Archive for June, 2021

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Unless You Bought Your PC Very Recently, It Likely Won’t Run Windows 11

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 26, 2021 by itnerd

Since Microsoft announced Windows 11, I’ve been looking at it and found something that to be frank is a bit disturbing. The system requirements for Windows 11 are very narrow. Have a look at Microsoft’s official compatibility page for Windows 11 to see what I mean. If you don’t fit into what’s listed there, your PC won’t be upgraded to Windows 11. Here’s a quick list of processors that support Windows 11:

WINDOWS 11 SUPPORT FOR INTEL

  • Intel 8th Gen (Coffee Lake)
  • Intel 9th Gen (Coffee Lake Refresh)
  • Intel 10th Gen (Comet Lake)
  • Intel 10th Gen (Ice Lake)
  • Intel 11th Gen (Rocket Lake)
  • Intel 11th Gen (Tiger Lake)
  • Intel Xeon Skylake-SP
  • Intel Xeon Cascade Lake-SP
  • Intel Xeon Cooper Lake-SP
  • Intel Xeon Ice Lake-SP

WINDOWS 11 SUPPORT FOR AMD

  • AMD Ryzen 2000
  • AMD Ryzen 3000
  • AMD Ryzen 4000
  • AMD Ryzen 5000
  • AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2000
  • AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000
  • AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3000
  • AMD EPYC 2nd Gen
  • AMD EPYC 3rd Gen

So… Who does that leave out? Lots of people. For example there are many threads on Reddit filled with users who are angry that their new, or in some cases the very new Surface PCs which are made by Microsoft themselves is failing the Windows 11 PC Health Check App for example. And I’ve got a few calls from clients who have run Microsoft’s PC Health App to see whether Windows 11 works on their systems. But when they do, it fails the check and they call me to see if I can help them. Sadly I can’t and their only out is to buy a new PC, at least at this point.

The problem with all of this is that significant shift in Windows hardware requirements since the release of Windows 8 back in 2012, and the CPU changes are understandably catching people by surprise. Doubly so because during the announcement of Windows 11, Microsoft noted that CPU generation requirements are a “soft floor” limit for the Windows 11 installer, which should have allowed some older CPUs to be able to install Windows 11 with a warning of some sort. What prompted this change by Microsoft, who knows. But I will say this. Microsoft may want to rethink this because this is the sort of thing that will drive people to go to the Apple store and have a look at those new M1 based Macs as they absolutely destroy anything that Intel makes, and Apple has a strong history of supporting computers that are as old as six or seven years in age. Which means the chances of getting screwed by Apple at some point are way less than they are with Microsoft. That’s good for Apple, and bad for Microsoft.

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Owners Of Western Digital My Book Live Hard Drives Are Having Their Drives Erased By Unknown Hackers

Posted in Commentary with tags , on June 25, 2021 by itnerd

Reports from a variety of sources are telling a very scary story of owners of Western Digital My Book Live hard drives are having their drives being erased remotely by unknown hackers with a very low chance of data recovery. Western Digital  has confirmed that the attacks are occurring, and has advised owners to immediately disconnect their drives from the internet. Which implies that Western Digital has no clue what’s going on and how to stop it.

There is a remote code execution vulnerability that dates back to 2018 under CVE-2018-18472 that is likely the source of the attacks. The fact that this has been out there for three years without being fixed is pretty bad and Western Digital has some explaining to do as to why it wasn’t fixed. I am sure that Western Digital will have an explanation when the inevitable class action lawsuit is filed.

In the meantime if you have one of these drives, you need to unplug it from the Internet right now. For bonus points, I would also suggest backing up the data and move it to another drive that doesn’t expose itself to the Internet. That way all your data remains safe.

