Posts by steviebuk

Court hearing on election security is zoombombed on 9/11 anniversary with porn, swastikas, pics of WTC attacks

What?

"Back in March, Michigan’s top law officials put out a statement warning that “anyone who hacks into a teleconference can be charged with state or federal crimes. Charges may include, to name just a few, disrupting a public meeting, computer intrusion, using a computer to commit a crime, hate crimes, fraud, or transmitting threatening communications.”

The statement also noted that “all of these charges are punishable by fines and imprisonment.”"

And how would that work out in court with a decent lawyer in your defense.

"This defendant hacked into the zoom call and....".....

"Objection. There was no hacking involved. You fuck whits left the meeting open to allow anyone to join. You were the ones using the wrong license (I suspect because you went for the cheap option to save money). So there was no hacking, you left the door wide open. We agree, my client was a cock, but you can't charge him/her for computer misuse or hacking as there was none."

HMRC claims victory in another IR35 dispute to sting Nationwide contractor for nearly £75k in back taxes

Re: Wait? I'm a contractior now?

I was technically called a "Contractor" and I worked for 7 years in the same roll at the same place, all because the arseholes didn't want to make me perm so they could get rid of me with only a weeks notice whenever they wanted. Luckily, I was paying NI and TAX so I'm safe but it is possible to be seen as a "contractor" yet still work in a place for years.

Surely places like Nationwide should have to foot the bill or at least part of it? If this one was apparently a contractor scamming the system, then surely Nationwide were colluding.

Is today's AI yesterday's software routines with better PR? We argued over it, you voted on it. And the winner is...

And don't forget the holodeck.

Re: Is this like triple-A mortgages

I think I understand the Triple-A and Triple-B mortgages because of The Big Short, but still don't understand how you're allowed to take, what are mostly Triple-B mortgages, then somehow wrap them up that allows you to sell them as Triple-As when they clearly are not.

Is this like triple-A mortgages

That were actually made up of shit triple-Bs, yet somehow they were allowed to sell them as triple-As

Facebook apologizes to users, businesses for Apple’s monstrous efforts to protect its customers' privacy

Re: Mark

That post is the exact reason I hate typing on touchscreen smart phones.

Need to learn to proof read before sending.

Mark

must obviously not care about all the hate he gets as he's still there. If I had all that money, I've have retired from it long ago. But then I guess that's why I've never made money like that. I see these top execs and always wonder "Fuck the strees. Just retired and enjoy the money". I thought may its my laziness (it most likely is) but then read about Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell. Created software together, created WinInternals together later changing to Sysinternals. Then got offered the big deal with Microsoft to be bought out but they had to go and work with them, I think, for 5 years then they could fully cash out and do what they wanted. Never realised if you get bought out you don't always get the cash straight away and your contract states you have to work with the company for a period of years before you can grab the cash.

Anyway. It was a very nice deal. Both made a lot of money from it (Mark's old water front house that was recently up for sales was very nice) Mark Russinovich stayed and is now CTO of Azure and Bryce, just liked I'd do, decided he'd had enough of it all and it was time to retire and enjoy the money and freedom.

Techie studied ancient ways of iSeries machine, saved day when user unleashed eldritch powers, got £50 gift voucher

Re: You get told "We're not renewing your contract anymore"

Yep. In a place I was once at, the "peanuts paid contractors" (I'm not condoning what they did but it was predicable due to how they were treated), decided that about 20 of the over 100 PCs they were in charge of rolling out, wouldn't make it to the offices they were marked for. But instead, would be distributed amongst themselves and end up in their homes.

1. Because the audit travel of the kit was PISS POOR it was someones pet project and they just wanted it rushed.

2. They knew because auditing was so PISS POOR, the PCs could disappearing without much notice and if they were eventually noticed, they'd be long gone.

3. Because at the start of the roll out they were all called into a meeting with a proper cunt of a manager who said "You're all here to do a PC roll out. You're all monkeys and can be replaced so if you don't turn up or turn up late, you're out and will be replaced by the next monkey".

