* Posts by Dimmer

420 publicly visible posts • joined 23 May 2017

Page:

Would banning ransomware insurance stop the scourge?

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Also ban cryptocurrency

One of the largest loss I have worked on was due to redirecting payment funds.

The bank it went to was a US registered internet bank.

There was no way to contact them unless you had an account with them. No phone numbers anywhere.

“ it's a safe bet that anyone involved in crypto is engaging or intends to engage in criminal activity or fraud.”

Sorry, from my experience and the IRS ( that has profited more than anyone ) that is not the case.

People are sinking money into crypto, gold and silver to hedge against inflation. They are just trying to keep the value that they have earned. May not be the best, but if you can come up with something it will kill crypto overnight.

FBI created a cryptocurrency so it could watch it being abused

Dimmer Silver badge

There is a difference

Between stock and crypto trading.

In stock, it is legal to sell a stock if you don’t have it. With that, brokers can move the market. Game Stop is an example. Love how karma caught up to them.

Crypto; Bitcoin and ETH as an example, you can’t just make it up. Want to trade? You have to own it. (Or the exchange that is)

In the early days the stock guys saw a new opportunity. A new playground they could exploit.

Here is one example how they got their a$$ handed to them:

Broker would buy enough to move the market.( It’s the block chain so they were easy identified. ) Just like they would do in the market. (But that is hidden) They are setting up a pump and dump. They also would put in a sell order to kick in if it drops below a certain amount. (Again identifiable in crypto trades). A Whale would sell a bunch of that crypto causing the market to drop. But just enough for the brokers sell orders to kick in and that would cause a flash crash. Their crypto would be then bought by the Whales (or anyone along for the ride) that had very low buy orders in place.

Whole thing take less than 10 min but the brokers loose millions. And this is because unlike the stock market where broker control the trading, anyone can do trades in crypto.

Now for an example of how a government made a massive amount on crypto. Years ago China had the most Bitcoin miners. The government releases a statement that it is banning crypto. Price falls. They buy. They retract the statement and up it goes. They sell. Over a few years, they pulled this scam several times.

It's true, social media moderators do go after conservatives

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Oligarchy Media Corruption

“ ElReg is high value media”

I agree, but maybe for a different reason.

I look to the article to stimulate conversation in the comments.

I have found so many solutions from those that post constructive and useful info.

VMware- Broadcom

Hacking

Windows update failures

BoFH

Tools

Trends

This and may more articles and comments (solutions) make this a HIGH value news source.

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Who is the judge ?

Who judges low quality news sites? Well I do - FOR ME only.

I change the source every time they are fixated on one subject for hours. If I want their opinion, I will listen. If I want NEWS, give me the facts as you see it and move on to the next thing.

There is a lot of stuff going on out there and I would like to hear about to determine if it is going to affect me. Something like a hurricane or a dam breaking upstream or even a good story about rescuing a critter, not 24/7 we don’t really know, but we are going to talk about it anyway.

As long as we have the first amendment, I might get both sides info and be able to make my own decisions.

BOFH: AI consultant rapidly transitioned to new role as automotive surface consultant

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Human-fired power station

If it really becomes useful:

Is your office paperless? Might be a good fit for AI.

What job will be left for you? Government?

Well in the states, at least half of the people either are on government subsidies or employed by it.

Who will be left to pay the taxes ? I know I can’t. I am already at 50% +. Can you?

I believe in government, but I despise bureaucracy.

There are so many regulations and the whole infrastructure to support them that have no benefit to the people. Certainly countless things like medical regulation is needed, but painting fingernails, requiring id for livestock?

If AI is going to take jobs, let it start there and it might actually benefit mankind.

Admins using Windows Server Update Services up in arms as Microsoft deprecates feature

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Not a surprise

New features wanted it not

= bugs

= patches (with features wanted or not)

= bugs

= no support

= upgrade (with features wanted or not)

= $$$

The cycle of life for Microsoft.

Apple AirPods Pro 2 can be sold as hearing aids, says FDA

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Huzzah?

From my experience, my kin has a set of those excessive high priced hearing aides. Even tho he uses an app on his phone,( tried both Apple and android), he still has to take it in every couple of months to get an adjustment.

It has all kinds of adjustments;

Hear what is in front of you

High noise

Low noise

Conversations

Etc.

All adjustments can be done on the phone app.

For mum, who will not wear hers, I got her an $60 android tablet and put google transcribe on it and now she can read what people are saying. Worked great till she downloaded so many games that she can’t find the icon to start it.

Dimmer Silver badge

My hearing loss is in the high hz range is about 100% but I can hear normally at mid range.

If it is using an app to process, it would be nice to have an sdk so I can create a process that will down convert the higher frequencies to something I can hear.

SpaceX blasts being stuck in bureaucratic orbit as Starship approval slips

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: The FAA have their job to do...

Flocke,

Thanks for the excellent write up. It’s why I read the post.

I was starting to think it was about him volunteering to clean up waste ( fire a few people) in the government.

Malaysia's plan to block overseas DNS dies after a day

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: A different take on "its always DNS" ;)

Earlier this year on a trip to Spain, local networks disrupted my OpenVPN as well.

But, when I used AT$T’s data as a hot spot, it worked fine and appeared to be coming out on the east coast, USA.

So, are they going to block AT$T tunnels and make the internet calling plans got to crap?

AI's thirst for water is alarming, but may solve itself

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Green options?

“ forced (subsidies, regulation)”

For our situation I have to disagree. We simply duct the hot isle into the office building we are in. Return air is from the outside. The net gain from not running the cooling system far outweigh the cost of the duct fans. This does not even include the savings from the building.

That said, it does take a lot of water to keep the humidity high enough to prevent the servers from burning up. (Moisture is how heat is transferred)

For replacement of 20 tons of cooling from outside at temperature of 30 degrees F requires 35 gal of clean water per 24hrs. Atomizing that much water required us to design and build or own humidifiers.

Check your IP cameras: There's a new Mirai botnet on the rise

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Ok, I'll ask

If you don’t need the IOT thing to get out of the network, put a static ip address on it with no or fake gateway and a fake DNS.

Poor man’s firewall.

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: We are bored now, so chuck your camera in the bin

By the way, how do you think the ransomware guys know when everyone is out of the office so they can start encryption?

Camera security is a bit more important than most think.

Astronomers back call for review of bonkers rule that means satellite swarms fly without environment checks

Dimmer Silver badge

Totally agree with the fiber thing, it scales a lot better and we don’t need Musk’s planetary shield.

The problem with fiber is someone has to put it in the ground or hang it on a pole.

To do this, the US government and the states have spent billions on “rural broadband “ but it is having limited deployment.

The problem is “underserved” is defined as not having connectivity instead of not having fiber.

Citizens vote for it, it’s approved and then the bureaucracy kicks in and labels their area served even tho they can get 10m down and 1m up from the local wireless provider.

Oh, the shield comment - when satellites start banging into each other, the garbage will shield the rest of the universe from us pesky humans.

Woman uses AirTags to nab alleged parcel-pinching scum

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Apple begs to differ

Ever send in your iPhone to be repaired?

They go through great lengths to make sure you don’t leave on location services so anyone knows where it is sent. It is a No-No to track Apple.

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: "police declined to pursue the matter"

According to the article, one was pursued by the sheriff, the other by police.

Sheriff are elected. Police are appointed.

Proof-of-concept code released for zero-click critical IPv6 Windows hole

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: what if there is no local IPv6 network?

Well guys, have you tried to turn off ipv6 on a window system?

Disable it in the ncpa.cpl (yea, back way to network config) and then watch it with another system running Wireshark.

Baby will do anything to phone home to mom.

You can only truly kill it with a firewall or router.

NASA's billion-dollar launcher is behind schedule and burning cash

Dimmer Silver badge

Interesting idea

“ contractor might give a number so impossibly high ”

When you don’t want to do the job, price it to the moon. Been there, done that and hoped they would pass it up.

On the other side, it does not cost the government to print more money. The only restraint is trying to convince the people why they are giving it to them.

Sad part is any money spent still comes from the people as the hidden tax called inflation.

But you got to admit, those little Mars rovers lasted way past the warranty. Hell of a job.

Microsoft security tools questioned for treating employees as threats

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Don't fret people

In a past life, I had a user the constantly complained about the security and protections on his pc.

I asked him why he went to the sites that triggered the protections and he said:

“I can’t do this at home. If I do it here and it breaks, it is you have to fix it. I do it at home, it is MY problem. “

Feds, US states sue RealPage for building rent-hiking software for landlords

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: landlords are colluding to raise prices by using software developed by RealPage

If we are going after the software guys, let’s go a bit deeper and get the guys that are causing housing to go thru the roof.

The government prints massive amounts of money causing inflation. Supply and demand, more you have the less demand and value.

Anyone that has retirement cash knows it is becoming worthless, so they buy property. Less supply, price goes up.

Massive inflation, so the feds try to tame it by increasing interest rates with the idea that if you don’t have money you can’t buy it and therefore less demand. Basically crash the economy.

It works but you are out of a job, have to rent because you can’t afford to buy while the ones that started the process, benefitted from the money machine on the front and the increase on interest on the back side.

Here is an upcoming example: One of the candidates is promising to give $25k for first time home buyers. Obvious vote buying but all it will do is increase the price of a home by $25k or more.

Again, less supply, more costlier, and guess who will benefit the most?

Atlassian CEO's idea to build 4,000-kilometer extension cord plugged in

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: That doesn't add up

Place a big battery at the source or place a smaller battery at the destination.

Why build capacity that will be eaten up by line loss?

After nearly 3B personal records leak online, Florida data broker confirms it was ransacked by cyber-thieves

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Well, yeah

I had one and I was booted for someone that was more informed than I. (And has better grammar)

Thanks for the time I borrowed it and I am thrilled those guys are recognized for their quality contributions.

DoD spins up supercomputer to accelerate biothreat defense

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Pentagon nightmare

What is to stop it from being used to create a virus?

Their word? I seem to have read somewhere that 2 presidents, congress and the DoD said no to gain of function, repeatedly. It was called something else and funded anyway.

It's 2024 and we're just getting round to stopping browsers insecurely accessing 0.0.0.0

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: What about 127.0.0.1?

Using access list on a border router, I ran across crafted packets that had 127.0.0.1 as the return address.

Upon closer inspection, firewalls passed the packer and did not log it. That made it so you could not block it by firewall. Access rules on the router was the only way.

Using the TTL of the tcp packet we were able to see it was only a few hops away. With the isp’s assist we were able to find the server. It was using massive bandwidth, 100m back then, to hit large blocks of address.

Looking at the packet, it appeared to be a one way command structure. It was in a foreign collage students room.

Beware of device logs. Manufactures will suppress logs their traffic, especially local. They don’t want you to be aware of phoning home.

US elections have never been more secure, says CISA chief

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Solving the wrong problem?

“ President Of Voting Machine Giant Smartmatic Indicted On $1 Million Bribery, Money Laundering Charges”

Just came out. I would post a link, but it is better if you research it yourself.

Dimmer Silver badge

“elderly voters away,”

In my area, the elderly voters are the first in line. It’s like the trips to the doctor every week. It is a big thing for them and no cookies and cream for you if you don’t take them.

Ransomware gangs are loving this dumb but deadly make-me-admin ESXi vulnerability

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: this is why...

But… but …. It is so much easer. Next week we are going to add it to our firewall and our vpn!

Said in jest, but some people really do this.

Apple Intelligence beta lands in iOS 18.1, macOS 15.1 previews

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: How much more active will it be

@ Spartacus

Thanks for your take on this. That is why posted the observation is so that it would elicit responses that might lead to a better understanding.

Thanks.

Dimmer Silver badge

How much more active will it be

With all this extra data needed to support the new feature?

The reason I ask is because I have had several people I know have develop cancer right where they kept their phones.

An example is a friend underwent surgery to cut out the cancer in his breast, just where he kept the phone in his pocket, he does not do that any more and it has not come back.

If you know someone that recently was diagnosed with cancer, ask them where they kept their phone.

Maybe I am full of it and don’t know anything, but I don’t see where the constant increasing of transmissions from our phones for data traffic can be good for us.

Just for peace of mind, mine comes out of my pocket and is placed at least a few inches away from me when I sit. Less close exposure to radiation the better.

And no, they were not all Apple phones.

Video game actors strike because they fear an attack of the AI clones

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Do the work, get paid, move on

Just to be clear here,

They can copy the actors work as many times as they want - but I can’t copy their game as many times as I want?

CrowdStrike blames a test software bug for that giant global mess it made

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: It worked on my machine!

Re: simonlb

Wait, that sounds a lot like what an antivirus is supposed to do.

I thought that I heard something about a requirement that a product has to do what it is marketed to do.

Cellebrite got into Trump shooter's Samsung device in just 40 minutes

Dimmer Silver badge

And . . . What about the slurping data that you may or may not know about stored to the cloud?

Maximum-severity Cisco vulnerability allows attackers to change admin passwords

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Vulnerability Designed In Fort Meade Many Years Ago........

Some have more than one user on their devices or is this just adding a new one?

Anyway, if you have a high level of paranoia, you would be logging changes it to a syslog server that will sent you an alert when something like this changes.

CrowdStrike shares sink as global IT outage savages systems worldwide

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

Microsoft had a patch for the zero day print driver exploit months before it was released. If you had the special $$$$ contract you get those patches.

I know someone that got hit by it and WAS patched up to date and they withheld the patch.

Have you ever noticed how their cloud products seem to be have patches way before your on prem doesn’t?

They want that monthly cloud money.