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Another Reason For Rogers To Be Scared…. TELUS Launches PureFibre X With Canada’s Fastest Internet Speeds

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 24, 2021 by itnerd

I’ve written previously about why Rogers is on the back foot when it comes to being an Internet provider versus Bell Canada. Now there’s one more reason why Rogers will stay on the back foot. TELUS announced today that it is rolling out what they call PureFibre X. The rollout will start in Calgary, and then continue to other communities in Alberta and BC in “the months ahead.” But here’s the reason why Rogers should be scared. PureFibre X offers download and upload speeds of 2.5 Gbps which makes it the top of the food chain when it comes to Internet speeds in Canada. And in the process destroying anything that Rogers offers. Here’s some more key facts from the press release:

A 100 per cent FTTH network means that every part of the TELUS PureFibre network is built with state-of-the-art fibre optics, right up to the connection point at the home or business, ensuring customers have the fastest most capable network available. With the only true all fibre network in Western Canada, TELUS delivers the best network performance available anywhere in the world, including the fastest upload and download speeds. This infrastructure is critical for enabling TELUS PureFibre X – the next phase of world-leading network performance – which now allows Calgary residents on the PureFibre network access to the fastest Internet speeds in Canada. In another technological advancement, PureFibre X Internet plans include the latest Wi-Fi 6, enabling better quality connectivity and connections throughout the home. By leveraging Wi-Fi 6 technology with TELUS’ new PureFibre X, we can provide households with nearly limitless connectivity enabling simultaneous 4K streaming, video conferencing, web surfing, gaming, smart home automation, and smart home security.

So the way I see things, this will force Bell to up their game as their fastest Internet offering is 1.5 Gbps. But that should be doable as like TELUS, they are an end to end fibre solution. Rogers on the other hand isn’t, which means the disparity between their Internet offerings and those of Bell and TELUS just got worse. Sure this isn’t offered in Ontario, but Rogers wants to buy Shaw to be more of a player in Western Canada which is where these services will be offered. And this announcement makes them an also ran even before that deal gets closed.

Here’s a promo video from TELUS:

If the folks at TELUS are reading this, a tip of the metaphorical hat to you and please bring this service to Ontario (along with the rest of the services that you don’t offer here in Ontario) so that people in this province can have another option when it comes to their telco needs.

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Microsoft Officially Announces Windows 11

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 24, 2021 by itnerd

After being leaked, Microsoft has officially announced Windows 11. Which will be the next version of Microsoft’s desktop operating system:

We’ve simplified the design and user experience to empower your productivity and inspire your creativity. It’s modern, fresh, clean and beautiful. From the new Start button and taskbar to each sound, font and icon, everything was done intentionally to put you in control and bring a sense of calm and ease. We put Start at the center and made it easier to quickly find what you need. Start utilizes the power of the cloud and Microsoft 365 to show you your recent files no matter what platform or device you were viewing them on earlier, even if it was on an Android or iOS device.

Here’s something else that caught my eye:

Since day one of developing Windows 11, we have been working closely with our hardware and silicon partners for seamless integration across software and hardware. That co-engineering begins with innovation in the silicon. From AMD and the incredible graphics depth brought by the Ryzen processors to the incredible performance of Intel’s 11th gen and Evo Processors, to Qualcomm’s AI prowess, 5G and Arm support, the innovation of our silicon partners brings together the best of Windows 11 with the largest hardware ecosystem in the world.

The fact that they have ARM processor support gives them options in case they want to dump Intel like Apple has.

Microsoft plans to release Windows 11 to the general public by the holidays, so we can probably expect it sometime around late November. Before that, we’ll likely see a slew of public betas. It’s apparently going to be a free upgrade. Here’s a video that speaks to all the new features:

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Digital Main Street ShopHERE Helps more than 25,000 Canadian SMBs transition to online during pandemic

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 24, 2021 by itnerd

Through ShopHERE powered by Google, Digital Main Street has been supporting more than 25,000 SMBs during the pandemic, providing them with critical digital tools and skills needed to stay afloat and reach customers online while their bricks and mortar business was closed.

ShopHERE made a difference for businesses disproportionately impacted by the pandemic with 64% of participants identifying as women and 33% identifying as BIPOC. Along with SMB support, ShopHERE has also created new employment opportunities for 780 university and college students to help develop a new workforce of young Canadians with expertise in web development, ecommerce and digital marketing.

Check out this blog post link for more information about ShopHERE, along with some additional details below on how ShopHERE is supporting Canadian SMBs and students.

