline was looking to hire cybersecurity manager before ransomware attack shut down operations

Re: Maybe not

Tell me about it. The C-suite demanding admin access to their boxes, and the ability to install any software they want.

Marketing demanding that they can access their personal email via a webmail client.

BYOD.

Need I go on ??

Uncle Sam wants 'ethical hackers' to crack its planetary defenses, but don't expect a pay-day from this bug bounty

Re: Why does the Pentagon spend more on seafood than bug bounties?

Sounds phishy to me. . . .

Atheists appeal to higher power for intercession over alleged sins against privacy

In related news. . . .

. . . the People's Front of Judea is suing the Judean People's Front. . . . (grin)

Biden's $2tn infrastructure plan includes massive broadband rollout, equates internet access with water and power as essential utilities

Re: Joined up thinking..

I just escaped Comcast in .us several months ago. They're quad-play, at least supposedly, But I don't know anyone who actually uses Comcast Mobile. . . .Doesn't stop them from having truly epic levels of FAIL. . . .

SpaceX small print on Starlink insists no Earth government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities

Re: What a surprise

. . .and are they sending their crack Suicide Squad ??

Re: Rama continued

The question is. . . . is Elon vulnerable to the Indian Love Song, as performed by Slim Whitman ?? Or has he been developing an immunity ??

Don't mess with Mars. . . .

. . . Or Elon and his pals will pull out an Eludium Pu-38 Explosive Space Modulator. . . .

. . . .and then there will be an Earth-shattering Kaboom!!! ;)

UK watchdog fines two firms £270k for cold-calling 531,000 people who had opted out

The problem is obvious. . . . nobody is using the required TPS Report Cover Sheets.. .

. . . .Apparently, they didn't get the memo. . . (grin)

CERT/CC: 'Sensational' bug names spark fear, hype – so we'll give flaws our own labels... like Suggestive Bunny

Many years ago. . . .

. . . I ran a SOC team, and we were constantly seeing indicators of possible, or failed attacks. And, by contract, were supposed to report each and every one on initial detection. Which generally resulted in manglement reacting in typical spring-loaded fashion.

We ended up designating "possibles" as FLUFFY BUNNY incidents, and the disposition went to two categories: Actual attempts with any degree of success became WASCAWWY WABBITS, and all FLUFFY BUNNY incidents proven to be false alarms or unsuccessful were listed in the daily FUDD report.

In the 15 months I ran that shop, only one mangler realized that we were doing it, because they went all Looney Toons over the slightest issue. . . (Grin)

Trump's official campaign website vandalized by hackers who 'had enough of the President's fake news'

Re: A sign of the times

I will note beheadings in .us, .uk, and .fr, all within the last year or two. Charlie Hebdo, and again with than concert in Paris. Trucks running down pedestrians. Bombings.

Let me know when we get similar activity from the "Christian Fundamentalists". . . .

Re: A sign of the times

It used to be ~40%.

I also will be polite and not point out the large, bearded elephant in the room with a Kalishnikov. But the French will. . .

Re: A sign of the times

Really ?? Looking at a particularly overblown novel as the future pattern of .us ?

If you haven't noticed. Evangelcals have nowhere as much of the political push as they had in the 1980s. when the "Moral Majority" and "Christian Coalition" were ascendant in Republican politics. . . .

People identifying as 'religious' are down, as well as membership in churches. . .

I can 'proceed without you', judge tells Julian Assange after courtroom outburst

Re: The Much Bigger Picture Show ....

Why, indeed ? Because it's the law: the 2003 US-UK Extradition Treaty, as ratified by the 2003 Extradition Act, as passed by Parliament, and ratified on the US side by the United States Senate in 2006.

Extradition treaties and agreements are generally between 2 nations, and "international norms" do not apply.

Ink tanks park themselves all over the lawns of Western Europe as orders flood in

Even so, the Printer Manufacturers will still zap you . . .

I had the same (major brand redacted so they won't lob a sueball at me . . ) Multi-function Inkjet with photo printing capability as the home network printer for 5+ years. Output was indistinguishable from a laser, wife needed the photo printing for her freelance graphics work, and we all used the onboard scanner.

One day a message pops up: print head is end of life, return printer for servicing . It also informed me that I could download a special utility, with my registered owner email address and the printer serial number, which would allow a generous 50 more pages to be printed. Downloaded and ran, and would get a countdown popup for every page printed.

Called the 1-800 number. . . which, of course, was closed outside of business hours and on weekends.

Eventually found out that the nearest service location was several hundred miles off, the price was more than I had paid for the printer in the first place, and, oh yes, the turnaround time was between 60 and 90 days. . . .

Went out an bought a replacement printer (of a different brand) for less than they wanted for the repair.

And then the wife, daughters, and I, took it out to the back yard, and re-enacted a certain scene from "Office Space". . .

We've reached the endgame: Bezos 'in talks' to turn shuttered department stores into Amazon warehouses

Drones, you say ??

But enough about the workers in the Amazon Distribution Hives, excuse me, Fulfillment Centers. . . (grin)

Apple was the only Fortune 50 company to foresee COVID-19 pandemic risk and properly insure against it – Forrester

Re: Things we can prevent and things we can't

Long before I did IT, I was a Geologist, at least by training. The Yellowstone Caldera "clock" is an average, as I recall, one of the intervals was ~960K years.

The interesting one is the Continental Glacial Advances, we're still in an Ice Age, and geologically speaking, the next one is due Real Soon Now. Admittedly, that's in a Geologic time frame, which translates to "any time in the next 5-10K years, beginning yesterday. . . "

Which makes the current Solar Minimum of special interest: do we get another "Little Ice Age". . . or a big one. . .

. . .and yet people are freaking over COVID. . .

. . . with an infected death rate of ~0.6%, simply because the overall numbers, while horrible, are constantly being reinforced by personal examples in the media. Yet, compared to the Spanish flu, those are small numbers, and while slightly more deadly than the 1968 Flu Pandemic (H3N2), yet significantly less deadly than the 2009 H1N1 Pandemic.

I suspect that the now ubiquity of the Net and Social media is a big part of that driver . . .

Is it Patch Blues-day for Outlook? Microsoft's email client breaks worldwide, leaves everyone stumped

Effing Micro$oft. . .

. . . .had to uninstall Office. . . then use the M$ Uninstall clue, and steam-clean all of Orifice off my box. Then re-install from DVD. 2 hours wasted. . .

IBM job ad calls for 12 years’ experience with Kubernetes – which is six years old

I've seen worse. . .

. . . like the requirement for 6+ years experience with Windows 2000 Server. . . .in 2001, roughly 18 months after it went RTM. . .

Then again, I've long since given up on HR Staff having IQs above room temperature. . . . in Centigrade. . .

PC printer problems and enraged execs: When the answer to 'Hand over that floppy disk' is 'No'

Re: Ah IT 'managers'

Then there are the other kind. I had a .gov IT manager who was **proud** of the fact that he no longer did anything "technical" on computers. The last time he had done so, he was coding COBOL. . .on punchcards ( this was circa the year 2000)

The girl with the dragnet tattoo: How a TV news clip, Insta snaps, a glimpse of a tat and a T-shirt sold on Etsy led FBI to alleged cop car arsonist

Incidentally, at least in .us. . .

. . . . the FBI has added tattoos, scars, and marks to it's "IAFIS" Fingerprint/ID system. How do I know ?? 15 years ago, I was on the Requirements team, and helped to write the Requirements Traceability and Validation Matrix document.

So, cops using tats for identification has been standard technique in .us for at least 10 years. . .