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Pot call kettle black

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by bwilson4web, May 14, 2017.

  1. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    Source: Microsoft president blasts NSA for its role in 'WannaCry' computer ransom attack - LA Times

    A Microsoft executive sharply criticized a U.S. spy agency Sunday for its role in weaponizing a weakness in Windows and allowing it to be stolen by hackers and used to launch history’s largest ransomware attack.

    "This attack provides yet another example of why the stockpiling of vulnerabilities by governments is such a problem," Brad Smith, president and chief legal officer at Microsoft, wrote in the wake of the “WannaCry” computer virus attack, which crippled computers worldwide.

    I understand our agencies exploiting problems with Windows for national security and goals. What I don't accept is Microsoft hands are clean. Personally, I would like to see those dang 'agreements' amended by a law that gives them 120 days to distribute fixes for security vulnerabilities and after 121 days, liability for damages from an losses due to these vulnerabilities.

    Bob Wilson
     
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  2. RCO

    RCO Senior Member

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    It'll never happen Bob, but I'm with you all the way!
     
  3. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    The majority of effected machines were running OS's that aren't supported.

    [​IMG]

    98% of victims were using a flavour of Win7. Win7 ended consumer level support January of 2015. There has been an entire OS release (Win 8), a secondary OS mega patch (Win 8.1) and another entire new OS (Win 10) since then. If you want to run out-dated software or hardware or OS's, that's a choice Microsoft gives you. I love that they give you that choice. An iDiot ecosystem breaks everything old. A Windows environment will continue to function after letting you know for a long time that you are taking this into your own hands.

    And pretty much every large-company anti-virus software identified and protected computers. People running crap software got the short end of the stick. Again, that's their choice.

    I've got computers running Win3.1, Win95, XP, Win7, Win8, and Win10 plus all the various linux distros and Win Server editions. If a security flaw is found on a supported OS, it gets fixed pretty immediately. I don't expect Microsoft to patch my Win95 machine...
     
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  4. bhtooefr

    bhtooefr Senior Member

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    The end of mainstream support does not mean that it's unsupported, it only means that new features won't be added. Security updates are available until the end of extended support, for everyone (not just businesses), and that's not until January 2020.

    Oh, and the patch that would've stopped this from infecting a Windows 7 machine was released in March.
     
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  5. RCO

    RCO Senior Member

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    My wife's Win 7HP has not successfully downloaded any winders updates since February after rejecting upgrade to W10. Her machine software which cost $1,500 with security dongle for W7 would not be able to run on the update and the cost of newer software was more than $4,000 and can't afford that cost penalty.

    M$ 2, RCO 0. :mad:
     
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  6. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    The three WinDoze7 machines in my household quit achieving successful updates in early 2016, though not at the same time. One later died and required replacement with a new Win10, one was voluntarily upgraded, and the third I finally managed to get updated (still on Win7) several months ago. That one is now managing to stay updated.

    In the past, I manually initiated updates based on my convenience. The get-Win10 (GWX) nagware had to be manually removed from all three machines, maybe that had something to do with the update failures? This spring that last remaining Win7 system was reverted to auto-update, and eventually succeeded.
     
    #6 fuzzy1, May 22, 2017
    Last edited: May 22, 2017
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  7. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    Yes, except: Microsoft seem to be embracing forced upgrades, with a business model that pretty much insists you upgrade, what more and more looking like a subscription service, with expense and the inevitable upgrade pitfalls, or be thrown to the wolves.

    And with each "upgrade" they stray further from computing Eden. A simple example: the little built-in games, that used to be just that, gratis, no-strings games. Now they are ad-laden, flashy cr@p: thankfully someone has preserved and packaged the earlier versions, made them Win 10 compatible.
     
    #7 Mendel Leisk, May 22, 2017
    Last edited: May 22, 2017
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  8. bhtooefr

    bhtooefr Senior Member

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    What's the actual failure codes, if you try to manually run updates? Or, if you're not getting codes, is there anything in Event Viewer that shows the failure mode?
     
