An alternative would have been to use a 'rubber duck' - though this might have taken longer to procure.
How a cheap barcode scanner helped fix CrowdStrike'd Windows PCs in a flash
Not long after Windows PCs and servers at the Australian limb of audit and tax advisory Grant Thornton started BSODing last Friday, senior systems engineer Rob Woltz remembered a small but important fact: When PCs boot, they consider barcode scanners no differently to keyboards. That knowledge nugget became important as the …
COMMENTS
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Thursday 25th July 2024 02:50 GMT anothercynic
Brilliant concept!
Bravo! Someone who thought outside the box, and I'm actually surprised that they were allowing USB barcode scanners to be plugged into the PCs! Imagine if the USB ports had been disabled by policy for anything but mouse and keyboard (although some scanners actually identify as a keyboard).
Nonetheless, kudos and applause (and a beer)
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Thursday 25th July 2024 22:01 GMT teknopaul
Barcodes are cool, use them a lot for test data entry.
Most phones can read them nowadays, so a fallback to type it out by hand is always available.
Natural for any URL obviously.
But for any gui apps I write with data entry, I add a simple feature to auto skip to the next field after reaching max length, and support for typing all fields inc drop downs and checkboxes. Make using a Barcodes scanner to enter test data possible, makes copy paste work too, and makes Barcode readers work in the field for customers that suddenly have a lot of unexpected work to do.
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Friday 26th July 2024 03:58 GMT bigtreeman
Re: Brilliant concept!
Back in the 90s I used a barcode scanner to enter the device serial number into the firmware to program into secure modem micro-controllers, programmed in Forth.
Scan the serial number from the sticker on the box, program, test, assemble .... out the door. Really quick, secure and simple.
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Thursday 25th July 2024 06:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Brilliant concept!
Yup, good thinking.
For those who want to experiment with this themselves:
1 - get a Code 39 font;
2 - print/show whatever you want to encode (well, OK, digits and uppercase alpha) between a starting and ending '*' (barcodes have start/stop codes that allow it to recognise the code, in the C39 fonts it's typicall the star character);
3 - use practically any cheap scanner to read it. Heck, they even come in Bluetooth and Wifi variants and they really are dirt cheap now (in contrast with about 40 years ago when I started using barcodes, a scanner would then set you back for serious money and they were very basic compared to what you can now get for less than €100, and they would not be able to read a code off a screen).
Just make sure you program it for the right keyboard emulation and you may or may not forgo ending the scan with a simulated press on 'Enter'
We've been printing invoice details also as Code39 for years - seriously speeds up data entry.
When you start with QR codes it gets even more entertaining because it's essentially reading a text file which then gets interpreted if certain magic words appear such as vcard or wlan. We have the public WLAN always on QR codes, saves a lot of time.
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Thursday 25th July 2024 08:07 GMT The Oncoming Scorn
Re: Brilliant concept!
Depending on how you program a barcode scanner (By scanning codes funnily enough) you can include scan coded formats & functions like a simulated [Enter] or not.
Sometimes throws me as some work owned wired ones are set up with no [Enter] sometimes that's a blessing depending on the task\application I'm doing.
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Thursday 25th July 2024 08:58 GMT Jellied Eel
Re: Brilliant concept!
When you start with QR codes it gets even more entertaining because it's essentially reading a text file which then gets interpreted if certain magic words appear such as vcard or wlan. We have the public WLAN always on QR codes, saves a lot of time.
Cunning! Now looking for a USB QR scanner. Guessing barcodes might be easier given they've been around for yonks and more readily available.
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Thursday 25th July 2024 09:31 GMT H in The Hague
Re: Brilliant concept!
"1 - get a Code 39 font;"
Please bear in mind that Code 39 only supports uppercase letters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_39
If you use MS Word you don't need to download a barcode font - might help to avoid security issues. The Word Help file explains how to insert bar codes & QR codes and switch between the code image and plain text. Basically, you insert a field, then enter the data for the bar code and metadata (described in Help) to indicate the barcode type, size, etc.
See https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/field-codes-displaybarcode-6d81eade-762d-4b44-ae81-f9d3d9e07be3
For example: Ctrl-F9, two curly braces will appear, place the following text between them: DisplayBarcode "El Reg 123" CODE128 \d \t
For a QR code: DisplayBarcode "El Reg 123" QR \q 3
Then right-click the field to switch between displaying the barcode and the text (Toggle Field Codes).
