Posts by Doctor Syntax 42414 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
Maybe it means that security is finally being moved higher up the corporate food-chain. The bad new is that it might simply mean that existing dwellers up there are simply adding it to their job titles - the Didos of this world could do that without a qualm.
But could you believe anything from a man who can emit garbage like this:"Businesses must foster a culture of learnability"?
I'm sure HMQ can be diplomatically ill so who should represent her? Philip, I'm sure could be relied on to say something rude, but about whom. Charles could give him a good ear bending on environmental matters. On the face of it he ought to be suitably embarrassed if it were William & Kate but I don't think embarrassment's in his repertoire. I think Anne would put him in his place quite nicely.
You know the feeling when you walk into a meeting for a new project. You look around and see maybe a couple of familiar faces amidst the sea of strangers, known obstructionists etc. You give each other a nod because you know you're going to be the ones doing the actual work.
Maybe that will happen here. The pros give each other the nod, convene an actual working meeting and do sensible stuff but keep telling the Trumpets that everything's going just the way that was agreed in the official meeting.
Meanwhile https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/171928 is heading towards the million mark. (Actually I think it ought to have said he should be held at the airport & deep-vetted before being allowed in, if at all.)
"People opening mails from paypall.com or paypal.be (im assuming paypal dont own all tlds)"
They own paypall.com and paypal.be is "not available" so I guess they've got a lock on that. In general someone in Paypal's position will be pretty thorough at getting likely faked names under control. If they miss one and assuming verification were de rigeur then anyone wanting to use one would have to register it themselves and leave some sort of trail for fraud investigators. At present it's not a problem for spammers to simply put in paypal.com as I'm sure we've all seen multiple times.
"This is not some special agreement between gmail and paypal but is based entirely on open industry standards"
As things stand this is entirely optional as you make clear: "I have implemented the same anti-spoof protection for some of my own domains".
Until this is universally required the situation remains, you can still be pwned by a forged email header.
"Here is the UK quite a lot of ISPs won't let you send email using their severs that doesn't have your correct address in the 'from' field."
If you don't use their servers that has little effect. It would stop a simple spambot from using their servers which might get them blacklisted and I suspect that's the limit of their worries.
It would only be an effective means of stopping forged headers if they also prevent you from using some other provider's server. Having had my own domain through several changes of ISP the latter case hasn't been a restriction and the fact that so many spams do have lying From: lines makes it quite clear that it's not a restriction in general.
"a cloned email address imitating a department issued email address"
IOW, a From: line can say whatever the sender wants it to say. It's all that the recipient sees because they're not really going to dig down into the rest of the headers and a requirement for verification isn't built into our email protocols.
We don't need to have to train users. We don't need to have email clients pop-up warnings. We don't need to have to run anti-virus on attachments or prevent them being opened. We need to bounce the mail at the recipient's service provider so that the recipient never sees any mail that doesn't come from where it claims to come from.
This may, of course, close off the route whereby some bank or other business has a commercial spammer digital marketing business send you marketing emails pretending to come from themselves. Oh, what a crying shame!
A long time ago I realised that there are two modes of thinking and any individual almost certainly operates well in only one.
One is suited to complex tasks. It requires deep thinking. Getting into a problem takes time as there's a lot to be assimilated. Getting out can also take time; being yanked out of a deep problem is painful.
The other is suited to simple tasks. The tasks only require simple thought. They are quickly started and dealt with.
Both modes have their uses, one to deal with complex problems and the other to deal with a lot of small tasks because this mode enables one to pass rapidly from one task to the next.
The latter is, of course, the normal mode of thinking of the administrator. The downside of this is that they're unable to achieve the depth of thinking that would enable them to realise that the alternative mode exists, that it's often that used by the people they're administering and that the sorts of reporting schemes they come up with are deeply hostile to it. They'll be able to see the measurement of the time being spent on responding to their recording schemes and accept it as the expected cost of recording but they'll not be able to think deeply enough to see how disruptive it is to the main task nor even that the main task is the important one.
"you've designed your roads wrong."
Now tell me something I didn't know!
And now you've got me started on traffic lights. A few weeks ago we had road works on a side road almost adjacent to a junction. They needed to put TTLs because for the side-road traffic but because the obstruction was so close to the junction they had to put them on the main road itself, a light either side of the junction. They positioned the generators & what not on the main road opposite the junction occupying the whole of that lane. No real problem, just a normal three-way light set up - except it wasn't. They installed 2-way lights, the side road being one way and the lights on both directions on the main road being the other. So anyone driving along the main road, expecting three-way lights, found themselves, on a green light, driving straight into oncoming traffic, also on a green light, on the same side of the road. Fun!
"And the UI designer has to sit in the room and answer all their questions, help whenever they ask, repeat how it all works all over again, and generally tolerate them trying to do the same things that everyone else has to do."
No. There's a far more evil effective version. The only questions the UI designer are allowed to answer are those of the "Where does it tell me how to...?" variety. It requires the presence of an invigilator. The nominal reason for the invigilator is to keep this Q/A on the specified lines. The real reason is to prevent violence.
A similar version should be used with town planning officials who are responsible for navigational road signs. The test driver is allowed to pose the questions as loudly and offensively as seems appropriate and to receive answers in real time. The invigilator may have the additional task of preventing the designer jumping/being pushed out of the car.
Beeb report with pictures of the plans here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-38755219
Looking at pictures of Scottish distilleries on Shutterstock most seem to be rendered white which would match Princetown buildings and the tower on the plans is said to be purely cosmetic. There seems to be no good reason not to have produced a design which would have respected local styles and wouldn't have been out of keeping with Scottish distilleries in either the lack of tower or the colour of render.
"Not intrinsically: a cloud service can be built to be much more secure than most people can build their own."
That may be true from a vendor's point of view. From the user's point of view the vendor has to be added to the risks to be considered. However trustworthy the vendor might be in the first place ownership, management and staffing can change and, depending on data sovereignty, the cloud could be suborned by TPTB along with a gag order.
It's somebody else's computer. You don't know what's happening there.
"Interesting that a figure that has a margin of error in absolute terms 300% that of the original figure (1.33% margin of error vs 3.76%) is regarded as more accurate."
You're confusing accuracy with precision.
I have a tape measure graduated in cms & mms. I can use it to measure with a precision of 1mm. Unfortunately it's stretched so I can only measure with an accuracy of 10%.
"Trump is acting as if he wishes to isolate the USA from the rest of the world."
I'm glad to see him cracking on with it so much faster than us. With any luck he'll make the US a splendid example of what can go wrong to show the Brexiters whilst we still have time.
