News From The Web

Let’s try this again shall we?

Today is patch Tuesday. My advice from last Patch Tuesday holds,
“Unless you are a masochist you shouldn’t be updating any Windows machine today.“
I’ll post more info this afternoon.
Over at AskWoody they are MS-DEFCON 2
“Last month’s Patch Tuesday (and Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday) should prove, once again, that knowledgeable Windows users need to turn off Automatic Update.”
More from Woody here:
Get Windows Update locked down in preparation for this month’s problems
“If February turns out half as bad as January, you’ll thank your lucky stars if you take a few minutes now and make sure Windows Update is turned off. Temporarily, of course.”

New AMD Drivers
Listed as “Optional”, AMD has released the Radeon Adrenalin Edition 18.2.2 drivers.
Support for Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age and a couple of minor fixes. Download

Adobe Reader Updated
Adobe Acrobat Reader DC 2018.11.20035. Download and Release Notes

GET OFF OF FACEBOOK
A Facebook employee asked a reporter to turn off his phone so Facebook couldn’t track its location — and it reveals a bigger problem within the company
“Whether Facebook actually does track its employees this way doesn’t matter. The fact an employee would think such an option was on the table is telling of the culture at the company.”

Facebook is illegally collecting user data, court rules
“A German court today ruled Facebook was collecting data illegally from its users…Facebook hides default settings that are not privacy-friendly in its privacy center and does not provide sufficient information about it when users register…This does not meet the requirement for informed consent.”

Wired – Inside Facebook’s Hellish Two Years—and Mark Zuckerberg’s Struggle to Fix it All
“Facebook has essentially told media to kiss off,” Franklin Foer wrote in The Atlantic. “Facebook will be back primarily in the business of making us feel terrible about the inferiority of our vacations, the relative mediocrity of our children, teasing us into sharing more of our private selves.””Facebook will start to boost certain publishers—ones whose content is “trustworthy, informative, and local.”

Less-cool Facebook losing youth at fast pace: survey
“With mom, dad and grandma signing up in increasing numbers, Facebook is losing younger users in the United States at a faster pace than previously estimated”
They stopped actually using Facebook with their friends a longtime ago. When you were 16 would you hang out where your parents were?

Do Not, I Repeat, Do Not Download Onavo, Facebook’s Vampiric VPN Service
“Facebook is not a privacy company; it’s Big Brother on PCP. It does not want to anonymize and protect you; it wants to drain you of your privacy, sucking up every bit of personal data. You should resist the urge to let it, at every turn.”

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Yellow Jacket 12/3 Heavy-Duty Contractor Extension Cord with Lighted Ends, 50-Feet
$30 . That is 30% off. Killer deal. I just bought one. EXPIRED

Meltdown and Spectre News
Yeah I know, daily stuff. I know some of you are sick of it but it is bigger than a big deal so hear we go…
Intel has the nads to release some benchmarks showing performance hits varying from +1 to -21%. (pdf) None of us are going to know what the heck hits us until we get some fracking firmware updates.
On my end, Gigabyte has been silent on the entire issue. I emailed both the Press and Tech Support teams with no reply. Questions on this topic have gone unanswered in their forums.
Dell on the other hand has been a pleasant surprise. They have a dedicated support page for this issue that even list when your model will get an update. My Alienware 15 R2 is scheduled to get an update on the 14th.
Lawsuits: I am now officially a part of a class action suit (well, after I sign the retainer). More news may follow. Or not.
CEO: No new word on Intel’s CEO that many think should be fired or worse.
Excellent read: iVerge – How the industry-breaking Spectre bug stayed secret for seven months
Linux: Spectre & Meltdown Checker “A simple shell script to tell if your Linux installation is vulnerable” I repeat myself, at the risk of being cruel, if you’ve got Intel you’re vulnerable. Apologies to Paul Simon.
Browsers: Online browser checker. “If the result is VULNERABLE, it is definitely true. However, if the result is NOT VULNERABLE, it doesn’t mean your browser is absolutely not vulnerable because there might be other unknown attacking methods. ”
VMware Workstation Player: 14.1.1 released “This update of VMware Workstation Player exposes hardware support for branch target injection mitigation to VMware guests.”

Why Are You Still On Social Media?
I’m constantly amazed at the utter gall displayed by the higher-ups at these social media companies. The gist of this article is that if you don’t think like they do you are “shitty people” and they will “shadow ban” you. I don’t care what your political views are, no freedom loving person can find this behavior acceptable. The only way to change this is not to buy the Bravo Sierra that they will try to “fix” things. The fix is to remove their power over you. The fix is to GET OFF SOCIAL MEDIA.

The Beginning Of The End
Facebook developing ‘Portal’ gadget which will let it put microphones and cameras in people’s homes

Off Topic
Cleveland Indians pitcher Trevor Bauer: 116.9 MPH
I don’t think I could even stay in the batters box.