Posts by NonyaDB

It's time to track people's smartphones to ensure they self-isolate during this global pandemic, says WHO boffin

[laughs in United States Constitution]

Supply, demand and a scary mountain of debt: The challenges facing IT as COVID-19 grips the global economy

"The leader of the free world dumbly in denial over the basic scientific facts of the worst public health crisis in a generation? Opinions vary."

And [CLOSE TAB] without bothering to read rest of this "analysis".

Protestors in Los Angeles force ICANN board out of hiding over .org sale – for a brief moment, at least

"The money has come from billionaire Republican investment vehicles."

Show your work or remove that line.

The time that Sales braved the white hot heat of the data centre to save the day

Warlord Notebook was pure evil

While stationed in Germany as a tanker, 1AD decided to deploy something called "Warlord Notebook".

They were laptops running Red Hat Linux on them.

That's right. The U.S. Army back in the 90s thought it would be cool to issue Linux laptops to soldiers who didn't really know a damn about computers much less Linux.

Blowing things up with M1A1 Heavy tanks they were pure genius about, but logging into a Linux laptop and using email and custom software on it they didn't know their collective asses from the holes in the ground their tanks would often create.

Out of the entire division there were two of us that had a clue about using them. One was an artillery guy and me, the tanker. No one in commo really knew anything about Linux back then. We played with it for laughs in our limited spare time and were comfortable with it.

And since division didn't believe in using DNS servers at the time, we had to run around to every single notebook and hand-load a custom hand-built HOSTS file that contained the IP addresses and names of every other Warlord Notebook laptop out there. Luckily there were only a few hundred.

And the IP addresses changed for every exercise.

Luckily the contractor who built them left all the default "Games" installed, including netdoom.

Soon there were large classified network LAN parties of netdoom going on.

Eventually the entire "Warlord Notebook" program went the way of the Dodo and died off, thank God.

Trump Administration fast-tracks compulsory border facial recognition scans for all US citizens

Contrary to popular belief, the U.S. isn't dependent on call centers in Mumbai.

One man's mistake, missing backups and complete reboot: The tale of Europe's Galileo satellites going dark

Re: Doesn't inspire confidence....

That's how they get *built* not how they are managed and maintained once in orbit.

That comes down to exactly two agencies - NASA and [REDACTED] - the heads of which can be fired at any time for anything as massive a fuck-up as what happened to Galileo.

And the major U.S. DoD space contractors do back-channel with each other on certain things so it's not like they're out-of-the-loop if something goes awry.

I used to work for Raytheon and we'd regularly chat with our peers over in other defense companies, especially concerning satcoms issues. Nothing company-sensitive of course, but the channels are there to prevent things like this from happening to U.S.-based orbital assets.

GitLab mulls ban on hiring Chinese and Russian support staff because 'security'

Re: Is this legal?

I've worked at the "federal level" in the DoD for almost 20 years and they damn sure as hell can - and do - bar employment from those with suspect backgrounds or who fail their SSBC.

They don't even look at non-native-born American citizens for certain jobs that require above TS/SCI.

FYI, we're now in the timeline where Facebook decides who is and isn't a politician on its 2bn-plus-person network

The only people whining about this are folks who think Zuckbook elects politicians and hate Donald Trump.

No one else really gives a damn.

Unlike the rest of the planet, we have this thing called a "Constitution" that guarantees non-governmental interference when it comes to speech so there's not much that anyone can do about whatever the hell Zuckbook wants to do with itself.

I haven't used Zuckbook since it was in beta many, many years ago, and it's never had my real identity tied to it.

It's mere existence has no impact on my life - or the way I vote - at all.

I check the candidates' stances on policy issues versus their own public statements, comments, and actions and decide from there.

I'm not Boeing anywhere near that: Coder whizz heads off jumbo-sized maintenance snafu

Re: This Page Is Intentionally Blank

U.S. military and government documentation do the "THIS PAGE LEFT INTENTIONALLY BLANK" thing in the center of the page all the time.

Warlord Notebook

Back in the 90s USAREUR (U.S. Army in Europe) thought it would be cool to issues hundreds of RedHat-powered laptops to various commands in order to command and control a battlespace.

Problem is, America's G.I. Joes back in the 90s were just not that Linux-saavy when it came to using the damn thing.

