* Posts by Mike Wood

24 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Dec 2007

HP Inc exec: Yes, we'll put a bullet in the X3 device

Mike Wood
FAIL

UK Sales of Goods Act

Well,

For all those who bought this device in good faith in the UK, HP May have an issue.

The UK Sales of Goods act states that the device must be fit for purpose, free of defects and supported (6 Years in England and Wales and 5 in Scotland)

Time to speak to my credit card supplier and get a pro-rate refund

BOFH: How long does it take to complete Friday's lager-related tasks?

Mike Wood

Does Simon have a mole working with me somewhere??

Chaos at TalkTalk: Data was 'secure', not all encrypted, we took site down, were DDoSed

Mike Wood

Actual e-mail received from Talk Talk

Hi,

Here is the actual e-mail e-mailed to me this morning but only to one of the accounts I have with them:-

Dear Mr Michael Wood,

We are very sorry to tell you that on Thursday 22nd October a criminal investigation was launched by the Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit following a significant and sustained cyberattack on our website on Wednesday 21st October. The investigation is ongoing, but unfortunately there is a chance that some of the following data may have been accessed:

• Names

• Addresses

• Date of birth

• Phone numbers

• Email addresses

• TalkTalk account information

• Credit card details and/or bank details

We are continuing to work with leading cyber crime specialists and the Metropolitan Police to establish exactly what happened and the extent of any information accessed.

We would like to reassure you that we take any threat to the security of our customers’ data very seriously. We constantly review and update our systems to make sure they are as secure as possible and we’re taking all the necessary steps to understand this incident and to protect as best we can against similar attacks in future. Unfortunately cyber criminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated and attacks against companies which do business online are becoming more frequent.

What we are doing:

• We are contacting all our customers straight away to let them know what has happened and we will keep you up to date as we learn more.

• We have taken all necessary measures to make our website secure again following the attack.

• Together with cyber crime experts and the Metropolitan Police, we’re completing a thorough investigation.

• We have contacted the Information Commissioner’s Office.

• We’ve contacted the major banks, and they will be monitoring for any suspicious activity on our customers’ accounts.

• We are looking to organise a year’s free credit monitoring for all of our customers and will be in touch on this in due course.

What you can do:

• Keep an eye on your accounts over the next few months. If you see anything unusual, please contact your bank and Action Fraud as soon as possible. Action Fraud is the UK’s national fraud and internet crime reporting centre, and they can be reached on 0300 123 2040 or via http://www.actionfraud.police.uk

• If you are contacted by anyone asking you for personal data or passwords (such as for your bank account), please take all steps to check the true identity of the organisation.

• Change the password for your TalkTalk account and any other accounts that use the same password.

• Check your credit report with the three main credit agencies: Call Credit, Experian and Equifax. Noddle also allows free access to your credit report for life.

Please be aware, TalkTalk will NEVER call customers and ask you to provide bank details unless we have already had specific permission from you to do so.

TalkTalk will also NEVER:

• Ask for your bank details to process a refund. If you are ever due a refund from us, we would only be able to process this if your bank details are already registered on our systems.

• Call you and ask you to download software onto your computer, unless you have previously contacted TalkTalk and agreed a call back for this to take place.

• Send you emails asking you to provide your full password. We will only ever ask for two digits from it to protect your security.

We understand this will be concerning and frustrating, and we want to reassure you that we are continuing to take every action possible to keep your information safe. If you have any questions, please visit http://help2.talktalk.co.uk/oct22incident for more information, or you can call us on 0800 083 2710 or 0141 230 0707.

Yours sincerely,

Tristia Harrison

Managing Director, Consumer

TalkTalk Telecom Limited, 11 Evesham Street, London W11 4AR. Registered in England & Wales No. 4633015

TalkTalk: Hackers may have nicked personal, banking info on 4 million Brits

Mike Wood

Talk Talk Advise

So Talk Talk are advising all their customers to change their passwords, that is all well and goo, but their management portal is still down. Epic Fail here guys??

Trevor contemplates Consumer Netgear gear. BUT does it pass the cat hair test?

Mike Wood

UTM

Netgear has pulled out of the UTM Market late last year, leaving a number of us still supported until Dec 31st 2016, but still needing to find replacement units.

They still never fixed all the issues on the UTM9S

Home automation while it's hot: Winter warmth for lazy technophiles

Mike Wood

Re: Have a look at Vera?

I am also running a Vera 3 and waiting for Vera Pro to come out, mine is connected to Z-Wave Smoke Alarms, Water Detection, Temp probes, contact sensors, Motion Sensors, Wi-fi IP and numerous plug in adapters.

