107062574
submission
Futurepower(R) writes:
I've seen misleading items on Amazon. For example, this King Size 100% Cotton Sheet Set was advertised as costing $7.45. On Amazon it says "+ $11.55 shipping". The true cost with shipping is $19. The top reviews say that the sheets are not cotton.
What have been your experiences?
104288252
submission
Futurepower(R) writes:
Minister in Charge of Japan’s Cybersecurity Says He Has Never Used a Computer. (Nov. 15, 2018)
Japan's cybersecurity minister has never used computers. (Nov. 15, 2018. Fixed the title.)
Quote: "Lawmakers laughed incredulously at his replies, which were highlighted in Japanese media.
It is common that older people don't use computers and don't want to learn.
102456094
submission
Futurepower(R) writes:
Apparently this explains why Microsoft has been releasing Windows 10 updates that cause problems. If you pay a monthly fee, Microsoft will remove the problems. Three of the articles:
Microsoft's got a new plan for managing Windows 10 devices for a monthly fee. (July 27, 2018)
Windows 10 Leak Exposes Microsoft's New Monthly Charge. (Aug. 4, 2018)
Quote: "Ever since its creation, Microsoft has described Windows 10 as a service. The fear has always been that this meant Microsoft would start charging users a monthly fee to maintain the operating system, and now a new leak has confirmed this is exactly what will happen"
Windows 10 SHOCK: Is Microsoft about to start CHARGING a monthly fee? Stunning claims made. (Aug. 6, 2018)
Some of the many articles about Windows 10 update problems:
Windows 10 Essential Updates Have Serious Problems (Jan. 10, 2018)
Windows 10 April 2018 Update could break a ton of critical features on your PC (May 3, 2018)
Microsoft Admits July 10 Patches Caused Skype and Exchange Server Problems. (July 18, 2018)
Windows 10 April 2018 Update problems: how to fix them. (Aug. 23, 2018)
This article says that Microsoft should pay users:
Windows 10 update 'fail' — Microsoft MUST pay out as users still 'plagued with problems' (June 13, 2018)
Quote: "Windows 10 users should be compensated after Microsoft’s updates have caused havoc with PC owners 'plagued with problems' and some facing huge bills to fix software issues."
101353388
submission
Futurepower(R) writes:
Harlo Holmes, a digital security trainer at the Freedom of The Press foundation, told me that the design of this email alert “reinforces” the user error of clicking on phishing links. In effect, this alert may very well be training people to click on random links sent to their emails. In this case, the email is legitimate, but that type of behavior is generally how people get phished.
91939579
submission
Futurepower(R) writes:
What is the best way to isolate a network from the internet and prevent
intrusion of malware, while allowing carefully examined data transfer
from internet-facing computers?
An example of complete network isolation could be that each user would
have 2 computers with a KVM switch and a monitor and keyboard, or 2
monitors and 2 keyboards. An internet-facing computer could run a very secure version of Linux.
Any data to be transferred to that user's computer on the network would
perhaps go through several Raspberry Pi computers running Linux; the computers
could each use a different method of checking for malware.
Windows computers on the isolated network could be updated using Autopatcher, so that there would never be a direct connection with the internet.
Why not use virtualization? Virtualization does not provide enough separation; there is the possibility of vulnerabilities.
Do you have any ideas about improving the example above?
89341653
submission
Futurepower(R) writes:
Other countries? What other countries offer copyright registration?
The U.S. Copyright Office raised its fees on May 1, 2014. Now,
if you write 2 poems of 10 lines each, that is called a "compilation".
The cost of "one work" is $35, the cost of registering a compilation is
$55.
Long processing time: The processing time for internet e-Filing
of a U.S. copyright registration is 6 to 10 months. The processing time
for paper forms is up to 10 to 15 months. See underneath the
photographs on the Registration Portal web page.
There are often error messages. I got this one a few minutes ago; I was not logged in:
"Your session timed out because you were idle for too long. Please log in again to resume. If
you had a Siebel attachment open, your changes may have been
lost. Please save the file locally, close it, and reattach it to
the appropriate record."
Apparently the U.S. Copyright Office uses Oracle software. That's all I know about Siebel attachments.
I have gotten another Oracle error message:
"We detected an Error which may have occurred for one or
more of the following reasons: The selected record has been modified by
another user since it was retrieved. Please continue.(SBL-DAT-00523)"
It was not obvious what caused the message. I didn't "select a record".
It's complicated. The U.S. Copyright Office Compendium of Practices PDF file is 1,288 pages long, and includes links to other PDF files.
