The General thread for Computers And Internet

RTH10260 · #26

A bored hacktivist browsing an unsecured airline server stumbled upon national security secrets including the FBI's 'no fly' list. She says what she found reveals a 'perverse outgrowth of the surveillance state.'

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert
Jan 22, 2023, 7:42 AM

A Swiss hacker says she found a copy of the FBI's "no-fly" list on an unsecured server.
The 2019 list, with over 1.5 million entries, includes an overwhelming number of Muslim passengers.
The server, maintained by CommuteAir, also held private employee data, such as passport numbers.
The FBI Terrorism Screening Center's secret "no-fly" list just got a lot less mysterious thanks to a bored Swiss hacker who was exploring unsecured servers in her free time.

Maia arson crimew, described by the Department of Justice as a "prolific" hacker in an unrelated indictment, said she was clicking around on an online search engine full of unprotected servers on January 12 when she accessed one maintained by a little-known airline and found the highly sensitive documents, along with what she called a "jackpot" of other information.

The Daily Dot first reported on Thursday that the server, hosted by CommuteAir, a regional airline that partners with United Airlines to form United Express routes, contained among its files a redacted 2019 version of the anti-terrorism "no-fly" list. The files "NoFly.csv," and "selectee.csv" found by crimew contain over 1.8 million entries including names and dates of birth of people the FBI identifies as "known or suspected terrorists" who are prevented from boarding aircraft "when flying within, to, from and over the United States."

A spokesperson for the airline confirmed the authenticity of the files to Insider and said personally identifiable information belonging to employees was also found in the hack.

https://www.businessinsider.com/hacktiv ... nce-2023-1

#27

Humph. It's been a while (5 years) since I bought a new computer. And with two surgeries coming up this year, I decided to treat myself.

But I didn't know that you have to ask for a network cable port, or you don't get one. I have purchased a few laptops, but I never saw one before that you can't plug in a CAT6 cable.

Edit: Correction, ol' Wifehorn has a laptop she bought last summer, but I didn't notice it doesn't have a port for a network cable.

And yes, the unfairness. Everybody else in the house is on wireless only. Only one computer can be connected to the cable, and it gets maybe double the internet speed of the wireless. So without a cable port, I would have the exact same internet speed as the rest of the fambly, and I would be fine. Except for the little nagging voice in my head that says "Your internet is laggy, dude."

So I am returning the new laptop and will be more careful next time.

#28

Yeah, that pisses me off.

Last week my DESKTOP computer fell off to wireless and I thought I was back in 1999 until I got the wired interface turned back on.

No idea how it happened.

#29

In this house that would be caused by cats, who are evil and chew wires. I'm pretty sure wireless was invented because of cats.

#30

keith wrote: ↑Thu Feb 16, 2023 5:51 pm Yeah, that pisses me off.

Last week my DESKTOP computer fell off to wireless and I thought I was back in 1999 until I got the wired interface turned back on.

No idea how it happened.

Oh NOES. That is horrible. Sometimes my phone goes off WiFI (I think I accidentally bump it with my cheek) and I'm limping at a snails "baud" rate. WTF.

Yeah, I remember the 90s. Ugh.

#31

I have a few old desktop computers that I still use, but I decided five years ago that I wanted my main computer to be a laptop, because 1) it's so nice to carry my main machine on vacation and traveling, and 2) you don't really give up any speed or anything, like in the bad old days when laptops were like molasses in February.

I like having my best machine at my dad's place when I go visit. And I like having it at the beach (not on the actual beach).

But when I'm at home, that same machine needs to be plugged into the wired network with a CAT6 cable with 600 Mbps download. I'm greedy like that.

And I have time to do a better job of shopping, because it will take a while to get my refund.

Edit: I'm so old, I remember when you could buy a laptop and there wouldn't be any wireless built in. You HAD to have a network cable back then.

#32

x 1,000

I can get an adapter, Type C to RJ45, done.

Thanks, Obama.

#33

Foggy wrote: ↑Thu Feb 16, 2023 7:26 pm x 1,000

I can get an adapter, Type C to RJ45, done.

Thanks, Obama.

Yeah, that's what I'm looking at.

I'm fine with my new HP Envy laptop connecting via wi-fi to my Verizon gateway at home, but I took my laptop to my niece's to help her with her taxes and I didn't want to use her apartment's wi-fi. My old laptop had an ethernet port, so that worked last year. Anyway, I just entered the data into TurboTax and when she gets her missing 1099, we'll complete the return and e-file it. By then I'll have the adapter.

