Miscellaneous Tech News
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The final years of John McAfee's controversial life
In 2012, the game appeared to be up for John McAfee.
After going on the run in Belize, he had been arrested in Guatemala after his neighbour was found dead. The police described him as a "person of interest" in the case. However, as in many situations in his life, he somehow managed to wiggle free. McAfee shot to fame in the 1980s, after launching an anti-virus software company he named after himself. His success brought with it money - but throughout his life, McAfee seemed almost as good at losing money as he was at generating it. In 2008, he had moved to Belize, where he ended up living next to man called Gregory Faull. -
Dell SupportAssist bugs put over 30 million PCs at risk
Security researchers have found four major security vulnerabilities in the BIOSConnect feature of Dell SupportAssist, allowing attackers to remotely execute code within the BIOS of impacted devices.
According to Dell's website, the SupportAssist software is "preinstalled on most Dell devices running Windows operating system," while BIOSConnect provides remote firmware update and OS recovery features. The chain of flaws discovered by Eclypsium researchers comes with a CVSS base score of 8.3/10 and enables privileged remote attackers to impersonate Dell.com and take control of the target device's boot process to break OS-level security controls. -
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
The final years of John McAfee's controversial life
In 2012, the game appeared to be up for John McAfee.
After going on the run in Belize, he had been arrested in Guatemala after his neighbour was found dead. The police described him as a "person of interest" in the case. However, as in many situations in his life, he somehow managed to wiggle free. McAfee shot to fame in the 1980s, after launching an anti-virus software company he named after himself. His success brought with it money - but throughout his life, McAfee seemed almost as good at losing money as he was at generating it. In 2008, he had moved to Belize, where he ended up living next to man called Gregory Faull.And those are just the final years. In his youth he made that evil trainwreck of a company that is named after him that still dogs the industry with its terrible "borders on malware" products. His name is more associated with bloatware and being a total creepoid than anything else.
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@scottalanmiller yeah I've actively had to remove McAfee AV from numerous systems throughout my life as it caused way more issues than having nothing at all.
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Apparently his net worth went from 100 mill down to 8. ouch...
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Hackers are using unknown user accounts to target Zyxel firewalls and VPNs
Authentication bypass attacks allow hackers to change breach network security.
Network device maker Zyxel is warning customers of active and ongoing attacks that are targeting a range of the company’s firewalls and other types of security appliances. In an email, the company said that targeted devices included security appliances that have remote management or SSL VPN enabled, namely in the USG/ZyWALL, USG FLEX, ATP, and VPN series running on-premise ZLD firmware. The language in the email is terse, but it appears to say that the attacks target devices that are exposed to the Internet. When the attackers succeed in accessing the device, the email further appears to say, the -
Is Windows 11 the beginning of the end for Skype?
Microsoft has officially announced Windows 11, its new operating system which will replace the current version over the next few years.
Among all the new features are two seemingly small but related things that jumped out. First - Microsoft Teams, the video-calling app which saw a boom during 2020's pandemic, will be integrated into Windows 11 by default. And second - Skype will not be, for the first time in years. That seems to suggest that Teams is the new favourite child, and many pundits think this is the beginning of the end for what was once the king of calling apps. "Looks like Microsoft is killing off Skype," wrote the Irish & Sun -
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Is Windows 11 the beginning of the end for Skype?
Microsoft has officially announced Windows 11, its new operating system which will replace the current version over the next few years.
Among all the new features are two seemingly small but related things that jumped out. First - Microsoft Teams, the video-calling app which saw a boom during 2020's pandemic, will be integrated into Windows 11 by default. And second - Skype will not be, for the first time in years. That seems to suggest that Teams is the new favourite child, and many pundits think this is the beginning of the end for what was once the king of calling apps. "Looks like Microsoft is killing off Skype," wrote the Irish & SunSkype still exists?
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I think Windows 8.1 was the end for Skype, lol.
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Is Windows 11 the beginning of the end for Skype?
Microsoft has officially announced Windows 11, its new operating system which will replace the current version over the next few years.