Also works with Excel and mail merge I think, but haven't tried that.
Couldn't find a similar function in LibreOffice Writer, so in that case you would have to get a barcode font.
Used to tinker with this a few decades ago - thanks for the trip down Memory Lane.
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Thursday 25th July 2024 13:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Brilliant concept!
That's been in there for ages too but let's face it, the regular barcodes like 2 of 5, code 39/128 and EAN et al are not complicated - long ago I even wrote code to generate them on an Psion Organiser II :)
The reason I like the barcode font idea is that that works for many applications, and you scale the barcode by simply adjusting the font size, thus benefitting from vectorisation. Scaling a picture can create quality issues which can impact reading alhough modern scanners (especially camera based ones) cope a lot better these days.
What I like about QR codes is that they have an adjustable error correction rate, sadly often used by marketeers to plant a logo in the middle of it, leaving the error correction to cope with the damage so inflicted..
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Friday 26th July 2024 09:16 GMT H in The Hague
Re: Brilliant concept!
"I recommend you do, I am at 24.2.5.2 and supports both."
I just updated LibreOffice.
Two issues:
- yes, it can generate a barcode, but gives you no choice of the barcode type (and doesn't even tell you what type it uses)
- you can't easily toggle between the barcode/QR code and the underlying plain text
Almost that time of the week again -->
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Thursday 25th July 2024 14:50 GMT Phones Sheridan
Re: Brilliant concept!
Code 39 is a great start to barcoding, but you quickly start generating huge barcodes, as it's literally 1 barcode section per character. Once you hit that problem you move to Code 128 barcodes, which uses compression to reduce the length of the bar code, and to date, all Barcode scanners I've used in the last 15 years natively read Code 128 barcodes, and convert them into your standard keyboard keypresses.
It takes a little bit of work to convert your string of text into a Code 128 barcode, but I've always used ID Automation's microwave-ready offerings for pretty much every implementation I've needed, and unlike most services nowadays, it was a one off purchase.
Yes it's a shameless plug, but it was a useful source of code when I needed it it, so someone else might find it useful, and no, I don't work for them.
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Thursday 25th July 2024 06:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
Neat trick.
I've used it when bulk provisioning machines, it saves a load of time and RSI instead of having to type all the stuff that needs to be entered on a 'Zero Touch' install.
More recently I set up a rubbery ducky with a few buttons to trigger the various bits.
Anon in case my CISO sees this ;)
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Thursday 25th July 2024 07:56 GMT The Oncoming Scorn
Working Smarter Not Harder
I've carried barcode scanners in my toolbox for years, simplifying a variety of tasks like, audits\stock takes, provisioning equipment, license keys, scanning in things like commands into a bespoke server\system app that won't accept cut & paste, or passwords (minus a few special characters) & a couple of take-away stories from one project....
Thanks to a colleagues love of Access, two hardware imaging\provisioning teams were working on prepping machines to ship to as we were working to his list, while the B team worked from the Master list & twice as many machines were being shipped to the sites to the deployment teams......
Story 1:
From this project, me & another colleague sent to do a stock take of returned equipment into geezers Access Database, it was ugly, unwieldy to use (Looked pretty though) so I opted to use Excel, figuring geezer could import the data & while he grumbled we didn't use his tool he did just that, some hours later the Project Manager grumbled that he also wished I had not used the scanner as there was a lengthy prefix that wasn't needed & he was manually editing each serial number to remove it, at which point I asked why are you simply not using [CRTL]+[H] search & replace the prefix, to which our former architect now IT project Manager had never known existed as a function.
Story 2:
Now the deployment teams were supposed to log the names of the users, make model serial number of each piece of IT Equipment on each desk, which they failed to do. I opted to help with a small branch\office & went along scanned the required info. Halfway home the deployment team PM rings me asking me to return to site, I reply that its all in Excel & I'll email it when I get home, she says she wants the physical sheets as she has to transcribe them & I repeat that's its on a Excel Spreadsheet on my tablet....this conversation continued in a loop until the penny drops that I can email them then all she has to do is cut & paste if she just texts me her email address.
So I am asked if I can assist at a much bigger site on the Saturday, I turn up later as I'm not in the shit like the attending deployment team members present for the information gathering, report to the Deployment manager wave my tablet & scanner at her & ask where she would like me to start & off I go. Lunchtime comes around, I finish my area, email the mornings info & look for a place to charge my tablet passing by 5 of the deployment team, hunched over dollar store clipboards writing the information into tiny fields on printed sheets, with cramps in their hands as they try to record all the information.
