MSMSMSM

I have a very absurd problem. I decided to switch from BOINC to F@H for a while for my RX480 and while it seemed things were chugging along, I checked the "Advanced Control" to find that my GPU folding slot has been marked as failed.

Here's the system info from FAHControl (Note: F@H reports my install as Windows 10 Enterprise, it's actually Windows 11 Pro for Workstations 22H2)
 

And there's nothing in the logs elaborating on the failure

I decided to check my drivers to see perhaps an update had dropped but oddly enough, there doesn't seem to be a PRO update since Oct '22

Oddest of all, while doing some troubleshooting steps as suggested by the internet, I learned that my OpenCL drivers are completely unsigned... they're the only things that are unsigned

The simple solution would be just to switch to the regular, Adrenalin drivers and call it a day but I've got two questions.

• I use PRO drivers for stability and that's worked out so far, BOINC (PrimeGrid) had no problems doing number crunching using the GPU so why does F@H have a problem (if it has a problem with that at all)
• Why are there unsigned OpenCL drivers on my computer? How'd they get there? I've never in the history of the system install allowed for the installation of unsigned drivers (i.e. I've kept driver signature enforcement enabled). I have no hardware that needs unsigned drivers.

Spy Kids for the family and Everything Everywhere All At Once for couples' night

LTT Mastodon Instance :3

1 hour ago, mMontana said:

I stopped used APC years ago, currently Legrand and Eaton are most used.

Are there any reasons why not to use APC? I use APC because it was affordable, communicated over USB to the computer and had Linux support. Eaton was my first choice but... buying them requires me to go to distributors who take the utter piss, who themselves are available only on classified sites who, the moment you give them your phone number, expect the spam calls and scam texts to moon like some meme crypto that Elon shouts out when he needs to dump some coins.

1 hour ago, mMontana said:

I don't want to say nothing againsta btrfs, but I'd won't go on that filesystem as first choice

For a RAID5/RAID6, it's suicidal :3. The Arch Linux wiki is your friend... https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/btrfs. You'll need to go out of your way to do what Synology does and setup LVM2 and then layer your filesystem on top of that, effectively making RAID handled by the LVM2 instead of Btrfs, where the problems lie.

1 hour ago, mMontana said:

ZFS is really powerful, yet not that simple, and requires ram and computational power for unleash all its power and features

I'd say that TrueNAS's sane defaults are exactly that, sane defaults, unless you're using it in active workloads where every last bit of optimization matters, I'd wager they're fine as they are.

1 hour ago, mMontana said:

I don't know if I'd go on EXT4 for 8 bay NAS

I don't see the problem with it, EXT4 doesn't do volume management and RAID anyways, so the responsibility has to be picked up by something a layer below. Makes the lack of integrity/consistency checking a bit smaller pill to swallow as you'd have to use LVM2 anyways (which does have data integrity enforcement, though you do need to manually enable it).

But as someone who went that route out of morbid curiosity, do yourself a favour, use ZFS.

1 hour ago, gvidales said:

Synology now sells their own brand of drives, and if you buy into the new NAS models like the 1823xs+ you'll get a warning if you use any drive but theirs... Level One Techs did a good video about it recently

Thanks for letting me know that, I'll keep that in mind when considering if I ever do business with Synology again.

On one hand, I understand, they're a consumer-facing brand and they want to go the "with the Synology NAS buy the Synology drives and Synology caching SSDs and maybe if you're a baller, the Synology network card and the Synology GPU" which is supposed to make the customer feel at ease and remove the anxiety that purchasers who may have the cash but not the technical knowledge have when they need to source their own parts (and also make some dollar, which I'm not against as long as you do it ethically)

But to someone like me, this feels very "razor and blades"y except the blades don't even subsidize the razor, and not like something I expect something from a brand that I give stacks of G's to. I want a QVL and I want you to give it the same treatment as you give your own drives. I trust Seagate to be there for me when the drives fail within their three year period, can Synology say the same? Probably not.

