• Development on Windows is Painful

  Overall, I think I can at least tolerate this development experience. It's not really the most ideal setup, but it does work and I can get things done with it. It makes me miss NixOS though. NixOS really does ruin your expectations of what a desktop operating system should be. It leaves you with kind of impossible standards, and it can be a bit hard to unlearn them.

  A lot of the software I use is closed source proprietary software. I've tried to fight that battle before. I've given up. When it works, Linux on the desktop is a fantastic experience. Everything works together there. The system is a lot more cohesive compared to the "download random programs and hope for the best" strategy that you end up taking with Windows systems. It's hard to do the "download random programs and hope for the best" strategy with Linux on the desktop because there really isn't one Linux platform to target. There's 20 or something. This is an advantage sometimes, but is a huge pain other times.

  The conclusion here is that there is no conclusion.

• Malicious Code Bombs Target Amazon, Lyft, Slack, Zillow

  Researchers have spotted malicious packages targeting internal applications for Amazon, Lyft, Slack and Zillow (among others) inside the npm public code repository — all of which exfiltrate sensitive information.

  The packages weaponize a proof-of-concept (PoC) code dependency-confusion exploit that was recently devised by security researcher Alex Birsan to inject rogue code into developer projects.

  Internal developer projects typically use standard, trusted code dependencies that are housed in private repositories. Birsan decided to see what would happen if he created “copycat” packages to be housed instead in public repositories like npm, with the same names as the private legitimate code dependencies.

• Ryuk ransomware develops worm-like capabilities, France warns

  A new sample of Ryuk ransomware appears to have worm-like capabilities, according to an analysis from the French National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (ANSSI), France’s national cybersecurity agency.

• FireEye finds evidence Chinese [crackers] exploited Microsoft email app flaw since January [iophk: Windows TCO]

  Cybersecurity group FireEye on Thursday night announced it had found evidence that [crackers] had exploited a flaw in a popular Microsoft email application since as early as January to target groups across a variety of sectors.

  [...]

  Since then, FireEye found evidence that the hackers had gone after an array of victims, including “US-based retailers, local governments, a university, and an engineering firm,” along with a Southeast Asian government and a Central Asian telecom.

• Does Linux Need Antivirus? [Ed: Avast: Let's badmouth GNU/Linux to make proprietary software sales, with back doors in them, based on the supposition that crap on top of poor practices will somehow yield better results]

• Microsoft: Chinese Cyberspies Used 4 Exchange Server Flaws to Plunder Emails

  Microsoft Corp. today released software updates to plug four security holes that attackers have been using to plunder email communications at companies that use its Exchange Server products. The company says all four flaws are being actively exploited as part of a complex attack chain deployed by a previously unidentified Chinese cyber espionage group.

• Microsoft Says Chinese Hackers Responsible for Exchange Attacks [Ed: Microsoft puts back doors in its products but is now blaming China for taking advantage of those. Microsoft: our back doors aren't always exploited; when they are, we'll resort to xenophobia and blame the Chinese (not those who put the back doors there).]

• Payroll/HR Giant PrismHR Hit by Ransomware?

  PrismHR, a company that sells technology used by other firms to help more than 80,000 small businesses manage payroll, benefits, and human resources, has suffered what appears to be an ongoing ransomware attack that is disrupting many of its services.

• Malicious NPM Packages Steal Linux and Unix Password Files of Amazon, Slack, and More [Ed: Microsoft is delivering spyware and malware, but media doesn't name the real culprit (as if Microsoft doesn't exist when that does not suit Microsoft)]

• Unhappy with response, senators ask for a leader to head up cyber breach cleanup [iophk: Windows TCO]

  In a Feb. 9 letter, Sens. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, and Marco Rubio, R-Florida ― the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, respectively — expressed their concern with the federal response to date.

• Microsoft Vaccine Scheduling Software Deal Ended By Iowa

  In New Jersey, the system had yet to work correctly after five weeks, two administration officials who asked not to be identified said last week. That was a high-profile stumble for Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, which is trying to build a big business by selling software to run hospitals and health care systems and has been touting its ability to aid the nationwide effort to inoculate residents against the coronavirus.

• DNA testing source code

  The maker of the software, Cybergenetics, has insisted in lower court proceedings that the program’s source code is a trade secret.

People regularly ask me to help them rescue Windows computers that have become locked or damaged. Sometimes, I can use a Linux USB boot drive to mount Windows partitions and then transfer and back up files from the damaged systems.

Other times, clients lose their passwords or otherwise lock their login account credentials. One way to unlock an account is to create a Windows boot disk to repair the computer. Microsoft allows you to download copies of Windows from its website and offers tools to create a USB boot device. But to use them, you need a Windows computer, which means, as a Linux user, I need another way to create a boot DVD or USB drive. I have found it difficult to create Windows USBs on Linux. My reliable tools, like Etcher.io, Popsicle (for Pop!_OS), and UNetbootin, or using dd from the command line to create bootable media, have not been very successful.