SwizzleStick

Which in turn can be slang for vomit. Wonderful :)

At that point I would expect control of it, or at least for it to respect the configuration it is given. If neither are true, then it just doesn’t go online at all. If that’s part of the main function, then I find an alternative or live without it.

Nothing on the inside should be sending anything to the outside that can’t be inspected before it leaves, with the exception of stuff that is directly driven by a human (guests browsing, etc).

This is the best way, really. Generally, you have much more control over what you plug into it.

A display shouldn’t have anything even approaching what can be called an ‘OS’ on it. Yet here we are.

Sometimes even that’s not enough. I’ve had some questionable kit before that would just ignore the DNS settings fed to it if it thought they were no good, and fall back to something else preconfigured.

pfSense is a wonderful tool for situations like that. Anything intended for local use only here just doesn’t get outside at all. Handy for stuff like a fire stick that only needs to be calling up a local media library.

It can also mangle any DNS requests going out to a different server and redirect them to itself instead. You could do this without it with iptables/nftables on a generic Linux box, but pfSense makes it much friendlier.

There are other packages that can do the same, but physically all you need is one piece of hardware as a bouncer that manages connections between inside/outside.

Aftermarket OS options are getting better as time goes by, which is nice. Come a long way since the old Cyanogenmod days.

But yeah, Sammy won’t be keeping the bones patched beyond what they already have. The risk for me is acceptable, and preferable to shelling out for new hardware every few years. It works and I’m not too stupid with it.

I don’t think I’ve used a microsd in a phone for about 6+ years now, so I couldn’t really care less. Not a photographer and I don’t travel enough to need so much offline media on the go. Just a few albums for the commute.

Still using an old Galaxy S10 and appreciating the 3.5mm jack though.

On Dell server hardware with the right cards/licensing, you can remove the need for physical access to the server to input an FDE password by leaning on iDRAC. This provides access to the console remotely during the boot process (and thereafter).

Alternatives exist that supposedly do the same thing, but I’ve never had to try them. Airconsole, pikvm, blikvm etc.

You can keep this interface unexposed by using wireguard to dial in when you’re away, as per your original thinking. Just make sure the endpoint isn’t on the server you’re rebooting…

Half the shit I actually want I just run directly these days, rather than nosing through either.

• ncpa.cpl
• diskmgmt.msc
• devmgmt.msc
• control userpasswords2
• cmd
• mstsc
• regedit
• taskmgr

Just to name a few.

It’s utter bollocks. It used to be the OEM crap that had to be removed or clean installed over. Now you have to spend time unfucking fresh installs.

My 11 image is just about usable, but only after a lot of gutting, reg entries, powershell scripts and openshell.

The railroading to sign in with an MS account has become worse too, but still just about bypassable.

They cut the corner because a lack of regulation allowed them to, in order to produce a cheaper model.

It’s a mandatory feature in some other countries.

Used FF forever, even though the birth and rise of Chrome.

We’re done. The company I IT for therefore is also done. As are friends and family I sort computers for.

The shit now stinks and must be taken out.