I'm sure for folks across the globe, you can do a s/Seagate/BrandNameHere/g and it'll remain true.

Disappointing but I guess I should've seen this coming. They did move some of their surveillance software from being license-by-hardware to license-by-subscription.

1 hour ago, gvidales said:

Yes... these and many other things. Luckily I had properly set up my volumes as Btrfs and data integrity enabled.

Here's to hoping my array doesn't suffer from the same fate as yours.

1 hour ago, gvidales said:

I guess the part I missed is that the volume went into read only mode and it started corrupting itself gradually as I started backing up my data.... After a couple days most of my folders were blank.

Then I guess the RAID didn't do its job in maintaining uptime, I'm sorry. I guess having a backup pays off

---

Small question, do you use a UPS? You seem to be well researched and probably do but I'm still curious what kinda UPS do you use, if you have one.

Synology is unfortunately known to do some really stupid shit, like making the disabling "advanced data integrity" by default (Seriously? What the fuck?)

And, IIRC, the default filesystem is EXT4, not Btrfs (which is more in the league of something like ZFS than say, NTFS). Yes, Btrfs has a write-hole bug for RAID5/6 configurations but Synology sets up the Btrfs volume over an LVM2 array, bypassing the problem altogether, though also, limiting the full extent to which Btrfs can be leveraged.

58 minutes ago, gvidales said:

Would have to deal with warnings all the time because Synology doesn’t like it when you use non-Synology branded drives

Synology doesn't sell their own drives, do you mean drives from their QVL? Because I have some Seagate IronWolf NAS drives and they work beautifully on my DS920+

---

The first comment is right, RAID is not a backup, only a means of uptime and it seems like you're treating RAID like that, so by that metric, the drive going read-only seems very much in line with what RAID is supposed to do, stay online.

---

58 minutes ago, gvidales said:

FreeNAS. I have no clue

TrueNAS CORE is the successor to FreeNAS and TrueNAS SCALE is the Linux-based ZFS distribution from the creators of TrueNAS. If you want something with the ability of Diskstation OS (or just want to run Docker containers), then SCALE is the go-to pick. If you want it to remain dumb but reliable (not to imply SCALE is unreliable, it's just not something ixSystems recommends for enterprise deployments), then TrueNAS CORE is the choice you can make.

Though, like unRAID, TrueNAS will demand a larger chassis (I'd sell you by Jonsbo N1 if I could) and if you're concerned about USB drives, use an internal header, get one of these things from Amazon (see below), plug your USB device and tuck it in (if you're using unRAID, TrueNAS cautions against hosting the OS on a flash drive)

Also, ZFS is a memory-hog, so make sure you have a good budget cause you'll need a decent amount of memory.

Saw the video upload and immediately came here, I've started to notice more Cloudflare captchas and longer verification before I can even use the site. What's going on?

17 minutes ago, Levent said:

Yeah I also know of the upcoming lotto numbers.

Sweet! Can you also tell me the all the companies that'll go kaput so I can short them, all the companies that'll boom so I can long them, if society will be further polarized so I can decide if I should simply check out of it all and will he ever come back so I have even more reasons to toss and turn before sleeping due to exhaustion?

19 minutes ago, BigLion said:

anyone know about future prices? thanks

Speculating on concrete prices for products without any leaks to go off, is as magic-crystal-ball-ing as you can go. There are general principles like price deprecation, newer products making the prices of older products slashed proportional to the price efficiency and parity (or improvement) in performance of the replacements which should be kept in mind when making a purchase decision.

So I can't give you a specific dollar value but I can give you Backblaze's predictions for cost/GB, which seem to be falling. Though, a cost/GB (which we'll call c/GB now) number doesn't mean it'll apply uniformly throughout every manufacturer or translate into savings from every SKU (don't expect the c/GB of a 4TB drive to match a 2 TB drive regardless of technological advancement as there's a base cost regardless of capacity that is to be factored in).

Quote

how many years more for hard disks to disappear?

