mvilain

I was part of a 4 person IT team managing the company's Linux servers and infrastructure. I was given a Windows 8 laptop from CostCo. The other admins had Windows laptops but EVERYONE else had Mac laptops. I was the only Mac-centric admin so the engineers came to me for help but mostly I kept their servers running using MobaTek's terminal app. I used the browser and mail client on the laptop but that's was the extent of my win8 usage. Which I could have run the configuration management tool we ran (puppet). Jenkins and git were running on the Linux boxes. I had to fix the CEO's admin's PC 4 times to remove malware but the engineers and their macs were problem free except for bad keyboards which Apple fixed.

It's better than leaving them in some men's room baby changing station with the sign "Place sacrifice here" sign taped to it.

I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you.

Back in 2009, a High School Vice Principle watched via a student's webcam on their school supplied laptop at night as the kid snacked on Mike & Ike candies IN HIS BEDROOM. She summoned him to her office to accuse him of taking drugs. This got her sued along with the school district who configured the school's laptops to allow for the spying. Sadly, the FBI said there wasn't enough to prove criminal intent.

I won't let that stuff on my system for any reason. I took a qualification test as part of job interview with the camera covered. Guess dodged a bullett and didn't get the job?

https://time.com/7275031/spy-high-true-story-prime-video/

I have the same concern about Apple and Google. I've diversified my usage of their services to have alternatives and regular backups that don't use either so I can recover.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pLEjqt2760k

How come these "quiet academics" don't have fatal booby traps that kills the SWAT team and blow up the house when invading the home when they've bugged out?

You'd think with so many movies having this scenario that it would be more common.

Shortly after I moved from x/shitter to Mastodon and migrated as many followers that said they were moving as well, I subscribed to an art-focused mastondon instance. It was absolutely lovely to see impressionist paintings and other great art from museums in my daily feed. Then the site closed down. The admin running it decided he'd had enough.

I still found art, but now it's local artists posting their work. It's lovely, but in a different way. AND I can buy copies of the art if I want. So, I guess change is inevitable. In the real world, I'm sorta glad the Cheesecake Factory and Roundtable Pizza places closed leaving places for local restaurants to take their place.

Why do I hate Cheesecake Factory so much?

Their food is terrible. And the portions are so small.

[yes, that's a Woody Allen joke]

For this same reason (free to use but not free to run), I contribute to Jerry's efforts AND to my local mastodon instance. Thanks for all you do Jerry. And your security podcast. And your pics of your orchids.

ntpd. The internet wouldn't run without it.

I had Reader Mode installed but by the time I saw this posting, Chrome and Brave had already disabled it.

The old AT&T router I had came with a pretty obscure SSID password on a label printed on the side of it. The admin password was also a mix of punctuation and mixed case alphanumerics. I saw a neighbor's router and it's SSID password was different. So if these were being machine generated and set, that means there's some sort of service access and port into the router from AT&T's side.

Comcast Business Router, however came with a fixed username and password which I had to change when I set it up. I can't imagine a non-techie person going through this step.