* Posts by Necrohamster

480 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Jan 2022

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Angry mob trashes and sets fire to Waymo self-driving car

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Terminator

I cant condone this...

...purely for the reason that when robots are running the world, I wouldn't want them remembering me for being a bad meatbag who attacked one of their ancestors.

Billions lost to fraud and error during UK's pandemic spending spree

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Re: Phew that clears it up

I suppose putting the ill-gotten money into a trust is *technically* not the same thing as putting it in her own bank account, so maybe she didn't stand to gain at that exact moment in time when the question was asked. :D

The fly in the ointment is that her [husband's] company is being sued by the government for providing defective PPE, so putting £30 million in a trust might be seen as a cynical move to put the money outside the reach of the courts.

Either way the whole deal stinks from start to finish.

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Devil

The rot starts at the top

Let me just say I'm surprised Baroness Michelle Mone OBE isn't under investigation for corruption.

Leak reveals Michelle Mone told government she would not benefit financially from PPE firm

The Conservative peer Michelle Mone assured the government that she was not entitled to “any financial benefit whatsoever” from a PPE company, five months before £29m of its profits were transferred into a trust for her benefit.

Leaked emails between Mone and the Cabinet Office reveal that a civil servant asked her to make a declaration that she had no conflict of interest in relation to the company, PPE Medpro, which she had recommended to ministers in May 2020.

Mone stated that she had “no conflicts whatsoever” and that she was not “entitled to any financial remuneration or financial benefit whatsoever”.

Closure of Windows 10 upgrade path still catching users by surprise

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Re: Don't confuse "upgrade" with "run"

"If a retail key, it may be already in use."

Use phone activation in this case *wink, wink*. And yes, it still exists in 2024.

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Re: That means no re-installs?

Welcome to capitalism. Of course, you may choose not to participate.

So instead of upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11, you might choose to install Ubuntu (or whatever) instead.

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Windows

Re: That means no re-installs?

"LOTS of games, software, tools and even modern programming languages and compilers have dropped Windows 7 support simply because they did not want to or could not afford to expend resources maintaining it, given that Windows 10 was a "free" upgrade path."

Windows 7 was the last great version of Windows, but it's obsolete now.

It makes up 3% of the Windows market share as of January 2024, so it's not worth the effort to do the testing etc to ensure new versions of your applications continue to support it. Which is fair enough...

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Pirate

Might be something to do with this.

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Windows

Just buy your Windows 10/11 key for a couple of quid on eBay like a normal person

IT suppliers hacked off with Uncle Sam's demands in aftermath of cyberattacks

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Re: "Trust us. We're with the government, and we're here to help."

Both things can be true. So what?

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Thanks to Solarwinds

This is no doubt in response to Solarwinds and their bullshit, after they were pwned and tried to cover it up.

The spyware business is booming despite government crackdowns

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Re: How much are we doing this to ourselves for convenience?

If you're a target for a state-backed hacker or other groups who use Pegasus etc, having your phone hacked is only one of a bunch of things they're probably doing to you. So using a dumb phone won't help in that regard.

Nobody's going to burn a chain of zero-days to get into your banking app anyway. Indian scammers are using social engineering to persuade people to send them money every day of the week.

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Re: Funny how...

Sorry, I use sarcasm a lot. Of course there's nothing funny or coincidental about ex-Mossad selling spyware worldwide.

Where ex-employees of state security services use their knowledge to make commercial spyware, they're way outside the remit of "spyware for Israel's national security"

Saudi Arabia might agree when it comes to Jamal Khashoggi's demise, but that justification is going to fall on deaf ears for the most part.

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Facepalm

"This is about Desktop security not server."

You must have read a different report, because the one I read was all about the exploitation of vulnerabilities on IOS and Android

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Black Helicopters

Funny how...

...the commercial surveillance industry has so many company founders who previously worked for IDF military intelligence (Unit 8200 or Unit 81) or the Mossad.

e.g. Niv Karmi (NSO Group) or Tal Dilian (Intellexa)

Coincidence?

IPv4 address rentals to mint millions of dollars for AWS

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Re: so, this £2.99 being bunged onto Amazon Prime Video....

A frugal Scottish Yorkshire man should know that you can get a year's Prime Video from amazon.pl for around a tenner

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Trollface

Is that all?

