Mujjo Announces Their iPhone 16 Collection

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 9, 2024 by itnerd

It’s time to get ready for the iPhone 16! With the launch event ending as I type this, Mujjo has announced their iPhone 16 Collection.

Full Leather Cases – You’ve got to feel it to believe it.

  • Premium European leather: luxe and long-lasting
  • Machined-metal buttons for optimal responsiveness
  • Machined-metal camera bump for enhanced protection
  • MagSafe compatible
  • And in two stunning new colours: Livid Green and Green Smoke

Shield Cases – Just in case your phone meets the pavement.

  • Drop protection rated to 5 metres (15 feet), thanks to Mujjo’s ImpactCore internal bumper designed specifically for Mujjo.  
  • Crafted from premium European leather tanned in the Netherlands, this case combines elegance with durability. 
  • Crafted in a more sustainable way from DriTan, a water-free leather tanning process.

MaizCases – What goes around…their most planet-friendly phone case.

Even better, 98% of the water used in its production is recovered, making this case good to the planet and your phone.

Crafted from Italian bio-leather, made from a blend of corn, cereals, and recycled polyester, this case is both stylish and eco-friendly.

Lined with luxurious Japanese microfiber that feels as smooth as satin. New enhanced machine-metal buttons offer a responsive touch.

Explore the entire iPhone 16 collection here.

Leave a comment »

Ads On Twitter Show Up Besides Racist Content…. Why Are We Shocked By This??

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 9, 2024 by itnerd

Twitter is a cesspool of hate among other negative things. Therefore we should not be shocked by the fact that CBS News is reporting that ads on Twitter are showing up next to hateful content:

The World Bank has ceased all paid advertising on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, which was formerly Twitter, after a CBS News investigation found promoted advertisements from the organization showing up under a racist post from an account that prolifically posts pro-Nazi and white nationalist content. 

CBS News found a verified X account with more than 115,000 followers that had posted a racist image alongside a post praising Europe’s colonization of Africa. CBS News is not publicly identifying the accounts spreading racist content on X. 

A promoted advertisement for the World Bank showed up in the comments section below the post. 

“The World Bank Group had already reduced its paid marketing on X while working with the platform to implement the strongest safety protocols X offers for our content,” a spokesperson for the World Bank told CBS News on Friday, adding: “This latest incident is entirely unacceptable, and we are immediately ceasing all paid marketing on X.”

And:

On at least five occasions, promoted advertisements for the backpack company Nordace showed up under white nationalist or pro-Nazi posts on X. This included an advertisement for a Nordace backpack under a post from another verified account with 161,000 followers. 

The thread shared by the account included pro-Nazi posts that said “antisemites will save the world,” and “Weimar problems require Weimar solutions” with the “Weimar problems” phrase painted in the colors of the LGBTQ rainbow flag. The Weimar Republic was a name used for Germany before Hitler rose to power with the Nazi regime. 

On its website, Canadian-owned Nordace describes its core values as including, “Respect People” and “leave a positive impact.”

A Nordace representative replied to an earlier CBS News query about its ads on Sept. 2, saying the company had halted paid advertising on X “until we have absolute certainty that such occurrences won’t happen again.” Nordace said the posts highlighted by CBS News were “counter to everything we stand for, including our core value of ‘respect people.'”

It’s stuff like this that makes advertisers run in the other direction from advertising on Twitter. Elon Musk who is in the process of killing Twitter really has no clue. And it’s stuff like this that will ultimately kill Twitter as Elon clearly has no interest in making Twitter a place where advertisers want to spend their advertising dollars with. That and the fact that he told advertisers to “go f**k themselves.”

Leave a comment »

So How Do Scammers Get Their Phone Numbers At The Top Of Google Search Results?

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 9, 2024 by itnerd

This is going to answer a question that I get a lot when I help people who were the victims of scams, or from people who read my posts about scams. Which is how it’s possible to get a fake tech support number or a fake customer service number to the top of Google’s search results. But before I give you the how part, let me give you some background first.

Often when I investigate and remediate scams, the victim hasn’t had the scammer call them. It’s the other way around. For example, I was recently called in to remediate this scam where a couple had an issue with their printer. And they used Google to get a tech support number. The problem was that the number that they got from Google was a fake tech support company. And it would have ended really badly had they not got suspicious and disconnected the call. But by that point, the scammer had connected to their computer and had a look around it.