Like the first post said, they're not going anywhere. They're still the dominant means for readily accessible large capacity non-volatile storage. Tape drives can store even large capacities at a lower c/GB at the expense of accessibility (high access latency, practically non-existent random IO), making them suitable for archival but not editing files off.

Just as hard drives are alright for storing games that aren't random IO intensive, large and/or not accessed frequently, storing your Downloads but not suitable for storing your OS, which benefits from lower latency and significantly better random IO performance.

They all have their niche, it's just a matter of what you need.

There are a variety of factors which imo may have resulted in reduced interest over time

• Crypto.
  
  At least some of the contributors have invested significant computational resources into these projects because of projects like GridCoin (which have long usernames) and CureCoin (which require team membership)
   

  Quote

  When prompted, create a username with the format: friendlyname_GRC_CPID. Friendlyname can be any name you want, GRC must remain in the middle and be capitalized, CPID should be your CPID

  Source: https://gridcoin.us/guides/foldingathome.htm
   

  Quote

  Then, navigate back to the folding@home configuration page (which popped up after installation) and fill out your username (exactly as shown in the email), “224497” for the team number, and then paste your passkey into the passkey box. Click “Save”.

  Source: https://curecoin.net/knowledge-base/folding-for-curecoin/how-do-i-start-folding-for-curecoin-quick/
  
  These projects are no longer what they used to be and the market speaks for itself (CoinMarketCap price graphs for CureCoin and GridCoin) not to mention the issues with GridCoin that were reported (I don't know if they were truly resolved, I'm not too intimately familiar with either codebases)
  
  I suspect some of the more profiteering members came and went.
   

• Rising cost of living.
  
  An increased cost of consumer electronics (esp. "competitive" hardware) and geopolitical flux mean that, you have the same number on your cheque even though your currency value has sunken (or even gone kaput entirely if you're really unfortunate to be in certain parts of the globe), while costs for everything else go up. Not as much disposable income, not as much to put into hobbies (though this could be utter nonsense, I mean, have you seen what some mechanical keyboard sets cost?). This makes small and medium contributors less likely to get involved as they upgrade to more budget options as it just isn't feasible to.
  
  Current international conflict and its effects on energy prices are just the most recent reason why people wouldn't find the idea of keeping their computer on for more than they have to kosher.
   

• Competition.
  
  The points and ranking system is supposed to make people compete and feel good about the contributions they make but... it can also have the opposite effect, discouraging people from bothering because, they feel like they're just putting a drop in the ocean.
  
  It took me months, if not a year of my laptop to reach 30M points in F@H (my desktop would've taken years). Two weeks with an RTX4070? Now I'm at 60M. That card isn't cheap and more importantly, it isn't mine. It is part of a build that I'm doing as a gift and I had it folding after I ran out of synthetic stress tests to run until it was the day to go and deliver it to them (sans any BOINC, F@H or other distributed computer software on it). I will let them know I folded on it.
  
  Stuff like that can make your 50k from 12h of CPU contribution feel like a fraction of a drop in the ocean, which is demoralizing. The folks at BOINC have started to realize it and are working on Science United (see their UI/UX goals)
   

• Making this stuff actually work.
  
  F@H's client is based on Python 2.x, which has been long deprecated. RHEL 9 doesn't come with Python 2 and community repos don't have it either. I tried installing it through various means but eventually found this Snapcraft package which works beautifully with NVIDIA CUDA but has problems with AMD ROCm OpenCL.
  
  Three days I've been trying to get this stuff to work to little avail.
  
  But that's just it working, the UI/UX is primitive, calling it an advanced control doesn't excuse not even giving it even minor scrutiny from someone who does UI/UX design, the web UI for F@H more than makes up for it (also big ups this extension that makes it even better) but the beginner mode for BOINC is so atrocious that I run to the advanced mode, which I don't expect Joe Joneson Average to figure out.
  
  If it's not plug and play, not unobtrusive, most people won't bother. For example, most people are used to OAuth based sign-ins (even though I hate it and never use a site that doesn't also offer the traditional email+password login method). Where's that?
   

• Normalization
  
  The number of people who sign up don't equal to the number of daily active users on the platform. Maybe we are normalizing and should re-calibrate how much engagement is too little engagement.

I mean, if installed correctly such that each dual channel pair contains the same make and model of RAM, I don't see the problem.

Also, here, the brand isn't just the same stuff with a different coat of paint, NAS drives have qualities that are omitted from consumer drives, better anti-vibration characteristics (usually with a rating of up to how many drives worth of vibrations it can tolerate), higher MTBF (mean time between failure) and more robust after sales service.

Of course, if you always have doubt, consult the datasheet for that Seagate IronWolf, WD Red you're eyeing up
 

Aside from the other comments urging you to tame your expectations about storage device lifespan (which I would urge you take heed too), here's a few things you can check out

• Check out Backblaze's posts about the longevity of the drives they deploy in their datacenter, here's the latest yearly report
• Read the datasheets about your drives and make sure they're CMR, not SMR, SMR drives are not advisable for NAS usage (e.g. Seagate's webpage clarifying their product line).
• Understand the 3-2-1 rule, 3 copies on 2 different mediums with 1 off-site (check out Seagate's writing on that)
• Research about the after-sales of the hard drive manufacturers available, this is very location-dependent as some brands may have better networks and contractors in your local area than others, other brands may merely sell but offer no after-sales in your country (often because they're imported).
• Do some reading about RAID and various RAID configurations (RAID1 = mirroring, RAID10 = mirroring + striping, RAID6 = parity), Synology has a table that more or less explains what is offered by their product line.

Understand that having solid reliable drives that outlast their peers are the exception, not the norm and that eventually, all drives fail, some sooner than others. That's why we use RAID to keep uptime and alongside that, have a backup. Because RAID is not a backup, it's a means of keeping uptime.

22 hours ago, Melano said:

How would I go about making a "portable" Malwarebytes?

I did some reading and it appears that their kinda-portable edition, named Chamelon has been discontinued, I was under the impression that PortableApps have it but they don't, I seem to have confused their offering of Spybot - Search & Destroy with Malwarebytes, sorry about that.

11 hours ago, Imago said:

As soon as you log in the internet, you get attacked by hundreds of viruses, no need to visit or download.

If you're running Windows XP (just bare, no updates, no service packs) and have forwarded every port to be exposed to the internet, then sure, malware hunting for new targets will probably catch your machine during a routine search of the IPv4 address range (which... isn't as infeasible as it used to be)

But you're probably not, you're probably using a not-EoL not-esoteric operating system and don't expose ports over the internet (I hope I'm not jinxing it for someone), which means malware doesn't just walk in through the front door, they need an egress point (even a printer exposed to the internet is good enough to enter a network of otherwise unexposed machines, for example).

Granted, some machines are easier to pwn than others but they're not that easy. You still need to download and run something, plug in an infected flash drive and run something (there's a reason we don't do autorun anymore), run that totally legit premium video downloader from the hentaisex.uwu ad or if you're journalist reporting in the Middle East, Asia or frankly anywhere at this point, receive carefully crafted non-executable files that exploit bugs in the logic used to parse and render that format to get your foot in the door*.

There's a reason browsers need so many processes and take up so many resources, it's for isolation, IPC and sandboxing. You no longer can pwn a system with just one bug, you need an exploit chain, from sandbox escape to privilege escalation, to actually pwn machines. We've come a long way in security (but so have malware authors, so no slacking, m8). You need to convince the user to actually open that executable, showing them a carefully crafted webpage isn't enough anymore.

Getting your foot in the door is the hardest part, privilege escalation second**, persistence third***.

* - these more complex exploit chains are reserved for mobile operating systems like i(Pad)OS and Android, which have even stricter security policies and aren't as common, though not uncommon, on desktop platforms like macOS, Windows and Linux.

** - unless you're on Windows, privilege escalation bugs seem to be plenty

*** - uhh... about that, https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/01/blacklotus_malware_eset/

Interesting choice of data point aside, it's because of a variety of reasons:

• ISPs can be engaging in traffic shaping and prioritizing speed tests (or throttling P2P connections)
• The speed test server can be geographically proximate to your current location (versus your P2P peer)
• As a general rule of thumb, speed is determined by the slowest link in the chain (i.e. the bottleneck), if your ISP-to-local machine link doesn't have the bottleneck, then it can be limited by elsewhere in the chain

Also, make sure you're comparing equivalent units, MB/s =/= Mb/s, 1 MB (megabyte) = 8 Mb (megabit)

Why are you using Clover? Are you attempting to build a Hackintosh? If so, why are you attempting to boot the Windows installer through Clover?

Probably they saw a school kid and went "yeah, he's just here to troll, tell him to get off my lawn". Regardless, either I call them and ask over the phone or do it myself, the latter would probably kill my keeb for good and the former might annoy those already prone to being annoyed, guess I have my options cut out for me.

5 minutes ago, GarlicDeliverySystem said:

As long as you stay friendly and polite I don't see why this should be an issue?

You'd think. I remember needing a WiFi M.2 module and going from shop to shop to try and buy one and I remember being told to bugger off despite walking in the sun for ~20 minutes to reach them. Some are nicer than others but it takes a few people to make you not want to approach anyone.

Most common variable is that they're all your family members, which means they could all be using the same wireless connection. Have you tried using cellular (only to query for the update, not download it)?

Protection from anti-malware solutions don't stack up, so to speak and running such a strat can interfere with ordinary system use (most solutions have background services, which will consume system resources and tend to hook into the operating system to be able to detect malware better, usually to be able to thwart evasion techniques used by malware).

Funny thing, hooking into the OS to gain a "tactical advantage" is something better-written malware also does, it's not so common now-a-days but I remember when such solutions would flag each other as PUPs (potentially unwanted programs) if people installed and ran multiple of them. Friendly fire, essentially.

Also, from my experience, many free solutions won't shut up and seem to be designed from the ground up for upselling you to a subscription plan that offers cloud services or VPNs for reasons beyond me.

It could be possible that certain solutions are a PITA to uninstall, hence the "corrupt Windows system files and mess with the core" belief, but that's less to do with stacking AVs and more to do with software being written maliciously and/or incompetently (looking at you McAfee). Also, Windows has gotten a lot better in protecting key system files in recent releases.

Windows Defender as your de facto AV and Malwarebytes as a portable install that you run every once a bit sounds good to me.

Though if you do plan on dealing with suspicious programs in general, I'd suggest Windows Sandbox . I'd also recommend Simplewall by Henry++ if you need to block certain applications from connecting to the internet, it utilizes the Windows Packet Filter and so should work alongside your firewall (it will disable your firewall by default when enabled but you can override that), though it does have a bit of a learning curve.

Thanks a lot for the offer but unfortunately, we're continents away. I also don't know anyone personally who does electronics repair.

On 8/6/2023 at 2:16 PM, Heats with Nvidia said:

it should be done by somebody with quite a lot of soldering experience and decent equipment

I guess this confirms what all the other posts have been saying, that it's not a beginner's soldering job.

How do I go about asking shops to repair this for me? I can't imagine I can just walk into a random repair shop and tell them "Hey, can you fix this USB-C port or replace it with a new one" (I'm not being sarcastic, I'm genuinely concerned that just showing up to their shop and cold-asking them to do something would be quite rude). I could just call shops one by one but that feels rude as well.

So I thought I should do it myself. If I had to do it myself, what would I need to know?

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

The car is not their property so they cannot.

I did specify that by brick, I meant preventing you from using online services that the device's functionality hinges on, not total hardware disablement.