I couldn't find the right adapter for my boiler, but BG sent and installed a free Hive unit so cant complain.

I am also using a Vera lite to monitor a remote server room and its doing a better job then what the APC Netbotz did

BOFH: One flew over the PFY's nest

Mike Wood
Thumb Up

Perfect way to start the weekend

BOFH: GOATSE? No, I said goat fetis... you know what, forget it

Mike Wood

Second that

Could have lots of fun with this one

Tat bazaar eBay takes a rest for 'scheduled maintenance', goes offline

Mike Wood

Just try and call them

This is the message you get when you try to call them

"Due to unforeseen circumstances we are unable to take your call at moment, please try later or alternatively use our self-help service."

Also ebay.fr ebay.es is also down along with a few others, but interesting NSA.gov was also down earlier, has someone been selling government secrets on ebay i.e. Edward Snowden lol

BOFH: Backup server's failed? We have a backup backup server

Mike Wood

Pure Class

Black Market Halon - I could do with a couple of tanks round here and not just for the server room.

Reg readers reveal MIGHTY DOMESTIC DATA CENTRES

Mike Wood
Boffin

Home Labs

Think I will just have to jump in with this video of my set-up:-

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?v=544491585562227

3 Wireless Networks, UTM and Home Automation

Auld Reekie folk 'spend most on tech prezzies'

Mike Wood
Alert

Would you trust the Geek Squad

They maybe working over christmas, but will they be installing PC's laptops, tablets on christmas day? I think not!!

I will probably get a call from some poor user who got a new toy from Carphone Whore House(they sleep with all the networks LOL) and it hasnt been set-up correctly.

Companies like this keep me busy!

BOFH: The day the office budget bombed – literally

Mike Wood
Pirate

Where can I hire the PFY, I have a few lusers I could dispose of that way

Natwest net and phone banking goes titsup

Mike Wood
FAIL

Still down at 21:07 hours

Natwest Systems still down, wonder if we can claim compensation, oh wait a minute, us Brits own this Bank, time for someone to be held accountable for this. My local branch does not even understand the Data Protection Act!

BOFH: No, the Fabinocci sequence

Mike Wood
Flame

Back on Form

Long time since we have seen the halon dischare, welcome back!

Crooks push fake anti-virus via Skype calls

Mike Wood

People have wised up to this? Surely not, I am still seeing several machines a month with this along with getting the occasional phonecall from M/S saying I am infected.

Someone ought to find these scammers and extract the money back, must be enough to buy a small country somewhere!

Dixons whacked by profit warning

Mike Wood
FAIL

Tech Guys - What a bunch of Idiots

Would never use them or recommend them after what they called my company and I am an idependent IT Service & Repair Company.

There staff did not even know what SCSI was let allong DDR3 (they claimed it did not exist) and this is Currys in Staines!

London Stock Exchange floored, again

Mike Wood
FAIL

de ja vu

Sounds like groundhog day allover again!

Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect

Mike Wood
Thumb Up

First in Staines

Having queued for 25 minutes last night at my local store in Staines, I walked out with a shiney new XBOX360 and the connect.

Apart from the usual lack of launch titles I am very impressed and I hope the next generation of games are as well.

HP MediaSmart Server EX490

Mike Wood
Thumb Up

HP EX475 & EX490

I have been using the EX475 and it can currently hold 17tb of Data, cant say anything bad, has recovered numerous files that have been deleted and even rescued a dead system Love it, but review is a bit late as there is a new WHS out later this year and the business version will have Active Directory built in.

BOFH: The PFY Chronicles part 2

Mike Wood
Coat

Smart Move????

Nice to see the PFY filling in for the deceased (or living) BOFH. Keep up the good work, I certainly have gained a few ideas for my work place!

Coat with the parachute and golden handshake in the back pocket.

BOFH: Hammer time!

Mike Wood
Pirate

Ah I love the smell of dead machines in the morning

Brilliant, Same principle could be used with all DELL Machines but with an added twist of handcuffing the user to the machine, pouring petrol over the machine and the user, turning the condemmed machine on and lighting the fuse!

The best DELL is a dead DELL!

BOFH: PFY's mum pays a visit

Mike Wood

The OAP Strikes Back

Brilliant, nice little twist.

Now where can I get a liberal parent like that???

BOFH: Beancounter bashing

Mike Wood
Thumb Up

Simon's Revenge

We all know that last year Simon got his revenge, thouught he would have known better after last years incident, looks like you can out bastard a BOFH!!!