* Posts by michaelvirks

10 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2014

AWS wobbles in US East region causing widespread outages

michaelvirks

Big learning: never just have a root account on AWS, even if you are am occasional user one-man-show.

Apparently individual IAM user accounts can log in through region-specific management consoles like eu-west-1.console.aws.amazon.com, eu-central-1.console.aws.amazon.com etc

While all root account login requests get redirected to us-east-1, the only region that handles root login requests, which is also the region affected by the outage.

Like a Virgin, hacked for the very first time... UK broadband ISP spills 900,000 punters' records into wrong hands from insecure database

michaelvirks

Let's not forget that these are the same people who openly admit to storing customers' passwords in PLAIN TEXT in 2020...

SanDisk's iXpand Wireless Charger is the unholy lovechild of a Qi mat and a flash drive

michaelvirks

Wait, what?

"I was given the option to delete them from my phone, which would give me more space to play with."

At that point, this is no longer a backup.

Bose customers beg for firmware ceasefire after headphones fall victim to another crap update

michaelvirks

Reason for not rolling back

Cannot help noticing that the change log for the problematic update includes "added Amazon Alexa capabilities".

It's pretty likely Bose do not want to roll back because they have an arrangement with Amazon that is either lucrative for Bose, or conversely that Bose have significant upfront financial commitment for.

China remains in pole position for electric vehicle uptake despite cuts to subsidies

michaelvirks

The fact that buying electric allows you to circumvent China's mental "enter a lottery for a numberplace, chance of 1 in 3 every year, if you win, hand over ~£10K equivalent for the privilege of being allowed to buy a new car" model plays a much bigger role in the increased uptake than the subsidies. If you can afford to buy a new car in China, subsidies are not top of mind.

Honey, hive had it with this drone: Couple lived for years with thousands of bees in bedroom wall

michaelvirks

They were suffering from...

Beenitus.

Fujitsu says UK Foreign Office can't count in lawsuit over loss of £350m comms contract

michaelvirks
Paris Hilton

One of the best ways to secure future business is to sue your potential customers. That's just common sense.

Attention all British .eu owners: Buy dotcom domains and prepare to sue, says UK govt

michaelvirks

Simple solution: e-residency

It costs €100 (one-off payment) to apply for e-residency in Estonia and keep hold of those .eu domains. My application was approved within a fortnight. Simples.

KCOM whacked with £900k Ofcom fine over 999 call handling

michaelvirks

KCOM still store business admin user passwords in clear text and mail them out on password forgotten requests.

In 2017.being called out on this repeatedly.

SpaceX: We NAILED the Falcon 9 landing! The video, on the other hand...

michaelvirks
Happy

Looks like the title sequence of Under The Skin, really.