I'll say again, he was a cunt!

You get told "We're not renewing your contract anymore"

Despite being helpful, useful and liked, you could get told the above. Despite, no managers being in one specific day and helping theatres take in much needed money that day. Where an update at the outsourced payment company, had killed their server. So they needed someone to go round and update all the chip and pin machines for them. No one was around but me. I said just tell them to send me what they need to do and I'll do it. All I got was a thanks then about a year later all was forgotten and my contract wasn't renewed.

Cunts.

Bletchley Park Trust can’t crack COVID-caused revenue slump without losing staff

Re: I'm sure they are trying

Because I'm an idiot and didn't sort by videos. My mistake.

Never reported the charity at the time as I was a little clueless to such things back then.

I'm sure they are trying

But why haven't they hit YouTube. The computing museum part appears to have a channel yet last updated 4 months ago. Why haven't they been using social medium to get their message out there.

The Centre for Computing History also has issues but has hit YouTube alot more to get its message across about money issues but not just that, showing you more areas of the museum and history but in a virtual way.

Even The Tank Museum before covid and during used YouTube and Patron. During covid they've been trying to convince people to buy from the shop and their online talks have been really good along with the dog Fin.

I'd be curious how much the CEO is on. There was a charity years ago in London, can't remember the name now, that I volunteered at one day due to struggling to get IT work. They take old PCs, rebuild, refurb and ship off to Africa. The one day I was there it was awful and never went back. They didn't monitor people probably so one boxed up shipment went with power leads. I commented but no one appeared to care. They'd take people on day release from prison not because they cared but because they got money to do so. Showed us around and the toilets were fucking awful. One cubicle in a large room. A cubicle that looked a bit fucked as is. One urinal all in a shared room with no door to lock. So the few woman that worked there had to share it and eveyone just had to put a sign up.

My point? We then got to the CEOs office. It was massive, clean and nice, he was tan tastic because he'd "just got back from a business trip in South Africa". It was fucking clear he was just rinsing the place of its money for his pleasure. Fuck the working environment for the staff. Fuck the charity. I assume he didn't stay as with him in place they'd have gone bust long ago, but I did find them recently but still can't remember the pissing name. Fuck my bad memory.

Your 2.3m Instagram fans won't stop the FBI... Web star accused of plotting to launder millions from cyber-crime

Tit

Deserves to be in jail but when will these crooks realise, if you flash the cash you will get nabbed. I think John Gotti was disliked in the mob for being too flash with the media which drew too much attention to himself and the family.

Microsoft adds 'Here's what we may have broken' screen to Windows 10 Insider PCs

WIn95

This always (possibly a bit sad to say) brings a tear to my eyes. Just found this the other day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okt9GcWiWmE

As we were stuck with a 386sx for years because we couldn't afford anything better. Then the next machine we got were were able to get Windows 95 for it and most amazing of all, it had a sound card. This was the first video and sound I came across and it brings back nostalgic memories.

UK govt reboots A Level exam results after computer-driven fiasco: Now teacher-predicted grades will be used after all

Re: Teachers know a lot more than government ministers

Not really. We can't criticise someone for their school choice when it would of been the parents that sent them there. They may have had a nice school but its still your parents that make you go there.

I can see my house from here! Microsoft Flight Simulator has laid strong foundations for the nerdy scene's next generation

Not read

The review yet but what made the old ones so good on PC was the squawk. I can't remember if it was in the base game on it game from mods. They had volunteers I believe, creating them. It made it so much better when round big airports being able to listen to the radio chatter. Doubt you'll get that on the console.

Single-line software bug causes fledgling YAM cryptocurrency to implode just two days after launch

Re: Money Money Money

Having said that I past on Bitcoin in the early days as it SO SO SO SO looked like a Ponzi scheme. Could of made a killing. Oh well. I'm also the same person that, in the 90s, said "Mobile phones? I don't want one as they are just a fade. They appeared in the 80s and never took off so they won't this time either".

