Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Verizon violates the Fair Credit Collections Act

Verizon Wireless has a bad problem of their in-house network connections. Example: I get an email saying I'm "past due" on a payment. I call the robot and it says I have until 20 October to pay.

The term "past due" has a precise definition in the Fair Credit Collection Act. My late wife did these collections for a living. "Past Due" means the account is 30 days past the posted "due" date. The FCCA says that putting the wrong terminology into a collection communication makes that communication into an "Improper Dun", a legal term for the tort of Harassment, or improper threatening communications.

If I were to drop a dime on VZW, the USAG would be BOUND BY LAW to accept my complaint and open a case vs VZW, and the usual Civil fine is $1500 for the first offense. I'm willing to bet this isn't the first offense VZW had made under the FCCA. The matter then bumps up and individuals within the accused corporation may be charged with a Federal Crime, and treble damages come in, and six-figure judgments were common in Blanche's day.

The FCCA is likely in the USAG's Dead File now though, in the present corrupt Administration.

Bull Market? Short it and GTFO, NOW!

There is a HUGE threat to pretty much all the retail sector, major parts of the health sector, and slices of a few others, such as banking and insurance. That threat is liability for data-breaches. The Street is one liberal judge away from a BAD crash, which WILL happen when one of the 77% of the Federal Courts' liberal judges decides to rule that all the phony, unconstitutional protections that companies have bribed into effect against liability for data breaches, ARE actually unconstitutional. Imagine YOU lost your identity to the hackers of Kohl's, Target or ANY company which, mostly for greed reasons, refused to use the best practices of information security. You have suffered a big loss, and if ALL your loss would be ruled compensible, you would receive somewhere in the five-figures area of compensation. Now multiply that figure by hundreds of millions, the TOTAL number of data breach victims. That adds up to doom for the entire retail sector, the health-care sector & probably the banking sector. The economy fails at that point. No one will invest in any company having had anything to do with digital records-keeping, which is pretty much everyone, isn't it?

Bottom line? The entire Bull Market Bottom Line can be removed by ONE Judge writing ONE opinion which survives thru the SCOTUS. No, I'm not going to tell you what to do if you can't invest. No, strike that, I WILL tell you, bercause that's why I blog! Buy land you can farm on. Buy guns to defend it with and buy plenty of beans and bullets for the Militia you will raise for that defense. NOW, I'm done warning you!

Red Hatter

Might be a Mad Hatter as well, some days. Ubuntu destroyed itself with a routine upgrade, so I went for Fedora on the advice of my SysEng S.I.L. It loaded up like a dream. Seems slower than Ubuntu in some regards, such as loading apps and software. Cripes! It took 23 minutes to load Firefox V. 57! Thunderbird loaded right up, though.

Never say never, buuuuut, this is probably the most hack-proof O/S commonly available. DOD uses it for encrypted shit up thru Level Two, which, IIRC is Secret, NoForn. I have two layers of shell on it, and each one requires login. I could have had a third, the KDE Desktop, which has yet another layer. I have all that in an older Fedora distro on a little Gateway Netbook that is my BugOut Puter. Ready to go, with two high-endurance batteries charged, I could stay on it for 16 hours if I had to.

This puter had a fall-back second boot of Win7Pro on it. As I looked through the files to see if I needed to save anything, I noted that I hadn't booted Windows in over two months. No loss there. I don't own a windows machine now. Wife still has one, runs Win 10.3, she doesn't use a fiftieth of the capacity of that O/S.

As I look at Windows, all I see is worry about hacks. Computing shouldn't bring worry.

Safely dispose of a AIO Printer

(Large amount of destroyed panels removed before the picture was taken)

I have heard that ROM in these printers stores EVERY document ever printed, scanned or faxxed. So, you can't just junk the thing when it fails, you have to DESTROY it, in detail. The "re-cycle centers" are NOT going to do that, and paying minimum wage to their peeps, those slaves might be incentivized to remove your docs and sell them to an evil person.

I suppose I could build a fire and torch the thing, but I am a CONSERVATIONIST, and I don't want to foul the air without cause to do so. One never knows what poly-ethyl-badshit plastic they build these things out of, so, no torch. Take it to the gun range and give it an AR Funeral? My range frowns on that.

So, I removed each screw I could get at and used a heavy crowbar on the rest to get it down to chunks and get the digital boards out of it. BTW, I DID spend some time online trying to find a diagram which would tell me just where the data cache was on one of those boards, but never found that. I had planned to chuck a big wall-drill in a drill-motor and hole out the offending part, but without a diagram of where that offending part was, couldn't do that.