On 8/6/2023 at 11:52 AM, MSMSMSM said:

ban waves (ToS violations prohibiting you from using online services... and your device is useless without said online services)

The car is your property, the software on that car isn't, the software is licensed to you as a matter of having purchased that vehicle but it still isn't yours (for example, you own the Macbook but you have a license for macOS, you don't own macOS, simply a license for it and are bound* by it).

If there is statue/case law/regulations that prohibit the revocation of software needed for the owned hardware to be used effectively, then you are correct, they cannot do that.

But AFAIK, that isn't the case in most jurisdictions. Tesla can (whether they should is a whole different thing) revoke the license to use the software and disable it. This renders the hardware effectively bricked (though not absolutely bricked, I suspect that would get you legal trouble, for example, with Sonos' attempt at remote bricking "legacy" devices) though physically it is unviolated (think about how Sony can blacklist PlayStation devices from accessing PSN, which prevents the console unit from engaging in substantial functionality)

If Tesla were to flash firmware that sabotaged that hardware, that can be criminal as it physically damages your car or if they attempt to disable core firmware that prevents the device from even starting at all or from driving, that would be diminishing the core ability of the hardware (i.e. absolute bricking).

I'd suspect effective bricking would be in the legal clear unless regulators/legislators/courts wise up. I'd imagine it would be positioned as value-added/non-essential services (even though they are taken for granted as requirements in a modern vehicle) like maps, connection to your device, apps, service integrations and Tesla-specific shticks like assisted driving, etc.

* - The legal enforceability of EULAs (End User License Agreements) are a legal grey area

---

I would love to be proven wrong. If anyone knows existing legal cases that do not support this line of argument, I'd want to know them. It's this control being moved away from immutable mechanics (can't firmware update a physical lock now, can you?) to software is why I've stayed as far away from smart devices as possible.

The push to always-online, cloud services and subscription fees makes me more disillusioned about the future of consumer electronics and things that are being made into consumer electronics even though they really are best left alone.

It's kind of depressing, I want a dumb EV, something built upon solid interiors and design but doesn't try to do any more tech than it has to. No custom "experience", give Android Auto/CarPlay and if not that, just give me a stereo slot and a place to mount my phone, I'll install something with Bluetooth and an aux jack, then let my phone do the maps and the music.

Don't be a tech company, be a car company and just give me a car that doesn't suck and is completely mine (in letter and spirit) and doesn't phone home.

First and foremost, the warranty of the keyboard has elapsed (purchased Apr 2021) and Keychron has a strained relationship with after-sales services^[1][2][3][4] and reportedly any calls for help fall to deaf ears once the warranty has elapsed so I'm on my own for this one.

Apparently, it's "normal" for the USB-C port to feel shaky^[5] (though there seems to be opposing claims as well^[6]) and while I've felt the port is a bit flimsy at times, it's been mostly fine, until now. If attempting to connect it, the battery light does glow alongside the RGB but no keystrokes are registered, unless the port is wiggled around (and you can wiggle it around quite a bit) till you find a particular angle.

Of course, to get at that angle, I have to tilt the board 90 degrees and brute force the sweet spot but even then, I can awkwardly type a few characters before it is no longer "just right" and I lose the ability to type at all. I can still see the RGB but that's not the primary function of a keyboard.

I've tried about four different cables, cleaned the USB-C port, connected it without intermediate USB devices (hubs), tried different computers, nothing. This seems to be solidly a keyboard problem. Now, I don't want to throw away this keyboard, I bought it as a "lifetime" keyboard, buying the aluminum model (which thrust upon me RGB that I never wanted but eh, I get it, making multiple SKUs is not very cost effective) and the carrying case but replacing USB-C ports seems... non-trivial^[7].

I use a Hackintosh and Bluetooth isn't playing nice so I can't use that.

Now what?

Sources:

I feel within devices that are always-online, the "unpatchable" nature of an exploit doesn't really matter as much as you'd want it to. You still need to use Tesla's online services, they still have your name and credit card on file, they know what you bought, you might be able to trick the client into thinking it has authorization for services that haven't been paid for but it's likely that it'll still make calls to the server, who know that you didn't pay for it.