"Hey whats that?"
Barcode scanner.
"Who gave you that?"
Both scanner & tablet are my personal property, as I prefer to work smarter not harder.
"Barcode scanners are expensive!"
They are about $10 from a e-waste disposal place in town.
I then left them, feeling the daggers of hate & envy as I located a charge point & took a leisurely lunch.
Icon - I've since upgraded to a wireless scanner & I get good coverage around the whole production offices where I work now & sharing a pint for all the other like minded individuals who posted their tales of how they also keep a scanner to hand while I was typing.
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Thursday 25th July 2024 09:10 GMT Doctor Syntax
Re: Working Smarter Not Harder
You could also get scanners which stored what they'd read and could disgorge it as a file. Great for stocktakes - climbing over racking etc scanner in hand. I used vi to massage the data files into a form fit for loading into a rather bigger database than Access.
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Thursday 25th July 2024 09:17 GMT Roland6
Re: Working Smarter Not Harder
It’s a shame a smartphone can’t easily be configured to permit a user to set its USB characteristics. As this would seem to be a good case of having the phone connect as a usb keyboard and using the phones scanner and keyboard to send commands… it would save you having to carry two devices.
Edit: should of done the Google before posting… looks like the CartonCloud app does this and there is also a YouTube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2WPjZ-RhfE
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Thursday 25th July 2024 17:05 GMT Noram
Re: Working Smarter Not Harder
Reading this reminds me of why I got my personal barcode scanner, not for work but home.
I was doing an inventory of my DVD, CD and books, and realised a barcode scanner could save so much time.
As this was 20+ years ago proper barcode scanners were expensive, far too much for me to consider, but there had been a failed internet startup/dot com boom company *CueCat" that partnered with various companies (including radioshack) in the US to make it easier to use vouchers/enter long URL's and a cross platform loyalty scheme type thing, so they created a very cheap "drag along" barcode scanner that theoretically only worked with their software as they encrypted their output and included a unique ID for each scanner (something that apparently was easy to break, it required cutting one pin on a chip or something so it just output the plain barcode).
When they went bust you could pick them up at something like 2 for $10 for "declawed" CueCats shipped to the UK.
I've had a couple of newer and much better scanners since then including my current one that can be wired or bluetooth (with 200 line memory), and they've proven so handy for everything from dealing with my DVD collection (now in 4 figures), to RMA's as I can scan the barcodes for serial numbers on hardware much faster and accurately than I can read and enter the numbers, especially as I get older.
Given the cost of even really small/pocket sized ones now they really are something everyone who has to handle things like serial numbers or barcodes should have in their kit, as it can pay for itself within a couple of hours use.
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Friday 26th July 2024 11:55 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Working Smarter Not Harder
Nowadays you can get a good, rechargable cordless QR code capable scanner with WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity for under €100, and they're fairly easy to program if you want to go beyond the default.
I use Bluetooth if I want to hook it up to iOS, and the 'wifi' is usually not really WiFi but 2.4Ghz connectivity to the stub supplied with it, but that's good enough for a good 30m away from the system you're simulating keypresses on.
Add to that that most of them can also store scans until you decant them into a PC and they're just too useful not to have one lying around. Add to that a Brother Cube+ label printer where the software also allows you to print your own labels and you have a small setup to tag pretty much everything except the cat..
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Thursday 25th July 2024 08:17 GMT Phil O'Sophical
Our home ISP provides a router which allows the creation of a guest WiFi network. I have the credentials for it printed as a QR code, so when a visitor asks, often hesitantly, if they can use our WiFi I just hand them the paper "scan that". After initial surprise "wot, just scan this thing ?!" they're instantly connected and well impressed at how clever I am. They've clearly not stayed in any of the hotels I got the idea from, and I'm not going to tell them :)
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Saturday 27th July 2024 01:26 GMT CowHorseFrog
Any fools knows that most managers dont even know you can disable auto updates. They have no fucking idea how or when or if these things happen.
There is nothing stopping these engineers from disabling auto updates, except having a brain and not taking the lazy option. Like most fuckups, they happen because people are lazy.
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Thursday 25th July 2024 15:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
People bitlock there servers?