Hell, the Army back then didn't even have a computer Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) and a unit was lucky to have one or two PCs to with them into the field.

Not only that, they declined to use DNS or DHCP servers on the [REDACTED] network they would be putting these things on requiring someone to go out and hand-program the IP address as well as copy over a massive HOSTS file to hundreds of these laptops.

Luckily, a certain Armored Division found one of its tankers who knew how to "operates the RedHat" and quickly deployed his unhappy hide across the entire exercise battlespace to do all of that for them.

"Here's the OPORD, keys to the Ford pickup truck, and 200 gallons in AAFES fuel coupons. Don't come back until the exercise is done. GO!"

I was that unlucky soldier. I hate Warlord Notebook and am glad they killed it off.

Nothing's certain except death and patches – so that 'final' Windows 10 19H2 build isn't really

Re: Aren't you thinking of

More like Sealab 2021...

Steve Bannon-backed flick attempts to expose evil lurking at heart of Huawei *cough* Huaxing

Re: Yeah, sure

You do know there are no Republican politicians anywhere near Cisco's HQs, right?

You do know Cisco doesn't donate to Republicans, right?

Obviously you don't know.

So we're going back to the Moon: NASA triggers countdown by firing up spacecraft production

What do you mean "we", British Subject?

AMERICA is going back to the moon. You can't even get out of the EU.

Chef melts under heat, will 86 future deals with family-separating US immigration agencies

Re: Good to know that they are not proponents of border security

Where were your protests when Obama initiated children-in-cages?

Looks like the only winner here is the first defense contractor to come up with a government-use-only clone.

Which is going to happen, probably from NGIT or Raytheon - they've both done this before in other areas.

Chef was really stupid caving in like this.

Google engineering boss sues web giant over sex discrim: I was paid less than men, snubbed for promotion

Re: 'Outside the bubble' issues maybe?

Exactly. Same goes for the defense contracting world where it's not who you are or even who you know but rather "who knows you".

And if they don't *know* you and no one vouches for your skillset and work ethic then you're not getting hired or at least not going to get hired into a sensitive position overseas.

Stateside, sure. Overseas where the big bucks are? Nope.

I've literally gotten a gig in Iraq just because one of the other contractors saw my resume on the country manager's desk and remembered me from several NATO exercises years ago and told him they need to hire me ASAP to help them set up a few things.

I was on a plane to Iraq a week later.

The DoD world loves us combat arms veterans who work in IT as we're already vetted.

You just can't get a reliable network engineer to work in austere, violent, life-threatening conditions that *hasn't* already experienced combat because they tend to crack up with what they're exposed to on a daily basis overseas.

Pulling IT & radio gear out of a bloody, blown-up military vehicle - sometimes on-site in the field - then cleaning it up, testing it, and putting it into a new vehicle isn't for everyone.

Chef roasted for tech contract with family-separating US immigration, forks up attempt to quash protest

Let's be clear here - illegally entering the country and then trying to claim asylum is not an approved method of claiming asylum.

Folks who do that are rightfully detained until processed and deported.

And just like any other common criminal, no you can't have your kids/family with you in jail.

Don't get it twisted, Brits, you don't know what's going on because you've never been there.

I used to live in El Paso, HQ'd out of Ft. Bliss, and one of my first "jobs" in the Army was working on the JTF-6 task force during the Clinton Administration where we unleashed complete and utter hell on drug cartels operating on the border.

It worked well enough - barring a certain Marine sniper incident - until the Task Force mysteriously disappeared one day.

Cortana makes your PC's heart beat faster: Windows 10 update leaves some processors hot under the cooler

Microsoft Patch Engineer over the holiday weekend...

"Go 'way. 'Batin'."

NATO sharpens its cyber-lances, prepares for war games with virtual jousting tournament

The U.S. Army has come a long way from the "Warlord Notebook" days.

I hated that system so much. So clunky. So slow.

Glad they killed it off in favor of [REDACTED] which was then itself replaced with [REDACTED].

FBI, NSA to hackers: Let us be blunt. Weed need your help. We'll hire you even if you've smoked a little pot in the past

Re: They don't rely on drug tests for past use

*Nothing* on the SECRET level or above is ever deleted.