I think I was wrong about that also.

I've stayed away from digital coins ever since.

So

"This bug would likely have been caught by in-depth outside review or audit," said Prestwich, who observed that the project attracted interest because its creators leveraged relationships with influencers in the crypto community. "It would certainly have been caught by industry-standard testing practices."

Hipsters invested in it because of a hipster developer. The sort of hipster developer that would say "We want to be infrastructure free" or "We don't do testing. That is so last year. We are agile. Move with the times grandad"

Donald Trump thought-bubbles an Alibaba ban as Chinese clouds clam up about Clean Cloud plan

"I never said what scale the wall would be. I never did, I never said. It doesn't matter that it's just a model on a model map, its still a wall and its still great. Its the greatest wall that has ever been seen. I would say, I do say, its greater than the Great Wall of China (that we're also going to ban)."

America's largest radio telescope blind after falling cable slashes 100-foot gash in reflector dish

Re: Oooo

I miss that map. I think it was BF3 I have a great memory of a bomb run from one of the jets. On a map with a canyon. Came in from a distance and lined up a target. Knowing full well if you get lock on, they get a warning before bombs are dropped.

I was low enough that I could see the soldier hop out the tank and leg it before the bomb hit. It was amazing to see and is why the game was so great.

Oooo

has someone been playing Battlefield 4?

Well, what are we waiting for? Three weeks later, Windows Embedded Standard 7 still didn't have the answer

I really need

to send mine in from the EE store in town that had a BSOD.

We have bad news for non-US Microsoft fans: The incoming Surface Duo is underspecced, overpriced, and over there

Re: Why?

Depends which ones and who's using them. I've dell stock Dell keyboards rub off real easy because they aren't laser etched. And the person using them had long nails and insisted on typing with the tips of her nails. This was on a Dell laptop keyboard.

Firefox maker Mozilla axes a quarter of its workforce, blames coronavirus, vows to 'develop new revenue streams'

Please

Make a Google Keep plug-in that is legit. Then I can be back with firefox at work. I always loved firefox, was annoyed we went with gsuite at work so was encouraged to only use Chrome. Then I got use to Chrome. I still like Firefox but the integration with Google keep on Chrome is really good. Being able to highlight txt on a site and right click, save to google keep, which does and automatically adds the link, is so very very useful.

Microsoft confirms pursuit of TikTok after Satya Nadella chats to Donald Trump

Confused how this works

So they sell the American arm due to be forced with a threat of a ban so they want to get some money for it. However, now what would happen? If MS buy it they now have all the code and tech and can check if its secure (any backdoors will be religiously removed before the sale so won't show anything). But they now have their own US tiktok? That is in competition with China? Or not because it won't be available in China?

USA decides to cleanse local networks of anything Chinese under new five-point national data security plan

Get your own house in order also

The amount of issues with security with American made devices and software is just as bad. Although was quite some years ago now, I reported to Twitter about their account issues. Upon attempting to rest your password it would frequently push you to the http version of said site. I was ignored. Wasn't until a security researcher contacted them with the same info after having found my video of it, that they bother to acknowledge it. To him, they still ignored me.

Self-driving car supremo Anthony Levandowski sentenced to 18 months in the clink for stealing trade secrets from Google's Waymo

Re: “Why I went to federal prison,”

You sometimes do. Back in the early 90s a US man came to our school in the UK, I can't remember if he was in prison in the UK or in the US, it was for drugs. Anyway, he convinced us it wasn't nice. One story was:

"I could hear a guy screaming in his cell, then he proceeded to crawl out on all fours with a broom handle stuck up his arse that another inmate had forced up there as punishment".

Grime.

You think the UK coronavirus outbreak was bad? Just wait till winter: Study shows test-and-trace system is failing

Re: Really?

Heard immunity may work BUT only if the whole of England was healthy. We are not, so its a fucking bad idea and will kill off most of the poor, who tend to eat poorly due to money and/or time issues. Time issues due to having to work multiple, fucking, low paid jobs.