How Digital Main Street’s ShopHERE program impacted small businesses:

  • 70% of businesses that participated in ShopHERE agree their business is doing better because they participated in the program
  • 46% of businesses that participated in ShopHERE agree they would not have been able to sell online without the program
  • 68% of businesses that participated in ShopHERE say the program was important to surviving the pandemic

How Digital Main Street’s ShopHERE program impacted Canadian students:

  • 96% of students that participated in ShopHERE agree the program gave them skills and experience that better prepared them for future employment opportunities
  • 66% of ShopHERE student alumni were able to secure employment after participating in the program

You can find some other examples at this blog post link. 

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Infragistics Launches $50M Innovation Fund and Lab To Fuel Experimentation For New Market Expansion

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 24, 2021 by itnerd

Infragistics, the software company responsible for the user experience and interface (UX/UI) solutions behind the world’s largest enterprise applications, today announces the launch of its $50M Innovation Fund and Lab. The fund will create freedom for internal inventors to experiment with innovations beyond the company’s core UI/UX products, without an immediate need to generate revenue. The fund’s Innovation Lab arm was introduced by Infragistics founder and CEO Dean Guida, and will be led by Tobias Komischke, PhD, an expert in the field of Usability Engineering and head of data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning at Infragistics.

The new fund is part of Infragistics’ larger commitment to nurturing a culture of innovation and cultivating the same entrepreneurial spirit responsible for its longevity in the technology arena. After years of funding innovation products informally, the fund introduces a formal delineation between Infragistics’ revenue-generating products and its pre-market growth products. 

All Infragistics employees are encouraged to pitch ideas that leverage their collective expertise in artificial intelligence, analytics and digital product design. Projects can make use of any programming frameworks and require the most advanced technologies available, including data science and machine learning (DSML), AI-informed design and collaboration work streams. 

Under Komischke’s guidance, the Innovation Lab team has developed a proprietary and structured innovation process to prototype, test and thoroughly assess new ideas for market viability. Projects that make it past internal and external reviews will be provided experimental capital to take the innovation from concept and prototype all the way to market.

The decision to formalize the Fund and introduce a dedicated lab comes as Infragistics embarks on its fourth decade in business. Founder Dean Guida bootstrapped Infragistics 31 years ago and has since grown it to a multi-million dollar company without accepting outside funding. The company now has 250 employees and offices in the U.S., Japan, Uruguay, Bulgaria, UK and India. Its client roster boasts 100% of the S&P 500, including Intuit, Exxon and Morgan Stanley, and its enterprise-ready UX and UI toolkits are in use by more than two million developers worldwide.

The Innovation Lab is located in the company’s 74,000 square-foot New Jersey headquarters. The Lab is part of Infragistics’ $22M investment in converting a vacant, two-story warehouse into an open work environment. 

The Innovation Lab leadership team is currently responsible for two new in-market products, Indigo.Design and Reveal, and one pre-market product, Slingshot, which will be released in Q4 of 2021.

Indigo.Design is a complete design-to-code system that has allowed Infragistics to move outside of the enterprise and work directly with UX designers across industries  and company sizes. Through Indigo, Infragistics was one of the first companies to enter the emerging low-code space in 2018. The platform generates production-ready code for Angular, with React, Web Components and Blazor coming soon. Infragistics UX Principal George Abraham leads the Innovation Lab’s Indigo.Design team.

Reveal is an analytics and data visualization software platform that can take the world’s most complex data sets and transform them into actionable insights. Organizations that thrive on precision and continuous intelligence, such as the Japanese Railway Group and Baker Hughes, now rely on Reveal to organize, understand and act on their business intelligence. Seventeen-year Infragistics veteran and SVP of Developer Tools, Jason Beres, leads the Innovation Lab’s Reveal team.

Soon-to-launch Slingshot is a digital workplace that boosts team results, no matter where they are, by giving them the ability to make better, quicker decisions with data analytics, as well as improving their workflow. Slingshot eliminates disruption caused by constant app-switching, and introduces a structured approach to project organization, task prioritization and communication in context. Slingshot is a culmination of on-the-ground best practices culled by Infragistics over its three decades working with hundreds of companies. Guida and Innovation Lab Director Dr. Tobias Komischke, are currently leading Slingshots’ pilot tests. 