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

That option is being removed quickly.

Just as a test, fire up Wireshark and filter the background noise. Then load any application and watch it phone home and download changes.

Another thing to watch is how windows, without authenticating can copy files between system even without being on the same domain. Only needs to be on the same network. It is part of the windows update. If you can find the setting, you can turn it off till the next update and it will be dutifully turned back on.

Angry admins share the CrowdStrike outage experience

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Holidays

I run a script triggered by logoff, sceen lock or disconnect from rdp from schedule task that changes the gateway so my system stays only on the local net when not in use.

When logged back on, another script that puts the gateway back.

Anything I want my system to connect to while logged off is provided by adding the specific route to the script.

Maybe I was not so paranoid after all.

Second NHS IT system confirmed to be affected by CrowdStrike issues

Dimmer Silver badge

US courts are down to.

FBI gains access to Trump rally shooter's phone

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Dead men tell no tales

Some biometrics require you to be alive. They use the infrared pattern of your face, thumb, or hand.

That said, the last time I was at Walt Disney they required your thumb print to enter the park. Massive data value there. I wonder what they did with my kids print info?

Some states it is required for driver licenses, passports, gun permits etc.

There was a movie called 2000 mules awhile back. In it they used data from marketing firms to track cell phones. How about a go fund me to buy the data for his phone. I would love to see the location data where he was before the shooting.

SpaceX's Falcon anomaly could have serious implications for the space industry

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: FAA?

We do still need regulations so everyone plays nice.

Congress just can’t make vague laws that they can blame someone else if there is blowback. (Management 101)

There is no honor among RAM thieves – but sometimes there is karma

Dimmer Silver badge

Same here. It is common to see schools spending more on sports than on tech.

Some schools are so far behind that your biz leftovers are an upgrade to them.

That said, always follow the school IT departments lead on what help they need if you donate.

Paessler pulls subscription licensing switcheroo on PRTG Network Monitor

Dimmer Silver badge

My point is how simple it was to create an INHOUSE solution that did not rely on the whims of another company. What it provides is only slightly better than a batch file.

VMware is a good example of how someone else decides how your business is to be run and they all seem to be going that way. Fight back.

Give it a few more years an open source AI will be able to run inhouse and do the job.

Dimmer Silver badge

I needed a method to grab info from switches, routers and PDUs.

After reviewing what was out there, it was either too expensive or they thought I was daft enough to use a cloud based system that would access my network core so, I decided to take a stab at doing it myself.

After checking with chatgpt, I told it I wanted code to pole a list of devices and display the info.

It spits out the code, I put it in visual studio and it sort of works. After a couple of hours of debugging it worked! May not scale well, but it does what I need for a couple hundred devices.

I asked chatgpt for additional code to email me when it is down. Now I have monitoring that I don’t have to worry about what a vendor is going to make me do.

If 2 hours of work can permanently replace what I would be using PRTG software for, they might want to think about what cards they are holding before they up the bet.

VMware license changes mean bare metal can make a comeback through 'devirtualization', says Gartner

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: started doing this in early 2014

I could tell you are a pro and knew that was not the case, but I guess the down votes did not get I was joking.

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: started doing this in early 2014

Mike, Interesting and informative post. Will have to play with docker.

Just by chance, do you work for Boeing? Dropping out for a few seconds for a production switch on live people, sorry, live data can be a bit scary. :)

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: mmm

And according to those same experts the next move management makes will replace management with AI.

I know because they showed me the 8x10 glossy photos with detailed inscriptions on the back.

Epic accuses Apple of foul play over iOS access, wants EU to show DMA red card

Dimmer Silver badge

Hey Reg - temu

Got any dirt on the Temu app and that it is supposedly a virus?

Texas court blocks FTC noncompete ban, and you can blame SCOTUS

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: Contradiction

How about the reverse?

Customer is required to sign a contract that prevents them from hiring a service tech from their vendor or the other way around.

Used to be the rage in my other life. .

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: "Robust freedom of contract"?

Re DS

If you want to install cameras in Texas, you have to have 2 years of servitude before you can apply for a license to install.

And heaven forbid that you install a wire that will be used for a camera, you have to have the license for that too.

The only valid use of non-compete I know of is when someone is selling a business and the buyer wants to see the books and customer list.

Ransomware scum who hit Indonesian government apologizes, hands over encryption key

Dimmer Silver badge

Re: "not all victims would get the same treatment"

A bank may not be the best example.

I pay a bank to secure my money from internal and external theft.

A Datacenter is used to provide data and processing services.

Security services are for securing the data, but wait - I did not read anything about them having any security services. I wonder who could be at fault there.

Page: