COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Big Kev]

effectively an encrypted tunnel

Thanks for the link etc. I rarely use a VPN, just for Pandora.com or FOMO -(fear of missing out).

I have never worried too much, that my transmssions may be intercepted. Seem to have survived up to now.

I only use one for work as nothing there has a public facing IP address.

[Big Kev]

Still good

20210701_211610.jpg

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report of what looks like a serious ransom ware attack in the US.

[Stanley]

See THIS report of the spread of the ransom ware attack. The whole of the Swedish Co-op has been affected and has closed its stores.

[Stanley]

See THIS Guardian report on the ransom ware attack. This isn't going away and is a serious attack.

[Tizer]

Here's the BBC's story on the ransomware attack...
`Gang behind huge cyber-attack demands $70m in Bitcoin' LINK

[Stanley]

It's a frightening position for the firms who are affected. How can the perpetrators be brought to justice?

[Big Kev]

I noticed the landline was out on Monday morning, internet connection was OK though. Potentially an issue caused by Saturday's storm as a few in Foulridge had the same.
Contacted Talktalk via the 'chat' Monday lunchtime, a line test showed the fault, Openreach engineer booked. Landline back on this morning following a brief outage to the broadband, I suspect a line pair swap in a cabinet. Email and a text just before midday, from Talktalk advising all was back on.
Reading some of the Facebook posts slating ISPs I reckon Talktalk have done a great job.

[Tripps]

Another saga.

I've got myself in a tangle with cloud storage. Tried to delete pCloud. Easy - just press a button marked 'delete account'. They say they will send an email with further instructions - but they didn't. Tried again later, and they say 'you've already asked - please come back later'. Tried again this morning - same result. Gave up.

Revived my deleted Dropbox account- that seemed to go well, but they won't allow you to back up to both Onedrive (Microsoft) and Dropbox (Google). That seems a bit judgmental. I've already tried to delete Onedrive, but that involves cutting all links with Microsoft which is not what I wanted.

Now this morning Spotify have frozen my account - "possibly engaging in unauthorized content downloads. Spotify has therefore suspended your access to the Service."
I guess from timing it may be a consequence of the cloud shenanigans, and I'm pleading 'not guilty' but to do so I have to contact them. I can't do that without logging in and that is now not possible.

I think that's called catch 22.

[Big Kev]

I just have 'one drive' set as disabled on my desktop and phone.

[Tripps]

I just have 'one drive' set as disabled on my desktop and phone.

Thanks I'll try that. Aren't you on Holiday? get back to enjoying yourself.

Now got Spotify restored. Google and persistence. Spoke to a robot then Armando (my new best friend) -I promised to be a good boy going forward and all is restored. Phewww !

[Stanley]

I'm happy to report I didn't understand a word of that exchange.

[Tizer]

Good news...
`REvil: Ransomware gang websites disappear from internet' LINK

[Stanley]

Peter, one site may have vanished but the organisation and the hackers are still out there.....
Follow the money, where does it go?

[Big Kev]

WhatsApp are looking to make it's messaging available without a mobile phone, although one will be required to initially register
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57849883

[Stanley]

I like Whatsapp, it does just what it says on the tin. No adverts or interference. They must be stealing data to make it pay although I see that Twitter has yet to make a profit. I don't understand how that works. In my experience if a business makes a loss every year it fails....

[Big Kev]

Following on from my ISP change at the end of June, I remembered that Sky were supposed to be refunding the payment taken for July. I initially called them at the beginning of July and was told it was an administrative error and the refund would be 3 to 5 days. Today's call was a bit more involved, it turns out the refund process didn't automatically start so it was manually calculated and started today. I have been assured it will be in my account within 3 to 5 days.
I wonder how many people will have forgotten about a refund? I almost did, it was only the email notification from TalkTalk advising of my first bill from them.

The TalkTalk bill, for the first two months of service, is less than the one month and 4 days refund from Sky...

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on the enormous increase in profits being reported by the top tech firms in Silicon Valley. The pandemic hasn't been a disaster for everyone!

[PanBiker]

My broadband connection continues to be slow on the input side. Since Open Reach did the fibre to pole roll-out I have dropped 10 - 12Mbps on the input. Problem is it's connecting at 46Mbps which is not much better than the solid 39Mbps that I got on the lower package and quite a bit down on the 56 - 58MBps I used to get when I switched to fibre 65. Unfortunately although slower, 46Mbps is still within the parameters of the contract. The main issue though is on the output side of the router. WiFi can be flaky even in the same room as the router, we get intermittent drop-outs. The output ports sometimes drop the signal also and we get "internet not available" on the PC even though the input side is OK. I have a wired connection to the Freesat box for on demand and we get frequent buffering when streaming content.

I have done all the normal stuff, rebooted the router, changed ports on the wired connections disconnected WiFi connections and then rejoined etc. It's a bit of a pain. I think there are a couple of things wrong. Something on the feed side with the network, no real reason for it to lose speed there when it was solid before and a fault on the output side of the router.

I have been on TalkTalk and can't find the chat facility which I have used on numerous occasions before. I know Kev has used it recently so maybe he can point me in the right direction. I don't want to ring them up if I can help it you take pot luck with first level script driven support there. On chat you can ask what you want and hold out for a proper answer.

[plaques]

The output ports sometimes drop the signal also and we get "internet not available" on the PC even though the input side is OK.

I've had endless problems with the DNS dropping out altogether. I usually run the lap top diagnostics a couple of times always with the same result 'cannot connect to DNS'. If I did nothing it would stay off line for ever. Now here's the funny bit. Switch the router off, leave for 1 minute, switch back on again. and voila connection returns. Works every time. The question then becomes. Does the router gradually reduce the input to a point that TalkTalk think they can get away with. or is the router faulty.
Like you Ian the 'Chat' is missing. What's going on???

[PanBiker]

Throttling is normally done at the exchange. Open Reach over the years had honed my copper connection to more or less perfection or as good as you could get from the 150 year old network. It gave me a solid 39Mbps on the fibre 35 package. Not surprised it has suffered as they were up and down the two supposedly non certified "not to be climbed" poles at least six times during the FTP rollout. That has all been done in parallel and separate to the copper network but they have either buggered something up on the copper side or there is some throttling going on. Not good enough anyway I am paying for fibre 65 and expect to get mid 50's not mid 40's. 56-58Mbps before they disturbed the network.

[Big Kev]

I have been on TalkTalk and can't find the chat facility which I have used on numerous occasions before. I know Kev has used it recently so maybe he can point me in the right direction. I don't want to ring them up if I can help it you take pot luck with first level script driven support there. On chat you can ask what you want and hold out for a proper answer.

https://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/Art ... -p/2230529
About halfway down the page Ian.

Chat.JPG

[Big Kev]

Not good enough anyway I am paying for fibre 65 and expect to get mid 50's not mid 40's. 56-58Mbps before they disturbed the network.

My Fibre65 is copper to the cab, definitely worth you getting in touch with them

Speed.JPG

[PanBiker]

Thanks Kev, it used to be a lot more prominent on the site. For some reason I can't navigate directly to it when I am logged into my account. Your link works fine though. Pity the agent (Ntobeko) could not do anything other than check my account details. After 25 minutes she said that due to latency issues she could not test my line.

[PanBiker]

I can invoke a test and it comes up OK they only estimate the speed on my line as 51Mbps at best. Well it used to be better until the FTP rollout.

NetStabSpeed.JPG

If Ntobeko was where her picture and name suggests maybe the latency is between West Africa and the UK. Nothing reported here, all shows as fine and dandy.