Hacker News Reader

setqon Money can be stolen from an Uber account

This really should apply to all software.

setqon Is the keyboard faster than the mouse?

Depends if I'm being paid by the hour or the job :)

setqon Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

You can attach a GPO to the OU that the machines are in and turn it off for everyone.

setqon Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

> I fill the gas tank because I monitor the fuel gauge, not because it warns me that it's nearly empty.

You are better than 99% of users which is what this issue is about. You are a power user capable of looking after a machine. The problem the people who aren't.

setqon Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

I use iOS and CentOS regularly. It doesn't happen either.

However the former has a different security model and the latter is mainly run by experts. The point is moot.

setqon Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

I very much doubt she had no warning. You got two warnings and had to opt out. She probably just clicked through them. Check the event log and scheduler logs. It will have the event in there saying the user consented to it. I had to find this on a machine after a user complained it didn't tell him and it clearly did and he clicked through.

> I don't know what you mean by "this has to be done", there is no obligation to apply updates. What if I want my computer to run a windows without updates ? Am I not entitled to use my own property as I so choose ?

If your machine becomes a botnet node and causes problems for other people, which is a big problem, then you forfeit the right. The same thing if your apartment leaks water into another one. Be a good citizen.

Failed updates, now that's the only valid part of your point. I've had a few and they weren't disruptive but this is just my case.

setqon Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

Talking of which: http://download.wsusoffline.net/

setqon Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

I agree with the person above your comment. For example some simulation loads are common to run on deskside systems.

However this IS definitely an edge case and it is possible to turn it off. I have run a physical host as a build agent that has uptime of months on Windows 10.

This is administrative competence, not a problem with the product or the use case.

WSUS + Windows server is definitely fine for most workloads though.

setqon Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

The user is not usually in a position to decide if they need updates or not or to judge whether or not they are putting themselves at risk by not updating the machine.

That's a terrible analogy. I have been shaming people for bad security practices and self-righteous ignorance for many years (even before 9/11 ironically!).

I've seen too many people have been wrong and had a bad outcome including complete data loss and in one case livelihood being shot entirely. This isn't a random assertion from thin air. You can't trust people to look after their computers.

setqon Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

It's you. Look at the spread of this malware. If MS17-010 was applied automatically unconditionally, this would have not spread.

The global scale of it shows how the end user is less trustworthy than the vendor.

setqon Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

This is even worse when your freshly deployed AWS instances run like shit for the first hour too.

setqon Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

This is an edge case for a very small percentage of users. Use GPMC to turn it off entirely or change the key at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\UX\Settings

Set DWORD IsActiveHoursEnabled to 0.

setqon Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

This is an interesting and genuine case where I can see that it doesn't make sense.

In your case it should be possible to have a windows "branch" with just critical vulnerabilities patched with binary diffs or something rather than 680-odd Mb patch sets.

setqon Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

That only happens if you put the updates off of they've been there for a couple of days and you have something running that makes it assume that the machine is still active. People seeding torrents overnight seems to be the only place I see that not happen.

See update notifications? At the end of the day, restart and install the updates. It's not rocket science. It doesn't just hit patch Tuesday and then reboot immediately, shafting you. And it doesn't screw your workflow up.

Really this has to be done because even the best of us put it off eternally.

setqon Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

This has never happened to me unless I've actively ignored it and I sit in front of a Windows PC for 12 hours a day and have done for 19 years.

setqon Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

Not yet. Only when you run out of gas. However in a few years, are people going to get pissed off when their Tesla has enough of their shit and drives itself to a charging point because the owner is too incompetent to heed the warnings?

setqon Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

I don't know why people complain about updates and restarting, particularly in this thread. You fill your car up with fuel regularly because it has been warning you it's nearly empty for a while much like updates remind you regularly. People seem to complain and say "it updated right when I was in the middle of X" but they've been putting it off for ages. Do you break down in the middle of the motorway when you run out of fuel too?

Windows only updates when you're doing something because you're putting everyone else at risk by not running the damn things in and you've had plenty of notice.

setqon What was it like to self-learn programming before Stack Overflow? (2016)

Similar story here. Although the only way I could get my hands on the school computers was intentionally swearing at the dinner ladies and being sent inside to sit in "the boring computer room" because the school had a strict policy of anti-technology in all subjects. They never worked my tactic out and thought I was just disruptive.