The reason why this sort of scam works is because people want to call a phone number to get help with something. That’s because they may be of a certain generation who are more comfortable talking to a person than using a chat bot for example. Or they feel that they will get better service from a real human being. Scammers know this and use this to their advantage. Since Google is the number one search engine out there, and they know that Google sells ads where if you pay them enough, they will post their ad high up on their search results. For example, here’s what you get on Google if you type in “Facebook customer service”.

Every phone number that you see here is fake and if you call any of these numbers, you’ll get connected to a scammer. The scammer who placed this ad is betting on the fact that you are so desperate for help that your guard will be down, and as a result you will fall into their trap by calling the number.

So, how do you avoid falling into their trap? Here’s some random thoughts:

  • If you’re looking the phone number of a telco or a utility company, check your bills from said company for a phone number.
  • If you have a smartphone, install the company’s app on your phone. They will often have the phone number that you’re looking for in there. Or better yet, they may have a button that will directly connect you to the company in question via the app.

And most of all, never rely on search results from Google or any other search engine.

Google has promised for years that they will crack down of this. And to their credit, they have made efforts to make this problem go away. But this is still a problem which means that they still have a lot of work to do to keep users safe. Until that day comes, it’s up to you to keep yourself safe by keeping your wits about you.

Leave a comment »

PC Optimum Terms And Conditions Changes Are A #Fail

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 9, 2024 by itnerd

If you are a member of the PC Optimum points program which is run by Loblaw, you likely recently got an email that looks in part like this:

The way this email reads, Loblaw is altering things so that account takeovers, and the resultant financial costs of said takeovers, is lessened. In their favour. While most of this email seems fine “ish”. Here’s the part of the email that bothers me:

So if you live in Quebec, you have to be informed that your PC Optimum account has been pwned. But they don’t have to inform you if you live anywhere else in Canada?

Am I the only one who looks at this and says that this is suspect at best?

The problem with this is that you might not notice that you have been pwned until it’s way too late. Unless you’re in Quebec where I am guessing that there is a legal requirement for the company to let you know that you’ve been pwned. That to me is problematic as Loblaw should do the right thing and let anyone who has been pwned know that they’ve been pwned and not just the people where they are legally forced to do so.

I pointed this out to my wife as we’ve been shopping substantially less at Loblaw and associated stores such as Shopper’s Drug Mart over the last few months due to their high prices when compared to their competition. But we still had around 250,000 points in our PC Optimum account which is the equivalent of $250 CDN. That changed this weekend where we redeemed most of those points for groceries, personal health items, and the like. Taking our points total down to just over 19,000 and we’ll eventually figure out how to spend that. But I can say that we’re stocked up in a number of areas from food to health and beauty for not a whole lot of cash outlay to do so. Why have we done this? This news really rubs us the wrong way, and combined with their high prices, we’re done with Loblaw and the PC Optimum program.

If this course of action sounds familiar, we did something similar with Petro Canada when they got pwned last year. And I have maybe been to a Petro Canada station twice since then. My wife and I are big believers that companies who do stupid things should not get your hard earned money. But it’s not just the cash that we’re depriving Loblaw of. We’re also depriving them of the data on our shopping habits that I know is equally as valuable. Because when you sign up for one of these programs, the company behind it is gathering data on you so that they can do anything from mine it to better sell things to you, of to sell this data to third parties. And I am pretty sure that if enough people say that enough is enough and pull out of this program, Loblaw would likely rethink their actions because it’s the data on your shopping habits that they really want.

This is slated to go into effect on Halloween. Let’s see if Loblaw gives consumers a treat by changing course on this, or they are going to go ahead and roll out this trick that really isn’t a good one.

Leave a comment »

Trump Media Stock Is Likely To Crash On September 20th

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 8, 2024 by itnerd

When Trump Media, which is the company that owns floundering social media network Truth Social, Donald Trump received 115 million shares. But he couldn’t sell those shares in whole or in part for six months. That’s called a lock up period. And that lock up period expires in about three weeks. Roughly September 20th. Selling all of that stock in whole or in part could help with Trump’s mountain of legal bills, fines, and campaign costs. But there’s a problem with that if he decided to do that:

Trump owns 59% of TMTG, and any sale could tank the stock unless done in small batches.

News flash. The stock is already tanking as per this:

This is worse than the last time I checked in on this rapidly falling stock. And this is highlighted by this factoid:

TMTG has now lost 80% of its value since hitting its all-time high of $79.38 on March 26, the stock’s first day of trading under the DJT ticker. That valued Trump’s personal stake at nearly $9.11 billion at the time.

