Bonum Certa Men Certa

TrackerControl Continues Being Useful With TextNow. Windows 98 Flashbacks.

Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer. Also in Gemini.

I have a burner phone app on my Android phone.



It’s not Free and Open Source Software, obviously. It’s called TextNow.



It’s loaded with ads and basically it gives me a second cell phone number that can piggyback on top of my actual data plan (so it works even when I’m away from WiFi.



TrackerControl from F-Droid has been extremely helpful with numerous Android applications such as this. I can’t really afford to pay for another phone with another plan just to give a number out to someone I don’t want to know my real contact information.



This way people can call me and I can call them anywhere I’m at and it looks like a Chicago phone number, but I don’t have full screen ads for Kroger or something popping up and monopolizing my phone’s screen while I’m trying to use the program.



So I would like to thank the author of this program…..AGAIN.



Memory Lane Time



This Android adware garbage reminds me of the kind of stuff I used to tell people to do on Windows when I first ran into adware. There was a version of PKZip For Windows I needed, and the options were something like send us $40 USD in the mail for a code or use the ad-sponsored version.



The ad-sponsored version was a full version that did the same thing the $40 one did, but it came with some adware. Conducent Timesink I believe.



The idea was that this thing called “TSAdBot.exe” would load in Windows and display ads in the sponsored programs. It sort of creeped me out, so I installed a program that monitored application installs and watched what they added to the file system and Windows Registry, and then after it was done I terminated TSAdBot.exe, removed its registry keys, deleted the startup entries buried around the place (where the user wasn’t supposed to see them), and then finally deleted the exe and dll files that appeared to be Conducent.



There was a Web site that provided a dummy dll that would appear to load and then just exit, and it pretended to be the TSAdBot dll, so you just dropped this thing in the directory and then you had a free copy of PKZip for Windows.



I had no idea that Phil Katz died about a year later of a bleeding pancreas with a bottle of Peppermint Schnapps found in his hand in a cheap hotel room with several outstanding arrest warrants. (I’m sure that my $40 didn’t have anything to do with the incident.)



I ended up accumulating a lot of knowledge like this that helped me save hundreds of dollars. Including using free ISPs with no ads. When they finally got wise to people like me and said “Okay, but only 30 hours a month!” or something I just installed them all (most of them had the same local access numbers), futzed around the EXEs to make the ad bar crash (or had Banner Catcher terminate it), and then I found a program called “DialGuard” that monitored outgoing phone calls and told you the Dial Up Networking credentials that were being used, which ended up being your hashed username and password, and then you didn’t even need the software because you just went over to Windows DUN and pasted the hashed values and dialed ‘er up.



So as you can imagine, I was sitting there, like 14, with Windows all carved up like a roast (no IE and a bunch of hotfixes, backports, hacks, so on) doing all this crap, and my parents were like, “If you have a computer question, just ask him.”.



I made a ton of “E-Royalties on Epinions” too, and there are stories about that.



Finally I just got so sick and tired of Windows because there was no more fun to be had.



The DotCom Bubble was fun while it lasted.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Someone Should Remind Microsoft Lunduke That Microsoft Hires Many Sexual Criminals and Pedophiles as Well
Microsoft Lunduke on an "expedition" to find one or more perverts, then generalise to everyone in the "community"
Cash Machines (ATMs) Make Mistakes and They're Proprietary Software
Correcting mistakes is a colossal challenge
Yes, Microsoft is the Problem
"I am no MS shill."
Another Failed Use Case for Chatbots (LLM): Legal Advice and Analysis
They're just some self-discrediting toy that costs way too much to operate
Nonfree Software in My Bank, by Richard Stallman
Updated 8 hours ago
 
Slopwatch: Linuxconfig.org, Linuxsecurity.com, Fagioli, The Register
Today's "Slopwatch" isn't the first article about LLM slop
We Cover Topics Other Sites Are Too Afraid to Cover (Even When They Know the Facts)
It's not that they doubt the truth, they just realise there may be consequences for talking about it
They Try to Tell Us the Free Software Foundation Inc is Dying, But Its Revenue Doubled Since the Dot-Com Bubble Burst
Being in "Activism" is never easy; but it does positive things for society
It's About the Cost of Workers, Not the Fictional Skills Shortage (That Does Not Exist, the Media Spreads False and Sometimes Self-Fulfilling Narratives)
This issue isn't limited to computing, some dub it "globalism"
Links 29/07/2025: More Pushbacks Against Slop and More Praises of Tom Lehrer
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/07/2025: Purple Yarrow and Understanding Op Amps
Links for the day
This Monday WebProNews Absolutely Flooded the Web With Fake (LLM Slop) 'Articles' About "Linux", Google News Promoted Them as Legitimate
All of the following are fake articles attributed to pseudonyms or authors that don't exist; the images are also slop. Why does Google promote these?
Linuxiac is Not a Slopfarm, But at Least Some of Its Articles Are Machine-Generated Fakes
what we said about it was correct
Expect More Microsoft Layoffs
"Are more job cuts coming?"
Microsoft Behaving Like It's Running Out of Money to Pay Salaries
Does that seem like the behaviour expected from a company which claims it is "worth" trillions?
LWN Downtime Due to Linode, Not LLM Bots
"I’ve received an email letting me know that there is a potential for data loss."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 28, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 28, 2025
Links 28/07/2025: Science, Health, and Conflicts
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Healthy Self-Image With Autism and a "New Life"
Links for the day
Links 28/07/2025: COVID-19 Sped up Brain Aging, "Circumvention is More Popular Than Compliance"
Links for the day
Richard Stallman is Usually Right Because He Thinks "Outside the Box"
he is able to observe society (mores and norms) as somewhat of an outsider
LWN Has Been Down for a Long Time, Another Casualty of LLM Bots?
Time will tell. How much time though?
Slopfarms Versus 'Linux' (and Against People Who Write Real Articles About GNU/Linux)
LLM slop in slopfarms by Brian Fagioli and Redazione RHC
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray and Running pkgsrc in a FreeBSD Jail
Links for the day
Microsoft Turns News Sites Into Spamfarms
Is the site The Register MS the next IDG?
The Register MS/The Register US
On Saturday I contacted them for a comment (before issuing criticism)
Hacking revelations at Vatican Jubilee of Digital Missionaries
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 27, 2025
The Week to Come
Planning ahead
LLM Slop Has Only Been a Boon for Misinformation Online
The very same companies that were supposed to maintain quality (again, not limited to Google with PageRank) are now actively participating in generating and spreading slop
When They Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
there's "no free lunch"
We're Going to Focus Less on the Molotov Cocktail-Throwing Microsofters and More on Patents
We can get back to focusing on what we wanted to focus on all along
Just Trying to Keep Web Sites Honest (Journalistic Integrity)
the latest articles in LinuxIac are real
Links 27/07/2025: Political Affairs, Data Breaches, Attacks on Freedom of the Press
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: Hot in Japan and Terminal Escape Codes
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs Coming, Science and Hardware News
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: FSF Hackathon and "Hulk Hogan Was a Very Bad Man"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
Links for the day
The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
Unlike systemd
"New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
When Silence Says So Much
Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
The Register in Trouble
There is not much that can be done at this point
Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
Something isn't right at The Register
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
Misinformation in Social Control Media
Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles