Joker @ Joker @discuss.tchncs.de

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2 yr. ago

I agree that forgiveness is the more compelling aspect of the story. Obviously, the very lenient sentence jumps out and it doesn't seem like appropriate punishment. On the other hand, this guy has a year to sit in prison and think about why the victims chose to forgive him. It's possible that's more likely to change him than being locked up for 5 or 6 years. If you want some old, racist loser to die a racist loser then you lock him up for a long time. Instead, he's getting an opportunity at redemption that could possibly have a greater effect than just locking up some old bastard until he dies. I mean, we eventually have to change these people. This could be a much more interesting story than rage bait.

Maybe that was an issue with Windows 10 on the consumer side. I don't have experience with the home versions. In any case, it was a good upgrade and it provided more secure desktops for most people. On the corporate side, we were pretty happy to go to 10 and it was a smooth process. We had to do it in phases and we got a lot more calls from users wanting to move higher on the list than complaints. There were only a few asking to be last and the only real problem we had was one guy who demanded we buy him a refurbished Surface that had a specific old version of 8 pre-installed because it was "the best version ever".

You’d be surprised at how effective some hackers are. I was in an industry where we generally employed smart and educated people. I always told them the person on the other side doesn’t eat if they don’t fool someone. We would push education and protocols. For example, multiple approvals for a wire transfer over different channels and verbal verification of the account number after positive identification.

These people are submitting phony job applications with infected resumes. They email back and forth posing as a prospective client and will even talk on the phone before sending infected documents. They send fake invoices. They call the help desk. They forge checks. They try impersonation wire transfer scams. They send you fake marketing type packages or gifts with infected USB drives. They try to set up bogus interviews for articles or award nominations and pump you for information. They pose as vendors like printer repair. Or someone with some bullshit excuse asking an office manager in a remote office to unlock the server room. Some asshole showed up once and tried to get a receptionist to plug in a thumb drive. They will try to exploit every function of an organization. They are relentless and whenever you think you’ve seen it all there’s something new.

For sure social engineering. That eventually becomes the most serious threat. The jackpot is getting to a user. They are the ones with access to money, confidential data, etc. and it often won’t set off alarms because it doesn’t look out of the ordinary. Get them to do something on your behalf or grab their credentials and you basically get to bypass security.

Vista was pretty bad. That was another one most people skipped. They had 2 excellent releases prior to that - 2000 and XP - and then shit the bed with Vista. I still think 8 was worse though. But 2000 was my personal favorite Microsoft OS so what the hell do I know.

Anything in the online sports betting space. Addicts, scumbags, degenerates, and the people who make money off them.

My last gig was as a CIO in a fairly large organization and we had stringent infosec requirements due to the industry we were in. Old operating systems and software are absolutely an issue, although it still doesn’t stop some companies from running them.

Most of the malware going around exploits patched vulnerabilities. It literally takes seconds and not exactly a high skill level to compromise a machine that’s missing security updates. Regular patching is without a doubt one of the best controls you can have in place. The other big issue was social engineering. If you don’t effectively tackle those two things it doesn’t matter what else you do because you will be breached.

Besides that, you’re mostly right. We were all over the security updates but didn’t care for other upgrades because they introduce instability. It’s the last thing you want with thousands of endpoints and a bunch of shitty enterprise apps. Run it until the wheels fall off or it’s approaching EOL for security updates.

No idea. I haven’t heard anything positive either. It’s been like 3 years since I’ve touched a Windows machine. I had to use Windows 10 at an old job and it was a solid OS. Stable, reliable, can’t really say anything negative about it. I prefer Linux though.

Windows 10 replaced 7 for most people because 8 was a piece of junk. Windows 7 was old by the time 10 came out so there was pent up demand and 10 was a pretty solid showing.

There’s not much that’s compelling about 11 and they’ve introduced unwanted things. It shouldn’t be surprising that people prefer to stay on 10, which is one of the better operating systems Microsoft has ever released. Combine that with the dominance of Linux in the server space and what seems like increased adoption on the desktop and it’s a recipe for poor numbers. For a lot of developers, it’s easier being on a Linux desktop when Linux is the deployment target.

Exactly. The price keeps inching upward and the last generation of MacBooks was awful. After getting burned by one of those things I’m not about to buy another one even if the new processor is awesome.

Not to mention, the OS has become junk over the years. It used to be great for developers. They still ship crusty old versions of programming languages, window management sucks, and it’s just a pain in the ass to work with. These days, I would rather be on a Linux machine. Plus, most games work on Linux now, which is something Apple still hasn’t figured out.

Git and stow.

Tried some different things, including a few months on NixOS. Git and stow are as easy as it gets.

They haven't been a superpower in any sense of the term in decades. They haven't had any real economic power in a long time and their military has proven not to have any power. They don't have any diplomatic power anywhere that matters. What makes them powerful? Sure, they have a nuclear arsenal, but other countries have nuclear weapons and they are not superpowers. At best, Russia is a regional power.

They don’t. They care about keeping this from escalating into a very dangerous regional conflict with the potential to spread further. Israel is absolutely justified in going after Hamas. What they are actually doing is beyond what a reasonable response would look like. Nobody besides the bad guys cares if Israel goes and kills some terrorists, but they can’t displace a million people who had nothing to do with it and then starve them out. In a matter of days, Israel went from being the victims of a heinous attack to committing war crimes on a massive scale. That can’t be. It makes it hard to support Israel and we also can’t turn our backs on an ally. It’s an untenable political situation for the U.S. and risks a major conflict. The U.S. is serving its own interests.

It's about keeping Iran out of it so it doesn't escalate. Have to demonstrate a willingness to get involved while doing the diplomatic work behind the scenes to de-escalate. They are telling Israel they can have their revenge on Hamas but they need to bring things down a few notches. Don't occupy Gaza, don't starve them out, don't commit war crimes, make an effort to avoid collateral damage, etc. At the same time, they are telling Iran they don't want a wider conflict but are ready to fuck them sideways if they even think about escalating. Israel doesn't need any help fighting unless someone else piles on.

Very interesting and I appreciate the candor.

Not sure why you are being downvoted. Of course Russia is involved. They are allied with Iran and Hamas is a proxy for Iran. The next action will be in Asia unless cooler heads prevail.

Not a chance. Those guys are out in the street with slings and rocks. Then you’ve got some terrorists with a little bit of equipment that are no match for Israel. The CSGs are for Iran.

It breaks if you install AUR packages because they keep their main repository behind Arch. It’s an awful distribution. They add a nice looking custom desktop but otherwise add no value. They are a bunch of amateur clowns too. There’s no good reason to use it over Endeavour if one is looking for an easier Arch.

No. Why would they do that? There’s no money there. Poor people are on the hook for hardly any tax anyway. The people who cheat generally own companies or are self employed and often have access to cash. It happens a lot in small businesses. It’s a crime of opportunity. Hard to do it when tax is already deducted from your check before you get it. Easy when you can put yourself on the books for a modest salary and pocket a bunch of cash under the table.