His stake is down to about $2 billion as I type this. That’s a horrible drop in value if you’re Trump. And it could get worse:

Without a fast-growing user base — and with the company likely struggling to post a profit for the foreseeable future — there’s plenty of reason Trump Media stock could continue to see new lows. There’s simply not much of a business to invest in today, and this is a stock whose free fall could be far from over.

So this is a business that can’t attract users (Truth social maybe has 5 million users), and isn’t making money. That’s not a good news story at all. And highlights the fact that Trump isn’t the great businessman that he thinks he is. So you should circle the 20th on your calendar. Because it is likely that this meme stock will crash and burn on that date.

1 Comment »

Bluesky Hits A Record 9 Million Users

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 8, 2024 by itnerd

Elon Musk, you have a problem. Bluesky has been emerging as a challenger to the dumpster fire known as Twitter. For example, millions of people signed up when Elon pissed off Brazil. And I do mean millions. But what will freak out Elon is this:

At this pace, Bluesky will be a serious challenger to Twitter from those who are looking for an alternative to the dumpster fire that is Twitter. And if advertisers start to show up on the platform, Elon will need to change his underwear. I’m calling it now.

Leave a comment »

Critical Vulnerability In OFBiz Software Allows Arbitrary Code Execution

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 7, 2024 by itnerd

There is news that there is a critical security vulnerability in OFBiz (Open For Business) software. OFBiz is a suite of business applications for CRM and ERP, and also functions as a Java-based web framework. The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2024-45195 with a CVSS score of 7.5, affects all versions of the software before 18.12.16.

According to Rapid7 security researcher Ryan Emmons, the flaw allows an attacker without valid credentials to exploit missing view authorization checks in a Apache based web application, enabling them to execute arbitrary code on the server. 

Stephen Gates, Principal Security SME, Horizon3.ai had this to say:

  “The series of interrelated vulnerabilities, reportedly bypassing previous patches, likely has users frustrated. Patching is time-consuming and most often leads to a short outage, which in many cases is unacceptable for those who must maintain 5-nines or better.

  “This endless cycle of applying a patch, then a new vulnerability is discovered, then yet another round of patching is likely contributing to organizations waiting to patch, which ultimately increases the likelihood of exploitation and subsequent breaches.

  “What’s urgently needed is an entirely new class of solution for organizations that can’t immediately apply patches.”

Evan Dornbush, a former NSA cybersecurity expert offers additional comments:

  “Rapid7’s research here is impressive and commendable. While the OFBiz team had previously released a series of patches to address symptoms, Ryan Emmons’ creativity appears to tackle the root cause, effectively closing the gap in software critical to business operations.

  “It’s encouraging to see how the ingenuity of the research community drives meaningful improvements in software security. This work highlights the criticality of fostering a vibrant research community that can continue to contribute to the improvement of the ecosystem. By leveraging the collective mindshare of researchers, vendors and system owners can more effectively identify and mitigate emerging threats.”

This is one of those times where if you use this software, you should install patches to address this ASAP. Because it’s safe to assume that threat actors will be exploiting this vulnerability now that this is out there.

Leave a comment »

Review: Thermal Hero Gamma Series Phase Changer & NEO Series Thermal Pads

Posted in Products with tags on September 6, 2024 by itnerd

Recently Thermal Hero reached out to me and asked if I wanted to try out their Gamma Series Phase Changer & NEO Series Thermal Pads. This was a difficult one for me to do a review on as I no longer have any PC’s handy to test products that are designed to keep the components in your PC cool. Especially if you’re overclocking them. But as I tend to, I came up with a novel way to test these pads. Thus I agreed to the review.

My test equipment was not a PC, but a self built SSD. Specifically a SABRENT 1TB SSD Rocket NVMe m.2 4.0, Gen4 PCIe M.2 1TB SSD which was in this enclosure from Amazon that does USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 10Gbps transfer speeds. When I built it originally for my tech sling, I had tried to use some thermal pads to keep the drive from frying itself. But the pads never really fit into the case properly as they would come off the drive and essentially be useless. Thus my plan was to try these Thermal Hero pads to see if I could do better. Now this drive really gets hot when I use it. According to the Digital Laser Temperature Reader that my wife used for cooking, the casing when I transferred over 300 GB of files hit a temperature of 45 Celsius and was hot to the touch. Here’s what I did to address that:

On the underside of the SSD, I cut a piece of the NEO series thermal pad and placed it on the biggest chip on that side of the drive. This pad was thicker, so I used that on the underside to make sure it would fill the space between the drive and the case.

On the other side of the drive I used the Gamma Series Phase Changer Thermal Pad as these pads arevery thin and I have much less space to work with in terms of the SSD touching the enclosure.

