BS: Google outage - call me a luddite

Subject: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: Mr Red
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 09:34 AM

A multi-lingual computer programmer luddite, but a Goggle outage dis-enfranchised a swag of people using email, calendar, docs etc. Yea, rare, and only for 1/2 hour but if you rely on things for business, a lot can be stolen in 30 mins. Some clever "switched-on" souls couldn't turn their lights on!

You can back up your stuff, you can have two PCs - I bet a lot of us have tablets and smart phones which is tantamount to that.

I have refused any options to use on-line stuff because of the history of dial-up, BT (notso) HotSpots and even my broadband drops out for 2 mins at a pop. The fact that I stick with a really old copy of Office has as much to do with a library of my own programs therein, and experience of past upgrades - compared with a few (few?) hundred GBP.
And owning the process.

The Goggle outage has not been attributed to hacking (or any other cause, note). And just how secure are any "out-sourced" services in the event of a massive solar flare? It will happen, the only question is when?

COVID should have taught us to prepare. But it take time & effort to identify what preparations to take.

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 10:24 AM

A goggle of googles might be in order for back up purposes.
Bill D likes Fire Fox.
If we live by monopolies we might die from monopolies.

The US Treasury dept was hacked by Russia recently.

I think these concerns for most people are as important as whether we should change the name of Corona del Mar or rename the Celebrity Cruise Ship Crown of the Seas or Crown Princess.

I prefer truth in advertising like Pandemic Princess or Covid of the Seas

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 12:00 PM

Duckduckgo.com didn't go down - and that's a much better search engine to rely on, it doesn't go in for Google's tracking and harvesting of your details. You don't get the targetted ads based on your online activity.

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 12:36 PM

Microsoft, FireEye confirm SolarWinds supply chain attack

Known victims so far include the US Treasury, the US NTIA, and FireEye itself.

From ZD|Net

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 12:47 PM

If hackers are going to steal from the US Treasury I hope they steal the debt :^)

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 04:06 PM

Bill D likes PaleMoon... a fork of Firefox... and Vivaldi, a chrome based browser with no direct links to Micro$oft... and Iron Portable.. a browser which makes security a theme... and FlashPeak Slimjet..., one of several at that site. (I use it primarily for my genealogical research.)

I don't think I've used Firefox for 2-3 years... and I DO use DuckDuckGO search a lot.

And google outage? I slept thru it.

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 07:15 PM

Youtube was down for about the same time at the same time. Related?

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 09:25 PM

Yes.. Google owns YouTube...

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: leeneia
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 11:26 PM

CNN says Google went down for about an hour 7 to 8 AM, eastern time on Monday Dec 14, 2020. I didn't even know; I was in the arms of Morpheus.

They attribute it to system weaknesses, not hackers.

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Dec 20 - 02:36 AM

It's not the search engine that would be a broblem. It's online documents, spreadsheets and mail that would cause the biggest headache. My previus employer used these extensively and to have them down for an hour would have caused considerable grief.

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Dec 20 - 07:29 AM

A new unsupervised contract cleaner unplugged something unimportant looking,
so as to plug in a vacuum cleaner for an hour...

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: DaveRo
Date: 15 Dec 20 - 07:36 AM

The Google problem was with their login server. If you weren't logged in already you couldn't access their service. Shows the risks of centralised login service where you use one authentication service for diverse websites or services.

Pale Moon is a reasonable choice, especially if you want to run addons and plugins which will no longer run in Firefox. It has a properly constituted and open project behind it: https://www.palemoon.org/

I find it hard to work out what exactly flashpeak/slimjet browsers are. Flashpeak's website is hardly maintained; it mentions SlimBrowser, which it says is based on Trident (i.e. Microsoft Internet Explorer) but elsewhere on the site it says it's based on Gecko 79 (i.e. the latest Firefox engine.) Is this company a one-man band if it can't keep its website up to date?

SlimJet seems to be newer and based on Chromium (i.e. the open-source, but Google-specified, basis of Chrome). Their website is superficially flashy, but if you dig down there's little substance. The comparison chart is misleading - Firefox hasn't been single-process since version 58 (2017, when they dropped less-secure XUL addons). It looks to me like Chromium with some addons. I found one review (here) which says "It spies on you" but I don't know if that's true.

If I wanted a chromium-based browser that didn't track me or show adverts I'd use chromium - and add my own ad blocker and anti tracker - ublock origin and/or ghostery.

The Solarwinds/Orion hack is a biggie! Inserting malware into updates of legitimate software has been done before, but never to a security product used by so many government departments and major corporations. (As far as we know.) Avoid software with a majority market share - too tempting a target for hackers. Like Chrome?