Eye-protection, gloves and crowbar did the work in about 15 minutes.

When I think of the sensitive crap I copied and scanned on that machine, it gives me the willies thinking that someone else might get it...

 

Stand by to GAAAAGGGHHH!

Whatever my blogging firm calls itself these days, it has a bad case of servers not talking to each other. I communicate with my blog's input side on three, sometimes four different devices: phone, tablet, desktop and wife's kitchen computer. They run, in that order, new android, old android, Linux Ubuntu and WinSeven. It seems that the blogging company which changed it's name (used to be called Six Apart) routes each request for access to a different server, depending on the operating system of the requestor. How farged up is THAT? It may be the cheapie solution so that they don't have to write complex software to handle ALL operating systems on one server, but it is definitely NOT the most secure solution. I wrote up a Ticket, and their techhie answered for me to keep changing my password until I got in. Now THAT advice means that anyone with the username and access to the user-named email account can get into the blog.

Is it time for the government to REQUIRE standardized levels of commercial account security?

Ubuntu, a half-year review

It's been about six months since I ended my computing relationship with Windows and installed Ubuntu on my main desktop computer. I thought a report might be in order.

Ubuntu is:

Secure. The Windows "security" systems, aren't secure. The MicroSoft idea of building walls around the vital core of an operating system, then having a staff of hundreds to thousands of people working 24-7 to keep up with the wall-breachers is absurd. It's futile because there are hundreds of thousands of hackers at work. Consider the "100 monkeys" Razor. Linux protects it's kernel, or root, with a double-crypto system which requires a pair of passwords to open the system; one to boot the computer and one to open the desktop. Additionally, there is a password required for the root, or modification-pathway to the kernel. When a vulnerability DOES show up in a Linux distro, it is announced and fixed immediately. So far, I have seen just ONE such fix, while my wife's W7 computer has seen dozens of "fixes" in the same time frame.

Piracy. Windows has committed a corporate strategic error by caving in to the Federal Government's demand for spying on everyone, supposedly to keep terrorists at bay. Windows 10.1 now requires a portal allowing Government spying, and Microsoft is going backward all the way to Windows Seven to install this portal on all Windows computers. Of course, M$ says the portals are only for targeting ads to individual tastes, but the problem with spy portals is that any hacker/government can use them. Linux is almost impossible to create and establish spy portals in.

User-friendly. Using the default arrangements for desktop (Unity) is a totally seamless switch from Windows Seven Classic. There are simple icons to use with one left-click (Windows requires two clicks unless you put icons in the TaskBar). Opening a suite with an icon give you familiar screens to Windows. The same Close-Minimize-Expand (contract) widget is there, only moved from upper right to upper left. As an advantage over Windoze, it minimizes itself, requiring only a quick scroll-over to bring it back.

The suites themselves are mostly the same as Windows Seven. On my desktop, I have a universal search suite (Linux, not Google's), a File Manager, Firefox, Libre Office, the Ubuntu Software Center (a one-stop shop similar to Google Play or Apple's pirate's lair), a video suite, a sound suite, a text editor, Thunderbird email, the Systems suite, the complete "works" portal to Ubuntu, and finally, FileZilla (a super-file manager). There are also icons for opening the desktop and the usual trashcan.

Resource-friendly. In case you haven't heard, installing Ubuntu (or almost any other Linux distribution) on an older Windows Seven machine will give you speed and capacity which you could only dream about, unless you had expanded your RAM and overclocked your chipset (which if you know how to do, you have probably already switched to Linux 10 years ago). This computer has only 2GB of RAM, and it does NOT bog unless I have 10+ active browser windows open with each one in active two-way communication in a website. A 4GB setup would fly! My wife's computer (she is hanging on with Windoze Seven) is only 5 years old, has 4GB RAM, and bogs about anytime more than ONE active browser window is open. She will get Ubuntu soon, I have a plan to convince her...

Ubuntu in the future. I am getting ready to make the next Linux-leap. Ubuntu is available for tablet computers and phones. I have an old Motorola Xoom 10" tablet which still soldiers along just fine and a Samsung Note 3 phone. As soon as I can verify that Verizon Wireless will allow the tablet to use Ubuntu (no one at the phone place seems to know that), I will switch the Xoom over to Ubuntu. When I get familiar enough with portable Ubuntu, the phone will be next. If the usual conservation of resources with Linux that I have experienced on my desktop and on two old laptop computers holds true with the Google-operated systems, I will soon be done with Google, just as I have already put Windows out of my computing life. The sticking point with the Google portables might be apps, though, that will require careful research. The Ubuntu team has developed PhoneGap, a system which lets Ubuntu run all Android apps, but as you see here, the installation of PhoneGap can be tricky, calling for Level-Three BASH knowledge. I am only a Level One BASH guy presently...