Dr. Komischke, Director of the new Innovation Lab, spent seven years working at Infragistics before accepting a role as Global Director of User Experience at Honeywell in 2015. In 2020, he returned to Infragistics to lead the new Innovation Lab.

As part of his work with the Innovation Lab, Dr. Komischke also developed an Innovation Fellowship with Rutgers University, which contributes a regular stream of insights that help the company shape its ongoing innovation.

For more information about the Infragistics Innovation Fund and Lab, please visit: https://www.infragistics.com/about-us/innovation   

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TekSavvy Provides Liberal Government With Clear Evidence Of CRTC Chair’s bias

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 24, 2021 by itnerd

TekSavvy today filed additional evidence with the Liberal Government in support of its May 28 Petition to the Governor in Council regarding the CRTC’s recent wholesale rates decision (Decision 2021-181). That decision stunned observers by completely reversing the CRTC’s own 2019 Final Rates Order, which had already been upheld on appeal by the Federal Court of Appeal, and which the Federal Cabinet and the Supreme Court of Canada declined to review. TekSavvy’s Petition asks Cabinet to overrule the CRTC’s arbitrary Decision 2021-181, to reinstate its evidence-based 2019 Final Rates Order and to remove Chair Ian Scott for bias. 

Today, TekSavvy submitted further evidence to Cabinet regarding Mr. Scott’s bias.  TekSavvy noted that Mr. Scott held numerous ex parte meetings with litigants with open CRTC files, apparently unaccompanied, according to lobbying records. In particular, Mr. Scott held at least 11 reported solo meetings with Bell, Rogers or Shaw during the course of the CRTC’s open and active file, which resulted in Decision 2021-181  and that completely reversed its own evidence-based, years-in-the-making 2019 Final Rates Order. The decision also directly undermined Cabinet’s mandate and direction to the CRTC to promote affordable pricing and competition.

Remarkably, at least one of Mr. Scott’s ex parte meetings took place in a social setting, alone, with the CEO of one of the primary litigants in the open file. Mr. Scott met one-on-one with Mirko Bibic, then chief operating officer of Bell (and now CEO) at D’Arcy McGee’s, an Ottawa bar on December 19, 2019. The meeting occurred just one week after the CRTC opened an active file to hear Bell’s application to reverse the 2019 Final Rates Order, which the regulator arbitrarily approved in Decision 2021-181.

This meeting, in the middle of a contentious proceeding with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, is described in recent media reports by former Commissioners, as offside the CRTC’s internal norms, policies and practices. One former Chair noted that he “would include a third party, typically the CRTC’s general counsel, in lobbying meetings with industry.” Another former Commissioner and vice-chair of telecom said the CRTC’s recommended practice was to meet with lobbyists in the office and to have a third person present, such that an ex-parte meeting at a bar “would fall into the category of high-risk behaviour.” 

Other media reports describe the harmful impact of Mr. Scott’s private meetings on the CRTC’s integrity and reputation. One article underscores that it is impossible for anyone to know what was discussed, noting with respect to Mr. Scott and Mr. Bibic, “De quoi ont-ils discuté ? Impossible de le savoir.” Another article notes that this conduct has caused a crisis at the CRTC that will undermine public confidence, “[U]n manque de confiance qui pourrait faire mal.”

TekSavvy submitted that Mr. Scott’s ex parte meeting with Mr. Bibic is also clearly offside the standards of conduct required by the Governor in Council for its appointees to the CRTC, as confirmed by Cabinet’s termination of one Commissioner’s appointment for far less egregious conduct in 2017. In fact, both the Federal Court and Cabinet have explicitly recognized the concern of bias raised by ex parte meetings between Commissioners and stakeholders with open files before the CRTC, as the Federal Court described such conduct as “very troubling.”