My knowledge came mostly from the BBC Micro Users guide and Advanced Users Guide initially. Eventually a dead relative, who I will be eternally grateful for their thought, left me a not insignificant amount of cash and I bought a then new BBC Master!

The books in question:

http://bbc.nvg.org/doc/BBCUserGuide-1.00.pdf

http://stardot.org.uk/mirrors/www.bbcdocs.com/filebase/essen...

This eventually made way for a PC and eventually in the mid 1990s, Linux and then I discovered my father had a 1st edition copy of "Programming C" stashed away in a junk box somewhere. Oh and O'Reilly books. I had crates of them at one point.

setqon Why do many math books have so much detail and so little enlightenment? (2010)

Completely agree.

I've taken the liberty of taking a quick snap of a random page in "Arithmetic for the Practical Man" to include below for those poor people poisoned by modern textbooks:

http://i.imgur.com/Bg9OiiK.jpg (926KiB)

I see horrible modern behemoths of over a 1000 pages that leave you dazed, confused and full of facts but nowhere to go with them. EE textbooks are even worse on this front than your average mathematics text book. I've seen one proudly promoting over 1500 pages and 1000 illustrations, but doesn't even get as far as an opamp or discuss anything at system level.

setqon US Government Fears Another Explosion Of The Ransomware Plague It Helped Create

There isn't one. Report the vulnerabilities to the vendor and move on. The trade off is too dangerous. Do you stockpile munitions that can damage global infrastructure so you can target a small number of individuals? No that's just stupid and irresponsible.

setqon Why do many math books have so much detail and so little enlightenment? (2010)

Feynman learned mathematics from a series of self teaching books published in the 1940's suffixed "...for the Practical Man" and prefixed with Arithmetic, Algebra and Calculus. I have the full set and this is a rather good solution to the problem. They teach you insight and how to think about things as well as the mechanical aspects. This is IMHO a well solved problem if you don't mind skipping more modern abstractions such as limits.

From there he was given a calculus book, the title of which I cannot remember. I never got that far.

I suspect you have to at least follow the same path to have the same intuition.

setqon Lessons from last week’s cyberattack

Reddit is all over it although it has turned into something suitably reminiscent of Alex Jones' material. Jeremy Hunt is apparently directly responsible for running XP on all NHS equipment and pulling the plug on the support contract for post-extended-support causing the deaths of thousands of people while he rolls around in the dust of the crushed skulls of all his victims.

I would rather see it used to leverage an opinion against back doors and surveillance culture but alas this is merely administrative incompetence and failure to either upgrade or airgap systems which have had a clock ticking on them and plenty of notice from the vendor to sort. The buck should stop at the trust IT directors as this was entirely avoidable with a properly managed estate.

setqon Lessons from last week’s cyberattack

This affected all versions of windows, not just XP. You're right about the updates though.

setqon Lessons from last week’s cyberattack

It's not actually like that. They have a heavily restricted backbone and lots of little isolated networks hanging off it. This is lots of independent cases of idiocy causing infection.

Policy controls, poor patching and user education are the root cause of the NHS problems.

setqon Lessons from last week’s cyberattack

Overflow on a cast between a 16/32 bit value I think.

setqon How to shoot on iPhone 7

My father thinks this. £10,000 of Nikon kit later it still looks like shit.

setqon How Skype fixes security vulnerabilities

I read books on the tube :)

setqon How Skype fixes security vulnerabilities

I've dumped all of these services due to random crap like this. Phone, SMS, email or go away. They're not perfect but they are significantly better than anything else.

However if you want a real turd: Skype for Business. Everything starts with 20 minutes trying to work out if it's working or not which for a random subset of people the answer is nope.

setqon Withdrawal from Antidepressants

I have some horror stories on this sort of drug and attitude which I don't wish to detail here with an identifiable account, but you are spot on. Many people have suffered in the hands of doctors with that attitude, some irreversibly harmed in the process.

Arrogance, showboating, non-science and anti-pragmatism are the biggest killers.

setqon Excessive load on NTP servers

I've been poor. £12 a week ($20) to feed three, evicted from rental, no job (because of an asshat)