Peaches and Dulcinea: (Rant) the shoulder-surfer

Assuming you work (say) at an office and you bought a damned key, like mine, the people knowing that you got one will bend over backwards making sure they see you set it up.

But even if you're circumspect and come in before hours, you still have the computer to contend with; two out of three times it'll give up and demand your PIN, which is the same thing as saying "Calling all shoulder surfers":
Some of this stuff costs hundreds; buying cheapo finger-readers probably isn't the best idea I ever had...

This thing thinks you're unworthy anyway, rubs it in every chance it gets.

I doubt anyone trusts clouds anymore;

The cloud doesn't trust you and really wants you to read reams of unreadable bullshit, and then This (the above) happens. WD NAS devices remotely wiped clean?

Do you know who WD Is?

I was thinking (in my head) of a certain pissed-pissed-off actress you never hear about anymore who said "Do you know who I am?" "Reese" google says.

You've winked at hackers for Soooo long, thinking they were kids having fun, not realizing they were stealing property (a LOT of property is digital).

No, you'd rather torrent shit.

Hacking has never been something to wink at, though I'm sure you'd disagree.

Evil maids

Using a distributed paradigm, yada peers

The community of Guy fawkes and the Black-hatters

(I wouldn't wanna start a rumor but MAPS doesn't sound very trustworthy.

Miguelito Loveless (Lovelace?) wants to take over the world, and subsumes MAPS to do his bidding (He declares everything you own to be a virus, sends copies to himself, deletes your drive or at least freezes everything on it)

(I'll edit-in a better phrase but WTF??!)

PS notice the name, "MAPS" which makes it especially hard to google.

Why not indulge their fantasy to the max and call stuff "Thing," "It" or "el (the)"

Actually this very disjointed entry (sorry about that) is focused in on some of the reasons my PC is unworthy of Microsoft's imprimatur, which is another way of saying that the middle-aged snob disapproves of my licentious computer and frowns down his nose at it.

No Modern standby; No DMA protection against evil maids (My kernel DMA protection is apparently off)

Is it safe?? (o gawd) Is it safe??

If you follow every buried dusty snippet of advice, and six months from now something goes wrong,

Assuming you're no genius-computer wizard (with change-logs) you'll be lost...

And who's to say the next update won't undo your carefully culled tweaks??

I don't have, "thunderbolt" which most of this Brouhaha seems to be about.

(I *do* have a dvd-drive on standby, heaven-help it in six months or so)

But not knowing what they're saying most-times, I follow blindly.

Smart-guys invented this stuff, even smarter ones broke it,

And here I am like the scene from "Good bad Ugly" where the slave is told to take the luggage to the station, or back to the hotel-room, or to the station, or to the room ("Ahhh!!")

A strong BIOS password, a thumbdrive, A TPM, these cannot withstand the withering gaze of hackers and their snobby friends...I could have said that better.

"I'm fucked" covers it nicely. The hardware you could buy *today* wouldn't be worthy unless you reallyreallyreally REALLY looked, and even then...

Enable virtualization-based protection of code integrity - Windows security | Microsoft Docs

For the outcasts not worthy for DMA protection, uh,

Basically, "Security-Boot" is a best effort for the slow...

"Secure Boot with DMA" (still to be found)

is only available on Computers with an Input-output memory-management unit.

O, you *have* an IOMMU and "Secure boot" enabled?

They put a disclaimer at the top saying it could really screw up your system...

'k, I'm not, uh, "Kernel DMA protection" is off because...

uh...

(It's hard to believe they're being benevolent and trying hard not to screw things up)

More pertinent to this entry isn't what I wrote above (because you can just enable everything in BIOS and damn the fallout and collateral damage)

But whether specific "windows-features" need to be added into windows, or does doing that take up space and make it easier for hackers to hack??

Specifically, the options for Virtual-machines.

I don't have any, don't want any, but they hint at a computer being protected from itself, when run in a virtual way.

I don't have a good way to write that sentence.

But I *Think* I'm reading, most of the system is (ideally, should be) totally busted and inaccessible unless it's running windows...and *I* keep raising my hand and asking about BIOS updates, and maybe adding and removing hardware (Like a blu-ray player or a USB stick)

Scenario: you need to boot into a recovery environment because your OS has become so Obese it has frequent heart attacks...It might be nice if the USB/Blu-ray *worked* and what to disable in BIOS to help them work, which is partly *why* I'm reading all these unreadables.

