The Technology blog and podcast

Site updates and checks

Hi all.
Welcome to another administration update.
With the systems in place for security as well as updates for automatic plugins and blogs bar themes I don’t need to enter the site that often these days.
Since last update
With the event of php8 becoming a thing, I have emailed the other admin to start requesting the upgrade as soon as feesable.
I don’t expect it to be needed for a couple years but since the last update took ages and ages to get in when it was needed I am putting it out there so it comes when it comes.
For admins, the php test plugin thats been on here for ages is removed because it was not updated with later php versions.
Some themes are updates or removed due to wordpress versioning, and are mainly for admin users to note down.
There seems to be a top down notification and status update control panel I didn’t ask for that came up on launch of admin which is usefull.
There are updates to a lot of stuff but the control panel shows everything from security, to what the various stats and security sensors are doing.
Granted, 99.9% of that is via sitekit but who cares, it kicks ass litterally.

We have had 1 user breach the system that was removed, 1 out of more than 102000 odd blocks and brootforce attacks since the new security system came online.
The user never made it past verification and was stopped at the border.
A pitty we can’t deal with covid like this.
For those looking you will have noticed 5 posts scheduald for publishing between january and november of last year are published.
They appeared as unpublished, one had no title, another had halloween spelt wrong, twice.
No idea why the scheduals didn’t execute when they were supposed to but they are published now.
These are out of date and won’t show up unless you read back through archives and are old news but they are finally out.
Note, that due to how the site runs I won’t be checking it daily, its more like every 3-6 months.
The site emails me and other admins when it does anything.
The jetpack service will tell me if the ai shuts down.
The site will tell the admins if its hacked, or updates itself.
So yeah, thats what is going on.
I will be away from 18th february to 18 april on several road trips, though I should have my workstation and some access.
This assumes the latest covid case which is one of those 3 week variants doesn’t cause enough strife to order another system reconfigure.
If that happens everything will be shut down till the software will be updated.
Right now it may just be a deal with the breech just like I am dealing with the security subsystem.
Lets hope we don’t go into a cleaninstall windows mode, I have been looking forward to this holiday.
Work for me has been slow though I have just completed a configuration update for an older system and may have another contract for that system in the future.
I have tried to and for various reasons not gotten 2 contracts this year.
I won’t really push for actual work till june or maybe may, giving enough time to get some stuff sorted out.
In other non tech news, I have been cleaning out cupboards and finding stuff I have not used in ages.
The podcast for blindvms tech supplimental hasn’t had content for a bit but I plan to do something at some point soon.
At this point, I am thinking about doing a cast where I use technology instead of talk about technology.
Cast will still be the same.
Obviously I will talk about the technology I am using.
This series will be still in the blindvms list of episodes but will focus on my roadtrips.
I am fully aware that 99.9% of the world is putting out fires right now, from the smoking servers of hell and while new zealand has its own fires we seem to be ok.
While that continues I will try to put out some of what I am doing.
I know a lot can’t travel at all so I will give recordings of various things.
At least thats the plan.
I have a new olympus lsp4 and will be getting the 32gb card for it today.
After looking at all the cards and best speeds, I will be getting the new sandisk ultra 32gb at 120mbps which is one of the newest ultra models.
Compaired to the extreme cosing 50 bucks its about 21 bucks so there you go.
Laters for now, its time for breakfast.

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Braille Institute says that January is technology month

I read at least one of these books in the following list, have anyone of you read any? The book I read and podcasted about when the books was around is called The Circle and it was a great book. Let’s see what everyone else has read.

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I was going through Email, and found an email talking about January being technology month.

Below, the following books are generalized to fiction and non-fiction and are already available on BARD. Check your cooperating library outside the United States to see if these books are available to you.

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Non-Fiction

 
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson – DB73682 (Spanish version: DB 72993)
Biography of entrepreneur Steve Jobs (1955-2011) chronicles his childhood, education, entry-level jobs in California’s Silicon Valley, 1976 cofounding
of Apple computer in his parents’ garage, and leadership in spearheading the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Discusses Jobs’ personal and professional relationships
and his 2003 cancer diagnosis.  