#34

MN-Skeptic wrote: ↑Thu Feb 16, 2023 8:16 pm
Foggy wrote: ↑Thu Feb 16, 2023 7:26 pm x 1,000

I can get an adapter, Type C to RJ45, done.

Thanks, Obama.
Yeah, that's what I'm looking at.

I'm fine with my new HP Envy laptop connecting via wi-fi to my Verizon gateway at home, but I took my laptop to my niece's to help her with her taxes and I didn't want to use her apartment's wi-fi. My old laptop had an ethernet port, so that worked last year. Anyway, I just entered the data into TurboTax and when she gets her missing 1099, we'll complete the return and e-file it. By then I'll have the adapter.

Or if you're OK with a little more "up front" setup, a simple USB-C "dock" that connects an external monitor or three, etherbunny and power makes life even nicer. At my home office, I have a dock connected to two monitors, power, camera, lights, and an external hard drive (for various reasons, it's easier to stay on WiFi rather than go wired. But I get 300+ MPS up and down on WiFi, so not a problem). I just plug the one USC-C cable into my latptop and I'm good to go. At our Plymouth office I have a permanent desk with a dock connected to one monitor and the internal company network on ethernet.

Off Topic

Speaking of Plymouth, I'm staying in Eden Prairie this trip, and working in Plymouth. I need to have a word with the manager about the temperature here. I realize it's not as cold as it was last month, but still. Us tropical types aren't quite used to this ice and snow and stuff

Yeah, I should know better by now. I've been coming here monthly since September of 2021

#35

Let's address this in some kind of order, starting with:

somerset wrote: ↑Thu Feb 16, 2023 9:30 pm ... if you're OK with a little more "up front" setup, a simple USB-C "dock" that connects an external monitor or three, etherbunny and power makes life even nicer.

Yeah, that's actually what I bought. If I bought the dock instead of just the adapter, it would cost a little more and be delivered overnight (it's here already, Alexa says they dropped it at 5:45 a.m.).

At my home office, I have a dock connected to two monitors, power, camera, lights, and an external hard drive (for various reasons, it's easier to stay on WiFi rather than go wired.

I like wired. I also use two separate computers instead of two separate monitors. Then I use Mouse Without Borders so one mouse/trackball and one keyboard control both computers seamlessly.

But then I bricked it. Honestly, I freaking bricked the thing. Here's what happened:

I decided to keep the new machine, so I started setting it up. This is nothing difficult, I have been working on computers for 30 years. I had a few other things to do, so I left the thing running for about 5 minutes while I did something else.

I came back to the BSOD, or as they call it now, a stopcode. "Wait while we gather some information and we'll restart the machine." Except half an hour later, the stopcode was still stuck on 0% progress. That's a bad thing. But I knew what to do - hold down the power button for 4 seconds to force the computer to turn off, and then start it up again.

Except it won't start up again. It's a brick. Nicely designed brick, though.

I'd be upset if I didn't have a return label already sent me by the company. I shall return it today.

#36

Oh, wait. It started up!

I had to give it a little time. Like overnight.

I'm gonna mutter and putter, it's gonna be a wild computer day, and I still have the return label if I need it.

So long, suckers, I'll be knee-deep in my new laptop all day!

#37

Foggy wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 7:27 am Oh, wait. It started up!

I had to give it a little time. Like overnight.

Maybe it has some of that new AI in it. When you crudely force-powered her off, she decided to give you "the silent treatment" and put you in time-out?

#38

Yeah. I have a lot of work to do on this thing.

#39

Well, it has what I ordered - 32 GB of RAM, a 2 TB hard drive, touch screen, fingerprint reader, the works.

Came with Win10 installed, one click and we'll upgrade you to Win11. Oh yeah, it will take a couple hours to do the upgrade. Oh yeah, we could have just installed Win11 to start. Oh yeah, we wanted to give you the option of having an old OS.

Then I have to purge the bloatware, and start building the machine I want.

Sometimes I forget how many custom things I have installed. Like one of the first things I need? My magic baton cursor. Oh yeah. Cockroach on Desktop can wait for later.

Reality Check · #40

Foggy wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 8:24 am Yeah. I have a lot of work to do on this thing.

What do you use for office type apps? Do you use MS Office 365 or freeware like LibreOffice and Thunderbird for email?

#41

Office 365, ol' Wifehorn and I share a subscription, I use it fairly frequently.

And Thunderbird for email. But as I have said, I have so many email addresses I can only run Thunderbird on one computer, because it's too much work to keep more than one synchronized. Also, I keep even marginally important emails forever.

This is my first post on my new machine, so I'm making some sort of progress.

I'm still very curious about the stopcode last night, but it hasn't happened again, and I'm about to install my maintenance/antivirus stuff.

RTH10260 · #42

Just a thaught: you now have storage in TB range, it may take some extra time to verify those monsters after a Blue Screen.

Also too this tip. I believe your storage will now be SSD rather than HDD. Check the settings of the storage reclaim timer and adjust to your usage pattern. (data rewrites go to a different location than the origin. The former location gets periodically reclaimed as free space, not immediatly)

#43

Yes, definitely SSD, and I will check out the storage reclaim timer when I get a chance.

Making progress, and I'm keeping a sharp eye out for stopcodes. I will look at Event Viewer, too also. Somehow I think whatever happened last night was severe enough to be recorded.

I swear, I let the stopcode sit for half an hour with 0% progress before I did a forced shutdown. And when I pressed the power button after that, nada. No response at all except the power light on. Screen was pitch black for another half hour before I gave up on it. I deeply, truly believed it was a brick. Pretty little brick, but a brick nonetheless.

I unplugged it (like that does anything to a laptop

) and put it on a table for the night, and it must have some a them fancy schmancy nanobots that spent the night buzzing around fixing the problem, whatever it was. Which is nice.

Those nanobots came free with the machine, too also. At least, I didn't see any extra charge for that.

#44

Okay, that's all I can take for a day. Can't use my arms anymore. Ouchy.

I just can't find anything wrong with the new machine. I think I'm gonna keep it after all.

Still a few things to check, but so far looking good. Nice little machine.

I mean, I did custom-order what I wanted, so I certainly thought it was a good choice before I bricked it last night.

And hell, I never bricked a computer on the very first day before. I gotta carve a new notch on mah gunbelt.
:guntootin:

This could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

#45

Windows is a foreign language to me but I know you have to be patient when updating because it'll look like it's stuck and suddenly it's done. When I've gotten a new machine I just walk away for a few hours and let it do its thing.

#46

Oh yeah, but updating Windows is just the beginning. You also need an updater like PatchMyPC. And even that won't tell you if the computer manufacturer issues a new update for the BIOS or sumpin'. If you have a lot of software installed on a PC, it's almost like real work keeping it up to par.

RTH10260 · #47

#48

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 1:08 pm Just a thaught: you now have storage in TB range, it may take some extra time to verify those monsters after a Blue Screen.

Also too this tip. I believe your storage will now be SSD rather than HDD. Check the settings of the storage reclaim timer and adjust to your usage pattern. (data rewrites go to a different location than the origin. The former location gets periodically reclaimed as free space, not immediatly)

And I recommed turning off indexing on SSD.

#49

Yeah, it's not immediately clear, even when perusing the BIOS settings, how I would check the settings on the storage reclaim timer, or what those settings should be, or how I would turn off indexing on my SSD, or change any settings at all on the SSD.

So instead, I am running the extended hardware diagnostic tools that came with the machine, which will check each and every aspect of the hardware. If it passes that, I won't need to change any SSD settings anyway.

RTH10260 · #50

Foggy wrote: ↑Sun Feb 19, 2023 7:31 am Yeah, it's not immediately clear, even when perusing the BIOS settings, how I would check the settings on the storage reclaim timer, or what those settings should be, or how I would turn off indexing on my SSD, or change any settings at all on the SSD.

So instead, I am running the extended hardware diagnostic tools that came with the machine, which will check each and every aspect of the hardware. If it passes that, I won't need to change any SSD settings anyway.

iirc that's part of windows, let me re-search - I am getting crusty - it's now like two years since I replaced my sata-hdd with a sata-ssd (and ruining my accout by purchasing a 4TB yuuuge monster to replace 2TB running low).

just researched the market, a similar newest 8TB sata-sdd is now available at 90% I paid prior for my 4TB, the 4TB unit goes for about 60%.

ETA. I cannot locate at the moment, but maybe in Task Manager > Optimize Storage. I seeem to remember to set to run weekly rather than daily with how I work.