Comments by "D. von N." (@D.von.N) on "Ask Leo!" channel.

  1.  @franciscohorna5542  I prefer to be bikefull. 😂
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  2. Or those people got hacked and this guy is in their contact list and the spoofing doesn't do a good job.
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  3. Watching this and not learning anything new myself, what level of computing am I at? Seriously asking this question. I also tend to use Ctrl Alt Delete and go to the task manager from there.
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  4. I don't think so. Win11 have completely new compulsory hardware requirements, like TPM2.0 or the CPU generation, so where Win10 can still run, Win11 is forbidden.
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  5.  @askleonotenboom  have seen pin hacked by a software in seconds on a locked phone.
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  6. Another point: if your passkey goes on several places at once, like in your mobile and email, they only need access to one of them to steal your account. A double edged sword.
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  7. I am not a business and I am switching to Linux. There are commands to do back up. I am happy to do it manually. And there is a free Rescuezilla that helped me restoring my 1TB hard disc in just 5 minutes from the clone I created just a couple weeks prior, after I messed up my OS. I don't need to pay anything to anyone, except for thde hardware., one-off payment at that.
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  8. Transfer from 8.1 to another 8.1 could be risky, let alone to a completely different OS. I am no IT person, but even I understand it. Win8 and Win10 are different. I see it as trying to copy a layout of furniture in two different homes. A couch will go to the livingroom and bed to the bedroom, but the layout will be different and some pieces might not fit together with others in one room. Fresh installation is the best option.
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  9. With encrption on default the MS assumes quite correctly the vast majority of people have no clue about the bitlocker and the forced MS account is there for them. For their own good. The small minority of just suffer along.
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  10. A question: just recently I 'discovered' Sandbox. If you open that email in Sandbox, will they get an echo you clicked on their link?
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  11. Some have it as a business model, like Rob Braxman. A very knowledgeable guy, but it is getting bothersome how alarming he sounds and wants everyone to degoogle and go in complete hiding. If he gets too big, he'll end up like Telegram. The other time he asked me in the comments: 'how do I know I am not being manipulated?'. By him also? He is definitely trying LOL. The vast majority of tracking is for ads. Use an adblocker and you are sorted. You cannot completely disappear from the digital world. Governments, healthcare, various insurers, must keep your data and those also get hacked. Folks are wasting money on expensive gadgets or services, futile effort.
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  12. Before watching, my observation: technology definitely shifts people's attention and in many cases to the worse. Sitting indoors on their devices, forgetting the scent of grass, fresh air, hearing birds and insects in the air... more and more dragged into endless scrolling, exposed to fakery on unimaginable scale and obviously many comparing their perfectly fine lives otherwise with the artificial agendas, having self esteem issues. And losing a proper diurnal pattern, leading to a plethora of mental and physiological issues. On the other hand, internet opened door to the world to me, formed my views and helped me to be who I am. That before smartphones came on the scene. I actually travelled to the town to the interet cafe and paid per hour. I am glad I am from the generation when I still had a normal childhood, running outside with friends till the dark, exercising on the grass, splashing water in the river at the end of my street, and at most I had vinyls and later casettes with music and stories. And I read actual books, including encyclopaedias LOL. And learned foreign languages out of interest, not because of the school curriculum. Kids today seem to miss a lot of this.
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  13. I had Norton, full license. I wanted to pause it to investigate some issue. I couldn't, the pause option was greyed out. I uninstalled it and the hell broke loose. Not as dramatically, but I spent weeks trying to fix issues I didn't know I had (scanned fully for malware before uninstalling Norton, result nefative), MS security didn't run as expected... also the known bug from January that made me extending the recovery partition. I ended up reinstalling the whole system, and in addition I introduced myself to Linux. After Win10 support ends, Win11 will be a marginal OS for me, for things I cannot do on Linux. It is less demanding on processing power (gentler to your PC's guts), less prone to malware, runs faster... and I happened to like the terminal. It makes me feel like an IT person which I am not.
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  14.  @linsqopiring6816  Liron Segev paid a hacker 5 grand to make a malware escaping VM. It did. The bastard delivered. It appears nothing is impossible these days. Who has more money leads the game.
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  15. I looked into the event viewer before, when my Win10 had problems. What I didn't understand, I asked chat gpt. I found this bot invaluable in helping me understanding computers, even fixing various issues or using unfamiliar software. Just always exercise caution and don't trust it blindly. It makes mistakes and its memory span isn't great. It doesn't retain for long what system you have and may give you wrong advice, irrelevant to you. It is more artificial than intelligent. Still very useful, nonetheless.
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  16. I remember asking about this. Thanks for the follow up.
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  17. I think it isn't that difficul to prevent being scammed. Just stay down to Earth. You aren't that important (or your family) to be kidnapped and blackmailed for money. Don't be greedy and want free stuff or money. No, you aren't helping Feds to uncover a masive crime before they actually knocked on your door and you have some relevant expertise. Don't blindly click on hyperlinks or get yourself rushed to verify your identity to the cold caller. If your bank account is in danger, it is the bank's responsibility to protect it. Or call them on the number on your physical card. Even a phone number in top google search can be scammers, google doesn't care as long as they pay for the premium position... stay vigilant and carry on with your life like if nobody bothered you with anything. That's the safest bet, especially if you live alone.