TekSavvy respectfully reiterated its request that Cabinet quickly take the steps outlined in its Petition and in particular, to overturn the CRTC’s arbitrary Decision 2021-181 and reinstate its evidence-based, pro-consumer 2019 Rates Order and to remove Mr. Scott as chair. 

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Commvault Named 2021 HPE GreenLake Momentum Partner Of The Year

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 24, 2021 by itnerd

Commvault today announced it has won the 2021 Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) GreenLake Momentum Partner of the Year Award at HPE Discover 2021.

According to HPE, the 2021 Partner of the Year Awards recognize partners from across the HPE ecosystem for their incredible commitment to customer excellence, continued strong performance, focus on growth, and dedication to mutual achievements. Winners were selected based on financial performance, innovative solutions, and ability to drive transformative business outcomes for shared customers. 

Commvault’s Intelligent Data Services Platform leverages all parts of Commvault’s existing portfolio via a broad set of delivery models that vary from software subscription, an integrated appliance, partner-managed, to increasingly SaaS—a critical differentiator in the market. This platform includes the following set of services: Data Management & Protection, Data Security, Data Compliance & Governance, Data Transformation, and Data Insights. The new Intelligent Data Services provide comprehensive, end-to-end storage and workload support regardless of where they reside.

The innovations developed through Commvault’s growing partnership with HPE to deliver BaaS with GreenLake gives customers proven, award-winning data protection with the flexibility to scale as they grow while maintaining the enterprise class protection they need.

To learn more about Commvault’s recently-enhanced Partner Advantage program, including newly refined and tailored support for MSP and Aggregator partners, please visit the Commvault website. More information on the 2021 HPE Partner of the Year Awards can be found on the HPE website.

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#RIP John McAfee

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 23, 2021 by itnerd

Eccentric software mogul John McAfee has apparently died today in a Spanish prison. He was best known for a suite of antivirus programs that bore his name. According to McAfee’s lawyer, who confirmed details of his death to Reuters, the British-born technology trailblazer hanged himself in his Barcelona prison cell. This was just after he was approved to be extradited to the USA to face trial for tax evasion and fraud. Now if you want a history of what he did, and why he got into trouble, this Wikipedia article can help with that.

Rest in peace.

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Guest Post: Atlas VPN Says That Over 60% Of fraudsters Request Gift Cards In Business Emails Scams; eBay, Google Play Cards Most Popular

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 23, 2021 by itnerd

According to data presented by the Atlas VPN team, gift cards were the preferred payment method for 64% of fraudsters who used attacks to compromise business emails in the second half of 2020. 

eBay gift cards were the most popular, with nearly a quarter (24%) of cybercriminals requesting eBay gift vouchers as a form of payment. 

Google Play gift cards ranked second on the list. They were the gift card of choice of 15.5% of hackers involved in BEC attacks in the second half of last year. 

Google Play is followed by its competitor iTunes. Apple’s iTune gift cards were sought after by close to 12% of cybercriminals in H2 2020. 

On average, hackers demanded about $1,270 worth of gift cards per BEC attack. However, 22% of cybercriminals preferred wire transfers over gift cards as a payment method in BEC attacks. In the meantime, 10% of hackers preferred payroll diversion.  

Ruth Cizynski, the cybersecurity researcher and author at Atlas VPN, shares her thoughts on why gift cards are so popular with BEC attackers: 

“Gift cards make for a perfect payment method to scammers and hackers. Unlike, for example, wire transfers, payments in gift cards can not be easily tracked back to criminals.”

Gmail is the most popular domain among BEC scammers 

Frequently, scammers choose free email domains to carry out their attacks. It appears that the most popular webmail account Gmail was also the most favored among cybercriminals for BEC attacks in the second half of 2020. Overall, 61% of BEC hackers choose Gmail to conduct attacks. 

Other popular email domains for BEC attacks include Cox (6%), Naver (5%), Seznam.cz(4.5%), Earthlink (3%), Virgin Media (2%), Optimum.net (2%), Mail.ru (2%), and Roadrunner (1%). 

To read the full article, head over to: https://atlasvpn.com/blog/over-60-of-fraudsters-request-gift-cards-in-business-emails-scams-ebay-google-play-cards-most-popular

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