Posts by jeff_w87

Healthcare outfit that served military personnel settles allegations it faked infosec compliance for $11M

Re: No liability

And that is so much BS on the part of the findings. If they did this once and got away with it for a pittance of their profits, they'll do it again. They should be barred from all future Gov't contracts for at least 10 years.

Capital One two-day outage leaves customers in free-fall

Fine?

Don't worry, after all is said and done there will be, maybe, a $50,000 fine and no admission of wrong doing on the part of Capital One.

Starlink-branded hardware reportedly found amid wreckage of downed Russian drone

At this point....

...are we not surprised? Elon Musk has basically become a Russian asset.

One of China's best GPU prospects admits it's failing, lays off workers

Being China

You know it's definitely not labor costs...

Additional hatch operations on a Boeing vehicle – but this time it's Starliner

Rescue mission

SpaceX should offer to send a rescue mission to recover the Boeing astronauts and bring them home safely.

Google offers DoJ cash to eliminate jury in web ad monopoly abuse trial

Legalized Bribery

This is what legalized bribery looks like in America for the ultra-rich and Corporations. This should not be legal!

Another week, another leak for Boeing's Starliner crew capsule

If I were the Astronauts assigned to this mission...

I'd say, "How about we make this another unmanned flight and we'll just sit this one out?"

Microsoft boss charms Indonesia with $1.7B AI, cloud injection

It would be nice to see an American owned company such as Microsoft invest in America like this vice chasing cheap labor overseas. It wasn't other Countries that "stole" American manufacturing jobs as some people like to put it. It was American companies that gave these jobs away chasing cheap labor and avoiding those pesky regulations that they face here in the US.

October 2025 will be a support massacre for a bunch of Microsoft products

It's funny they say this: "Using products after end of support leaves your organization vulnerable to potential security threats, productivity losses, and compliance issues" when everyone knows that even with support from Microsoft their organization is "vulnerable to potential security threats, productivity losses, and compliance issues" while using their unsecure by default software.

Microsoft thinks bundles are great and customers love them

Security?

"Security is really the big driver" says the company that just got their wee-wee smacked by CISA for bad security practices...

Kremlin accuses America of plotting cyberattack on Russian voting systems

Turnout down?

That's because they've lost about 400,000 potential voters in Ukraine that will never come home again...

Broadcom moves to reassure VMware users as rivals smell an opportunity

Have you seen the quotes for VCF???

We're starting to see some of our fellow labs receive quotes for their VCF deployments (since they can't buy individual pieces anymore) and the prices are eye watering to say the least. A 4 node cluster (high core count Epyc processors) coming in at north of $250k per year. Time to look elsewhere for your virtualization needs....

Microsoft seeks Rust developers to rewrite core C# code

Re: The End Of Dotnet?

Let's hope. And don't forget the new support cycle where a DotNet LTS release is only good for 3 years. Maybe I'm old, but LTS should be good for at least 5 to 10 years so I don't have to keep re-writing my code due to the underlying DotNet no longer being supported and full of security vulnerabilities.

Broadcom to divest VMware's end-user computing and Carbon Black units

Time to move on....

Looks like Broadcom is going to be a poison on the Vmware products that we've come to depend on. Definitely time to start looking at alternatives (even in the DoD environment that I work in).

Calls for Visual Studio security tweak fall on deaf ears despite one-click RCE exploit

Using anything from Microsoft is inherently "an insecure operation."

Red Hat layoffs spark calls to unionize, CEO wades in

Yea, but....

He still didn't say how many Executives took a pay cut. If it's like other companies they probably got a large payout for cutting workers.

Microsoft adds features to Windows 11 monthly – managing it is your problem

Did anyone ask for this?

How about producing a fairly stable, robust, easy to use OS that's good for up to 10 years without major and/or minor changes breaking it each month? You know, like XP or Windows 7? They had their issues as well, but are probably two of the best OSes ever put out by MS (just my opinion - I'm sure plenty will disagree). 10 and now 11 have been nothing but a PITA from an admin perspective to maintain with all the constant changes and almost monthly patch breakages.

Windows 11 update breaks PCs that dare sport a custom UI

Time to ditch this garbage OS

Microsoft has shot themselves in the foot so much lately due to faulty patches. It is time to seriously look at alternates for any user who is able to do so.

Microsoft and community release scripts to help mitigate Defender mess

Class Action Lawsuit anyone???

Maybe it's time to put together a class action lawsuit for all the damage the last 3 months or so of Microsoft patches have caused with SQL, Active Directory, Windows 10/11, etc.? The lack of vetting of these patches and updates before being released into the wild is getting kind of ridiculous to say the least!

Cisco warns it won't fix critical flaw in small business routers despite known exploit

White Box Switches and Cumulus Linux

We bought a few of these for a backnet solution a few years ago as a test case and they worked great (also 1/3 the cost of a comparable Cisco solution)! Easy to manage, configure and secure since it's Linux based. Also available for Mellanox switches as well if you don't want to go the "white box" route. Might be worth a look for anyone looking to move on from Cisco's lack of support for their products.

