Time to run the cleaning ferret through the tubes again...

...and the error page helpfully provides a link to Cloudflare's site for more information...which is also unavailable

Unity was why I quit using Ubuntu and eventually landed on Mint MATE. Didn't like tiles then, don't now.

Couple of things I noticed...
The number of SIM cards seems to be greater than the number of cellular transmitters in some of these boxes.
The setups seem to be quite professionally installed (except for the one on the apratment floor) kinda odd for a one-shot DDOS campaign?
A lot of time, effort and money went into building these setups. How do the Feds know they're inteded for DDOS as opposed to robocalls and spam SMS (given that the latter is profitable, while the former is a one-shot deal)?

Yes, but what have the Romans ever done for us?
I mean, besides cryptography, roads, water...

"Undocumented cellular radios"...seems strange. Thoug our (expensive, Canadian mfr) office coffee machine had a cellular data radio for updating prices, etc. It's not "documented" in the manual, unless you know how to parse the description of the update mechanism.

But wouldn't one expect some sort of communications device in a generator controller? Admittedly, you'd expect it to be documented. The big question has to do with whether or not the cellular radio has the ability to connect to a random network *as configured*, i.e.: does it have a SIM? Or can it somehow connect without one?
That would be interesting. Or, perhaps, is it receive-only? If so, how is it triggered. A bit of reverse engineering here would be helpful, and hopefully, someone is doing that.

Fast forward 10 years and _de minimis_ will be reinstated, as the gov't discovers that it costs $25 to collect a $0.75 import duty on a $25 purchase from overseas.

Yep. I remember all the hoops I needed to jump through when putting Ubuntu(?) onto a laptop and trying to get the right driver/settings/config for whatever new WiFi chip was in it. Then configureing the wired network chip. Last laptop I put Mint on...it just installed and worked. Well, except for the HP laptop which supposedly has a gigabit ethernet chip in it, which doesn't seem to want to allow itself to be configured as a gigabit interface, even under Windows (yes, I pulled Linux off and reinstalled Windows just to make sure). But, hey, it's HP, so...

Dell Precision or Latitude always seem to just work. Those days of having to Google whatever incantations were needed to get the wifi or network or display working seem to be well in the past. And WINE seems to have had a noticeable improvement in its ability to install and run Windows apps.

Thanks, Linus...for 35 years of Linux!
(read his autobiography, "Just for Fun")

Linux absolutely does not require any more technical ability than Windows. I have converted two very non technical people from Windows to Linux, and in both cases "support calls" (to me) dropped from monthly to one or two a year.

Your point about Linux being a cheaper alternative to Macs is quite true. The rest of my family use Macs and I would as well, except for the "walled garden" and forced upgrade aspects. Linux meets my needs quite well.

Running Mint here, for years, on an i7-6700K, 16G of RAM, with absolutely no issues. It runs stable and solid. It's frankly more reliable than Windows ever was, without the constant "improvements". I agree that there are many Linux apps which are only partially functional, due to the developer ceasing work or abandoning them, but they're usually not in the repositories. Apps in general on Linux are more in flux than commercial apps, but there are good basic ones (LibreOffice, GIMP, Mozilla, KiCAD, etc) that are stable and as far as I need, fully functional and reliable.

So, my experience contradicts yours, and makes the point that everyone's Linux experience is going to be a bit different, but it is free of Microsoft's meddling.

The level of internally generated junk (inapplicable, HR fluff, and broadcast) emails at my former (large multinational) company was incredible.

I got caught by it once, got ribbed for it, decided to go on the offensive. I examined the email header carefully, noted the sender's domain and wrote a rule to detect and corral any more that came from there. Caught one or two, then they changed phishing vendors. Caught them, too. It's pretty easy to catch and delete these "bait" emails...as if all the ones from HR aren't bad enough.

Was already diabled in the Mint version.
Disabled the chat "feature" and tab groups.

Same here. I had a chem teacher who insisted we memorise the periodic table. My parents bought me his album in hopes that The Elements would help. Alas, the teacher wanted us to memorise it in order with no errors. I made it about half way through, then gave up. However, Tom Lehrer has had a fan for the last 60 years.

RIP, Tom Lehrer. You have made a difference.

MS, for *years*, has had nothing significant to improve in their Office apps. I mean, it's been what, 20 years? Certainly, all the basics have been well covered, and they moved on to the appearance of improvements, while adding features that nobody wanted, and nobody uses. Then, introducing new file formats and tweaking the behavior, so you need to upgrade to keep reading the stuff others send you. Well, OK, somewhere in corporate land, someone probably uses each of the oddball things Microsoft added to their apps. But, really, how many of us actually add videos to our Word documents...and don't get me started on the morass that is cooperatively-edited documents.

At the company I once worked for, we attempted to use Embedded XP for a project. The licensing was labyrinthine, though not as bad as Intel's (they really only wanted to sell processors to PC manufacturers), but the kicker was when our client came back to us with a non-functional machine. We discovered, and I kid you not, that Embedded XP came by default, with autorun enabled on the USB port. So, the client had used (against our specific instructions) a random USB key with an autorun virus and infected the equipment. Easily managed, but it soured me on ever using a Microsoft embedded OS in a product. We went with Linux. More work, but no licensing headaches and whatever happens is pretty much under your control (though it may take you a while).