Posts by ThunderCougarFalconBird

Someone has to say it: Voice assistants are not doing it for big tech

Re: Slightly?

In my house, the smart thermostat controls the temperature in the entire house using multiple sensors. And since the thermostat temperature scale is set by the thermostat, a degree is understood to be in what ever the scale is being used by the thermostat. So if I say, Alexa, raise the temperature by 1 degree, she knows to tell the smart thermostat to increase the temperature in the HOUSE by 1 degree Fahrenheit! It really is that simple. Alexa operates with external smart systems via a program supplied by whatever smart system it's talking to.. As for shopping, the smart speaker will use whatever stores you set up in the system. And if you've purchased the fatless milk from a specific brand before through your smart speaker, it will attempt to do so again. If it's not available, it has no way of knowing until it looks for it. Then, depending on whatever shopping app you use, it may come back to you and ask you for an alternative if one is available.

I use Alexa, just not for shopping

I've been using Alexa ever since it came out in Beta a bunch of years ago. I was intrigued with a device in the home that could interpret the spoken command and react to what was said. Since then, I've built up my Alexa by turning my home into a Smart Home. Lights, thermostat, door and cameras are all controlled by Alexa. I also rely heavily on Alexa to answer spur of the moment questions...like, "Is it going to rain today?" Or "what's 250 divided by 4?" this reliance is noticeable when Alexa is not available...like when I'm driving (I don't have Alexa Auto) or when on vacation. I have an Echo device in every room in the house, including the garage, basement and bathrooms. She wakes me up in the morning and puts me to sleep at night. She makes sure the house is locked up and tells me when she detects a breakin or a smoke detector going off. I'm so entrenched with Alexa, I'm not sure I could live without this device!

Payment terminal malware steals $3.3m worth of credit card numbers – so far

Re: Small shops with I.T?

Firewalls should be part of *ANY* use of business IT. All of this stuff could be thwarted by a simple firewall rule

Right? Have these people never heard of firewall rules?

Bad programming for the POS

" MajikPOS also scans infected PCs for card data. This info is then beamed back to the malware operators' C2 server."

This makes no sense to me. How is a POS system designed that allows network connections to any random address on the internet? I get that the POS uses the internet to transfer data, but that data transfer should be locked down by firewalls to only allow the POS to connect to a specified set of IPs. I'm not a security expert, but I mean, this is obvious to me. Every POS terminal should *ONLY* be able to talk to the POS server. And that POS server should *ONLY* talk to the card processor. All other traffic should be blocked at the network level. Who is programming these things? children?

IT blamed after HR forgets to install sockets in new office

One of the first things I tell all new hires to the department I work in in IT is "CYA" "Cover your A**"

I explain it to them like this.

Nobody is watching out for you. Nobody's going to hold your hand and guide you to do the right thing. Nobody's going to stick up for you if it means that the blame will fall on them. This is just human nature. It's unfortunate, but true. With this in mind. make sure that you always take copious notes and screnshots and have these things handy in case you're called on to "clarify" something. Because it's not "If" something happens...it's "WHEN!" And if the other person is hemming and hawing because they don't have the information readily available and you pull up document after document of supporting evidence at a moment's notice, it adds to your credibility.

CYA. It's your "A", it's your duty to protect it!

IKEA: Cameras were hidden in the ceiling above warehouse toilets for 'health and safety'

Legal in England or not?

Is recording employees in the bathroom legal? I know in the USA, it's illegal to record an employee when there's an expectation of privacy.

Apple is about to start scanning iPhone users' devices for banned content, professor warns

This can create an unwanted precedent. It is possible to push files to someone's device due to the web caching function all browsers utilize. There's an HTML technique that allows a website to pre-load images in preparation to display in a later page. Or not at all. I was able to push images to people's computers just by getting them to go to a survey page I set up. While they were filling out the survey, I was dumping hundreds of questionable images from the site "Stile project" on to their computers. Then I asked them if they had any NSFW images on their computers, they adamantly said no. I then went to the cache and pulled out all the images I loaded onto their computers.

If you have someone you want to get in trouble, then you can do the same thing with this silly Apply scan. The bad part is that with my method, any human looking at where the image is located (the web cache) would be acutely aware that this was pushed to the device without the user's knowledge...but a machine has no such consideration. Machines just do. they don't think. This can be a real problem

To test its security mid-pandemic, GitLab tried phishing its own work-from-home staff. 1 in 5 fell for it

The company I work for does stuff like this regularly. If you get a phishing email an *DO NOT* report it to security, then that's a demerit. If you open the email and click on any of the links in the email, that's a demerit. If you expose any secure information like passwords or confidential information or documents, that's a demerit. You are only allowed 3 demerits (a 3 strikes rule) After your 3rd demerit, you are escorted out of the building. I only know of one employee where this happened to them. I was working with her on an issue and I said I'll send a test email. She asked not to because she was already at 2 demerits and as a result, she doesn't open emails anymore...well, a week went by and I saw her out in the parking lot with a box of her stuff. She later told me she had gotten her 3rd strike that day and was gone! Oh well...

'Fix these Windows 10 Horrors': Readers turn their guns on Redmond

Re: up to 3 months delay

I agree. I know where I work, we are only just now installing the June Security Updates!

I've also read somewhere that if a friend comes over to your house and needs to connect to your WiFi and he's running Windows 10, there is a check-box that is checked by default that says that the WiFi password and all WiFi information will be sent to Microsoft. Um...what? I don't think so Microsoft!

Re: No Control of Updating

This is my biggest problem as well. I have a bunch of peripherals that break when Microsoft tries to send a "patch" for it. Specifically, I have a re-badged Lexmark printer that when Microsoft sends an update to it, the network scanning feature breaks. The Microsoft driver for the Lexmark printer doesn't have the scanner drivers in it...This is also a similar problem with my video driver and my USB to Parallel converter. No. I won't upgrade to Windows 10 until they give us some kind of work-around for this.

Exchange Server 2016 will be mostly Cloud Exchange ported back on-premises

Re: On-premise Exchange

The problem is ownership of the data.

If the data travels on networks, servers and routers that do not belong to you and then are stored on servers that don't belong to you, who actually owns the data? And if there is legal discovery action initiated against the data you claim to own but is controlled by a different entity, who do you file the discovery action against?

And if you file the discover action against the vendor who holds the data/content, what recourse do you have to stop your vendor from complying with what they believe is a legal request, yet in your eyes is an illegal search and seizure since it's your data!

These are all very complicated legalities that need to be made clear in whatever contract you sign for a hosted mail service!