Windows Server domain controllers may stop, restart after recent updates

And don't forget the problem with the freezing task bar in Windows 10

If Microsoft can't even properly patch the OS on their Servers or Desktops (and this month is just the latest example of their poor QA process), why do we keep pushing this crap on our users? Anyone who has any say so in the future direction of their network infrastructure should be pushing for alternative OSes where applicable.

SQL Server license prices rise ten percent as version 2022 debuts

Re: Word soup

That's pretty much any of their licensing guides. No idea why it takes 42 pages (2019 SQL Server Licensing Guide) to explain (I use that word loosely as by the time I get through the document I'm more confused than when I started) how to properly license SQL Server. At this point I really push people who are looking for a database option to the open source alternatives if applicable to their use case. It's time to try and wean ourselves off the Microsoft product line where feasible as their prices and data collection practices are getting untenable.

Cyber-snoops broke into US military contractor, stole data, hid for months

If you want to minimize your chances of getting hacked...

1. Don't connect your network to the Internet (sorry, people you can no longer pretend to work from home)

2. Don't use Microsoft products on your network.

3. Spend the money to properly secure and monitor your network (i.e. hire a competent network/SA team, pay them properly and buy appropriate resources/equipment to help protect your network and configure them properly).

It's not easy, but if you want security you have to make sacrifices.

Admins run into Group Policy problems after Win10 update

Apparently not just GPOs and shortcuts in a Domain

All the shortcuts on my home Windows PC all of sudden ended up with a .url extension and would no longer work. Removing the .url extension from the name did not help either. It would be really nice if Microsoft would spend some of their billions to actually, properly QC this trash OS before sending out patches to have their users Beta test for them.

Red Hat says staff can stay away from the office forever

If it's anything like where I work...

About 50% of those people "working from home" are only pretending to work, but still getting a full paycheck while those of us who actually go to work have to carry the load for the slackers. It really comes down to a management problem as no one is held accountable or metrics tracked for the work they do and people will and do take advantage of that.

Russia's new space chief confirms it will leave ISS after 2024

How about...

If you want to keep it flying how about planning on replacing the Russian modules with modules built elsewhere (either government or commercial). It won't be easy or cheap, but it's probably cheaper than trying to build a brand new space station from scratch.

Broadcom takeover deal for VMware faces no rival bids

OVIRT (free) and Redhat Enterprise Virtualization are options

I'm impressed by both depending on if you need support or not. If VMware takes a tumble under Broadcom's usual tactics, I would definitely recommend taking a look at either of these options where applicable.

China rallies support for Kylin Linux in war on Windows

Re: ChAOSIC thinking?

I'm not sure Windows is any better with all the "telemetry" it sends back to Microsoft and who knows else. At least with Linux you can examine the source code since it's open source and see if there's anything odd going on there. With Windows you just have to trust Microsoft, which I do less and less with every release of Windows.

NASA circles August in its diary to put Artemis I capsule in Moon orbit

What are the betting odds?

What are the betting odds this thing, with all its issues up to this point, either blows up on the pad or on the way into orbit?

Intel withholds Ohio fab ceremony over US chip subsidies inaction

Subsidies = Legal Bribes

Intel: It'd be a shame if some of that sweet taxpayer money didn't make it into our hands - we might just have to slow down or curtail our buildout.

These American owned Corporations have no loyalty to our Country which has enabled them and their executives to become rich beyond their wildest dreams due to the freedoms of our Country enabling them to grow and prosper. It's all about the greed. At the end of the day, it wasn't China that "stole" jobs from America - it was the American Corporations who shipped those jobs overseas just so they could make a bigger profit. Anything made overseas by an American company and imported back to the US should be hit with tariffs to curtail this behavior of chasing cheap labor they can exploit.

Wi-Fi hotspots and Windows on Arm broken by Microsoft's latest patches

Testing?

Does MS even test this crap before they push it out to their users any more? Maybe it's time for users to engage them with a class action lawsuit for damages suffered for hours lost having to fix what what should have been tested properly before being pushed. You've also got the issue that since most all patches are included in one big patch instead of a bunch of little ones that your machine is left vulnerable to additional issues that could impact the security of your network and home or business resulting in, potentially, other damages that could be sued for.

Zero-day vuln in Microsoft Office: 'Follina' will work even when macros are disabled

MS says it's not a problem, but....

Obviously it is. Same for the really old version of log4j that ships with SQL server - MS says it's not a problem, but it is as well. Wish we could all dump all the MS "insecure by default" OS and Applications. Any Government or Defense Department on this planet should ban MS software from running on their networks, especially if it's a connected system.

Virginians sue to block rural Amazon datacenter

My take exactly

I'm sure some money or future favors promised changed hands before that vote.

Microsoft hikes prices for non-profit customers, ends on-prem software grants

Monkey see, Monkey do

Our competitors raised their prices so we're raising ours - got to think of the shareholders!

