Now that I’ve worked out in testing a reliable way to fully block all Windows 10 spying, I can feel comfortable using it in my environment again.

I’ll publish my full findings later, and firewall guidelines for what to block. And some PowerShell scripts for nuking things that normally could not be.

I’d still not advise most people to use the OS unless you have 10+ years IT experience, know how to use a packet sniffer really well, understand configuring firewalls and how to detect when traffic that should be blocked is not being blocked, and how to otherwise hack, maul, and womanhandle your system.

That’s what? 0.025% of the population?

In other words for nearly everyone, unless you want whoever happens to hack into Microsoft next and/or the NSA, the FBI, and other random law enforcement agencies to have all your data, don’t use Windows 10.

I’m now using a blocker to to block the ad blocker blockers.

What a world.

Do not use this app. It will not help you block spying on Windows 10.

Windows 10’s spy software bypasses the hosts file altogether. Evil, I know. So putting entries into the hosts file to redirect traffic to 127.0.0.1 does absolutely nothing.

You can block Windows 10 spying with a 3rd-party firewall or a firewall on the edge of your network.

I do not recommend a 3rd-party firewall installed on the same machine that you wish to block data exfiltration from as anything with admin access — including the Windows spy software — can then disable it or alter its rules. There is no technical way around this.

If you must use Windows 10, use it with a firewall that it has no direct access to. And if you do not care that your data is being stolen by Windows 10 — well, you are fucking stupid and probably should not use any OS.

I’ve flown in and out of the Sharm el Sheikh airport. It’s one of the crappiest, least secure and most pitiful airports in the world.

I’m not surprised that either the Russian plane fell out of the sky on its own from the poor maintenance at that airport, or that a bomb was placed onto the plane there. It wouldn’t have been that hard from what I saw of the place.

Landing there and getting out of the plane, other than the stifling heat that assaulted me immediately, I just wondered if this was some sort of prank airport. See it doesn’t appear to have changed much since I was there.

By the way, you can now get a 5K monitor for a little over a grand.

How cool is that?

One of the greatest things about Tumblr is that it has neologisms so sparkling new that even Urban Dictionary often has no definition for them.

Like today I learned about “nudestuck.” Not so sure that word was actually needed, but enough people thought it was. Look it up if you like, but you gonna see some naked people.

Haven’t felt much like writing or responding to comments lately, but have been reading.

Also, the Hateful Eight trailer is odd. It’s a Western with many modern expressions and phrases used in it. It kind of works, but is jarring. Strange.

Are people really like this?

Personally, I do not care who my partner hangs out with, why she hangs out with them, how often she does so, if they are alone or not or what their gender and/or sex is, etc.

Do partners really essentially ban each other from having friends as this implies? How the fuck do people live like that?

Tell you what, I never ever could be that way.

Comcast Dramatically Expanding Usage Cap Areas December 1.

I noticed Chattanooga was on that list. Is Comcast full of morons? EPB operates there as the article points out, and has 1Gbs (and now 10Gbs) fiber to the home service there quite cheap. No caps.

That’s a quick way to lose 90% of your customers in one market.

If I were Google Fiber, I’d specifically target areas for expansion where Comcast is pulling this crap.

I never liked Twitter much in the first place. It is, as some wag said, a billion dollar company that should have been an RFC.

But it has been interesting and instructive to watch it destroy itself and to continue to do so. The same with Mozilla, though more sad in that case.

Twitter’s main strengths are now being removed chasing a larger audience that will simply never exist. Capitalism and its growth-at-any-cost prerogative eliminates as many possibilities as it provides.

But no one ever looks at opportunity cost because it can’t be easily quantified.