INTERESTING: Corporations shift their IT costs

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/20/smartphone-mobile-iphone-technology-cio-network-blackberry.html

JargonSpy
The End Of The BlackBerry Elite
Dan Woods, 04.20.10, 06:00 PM EDT
Companies are increasingly allowing workers to use their personal smartphones for work.

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And now that smartphones are relatively inexpensive and many workers own one, companies are encouraging employees to use their personal phones for work. One retail executive told me that most of his employees were eager to use their personal phones to stay in touch with work e-mail, and some workers could be reimbursed for their phone and texting charges.

Increasingly, companies are attempting to bring personally owned smartphones into the fold of corporate IT, which in practice usually means providing access to MS Exchange or Lotus Notes. This fits into the vision of Organic IT in which corporate IT is delivered through personal technology.

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This brings up some interesting questions like ownership, liability, wage ‘n’ hour, and exhaustion. All questions that the CxOs really don’t want to recognize.

When corporate data leaks onto an employee device with the corporations blessing, who owns it? Customer lists take to a competitor by a job changing employee leaps to mind.

What are the liability issues with agreeing to this? An employees answers a email while driving and crashes defends with “the boss made me do it”.

If an employee has to support “off-hours”, what’s the wage ‘n’ hour implications?

If an employee is exhausted and burnt out, what is the costs of the mistakes and replacing them?

And I’m not even a lawyer; just a fat old white guy injineer who has had to “do” it.

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Posted by reinkefj

GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Homeland Security couldn’t secure its own butt!

Thursday, March 25, 2010

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/03/bringing_lots_o.html

Schneier on Security
A blog covering security and security technology.
March 19, 2010
Bringing Lots of Liquids on a Plane at Schiphol

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5. Department of Homeland Security Theater calls an emergency meeting with the National Security Council, after which it is decided that all bottle-shaped objects (and all Dutch reporters) should be banned from flights.

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From the blog that coined the phrase “Security Theater”, here’s a funny extension. Despite the fact that the incident occurred overseas, it couldn’t happen here in the USA. Right!

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Posted by reinkefj

POLITICAL: Classified to protect the interests of whom? Not you and me, for sure!

Sunday, February 28, 2010

http://campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=625

02/20/10
Hushing Up “Conspiracy Theories”
by Jeff Riggenbach

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When Cass Sunstein and others seem most worried about is historical narratives that undermine the government.

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“Classified information” is classified to protect the interests of Big Gooferment and the ruling elite; not us serfs. Why isn’t everything automatically declassified after say 50 years?

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Posted by reinkefj

MONEY: Beat Airline Fees

Sunday, February 21, 2010

http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/18/nanofiber-clothing-iphone-technology-cio-network-travel.html?partner=technology_newsletter

Travel
How To Beat Airline Fees
Quentin Hardy, 02.18.10, 07:00 PM EST
Garments and gadgets that let you travel light and avoid extra charges on your next trip.

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This was before plausible roller bags, Web sites for lightweight travelers, and all the digital folding headphones, smart phone stands and nanofiber clothing that make the light life easy. It was also before the cursed baggage fees–now beating them is almost like flying for free.

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Of course, I would only fly if I couldn’t get an appointment for a colonoscopy!

It also makes the “safety” case that all that junk dragged into the cabin makes us ALL unsafe should an emergency occur. The TSA should be the bad guy, (It is already.) By enforcing the number and size restrictions on carry ons. The airlines SHOULD charge for all the carry on crap. That’s what SHOULD be discouraged! Make checked bags free; carry on costs!

Argh!

If I were “king”, I’d proclaim the diktat throughout the land. And the serfs would rejoice.

If not for that, then for the fact we’d be using gold as a monetary standard and the gooferment would be cut down to size. (And, the airlines would be running the terminals, schedules, and “security”. Where passengers could sue in the “king’s” court for damages.)

And, peace and prosperity would be the rule though out the “kingdom”.

I can only wish!

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Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: WEP is worthless!

Saturday, January 30, 2010

How To Hack Wireless

Safe for work

Warning for WEP users. Don’t do your banking, or anything important, on that connection.