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Dec 20 - 08:27 AM

sung to Silent Night

Vi-rus fright
on goverment sites
feel the fear
day and night
sneak attack from
those hackers reviled
hard drives crippled
and systems defiled
pray your bank accounts fi-ne
now its your phone, you can't find

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Dec 20 - 12:17 PM

I tried the browser called Chrome... briefly. I hated the interface and removed it. M$ seems to use it for what I call neferious purposes.

I do use ad blockers and other add-ons, but often ignore small things like tracking cookies.

I DO still use Proxomitron which does a lot of what I need for security. It takes some tweaking, but it just filters the WWW based on rules I set.

Just as a note, I have 4-5 other browsers... Cyberfox, SeaMonkey, Waterfox, and Lunascape... plus an OLD version of Opera.. none of which I actually use regularly. I'm a collector of freeware and have spent years browsing the alt.comp.freeware newsgroup. Sadly, it has not much new stuff any longer since so many have gone only to smart phones.
(I refuse! to install Windows 10.)

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Dec 20 - 06:16 PM

Goggle search was not affected, apparently.
It is the "cloud" computing that worries me.

COVID has shown that we habituate to a moving status quo and don't understand what we have given away. And as much as I refuse to rely on a centralise storage and software service - there are plenty of things that I can't refuse. Like medical things, like local government, like contactless credit cards - I don't carry much cash since COVID. Perhaps I should restart that.

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: Jos
Date: 16 Dec 20 - 04:58 AM

You don't have to use a contactless card.
If they send you one, just ask them to replace it with a non-contactless one.
I am convinced that, for me at least, the risk of losing my card and having some random stranger help him- or herself from my bank account is greater than my risk of catching anything from briefly touching the numbers on the pin pad.

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Dec 20 - 05:49 AM

I did request a contactless card, they refused. I know of others who did get one.

All you have to do is drill through the aerial - if you shine a light through the card you can see the wire. It needs an LED with a shroud to avoid flare-out from direct light. The drill is best small like 1 mm. Not easy - I did contemplate it but got a metalised pocket for each.

With COVID it turned out the right decision. But I will carry cash as soon as I can get to a machine - ironically linked to a network, that some banks got wrong in a big way!

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Dec 20 - 06:08 AM

from a BBC website

In a separate case, Google is being probed by a UK regulator over its plans to change the way the Chrome browser handles cookies.

Google wants to stop advertisers using cookies to track users as they move around the web from one site to another when using Chrome, in a bid to improve privacy.

It plans to introduce an alternative system know as the Privacy Sandbox that will only provide anonymised feedback.

Anonymised? To third parties, more like.

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Dec 20 - 05:57 AM

The hack of 18,000 US organizations may require an elimination of a microsoft Operating system and install a different one alltogether?

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: leeneia
Date: 18 Dec 20 - 10:48 AM

I've never forgotten something I heard from the real estate agent who sold us our house:

"I used to carry a lot of cash until I got robbed at gunpoint."

In Britain that would probably be knifepoint, but the horror is the same.

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Dec 20 - 01:20 PM

I don't use much cash these days, but when I did, I took care to NOT keep it all in one place in a wallet. If you have ANY doubt about safety, keep a smallish amount in the obvious place in case of a holdup and the excess somewhere else. (yes, I realize that if you are wearing a jogging suit or shorts in the Summer..etc. it could be tricky.. but that shouldn't be a time you need much cash)

   I have several male-oriented belt pouches and shoulder bags... and one genuine money belt I could wear under my clothes. I even have a plastic water bottle with a false bottom hidden under a foam cover.

   The trick is to plan ahead and design YOUR best way to have a way to offer thieves a small amount. "I'm sorry, I only have $7 on me..please leave me my I.D. and stuff."

Subject: RE: BS: Google outage - call me a luddite
From: Mr Red
Date: 19 Dec 20 - 12:36 PM

The hack of 18,000 US organizations may require an elimination of a microsoft Operating system and install a different one alltogether?

Hardly, the portal was a software app - presumed running on Windows, though it might more likely have been Unix and mainframes because this was big boy stuff. So Linux ain't gonna cut it, and serious computer users don't Apple it.

I think we have long moved on from Next even though the first WWW browser was written for such a "Steve Wozniak child". By Tim Berners-Lee himself.

The latest news I have is that they are not ready to blame Russia specifically - yet. Though the odds do look to be shortening with every news report.

As if the US wouldn't do anything as underhand, like Stuxnet ie. Or Israel, or China or India against Parkistan (look up the SG scam that lasted 15 years till this year), and I would bet on Parkistan being about as squeeky clean as ISIS in the cyber wars. North Korea?

Lets face it, it is messy out there.

Meanwhile - back on topic. Why did Goggle need an update? Percieved vulnerabilities or vulnerabilities found by others? Call me paranoic, but they ain't gonna tell you - are they? Well not the real story.