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676

General Software Discussion / Re: AVG Antivirus Plans to Collect & Sell Your Personal Data to Advertisers?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 24, 2015, 10:34 PM »

How many of the people in that test group were running with administrative rights?

-Stoic Joker (September 24, 2015, 06:34 AM)

That I couldn't say, but are you taking the position that making sure administrative rights are not granted in order for AV to be effective is a valid requirement?

-Innuendo (September 24, 2015, 05:51 PM)

Yes, as does a huge segment of the industry like the CSO at Symantec that point blank said AV software doesn't work anymore. I've seen many large and small operations that were fighting tooth-and-nail to stay above water as the flood of sales drones kept selling them more and more performance crushing "Security" software that never resulted in any real benefit. Then they tried the reduced permissions route and their support call loads dropped by 85% over night. It really is that flat-out magical a result.

Any and all AV software on the market is nothing more than a hand over hand pissing contest trying to be the last one to hook into control of the kernel. And I don't want a medieval melee on my network ... I want orderly quiet Users.. If anyone needs the Admin...I'll be in my office....where I belong ... Not chasing rats around on the floor.

User can't break machine == Bugg can't break machine.

Yes there are the occasional 0 day privilege escalation bugs floating around out there...but those aren't the ones that IT departments typically waste most of their time chasing. Oh Dear, my computer has an issue, but I just need to click here to "fix" it ... F...........

677

Living Room / Re: The business of web ads - fraudulent at its core

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 24, 2015, 05:50 PM »

Fake traffic has become a commodity. There’s malware for generating it and brokers who sell it. Some companies pay for it intentionally, some accidentally, and some prefer not to ask where their traffic comes from. It’s given rise to an industry of countermeasures, which inspire counter-countermeasures. “It’s like a game of whack-a-mole,” says Fernando Arriola, vice president for media and integration at ConAgra Foods. Consumers, meanwhile, to the extent they pay attention to targeted ads at all, hate them: The top paid iPhone app on Apple’s App Store is an ad blocker.

...And that's why browser performance across the board has gone completely to shit.

678

General Software Discussion / Re: AVG Antivirus Plans to Collect & Sell Your Personal Data to Advertisers?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 24, 2015, 06:34 AM »

In my experience and in the experience of many other people I know who have had to work on many computers that are 'protected' with MSE that has the green icon, no pop ups, and even doing a full scan on the PC tells you that your computer is safe, all the while malware is causing popup ads and other evilness to prosper on the computer.

-Innuendo (September 23, 2015, 05:29 PM)

How many of the people in that test group were running with administrative rights?

679

Living Room / Re: Is it reasonable to *require* phone nr. when purchasing software?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 22, 2015, 06:07 PM »

Sure, no problem. Here's my phone number: (111) 222-3333

Bet me I'm lying...

Hay, maybe I'm a bad person ... But my automatic reflex to an overly invasive line of questioning, is to start probing that system back.

680

General Software Discussion / Re: AVG Antivirus Plans to Collect & Sell Your Personal Data to Advertisers?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 22, 2015, 06:00 PM »

I'm with f0dder on this one. Hay, we all know what the real game is...and that the players at that level will never get caught with/by anything we can get access to. So it's really just a game of cost, and MSE has the lowest "cost" (time/resources/money) to do ~85% of the job. The next 10% requires payment of a massive resource (waste) usage penalty...plus much time and money dealing with licensing, FP's and a whole host of other pointless shenanigans. The last 5% is at a level we can't even dream of touching ... So why keep getting sheeple-ly sucked into a game that can't be won.

Because Ultratastic AV or not, it always comes down to a dialog box that says Ok/Cancel ... And you either choose wisely at that point, or you don't.

681

Developer's Corner / Re: Ethics in Technology

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 22, 2015, 11:19 AM »

If your boss came to you and said the company has decided to move in a direction that compromises user privacy, safety, etc- and you need to start designing and coding this now, what would you do?

-wraith808 (September 22, 2015, 08:20 AM)

Depending on my mood at the time, and how it was presented. My reaction would be one or more of the below.
A. Tell him to go f*** himself.
B. Proceed with the project, but quietly code (and leak) a ton of holes in it the size of Montana.
C. Walk out on the spot.