"AWS could rake in between $400 million and $1 billion a year from charging customers for public IPv4 addresses..."

Bezos probably finds that kind of money under his sofa cushions when he's looking for his TV remote

That's not the web you're browsing, Microsoft. That's our data

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Re: Remind me again

"...I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was a Chromium mechanism for trawling "all open tabs" and not terribly surprised if it can't distinguish between Edge and Chrome. That would make this a legitimate trawl implemented carelessly."

I know that Hanlon's Razor says we should never attribute to malice that which is explained by stupidity, but when it comes to Microsoft and Google collecting user data we should assume they're working with self-serving motives unless the opposite is proven.

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Windows

Re: Remind me again

"Everything needs to be paid for somehow."

You paid for your copy of Windows when you bought your computer (or your employer did as part of a volume licensing deal).

As far as I'm concerned, Microsoft isn't entitled to any extra compensation in terms of data/money/firstborn child/etc after the initial purchase (or outside of your employer's licensing deal).

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Re: Yeah, right

Look at any industry regulator in Ireland and you'll see the same blend of incompetence and disregard (some might say contempt) for the best interests of the public.

Criminals must be drooling at the thought of the EU Anti-Money Laundering Authority being located in Dublin.

EU repair rights bill tells manufacturers to fix up or ship out

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Re: This is what the EU is for

Nobody's going to that kind of trouble in any scenario.

Instead, an adversary would install Pegasus on your phone and plant bugs in your home/office/car

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Re: This is what the EU is for

"...manufacturers should be forced to release any tools required for pairing the chips."

Arguably this would negate the need to pair, say, a screen and a logic board in the first place.

As we know, there's no need for a manufacturer to pair anything except for the purpose of lining their own pockets. And this applies equally to car manufacturers as it does to gadget manufacturers.

Oh, and John Deere deserves a special mention.

New kids on the ransomware block in 2023: Akira and 8Base lead dozens of newbies

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cactus, play and bianlian are hitting a lot of organisations at the minute, but it's low-hanging fruit - construction companies, law offices, mom-and-pop-type operations

Not that they don't get hit as often, but you don't tend to hear about the big scores so much these days...

BTW ransomlook.io is a great resource for keeping track of what's going on, including links to tor leak sites for each group

Wikileaks source and former CIA worker Joshua Schulte sentenced to 40 years jail

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Black Helicopters

Re: after the FBI searched

Too bad the ownership of a laptop doesn't constitute evidence of wrongdoing.

Specially if it was handled by multiple people who had the opportunity and the motive to tamper with it.

But yeah keep banging the drum :D

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Re: after the FBI searched

Hunter Biden says the computer repair shop owner didn’t have a legal right to copy data from Biden’s laptop and pass it to others.

See my previous comment. The repair guy couldn't identify the person who brought in the laptop as Biden on account of his being blind.

The drive analyzed for The Washington Post lacked a clear chain of custody, and was considered "a mess" and "a disaster" from a forensic standpoint by the two analysts.

A chain of custody is necessary to ensure that the drive wasn't tampered with by the repair guy, the unidentified person who brought in the laptop, or anyone else with an axe to grind. Basically it can't be proven that any dodgy material was put there by the owner of the laptop.

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FAIL

Re: after the FBI searched

Yet the leaked hunter laptop data has those types of images and the FBI protects him.

lol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controversy

The owner of a Delaware computer shop, John Paul Mac Isaac, said that the laptop had been left by a man who identified himself as Hunter Biden. Mac Isaac also stated that he is legally blind and could not be sure whether the man was actually Hunter Biden.

...

The drive analyzed for The Washington Post lacked a clear chain of custody, and was considered "a mess" and "a disaster" from a forensic standpoint by the two analysts.

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Re: Really?

Bullrun.

Details leaked by Snowdon.

Oh please. Bulls*it, more like.

From the Wikipedia page you linked to:

Snowden's documents do not contain technical information on exact cryptanalytic capabilities because Snowden did not have clearance access to such information"

Ooh, unspecified capabilities. That's very convenient for the purposes of this discussion.

According to a Bullrun briefing document, the agency had successfully infiltrated both the Secure Sockets Layer as well as some virtual private networks (VPNs).

So what does this have to do with getting into a triple-encrypted file on some guy's disk? I know you Snowden fans are a gullible bunch, but come on...

is there a favourite for paedophiles to keep their CSAM safe?