Back when I was a GS overseas working on things *nothing* was ever deleted.

Accounts and mailboxes would be disabled but never deleted.

They were just moved into an inactive bin/database/sub-OU.

Depending on the work you were doing, sometimes the entire laptop or desktop drive was imaged and stored as well as a "just in case" measure, but I only ever saw that happen with retirees because once you get to that level of fun you're pretty much a lifer.

I got out of the military, they inactivated my accounts and clearance.

I went back in as a GS 6 months later and they re-activated it all and it was all still there.

Got out of the GS job and went back in couple of years later as a contractor and when they re-activated my clearance and re-issued me my accounts all my old email and files were still there.

*EVERYTHING* you do on a secure PC or other device is never deleted.

Ohm my God: If you let anyone other than Apple replace your recent iPhone's battery, expect to be nagged by iOS

Re: OMG!

I've had a Li-Ion battery in my BMW F650 GS motorcycle for years now with no issues.

Kent bloke incurs the anchor of local council after fly-tipping boat

[reads article full of dad puns]

I hate you so much right now.

Ex-Mozilla CTO: US border cops demanded I unlock my phone, laptop at SF airport – and I'm an American citizen

Back when I was a GS-2210 for the U.S. Gov and traveling a *lot* overseas for the wars, going through customs in the U.S. was cake.

"Sir, what's the nature of your trip?"

[show blue passport]

"Government work."

"What kind of government work?"

[show military ID]

"The kind you aren't cleared to know about."

"OK then."

You show a military ID or brown government passport and TSA tends to STFU and let you go on about your way.

I remember the really old days when we traveled with TWO blue passports - one for Israel and one for the Arab states so they wouldn't know you've been to Israel via transfer in Frankfurt.

Man, talk about racking up the frequent-flyer miles!

Welcome. You're now in a timeline in which US presidential hopeful Beto was a member of a legendary hacker crew

Re: Well...

Exactly. he was not a "hacker". He did the same thing all of us kids in the 80s did, which was dial-up a BBS or two and download games/cracks and post cringy stuff.

He was *not* a real member of that group, just a user of some of their boards like the rest of us.

Click here to see the New Zealand livestream mass-murder vid! This is the internet Facebook, YouTube, Twitter built!

Re: "The simple fact is that the availability of such content, unchecked, is driving the problem."

"Personally I doubt the guy thought so much about the potential reactions for different political groups, though. He despised a certain group of people and killed them, end of story."

Oh he gave a LOT of thought about what his actions would do.

Read his "manifesto" - he explicitly says his actions were designed to sow chaos and he tells you exactly what he thinks of each political group. He wrote how he hates "conservatives", ANTIFA, muslims, etc.

The terrifying part is he is completely sane, even if his motivations are completely murderous.

Dev's telnet tinkering lands him on out-of-hour conference call with CEO, CTO, MD

"Mr. Anon, why does our internet randomly cut out on us?"

"Well, sir, we have a point-to-point wireless 'shot' from our tower here to another tower about 60km away and unfortunately the shot lies directly in the approach flight path of the airport over there so every time a Blackhawk or Apache comes in to land, they literally sit in the beam path for a few minutes and block the signal. Once they fly off then it takes a minute or two for the two modems to re-establish the link."

"Well, can't you move the towers?"

"Afraid not, sir. They're permanently installed."

"Well who the hell did that?"

"The United States Department of Defense, sir."

"Oh. OK."

Windows 10 Pro goes Home as Microsoft fires up downgrade server

Nope. I'm in the middle of new PC builds and it's affecting brand-new installs using OEM licenses in the BIOS.

It affects *everything*, not just upgrades from previous Windows OS versions.

How to fix this if you are affected (OEM BIOS keys only!)

1) Install “ShowKeyPlus” from Microsoft Store (it’s free)

2) Run it, save the keys to a text file on the desktop using the

3) Open up an admin command-line

4) Type in “Slmgr.vbs /ipk [OEM-LICENSE-KEY-WITH-DASHES]” without the quotes and using the OEM key from the ShowKeyPlus text file you saved to the desktop.

5) Verify it took by checking Windows Activation in the Settings GUI (Update & Security, Activation)

6) Delete desktop text file

7) Uninstall ShowKeyPlus (right-click on program icon, uninstall)