Atlassian Jira, Confluence outage persists two days on

Cloud vs On_Premise

This is why moving your "stuff" to the cloud is probably not the best option for a lot of people. Centralized target for hackers of all stripes and a central point of failure when someone on staff screws up an update or maintenance activity. This happens way too often with all these big players and the fact that they promise resiliency with their cloud offerings, it just doesn't seem to pan out and customers are down for hours or days. Hopefully their customers in this case, since it looks like they've violated their SLA will be getting some major refunds, but I'm sure the CEO will still get his/her bonus for the year.

Microsoft Visual Studio: Cluttering up developer disks for 25 years

Offline environment doesn't work well either

Having to run this in an offline environment while keeping it patched is a nightmare due to all the bloat in the packages. A couple of months in a row, offline patching will work fine, and then things will just blow up in your face necessitating a complete removal and install (MS offline documentation for this is abysmal!). Online systems it seems to work fine on, offline however, I absolutely hate this application.

Version 7 of WINE is better than ever at running Windows apps where they shouldn't

A better test might be Office 2016 or 2019. Office 2003 support ended about 7 years ago so running it is a security vulnerability since it probably hasn't had a patch released since 2014.

Trump tries one more time to limit H-1B work visas with new minimum salary requirements

Good idea

As much as I despise Donald Trump, I don't think this is necessarily a bad idea (full disclosure: I work in the IT field). If you're going to be bringing in a VISA applicant they should be paid the same as an equivalent American worker. Same pay for the same work. Companies go for cheap labor at the expense of the American labor force (profit and investors before country).

Laggardly HPE kisses Joe Biden's ring, whispers Uncle Sam's IT in dire need of modernisation

Is this the same HPe that does the NMCI contract of the US Navy/Marine Corp and can't even provide enough computers to cover their customer base along with some of the worst customer support I've ever had to deal with. If I was Biden, I'd give HPe a hard pass!

HPE's Black Thursday: Staff face pay cuts or the ax, office closures to save $1bn+ after coronavirus slams IT titan

Higher ups only taking a pay cut for the year - rest of the employees forever

Funny how that works - the rich get richer and the people that made them rich get screwed over again and again.

Intel server chip shortages continue to bite: HPE warns of Xeon processor supply drought for the whole of 2020

Intel Security/Performance issues

If you're buying a system today you should also look at the performance hits Intel has been taking lately on their various chips due to Spectre, Meltdown, etc., etc. flaws. AMD has been affected less and with the products they're putting out today, they're out performing Intel in a lot of areas so definitely worth a consideration if you can't get Intel parts.

Windows 10 update panic: Older VMware Workstation Pro app broken

Vmware Workstation will run on Linux also

Sounds like maybe it's time to look into ditching Windows (all users are now beta testers of our software because we fired all the real testers) completely.

After 72 hours of recurring outages, you'd be forgiven for wanting to slightly tweak the first syllable of Bitbucket

The "Cloud" is great until it's not

This is why on premise installations will never go away (hopefully) as an option.

HP: Based on our Intel, don't hold your breath waiting for Chipzilla's CPU shortage to end

Used to love HP for the support, but it's been getting worse and worse the last few years (especially since the split). I will now go out of my way to NOT recommend HP products and services.

Oracle throws toys out pram again, tells US claims court: Competing for Pentagon cloud contract isn't fair!

If only Oracle would take all this money that they're throwing into this and other legal challenges and instead use it to make their products better and perhaps even cheaper - then maybe they might be competitive. Instead they throw legal tantrums when they don't get their way just a like a two year old throwing a fit when they don't get what they want.

Fake fuse: Bloke admits selling counterfeit chips for use in B-1 bomber, other US military gear

Treason

This guy endangered US and potentially NATO military readiness as well as the lives of the men and women who serve in all allied countries where these fraudulent devices were potentially deployed. He should be tried for treason and put away for life.

Is Google purposefully breaking Microsoft, Apple browsers on its websites? Some insiders are confident it is

Pot calling the kettle black here. I think the real problem is that Edge hardly worked properly at all on most sites. Every time it was given a chance by me it failed. Chrome and Firefox seem pretty rock solid nowadays; however, I can't say the same for much that comes out of Redmond anymore (maybe they should hire some QA personnel again vice using their users as guinea pigs???).

US congress-critters question prime directive of Pentagon's $10bn JEDI cloud contract

The big question is now: How much money did IBM and Oracle (and probably a few other potential vendors not named Amazon) give to these two? As we all know, America's government is bought and paid for by the highest bidder nowadays (thanks Citizen's United!). Maybe one day we can take it back at the polls, maybe institute some term limits and major limits on lobbying for elected officials. Pipe dream, I know....

No wonder Oracle exec Kurian legged it – sky darkens as cloudy tech does not make it rain

Anyone who is shopping for the best database in terms of reliability, in terms of ease of use, in terms of the best cost, they're not going to use Oracle says pretty much anyone who's had to deal with Oracle.