I walked on a job in aircraft years ago, because I didn't like what they were planning to do with product quality. I'd been there 10 years, and had moved (across country) twice for the job.

They said we're doing X.
I said not with my ass you ain't
2 weeks later they realized I wasn't bluffing.

682

Living Room / Re: Video-Game Algorithm to Solve Online Abuse?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 22, 2015, 10:46 AM »

Many things in life these days keep bring me back to this:



I've met a lot of people IRL that looked much like the fellow in the pic above ... most were actually quite genuinely kind.

Then there is the other type I'll not go into..

The layer of abstraction afforded by the interweb amplifies this effect greatly.

683

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 22, 2015, 06:52 AM »

Interesting "stuff"Soul and Inspiration: The Surprising Stories Behind 15 Classic Songs

-Arizona Hot (September 18, 2015, 09:09 PM)

“Mother and Child Reunion,” Paul Simon

The song came to him in the early '70s. Paul Simon explains: "I was eating in a Chinese restaurant downtown. There was a dish called Mother and Child Reunion. It's chicken and eggs. And I said, I gotta use that one."

Having a somewhat dark sense of humor I've been doing Chicken Omelette jokes on that song for years ... I never realized it really was the actual inspiration behind the song! Damn it! ...Now I'm not sure if I should feel vindicated or cheated.

684

Living Room / Re: 14 year-old boy arrested for creating a digital clock

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 19, 2015, 03:34 PM »

The police tell local news outlets that while they acknowledge that Mohamed didn't try to perpetrate a bomb hoax, they were also unsatisfied with his explanation.

"He would simply only tell us that it was a clock," police spokesman James McLellan says. "He didn't offer an explanation as to what it was for, why he created this device, why he brought it to school."

WTF?

Perhaps I can help:

Clock : a device other than a watch for indicating or measuring time commonly by means of hands moving on a dial; broadly : any periodic system by which time is measured

-wraith808 (September 17, 2015, 03:43 PM)

Oh FFS ... Kids are kids. (To me) the only thing here that would look suspicious as hell is if the kid actually did have a plausible cover story/response to that line of questioning. The fact that the kid just said "it's a clock" and switched to stunned silence, says to me that - as is appropriate for his age - he had no idea how to process how fast/far this was being blown out of proportion.


Fuck man... Back in the 70's I had a teacher ask me to bring in (e.g. to high school) a custom made 10" bladed sub-hilted fighting knife. Because he had an interest in fine cutlery, and he wanted to see a sample of my work. But if that were to happen today...I guess we'd have both ended up in freaking jail. Because it's become a crime for a teacher to take an actual interest in their students.

685

Living Room / Re: New Computer

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 17, 2015, 05:28 PM »

Can someone explain to me how to get VMs to work using with that Hyper-V stuff?

-Deozaan (September 17, 2015, 03:42 PM)

Can you give us a specific case scenario, with the errant behavior and error messages?

Some of the older stuff won't/can't function in/with Hyper-V ... But anything x64 should be fine. Have you done the install add-ons from the action menu of the VM?

Also sometimes for the transition you need to set the VM's OS to detect HAL (in msconfig) before moving it to get it to play nice with the new interpretation of the hardware.

686

Living Room / Re: New Computer

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 17, 2015, 07:00 AM »

Nice, but "1TB Raid5"?

Why Raid5, especially for such a small volume?

-f0dder (September 16, 2015, 01:25 PM)

I like RAID5, it has server me well in the past. And I need the extra speed of the stripped NLSAS for the Hyper-V VMs, but wanted the safety net of parity also. Not to mention that I've seen these controllers do mirroring...performance is not impressive (read horrid). My workstation here at the office is (identical except for disk configuration) a single disk, which goes straight to its knees when I get a few VMs going, especially if one of them decides to pull something cute like indexing or updates. On the RAID5 array I had 3 VMs (Vista, 7, and 8.1) all doing updates at the same time, and the drive was still responsive.

I've already got 2 physical servers (08R2 & 12R2) running on the home network so - massive - storage space wasn't a design requirement ... Performance on a budget however was..

