Posts by richdin

BOFH: The auditor is asking too many questions. We have just the laptop for that

Duck as in...

...the only substitute for bad manners - is good reflexes

Computacenter IT guy let girlfriend into Deutsche Bank server rooms, says fired whistleblower

1st thought

No way Jenny could have been employed by PRC Intelligence? Maybe her backdoor was more secure?

M365 Family users wake up to notice 'Your subscription expired'

Re: And that's why...

Having a local install doesn't help - if Microshaft decides that you HAVE TO install an update and reboot BEFORE you can do anything else on your system.

For no apparent reason, my Outlook 2021 suddenly refused to send mail nor search...

Having a delayed brainfart, I peeked at the settings and discovered that there was an update pending for Windows.

As soon as I updated, everything started working again. Surprise, surprise. Not.

iOS users left refreshing in vain as Microsoft Outlook woes drag on

search field was borked

I had a curious issue - I couldn't search Outlook for 48 hours (resolved by itself)

I was unable to type anything into the search field (top bar)... After typing 3-4 characters, it would eject me from the field. Other Windows search fields (file explorer et al) weren't affected.

Microsoft blames Outlook's wobbly weekend on 'problematic code change'

Re: On the bright side...

Keel-hauling is great, but I'm still partial to Tar & Feathering!

Satya Nadella says AI is yet to find a killer app that matches the combined impact of email and Excel

Dan Briklin invented Visicalc

Then came 1-2-3... Excel was after.

Who remembers Pegasus Mail?

Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 cranks up the power – and the heat

Re: Why?

Because paying in cows and making change with sheep and chickens is difficult... they don't fit in your pocket.

Telegram will now hand over IP addresses, phone numbers of suspects to cops

Parrot joke

It reminds me of the joke about the parrot in Moscow shouting anti-regime slogans... and reverting to the party line after being hidden in the freezer when the Commissars come to check out the neighbors complaints. You'd change you mind too, if you were sent to Siberia...

Lebanon: At least nine dead, thousands hurt after Hezbollah pagers explode

Re: Technology question

My money is on a deliberate short-circuit of the battery, triggered by a radio transmission on the pager's frequency - it would be listening all the time anyhow. As for LiIon batteries of that size - the explosive power would be like 10g of TNT.

Brace for glitches and GRUB grumbles as Ubuntu 24.04.1 lands

Fools rush in... and get the best seats

I threw caution to the wind, and upgraded my Thinkpad E14... with nary a scratch. Seems to have upgraded from 22.04 without an issue.

Biden tries to cut through fog of confusion caused by deliberately deceptive customer service tricks

The golden rule, ignored

First fix the GOVERNMENT [web sites et al], before forcing everyone else to fix their processes.

Command senior chief busted for secretly setting up Wi-Fi on US Navy combat ship

Oblivious

A LONG time ago (80's) - when wireless keyboards & mice first appeared - I was called up to the army reserves... When I arrived in station, I noticed that everyone in the office were happily tapping away on their shiny brand-new wireless kit! I went berserk and started yanking away these keyboards with the resulting screams of anguish - until I saw the unit commander, a Brigadier (1 star General) with his. As I pulled it out from his hands I "politely" explained that everyone outside the fence (next to his office) could be reading everything he was typing... he was quick to comprehend and commenced yelling at everyone else while sheepishly asking me to get him a cabled keyboard so he could finish up his writing.

A thump with the pointy end of a screwdriver will fix this server! What could possibly go wrong?

Back in the days

I would never trust a board that didn't have at least one jumper wire... meaning that the tech guys worked it over and it was then guaranteed to be 100%.

TR-069, a protocol that made broadband manageable, turns 20. What's coming next?

Now I am running only my own gear

I discovered TR-069 by accident when the ISP had removed the WiFi password on my box. Took hours of yelling and escalations to have them restore the greyed-out option. Two weeks later they did it again. Dumped that ISP and now only use my personally owned hardware. In retrospect I guess they did me a favor.

Protest group says Google has fired more staff over sit-ins opposing work for Israel

Re: shrug

Out of 100,000 Arab residents left in Gaza in 1948 - ONLY 2,000,000 were there in 2024. Where EXACTLY is the ethnic cleansing / genocide? But don't confuse me with facts.