Why don't you tell me ;) I used AES-256 as an example.

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Re: Really?

Encrochat.

Law enforcement insider planted in a company.

Crypto AG

Law enforcement owned the company.

Getting around encryption by having somebody with inside knowledge of the keys isn't the same thing as cracking the encryption of unknown data. Of course if law enforcement in this case already knew the encryption keys because they planted the data, this would be in line with what we know about how they operate.

Anyway, based on current technology, how long does it take to brute-force an AES-256 encryption key?

If it's an easy task to break encryption, how come organisations like GCHQ have campaigned to remove end-to-end encryption from messaging apps like WhatsApp? They even rely on the "won't somebody think of the children" appeal to emotion.

edit: El Reg wrote about this too - https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/22/british_encryption_scanning/

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Re: Really?

Call me sceptical, but there's no way law enforcement got through three layers of encryption unless it was Base64 or ROT13.

It's way more believable, to me anyway, that the "evidence" was planted just in case...

Space exploitation vs space exploration: Humanity has much to learn from the Voyager probes

Necrohamster Silver badge

"What's the value to the economy?"

Knowledge is its own reward.

Trying to find "value" to the economy will lead to the Musk-ification of space exploration. No thanks.

'I’m sorry for everything...' Facebook's Zuck apologizes to families at Senate hearing

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Re: Yep.

In the US, definitely, it's much easier to get a diagnosis and consequently drugs.

But in Europe somebody would need to see a psychiatrist to get a diagnosis that would allow them to get their hands on medication.

With kids, again in Europe, cognitive behaviour therapy is the preferred treatment...then medication.

Also, the stereotype of ADHD being a kid with running around endlessly is not really accurate. Hyperactivity is just one type...there's also inattentive type (seen most often in girls), and a combined type.

But yes, I'll agree with you on the access to dopamine hits. That's what everybody wants :D

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Re: Yep.

"...And they wonder why kids have zero attention span..."

Personally I don't believe kids are any worse now that the latchkey kid generation of the 80s and 90s. Of course you are free to disagree

ADHD and related issues existed, but were undiagnosed back then. Affected kids were "just" stupid/lazy/a space cadet.

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Joke

Re: The social media industry needs better representation

Well it should be self-evident as he's a Republican from South Carolina. :D

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Devil

The senators are just mad because Big Tech doesn't pay them off to the same extent Big Pharma, the NRA or Big Fossil Fuel does.

Pharmaceuticals / Health Products Recipients

Which senators have benefitted the most from NRA money?

Oil & Gas Recipients

"Politicians should wear sponsor jackets like NASCAR drivers, then we know who owns them” -George Carlin.

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Devil

The social media industry needs better representation

"Social media companies, as they're currently designed and operate, are dangerous products," said Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), ranking Judiciary Committee member, in his opening statement. "They're destroying lives, threatening democracy itself. These companies must be reined in or the worst is yet to come."

I watched the hearing, and my ears pricked up when Lindsey Graham berated Zuckerberg, saying he had "blood on his hands"

The gun companies long ago washed their hands of any responsibility for deaths caused by their products. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act protects weapons manufacturers from liability resulting from criminal activity.

Maybe the social media companies need to unite in a similar way?

Zen Internet warns customers of an impending IP address change

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Re: Hard Work

Or perhaps... Maybe this will be an opportunity for some of Zen's pain in the arse customers to move to a new provider.

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Linux

Re: Anyone using the IP for a self-hosted mail server" should just stop

All those geniuses running vulnerable mail servers on a home connection keep me in a job. :D

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"It's not really free though is it?"

Isn't it? That seems to be the thrust of the article.

The existence of a different tier of customers who pay for their IP addresses would disprove the theory that some customers are entitled to "free" IPs because someone says they're paying over the odds for their broadband service.

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Re: Lifetime guarantee

I love when people rant about enforcing their contracts without having ever read them...almost as much as I enjoy reading dumb comments from ACs

After your initial contract period (provided to you when you signed up...usually for 12 months...see your terms and conditions!) expires, you're using the service on a month by month basis unless you specifically opted into a new contract.

Do you have a copy of your Zen contract from 2002 (or whenever) to prove me wrong AC?

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Happy

Re: Lifetime guarantee

Why are you going on about price guarantees? This discussion has nothing to do with price guarantees.

If a "free IP addresses for life" feature was specified in the contract, you may have a leg to stand on. However, I fear that the small print may put some limitations on that as I look at section 14.5 of terms and conditions:

We may at any time make changes to the terms of our Agreement and/or the services and equipment if:

(a) we believe changes are necessary to improve the services for the benefit of our customers;

(b) there is a technical or operational reason for such changes;

(c) there is a change in the law or regulation of the services or equipment;

(d) we need to clarify our terms or we wish to have all our customers on the same terms; or

(e) there is a change in circumstances which we could not have predicted and which means a change is necessary.

Check your contact, and please let us know if you're allowed to retain your eight addresses. :)

Necrohamster Silver badge

"If you already had multiple IP addresses as part of your paid package, then we have assigned you the same amount of new IP addresses."

However, if you were provided multiple addresses outside of an allocated package, then the kindly ISP will be cutting the number of addresses down to one. Customers who want to keep their IP address count can purchase additional addresses from Zen."

Sounds fair enough.

People who pay for multiple IPs get multiple IPs.

People who don't, don't.

It's not like they're making any more IP addresses. Expecting Zen to provide a valuable asset to customers for eternity, for free, is a bit unreasonable.

Microsoft Edge ignores user wishes, slurps tabs from Chrome without permission

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Re: Again?

It asked me to close Edge before continuing, when I had closed Edge hours before.

I notice this too on machines where Skype's installed.

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Joke

Re: The irony...

Bring back good old non-Chromium Edge!

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Big Brother

Ha!

The trick is to not use Edge *or* Chrome.

Linus Torvalds flames Google kernel contributor over filesystem suggestion

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Re: Linus being shouty is not really news

"...Worth as much as we paid for it..."

No, that's the comment from an AC.

If you want to slag me off at least have the balls to not hide behind anonymity

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Re: Linus being shouty is not really news

"...egos and testerone..."

lol you unwittingly described the Linux kernel mailing list in three words.

Small wonder that women don't want to be involved.

SolarWinds slams SEC lawsuit against it as 'unprecedented' victim blaming

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Re: Misdirection Again

"as long as it’s consistently prosecuted, great, but...

The decision to prosecute is usually based on what can be proven by the available evidence, and in SolarWinds' case there seems to be plenty of damning evidence. What does consistency have to do with anything? The facts of every case are different.

"...SW are not exactly the first tech company to lie to customers, shareholders, hey…"

What's your point? They shouldn't be prosecuted because other unspecified companies told lies in the past? That they should only be prosecuted if all the other unspecified companies are prosecuted for their lies also? Help us to understand...

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Facepalm

Re: Sunburst timeline

"This was a supply chain attack, by threat actors who took a low & slow approach. They first gained access in September 2019, and the attack was not uncovered until December 2020. Was the CISO begging for more funding for security back in 2018? Yes! That doesn't he was aware of problems. Every CISO begs for more security funding. It is up to the board whether they approve the budget."

Funny story about SolarWinds' CISO...the company didn't have one at (or before) the time of the hack.

From the New York Times (Billions Spent on U.S. Defenses Failed to Detect Giant Russian Hack):

"SolarWinds was a ripe target, former employees and advisers say, not only for the breadth and depth of its software, but for its own dubious security precautions.

The company did not have a chief information security officer, and internal emails shared with The New York Times showed that employees’ passwords were leaking out on GitHub last year."

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Re: Also does it open up Microsoft for the same thing...

I don't know. Did Microsoft cover up a massive hack that resulted in countless companies and governments being breached?

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Re: Misdirection Again

I should add, for those who are hard of thinking, that the SEC is involved because the subterfuge may be rightly seen as an effort to manipulate the company's share price. That's their jurisdiction.

Also, insider trading:

"Insiders at the company had sold approximately $280 million in stock shortly before this became publicly known,[95] which was months after the attack had started. A spokesperson said that those who sold the stock had not been aware of the breach at the time"

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Re: Misdirection Again

"The precedent is concerning though, no? "

Not really. Anybody can make a mistake.

But...

The problem for Solarwinds is that after they found out about the hack, (a) they kept the details to themselves, (b) they lied to customers who contacted them with concerns that they might have been hacked and (c) only came clean after the issue gained traction on Reddit and their hand was forced.

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