687

Living Room / Re: 14 year-old boy arrested for creating a digital clock

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 17, 2015, 06:40 AM »

A little more common sense and a little less alarmism would have defused this situation before it escalated to the point that it did.  After all, if he really was an extremist and they really did think it was a problem- why wasn't the school evacuated?  Why was the item taken without a EOD specialist being there first?  The excuses don't add up.

-wraith808 (September 16, 2015, 08:31 PM)

+1000 - Damn Straight. It's pretty fucking sad when the people tasked with teaching our children how to act don't even know how to themselves.

One word: Grandstanding.

-40hz (September 16, 2015, 09:02 PM)

Sadly true.

This wasn't an overreaction. This was a place called Irving TX  suddenly deciding they would 'send a message.' Even if it still isn't all that clear what the message was trying to say.

-40hz (September 16, 2015, 09:02 PM)

Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by ignorance ... Which these folks have exhibited in spades..

This is more of a fear biting/contagious hysteria type of thing me thinks.

And now that the expected nationwide support won't be forthcoming, expect to see some self-righteous justifications, convoluted rationalizations, a hefty dose of doublespeak, and the tiniest bit of resentful back pedaling coming out of Irving over the next few days.

-40hz (September 16, 2015, 09:02 PM)

As long as the kid gets support from the masses, I'd say we're on the right track.

688

Living Room / Re: Trying to Create a New Logo

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 16, 2015, 05:25 PM »

OMFG I really am a complete idiot sometimes ... I found a tutorial...and the answer really was idiot simple (literally increase brightness - Derp!).

So... Here is new logo:



Thanks for the input!

689

Living Room / Re: Trying to Create a New Logo

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 16, 2015, 04:45 PM »

At any rate, definitely do something about the cropped drop shadow, that's going to be a problem for any place the logo won't have a border around it. And the hat looks flat

-f0dder (September 16, 2015, 03:39 PM)

I caught the drop shadow right after I posted the first version - kinda surprised nobody else nailed me for that one. It's fixed in the later versions. I need to find a Photoshop tutorial for the hat part ... I'm really not good at this artsy suff.

690

Living Room / Re: Trying to Create a New Logo

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 16, 2015, 03:01 PM »

-Stoic Joker (September 15, 2015, 11:09 PM)

Well, you asked

-wraith808 (September 16, 2015, 11:56 AM)

I know...

Other than the highlighting issue that Tomos has me wondering about, I'm kinda liking the last hat's subtle asymmetry. So I may go with it but save the others in the project file so it can be changed up once in a while. Right now I need to focus on figuring out how to get my new (WPF/XAML) Windows phone app finalized and submitted to the Windows App Store. I'd started to put the old one in the app, and on reflection decided enough was enough ... It's a low quality copy of an image that was created over a decade ago. New computer-->New OS-->New IDE-->New platform-->New language....and the same old tired ass logo?!? f!# it ... This thing needs to be updated, and given a wee bit of attitude.

691

Living Room / Re: Trying to Create a New Logo

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 16, 2015, 02:47 PM »

I like the first hat better 

-wraith808 (September 15, 2015, 07:38 PM)

I would have to watch some Lexx Zevivor episodes to decide. 

-MilesAhead (September 16, 2015, 01:13 PM)

Lexx ...This One?

692

General Software Discussion / Re: Must be too easy ? or Windows 10 does not like it

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 16, 2015, 01:22 PM »

So instead of teaching the "pet" zombie to play catch, and then hope it doesn't eat one of the children on a bad day. I just think it best to shoot it in the head and be done with it completely.

-Stoic Joker (September 16, 2015, 11:11 AM)

That's some serious imagery there.  Fido much?

-wraith808 (September 16, 2015, 11:27 AM)

A decade or so of being an Admin will do that to ya. That and I'd just gotten back from surveying a new client's network that had been - set up wrong and subsequently - eaten alive by a CryptoLocker variant. Everybody wants to cut corners and cry about budgets until shit goes completely off the rails...and then suddenly they're 'All Ears' about WTF to do with the mess.

This guy is now looking at ~1,000 man-hours rebuilding a database from paper files ... Because there just wasn't time to lock anything down properly...or do backups for that matter.

