* Posts by TheNeonSpirit

11 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Oct 2014

India to world+dog: Go ahead, please hack our elections ... if you can

TheNeonSpirit

Bounty

What, if anything will be the reward/bounty for a successful technical hack, as opposed to social engineering?

If it is not substantial a black hat may be more likely to sell the exploit than disclose it..

Naughty sysadmins use dark magic to fix PCs for clueless users

TheNeonSpirit

Re: No quite wizadry but.../ Percussive Maintenance

Probably apocryphal, but in my early days as a sysadmin I was chatting to an IBM CE who told me the tale of a known fault with some external hard drives.

Apparently the fluid/lubricant that allowed the disk to spin would occasionally separate, causing the disk to show errors. The "fix" was to send 2 CE onsite, whilst the senior distracted the customer, the junior placed the manual on a desk, took the disk unit and dropped it on the manual from a few inches a number of times, the manual was to deaden the noise.. This caused the fluid to mix up to a standard constancy and work long enough to recover the data before a replacement was delivered.

Lights out! Newbie IT manager's dark basement trip

TheNeonSpirit

Re: Murph

Circa 20 years ago I worked for a firm that didn't use DHCP on their TokenRing LAN. When people were issued with a PC (most users were connected to a mainframe with dumb terminals) they got a slip of paper with their personal IP address details. I lost count of the number of times the Gateway and Host IP addresses were transposed, knocking the whole area offline..

Pro tip: Servers belong in dry server rooms, not wet cloakrooms

TheNeonSpirit

Not a valid backup

Approximately 20 years ago I was in a situation when I had to take over the running of some systems. When I asked for the backup tapes I was handed a box which at 1st glance looked good, however at further investigation all the tapes were labelled XXXX 1 of 2, there were no XXXX 2 of 2. When I asked why I was told that 90% of the data fitted on a single tape and the operators couldn't be bothered to hand around to change the tape.. Anyway it was OK because "most of the data was backed up"..

I explained this was not OK, and that processes needed to change PDQ..

Sorry, Californians, you can't have this: Asus to build WATER COOLED notebook

TheNeonSpirit

I can see a market for this, it's a dual use device, when docked its a gaming laptop with all the bells and whistles enabled for maximum performance. When undocked its a standard(ish) laptop for web browsing, video streaming etc...

Are users undermining your mobile security efforts?

TheNeonSpirit

Re: Mobile management is easy to achieve

And if senior exec X installs a non approved bit of software and tells all his reports to do the same, which turns out to be malware, what then?

10 things you need to avoid SNAFUs in your data centre

TheNeonSpirit

Re: Dual Port NIC'd

Redundant interfaces on a server = Yes.

Massively over engineering connectivity = NO!!

I have lost count of the number of times someone has said "I need to connect this server into the switch" to which the rely is "which switch", ohh you mean the one that was speced for 6 servers and currently has 8 with no spare capacity.

Health & Safety is the responsibility of Connor's long-suffering girlfriend

TheNeonSpirit

H&S Certification

I had to take a H&S certification a few years back, so I am currently a CSCS accredited Computer Systems Installer for my sins.. Before taking the exam, a multiple guess affair, I was handed a study guide which contained a number of questions and answers.. I incorrectly assumed these were sample questions of the type that may come up, in fact they were the actual questions in the exam, a subnet from the guide comprised the certification, all that was required to pass was a 1/2 decent memory..

The most concerning, to me, element of this was whilst awaiting my turn on the test computers there was a young man nervously passing back and forth thumbing through his study guide. As one point he muttered to himself "I better I pass this time, if I fail a 3rd time my boss will be unhappy*"

*unhappy wasn't the exact phrase..

Telefónica to offload O2 to Three daddy Hutchison for £10.25bn

TheNeonSpirit

Actually O2 bought Be, and Sky bought O2 broadband. I've been transferred along the way and the service has steadily decreased, not by much but definitely a downward slope.

I can see why Sky want to buy a Mobile provider, to facilitate quad-play services, but Three don't have TV or landline services so I can see further consolidation..

No, I won't SNORKEL in your server room at STUPID-O'CLOCK

TheNeonSpirit

I was once involved in a machine room that was in a basement underneath a swimming pool. It was a former chemical lab and the idea was if something went badly wrong with a spillage a small explosion could empty the pool in to the lab and very quickly dilute any chemicals.

When the lab got re-purposed the explosive charges were removed but the pool remained for some time.

Xperia Z3: Crikey, Sony – ANOTHER flagship phondleslab?

TheNeonSpirit

I was seriously considering an upgrade until I noticed something missing from the specification, i.e. wireless charging. I would have thought the ability to recharge without opening the watertight flaps would be a given.

It appears the function is available on the US Verizon carrier specific variant, but hasn't made it to the international version.