Microsoft says Windows 11 is getting less rubbish but we are skeptical, vehicles with alcohol interlocks won’t start because the manufacturer’s server is down, and whether you should virtualise a router or a NAS.

Plugs

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Five‑Year Storage Design with OpenZFS: Media Refresh, Rebalancing, and Hardware Independence

News/discussion

Our commitment to Windows quality

Microsoft fixes broken Windows update days after vowing fewer broken updates

Cyberattack on vehicle breathalyzer company leaves drivers stranded across the US

Free consulting

We were asked about whether you should virtualise a router or a NAS.

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

The US government is drumming up fear about foreign routers, a pretty serious supply chain attack might be state-sponsored, and the safety of filesystems inside VMs.

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The Real Cost of Technology Dependence: Building Independence with Open-Source Storage

News/discussion

US bans any new consumer-grade routers not made in America

National Security Determination on the Threat Posed by Routers Produced by Foreign Countries (pdf)

1K+ cloud environments infected following Trivy supply chain attack

Self-propagating malware poisons open source software and wipes Iran-based machines

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We were asked about the safety of filesystems inside VMs.

Automox Turnkey Results

Endpoint management tailored to your specific environment. Know the plan. Trust the result. Learn more at www.automox.com

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

Why passkeys aren’t the right solution to everything, Allan tells us why he loves his new Lithium Iron Phosphate UPS, Btrfs vs ZFS on root, and restricting Internet access for IoT devices on your network.

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Designing OpenZFS Storage for Independence

News/discussion

Please, please, please stop using passkeys for encrypting user data

Allan’s new Anker SOLIX C1000 Gen 2 Portable Power Station

Free consulting

We were asked about restricting Internet access for IoT devices on your network.

Automox Turnkey Results

Endpoint management tailored to your specific environment. Know the plan. Trust the result. Learn more at www.automox.com

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

Microsoft Authenticator will delete Entra credentials on phones that aren’t running stock ROMs, Jim’s nightmare experience trying to get a user back into their MS account, tracking vehicles via tire pressure monitors, using a ZFS pool in a degraded state, and keeping cold ZFS storage dataset snapshots in sync.

Plugs

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ZFS Fast Dedup for Proxmox

News/discussion

Microsoft Authenticator to nuke Entra creds on rooted and jailbroken phones

Jailbreak/root detection in Microsoft Authenticator

Jim Microsoft MFA rant

Vehicle Tire Pressure Sensors Enable Silent Tracking

Free consulting

We were asked about purposely using a ZFS pool in a degraded state, and keeping cold ZFS storage dataset snapshots in sync.

Automox Turnkey Results

Endpoint management tailored to your specific environment. Know the plan. Trust the result. Learn more at www.automox.com

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

An exciting new cold storage technology seems to be getting closer, Nvidia seemingly wants a slice of the laptop hardware action, why you (and your users) should definitely not use LLMs to “generate” passwords , and whistleblowing when sensitive customer data isn’t being taken seriously.

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ARC and L2ARC Sizing on Proxmox

News/discussion

Data stored in glass could last over 10,000 years, Microsoft says

Nvidia plans a Windows PC SoC, setting up direct competition with Qualcomm, Intel, and AMD

Vibe Password Generation: Predictable by Design

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We were asked about whistleblowing when sensitive customer data isn’t being taken seriously.

Automox Turnkey Results

Endpoint management tailored to your specific environment. Know the plan. Trust the result. Learn more at www.automox.com

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

Hardware scarcity and price hikes spread to hard drives, the Bcachefs dev thinks his AI is ‘fully conscious’, an agent might have gone after a FOSS maintainer, Jim is disappointed with an Ars author, and ZFS and VMs in the homelab.

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Piss up at The Shipwrights Arms (just next to London Bridge station) on Saturday 27th June from 6pm until late

Pool and VDEV Topology for Proxmox Workloads

News/discussion

AI blamed again as hard drives are sold out for this year

Hard drive pricing in the UK is so high someone flew to the US to buy drives, saving money despite flight and hotel costs

Bcachefs creator claims his custom LLM is ‘fully conscious’

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – More Things Have Happened

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – Forensics and More Fallout

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Operator Came Forward

Editor’s Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations

Sorry all this is my fault

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We were asked about ZFS and VMs in the homelab.

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

Jim and Allan disagree on how new hard drive tech is likely to work, more on storage and compute in the same box, and how we set up disk encryption on laptops.

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OpenZFS Monitoring and Observability

News/discussion

Western Digital doubles the performance of hard drives with dual-actuator High-Bandwidth, with path to 8X performance increase — Power-Optimized HDDs will reduce power by 20 percent

Free consulting

We were asked about how we set up disk encryption on laptops.

A quick-start guide to OpenZFS native encryption – Ars Technica

Keeping Data Safe with OpenZFS: Security, Encryption, and Delegation

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Notepad++ falls victim to a state-sponsored attacker, AI agents talk nonsense to each other on an insecure vibe coded social network, and backing up a laptop properly.

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ZFS vs Btrfs: Architecture, Features, and Stability

News/discussion

Notepad++ Hijacked by State-Sponsored Hackers

AI agents now have their own Reddit-style social network, and it’s getting weird fas

Hacking Moltbook: AI Social Network Reveals 1.5M API Keys

Free consulting

We were asked about backing up a laptop properly.

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.