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Comment Re:Lifelong firefox user (Score 1) 205

I am a longtime Firefox user, but time is running out, I fear. About a month ago I was no longer able to log into PG&E, my natural gas and electricity provider. No errors, but the sign-in page would not load on Linux or Windows. Last week, that changed. They print link to a page that says that only Chrome, Edge and Safari would be allowed to login to their web pages. The claimed that no other browser exceeds 5% of users and, rather than spend resources supporting other browsers, they were blocking all of them.

Chase Bank blocks all access from any operating systems except Windows and MacOS. Only those two systems were considered "secure enough" to allow in the door.

I can move to a different bank, but I can't change from Pacific Gouge and Extortion. Oddly, I can use Duck Duck Go on my phone, so I can survive, at least. If a real alternative browser ever is allowed onto Android (not likely without legal intervention), I suspect it will soon be blocked, but as long as all Android browsers are Chrome with a Firefox or other wrapper, it continues to work.

As time passes, the only options will become Chrome based except for Apple products.

Comment Some dups are essential (Score 1) 61

Not all duplicate passwords are really duplicates. I have at least two cases where a single site has two distinct domain names and they are totally interchangeable. One is just two letters and the other is much longer. So, every time I run the checker in my vault, it lists these as dups.

When I was working, this was especially true for many internal and external systems that were like this. Many were anycast systems which had the anycast name (used in most cases) and a system specific name used when someone needed to access a specific member of the set of an anycast group.

Comment Re:Really? (Score 1) 164

Does the UN climate faction has any credibility at this point?

They have been correct so far.

But the deniers have to jump in

This is true. The predictions have pretty consistently been conservative and the actual measurements have usually been more extreme than the predictions. The climate scientists understand what the deniers would claim if the predictions were not at least met, so they are conservative.

Comment Lack of resiliance? Not what I read. (Score 2) 77

Interesting to see this today as this morning's paper (San Jose Mercury) had a nice article about how California handled this summer's record heat wave with no shortages and not even a single Flex Alert requesting conservation during peak usage. How it never even got close, mostly due to the large availability of new battery storage, along with new and existing solar and wind capacity, that has been added over the past few years.

There are real concerns with major interconnects both between northern and southern Cal as well as to other states, but, due to the multi-megawatt battery installations in multiple areas in the state, triple digits in both ends of the state at the same time did not over-tax the system.

Comment Re:We could do lots of dumb things (Score 3, Insightful) 114

The snag is that they will still get very hot, but there's no atmosphere to let that heat radiate away. Cooling is a necessity but also difficult to do in space.

Well, kinda close. The only way to get rid of heat in space IS radiation. Infrared travels though a vacuum just fine. That is how most satellites are cooled. And, yes, cooling is required by most satellites. Some satellites carry coolants. Liquefied HE or something similar.

Cooling in space is a bitch and cooling a data center of any size will be VERY tricky. Since I know hat they have thought of this, I'll be very curious to learn exactly what.

Security

Hacker Accesses Internal 'Tile' Tool That Provides Location Data To Cops (404media.co) 39

A hacker has gained access to internal tools used by the location tracking company Tile, including one that processes location data requests for law enforcement, and stolen a large amount of customer data, such as their names, physical addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers, 404 Media reports. From the report: The stolen data itself does not include the location of Tile devices, which are small pieces of hardware users attach to their keys or other items to monitor remotely. But it is still a significant breach that shows how tools intended for internal use by company workers can be accessed and then leveraged by hackers to collect sensitive data en masse. It also shows that this type of company, one which tracks peoples' locations, can become a target for hackers. "Basically I had access to everything," the hacker told 404 Media in an online chat. The hacker says they also demanded payment from Tile but did not receive a response.

Tile sells various tracking devices which can be located through Tile's accompanying app. Life360, another location data focused company, acquired Tile in November 2021. The hacker says they obtained login credentials for a Tile system that they believe belonged to a former Tile employee. One tool specifically says it can be used to "initiate data access, location, or law enforcement requests." Users can then lookup Tile customers by their phone number or another identifier, according to a screenshot of the tool.

It's funny.  Laugh.

Twilio Founder Buys Satire Site 'The Onion' (businessinsider.com) 30

Jeff Lawson, the cofounder of cloud computing company Twilio, appears to have purchased the satirical news website The Onion from G/O Media. Business Insider reports: A trust linked to Lawson is behind a San Francisco-based company called Global Tetrahedron, which shares the name of a fictional evil megacorporation in a long-running Onion gag, business records show. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller confirmed the sale of The Onion to Global Tetrahedron in an email Thursday to staff, first reported by New York Times journalist Katie Robertson.

"This company is made up of four digital media veterans with a profound love for The Onion and comedy based content," Spanfeller wrote. "The site's new owners have agreed to keep The Onion's entire staff intact and in Chicago, something we insisted be part of the deal."
When asked about the purchase, Lawson replied: "What's The Onion?" Then, "What's a Tetrahedron?"

Comment Re:What a clickbait title (Score 1) 60

Just for the record, ESnet is not a company. It is the research network of the US Department of Energy and iPerf3 is simply one of many contributions they have made to enhance network performance and analysis by both its users and the networking world in general. ESnet is primarily concerned with providing high performance networking to programs that need to transfer huge amounts of data between global researchers in many fields.

Comment Re:Am I the only one...? (Score 1) 94

Franklin Templeton is an investment firm founded in 1947 in New York City, but headquarters moved to San Mateo, CA in 1973. It was a mutual fund pioneer and is a Fortune 500 company. Over the years it has acquired many smaller investment firms including Putnam and Legg Mason.

As to the relevance to the article or what the heck it is about... no idea.

Comment Re:I Naively Installed DCFC Stations (Score 1) 352

Last year the local Lowes installed a row of chargers. Took about three months to get them installed. In June there was a narrow trench from the chargers to the street. It was repaved and thought that they would be available soon. As of today, thy still sit, non-operational with deteriorating plastic sleeves on the cords and the protective plastic over the screens in place. Will they aver get connected?

I don't know what company is doing these, but this fits right in with the OPs comments on his situation. If a company the size of Lowes can't get these up and running in over a yer, what hope does a small operator have? And they are all CCS when almost every car company is committed to NACS (Tesla) in a year or two.

Comment Las Virgenes is not a city in California (Score 1) 135

Las Virgenes Municipal Water District serves Calabasas, California, a city of about 22,000 in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles County. While separated from the Pacific by about 10 hilly miles, building a pipeline to the Malibu coast seems not unreasonable..
Encryption

Ask Slashdot: What's the Best (Encrypted) Password Manager? 154

For storing passwords, Slashdot reader eggegick has a simple, easy solution: "I use Vim to keep my passwords in an encrypted file."

But what's the easiest solution for people who don't use Vim? My wife is not a Linux geek like I am, so she's using [free and open-source] KeePass. It's relatively simple to install and use, but I seem to recall it used to be even much simpler... Does anybody know of a really simple password manager or encrypting notepad?

I've looked at a number of them, and they use Java or Javascript, or they involve an external web site, or they have way too many features, or they use an installation program. Or Windows Defender objects to them.

Share your own suggestions and thoughts in the comments.

What's the best (encrypted) password manager?

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