Bonum Certa Men Certa

Eye on Microsoft: Lessons of Windows

Summary: Some Windows failures for the day

Tesco tills go titsup

According to PA, about 100 stores are affected, and the problems are being rectified by rebooting the checkouts.


My thoughts on “Virtual XP Mode” nonsense and the future for XP users.

Microsoft has obviously utterly failed to get 63% of Windows users (as of April 2009’s stats) to “upgrade to Windows Vista from XP.

[...]

If Microsoft wasn’t so damned insistent on this DRM nonsense, then they would have just had a library where they exported XP and WIndows 2000 functions and registry entries, and used a compatibility shim to redirect API calls and registry ops. That would have been less than 1% performance penalty, and they have everything they need to do that with WOW64 anyway.

AGGGGGHH!!!!!


ZeusTracker and the Nuclear Option

In early April, Hüssy began tracking a Zeus control server used to receive data stolen from a botnet of more than 100,000 infected systems, mostly located in Poland and Spain. While investigating this newfound Zeus control server, he noticed something unusual: the "kill operating system" had just been issued to all 100,000 infected systems.


A Zeus botnet self-destructs

According to information which only recently came to light, in early April a botnet consisting of an estimated 100,000 PCs apparently destroyed itself – as its control server send out a command that made Windows inoperable. The botnet was based on the Zeus botnet tool kit, which allows criminals to infect and subsequently remotely control users' PCs. The Zeus tool kit can be purchased for only a few hundred dollars


Recent Techrights' Posts

People Used to Talk
If pets can live a measurably happy life without gadgets and "apps", why can't humans?
Rust is Starting to Seem More Like Microsoft-hosted "Digital Maoism", Not a Legitimate Effort to Improve Security
Maybe this is very innocent, but they seem to have taken a solid, stable program from a high-profile Frenchman and looked for ways to marry it with GitHub, i.e. Microsoft/NSA
Finland, Lithuania, and Latvia Fortify Their Digital Border With GNU/Linux
This month's data from statCounter is particularly interesting near the Baltic Sea
Richard Stallman Gives Public Talk at Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic
"For programs that you could run, and for network services that could do your own computing, under what circumstances is it reasonable to trust them?"
 
The CoC Means the Founder of GNU/Linux Cannot Talk and a 72-Year-Old Man With Cancer is Somehow a "Safety" Risk?
Those who don't like RMS are not forced to attend his talks
Gemini Links 07/05/2025: A Shopping Spree and Digital Gardening
Links for the day
Links 07/05/2025: Pegasus Guilty and a Path Towards EU Without Russian Energy
Links for the day
Outsourcing GNU/Linux to Microsoft GitHub Promoted by Microsoft LLM Slop and Army Officers
Something doesn't seem right
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part III: No More Media Lawsuits From Brett Wilson LLP This Year, One Can Only Guess Why
People leak a lot of material to Techrights because they know, based on the track record, that the sources will be protected and whatever gets published will stay online, in full, no matter how stubborn an effort (even lawsuits and blackmail) will be sent its way
Gemini Links 07/05/2025: Adopting GrapheneOS, Further Enshittification of Flickr
Links for the day
Links 07/05/2025: CISA Gutted, Debt-Saddled (Likely Insolvent) 'Open' 'AI' (Proprietary Slop) Faking Its Financial State Again
Links for the day
The European Patent Office (EPO) Has a Very Profound Corruption Issue, Far More Urgent an Issue Than Pronouns
a rather long document
Today We Turn 18.5
The eighteenth "and a half" anniversary
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 06, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 06, 2025
Microsoft Finally Admits That XBox is ****
In this case, "enshittification" is an understatement
Another Wave of Microsoft Layoffs Comes Shortly. Microsoft Propaganda Sites and Slopforms Powered by Microsoft LLMs Already Spew Out Face-Saving Nonsense.
Based on last month's leak, some very extensive layoffs are now imminent [...] Perhaps we can expect a lot of noise, some of it spewed out by bots, to distract from or belittle the impending mass layoffs
Ubuntu Becomes Microsoft GitHub, Based on Decision Made by British Army Officer
You're hopeless, Canonical
Slopwatch: Microsoft Slop, Anti-Linux Slop, and IBM Marketing Itself as a Slop Company
Microsoft-controlled LLM spewing out garbage about "Linux"
Links 06/05/2025: Microsoft's Assassination of Skype After Years of Failure, Slop Hallucinations Are Getting Worse
Links for the day
Links 06/05/2025: Changing Places and StarGrid for PalmOS
Links for the day
Windows and Microsoft Causing Serious Data Breaches, Media Rushes to Blame That on "Linux" Somehow
While selling us some rusty old propaganda about how moving to Microsoft GitHub (Rust) will improve security
Making Site Archives More Easily Accessible (Approaching 50,000 Blog Posts)
Efforts to censor us have always backfired badly
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part II: Hiding Behind Lawyers and Barristers Who Lack Standards so as to Engage in Classic Corporate Extortion
They're trying to scare people and they misuse their licence to operate
Links 06/05/2025: LLMs/Chatbots Attract More Scrutiny (Getting Worse Over Time), PwC Has Many Layoffs
Links for the day
Thanks for listening. How can this Morse feed be further improved?
Right now any and all feedback on the audio would be helpful
statCounter: Bing's Market Share Lower Right Now Than It Was When LLM Hype Began (With "Bing Chat")
If anybody gains at Google's expense in search, it is BRICS' alternatives such as Yandex
Gemini Links 06/05/2025: Failure and Proxmox Cluster
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 05, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 05, 2025
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part I: Hiding Behind Lawyers (or Guns for Hire) After Abusing Many People and Even Strangling Women While Microsoft Paid Salaries
This whole thing is very typical of the Microsoft and Bill Gates mindset
From EPO to "MAGA Regime": A Shift Away From Reality to Fake News and False Metrics
Disbelief in itself isn't a bad thing; but the problem is that people are taught to believe rich people in suits more than they believe others
Skype is Officially Dead Today and This is Why People Should Use Free Software Instead (Goodbye, Microsoft)
It's also a good reminder of why people should move to GNU/Linux
'Simple Articles' in MyGemini Just One of Many New 'Sites' in Geminispace
Geminispace has grown fast lately; it's turning 6 next month
Links 05/05/2025: TikTok Still a Romanian Woe/Foe, Signal Perils Showing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/05/2025: Debian and GNOME and a "Welcome to Simple Articles"
Links for the day
Links 05/05/2025: US Economy Shrinks, US Presidency Spreading Deepfakes
Links for the day
Links 05/05/2025: Breaches, Environment, and Conflicts
Links for the day
SUSE the Company Now Uses LLM Slop to 'Write' Its Blog, What Does That Tell Us About SUSE?
There are many giveaways
Richard Stallman is in Alicante Today to Give a Talk, Czech Republic in Two Days (Wednesday)
Of course he can deliver the talk in Spanish
Gemini Links 05/05/2025: XL Bullies and Luddites
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 04, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 04, 2025