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport – DB94076
Computer scientist presents an argument for reducing the amount of time we spend online. Uses case studies to form a foundation for why to do this and
suggests ways to undertake a “digital declutter.” 

Bad Blood by John Carreyou – DB 91456
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist recounts his investigation into Silicon Valley startup company Theranos, which claimed its new machine would speed up
and simplify blood testing. Describes interviews with insiders, research into the technology, threats he received as he uncovered fraud after fraud, and
Theranos’s eventual collapse. 

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado-Perez – DB94381
Examination of a root cause of gender inequality–the exclusion of women or preferential bias toward men in research data sets. Discusses the ways these
biases play out in daily life, the workplace, product design, the doctor’s office, and public life, and what happens when things go wrong. 

The Patient Will See You Now: The Future of Medicine is in Your Hands by Eric Topol DBC02757 
A trip to the doctor is almost a guarantee of misery. Eric Topol, one of the nation’s top physicians says it doesn’t have to be that way. You could use
your smartphone to get rapid test results from one drop of blood, monitor your vital signs both day and night, and use an artificially intelligent algorithm
to receive a diagnosis without having to see a doctor.

Megatech: Technology in 2050 by Daniel Franklin DB88590 
A collection of essays forecasting the role of technology in the year 2050. Contributors include journalists, scientists, entrepreneurs, philanthropists,
medical doctors, philosophers, and novelists. In her essay, Melinda Gates envisions what might happen if every woman in the world had a smartphone of her
own. 

The Smartphone Society: Technology, Power, and Resistance in the New Gilded Age by Nicole Marie Aschoff DB98753
Journalist examines the rise of smartphone usage and ways corporations including Google, Facebook, and Amazon have used smartphones to surveil social,
political, and economic activity of users. Discusses the ways users have taken advantage of the technology to create and maintain political resistance
movements. 

Beauty and the Beak: How Science, Technology, and a 3D-Printed Beak Rescued a Bald Eagle by Deborah Lee Rose & Jane Veltkamp DB89590
After a hunter shattered her beak, Beauty, a bald eagle, was rescued in Alaska and relocated to Birds of Prey Northwest, a raptor center in Idaho. Recounts
how scientists and engineers created a prosthetic beak from a 3D printer while her real beak regenerated slowly.

Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier DB90959
A journalist who covers the video game industry documents the process of making a game, from initial concept with the game creator through the large team
efforts that it takes to develop a popular game. Includes creation stories of popular games like Diablo III, Halo Wars, and more. 

Cryptography: The Key to Digital Security, How it Works, and Why it Matters by Keith M. Martin  DB101019
Information security specialist presents an explanation of the role of cryptography–often associated with the world of spies–in the world of information
security. Topics covered include what security means in cyberspace, algorithms and what they do, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, and potential scenarios
for the use of cryptography. 
 

Fiction

 
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline DB73772
2045. Multibillionaire James Halliday dies, leaving his last will and testament online for the world to see. His massively multiplayer online game OASIS
has a hidden feature–an Easter egg–and the person who finds the egg first wins Halliday’s fortune. 

The Circle: A Novel by Dave Eggers DB77770
Mae begins work at the Circle–a company that reinvented the Internet by creating one transparent identity for each user. Although enthralled by her increasingly
powerful online role, Mae is troubled to learn that the company may have a dark side. 

Jurassic Park: A Novel by Michael Crichton DB32018
Something is terribly wrong at Jurassic Park on a remote island off the coast of Costa Rica. Visitors and residents are being attacked by strange looking
animals that maul them and leave behind a sticky saliva. Dinosaurs cloned and raised by a genetic engineering firm have escaped. Consultants are brought
in to solve the problem, but soon everyone is running for dear life. 

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov DB15779
U. S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc, headed by the strong-minded Susan Calvin, manufactures and sells intelligent, human-like robots. Nine stories illustrate
how the robots are programed with the three Laws of Robotics to serve man, despite many of the ingrained fears and prejudices humans have against them.

Feed by M.T. Anderson DB55687
In the future, most people have computer implants in their heads streaming information. Titus has had his since birth, while home-schooled Violet received
hers later. When the “feed” is attacked by a hacker, Titus’s system shortly recovers but Violet’s continues to malfunction. 