693

General Software Discussion / Re: Must be too easy ? or Windows 10 does not like it

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 16, 2015, 11:11 AM »

^ That was one of the original suggestions

-4wd (September 16, 2015, 07:37 AM)

Understood, but it is still worth revisiting. Because every time Quest runs the script, he is accepting responsibility for whatever happens next. And this has nothing to do with the script itself ...(I know you got skills)... It's just that it's almost always a matter of time before user X decides to pitch a fit because their Uber Important stuff got put some place they couldn't find it. So instead of teaching the "pet" zombie to play catch, and then hope it doesn't eat one of the children on a bad day. I just think it best to shoot it in the head and be done with it completely.

694

General Software Discussion / Re: Must be too easy ? or Windows 10 does not like it

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 16, 2015, 06:51 AM »

In a given directory there are sub-folders named "A" to "Z".  In this same directory many people just dump their files without alphabetically filing them.  This little batch script just went through the loose files in the folder, extracted the first letter of any file it found and moved that file to the correct folder based on its first letter.

-questorfla (September 15, 2015, 04:01 PM)

Scripting is nice, but IMO you're solving the wrong problem. The permissions on the parent directory should be set as below for both Authenticated and Domain Users.



Subfolder permissions will need to be reset (to once again restore write access) after doing this, but the end result is forced honesty. Because nobody can create files/folders in the root on the tree...which forces them to put stuff where it belongs. They can however delete/move their existing junk to where it belongs. And if - by chance - you don't trust them to do the cleaning...omit the delete permissions.

We had huge problems here when I first started, because of the exact reason you describe here ... And then suddenly one day...the problem just vanished (by force..).


[/BOFH Mode]

695

Living Room / Re: Trying to Create a New Logo

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 15, 2015, 11:09 PM »

696

Living Room / Re: Trying to Create a New Logo

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 15, 2015, 07:05 PM »

Okay... One more version with a (i think) better hat.

697

Living Room / Re: Trying to Create a New Logo

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 15, 2015, 06:03 PM »

Round 2:
  Hat is wider and a tad shorter (to push it back a bit more).
  I had no luck with highlighting hat..
  Iris is larger
 

698

Living Room / Re: Trying to Create a New Logo

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 15, 2015, 02:34 PM »

I'm no expert but think in general it looks fine. It's not as cute as the one in your avatar (I'm presuming that's the one you lost the original of?).

-tomos (September 15, 2015, 07:56 AM)

I was actually shooting for a bit less cute but still true to form. And yes my avatar was originally quite large (when created - before getting lost) and was done in Ulead's Cool 3D.

A couple of details that should be changed imo:
1) the hat need a little highlighting - very little I think, but needed to give it more 3 dimensionality
2) it needs a little perspective in the sphere grid lines (see below)

-tomos (September 15, 2015, 07:56 AM)

The hat does seem to be missing something...I'll poke it with a stick a bit when I get home...but I'm not really sure what you mean by "perspective" in the sphere lines.

I liked the larger hat and larger iris, personally.  It gave it more of the whimsical feel IMO.

-wraith808 (September 15, 2015, 09:54 AM)

Um... (for the hat) By "larger" do you mean wider at the base, taller or both?  The iris it appears (on and off line) needs to be larger.

Agree with above -- could benefit from larger iris, better hat.  Maybe less generic feet?

-mouser (September 15, 2015, 09:59 AM)

Generic feet?

699

General Software Discussion / Re: win10 auto upgrade - confusing mesg

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 15, 2015, 06:19 AM »

I'd say go for it. But if you have a bad connection, make sure you deselect the 'check for updates' option during the install ... or it will take 3 forevers to finally fail.

700

Living Room / Trying to Create a New Logo

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 14, 2015, 05:43 PM »

Okay... So my logo - which I lost the original for - was getting a bit tired, so I thought I'd try creating a new one. Below is what I managed to cobble together in Photoshop...Opinions/suggestions welcome.



I'm thinking about releasing (my first) an App for the Windows Phone ... So I thought it best to tidy up my image a bit before shooting myself in the foot.