Now, you could go the normal way and just go "access denied" or you allow access but you log it and if the calls are made repeatedly despite not being paid for and you know your software doesn't allow for such calls without the software being paid for, then... you can hold onto that information, let people get used to it, then start bricking the devices remotely through ban waves (ToS violations prohibiting you from using online services... and your device is useless without said online services) and demand a penalty (or service fee, however you wish to style it) to unbrick it and have your account unblocked from online services.

This would spook modders and even if the device can be unbricked, it'll still act as a deterrence for the casuals.

Now, how would... using heated seats need an internet connection? Ideally, it shouldn't. But, you can be quite creative in making things that don't need an internet connection need one (if not continuously, which would be too disruptive for legitimate customers, but every n days).

For example, you can have a dedicated controller for the heated seats and have the firmware encrypted and require an internet connection to decrypt it or you can, on device boot, as long as device's last online was <n days, flash the firmware onto the controller and then when it's >n days, delete the firmware from local storage, requiring a re-fetch from the server the next time the device is powered on.

This could be mitigated by installing your own chip, which itself is quite an ask from a casual modder, but that can be mitigated by serialization and chain-of-trust measures.

The possibilities of being anti-consumer are endless. The more likely uses imo are vulnerability research and installing completely custom firmware (instead of patching piecemeal, which is simply attrition warfare between modders and the developers). 

On 8/4/2023 at 3:40 PM, PDifolco said:

I'm not at all knowledgeable about Chinese law but I suspect a brand can't sue anyone because they've bought their product, and only if the willingly badmouthed it

If they test/compare stuff brand should demonstrate it has been rigged against them and their product wasn't tested fairly

So it looks more of an empty threat that anything else

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this does not constitute legal advice, this is speculation based on limited information and may not reflect the motives or intentions of the organization or parties mentioned below. This is a post on an internet forum made for casual reading, treat it as such.

Abuse of the legal system to silence criticism is nothing new, even if the lawsuit is so bogus that a first year law student would mistake it as toilet paper, the purpose of such suits aren't to argue in front of a neutral party on matters of fact and law, they're instead meant to perform two things.

• Cause financial and emotional distress on the defendant, as means of expressing the organization's vast resources and the lengths it'll go to, to make its point.
  
  Even if the lawsuit is nonsensical, you still have to hire a lawyer, you still have to go to court, you still have to pay legal fees (even if you're in a loser pay's jurisdiction, the loser only pays if judgement is delivered). The plaintiff can now start using delay tactics, ask for extensions, file extraneous motions, not show up and then send an apology citing "urgent circumstances", etc.
  
  Each tick of the clock costs both parties, except one party has lawyers (probably) on retainer paid by the company credit card and the other has to hire them out of pocket. It is possible a judge could see through it and have little tolerance for it but I wouldn't hold my breath over it.
  
  Vexatious litigation has always been a weak point of the legal system and the court's duty to treat all allegations as credible (not proven, mind you, but only within the realm of possibility and worth proving) and to treat parties seriously, plus the trust the court places in its officers (i.e. lawyers, advocates, barristers or whatever other term may be used) means that... it's uncommon for vexatious litigants and the lawyers who aid them to actually get a right spanking, to use the legal term, from the courts for wasting its time.
   
• Use the proceeds from step one (doesn't matter if they eventually lose after all appeals are exhausted, it only matters that it cost a lot of time and money for the other side) to warn members of independent media that if they don't play nice with the company, it's their head on the chopping block and the court will be the blade.
  
  Larger media organizations can either play ball with the company or tell them to screw off, since they too have lawyers on retainer, see Church of Scientology International v. Time Warner, Inc., et al. for an example of just that

TL;DR: It's a crap lawsuit and they know it, it's to waste time and bleed funds. This kinda crap works on smaller companies, not larger ones, since they can actually fight back.