Son of Scenario:

Your OS is so perfectly-restricted that nothing works without it,

until it has a stroke or a massive heart-attack.

No internet access.
No disk access (you've scrambled them)
No I/O access (because the I/O is designed to only run in windows)

Referring to the above article, If you enable "UEFI Lock" and then change the UEFI (Update the BIOS)...?

I prolly have another version of this next picture, or I erased it (I'm never happy with these entries)

And I forgot what the first version said, but I'd swear I became a tad more worthy.

Maybe not, maybe it's illusory.

O, so it *is* running more stuff. Slippery slope to hell, or...???

Sure, whatever, Why not (creepy feelings galore)
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/device-guard/enable-virtualization-based-protection-of-code-integrity

I suddenly have a sixties song in my head, "whether I'm right, whether I'm wrong, I've gotta be MEEEE, I've gotta be meee"

All I know right this exact second is, I have HVCI running...which would be OK if I actually had a virtual machine to run it on.

Or am I just a virtual machine? (Think "Matrix") whatever.

Ooh, I have a desktop I can click on now "Desktop1, new desktop"

The analogies in my head can't be typed.
Not good enough, Not smart enough, windows doesn't like me, but I'm nearly there.
NOW to run something like "CPU-Z" to see...if I'm a total-wreck or if no-one notices anything.

Random notes like in an index no one ever reads:

'IpICSHlpStopSharing' : '0x80070032'. Google says "Enable sandbox" but that's a red-herring, whatever is causing the error isn't apparent.

It's like, if someone slapped you with a sledgehammer, and all you could think afterwards was,

"I feel funny/strange."

So if I had a wish, it would be that windows automatically installed the features it needed to make those errors go away, but since that'll never happen,

My role as a sledgehammer-victim is to cope with what I've got.

TOUCH KEYBOARD, HANDWRITING SERVICE:

Why is it running? Manual-triggered start, so something triggered it.

https://www.howtogeek.com/259900/how-to-permanently-disable-the-touch-keyboard-in-windows-8-and-10/ edited their own article to say, "Disable it at your peril."

Bugs the crap outta me...they don't install needed services, DO install unneeded(?) services, and then say they're necessary for unrelated stuff (what does the "search bar" have to do with "touch keyboard?"

I already know what to look for, what say I disable it anyway (for no particular reason)

Assuming I'm not some virtual machine in my computer's imagination, I disabled it with No effect (I'm either deluding myself or it wasn't needed)
it is needed for "Windows Terminal" and you would only really need "Windows terminal"
to talk to remote PC's, so that's a pleasant surprise.
If someone somewhere loves to tunnel into other people's PC's, it's nice you can disable that.

Suppose (just suppose) there is a security rule buried somewhere that some commands can only be executed from the keyboard.

Everyone thinks it's talking about the real keyboard at their fingertips...but what about virtual keyboards, for virtual people, living way-far away?

Your missing my point...commands could be executed remotely, bypassing the "keyboard only" rule.

In the meantime, nothing seems to have changed; nothing broke.

Something triggered it, I'm guessing hypervisor.

This next bit raises hackles...

Todd (Señor Hacker, whoever) probably has six VM's and a host of alphabet-thingies running, and all you wanna do is (maybe) pay child support and taxes, and read up on news.

Trump uber alles

Buy "home"? (as opposed to "Professional"?)

But then all those juicy hints online probably wouldn't work...

anyway, take a look at this:

If you thought people were secretly watching your every move, they could be, will be, soon

So like I said, you're doing your mundane little things while Todd builds VM empires and captures your stream you're sending to some damned cloud.

"Securely" (rofl)

Don't get me wrong, clouds are great, people (prolly) need them, but they're dangerous, and the fallout from the clouds could be disastrous for people other than Todd (was I ranting again?)

If, for some unreadable reason, you're broadcasting to China, um...nevermind, if you're not Todd you don't know what I'm talking about, (which is sort of my point)

I'll start a new rant later.
For now, they used lots of pomp and circumstance to update, but ~~(without knowing yet)~~ I'll bet it's one of those frilly updates that does nothing, goes nowhere. [https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2021/07/15/announcing-windows-11-insider-preview-build-22000-71/] I could not really tell if it was downloaded; one second it was 0% and the next, it was installing. And none of my tweaks (disabling Sysmain, relocating Temp) were changed.

My right-click hasn't changed at all (I'll shut up now, the girl onstage announcing all the pretty changes is staring right at me)