Among all the new features are two seemingly small but related things that jumped out. First - Microsoft Teams, the video-calling app which saw a boom during 2020's pandemic, will be integrated into Windows 11 by default. And second - Skype will not be, for the first time in years. That seems to suggest that Teams is the new favourite child, and many pundits think this is the beginning of the end for what was once the king of calling apps. "Looks like Microsoft is killing off Skype," wrote the Irish & SunSkype still exists?
Skype is the entire backend for Microsoft Teams, granted Microsoft may have finally rebuilt everything from the ground up, but the last that I recall on it, was that Teams is Skype with a new face...
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@dustinb3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Is Windows 11 the beginning of the end for Skype?
Microsoft has officially announced Windows 11, its new operating system which will replace the current version over the next few years.
Among all the new features are two seemingly small but related things that jumped out. First - Microsoft Teams, the video-calling app which saw a boom during 2020's pandemic, will be integrated into Windows 11 by default. And second - Skype will not be, for the first time in years. That seems to suggest that Teams is the new favourite child, and many pundits think this is the beginning of the end for what was once the king of calling apps. "Looks like Microsoft is killing off Skype," wrote the Irish & SunSkype still exists?
Skype is the entire backend for Microsoft Teams, granted Microsoft may have finally rebuilt everything from the ground up, but the last that I recall on it, was that Teams is Skype with a new face...
MS has been saying that there is nothing of Skype left in Teams.
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Google tracking cookies ban delayed until 2023
Google has delayed its plan to block third-party cookies from its Chrome internet browser.
Cookies track users' internet activity and allow digital publishers to target advertising. They are already blocked by a number of Google's rivals, including Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla. But critics say Google's ban forces ad sellers to go direct to the tech giant for this information instead - giving it an unfair advantage. This is because it plans to replace the system with another one of Google's own design, which it claims is better for privacy but still allows marketing. Its proposals are already under investigation by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). -
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
I think Windows 8.1 was the end for Skype, lol.
Skype was dead when first purchased by Microsoft.
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@travisdh1 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
I think Windows 8.1 was the end for Skype, lol.
Skype was dead when first purchased by Microsoft.
Yeah, It’s been dead for years.
When was the last time anyone heard of innovative new additions to Skype? -
@nadnerb said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@travisdh1 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
I think Windows 8.1 was the end for Skype, lol.
Skype was dead when first purchased by Microsoft.
Yeah, It’s been dead for years.
When was the last time anyone heard of innovative new additions to Skype?The same could be said for Teams
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Google launches a new medical app—outside the United States
The dermatology AI app won approval for use in the EU but not with the FDA.
Billions of times each year, people turn to Google’s web search box for help figuring out what’s wrong with their skin. Now, Google is preparing to launch an app that uses image recognition algorithms to provide more expert and personalized help. A brief demo at the company’s developer conference last month showed the service suggesting several possible skin conditions based on uploaded photos. -
Hackers exploited 0-day, not 2018 bug, to mass-wipe My Book Live devices
Western Digital removed code that would have prevented the wiping of petabytes of data.
Last week’s mass-wiping of Western Digital My Book Live storage devices involved the exploitation of not just one vulnerability but a second critical security bug that allowed hackers to remotely perform a factory reset without a password, an investigation shows. The vulnerability is remarkable because it made it trivial to wipe what is likely petabytes of user data. More notable still was that, according to the vulnerable code itself, a Western Digital developer actively removed code that required a valid user password before allowing factory resets to proceed. -
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Hackers exploited 0-day, not 2018 bug, to mass-wipe My Book Live devices
Western Digital removed code that would have prevented the wiping of petabytes of data.
Last week’s mass-wiping of Western Digital My Book Live storage devices involved the exploitation of not just one vulnerability but a second critical security bug that allowed hackers to remotely perform a factory reset without a password, an investigation shows. The vulnerability is remarkable because it made it trivial to wipe what is likely petabytes of user data. More notable still was that, according to the vulnerable code itself, a Western Digital developer actively removed code that required a valid user password before allowing factory resets to proceed.That sucks. Like ransomware but without the hope...
And the same problem too - vulnerabilities don't care about your carefully planned zero trust architecture and short-lived tokens and what not.
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Pop_OS 21.04 has been released
https://blog.system76.com/post/655369428109869056/popos-2104-a-release-of-cosmic-proportions -