  9. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    Well, they did release the patch in March. Long time ago. But that's all I can say in their defense.
    My co-workers seem to spend more time repairing the damage done by M$ updates than actually using their computers. And don't get me started on all the spying they want to do, and ads they want to throw on your screen, and antivirus overhead software to slow you down, and so on. I fired M$ in about 2008 after several times of having to re-authenticate my software and prove I didn't steal it. Haven't regretted it for one nano second.
     
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  10. RCO

    RCO Senior Member

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    No codes just find for days and can't seem to find any updates at all then drops me out.
     
  11. bhtooefr

    bhtooefr Senior Member

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    By "drops me out", what do you mean exactly?

    In any case, you may want to manually install this update:

    Then, install this convenience rollup: Microsoft Update Catalog

    Then, try Windows Update again.
     
  12. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    i have a 4 year old macbook pro. 2 grande new. haven't spen a penny on it since, what am i missing?
     
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  13. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    Well, if you need the top end Quickbooks, you need Window$. Maybe a couple other things. I do all my work on Macs. My late 2009 iMac finally had the GPU fail. I got it repaired for about $100. While waiting for that, I finally broke down & got a 2015 15" Macbook Pro. Wowsers! What an upgrade!! I hook up the old iMac to the MBP when working on pictures and videos so I have a 27" display. My wife's 2011 13" MBP is still flawless. I put in a hybrid drive last year which really sped it up ... and made sense since both our cars are hybrids and my work computer has a hybrid drive. LOL!
     
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  14. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    I've got one too and a pair of MacBooks. Same problem, nothing to spend money and waste time. FYI, I've also got an iPhone 5s bought used. Some $1 apps from time-to-time but otherwise nothing.

    Bob Wilson
     
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  15. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    If you buy crap hardware, you have a crap time. I have no issues with all the Windows machines. And there is nothing to be done to make something "Win 10 compatible". That's the entire point of the NT OS. I can use all my legacy hardware and software.

    My laptop can run circles around anything Apple sells. It runs Win10x64 as the main OS which is required to do any real work. if you just want to look at facebook and maybe edit a word document or two, any computer from the past 20 years will do the job just fine. If you want to do fluid 3D design, transistor level circuit simulation, etc you need a real machine with a real OS.

    Microsoft does not force updates to the majority of its customers, even with Windows 10. That's one of the main bullet points in the feature lists. Win10 Home, the cheapest edition in the US, you have no control over updates. (Well, not really true you can still disable them). Win10 Pro, you can schedule and choose updates as well as defer installation. One of the main benefits is that you use the Home users as a beta group so an update doesn't break your stuff. Enterprise editions have full control over updates and are usually internally tested within the organization before rollout. If your coworkers are spending time debugging Windows updates, that company has a serious technology problem.

    Right now on my laptop with 2 VM's running (Win7 and RedHat) and the host Win10. About 200 tabs open in 8 windows of FF, a remote session to another remote computer up, PCB layout software going, programming IDEs open with hardware debuggers running, and a geometric analysis software chugging away to find the best fit of 30+ unique shapes into the smallest total puzzle, think tetris. Using about 80% CPU as the algorithms in the analysis software chew up 100% of the cores on the VMs, 18GB of the 32GB of RAM is in use. Multiple 1TB SSD's and 2 dedicated Nvidia graphic cards plus an integrated chipset all on a 4K 15.6in touchscreen. I even have dedicated macro buttons on the side of the keyboard. Hookups for external graphic cards, 4 full sized USB ports, a full size HDMI port, a built in SD Card reader, and lots more. My machine is used for working and it does it well.

    I don't spend time on windows updates. I don't spend time on antivirus. I don't spend time on any of those things iDiots complain about because they aren't real issues. It's akin to not filling the engine with oil and then complaining when the car explodes. Comparing a $2K machine to a $1k machine is not fair. Current laptop was around $4k new, desktop close to $7k new. Each of my servers about $15k used. And guess what, no problems with them and they maintain themselves. My sister's $350 laptop lasted about 2 years until it died. Not because it was a Windows machine, but because it was a crappy machine that cost half as much as a smartphone.

    Don't even get me started on phones... I'll keep my expandable storage, 8 cores, dual simultaneous sim cards, all day battery, OLED screen, 22MP back camera, all day.
     
  16. RCO

    RCO Senior Member

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    Not entirely sure, but after "searching for updates" for many hours, it sometimes says something like...
    .. Sorry, no updates found (or available, etc).

