* Posts by mhs1973

7 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Oct 2015

Techie called out to customer ASAP, then: Do nothing

mhs1973

contract language

sounds to me like a someone took what the contract says, quite literally.

e.g. reaction time 4 hours = 3 hours 57 minutes after opening a ticket this message arrives: "We have received your complaint and will work on a resolution in due time."

BOFH: Don't be nervous, Mr Consultant. Come right this way …

mhs1973

the other side

Believe it or not, yes, there is the other side of that equation.

Imagine a sales team, if you will, that promises the customer an all inclusive solution.

And they then sign a contract to that effect.

And then you, the Devops people, sometimes a few, sometimes just one, have to make it happen.

You say that does not exist? search for the "real unicorns have curves" I dare you.

Yes, the grey one. That's it.

The eyes are the sales team.

The body is the look of the code of your software.

And you, you are the soles of those dainty feet.

FBI, CISA: Don't get caught in Karakurt's extortion web

mhs1973

Re: Another bunch of Russian miscreants

Never is not exactly right. One invasion was rather successful. Ask the Mongols.

But what records of this successful event also show, is, that you can only be successful with a type of action that would be, well, not palatable to our own current values.

So the decision is just that hard: Either lose some or many of the values you fight for, or lose the war.

Navigating without GPS is one thing – so let's jam it and see what happens to our warship

mhs1973

jamming isn't the point

but gradually changing the offset well enough to put the training ship from the north sea to lake Geneva.

Sysadmins: Why not simply verify there's no backdoor in every program you install, and thus avoid any cyber-drama?

mhs1973

the fine line...

.. is what you walk, as a sysadmin. Not that I should have to tell that to anyone reading here.

That fine line makes the difference between a usable system, and a 99.999% safe system.

Even if you have proper change control, even everything that you can think of testing checks out, there will be something you missed, developers, testers and sysadmins alike.

That is, why bug-bounties need to be there in commercial software (and be paid out, not reneged on), and that is why you as a developer of free software can never act like there is nothing wrong with your code, when someone asks a (hopefully polite) question.

Finally the penalties for publishing exploits and the use of them need to be so draconian that nobody will even dare to think about it. And that goes for anyone, no exceptions.

BOFH: Where there is darkness, let there be a light

mhs1973

a) doing inventory is FUN, it helps finding 'broken' equipment

b) June 31st? That should have been the hint, that this particular beancounter is, well, shall we say 'creative'.

Caption this: WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

mhs1973

The "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" franchise is actually a bit older then most would expect