Some here are starting to sound like the knob that was on the Isle Of Wight ferry the other day "I don't believe in this Covid nonsense", with no mask on. The knob in Wickes on Saturday morning with his mask round his neck and another one with his mask on his chin so he could talk on his fucking mobile. And not to mention the various people that don't bother to cover their nose with the mask.

As mentioned in Private Eye

"Masks do not reduce your oxygen saturation but they can only work if used correctly, and yet many spectacle-wearers steam up and lower the mask below the nose, which is akin to wearing underpants with your penis on the outside."

Re: But... but...

Both, considering Hancock is the cock who has his own MP app that was massively flawed and full of security holes and privacy issues.

If you own one of these 45 Netgear devices, replace it: Kit maker won't patch vulnerable gear despite live proof-of-concept code

Re: I wonder

I've tried, with my shit Virgin up that has the shitest built in aerials but, the Draytek it is bridged too, gets an IP address yet doesn't ever go out to the Internet. I don't know what Virgin are doing to it but it refuses to get an Internet connection so I'm still stuck with the shitty Virgin hub.

Google extends homeworking until this time next year – as Microsoft finds WFH is terrific... for Microsoft

I'm enjoying it

Missed the 2nd screen so grabbed one from work. Get up later, don't have to walk 20mins into work but always available to pop into office if needed. This has got to be better on a lot of peoples mental health due to not having to commute.

It annoys me that the last place I was at, I said all along "Why are you having your monthly meetings at each others site? We're IT, we can surely teleconference". No, I was told, this is the way we do it. I suspect a few were claiming more on the travel than they were actually doing so making a bit of money from it. Now there is no choice but to teleconference and shows I, and others that said it, were right all along.

Mysterious supernova is blasting far-flung galaxy with flashes of UV light – and astroboffins don't know why

Its the Borg

at least it normally is.

My life as a criminal cookie clearer: Register vulture writes Chrome extension, realizes it probably breaks US law

Next...

... we'll be arrested for skipping adverts on TV using the fast forward on the Virgin box (other providers are available)

Re: however on the good side

I see your point but I think because most of us see the national newspapers that do this as not very nice, we don't have much sympathy.

VMware to stop describing hardware as ‘male’ and ‘female’ in new terminology guide

Sometimes its just easier to understand

When you describe things as male or female. Like in Process Explorer, you have the "Parent" process, then all the "Child" processes that were run from the "Parent". You also have "Orphan" processes where the "Parent" process ended/closed and the "Child" process is left behind.

For me, this makes understanding it in my head so much easier.

Ex-boss of ICANN shifts from 'advisor' to co-CEO of private equity biz that tried to buy .org for $1bn+

You just

need to read the first part and straight away it shows how fucking bent it all is.

Oh sure, we'll just make a tiny little change in every source file without letting anyone know. What could go wrong?

Ricoh

I was on the print server having a look at some settings in Ricoh's Follow Me printing solution during a quiet time, way back in 2015 I think. Notice the "Purge print jobs once logged out" option. That would be useful for security. Ticked it, applied. I'm aware of change control, just wasn't thinking and as I was the only one that properly knew the system, I doubt the idea would of come up on why it wasn't a good idea to apply.

All was quiet. Then I noticed calls coming in for failed print jobs. Jobs failing half way through etc.

Then it hit me as I'd witnessed it many a time. The users swipe their cards and choose their print job and instead of waiting for it to finish printing, log out. That of course meant their job purged before it finished. Or their job was so long, the timeout would kick in and log them out (because they all kept leaving themselves logged in so had to put a timeout on the printer login).

Oops. I grabbed all the calls, quickly turned the purge print jobs on logout option off and quietly closed all the calls. No one noticed so didn't get moaned at for not following request for change.

Pretend your holiday wasn't cancelled from next month: Microsoft Flight Simulator cleared for take-off

Console?