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Microsoft comes out, says source code was accessed

If this strange story of Solar Winds isn’t strange enough, I read an article that indicated that the hackers may have accessed source code from Microsoft.

According to the very first paragraph, the article starts out by saying:

Microsoft said Thursday that the SolarWinds hackers were able to access company source code, although the technology giant described the incident as largely
harmless in an update to an internal investigation.

Accessing source code is harmless? I believe that really depends on the source that was accessed, in my opinion. Some code may be considered sacred and not to be out in the wrong hands., while others maybe not so much.

There are linked items that might be of interest, but one paragraph says:

Microsoft “found no evidence of access to production services or customer data. The investigation, which is ongoing, has also found no indications that
our systems were used to attack others,” it said.

This is probably a good thing, seeing how other networks have been breached and we don’t know by how miuch or if anything is taken.

Microsoft has dubbed the SolarWinds cyberattack “Solorigate,” something cybersecurity firm FireEye has called SUNBURST.

Different people in the industry are going to call this by different names, and we shouldn’t be alarmed by different names by different companies.

Would you like to read more? Microsoft says SolarWinds hackers accessed company source code is the article, and this just goes on the “this is getting interesting” department.

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Happy new year

Happy new year from all of us at the Jared Rimer network, which includes free and paid sites, my volunteers that help me keep things as safe as possible, and all of my readers.

I’m going to hit the ground running tomorrow and I’ll start posting again, and will try to keep up with Sans News Bites this year.

I’ll be posting a bunch of current stuff, and try to find the most interesting things out of the stuff I’ve sent to my email.

My goal is to continue both podcasts, as well as blog about all kinds of stuff from access technology, security, app reviews, and my continuing partnership with Blind VMS.

I hope that each and every one of you had a happy holiday break, and the next Security Box will be aired this week coming up on Wednesday on the mix on the independent channel. For times, check the schedule, and use world time server to convert that time to yours if needed.

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Blog admin updates for christmas

Hi all.
I just thought I’d post a admin update status report as I have found myself with a little more time due to google outages.
Firstly, wordpress 5.6 has been installed.
Other admins may have noticed that older themes have been removed namely the 2020 theme because when there are more than 2 themes loaded the health security is triggered and its not used.
Php checker is removed because it never tested more than 7.3 and we are 7.4 now.
A small reminder to all admins moving forward that requests should be made to previders and hosters for php8 upgrade.
This will not be needed for 2 years and a lot of plugins will need to be adapted before then but its worth putting in the update request or at least noting it down after the trouble we had last time with the request.

Security.
As of now the current solution is holding, though weather its because of 0spam, the auto user removal and the ip block lists we are subscribed to I don’t know.
No new user has registered in ages so at least for now we can keep that open.
No extra unwanted users have been added since the system was installed.

Jquery.
You may have noticed some jquery test modules running on the site as wordpress moves to update its jquery support.
These modules have been removed as their logs show we are ok and no action is needed.

Accessibility statement.
I will be adding an access statement to the site, as well as a plugins list of stuff we use.
An accessibility statement is not needed, but it brings us in line with wordpress template guidelines.
A plugin list is not needed but since most are static, I thought if someone wants to know what is on the site and what works will be a good idea.
It will also be something for me to refference should I branch away from wordpress.com which I have yet to be bothered doing.
Update wize things are set for the end of the year.
I need to find a way to get themes to autoupdate like plugins but thats another story.

Shutdowns.
This is a small note that I will be going on vacation on various days or weeks between february through to april.
or even may.
I won’t be away all that time but there is at least 1 festival I will be going to, and a roadtrip, as well as one other thing yet to happen.
The site will continue to work and I may have mail at that time though I may not.
Happy christmas all.