Each chapter has page numbers, but there are no overall page numbers.
Payment is made BEFORE uploading the file to be copyrighted. If there is an error, the Copyright office keeps the money.
Many readers of everything registered? Presumably the many U.S. government secret agencies and their
contractors have access to every submission to the U.S. Copyright
office. Presumably it would be easy for someone to steal.
Other methods? Encrypt and send an email? If you want to prove
that you are the author of a document, can you encrypt it and send it by
email using a large system that stores emails indefinitely? Would a
court accept that an author could not possibly have control over the
date shown on a Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo email, for example?
Could you send an encrypted file to friends who would record the date
they received it? Also, all ISPs and services like Dropbox record the
date a file is received.
87617549
submission
Futurepower(R) writes:
I see plenty of evidence that banks don't manage their web sites well.
When I check my balance at Ally Bank, the NoScript and Ghostery
Firefox add-ons tell me that 11 other sites* would be contacted if I
didn't have protection.
See the sites below.
The Barclays U.S. Bank web site terms of use
say that Barclays U.S. Bank has no legal responsibility or liability
for anything it says on its web site. Quoting: "... THE BANK DOES NOT
WARRANT THAT: (i) THE SITE OR THE SITE CONTENT IS CORRECT, ACCURATE,
RELIABLE OR COMPLETE..." If you can't depend on what the web site says,
how can you feel comfortable that you know enough about the bank to want
to be a customer?
I talked with a representative at CapitalOne 360 Bank
when I discovered that now there is no way to send a secure message to
the bank.
(My wife has an account.) The secure messaging only allows receiving
messages from the bank. If you have a question, you have to call and
talk with someone, and you have no
way of proving what you were told. The CapitalOne 360 Bank
representative said that there were too many incoming messages for the
staff to answer, so
incoming messages were recently deactivated.
Customers are not allowed to keep the incoming messages from the bank;
they are deleted after 90 days.
I have plenty of other stories
like that. In my experience, top managers often have little knowledge of
technology, and often seem not to want any knowledge.
So, which is the best-managed U.S. bank?
What are your stories about banks?
*Here are the web sites linked when I check my balance at Ally Bank. Advertising:
Adobe Audience Manager, Advertising.com, DoubleClick Floodlight,
DoubleClick Spotlight, Google Dynamic Remarketing, MediaMath, and RUN. Site Analytics: Omniture (Adobe Analytics) and Qualtrics. Other web sites:
Demdex.net and Omtrdc.net. When I tried to visit the Omtrdc.net web site, I got a Firefox
message: "Your connection is not secure. The owner of omtrdc.net has
configured their website improperly. To protect your information from
being stolen, Firefox has not connected to this website."
82621209
submission
Futurepower(R) writes:
A customer needs an ultra-secure network. Everyone will have 2 computers, one with proprietary software, another with internet access.
What is the best way to pass data between the 2 networks, while creating restrictions like avoiding transfer of files with banned file name extensions?
What is the best way to share a monitor?
78771095
submission
Futurepower(R) writes:
A member of an advisory group to President Barack Obama said about surveillance,
"There can be serious negative effects on other U.S. interests". — From the
Reuters article, Russian
researchers expose breakthrough in U.S. spying program." The U.S. National
Security Agency has figured out how to hide spying software deep within hard drives made
by Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and other top manufacturers, giving the agency the
means to eavesdrop on the majority of the world's computers, according to cyber
researchers and former operatives."
"China is seeking to make its own secure smartphones, in an attempt to insulate its
handsets from U.S. surveillance." — Wall Street Journal
Links: Direct,
possibly paywalled, also
through Google Search.
How will China react to Windows 10, which gives Microsoft complete control over
any computer connected to the internet?
Articles about Microsoft spying:
Microsoft's Software is Malware. "Malware means software
designed to function in ways that mistreat or harm the user." — Gnu.org
How Can Any Company Ever Trust Microsoft Again? — Computerworld
UK
Microsoft
handed the NSA access to encrypted messages — The Guardian
In a democracy, citizens are allowed to participate in government. Secret government
projects in the U.S. make the U.S. less of a democracy and move toward hidden
control.
Articles about secret agencies often assume there is good management. An employee of an
NSA sub-contractor, Edward Snowden, was able to copy huge amounts of data. What would
stop NSA employees from listening to telephone conversations of CEOs to find inside
information for profiting from buying stock, for example?