Don’t you just love command line stuff? How long until it is packaged for the script kiddies?

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Posted by reinkefj

POLITICAL: “Zero Tolerance” for stupidity

Sunday, October 18, 2009

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/10/the_bizarre_con.html

Schneier on Security
A blog covering security and security technology.

October 15, 2009
The Bizarre Consequences of “Zero Tolerance” Weapons Policies at Schools

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The problem, of course, is that the global rule trumps any situational common sense, any discretion. But in granting discretion those in overall charge must trust people below them who have more detailed situational knowledge. It’s CYA security — the same thing you see at airports. Those involved in the situation can’t be blamed for making a bad decision as long as they follow the rules, no matter how stupid they are and how little they apply to the situation.

*** end quote ***

Security needs the ability to distinguish between true threats and everything else.

When it can’t, it’s worthless. It gets overwhelmed with “noise” and the bad actors slip by.

Argh!

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Posted by reinkefj

POLITICAL: Terminate the TSA

Saturday, August 15, 2009

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125012447548327753.html

Airlines to Require More Passenger Data
By CAM SIMPSON

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WASHINGTON — Airlines this week will begin requiring some people making reservations for domestic flights to submit their dates of birth and genders as part of a screening process aimed at keeping boarding passes out of the hands of suspected terrorists, the Transportation Security Administration said.

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I’ve got a novel idea. Let’s nuke the TSA. Make airlines responsible for security. Could they possibly do a worse job than the gooferment?

And, we won’t have to pay salaries and gooferment pensions to all these folks.

Why is the taxpayer in the business of running airport security? Why is the taxpayer in the airport business? Why is the taxpayer in the airline business?

You get the idea!

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Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: Booting from removable media

Friday, June 19, 2009

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/blogs/bizfeed/166570/new_macbook_pro_can_boot_from_an_sd_card_duh_so_can_pcs.html

BizFeed
Smart tech advice for your small business
Robert Strohmeyer, PC World | Friday, June 12, 2009 7:17 AM PDT
New MacBook Pro Can Boot From an SD Card. (Duh. So Can PCs.)

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In the wake of this week’s WWDC keynote, in which Apple announced that new MacBook Pro laptops will finally include an SD slot, the tech press is all aflutter about what they seem to think is a new possibility: booting from SD. Sorry to break it to you all, but this isn’t a new idea, and many PCs have been doing it for years.

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I STILL don’t understand.

We could NOT have malware that embedded into the boot records if we used removable media for the boot process.

One of the great weapons that the bad guys have against us is that “reinfection” vector.

Microsoft has done us a great disservice if the whole architecture of the “personal computer”.

That’s why I’m moving to Linux.

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Posted by reinkefj

GOVEROTRAGEOUS: The Gooferment; do you trust it?

Thursday, May 28, 2009

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/05/on_the_anonymit.html

May 21, 2009
On the Anonymity of Home/Work Location Pairs

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“On the Anonymity of Home/Work Location Pairs,” by Philippe Golle and Kurt Partridge:

   Many applications benefit from user location data, but location data raises privacy concerns. Anonymization can protect privacy, but identities can sometimes be inferred from supposedly anonymous data. This paper studies a new attack on the anonymity of location data. We show that if the approximate locations of an individual’s home and workplace can both be deduced from a location trace, then the median size of the individual’s anonymity set in the U.S. working population is 1, 21 and 34,980, for locations known at the granularity of a census block, census track and county respectively. The location data of people who live and work in different regions can be re-identified even more easily. Our results show that the threat of re-identification for location data is much greater when the individual’s home and work locations can both be deduced from the data. To preserve anonymity, we offer guidance for obfuscating location traces before they are disclosed.

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Bruce Schneier highlights that “anonymous data” ain’t so anonymous. AND, the Census is going to collect geo tracking data in the next census. Good bye privacy.

Who authorized the gooferment to do more than count?

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Posted by reinkefj

SERVICE: Generate random passwords

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

http://www.thebitmill.com/tools/password.html

Generate random passwords

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Posted by reinkefj

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