Understanding and Implementing BIMI TXT Records

Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) is an innovative standard that empowers brands to showcase their logo in email clients that are compatible with BIMI. This feature not only bolsters brand recognition but also fosters trust among email recipients. Here's a concise guide on what BIMI TXT records are and how to utilize them.

A BIMI TXT record is a string of text incorporated into your domain's DNS records. It contains the URL of your logo file, which should be a Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file.

To establish a BIMI record, you initially need an SVG logo file uploaded to your domain's web storage. Subsequently, you will need to create a TXT record with the following content:

v=BIMI1;l=[your SVG file URL]

This simple step allows your brand's logo to appear in supporting email clients, enhancing your brand's visibility and trustworthiness.

How to Create a BIMI Record (mxtoolbox.com)

How to Convert an image to SVG for BIMI Records (mxtoolbox.com)

How to Convert an image to SVG for BIMI Records (mxtoolbox.com)

Add a BIMI TXT record to your domain (detailed steps) - Google Workspace Admin Help

Windows Memory compression (More RAM at the expanse of CPU)

In its 10525 build, Windows 10 introduced a feature known as Memory Compression also included in Windows 11. This feature aims to optimize the utilization of your system’s physical memory and reduce the need for disk-based pagefile IO operations.

Memory Compression works by compressing infrequently accessed pages and retaining them in a new compression store within the physical RAM. This process allows your PC’s RAM to store more data than its original capacity, which can enhance your system's performance.

For instance, if your PC has 8 GB of RAM available, and there’s 9 GB of data to be stored on it, Memory Compression will attempt to compress the extra data so it fits within the 8 GB capacity of your RAM. Without Memory Compression, your PC would store the extra data in a file on your hard drive storage, which can slow down your PC as it takes more time to read data from a file on the hard drive than from RAM.

While Memory Compression can improve performance, it does use more CPU resources. If you notice a lot of compressed memory and think it’s slowing down your PC, there are a couple of solutions. One solution is to install more physical memory (RAM). This will allow your system to store more data in RAM without needing to compress it, reducing the CPU usage associated with Memory Compression.

If installing more RAM is not feasible, you can disable Memory Compression. Here’s how:

1. Open the Command Prompt as an administrator.
2. Type the following command and press Enter: `Disable-MMAgent -mc`
3. Restart your computer.

In conclusion, Memory Compression is a feature designed to optimize your system's performance by making efficient use of your RAM. It's a tool that can be beneficial, but like all tools, it's important to understand how it works and when to use it.

The risk if AI model collapse / The death of generative AI

Model collapse refers to a phenomenon where machine learning models gradually degrade due to errors stemming from unchecked training on synthetic data. Specifically, this synthetic data includes outputs from other models, including prior versions of the same model. There are two distinct stages of model collapse:

1. Early Model Collapse: In the early stages of collapse, it can be hard to detect as performance could appear to improve while the AI starts to lose its grasps on the smaller details.
   
   
2. Late Model Collapse: This is where performance and accuracy both start to suffer greatly, with the AI becoming confused and losing much of its variance.

A study by Duke University researcher Emily Wenge where an AI model was giving a task of generating dog breeds, at first the AI would recreate breeds most common in its training data and may start to over represent a single group of breeds if it's held more in its data.

As new generations are trained using the older generation data it would compound the over representation until rare breeds disappeared from the newer generated data all together, over time this would lead to a total collapse where the new AI would just be outputting a single breed of dog.

This risk of collapse undermines and threatens generative AI as a useful tool and as human generated content is starting to be limited to the AI training set and AI generated content is on the rise are we heading towards a totally avoidable dumbing of AI.

Should we not reframe our view on AI in this process and allow it the same freedom of access as a human to the data online. allowing the growth of a tool that could change how we interact with information on a whole.