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space issues on google

Hi all.
This article highlights why using everything online could be a problem.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/dec/14/google-suffers-worldwide-outage-with-gmail-youtube-and-other-services-down
The article is quite technical in nature, but simply put, google ran out of space.
On a slightly more detailed note, a google component failed to alocate enough space to its authentication programs.
So those ran out of space.
Since that happened no one could log in.
These crashed as they were out of space and everything else did becauseit ran out of space.
There are links to an article on amazon with things going down.
For most of us, stuff just didn’t work for a bit, but security systems were effected, fire systems, and the like.
Fortunately nothing major happened except some people had to pull out speakers and stuff to stop them playing, group accounts from groups.io bounced including mine due to the outage.
Some things failed to sync properly etc.
But can you imagine if all the nukes were on google and it went down.
What would the computers think, how do they know if something going down is not an attack but a bit of failing or full hardware.
Wars were almost started if you listen to youtube from bears tripping sensors and bugged chips.
With everything going on the cloud there may become a day when the world ends because someone’s ups got a flat battery.
With systems getting quieter and quieter, if something fails you may not notice it.
As another update please read this extra article.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/15/22176958/google-gmail-errors-down-outage-stadia
It seems google still had issues today.
The biggest will be bouncing emails from a lot of things.
groups.io is effected by this, and I had to unbounce this morning and just now.
Google have managed to get themselves in order though and it should all be ok.
For those still having issues follow instructions to unbounce yourself, you may be automatically unbounced as google did notify most previders.

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MyTelespace is back up and running, go sign up

Hello folks, some good news for those who have been waiting word on MyTelespace. As of the time of this blog post, MyTelespace is back up and running once again after their outage. I’ve just been notified by John, one of the people that works at Sip Meeting, the company behind MyTelespace’s operation.

There had been speculation by someone that indicated that MyTelespace would probably not be back, and how this blog helped them find out information on what was going on. The person named is not going to be mentioned as it isn’t important to do so except to tell them that if they do a search and come across this, they’re also notified it is back up.

Its about 2 PM as I write this, and I can’t wait to see what happens with the system now that it is back up and operating. May the signups begin!

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more security updates

Hi all.
Well in the attempt to push more user spam off the blog the following will be noticed.
1 effective immediately well at least till we get hit again, if you do not login for more than a week 10 days right now, you will be deleted for safety.
We use 0spam with the wordpress spam user remover plugin.
If you are a current author or admin I have seen to it that you are excluded.
If you are a new user and are trusted by any of us admins, and get author status you will be added to the list as long as you can be trusted and post.
This rule does not apply to the admins or authors even though the 2 authors have not posted in a while.
As part of registration, if you want to do more than comment or subscribe to the blog then you need to ask the admins to add you to the list.
I put the spam plugin up but jared or myself have control of the system so we can all do it.
Note I realise this will affect subscribers that want to do this.
If it gets bad I will extend this to 30 days but the idea is to keep spam out of the site after all.
If you post frequently then you won’t have this limit.
If you want an account but will not post for a while, you can always email an admin.
Jared is on quite a lot and I am on at least once or twice a week.
Even if I don’t post I do check at least once a month or so.
With the new plugin, I will try to check once a week if I can to see what happens.
Even if you are deleted everything is logged so if it doesn’t work tell us you need to be on the list of ignors and either of us can do it.
If you want action, email me first then jared if I don’t answer.
I do have a little more time than jared to handle day to day tasks.
Be aware that I am in a slightly different timezone to us time but I promise to get any urgent things settled with in a 48 hour period.
If I don’t, then I will always be checking once a week for issues.
Note that depending who you have registered and contacted I may have to verify.
I will be checking for any failures as well.
If you were not aware we had a mail issue with the blog.
This shouldn’t effect many users but after resetting the information for the server it works.
Anyway, lets see how this holds.
till next time.

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I love this type of spam, it just amuses me

I just love spam like this. Clearly I don’t have the email address they claim to send it from, and in both sections, they put the page they’re on, which is my contact page. What are they trying to accomplish with this? You can’t fool me, and I’m not going to bite.

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Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted by () on Wednesday, November 11, 2020 at 20:50:55
—————————————————————————
Name: Raina
phone: (03) 9265 5606
contact_method: both E-mail and phone
bug: no
additional_bug_info: Good day

CAREDOGBEST? ¢ – Personalized Dog Harness. All sizes from XS to XXL. Easy ON/OFF in just 2 seconds. LIFETIME WARRANTY.

FREE Worldwide Shipping!

Click here: caredogbest.online

Best,

The Jared Rimer Network, where everything is listed in one place: contact page
comment_or_question: Good day

CAREDOGBEST? ¢ – Personalized Dog Harness. All sizes from XS to XXL. Easy ON/OFF in just 2 seconds. LIFETIME WARRANTY.