    Other times it just goes on and on searching for updates which it so far hadn't found. I have tried all the M$ help fixes and they didn't work, tried the manual downloads and they didn't work either. Machine is an i5 @ 2.1MHz , with 6GB ram and 1TB SSD running win 7hp 64 bit. Home broadband is is good for 20Mb/s. All was well until refusing W10 free upgrade.
     
  17. bhtooefr

    bhtooefr Senior Member

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    In what way did you refuse it, did you run any third-party scripts to disable GWX? Some of those scripts utterly destroy the servicing stack.
     
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  18. SaraBBrown94

    SaraBBrown94 Active Member

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    On base we still use win7. They will still support it for us until 2018. A lot of old software only works on the old OSs. We still have a few rugged laptops running XP. They're kept off-grid though. They'd be massacred if we tried to connect them back to the internet.

    Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
     
  19. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    I run a VM under MacOS too. So a couple of years ago, one of the early ransom-ware attacks loaded up on my TechStream windows. The only way I knew is they called my home. What I remember of the conversation:
    1. 'We have your computer.'
    2. 'Huh? I'm on it right now, what are you talking about?'
    3. 'If you want your computer back, you'll have send us $100.'
    4. 'What are you talking about? My computer is working just fine.'
    5. <click>
    Later, I opened the TechStream VM and sure enough, the ransome-ware had effectively bricked that VM image. So I deleted it and reloaded Windows in a fresh VM. Still have the VM and my money. I'm pretty sure it was one of those 'scan your computer' pop-ups. Regardless, such a non-problem.

    The good news is since I've retired, I don't have to deal with a work PC, Windows, and the support vendor(s) any longer:

    A typical day starts with coming in to find out if the PC was remotely rebooted which happened least once per week. Then during the week while a long-running job like a database restore or software update, a pop-up that requires killing all the browsers and ssh sessions to install some 'hair on fire' patch or emergency reboot. So I learned to use 'screen' on the Solaris/Redhat systems when running anything that would run over a couple of minutes.

    Then there were the network nazis. Firewalls that kill any ssh session that run longer than a hour without some traffic. So you learn to use 'vmstat <seconds_just_under_firewall_alarm> &' so you don't have to keep burning RSA tokens connecting to the systems you manage. Did I mention the network nazi access restrictions that occasionally block sales sites including our 401k company?

    About a year ago, my employer decided their precious corporate e-mail could no longer be forwarded to our customer, work e-mail. This was followed by quarterly or longer work e-mails asking us to login to the corporate e-mail system to read some 'we are wonderful' or 'you are sh*t' nonsense not worth reading. My work e-mail rule that used to sequester that nonsense was no longer exercised and I didn't miss it except for the 'training is due.' But that wasn't important as our supervisor would have to send out a 'You missed your training, TAKE IT NOW <YOU LAZY SOBS.>'

    Roughly once per quarter, a work security group would send out fake 'phishing' to see if we would forward it to the right security team (them!) My last one came back,'That was not phishing e-mail but SPAM and should be forwarded to <nonsense>.'

    At one time, I speculated that virus would be created by a subsidiary of the anti-virus companies as part of their business model. But apparently there are plenty of virus writers working for every government and the usual suspects. This suggests some proprietary operating systems might play a role in making sure there are back-doors. That is one reason why Apple not putting in back-doors in their iPhones makes a lot of sense. Let the others sheep-el.
    Looks like I'll get to reduce my blood pressure meds.

    Bob Wilson
     
    #19 bwilson4web, May 23, 2017
    Last edited: May 23, 2017
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  20. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    Play stupid games....
    Win stupid prizes.

    I completely agree with Bob about the liability clause....but it's not going to stop successful phishing attacks, as an acquaintance of mine found out just before they had to figure out how to buy Bitcoin.
    Human engineering works on humans no matter what OS they use.....

    Apple's (public) refusal to have (acknowledged) back doors seems to be a good decision with hind sight.
    People who design weapons always forget the part about developing countermeasures.....
    Ooops. :eek:

    As for me, when I'm not on Big Bell's network I drive a Linux box....or just surf on a droid.
     
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