Enable Wireless Diagnostics in Windows

1.  Open Event Log
2. Go to View and tick "Show Analytic and Debug logs 
   
   
   
   
   
3. Go to "Applications and Services logs > Microsoft > Windows > WLAN-AutoConfig" and right-click on "Diagnostic" and go to "Properties"
4. and tick "Enable logging"

This should now bring more meaningful results for "Netsh wlan show wlanreport"

How to Backup BitLocker Key to Azure AD Using PowerShell

BitLocker is a security feature built into Windows that provides encryption for entire volumes. It addresses the threats of data theft or exposure from lost, stolen, or inappropriately decommissioned devices. By encrypting the hard drive where Windows is installed, or the entire computer if it has multiple drives, BitLocker helps protect your data.

BitLocker is particularly useful as it provides protection against unauthorised changes to your system such as firmware-level malware. It also helps mitigate unauthorised data access by enhancing file and system protections. BitLocker is an essential tool for securing your data, especially when data breaches and information theft are common.

The Command

Here is the command that we’ll be using:

BackupToAAD-BitLockerKeyProtector -MountPoint $env:SystemDrive -KeyProtectorId ((Get-BitLockerVolume -MountPoint $env:SystemDrive ).KeyProtector | where {$_.KeyProtectorType -eq "RecoveryPassword" }).KeyProtectorId

This command backs up the BitLocker key protector of type “RecoveryPassword” for the system drive to AAD.

Outputting the Key Protector to the Screen

If you want to output the key protector to the screen, you can use the following command:

(Get-BitLockerVolume -MountPoint C).KeyProtector

This command retrieves the key protector for the C drive and outputs it to the screen.

Resolving PowerShell Module Installation Error

When installing a PowerShell module, you may encounter the following error:

WARNING: Unable to resolve package source 'https://www.powershellgallery.com/api/v2'

This error can occur due to various reasons, but one common cause is related to the Transport Layer Security (TLS) version that your PowerShell system is using.

The Role of TLS

The PowerShell Gallery, where PowerShell modules are hosted, only accepts connections using TLS 1.2 or later. If your system is using an older version of TLS, it may fail to establish a connection with the PowerShell Gallery, resulting in the error mentioned above.

The Solution

To resolve this issue, you need to force your PowerShell system to use TLS 1.2. This can be achieved by running the following command in your PowerShell session:

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12

This command sets the security protocol of your PowerShell session to TLS 1.2. After running this command, you should be able to install the PowerShell module without encountering the error.

Please note that this change will only apply to the current PowerShell session. If you start a new session, you will need to run the command again.

How to Troubleshoot Sophos UTM Update Failures Due to Insufficient Disk Space

Upon deploying Sophos UTM appliances, you might find that the Up2Date process fails due to a lack of disk space. This is common if there's a backlog of updates or if the appliance was initialized with an outdated build. Unfortunately, the Sophos UTM interface does not readily indicate this problem, showing only the availability of updates without hinting at potential installation issues.

Diagnosing the Problem

To understand the root cause, you need to inspect the Up2Date log:

Navigate to Management | Up2Date | Configuration.

Switch the Firmware and Pattern Download options to Manual and apply the changes.

Visit Management | Up2Date | Overview, open the live log or select Up2Date Messages, and initiate a check for Up2Date packages.

A message indicating a failure due to insufficient space in /var/up2date/sys confirms the issue.

Resolving Disk Space Issues

Resolution requires cautious shell access, given the potential risks involved. After backing up your system, follow these steps:

Enable shell access on your Sophos UTM and log in as loginuser.

Elevate your access with su – and navigate to /var/up2date/sys.

Verify free space with df –h . and remove outdated updates using rm *.

Recheck the available space to ensure the updates have been cleared.

Triggering Up2Date Firmware Check

After clearing space, initiate a new firmware check and download process with audld.plx --trigger--verbose. Monitor the downloads and stop the process as needed to prevent space exhaustion. Attempt the update installation again, this time using auisys.plx --no-reboot --verbose for a controlled update without automatic reboots.

Finalizing the Update Process

With the necessary updates installed, it's advisable to revert the Up2Date settings to automatic updates for firmware and patterns. This ensures ongoing protection without manual intervention, automating the download while keeping installation under your control.