Posts by Great Southern Land

KPMG tells staff facing the axe: Here's £100, now zip it

>>>I'd say the court should cockblock ALL executive bonuses

I came to the conclusion years ago that executive bonuses were funded from savings in the staff salary budget.

Microsoft extends the Outlook naughty step with two more file types

Re: Back in the day, we needed to transmit executable files through e-mail...

>>>.. and putting their extension as .txt worked fine, which is exactly backwards, and worked out just fine.

My last employer wasn't that stupid. The email gateway didn't look at the extension, it looked at the contents of the file.

Zipping and password protecting didn't work either. If the gateway couldn't open the file, it blocked it.

BT Tower's rooftop pool plan brings swimmers back down to earth

Re: Not a moment too soon

>> Kitten Kong is desperate for a drink.

His name was Twinkle.

Terminated employee cost company hundreds of thousands of dollars because nobody revoked access

Re: Expiration dates can help

>>>It was such a routine thing, that calling the IT helpdesk line the first option after the automated greeting was "To unlock your account, press 1".

Some of the people I've worked with would have needed that sequence programmed into a speed-dial on their desk phone.

Then of course there's the security risks (Hack someone's account, trigger "too many tries" lockout, call IT, hit speed dial, hack again.....)

Energy biz SSE smacked around in court by a guy and AI

Not necessarily...

>>>Yet even after Hopkins won, the billing continued. Following the judgement on July 17, another bill dated July 23 went out.

It's not necessarily further harassment. The 23/7 bill was probably generated several days before the issue date, to allow time for printing, and sent out on the issue date. Once such correspondence is generated, it's usually too late to stop it, especially if an outside printing house is involved.

Flock cameras go up in flames as cops hunt suspected firebugs

Re: Puzzled…

>>I once hit a pigeon full on with a car, and the explosion of feathers that ensued scared me half to death.

I hit a hare one day, out in Central West NSW. When I looked in the rear-view mirror, it was bouncing along the side of the road in a huge cloud of fur.

Expired credit cards revived by researchers to make unauthorized payments

Re: "Let the dumpster dive for discarded cards begin"

>>>so some stranger would have to tear through all my trash...

Put it in the bag with the contents of the cat's litter box.

Astronomers spot exomoon candidate that's almost as massive as Jupiter

Wonder if they've just discovered Star One (Blakes 7 fans will know this)

Datacenter MacGyver saved the biggest football match of the year

Re: Close call

>>I once did a mandatory fire training course where the presenter showed the Bradford fire in real time

Same here (Newcastle NSW). Scary stuff.

Re: Close call

What concerns me is that they don't seem to learn from disasters such as these.

The world has been on notice at least since that Buenos Aries incident in 1968, and yet there have been multiple similar incidents since then.

Waymo hits the brakes after robotaxis keep missing the signs for freeway construction zones

Re: Guess you haven't read articles / seen pictures

>>Ok what about an Army checkpoint in N. Ireland? I'm supposed to just drive straight through because they aren't an authorised traffic officer?

You can try, but I suspect it's on the list of things you'll only do once.

London’s BT Tower to get rooftop swimming pool

Re: Do you remember when...

>>>Goering announced that the Luftwaffe could do it on their own.

Really? The Luftwaffe had enough JU52 Transports to transport 40 Divisions?

Re: Do you remember when...

And from Duncan Campbell's account of the (in)famous ABC Trial:

"one Sigint unit chief was shown a road sign outside his base:

Q: Is that the name of your unit?

A: I cannot answer that question, that is a secret.

Q: Is that the board which passers-by on the main road see outside your unit’s base?

A: Yes.

Q: Read it out to the jury, please.

A: I cannot do that. It is a secret."

Every employee’s password was stored in a single Excel file

Brainless

Congratulations CEO, you've just taken personal (and legal) responsibility for every Unauthorised Access incident in the company.

And the Head of IT should be in the Dock with him, for letting it happen in the first place.

Watch out UK taxpayers: 28,000 HMRC staffers just got an AI copilot

Re: AI and client scamming

>>>Don't just send one letter, send three or four about it, each of which gives half the story and preferably a lot of irrelevant distractions as well.

You haven't been reading "The Throwback" (Tom Sharpe) by Any Chance?

AI sackings reach New Zealand, which will use it to eject 14 percent of government staff

More ministries than you think

>>>Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced the job cuts yesterday, in a speech that saw her bemoan the fact that New Zealand’s government comprises 39 departments and ministries, and compared that to the 16 in Australia and 24 in the UK.

Don't forget Australia's state governments, each with similar sized ministries.

If anything, NZ has an advantage over Australia, not having state governments.

