* Posts by VoiceOfTruth

1648 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Jan 2022

UK water giant admits attackers broke into system as gang holds it to ransom

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For your safety and security

We will indefinitely retain "Scans of identity documents such as passports and driving licenses". You can be assured our (your) data is as leaky as our pipes.

Users now keep cellphones for 40+ months and it's hurting the secondhand market

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No need for an 'upgrade'

My phone from three and a half years ago is still good, apart from the battery. So I recently bought another one, exactly the same, new in the box. It's a third of the original price, and less than a quarter of the price of a new phone. I'm getting the battery replaced on the old phone. Mad? I don't think so. I now have two chargers, two charging cables, two sets of earphones for identical devices.

No doubt the cameras now are better than three or four years ago. But the old one is more than good enough for me.

FBI: FISA Section 702 'absolutely critical' to spy on, err, protect Americans

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It does depress me

I like what the USA ostensibly stands for. But what it actually does, the FBI is no different to the Stasi.

The USA paints itself as a democracy while several states are trying tooth and nail to disenfranchise voters of the "wrong" colour. If it was anywhere other than the USA the usual hangers on would be proclaiming about the "disputed" and "sham" elections.

The prison industrial complex in the USA is just slavery by another name.

It wears very thin after a time. We read about the FBI spying on people protesting wrongful deaths caused by the police, but not about the FBI spying on police officers causing wrongful deaths. The FBI may say it has "changed" but it's like changing my socks. They are still my socks and the effects are the same.

Nexperia left off subsidies list as Germany chips away at Chinese connection

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Re: decision made at the higest level, eh ?

-> So, which lobby group won that round ?

Washington. Do as you are told.

Will Flatpak and Snap replace desktop Linux native apps?

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Linux is going down the bloat path

And all because the whole Linux community cannot come up with one definitive way to package apps and libraries. So instead there are the worst options of the immense bloat of fully packages apps + libraries. It sounds good but it isn't. It is bloat and lazy. Backups come to mind? If you can't do a bare metal recovery you do not have a backup.

The Linux crowd, me included, used to laugh at the NT people whose backup/recovery process was reinstall the OS, reinstall all the apps, reinstall the data, because in those days handling open files on NT was a real PITA. If anyone tells me now that Linux recovery is reinstall the OS, download all the apps again like it's some kind of smartphone, put back the data then get lost. App bloat (due to containerisation) = backup bloat.

I have run into this on Macs too. NamelessImageApp stores its thumbnails as well as all the metadata in a SQLITE database. Very good when you have a few photos. But when your SQLITE database is 2GB in size, if you so much as tag a photo that means a 2GB backup. Now multiply that by the number of people who have the same NamelessImageApp. This idea of backups is lost on people who it seems to me do not do backups or have endless backup disk space.

Gnome is bloated. Why? Perhaps because the people who code Gnome don't understand about using resources wisely. I have seen Yum update crash due to using too much memory on a small system. The solution is not 'get a bigger boat'.

AI weapons need a safe back door for human control

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UK trying to look important

Much like the UK's importance in technology these days, it's noise from unelected politicians whose whole life was spent polishing chairs with their tailored suits.

UK government to set deadline for removal of Chinese surveillance cams

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Re: British 'government'

Your comment is fair enough. My English was bad in this case.

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British 'government'

Memo to the USA: You're spying on us is OK.

New York City latest to sue Hyundai and Kia claiming their cars are too easy to steal

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Re: The only option is....

-> You make the punitive cost so ridiculously large that any business simply can't risk the cost to themselves and their shareholders.

Which may well cause a business to move out of your jurisdiction = less choice for the consumer = higher prices.

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While I agree good security is a good thing

This is like suing window makers because windows can be broken with bricks.

New York streets are peppered with 'preventative scaffolding'. It is frankly an eyesore, all brought about with good intentions. Read more here (2nd link on DDG): https://streeteasy.com/blog/scaffolding-nyc-why-so-much-scaffolding-new-york-city/

MediaTek accused of setting 'patent troll' on rival, says it will defend itself

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Chaebol vs Chaebol

The movie. Only the lawyers got rich.

Clop ransomware crew sets June extortion deadline for MOVEit victims

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Use of language

-> Of course, it should go without saying: these are criminals, so taking them at their word isn't a good idea.

The same also holds true for the 'authorities'. Then they get found out for the nth time, and tell me why we are supposed to believe them ever again?

Oh Snap... Desktop Ubuntu Core to arrive in 2024

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Re: This is probably worthy of an article on its own

Office in the browser definitely does not have the same feature set as desktop the apps. Office on the desktop is 100% not dead. Please don't spread FUD.

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Re: This is probably worthy of an article on its own

-> Open Office - done

Until/unless Open/LibreOffice works 100% with MS Office documents, it is not done. That is the truth.

You have a short list of applications. There are simply bazillions more 'standard' apps which are available on Windows. In the AV world you can use DaVinci Resolve. But there are more people who use Adobe Premiere Pro. That is the standard app. As is Photoshop and Illustrator. So your 'done' list is not done. Your done list is for people who do not need to interoperate with other people.

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This is probably worthy of an article on its own

-> perhaps ones looking to repurpose existing fleets of desktop machines and thin clients which used to run Windows. For example, subsequent to a ransomware attack — a window of sales opportunity exists which Google has used to its advantage to sell its ChromeOS Flex offering before now

I wonder how many companies have actually done this - moved to Linux desktops due to ransomware attacks which were effective due to Windows security issues. The usual problems of Linux on the desktop still apply - the lack of 'standard' applications.

Huawei could be banned from 5G networks across the EU

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Very well

-> using kit from companies deemed to be a possible security threat

Cancel all Cisco orders immediately.

Florida man (not that one) sold $100M-plus in counterfeit network gear

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Because the cops are too busy arresting people who drop litter. Easy 'crime' solved. Numbers look good.

Google snubbed JPEG XL so of course Apple now supports it in Safari

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You are always free to use another browser.

US govt now bans TikTok from contractors' work gear

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Re: Let's have the same throughout Europe

No more ACs as we can't tell you apart.

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Let's have the same throughout Europe

No Google, no MS, no Facebook spyware.

British Airways, Boots, BBC payroll data stolen in MOVEit supply-chain attack

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Nice aggregation of numbers, truthful, but...

-> a small number of our customers

Yeah. But how many actual people? BA has about 35,000. The BBC and Boots are well into the tens of thousands extra.

-> another major supply chain attack

Hmm. It almost seems like the supply chain is not very secure.

UK warned not to bother racing US, EU on EV subsidies

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Policy Exchange

-> Policy Exchange, a Conservative group

I met somebody from this group a few years ago and had an evening of social chat with them. Apparently the group came up with the idea that parents want good schools. They actually sit around, chew the cud, and come up with this as a 'policy'.

China EV market share hits 27 percent as tax breaks extended

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Re: One to watch

-> per capita

Amen. Those people who deliberately mislead others (fake news?) practically never mention the population of China vs that of the USA.

Debian 12 'Bookworm' is the excitement-free Linux you've been waiting for

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Re: A welcome change!

-> Excitement is for the desktop - not the server room.

Well mostly. But back in the day when ZFS was introduced on Solaris, it was exciting. And in use it was a 'look how much crap we went through before" moment. Server side stuff can be interesting.

Microsoft Windows latest: Cortana app out, adverts in

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You ain't seen nothing yet

Wait until AI signs you up for some extra 'services' because it decided you needed them. You can always cancel.

Malaysia goes its own Huawei, won't ban Chinese vendor from 5G network

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Malaysia

Showing it is an independent country. Unlike any country in the EU or the UK. Cue the usual threats from Washington.

Meta threatens to pull all news from California rather than pay El Reg a penny

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Do people really only use Facebook?

Isn't the point of having a web site to bring in visitors? If you want, IDK, the San Francisco Chronicle can somebody not visit that web site directly? Are people really just Facebook users?

Smartphone recovery that's always around the corner is around the corner

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Some American Agency

Who can we hit next on our "Crush China" programme?

-> One business that already has its fingers in multiple pies is China's Xiaomi

Google veep calls out Microsoft's cloud software licensing 'tax'

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Re: Would it not be cheaper for Google, AWS, Alibaba

-> Won't help. People are too deeply wedded to MS applications.

So true. Alas I meet and hear a lot of open source advocates who simply do not understand the issue. It's easy enough for a one man band who writes a few letters in Word or works on a few Excel spreadsheets to move to LibreOffice, for example. But in a company where there is a long history of processes using Office, Outlook, SQL Server, it is a completely different prospect. We see it here in The Reg about people saying "try this distro, try that distro" when it comes to Linux. Pretty much all companies are not in the business of "trying distros", they just want to get on with their work.

Criminals spent 10 days in US dental insurer's systems extracting data of 9 million

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Re: Once again

Not just that, they pass the problem onto the people whose data has been slurped.

-> Those with children whose data was taken in the haul were offered advice in the breach notice on how they could "check to see if someone has created a credit file using my child's information."

Your data has been taken, here is how YOU can check what has happened to it.

Barracuda Email Security Gateways bitten by data thieves

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Well

-> No other Barracuda products are affected, according to the security vendor.

Maybe Barracuda doesn't know that for sure. Maybe other Barracuda products are not affected by this exact security hole, but others which have not yet come to light?

Twitter now worth just a third of what Musk paid for it

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Lesson on use of the sed command

echo "The billionaire's purchase of the site required him to get the backing of a number of investors" | sed s'/investors/gullible\ fools/'

Uncle Sam vows to Micron-manage China's memory chip ban

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Good luck, China

The Americans don't like it up 'em. America's economic war against China deserves to fail miserably.

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

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American view of the world, as shown in this article

-> to plunder the privacy of many thousands of US citizens

US citizens - the Übermensch.

Non-US citizens - the great unwashed untrustworthy unconverted not-like-us commies-under-the-bed.

Top cloud players reject Microsoft's attempt to settle EU licensing complaint

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The only chance the Euro companies have

Is to force data sovereignty - European data must be kept in Europe and not transferred to the spyhole of the world. This would mean MS, AWS, Google would have the same basic infrastructure costs rather than leveraging already-built-at-scale data centres in the USA. Sure, there will always be differences at the scale they operate at. But being unable to (mis)use US data centres would change their business methods.

China's homegrown airliner makes first paid-for flight

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In which case, Apple is not home grown either. I once read somewhere that Apple is a glorified GUI and case designer. A lot of truth in that...

New York county still dealing with ransomware eight months after attack

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Ah, money crime

-> The man behind a popular website that allowed cyber criminals to fake their caller ID location has been sentenced to 13 years and four months in prison... making or supplying articles for use in fraud

If he had stabbed somebody he would likely have got 5 years at most. Or even nothing at all.

US and China trade chiefs aim for cool heads as chip wars heat up

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Re: hehehehe

China has probably woken up. After Huawei there would be another industry-leading Chinese company to be erased. Then another. China will flex its muscles carefully.

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hehehehe

-> the Commerce Department stated that it strongly opposes "restrictions that have no basis in fact"

Huawei?

IR35 costs UK Research and Innovation £36M – the same it spent funding tech projects

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Tie the slaves up with red tape

Said the experts in red tape.

Five Eyes and Microsoft accuse China of attacking US infrastructure again

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How many of the Five Eyes

Illegally invaded Iraq and murdered a million people?

Microsoft appeals UK's block on Activision deal

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Desperately waving a flag

-> the UK competition watchdog

To pretend we are relevant. The British "government" is the MeToo of wannabes.

Ministry of Justice rapped by ICO for old fashioned data leak

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Tut tut

Not a good show, Smithers. More tea? I heard you're in line for a gong.

US mulls retaliation for China blacklisting Micron without evidence of security threat

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Ha ha ha

It's called blowback.

The other day we had the Rishi Sunak telling the world that China is guilty of economic coercion, while neglecting to mention all the sanctions and trade restrictions that the UK has in place against its bogeymen du jour. The difference is, China matters.

Lenovo profits sink 75% as PC demand continues nosedive

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We need to be careful here

-> post-pandemic world

It was not the pandemic which caused the economic slowdown. It was the reaction to the pandemic, the lockdowns which pretty much wiped out over a year of economic output in many sectors.

IT security analyst admits hijacking cyber attack to pocket ransom payments

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I referred to this sort of insider security threat previously

-> Liles, in his capacity as security analyst for Oxford Biomedica

In the comments to this article - https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/12/exubiquiti_developer_jailed/ - I mentioned the difficulty of preventing insider security problems. It is not an easy thing to do. To me it is the trust element which is so troubling. Burglars burgle (for the benefit of our American cousins, they don't burglarize any more than robbers robberize or murderers murderize their victims) , and that is to be expected. It is why we have locks on our doors. We have an expectation that people inside the door are more trustworthy.

-> Liles had attempted to wipe his devices days before his arrest, but the data was recovered.

This git doesn't appear to be the sharpest of 'security analysts', does he? Which is how he was caught, I guess. He deserve a few years in the slammer for this.

SF cops got warrant-free OK to watch protest via private security cameras

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What is needed

Is surveillance of the police by the public. The police have far too many powers which they consistently misuse. They are not to be trusted, which is why they all need to be put under surveillance.

TikTok to let Oracle view source code, algorithm, and content moderation

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They should have got Cisco to do it

Cisco knows how to make software with security holes. Or Microsoft. They're real experts.

UK told it must double low carbon investment to meet net zero targets

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Re: Investment?

-> I look at the Amazon being destroyed

I agree but for one thing. We in Europe, for example, can't point a finger and say "don't cut down those forests" when we have cut down ours. If we collectively want the Amazon to remain as jungle, then we collectively should pay for it. Pay the people of Amazonia not to log. Near to where I am there is a park with some large trees, some of which were cut down last year for "safety reasons". They had apparently become diseased and may fall down. Fair enough, I accept that. But no replacements have been planted. numberOfTrees--

-> I served in the jungles of southeast Asia hoping that the peace we restored would benefit the peoples and the jungle

I'm not sure which campaign(s) you were in, but wars never have such lofty goals. They are about beating an enemy or stealing land and resources (often from an enemy who rightfully owns them). Next up spreading democracy at the point of a gun.

Python Package Index had one person on-call to hold back weekend malware rush

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And I bet

That some people somewhere complained about PPI. 'Tut tut. If only PPI would get off its arse and fix this.' The same sort of people who complained about Log4J while doing nothing at all ever to help.

I tip my hat to the dedicated people in the open source world who maintain this stuff. They are often nameless (until the sh** hits the fan).