FREE Worldwide Shipping!

Click here: caredogbest.online

All the best,

The Jared Rimer Network, where everything is listed in one place: contact page
—————————————————————————

HTTP_USER_AGENT: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/65.0.3325.181 Safari/537.36
REMOTE_ADDR: 185.230.126.12

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Have fun with this one.

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Lets try this again

Hi all.
Ok, its been most of the weekend and I can safely announce at least for now that we have stopped the current generation of spam accounts.
No captchas anymore, no extra authentication steps anymore.
There is a plugin called email verification at signups which will just do that.

Registration is the following send a name and email, and we send you a link.
Click that link and we will send you a temperary password or will we get you to set a password.
You set a password and you will be in as a subscriber.
Ask the admins if you want higher status.
Of course the other option is to use 2step on your wordpress account, and login.
You may or may not have to verify that way but still at this time no spammer has used wordpress as a vector.
Lets hope this is all I need to do.

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No More registrations, thanks to the bots

Folks,

It is with sad news that people can’t register here anymore. It is a realization that the bots will register tons of accounts. I recently decided to help out a brand new blog and I registered there. It wanted my name and email. After submitting, I created an password from there, there was no password prompt on the registration screen.

We’ve tried various captcha tools, and all have failed.

If you want an account, find the page for contacting us admins, and contact someone for an account. Sorry it had to come to this, I’m not changing my mind on it. Those who have accounts can stay unless we can verify the account may be a problem, but if you want an account to comment or even potentially post, than you’ll just have to send an old fassioned email.

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site security update

Hi all.
Note this post has been updated and the old content has been replaced.
Due to bypassing of recaptcha and the reading of wordpress indicating that its been bypassed as of august this year, and after listening to solutions which have also gotten bypassed, I have decided to simply turn off registrations because no one actually does it.
Email an admin and give us a username, email address, name minimum and then we will generate a temperary junk password and send that at you and you can handle it.
No idea what will be done but right now all captcha plugins are deleted and registration is disabled.
For users that want to still register you may still be able to do that via your wordpress.com which has its own 2 factor auth and the reason we don’t even have this is I can’t find a good previder.
I will be talking with jared to see what can be done

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MyTelespace tweets, updates users

For the first time since MyTelespace’s outage, we saw a tweet I thought we should pass along from the team that manages the system.

MTS Support, Wanted to give you an update on the status of MTS. We’re waiting for hardware to arrive, so Wednesday is our target date for having the system back on line. 2 hours ago, Twitter Web App

As we reported earlier, the JRN was called about this outage and it seemed like it was technical and later it was confirmed. We’ll have to see what happens as the date comes closer, but I’m happy that they did tweet out to their users who follow them on the social media platform. Do keep up the work, and we’ll see how it performs once it is back up!

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well its out

Hi all.
The latest windows 10 20h2 is out.
Some of you may get an enablement package but some like me may go and download and install via upgrade assistant or media tool you will certainly want to update your recovery media which which is what I did yesterday.
Biggest thing to notice is that control panel system is gone.
To invoke system, type control sysdm.cpl into the run box and it will run fine.
Everything goes to settings but we all know that there are a lot of settings still in control panel that have always worked for us users.
There are articles about lists of control panel commands.
Most of these have existed since xp days and earlier so most of these will work for us.
Sadly there were a few regressions for those that use media tool or update assistant.
The biggest seems to be the disabling of system restore.
I also managed to get explorer to crash once while processing things.
As usual you will need to reinstall your virtual midi controlers, adjust your recording devices,etc else they just won’t work.
This includes installing screen reader components so they actually run.
Remember to deauth and reauth itunes before you update and deactivate and reactivate your synths as well.
If you have shell things like ribbon disabler you need to reenable that to.