We came into the office one morning to find a smashed window, and that all the disks from all our Sun servers had been stolen. Presumably the thieves weren't smart enough to know the difference between SCSI and IDE so I doubt the disks were of any use, but the data on them might have been so encrypting them is not that ridiculous an idea. We had good backups so no lasting harm done.
At least they had some taste, though, amusingly they'd used the otherwise untouched HP kit to wedge the door open...
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Thursday 25th July 2024 18:21 GMT Ken Hagan
I suppose if your VM host is running Windows then it would be possible to Bitlocker that. Alternatively, you could run Bitlocker in each Windows VM.
Neither is necessary, however, and there are (ISTM) reasonable (scalable, headless) ways of encrypting just the virtual discs used by your VMM that don't store the keys on the host iron at all.
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Thursday 25th July 2024 14:23 GMT candyman76
Love this
I think that is one of the best solutions I have heard in a long time. Reminds me of when I had barcodes setup to configure multiple hand held scanners for the shop floor. I love that take on it and going to totally steal this idea for the future. That is a place I would like to work at, totally dig that idea.
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Thursday 25th July 2024 15:58 GMT b1k3rdude
But whats worrying is the BL key was the 'SAME' on all these machines. Typically its 'per machine' so this one-trick-pony wouldnt work in most enterprixe enviroments... (as me how I know)
Er no, been there done that, every time I have had to repeatedly enter some very long string that was the same on a bunch of machine that were being rebuilt.
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Thursday 25th July 2024 17:23 GMT yetanotheraoc
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The article doesn't explicitly say whether they were the same or different. The use of plurals in the quote below implies they were different. At least that's how I scan it. What was the same was the laptop display and the script.
"The firm had the BitLocker keys for all its PCs, so Woltz and colleagues wrote a script that turned them into barcodes that were displayed on a locked-down management server's desktop. The script would be given a hostname and generate the necessary barcode and LAPS password to restore the machine."
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Thursday 25th July 2024 18:27 GMT Niek Jongerius
Zap!
The people picking and packing orders and doing inventory at a previous employer used a barcode scanner to track inventory. The application however required an "enter" to finish the scan. They regularly received pallets full of products, which meant "scan" - "key click" - "scan" - "key click" etc. They had to do this as a two-person job - one scanning and yelling "yup", the other clicking. We created a small barcode simulating the "enter" click, so that became "scan barcode" - "scan enter" etc. The warehouse chief eventually taped the barcode to his forehead, so he could "shoot product" - "shoot himself".
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Friday 26th July 2024 11:01 GMT phuzz
Re: Zap!
Most barcode scanners allow you to program them to do a whole bunch of stuff, including injecting keystrokes into the output. The Honeywell ones we use already add an 'enter' to the end, but you can disable that, or change it via a set of barcodes in the manual.
Not useful to you if this was a previous job, but hopefully it'll help someone who has to deal with barcode readers in the future.
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Friday 26th July 2024 12:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Zap!
It's actually on by default, but we had to disable it for a client who wanted scanned input manually checked. before entry.
Once we explained just how much error correction goes in a barcode (translated: you either get a correct read or nothing) we were allowed to re-enable it and so speed up data collection;.
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Thursday 25th July 2024 22:42 GMT IGotOut
We've used the barcode trick for years..
...just not for this.
Long story, but some our industrial equipment sometimes requires a very long key to be entered to validate the software after a reboot. Problem is, the keyboard is locked inside the case. So rather than unlock the cabinet, whack in a 30 digital reference, we have the number stuck on the side and just scan it in.
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Thursday 25th July 2024 23:04 GMT Jonathan Richards 1
Barcode password
Once upon a time, I worked in an establishment where we tracked the movement of classified documents around the various sections by means of barcode labels - this was thought to be less error prone than hand writing document IDs into a register, which had been the practice between, oh, say 1066 and about 1990. Those of us sending and receiving the documents got a barcode scanner attached to our VT320 terminals, and I remember obtaining a bar encoding program (probably from Simtel20) and printing out my tediously long password as a barcode to save having to re-enter it. Laziness is worth nothing unless it is well carried out.
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Friday 26th July 2024 01:58 GMT -tim
Type, type without the local keyboard
I would like to have a good phone application that pretends to be a bluetooth keyboard that lets the other end send tones over phone call or facetime call or zoom call to send keyboard characters over the line. That would save so much time doing remote admin work. Of course the scammers would make great use of it so perhaps the thing should be able to time the sound reflection to figure out how far away the other end is.