I reassembled the drive. Erased it. And then copied the same files over to the drive. In short, I was performing the same test to see what temperature I got. This time I got 38 Celsius on the drive using my wife’s Digital Laser Temperature Reader. Not only that I noted that the heat was more evenly distributed over the entirety of the case rather than being in a couple of areas when I didn’t have these thermal pads on the drive. Also, I should note that the case was simply warm to the touch as opposed to being bordering on untouchable because of the level of heat that any sort of usage would generate.

In short, these thermal pads work as advertised. In fact, they worked better than I was expecting.

What that suggests to me is that if your use case is to use these to act as an interface between your CPU and whatever you’re using to cool it. Be it a CPU fan or a liquid cooler, these thermal pads will work really well for those purposes. Not to mention this slightly unconventional use of them. If you are looking to do things like overclock your CPU, or just simply extend the life of the components in your PC build, you can head over to Thermal Hero’s website to have a look at the products that are on offer.

Leave a comment »

Bad News For Elon Musk… Bluesky Has New Users Signing Up At A Massive Rate

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 6, 2024 by itnerd

I am starting to think that we’re at a tipping point where Elon Musk’s antics have finally driven people to go someplace else other than Twitter for their social media fix. I say that because Tech Crunch is reporting the following:

Social networking startup Bluesky continues to benefit from X’s shutdown in Brazil, having now added more than 2 million new users over the past four days, up from just half a million as of Friday. This rapid growth led some users to encounter the occasional error that would state there were “Not Enough Resources” to handle requests, as Bluesky engineers scrambled to keep the servers stable under the influx of new sign-ups.

As new users downloaded the app, Bluesky jumped to becoming the No. 1 app in Brazil over the weekend, ahead of Meta’s X competitor, Instagram Threads. According to app intelligence firm Appfigures, Bluesky’s total downloads soared by 10,584% this weekend compared to last, and its downloads in Brazil were up by a whopping 1,018,952%. The growth seems to be having a halo effect, as downloads outside Brazil also rose by 584%, the firm noted. In part, this is due to Bluesky receiving downloads in 22 countries where it had barely seen any traction before.

In terms of absolute downloads, countries that saw the most installs outside Brazil included the U.S., Portugal, the U.K., Canada and Spain. Those with the most download growth, however, were Portugal, Chile, Argentina, Colombia and Romania. Most of the latter group jumped from single-digit growth to growth in the thousands.

Bluesky’s newcomers have actively engaged on the platform, too, driving up other key metrics.

Now these are figures that are maybe a week old. But this post from Bluesky from two days ago seems to validate that this is not just a temporary blip:

If you’re Elon Musk, that has to freak you out. I am pretty sure that he was hoping that Brazilians would somehow use other means to continue to use Twitter even though it was banned in the country. But that appears not to be the case. On top of that, it also appears that people outside of Brazil are giving Bluesky a try. None of this is good news for Elon. And what’s likely going to worse news is that advertisers who aren’t spending their advertising budgets on Twitter, are likely going to look to spend their dollars, Pounds, or Euros on Bluesky. Which is even worse news for Elon.

On a personal note, I have noted that I am getting more engagement from Bluesky in the form of people reading my posts which I cross post onto the platform, as well as an uptick of people following my Bluesky account (which is @theitnerd.bsky.social if you’re not already a follower). Thus adding another data point to the observation that this isn’t some sort of temporary blip.

I suspect that Elon may be reconsidering some of his life choices right now as this isn’t going in the right direction for him.

Leave a comment »

Telegram CEO To The World: I’ll Moderate Content On My Platform

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 6, 2024 by itnerd

It’s amazing what an arrest will make you do.

Pavel Durov who is the CEO of Telegram, and who was arrested by French authorities and now is facing charges related to child sexual abuse material, drug trafficking, importing cryptology without prior declaration, as well as a “near-total absence” of cooperation with French authorities, has broken his silence on these events. You can read his full statement here. I encourage you to read his statement, but here’s the things that it covers:

  • He plays the “this is unfair” card for most of this statement.
  • He admits that policing what happens on Telegram has become harder over time. And he says it’s now his “personal goal” to “significantly improve things in this regard.”

I will also note that it appears that this process of better moderation is beginning. The Verge notes that Telegram has already updated its FAQ to note that private chats are no longer shielded from being moderated.

I guess that he’s hoping that if he does this, French authorities won’t ship him to some dark prison cell for a long time. I am not sure if that will work, but good luck to him I suppose.

Leave a comment »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »