It's Thursday and You Know What That Means

it means that it's probably Monday and I just picked a random day to put in the title.


My boobies lie over the ocean
My boobies lie over the sea
My boobies lie over the ocean
Bring back my boobies to me

And thus ends the Culture portion of today's blog.

• Researchers made public an issue with a version of Microsoft Web Server, complete with their small proof of concept (how-to). The flaw has been exploited since July or August 2016 but there's no real issue, because the version of Internet Information Services (6.0) belongs to a version of Windows Server (2003) that has passed its end of support date of July 2015. No problem, right? Problem.
• We all know I can't stand Microsoft and welcome any opportunity to take a shot at them. Guess what.... I stand firmly behind them (I probably should have told you to sit down before reading that.. sorry).
• Microsoft is pretty good about supporting their software, stating exactly when end of life is. Microsoft stated that Windows Server 2003's end of life was July 2015 and stated this a long time before 2015. As a result, there was not and will not be a patch available for this.  A vulnerability search engine estimates over 600,000 instances of Server 2003 still running on the internet, of which approximately ten percent are vulnerable.
• Why did this happen? Because of idiots. Yes, the world is full of them, but these particular idiots are downright dangerous. It could be laziness, it could be fright, it could be resources (linux is free, people, and the internet runs on it), it could be that people don't care. Worse still, it could be a situation where an IT department is screaming for an upgrade and another department won't allow it because their crappy software won't work on the updated version of Windows Server.
• End of life was not a surprise. The date is for making certain you have the upgrade in place; not the date to COMMENCE PANIC! These are the people who are still running Windows XP on their desktop computers.

This is so mind-bogglingly stupid that I can't figure out whether it's a hoax or not. Search engine results come up negative but this person is a designer who does leggings. Have the feminists finally gone over the wall? Is this is definition of the internet phrase "I can't even"?

I mentioned that Congress is headed toward allowing ISPs to collect your personal data and sell it to others. Here's a very interesting article on how Minnesota is trying to counter this on the state level. It applies to any state and gives some history of how the Federal government has overridden it during Obama.

• I think they're messing with the speed limit signs around here (yes, lefty, put on the tinfoil hat again). Hear me out: there's one tiny burg where the speed limit is 25, and I was warned they weren't kidding. Revenue enhancement and strictly enforced. A block later, presumably the next burg, it went to 40. Yay, a reasonable speed! It has been 40 forever. And then last week, it was suddenly 35. Now I can clearly tell the difference between a 40mph sign and a 35mph sign and I haven't slipped into an alternate universe, where it was always 35. More revenue enhancement?  Closer to my neighborhood, we got red light cameras. Within the next week, I expect new traffic lights, moved traffic lights, changed speed limits, and an even larger UFO hovering over work.

Marshall's ear surgery has been scheduled. Depending on how they proceed, it can run between $3k and $5.5k.  And we'll gladly pay because he's our dog, you know?  It turns out there are programs to help you pay, similar to credit cards.