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  18. Not gonna happen on my local account that has never seen a MS login. I might even uninstall onedrive. That's over 300 MB of disk space freed for some actually useful stuff.
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  19.  @ningayeti  have you tried flashing the uefi? I updated mine last month.
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  20. I guess you are a Linux guy. I am considering trying it, a complete novice. What forum do you recommend? I think I will go with Debian, for having the largest repository of applications and the difficulty is medium (that's is how I understand it).
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  21. HDD sitting in the basement for years... it takes years to crack more complex passwords. Maybe, if electricity is not an issue, one could let some program trying to 'guess' the ransomware code to recover these files? Assuming the HDD would handle it over such a long time LOL. Or copying the encrypted content to another, healthier drive and keep trying there? Just imagining it. Could be complete bol🔒🔒🔒
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  22. Thinking further... how about a network of computers (supercomputer) trying to crack particular ransomware, if it is one code for all content affected by that particular ransomware, worldwide and then releasing the code?
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  23. Interesting. Heard about people who got their files uploaded to the cloud without them knowing. I guess that won't be my problem on LMDE6 Faye or Winn11 with local accounts only. You see that big fat middle finger Microsoft?
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  24. Never had ths happen to me, luckily, but I have made, and keep doing it, backups, multiples. My HDD in the PC shows signs of wear and tear, like reallocation count going amber, I already have a sata ssd ready to take over. But that not before I have to switch to Win11. And the nvme slot already has Linux on, switching between OSs as I please. But I might put linux on that sata drive later, as PC seems to prefer launching from that one as a priority, regardless of what I set up in BIOS. My BIOS is simply in bed with Windows, what can I say. It alays asks for Windows on the blue recovery screen, and there is some chip or what it is that is dedicated to Windows verification. Not TMP, something else. It pays off to learn from mistakes of others.
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  25. The malware these days doesn't usually aim to cause you trouble, it just wants to extract your data without you even noticing. Cookie sessions can be stolen even from a sandboxed environment.
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  26. Scammers pay google to have their fake phone numbers to trusted institutions listed on the top search. Google does little to limit these. Whoever pays, gets the spotlight. So don't even rely on the couple lines in the search engine for contact details you googled. Be wiser, find a genuine website and get your contact from there.
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  27. If you are forced out from where you want to be, why not leaving a replacement there, to carry on the service? I still don't know who is behind the ultra AV.
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  28. Rescuezilla is my tested method that always worked for me. Create a Ventoy usb. Put a rescuezilla iso file on it, boot from that iso file by pushing Ventoy up in BIOS and follow the prompts. Easy. Even easier than older Clonezilla. But Clonezilla still has a 32bit version for old systems. Once I managed to clone my Linux ystem by a command, but I prefer the GUI system, naturally.
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  29. You mean something like cookies?
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  30. Heading towards 50 and switching to Linux, thanks to AI which I embraced, but still keep an eye on what it spits out as sometimes it is a nonsense, and repeatedly after I told it it was nonsense. Like recommending me software compatible with Ubuntu when I am on LMDE. It did it to me twice in the same chat.
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  31.  @johngreene6783  yes, fletcher :D
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  32. Chromium based browsers are said to ban adblocks soon, despite even FBI recommends them. You'll be better off with Firefox for the future. We need to wean off these greedy sharks that want to trade with our data and put us at risk.
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  33. I had a few calling me back in 2015 or 2016, on the landline. I unplugged it. I don't want to sound a racist, but that strong Indian accent gave it away. Last year another cold caller tried me to invest on Forex. His English and accent were great, still not buying it. I am not desperate for every cent and I am not that rich to afford wasting money. He knew my name, email, phone number, didn't want to say where exactly from and what else they had. Then there were a few more calls from different numbers, private number, spoofed or fresh autogenerated number... ignored all of them. I came to the terms with my personal data on the dark web. Delete me won't do me any service with that. All they need now is my money. Not going to give it to them. Anyone. I have two copies of my data and bootable usb of my entire system. Just in case. Nobody will put their dirty hands on my pc.
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  34.  @cyberyogicowindler2448  And therfore I am gradually switching my MS machines to Linux, only planning to use MS from a usb if needed, with files backed up separately on 2 different drives. There is one more PC left, running Win10 and having HDD that seems to be developing issues. I'll replace it for ssd and probably install Linux there too. I have heard somewhere the 22H2 version is losing support in 2 months. Microsoft is doing this to themselves.
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  35. And these cookies are a double edged sword. It helps you to not enter your details on the fake website, but there are cookie stealers, and once they have your session, they don't need anything else, neither your login details or you confirming it via the app.