Royal Navy chief backs drones, autonomous weapons in ‘Hybrid Navy’

Royal Navy

Since when is the First Sea Lord a General?

NASA Inspector fears new spacesuits won’t be ready for Moon landing

Re: What the actual?

>>Or is this just one huge clusterfuck on all sides?

Don't forget politics usually plays a role in such messes

Re: spacesuits won’t be ready for Moon landing

>>I can imagine the complete dogs breakfast if the Berlin Airlift were contemplated today.

Or the Normandy Landings....

US clarifies mobile hotspots part of foreign router ban despite rarity of American made consumer kit

>>Is the US prison work system no longer up to the job?

They're too busy making licence plates.

ServiceNow allegedly says salesman 'overachieved' and is not entitled to comp

Screwing Over Employees 101

The employment contract probably had a clause allowing the company to change it at any time, without the employee's agreement.

Amazing what they're teaching MBA candidates at Wharton and Harvard Business Schools these days.

Engineer sabotaged hardware then complained when it didn't work

Re: Not the same, but ...

>>>I find removing the prying fingers and empty skulls accomplishes much the same result.

Keeping boltcutters and a baby chainsaw on your desk should prevent the problems occurring to begin with.

UK copper fired after faking keyboard taps using photo frame

Not the whole Story

(blatant quote of an old post of mine)

The problem with these monitoring (bullying) systems is that they never give the full story.

Sure, you can measure how often a worker's computer is idle, how often the screen is locked, how many phone calls they made or answered today, how many forms they processed, how many keystrokes, etc.....

The problem occurs in the interpretation of that data. It can never tell the whole story. Low keystrokes? Could be a slack worker, or a worker who spent the day waiting to give evidence in court, or spent the day in training (giving or receiving).... The software can't explain any of that.

From the stories I've heard over the years, management don't seem to bother checking first before using the resulting reports to justify disciplinary action against the worker. The worker usually has no access to the report data, won't necessarily remember a day's work 1-2 weeks ago, and if he/she is called in to the manager's office, the onus is usually on the worker to explain the discrepancies, not the manager/organisation. It cannot be assumed that poor results on their own mean a poor worker, but all too often that's what management assumes.

BOFH: Nobody would be stupid enough to go live with the mirror system, surely

>>>...what spices to add to drinking water to mask the flavor of thallium.

It's tasteless, which is why it's a popular poison for such purposes.

Dutch cops arrest man after sending him confidential files by mistake

>>>>I'm not sure how anyone could not be aware that there are some seriously fierce laws against unauthorised data access that it's better not to mess with.

And computer systems it’s best not to mess with (police, government and banks spring to mind)

UK council faces data breach claim after mishandling trans complaints

Re: Guide to redaction

And finally:

6: Document all steps taken to redact the document;

7: Keep a copy of the redacted document.

CYA 101

Fired techie admits sabotaging ex-employer, causing $862K in damage

Re: But think of the upside

>>Lost your job?

>>No income?

>>How about 10 years of free rent and food?

And a roommate called Bubba.

Cases such as this are a good advertisement for 2FA.

Not only would this idiot have been unable to get in to do what he did, the rightful owner of those credentials would have known something was wrong when his/her SMS or Authenticator App pinged.

The most durable tech is boring, old, and everywhere

Re: In the raw

>>>you can't expect them to change working processes more than once every 50 years.

And when they do, it ends in disaster. ChatGPT for drawing up legal documents, complete with false case references anyone?

‘ERP down for emergency maintenance’ was code for ‘You deleted what?’

Re: Nah

Isn't this what Data Warehouses were invented for?

COPIES of production data held on a separate system.

'Fax virus' panicked a manager and sparked job-killing Reply-All incident

Re: Solicitors

>>Some firms still don't accept service by email though..... If the email service takes place on the first day that person is on holiday and the date for responding is before he returns, tough; the deadline has been missed.

And that's why the company letterhead should show an address along the lines of [e-mail] for service of documents, in the same way as a fax number.

Need I also add that if someone is on leave, their email should be forwarded to someone (eg reception, manager, colleague)?

Re: Fax machines, that brings back memories

Tasmanians would sympathize with the problems of late night fax calls

Prior to Australia's change to 8-digit phone numbers, Sydney Area Code was 02, Melbourne was 03, Tasmania was 002, 003 and 004, depending on which part of the state.

As a result, it was rather common for Tasmanian voice lines (especially 002 and 003 numbers) to go off in the middle of the night, thanks to incoming international faxes where the sender failed to drop the first 0 from the area code.

The problem was solved by the 8-digit changeover, where Tasmania became part of 03, and their existing 6 digit numbers were changed to 62xxxxxx, 63xxxxxx, 64xxxxxx

Client defended engineer after oil baron-turned tech support entrepreneur lied about dodgy dealings

A Sting in the Tail

While I can't speak for UK law, the situation in Australia is...

In an Australian company wind-up, "preferential payments" are voidable payments made to a creditor in the six months before liquidation, giving them an unfair advantage over other unsecured creditors. A liquidator can demand the repayment of these "unfair preferences" to ensure a more equitable distribution of the company's assets among all creditors. The six-month period can extend to four years if the payment was made to a "related party"

In other words, even if you managed to get payment before the debtor went under, if the liquidators can show that you had a reasonable suspicion of the debtor's situation, expect a polite request to hand over the cash.

>>What the guy from oil and gas did was a bit crude

And such a refined guy too.

Techies tossed appliance that had no power cord, but turned out to power their company

Like finding an old couch left out in the street. Turn it upside down and shake well, and you never know what you might find.

And why wasn't the kit identified in the first place? Especially if it was critical to the firm's internet access.

Microsoft lets bosses spot teams that are dodging Copilot

>>You WILL use the AI slop.

>>You WILL comply.

Try saying it in a Dalek voice.

Microsoft lets devs tell Copilot to STFU in Visual Studio

Re: Even CNN today writes about a "vibe shift" in AI reporting

>>Common sense will be a thing of the past

Too late, it's already happened.

CIO made a dangerous mistake and ordered his security team to implement it

Re: C.Y.A.

>>The most important acronym in the entire IT industry...

Not just IT, but the entire corporate world.

Microsoft Research chief scientist has no issue with Windows Recall

Re: Two thoughts spring to mind...

>>The OS displayed a warning along the lines of "this will take a lot of processor time, don't do it". Yet they think it's OK to take processor time to do frequent screen grabs and even more processor time to perform OCR on said screen grab.

And that of course is why they don't want you to show seconds. It takes up processor time that could be more profitably used running Recall.

Basic projector repair job turns into armed encounter at secret bunker

Re: Fun at the DTI

>> Official Secrets Act is probably a good starting point. You'd be surprised what they can classify as "secret".

Such as the BT Tower in London.

US Navy backs right to repair after $13B carrier crew left half-fed by contractor-locked ovens

>> Delivery of said engineer can include Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning style of submarine link up.

Or the style of delivery used to get Jack Ryan to USS Dallas in "Hunt for Red October"

Trump threatens to add formal Apple Tax on top of the 'Apple tax'

Re: Partners are leaving to start their own firm

>>>does that mean no more security fixes if you have a .gov domain?

It could mean no more licences for MS products.

No more Windows, Windows Server, SQLServer, Office, Exchange Server..........,

Techies thought outside the box. Then the boss decided to take the box away

Re: Shredder

>>His justification was that as gay guys their dogs were the equivalent of children.

Especially since Animal Welfare laws generally require that we treat household pets in the same way as we treat our kids.

DoorDash scam used fake drivers, phantom deliveries to bilk $2.59M

Doordash IT Security questions

>>one of them is XXXXX, and was briefly employed by DoorDash in 2020

So why weren't his credentials revoked after he left?

People find amazing ways to break computers. Cats are even more creative

Not Surprised

My cat has a habit of trying to bite the top corners of my iPad and Kindle if I'm using either of them while lying on the bed. Just something they do, I guess.

AI chatbot startup founder, lawyer wife accused of ripping off investors in $60M fraud

>Lau earned the obstruction charge by allegedly deleting files related to her work with the San Francisco-based GameOn from her employer's records while a grand jury was investigating the matter.

Why weren't her files copied as part of the investigation, prior to referral to a Grand Jury? The article implies that the files were deleted AFTER the Grand Jury commenced.

While I'm not promoting deliberate deletion of records, this smells of entrapment.

Tech support warrior left cosplay battle and Trekked to the office

Re: What's the weirdest outfit you've worn to a tech support job?

>I believe the term used in that situation is "meat crayon".

Or, "Organ Donor"

That hardware will be more reliable if you stop stabbing it all day

Re: This is why ergonomics matters

And that's why boxes should have the barcode printed on all 6 surfaces. That way, no matter which way the box is facing, there will always be a visible barcode.

Yes, your network is down – you annoyed us so much we crashed it

Re: Can't recall the mechanism

The Australian Taxation Office used to operate this way as well.

However, after a number of high-profile windups where the employees and small businesses got nothing, the law was changed.

Now, directors of a company can be held personally liable for PAYE, GST and employee Superannuation debts.

Gets the attention of "silent" directors real fast.