Summary. If any of my readers are still using any form of Windows, I urge you to look up someone with an Ubuntu machine and try it out. Actually, you can do this experimenting yourself, because Ubuntu will allow a dual-booting download, available here, which will let you switch back and forth between Windoze and Ubuntu while you decide.

 

Does Android 5.0 have "throttling" built in?

I run a Samsung S-3 Note as my personal phone. I've had this older "phablet" for over a year, and was somewhat surprised that Verizon offered me an upgrade to Android 5.0 about two months ago. My older S-2 had to soldier on with various versions of Android 3.x, the last update being offered when that device was only two months old, back in 2012 IIRC. Surprising that Verizon/Samsung would offer the current S-4, S-5 and S-6 operating system for my old turkey....

I accepted the update, and it installed itself as it was supposed to.

Shortly after that upload, Facebook made a major change, and the formerly fast social medium now bogs badly, even when my phone tells me that Verizon's LTE Gen4 is running at 25 mbps+ or I am on my Comcrap home system at 56 mbps. Email loading has slowed down significantly as well. Sometimes the FB & Email downloads "pout" so badly that I just reboot the phone, which momentarily speeds things up, but only for about 15 seconds or so. The new O/S also does a lousy job of synching my devices across the Google spectrum, another data-intensive network. The synching system used to perform flawlessly with 4.x

In the old 4.4 O/S on my S-3, everything ran fine, ran fast, as a device of this capability ought to. That all ended with Android 5.0.

Consider Verizon Wireless' customer relations pickle at the time 5.0 was introduced: Power users were getting "throttled" after using only 2gb of their data allotments, and some of us had real, by-God Unlimited data, a plan left over from several years back and phones like the Samsung Sch-I760. Verizon got into a bandwidth-delivery crunch because their sales, of bandwidth-hungry Apple devices mostly, outstripped their systems' ability to deliver the bandwidth. The mega-company solved this problem by "throttling", or deliberately slowing down data delivery to speeds below 1 mbps for the older Samsung devices. Instead of asking the forbearance of customers, and promising a new, speedy system by a date certain, Verizon tried to hide the throttling, and they got taken to the cleaners for it. The other services' ad campaigns hammered VZW mercilessly for their shady tricks, and VZW lost market share.

Rock and a hard place time, and my theory of what happened next:

Verizon, awash in cash but not in network, decided to substitute moolah for bandwidth. They go to Google, cross their palm, and THAT screw-everybody company obliges by writing a new O/S, which, without any notice, has built-in throttling, along with a few new widgets which are supposed to amaze us. Google, with likely a wink and a nod from Samsung, pushes out the new O/S, and Verizon does everybody a faux-solid by going way back and pushing it to earlier devices.

The result of all this is that my original smartphone, an Sch-I730, which ran Windows Mobile 6.0, was faster than the latest and greatest from Samsung. What proves it for me is that Verizon's equipment allows a burst of high-speed data when the phone first boots, then it is throttled.

Do any readers out their have the same issues?

What would happen if I reverted?

If I "rooted" & became a Super User, could I tweak up the speed of my Android 5.0?

 

Not quite a Jedi....

So, I've been using Ubuntu now for almost a month, and I'm comfortable with it, and I'm getting more comfortable by the day with using Terminal (the Command Line entry) to dip my toe in the water with BASH, the shell and passages to the Kernel.

I decided to take the next logical step and try to integrate all my old useful Windoze files. The best way to do this with a Linux distro like Ubuntu is to modify your kernel with WINE, which stands for something like "Windows Integrator Not Emulator". It is more than just a file manager that can handle Windows files. When installed, your computer seamlessly uses all your old Windoze stuff except the .dll files. You use those old non-Linux files and aside from the slight differences in menus on programs, you can do anything with the files that Windoze used to do.

I was going to set up a second Documents folder to keep all of them in, about 15 gb worth, some dating back to 1986 and WIN 3.0 They're mostly letters and such.

So, I shake hands three times as Mister Super User and begin:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa

The kernel salutes me back, grinds a half-page of code out, and says, "go ahead"

$ sudo apt-get update

Now the box gets into the no-shit serious mode, and hammers page after page of code out for about 5 minutes, then says, "I can take all you can get me, Big Boy":

$ sudo apt-get install wine1.7 winetricks

Another major hammering of pages for about 3 more minutes, then the box says "done" and gives me a EULA to agree to/sign. A EULA? WTF, over, it's Linux, we don't do EULAs, I sneer, that's insecure MicroSquish apple-crapple. Yes, this EULA is from MS. Something about giving limited permission for me to use my own files, but not by handling them with dear departed Windoze.