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  36. Re 5:55 - that reminds me: I clean data as part of my job. Questionnaires with many questions to answer yes/no/don't know. Like health conditions. One person can have only as many health issues, out of 80 of interest maybe. At the end of the cleaning I run in Stata total numbers and check which questionnaire had a high number of yes values, because some people were ticking it on reverse. I captured dozens of these in the past. There must be ways how to verify suspiciously high numbers and check against some other source, like a verified website, genuine page, not just an ad. But since Google is there only for the money, not quality of service, I am not surprised they let the AI do the work without supervision and additional verifications. Something really bad on the national scale must happen for them to be pushed to bring a proper fix.
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  37. Is it worth to create a system restore point before cleaning system files as at the end? Or not as much?
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  38.  @askleonotenboom  Thank you. I have used system restore after I removed Edge and copilot from Win10 and it seemed to brig them back, at least Edge, as I used it afterwards. But your article is 12 years old. It would help to put a visible date at the top like most blogs do, I only noticed it from the comments. Maybe things have changed, like the Defender software, a completely different league from what it was a decade ago. But I do have entire system clone, so at least something. Just got another external ssd, matching size of the hard disc for anotjer machine. I know the existing clone works, because the machine booted from it after copying the entire system and I wouldn't even notice if not for the speed . So yes, I do have a disk image backed up. Plus the incremental files history every now and then.
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  39. I have become allergic to clickbaits. I tend to hide thumbnails with excessive facial expressions by AI, blocked many channels titling their videos with a word 'collapse' regarding politics or economics... China has been collapsing for three years now. Just noe IMF finally starts a more realistc rhetoric in that regard. Only some styles of AI music are allowed in my feed, as a work background. Exaggerations trigger me. Off they go! I want a boring factual content, ads free. Sometimes a few sips of clear water is the best flavour.
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  40. I cannot see how MS can make me accidentally upload my stuff to onedrive on a local account that has never seen my MS login. Can you? Even more after uninstalling it. That is over 300MB disk space freed for some actually useful stuff.
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  41. Yes, read about this recently. People are lazy or naive to properly vet the source, they use whatever offers to them on the top search in a Twitter format (one or two lines of text). The humanity is doomed.
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  42. I was looking forward to watching this video as I also had to reinstall Win10 a few months back. I got curious over the mentioned Foxit pdf reader. I found out it was Chinese made. I asked whether it was safe and this article was offered to me from the search: "Foxit PDF Reader Flaw Exploited by Hackers to Deliver Diverse Malware Arsenal". Any comments on that?
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  43. Telegram is also not my fav, being heavily used by extremists and terrorists. I wouldn't want to support such a platform for more humane things. There must be better platforms for that.
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  44. Considering that MS still has AOL desktop rip-off ready for the older generations, this type of scams will be here for a while still.
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  45. They do, but try to empty a sea with a bucket. And yet, folks are freaking out that FBI could monitor their messages via a back door. There is a counter movement for privacy, encryption, literally hide your existence and activities online... not an easy job for FBI.
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  46.  @askleonotenboom  Indeed! Those scam centers in India, Africa (some under Wagner's directions), China, other Asian countries with entire fenced structures holding hundreds or thousands slaves performing pig butchering scams... The only defence is education and education. Did I say education?
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  47. I consider myself an average PC user, still on Win10, and I didn't find reinstallation of Windows that hard. I even managed to increase the recovery partition beforehand when it was failing installing the updates, simply by carefully following instructions. With the nanny approach by Win11 I am seriously considering getting my hands dirty with Linux. I still might need to use Win11 for some tasks but it probably won't be my main system. They even want to stop running any executable file from outside, like customising the content by other software. Reading elsewhere like an unzip app from MS app store had a trojan in it I don't have a 100% trust in that store either. Encryption by default even on Home version, refusing local accounts... what else? Looks like people had more fun with Tamagochi.
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  48. Just watched a short video how dropbox had an attack recently. Changed my password there. I haven't had any sensitive data there, but just for the sake of it. The company reset all passwords anyway, even restricted the use of API keys (had to google about API key LOL, not familiar with this technology, not a user of it).
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  49. In the day of internet, computers and internet give to many an illusion they know things, that they did their 'research', via youtube... usually in an echo chamber of misinformation. Me having a particular degree in a scientifuc subject, sooner or later I find probably every youtuber focusing on the relevant subject spreading some fallacy. Some do it more than others. Very disappointing. And even official research seems to publish articles that exaggerate the importance of findings, like 10% increase in risk of diabetes from frequent consumprion of processed meat. Man, there are far more significant risk factors for this disease and it most likely hasn't accounted for the consumption of fruits and veggies that counteract the potentially harmful effect even for the cancer risk. But the messages and headlines must be simplistic to make an average person agitated and click on it, to boost the ads revenue. And academia is also fighting for funding, so any fart is published with great fanfares, regardless of its importance. As for me, getting on internet some 23 years ago, my worldviews and inclinations got challenged on discussion forums and my critical thinking as well as the volume of knowledge grew exponentially over time. But I was always a collector of fun facts. I remember writing down interesting info from books I got from my village library as a teenager, like fugu poisoning from Dr No.
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  50.  @billweir1745  How will that protect the content from hacking when you unlock your access to send message to somebody? Pin, like 4 or 6 digits are notoriously easy to crack, too.
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