Linux kernel developers were infected with malware for 2 years, another nail in the coffin of proper federated email as Exchange Server moves to a subscription model, followup on zfsbootmenu and IPv6, and learning unfamiliar topics. Plug Supp

2.5 Admins 196: Won’tel

11 days ago

Microsoft’s new Copilot+ feature will record everything you are doing on your computer for some reason, but it will only work on new Arm hardware for now. Plus Apple’s weird iOS bug that restored deleted files and photos, and sharing files over

2.5 Admins 195: Execute Option 121

18 days ago 31m 27s

Why Windows 10 might be gaining users at Windows 11’s expense, an old DHCP option is a potential risk for VPN users, we should probably say “renting” rather than “buying”domains, and avoiding tracking when using IPv6. Plugs Support us on patr

2.5 Admins 194: Thundering Mastodon

25 days ago 30m 14s

Mastodon’s link previews are causing downtime for web servers without properly configured caching, locking down DNS inside Windows networks, why using write-once backup media is a bad idea, and increasing the performance of a Microsoft SQL Serv

2.5 Admins 193: TV DoS

May 2nd, 2024 30m 45s

How a smart TV broke a Windows machine on the same network by pretending to be hundreds of different TVs, Jim’s alarming theory about AI malware, and encrypting offsite backups. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with earl

2.5 Admins 192: ZFS Week

Apr 25th, 2024 31m 7s

ZFS on root is back in the Ubuntu installer but there’s a better way to do it, next-generation hard drives are proving to be reliable but prices are going up thanks to storage-hungry AI, why getting started with ZFS is really easy, and the best

2.5 Admins 191: Mechanical Turk

Apr 18th, 2024 28m 31s

Why updating iPhones in their sealed boxes might have some downsides, Amazon’s “AI” turned out to just be people, LLMs hallucinating imaginary dependencies is potentially a security risk, Aruba backs up its government data to the Internet Archi

2.5 Admins 190: twitterz

Apr 11th, 2024 30m 16s

A backdoor has been found in xz-utils, OpenZFS improves ZVOL performance on Linux, Twitter devs fail at regex, and adding SATA ports to a home NAS. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Hybrid Cl

2.5 Admins 189: Too Much Glass

Apr 4th, 2024 32m 25s

Glassdoor seemingly doesn’t understand its raison d’etre, Telegram wants to cheap out on sending verification codes, law enforcement makes YouTube give them details of everyone who watched certain videos, and tuning a low end VPS to host a blog

2.5 Admins 188: Farewell to Core

Mar 28th, 2024 28m 39s

The FreeBSD version of TrueNAS is going away, a major Apple antitrust case begins, encrypted LLM chat responses are relatively easy to read, and scaling a fleet of FreeBSD hosts with jails. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS fe

2.5 Admins 187: MDK

Mar 21st, 2024 31m 7s

Prison officials took away inmate student laptops for no good reason, Warner Bros. ruined gamers’ experiences, Google’s terrible office WiFi, and managing gold images. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes

2.5 Admins 186: Jim Defends the CFAA

Mar 14th, 2024 29m 54s

Roku stops its users watching TV until they accept a new ToS, the line between journalism and computer fraud and abuse, and when using jumbo frames on a network makes sense. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early ep

2.5 Admins 185: 2.5 Gigabits

Mar 7th, 2024 28m 48s

The boss of Nvidia says kids don’t need to code because they can just use AI, companies sell their users’ data to train models, and why 2.5Gbps networking probably isn’t worth bothering with. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS

2.5 Admins 184: Avast, mateys

Feb 29th, 2024 32m 8s

More cameras leak footage, Avast is fined for selling user data, a vending machine quietly scans students’ faces, using a small NVMe drive with ZFS, and taking snapshots of VMs. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with earl

2.5 Admins 183: Unbootable Quantum Toothbrushes

Feb 22nd, 2024 31m 17s

Why it’s not a great idea to install Windows 11 on unsupported hardware, quantum computing hype has been replaced by AI, toothbrushes can’t be part of a botnet, Google has killed cached search results, and testing your backups. Plugs Support

2.5 Admins 182: All the Small Things

Feb 15th, 2024 29m 40s

Nginx is forked, Broadcom/VMware kills ESXi, dedup is finally fixed in ZFS, using multiple network interfaces on a NAS, and more. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes News announcing freengin

2.5 Admins 181: Triangle Fraud

Feb 8th, 2024 29m 5s

Trying to report a security issue lands a consultant in trouble, a new take on the drop shipping scam, setting up your first NAS – including the benefits of RAID, picking a distro, choosing the right disk size, and more. Plug Support us on pa

2.5 Admins 180: Email 777

Feb 1st, 2024 33m 18s

Microsoft’s rudimentary error that allowed an attacker access to its executives’ emails, Pixel phones have another serious storage bug, hidden malware payload found at Ars Technica, and when to upgrade your hardware for Windows 11. Plugs Supp

2.5 Admins 179: Y2K NotOK

Jan 25th, 2024 32m 23s

Y2K was a pretty serious problem and 2038 is coming soon, work on Arm servers is improving the experience on the desktop, and what to do with an old unsupported Synology NAS. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early

2.5 Admins 178: LOTS of Storage

Jan 18th, 2024 30m 31s

Hard drives are pretty much an enterprise product now, GitHub’s malware problem, and spreading services across different machines and VMs to keep downtime to a minimum. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episod

2.5 Admins 177: Don’t Pay the Dane

Jan 11th, 2024 29m 16s

Why the problems with open source licenses aren’t quite as easy to fix as some people think, the reasons you should never pay ransomware gangs, and running a Nagios distro on a Raspberry Pi. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS f

2.5 Admins 176: Sudo Cognito

Jan 4th, 2024 30m 23s

What does “incognito mode” in Chrome actually mean and whether documenting browser standards in code is a good idea, the serious implications of a fun story about messing with a ChatGPT instance, and maximizing performance when using mixed disk

2.5 Admins 175: Guess Who’s Listening

Dec 28th, 2023 29m 5s

Twitch pulls out of Korea thanks to the opposite of Net Neutrality, it’s not clear to what extent smart devices are listening to your conversations, more on water usage in data centers, and our thoughts on mandatory access controls. Plug Supp

2.5 Admins 174: Guess Who’s Watching

Dec 21st, 2023 31m 30s

What you need to know about the recent SSH vulnerability, yet another privacy issue with cloud-connected security cameras, why it’s difficult to get to the bottom of an obscure ZFS encryption bug, and more. Plug Support us on patreon and get

2.5 Admins 173: Ghost Files

Dec 14th, 2023 29m 18s

Google Drive client users lost months of files, a feature of UEFI that has left millions of computers potentially vulnerable to persistent malware, and why you probably shouldn’t buy cheap resold volume Windows licenses. Plugs Support us on p