Alright. I'm just going to chime in here.

Windows 10 is fast. It is apparently relatively stable (although I
haven't played around with it for reasons I'll get to in a moment). It
is "reliable" for a certain definition of the term.

What it is not -- in any sense of the term -- is secure. It is, in
fact, so *inherently* insecure that I am contractually forbidden from
meaningfully using it. Under the terms of several contracts I signed
back in '09 and '10 (and which haven't been updated since due to me no
longer being there), it even actively counts as malware.

It's worth noting that said contracts were actually updated shortly
before I started there to let us use Windows 7. There were...
issues... regarding Windows Update when someone noted that it counted
as a known backdoor under the terms as they stood.

(And yes, I know that Windows Update started with Vista, not Windows
7. Don't ask me for the details. I'm going off vague memories of
things I was briefly told as part of an infodump more than a decade
ago in the above paragraph. I don't know them.)

That said, let's put aside the immediate issue with Windows Update for
the time being (that it gives Microsoft a backdoor into your machine
via which it can install arbitrary code into any level of your OS).

Windows 10 is, simply put, spyware. I'm not going to get into the full
list of what it sends back to Microsoft -- and the legal documentation
on that is about as transparent as mud -- but the default list
includes your contacts, your calendar, your settings, typing data
(which, with said documentation being opaque as Hell, arguably makes
it count as a *keylogger* under my contracts), location data,
advertising identifiers, telemetry data... and much of that can't be
disabled.

The actual, full picture is worse than that makes it sound -- Cortana,
for instance, requires information "such as your device location, data
from your calendar, the apps you use, data from your emails and text
messages, who you call, your contacts and how often you interact with
them on your device”.

Still worse, Microsoft has been known to collect further data without
permission -- and actively use it against you. The most conspicuous
example of this was when they installed an app to detect if you were
using a competing browser (ie. anything other than Edge) and push
deceptive "ads" for their browser on you if you were -- ones which
were disguised as a system warning, at that.

And even if you *have* disabled as much data collection as you can,
these settings aren't guaranteed to persist -- Microsoft has, on at
least one occasion (the "anniversary update" in 2016) used their
Windows Update backdoor to reset all of said settings. Please note
that you can't refuse an "update" in Windows 10, no matter what it
breaks.

The above sorts of behavior -- and active *use* of said Windows Update
backdoor -- makes the backdoor not only a, well, backdoor... but one
in the hands of a known malicious actor. This is *inherent* to Windows
10.

And thus I am, to put it mildly, extremely reluctant to install it on
any of my systems -- even if I *wasn't* contractually bound not to.
Ever since they announced the twilighting of Win 7, I've been
transitioning to Linux... and while I'm not happy about the need to do
so, it very much beats the alternative.

-- Aleh






On Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 10:42 AM Alex Cherry
<raginginsincerity@...> wrote:
>
> I'd strongly recommend against running a 32bit OS at this point in time; almost all modern applications are deployed with 64-bit binaries only.
>
> Understand that the transition to 64-bit was made back during the Server 2003 days; the world's been on 64-bit for more than fifteen years now, and trying to run a 32bit OS will cause you to struggle to find applications that work.
>
> I'd also strongly recommend against running any desktop version of Windows that is NOT Windows 10 - Windows 7 sunset in January 2020 (it was extended several years from the original EOL) and Windows 8.1 reached end of life in 2018.? Updates for them stopped being written back then, so patches against new vulnerabilities and to solve problems have permanently ceased, nor will Microsoft do more than 'best effort' tech support if you have a problem of some kind.
>
> Windows 10 is fast, stable, and reliable.? It has been so for a number of years now, and there's no reason not to move forward with it.? I have a key for it if you need one.
>
> Alex, Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer
> Sr. Systems Engineer with 22 years of experience in the field
>

Merry Christmas!?

I wish You all a Merry Christmas and a Better New Year.

Thanks for your efforts to keep FFDL updated. Since I'm a Mac user I had to resurrect a Win PC temporarily, so I'm looking forward to the Mac version so I can skip the gyrations.

Heelfree

Thanks for the explanation.
because cloudflare seems to be tracking by ip, clearing my driver catche,
as well as trying to refresh the page got me branded as forbidden
presenting 403? errors, but producing the same? ?page text.
I did use one of my JavaScript browsers to capture the page in .html code,
just need to now where it should be sent.
Kare



On Wed, 23 Dec 2020, AlyssonR wrote:

> API = Applications Programming Interface
>
> This is the thing that the scripts (programs) in web pages use to talk to
> the database that is behind the web site.
>
> For service-hosted (people you pay to keep your data safe, and to dish it
> out to your users/members/employeed) web pages, an API Key is provided
> as a way of ensuring that the API calls (data requests) are (a) authorised
> and
> (b) routed to the correct database service.
>
> The API Key is incorporated in the scripts on the web page.
>
>
> --------
>
>
> Having said this, you may find that *clearing your browser cache* will fix
> the problem.
> If your browser is using an old copy of the page, or old copies of the
> scripts, then
> there is no way in hell that you're going to get through.
>
> *Alysson Rowan*
>
> LinkedIn:? ? ?
> Academia:? ?
>
>
> On Wed, 23 Dec 2020 at 18:21, Karen Lewellen <klewellen@...>
> wrote:
>
>> what exactly is an api?
>> More? to the point, can it be assigned to an ip address or service, rather
>> than? an account?
>> as in, could those at ffn grant permission based on that level?
>> Karen
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 23 Dec 2020, Raimond Eisele wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>> I know this tweet, an api would be really great but let's wait until we
>> know the conditions /limitations/agb they will set before we celebrate.
>>>
>>> I think the best case we could expect would be an api that is free for
>> individual access with a limitation of requests done per hour/day (maybe
>> also an api key that is connected to an individual fanfiction account) .
>> But we'll see. Keep your fingers crossed. Implementing such an api
>> shouldn't take more than a few hours.
>>>
>>> Rai
>>>
>>>
>>> Am 23. Dezember 2020 10:36:37 MEZ schrieb grenouille7777 <
>> grenouille7777@...>:
>>>> Their Twitter account has a bit of
>>>> minimally interesting information. The only thing posted that might be
>>>> useful to Rai might be this one:
>>>> (
>>>> ) but
>>>> probably not for a while. I really don't know.
>>>>
>>>> Mike
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Diese Nachricht wurde von meinem Android-Ger?t mit K-9 Mail gesendet.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>
>