74800831
submission
Futurepower(R) writes:
There are thousands of complaints that Microsoft's Windows Media Center TV schedule guide (EPG, Electronic Program Guide) is no longer being updated. For example, see Microsoft's Feedback center.
Microsoft says it is working on the problem: Media Center EPG Update — 7/24/2015.
Microsoft will disable Windows Media Center if a customer moves to Windows 10: "Any PC that is upgraded from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 will lose the Media Center functionality, and there's no way to get it back."
69107015
submission
Futurepower(R) writes:
I learned from CyberInferno's Slashdot comment that Microsoft PAYS people to use Bing search!
So:
1) To get people to use its search engine, Microsoft feels that it is necessary to pay.
2) 31% of Yahoo’s revenue comes from Microsoft paying it to use Bing.
3) Yahoo paid Mozilla Foundation to change the search configuration of Firefox without notice. I imagine that most people won't know what went wrong or how to re-configure Firefox. When people have problems with Firefox, they may switch to another browser, like Google's Chrome.
4) People may think they are using Yahoo search, but there is no such thing as "Yahoo search". Actually, without being notified, Yahoo customers are using Microsoft Bing search, and their search information is being given to Microsoft.
5) Microsoft pays Yahoo to use Bing. Yahoo pays Firefox to use Bing. Eventually, when the news about why Bing use is increasing is more widely known, people who don't feel comfortable with the situation may switch to Google Chrome. In effect, Microsoft is paying for a powerful ad campaign to get people to switch to Google Chrome.
6) Those who want to be paid by Microsoft must use Bing directly, not through Yahoo.
7) The trickiness and dishonesty may cause further collapse of Yahoo. In effect, Yahoo is being paid to decrease the popularity of Yahoo.
8) In effect, Mozilla Foundation is taking money to decrease the popularity of Firefox.
9) In effect, Microsoft is paying Mozilla Foundation to make Firefox less popular.
10) That may be a way to artificially increase search traffic, But It's Not Good (BING). To me, that's another example of Microsoft DIE, the Dastardly Insertion of Evil.
11) And, of course, all of that is bad for Microsoft's reputation, decreasing the popularity of anything from Microsoft. So, Microsoft is paying to decrease the popularity of Microsoft.
That is so WEIRD that I feel compelled to joke about it. (WEIRD = When Every Idea Rates Dumb)
65729711
submission
Futurepower(R) writes:
What has been your experience with the reliability of backing up data on Blu-Ray discs? Do you generate error correction files? Which error correction program do you use and why?
58967289
submission
Futurepower(R) writes:
We are seeing 4 kinds of problems with Windows XP today at 2 remote locations:
1) One kind of problem is similar to the one in this April 7, 2014 story about computers in Australia: Pop-ups irritate Windows XP's remaining users. Microsoft Security Essentials on computers in the United States give pop-up messages about the MSE service being stopped.
2) Computers are requiring far longer to start, perhaps 12 to 15 minutes. Then the MSE pop-up appears.
3) Microsoft Security Essentials now calls into question whether XP is genuine. These are all computers that have run without issues for several years. The customer bought licenses when Windows XP was first released.
4) We have seen problems with the Windows XP operating system detecting a key stuck down when no keys were pressed on the keyboard. That is a software problem, not a keyboard hardware problem. It causes the system to be un-responsive because the key being detected is not one actually pressed, but is actually a key combination. Again, that is happening on computers that have been trouble-free for years. That problem began happening after a Windows update.
Microsoft said it would support MSE on Windows XP for another year. See the Microsoft article, Microsoft antimalware support for Windows XP. Apparently that support is not happening in the normal way.
58708651
submission
Futurepower(R) writes:
Windows XP did not instantly become unsafe on April 8, 2014, the date Microsoft calls the "end of life" for Windows XP.
"End of life" is a way for Microsoft to make more money. Governments and
big corporations are often influenced by people with no technical
knowledge. Because of their ignorance, governments have already paid
Microsoft probably more than it costs to fix the few security defects found each
year. However, the taxpayers of those governments will not be allowed to have the fixes.
It's like Toyota told all owners of older Toyota vehicles that the
vehicles are unsafe now and owners must buy new vehicles or pay millions
of dollars to keep them. Except its worse: Software doesn't have
mechanical wear.
This article contains tips about how to use any version of Microsoft Windows safely that can be shared with people you want to help. Unnecessary computer maintenance is an ugly way to make money.
53251779
submission
Futurepower(R) writes:
Are Blu-Ray discs reliable for making backups of data? What has been your experience?