I'm assuming it will be a bit shit on the consoles?

Back in the day, due to lack of squawk all the modders would add their own so alot more airports had it than they would. You could listen to the AI squawking each other if I remember right. Assume that won't be possible on consoles due to lack of modding options.

Keep it Together, Microsoft: New mode for vid-chat app Teams reminds everyone why Zoom rules the roost

Re: Zoom banned...

One of the issues with Zoom is if you are using the free version, there is no end to end encryption. Its only included in the paid for version.

Re: Teams isn't just a video conferencing tool...

No downvoting here, everyone is allowed their own opinion.

I actually like Office, always have. Teams is OK but a bit fucking annoying.

Re: Annoys me

They appear to now be posting all comments on the YouTube video.

Annoys me

Why can't they just be fucking honest.

1. They are clearly moderating their video as only praise comments are being allowed. I put constructive criticism which hasn't appeared.

2. Zoom, although I don't like it, is popular cause its easy and just works.

3. Their video is MASSIVELY misleading. They are all using the same camera, all in the same location and no doubt have greenscreens setup. This allows them to cleanly cut the user out to put them in the fake background. In reality this won't happen. It won't cleanly cut out the user so they'll blend into the background and be missing limps or heads. For most, it will probably work but you'll have to keep still to stop yourself or body parts blending into the background. We know this is so because it already happens in Teams and their fake backgrounds. I use those, they work OK but, move slightly and my arm is removed. Its clear the software now believes my arm is part of the real background so removes it. The gap between my headphones when on my head, reveals the real background.

4. Teams needs work before this. Images and emojiis constantly disappear or fail to load forcing you to restart it.

I think its a pointless idea that won't work as well as claimed in the video. Everyone hates bullshit marketing and even more bullshit moderation of a video so only praise comments appear.

High-flying Microsoft exec jumps to Magic Leap as CEO. No, we haven't got that the wrong way round

Re: So what do Microsoft know that we don't..........?

Possibly just access to the patents.

Re: Just another VC undertaker..

I assume she'd be in on it due to be near retirement age? "We'll give you a few million to go along with the plan"

True but wouldn't that be illegal?

You may be distracted by the pandemic but FYI: US Senate panel OK's backdoors-by-the-backdoor EARN IT Act

We're all fucked....

....for a while. Until those "Police only" backdoors are leaked and they will be. Either by internal means or a state just throwing lots of resources at cracking said backdoor. Once it affects those senators, then they'll realise the mistake they made.

For everyone else. We're all be snooped on. The terrorists? They won't be as they'll use or develop their own underground encrypted chat channel and when asked to allow a "backdoor" they'll tell the government to jog on.

Barclays Bank appeared to be using the Wayback Machine as a 'CDN' for some Javascript

Re: I'm smarter...

Am I missing something? I don't get it?

Capita Consulting ditching more than a quarter of its workforce 45 days after consultations with consultants

Re: Er ...

Always found it funny that they bought out a test system with live ammo inside it. But I guess the live ammo was a plant?

UN warns of global e-waste wave as amount of gadgets dumped jumps 21% in 5 years

Re: Blame...

Agreed. But right to repair is a start. Allowing the likes of Apple and, for whatever reason CompTIA (yes they are fighting right to repair) to stop Right To Repair is the worst governments could do. But it's all about money and the clueless. If they convince the correct clueless senator to be with them, they'll manage to block it.

I still can't work out why CompTIA are trying to block it considering their exam is about creating engineers. I'm now boycotting all CompTIA stuff since I heard that.

Blame...

...the fruit one called Apple. Making their phones and other kit as unrepairable as possible. And also fighting right to repair.

Someone must be bricking it: UK govt website for first-time home buyers snapped up for £40,000 after left to expire

Re: How is this STILL a thing!?

If you treat admins like shit and then eventually make them redundant. They aren't going to want to keep records. I suspect the original purchaser left long ago and no one bothered to mention it in the hand over.