Here are the updated programs to be informed about.
For those on amd, amd drivers 20.10.1 is out.
In this update they actually do a good job on fixing the most critical issues in the current driver packages and while there are issues they are not critical.
Java 8.7.1 is out.
Be aware that java 8.6.1 will not be uninstalled after this and needs to be done manually.
Node js 15.0 is out and also we switch choco to using visual studio build tools 2019.
Remember to remove 2017 after update and be patient, I wasn’t and spent time yesterday finding how to reinstall the tools.
Thunderbird 78.4 is out.
Waterfox 2020.10 is out but if you use nvda please don’t bother with it, 08 works and doesn’t crash on a few sites.
Really which waterfox.net would actually fix their brouser instead of just securing it.
Some store stuff got updates to.
Due to be away for 3 days next week.
On a personal level I have applied for several jobs and while a couple have fallen through the rest look good.
Hopefully this year ends on a high with some more contracts.
For now thats me for a little.
On the subject of the suplamental cast, I have not forgotten you.
Its just because of some medical issues and the fact covid and various things have simply put my head in a different zone.
One of my major issues of late is the fact I go through several phases of sleep.
During winter I sleep and sleep deeply.
The rest of the time I may sleep but not all night, or at least 5 am in the morning.
At times I will sleep to 2 and thats way to early to get up.
At times I will sleep to 4 then get up.
Today is one of these times, I am up at 4.30 because I have things to listen to thank god and feel full of power.
If I sleep I will be sleeping till mid day.
This may actually happen.
Tomorrow I have an appointment to get my issues resolved.
I need to sleep till a good hour.
Training will not happen tomorrow because lets face it, I need to be at this thing at 9am.
Don’t know how long its going to take, so training is knocked out.
Depending on things I may also knock off training for the rest of the week, I have a full saturday session, and sessions on monday and friday.
And saturday.
Not sure what else I will do.
Laters just now I’m done.

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My Telespace update, its down and down for a good reason

Yesterday, I reported the news that MyTelespace was down. I also mentioned that I’d reach out to see what the deal was. This morning I got a response from John Hass, an employee at Sipmeeting, the company that maintains MyTelespace.

John indicates that they think the Raid controler is failing or they are having hard drive issues.

Like any company, this is going to happen. It seemed like it was technical, knowing their history of notifying people of planned things, and I’m sure it wasn’t planned this way.

They are taking an image while they can as they’re going to need to get new equipment. A system like this runs on a rade system which contains multiple hard drives. Chances are, if one drive fails, they can move the system to another one of its drives and things can work. But if the controler fails, it can’t copy things, and then if something else happens, it can eventually colapse.

This is all I have for now, and I’ll be catching everyone later on.

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My Telespace is currently down and there is nothing concrete at this time

Hi Folks,

I was called this afternoon in regards to MyTelespace, a telephone line ran through several numbers around the country. While MyTelespace has declined throughout the last couple of years, and while I’ve not been on for over a year, (blog post) all I can confirm is that the web site is not responding and at least one number I know I am able to access successfully can’t be reached when dialed.

I’ve reached out to the company that I knew ran the system, to find out what is happening. While I’m not obligated to know because I’m no longer there, I thought I’d enquire.

As of this moment, I know that the domain seems solid with registration and it is pointing somewhere where hosting may occur.

The company behind MyTelespace has always been up front if there was something happening whether it be maintenance, a temporary takedown like what happened several years ago, (blog post) or whether something else happened.

The second blog post I found out lead to some clean up and other administrative decisions needing to be delbt with, so it wasn’t down for long. I had a detailed chat with someone who explained what was going on and it made sense.

I’m not going to start rumors on what might be going on, but something did definitely happen that I can confirm to be the case.

If I hear something that I can share, I’ll be back with another blog post updating you what I’ve found out.

Here is another blog post which covers some MyTelespace stuff This should have probably been blog post 2, but there were instances where MyTelespace was closed for administrative functions, and I am highlighting them here in this post.

Again, I’ll stress the confirmation as I see it, but beyond that, I have nothing more. More if we have it.

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the best antivirus of 2020

Hi.

This appeared from the local news paper.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/300127221/the-best-antivirus-software-of-2020

The main catigries were security, false positives and performance.

Lacking is accessability and in particular the targeting intentionally
or unintentionally of blindness related products.

Of interesting note are the spots at the top.

1.  norton.

The price tag is quite good.

I have not used it for ages but when I did, norton had a stranglehold
around performance and users.

Certainly had a lot of issues with norton anything.

2.  caspersky.

The only comment is that politics and security shouldn’t mix.

If they do then everything we own including our clothes are a threat
because they are made in china.