/shakes head/

I mouse over the "agree" button and click.

Nothing. Click again. Nothing. Right-click. Nothing. Highlight and hit "enter". Nothing. Take a 5-minute break and come back. Nothing.

I do notice, however, that the formerly-speedy machine now has some hitch in it's gitalong. It's slowed down. Dono why. The code for WINE only added about 600mb to the 5 gb on the disk.

Then I get a message popping. Some Bug Report has been generated, do I want to send it to Ubuntu Central? I agree and send. Another message, confirming that WINE will not be available for me because Microsoft hates my ass, or something. I start to see red.

3 deep breaths, then back to Terminal:

$ sudo apt-get remove wine <enter>   then

$ sudo apt-get remove -purge wine <enter>

30 seconds later, and a couple clean-up commands, and THAT little bit of MS mischief is in the rear-view mirror.

The cause? Just guessing, but it appears that when MicroSquish sent over it's EULA to the developers, it sent a read-only file, and there was no way to send the signed EULA back to whoever needs to keep it. Simple enough bug, eh? WINE has been around at least 3 years, this should have been fixed by now.

Windows is gone from MY computer

Less than two weeks ago, I spent an entire #$%^&(*&^%$ day wiping, then reloading my desktop with Windows 7. After I was done, it ran fine.

Yesterday, even though I had Windows Updates turned off, somehow, the O/S turned that resource hogzilla back on and downloaded SP 1, which I had left off the machine. This ayem, when I fired up the machine, it just pouted. Back to the same glacial speed that even my original 1986 Windoze box, running Win 3.0, could outrun with only a 286 chip, NO hard disk, and floppy drives to load everything from.

I just executed Windoze 7. Gave it a fair trial, I did, then strung it up. It's gone to it's reward in etherspace. The death certificate reads: Cause of Death, Morbid Obesity.

This box is now running Ubuntu 15.04. I am just barely competent enough on Linux to run it. I use Help a lot.

I do NOT own a windoze box any more. The gudwife still has one. Now all I have to do is put Wine on this Linux box, and I can use my backup drive, with it's full-disk image of the old box, as a windoze file repository.

Been sittin' here for 3.5 hours, though, so I will get up before Arthur Ritus kicks my old butt in the butt, AGAIN.

Computer crash landing

...but I walked away, more or less.

The E-Machines desktop, a cheapo Win7 box, had some issues with the power supply a few months ago, and I sent it off for warranty work. Mind you, this box only sports 2gb of RAM, and that's a bit thin for W7 work, but while never a blink-of-eye machine, it was tollible. When I got it back from Louisville, though, it was a real slug, so much so that I more or less quit using it, working instead off of a Linux box or my Droid devices.

I am, however, one of those guys who hates equipment that's not performing up to snuff, so I started to mess around with it. I changed the Page File allocation, and that did nothing, then I found an article which talked about Windows Update being the culprit. While I was investigating THAT possibility, I ran the Performance charts and noticed something peculiar: with ZERO input from the web, the machine seemed to be communicating anyway. Unplugging the Internet connection seemed to settle down the stats. Could the computer be zombiefied?

I tried to run a virus scan with the Trend Micro software, but a "quick scan" which should have taken seconds took 45 minutes, but found nothing. The computer performance charts LOOKED like the computer was working it's butt off, and the fan was running. Not like a Stack Overflow would do, but there seemed to be a regular cycle to it. The CPU would max for a few seconds, then fall off to 70%, then max again, as if it was furiously computing in bursts, like a BotNet machine would do.

I decided to take the bull by the horns. I had a solid Full back-up on two different drives, one which I imaged just before sending the box off for repairs.

I trashed the O/S and re-installed Windoze with the factory disks. The only thing I have lost is my Chrome URL collection and my email archives from January to now, but that's not hurt Hillary, so I feel safe. Actually, Chrome sort of remembers my URLs anyway, since whenever I search, the exact URLs pop right up from the Government Google archives.

So, I will run this box for a while with the fresh, minimalist Windoze in it, and If I don't like that, it will get a Linux distro. I doubt if it's worth paying to have the RAM upgraded, but in any case, Win7 is on MicroSquish's chopping block and it goes away soon. Then, Linux for sure.

This work has managed to consume all my time from breakfast to Happy Hour now, so I will go have a drinki-poo and sit outside and watch my garden grow.

Bonus below the fold (NSFW)