ChatGPT starts spouting nonsense in 'unexpected responses' shocker

Re: I blame the trainers

Nor Kamala Harris (or Biden for that matter)

WTF? Potty-mouthed intern's obscene error message mostly amused manager

ThinkPad users made the best lovers

My go-to nickname for the ThinkPad tracking device - was always followed by the above explanation...!

Office gossips beware – chitchat could choke your career chances

Print Queues

Corporate Mainframe would print the monthly salary run on sealed paper with the figures only viewable when the packet was peeled apart. But the print run was editable/viewable until purged from the queue.

COVID-19 infection surge detected in wastewater, signals potential new wave

Fallback plan

The US election cycle has kicked into high gear heading towards November. Having a renewed pandemic break out in time to justify having everyone mail in their ballots instead of voting in-person is a repeat of 2020. My parents were Republican voters their entire lives. Ever since they passed away, they have been voting Democrat.

Firefox slow to load YouTube? Just another front in Google's war on ad blockers

Re: This is not the first time this has "accidently" happened

...and add PiHole to your network!

Telco CEO quits after admitting she needs to carry rivals' SIM cards to stay in touch

Re: DR Strategy

Exactly right. I deliberately make sure that my cellphone and my wife's are always on different networks just in case one fails, we should still have phone service. (I also pay for a landline JIC).

Ex-GCHQ software dev jailed for stabbing NSA staffer

Re: Stabby stab

When seconds count... the police are but minutes away!

Re: Stabby stab

The states with the STRICTEST gun laws - have the highest statistics of gun crime.

Maine on the other hand passed a law allowing permit-less concealed carry... and for the last 4 years, no gun crime.

Australia forced the people to give up their weapons - and gun crime has SOARED.

Switzerland has an assault rifle (a real one, not a scary lookalike) in every home - yet no one is being gunned down on a daily basis.

Ask the REAL reason why they are trying to take civilian guns away...

FBI boss: Taking away our Section 702 spying powers could be 'devastating'

Re: Real stats

...and 97% of scientists claim that man-made climate change is real...*

* 97% of the 100 scientists in that room (IPCC) at that time.

Winklevoss twins back in hot water after NY AG sues over $1B cryptocurrency fraud

My grandfather always said that there were three kinds of markets

Bull Market, Bear Market and PIG Market

Israel and Italy have cheapest mobile data out of 237 countries

Costs in Israel

Living in Tel Aviv - I pay NIS 60 (US$ 15) for 2 x phones each with 50GB/month, NIS 109 (US $28) for 200/200 Mb/s fiber (copper) to the home. And most of the country there is free public WiFi available.

The FBI as advanced persistent threat – and what to do about it

Re: Assigning Traffic To A Real Person Can Be Made Difficult.....

The man [just needs to] filter all the known phones from their current list and then track the unknown phones to see if there is any of them doing something interesting... and then follow that one around.

Microsoft decides it will be the one to choose which secure login method you use

Annoying as my bank (if not more)

My bank (nameless, not blameless) has an annoying habit of "suddenly forgetting" my password every 60 days... forcing me to create a new one thru a torturous process of 2FA and thinking up something clever. They don't say it out loud, but no matter what you try, you can't get in unless you "decide" to request a new password.

Needless to mention that forcing users to change their passwords often only makes them come up with easier ones - but only allowing English letters and numbers without symbols makes the process worse. Better to stick with a more difficult password created once.

As they say - more security theatre.

Cops crack gang that used bots to book and resell immigration appointments

No passports in Israel

We have the same issue in Israel - a group of [Russian] hackers have hijacked the appointment process for getting passports - they grab all the open slots and charge 500 Euro to get a near date/location. The MoI had to open up 4 bureaus that you can walk in without an appointment (although some people have waited 12 hours in line w/o bathroom breaks etc.) just to clear the backlog. Seems to be working. No one arrested... yet.

India bans open source messaging apps for security reasons. FOSS community says good luck

Stamp Tax

This is one of the triggers for the American War of Independence from the UK... demanding a "stamp tax" on newsprint (the actual paper) - which would only be available for newspapers loyal to the Crown. A means to throttle what messages were being published.

Proliferation of AI weapons among non-state actors 'could be impossible to stop'

Re: Is this FUD?