3.  on the 3rd spot was mcaffee.

Have we forgotton?

Its been only a year or 2 since the last major stuff up from mcafee
where it killed systems, there are major definition screwups, and yet we
still use it.

F secure and avira were in the 4th and 5th spots and had no comment.

Interestingly, avast, and avg were not even mentioned though some still do.

I do wander if the installing on everything plus the microsoft blocking
avast on some systems as addware itself has discouraged it from being on
this list.

Sadly there were a few things not added to the article.

1.  easy to control and exclude stuff you don’t want.

I have a patchwork of excludes, from data drives to entire directories
of blindness and other software.

If the viruschecker says I have a virus, then I am more likely to
exclude it than actually get rid of it especially if its something I use
myself.

The only good thing out of this is that if your a smart user that
follows all the instructions and does not click links microsoft windows
defender is a good choice.

Sadly it is the only accessible non performance draining thing the blind
can use.

It also allows us to clear out of all the issues with excludes though
its false positive scan especially among accessibility software is
really high.

Sadly an added definition needs to be added to the usual definition of
antimalware and security tools and also to malware, viruses and ransomware.

1.  what is a virus.

A virus is a piece of software that is not generally liked by any big
software company even if its usefull.

What is malware.

<Malware is anything not liked by software companies unless you sue or
something.

What is ransomware.

Ransomware is something software companies do to others to get them to
buy their stuff else they will trash the systems which they may do anyway.

Malware can also be a right.

Accessibility is malware, a screenreader is malware, games for the blind
are malware, certain files for windows can also be malware.

How to solve this.

1.  exclude everything you use and leave just the os folders alone.

Antivirus is not your friend.

Looking at mozilla and their language on accessability was the reason I
pushed out of using firefox.

They toned it down a little, but suggesting that accessibility vectors
could be used as malware is not the issue.

Saying that turning off accessability support will protect people means
that people will get the wrong idea that accessability equals compromise.

If this is the issue its mozilla's implimentation surely.

The latest quantom firefox doesn't use standard accessability controls
and just what mozilla uses.

Now some of this may be fine, but to be honest abandoning old, stable
tech because it may be a problem to include new, so called secure and
issue ridden tech that has accessability issues is going to become a
real big issue soon enough.

The only solution for those that need it is to use older, less secure
software, or modified software, or hacked software.

Have we not tried everything or is the industry not willing to learn.

If they are not, then maybe I should use accessible software and pay the
hackers for my data and not have the issues with the good guys.

Judging from support I have got from various support agencies over the
last little bit they either are really good or they aren't.

If they arn't they can turn a broken system with a broken and possibly
buggy bit of software into a completely broken system fixed only with a
complete reformat.

Maybe I can just pay a hacker to secure my system.

Maybe its time to focus on companies that previde for the users because
they are users to and not for a cash gain.

I feel that in our race to beat the bad guys we have become our worst enemy.

Comments (0)

more data= more performance

Hi all.

Well I have just found and setup sitekit by google.

This will enable more on the fly performance tracking of users.

This means that we are fully supported with the google data systems.

This does include adds, analitics but your add blocker can block those.

It is important that where possible you allow the site through.

Now obviously if the add banners become a problem please tell me so I
can turn that part off.

So what does this mean for the users.

Well for us admins it means actively finding out what is trending on the
site.

I do get a report from google search every once in a while but any
tagged posts will get recorded in tag manager.

Google optimizes page speed and the like.

There are adds but don’t feel you ever need to click those.

At any time I or jared can view what is going on traffic wize and what
is being searched.

This will get us more insite on what to create and what to do in general.

Of course, any comments will help a lot.

thanks all

crashmaster

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The Intellegence Blog has moved

For those who followed the Trend Micro Intellegence blog, its got a new home. This is the new RSS feed you should use. I plugged it in and its 8 posts long now. I may talk about stuff from this new blog in the future, but they encouraged me to send thi out for those who are interested like me. Enjoy!

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blindvms episode10

Hi.
Note to all, this was requested by a gamer on the gamers descussion group.
Its up here because I decided to try to put it up and see.
The wireless cast was done but it was really boring so I clobbered it.
Still thinking about what next.
Laters just now

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