Posts by Mage

Training and decent IT

Nothing unusual about spam based ransomware

" Forcepoint Security Labs reports that malicious emails carrying Jaff are being cranked out at a rate of 5 million an hour on Thursday"

"The sprawling Necurs botnet went dormant around the start of the year before returning to spread Locky and more recently a pump-and-dump stock price scam. It's unclear if this week's switch to Jaff will be sustained but this likely depends on the success of the ransomware's "opening run"

The one that was opened in various NHS trusts just had the added "spread by network share bug" uncovered by NSA.

People are not only clicking on link or opening attachments, but ALSO at LEAST once clicking on OK.

Patches can be good (sometimes bad), but Training and decent IT, almost all the time is the best solution.

Mitigation:

1) Don't click on links or open attachments in email ever, unless expecting them. Hover mouse on links to see where they really go. (Training)

2) Switch off/disable/uninstall all services not used

3) Use properly configured on premises mail server appliance (free linux box and open source POP/SMTP/IMAP no need for Windows Server + Exchange) if more than three users. Mostly strip/textualise links and quarenteen attachments.

4) Only open document attachments with software that can't run macros or Active X or VBS

2 to 4 are basic IT skills. Most MCSE/MCP courses are useless. I was an MCP with over 80% score in four MCSEs. They are rubbish. Microsoft marketing.

It's odd

AFAIK, (Am I wrong?)

It's odd because Uber makes a loss and is part funded by Google, is part owned by Google (not majoriity) and supplies all their passenger, trip and driver info to Google (which is illegal in EU, but EU law is slow).

Is it just that Google doesn't want them to do "self driving" vehicles?

No one is an "Internet Company"

Uber has drivers, that can't work for self or anyone else. Internet only used to book.

Amazon is a retailer of books, tat, a Library subscription service, video streaming services and Hosting company (hosting pre-dates Internet by 20 years, Cloud = Marketing speak for hosting). Internet only used to connect.

AirBnB is rental agency

Lyft is a taxi company like Uber

Google is an Advertising agency that uses virtual billboards. nearly an "internet company."

I can't understand how Uber has got away with the fiction they are not a taxi company for so long.

VC

For some reason when I re-read this I thought of DeLorean.

It got lots of money. He told the UK the Irish Government / Shannon Development was going to approve it for the old Firenca plant at Limerick (They actually thought it was doomed or a scam and chased him).

The cars were flimsy, road vibrations caused the thin stainless steel skin to de-laminate from the real fibregrass body (thus not scaleable production). The engine was more suitable power for a regular car than a high end sports car. The cool gull wing doors were a hazard if it flipped.

It looked cool, but was the sort of thing better suited to a film set than real life.

Was he a scammer or simply stupid or something else? I don't know. He offered to site in West Belfast and create LOADS of jobs, so the UK continued to starve indigenous startups and dished him loads of money.

If this gets of the ground ( ^_^ ) it will fail.

Satellites don't need the overhead of a VM.

It's an irresponsible use of LEO.

rise of AI marks an end to CPU dominated computing

Wut?

Someone has invented Asimov's positronic* brain?

What does that even mean, considering there is no general AI, only pattern matching to big databases? OK, parts of the algorithm might use some sort off gpu, array processor or other specialised co-processor.

All still needs a conventional CPU programmed by humans.

[*World chosen because he thought it sounded more advanced than electronic, back then computers were described by the media as "electronic brains"]

Forks and Choice

Forking can be good, sometimes it's just ego.

I never exactly understood the reason for this particular split, so I don't know.

OpenOffice -> LibreOffice, MySQL -> MariaDB, Hudson -> Jenkins forks all have one common explanation. Oracle. Actually even Davik vs JVM and C# from J++ are result of Sun/Oracle pressure and licences (J++ was too like Java, but not Java. The "full" Desktop Java is "free", but you have to licence a cut down version for phones, Sun or Oracle wouldn't agree a price for the free desktop version for phones, hence Davik. Google bought in Android)

The Linux Desktop GUI forks made sense too, as some teams drank the the worst MS & Apple "koolaid" and went for either "eye candy" or a fantasy cross device (one GUI for phone, tablet, TV and Desktop inherently is always going to be a failure). Choice between Classic Xerox 1976 principles (Older Mac OS, Win9x/Win2000 as in Mate with Redmond Theme), Ultra-flat and daft 3D eye-candy as a user preference seems a good idea.

I can understand the Systemd vs Unix Init split, even though I don't understand the details, nor know which is "right", thus choice is good.

Ulsterbus

They had those smaller buses at least 27 years ago. Like in the graphic.

Here in Ireland the bus stops have centrally controlled displays.

Swiss buses have live info displays on board.

What are these people smoking?

Other Products group ... boosted revenues by 31 per cent

Other Products group, a category that includes the Apple Watch and Apple TV, boosted revenues by 31 per cent to $2.87bn year-over-year.

What else is in that? It can't be the Apple Watch selling well, and the mis-named Apple TV is just a streaming box. A Roku or Kodi based something is better?

So they are nearly flat on iPhone now.

iPad is dying (if you really want a tablet, there is as good at 1/2 price with easier access to your own files).

I guess Mac sales are up because Win 10 is so awful.