...you mean "countries that we cooperate with".

Duelling techies debugged printer by testing the strength of electric shocks

Re: It Works both Ways

How many Californians do you need to change a light bulb?

100 - 1 to change the bulb & 99 to share the experience.

Find pushes back birth of Europe's steel hardware to about 3,000 years ago

Re: People move around shocker !

The Jewish calendar is currently year 5783, while the Chinese calendar started only 4660 years ago. The 1123 years before Chinese food was invented is called the Dark Ages.

Smart ovens do really dumb stuff to check for Wi-Fi

I discovered by accident that I can program the microwave to run at x power for y time and THEN continue for a power at b time! without having to intervene... Awesome for reheating leftovers.

Move over, graphene. There's a new super-material in town: Graphullerene

Re: I wonder why …

Horsepucky

Orion snaps 'selfie' with the Moon as it prepares for distant retrograde orbit

Re: And Wallace wanted Shaun to bring some cheese back

...and some water bears

Time Lords decree an end to leap seconds before risky attempt to reverse time

Re: Cop Out

Why bother? According to Greta, AOC and Al Gore and the rest of the Chicken Littles, the world is going to end in 12 years...

Intel reveals pay-to-play Xeon features with software-defined silicon

Re: It makes sense for CPUs

Used to be done with a set of DIP switches... DEC upgraded my VAX's memory from 4MB to 16MB (long time ago) with the flick of a switch. Had I only known...

Boffins build microphone safety kit to detect eavesdroppers

Re: There's a far better solution to that problem

ALL my devices are connected with managed switches (Mikrotik, 1 to a room). Easy to disconnect when a device is unneeded

Rest in peace, Queen Elizabeth II – Britain's first high-tech monarch

Re: She was a good one

Like versions of Microsoft Windows - one generation is great, the following, not so. 95 vs Me; 7 vs 8; 10 vs 11, etc....

Google Play to ban Android VPN apps from interfering with ads

Two words

Pi Hole

Twitter savaged by former security boss Mudge in whistleblower complaint

CNN comes up with this?

With all the talk around collaboration (if not collusion) between the MSM and the High-Tech world - it figures that CNN would be the outlet to "scoop" this.

There's no place like GNOME: Project hits 25, going on 43

Re: Plus ca change - lentement

If aviation advanced at the rate that computers have - we would have landed on the moon in 1912 (9 years after Wilbur and Orville first flew at Kitty Hawk.

The perfect crime – undone by the perfect email backups

Re: "Delete" = "Hide"

There were two FATs - a copy to rebuild the original from JIC.

Ransomware grounds some flights at Indian budget airline SpiceJet

Better than Kenya Airways...

Once I flew from Mombasa to somewhere in Masai-Mara game park. The plane was a little 14 seater, open to the cockpit and dripping oil from multiple spots. Heart was pounding from takeoff to landing (buzzed the strip to scatter the zebras first). Only after we landed did I realize the fast heart rate and difficulty breathing was also because we flew at about 12K ft without pressurization. Needless to say - never again (although I do want to go on safari again)

Buying a USB adapter: Pennies. Knowing where to stick it: Priceless

Re: Seems ok

I had a 2 cylinder 4 valve dual carb Italian motorbike. One day I got it in my head to tune the engine, as it was sounding a bit rough. I managed to barely drive to my mechanic to unravel the mess. He gave me a resounding smack across the face and stated loudly - " I don't try fix my computer, YOU keep your hands f'in hands away from your bike!"

Bank had no firewall license, intrusion or phishing protection – guess the rest

Re: What could possibly go wrong?

More fun making deposits rather than withdrawals...

Procurement guy at Apple allegedly ripped off iPhone giant in $10m+ scam

Re: Stealing cash from the Big Boys in America

Son to father: "Dad, I've decided to enter organized crime..."

Father: "Which, private sector, or working for the government?"

BOFH: All hail the job cuts consultant

Job hunting

From my experience - these so-called consultants are actually gunning for a job in the outfit they are consulting. Numerous times a consultant has come in with grandiose plans and lots of bells && whistles - which culminated in their receiving a senior (aka high paying) position in said company.

File suffixes: Who needs them? Well, this guy did

I miss revision numbers (and VMS / RSTS-E in general). Showing my age.