The DMZ - 2011-03-07

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12:29 AM

Am I being overly cynical, or does this strike anyone else as...wonky?

0

Q: I'm leaving my job and want to erase as many personal details etc. as possible; any tips?

Obviously this is very open-ended. But, I'm just paranoid about people going through everything on my laptop after I leave my job. Here are the things I'm planning to do: Completely wipe all browser caches/histories/passwords, etc. Delete my Skype database files and configurations so that nobod...

4 hours later…

4:11 AM

@packs Yeah, I'm not sure it's appropriate for our site.

3 hours later…

7:11 AM

hehe, looks like wildebeest is the popular answer... though noone outside this chatroom will have any idea what thats about :)

@GrahamLee oooo I like @GrahamLee's idea - APT (Advanced Persistent Tosspot). very apropos to this site.... :D

@packs I disagree, I think it does make sense, when looked at from a privacy (vis a vis your employer) point of view. It might need a slight edit, but its unavoidable having some private data on your work computer, policy regardless. It's a perfectly understandable attempt, as long as no damage is done to the employer's equipment / data.

1 hour later…

8:33 AM

Stack Overflow Blog: Stack Overflow and the Computer History Museum

Posted by Jeff Atwood on March 6th, 2011

Last summer, we sponsored the Computer History Museum. The sponsorship coincided with a massive museum renovation for an enormous new exhibit, marked here as NEW 25,000 Sq Ft EXHIBIT:

This new exhibit just opened, and I finally got a chance to visit. Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing is stunning. They took all the computers in their giant visual storage area and meticulously placed them in historical context, with lots of nifty multimedia explanation leading you on a logical timeline through each section. …

3 hours later…

11:46 AM

@AviD not worried about the strength of the language then? :)

12:39 PM

@AviD I'm not saying that it doesn't make sense. In fact, when I eventually leave this job, I will probably copy off all work data and then plop in the DBAN disk.

The question itself just kind of struck me.

Of course, I've run into the situation where an employee wiped their machine in their way out. He said that he was just trying to be helpful to save us the trouble. But there was an open question about it.

2 hours later…

2:41 PM

@AviD +1

I have to ask, what were you replying to?

/me sighs

Vulnerability analysis

"Hm, that's odd. That's a Windows box, but it didn't report any criticals. The scan must have failed."

And sure enough, 'Authentication Failure - Local Checks Not Run'

2:58 PM

@packs Yup. That'll do it.

3:23 PM

@AviD An employee wanting to wipe data from an employer's computer just raises big red flags to me. Would probably be best if the question could be edited a good deal.

Ah, yeah, same here.

Like I said earlier, it is a great question.

Just something about it struck me as sketchy.

I wasn't sure whether or not it was me being overly paranoid, or justified

On another topic: Outlook keeps asking me to authenticate for access to something on our Sharepoint server, but doesn't like any of the (valid) credentials I give. I can hit ESC to cancel the dialog, but it'll pop up again every so often.

Where should I ask for troubleshooting help on that? SU or SF?

3:43 PM

Well, scope matters.

If it's you asking if there is anything you can do as a user, then SU.

If you're the app or server admin and figuring out how to change it system wide, then SF.

4:10 PM

@packs SU then, I guess. I was speculating that being in an enterprise environment/configuration it would be more of an SF thing, but you're right.

I tend to think of it as User Issues for SU and Admin issues for SF. Just happens that User Issues includes home stuff and tends to be a lot broader range.

What's that tag to make something look like a keyboard key again?

Nevermind. Found it. It's <kbd>text</kbd>

For some amusement, check this thread out.

37

Q: <kbd> elements are way intrusive

<kbd> is a great way to mark up text to be entered. But when you use it on StackOverflow-family sites, it's really difficult. For instance, if I say I typed this sentence by starting with a Shift+F, then used o, followed by r, then space, you can see that it quickly becomes an unreadable me...

bug status-completed fun html cosmetic

4:43 PM

I find this whole thing rather enjoyable.

I like how Jeff got downvoted into oblivion.

Cute

torrentfreak.com/…

@packs As if that never happens... Don't get me started on that again.

sudo make me a sandwich

[sudo] password for bryan.taylor:

ICANHAZURBASE hahah almost

anyone have any recs for CISSP books they have liked?

5:02 PM

Sorry, mate. The old guys might be able to help out, but both @RoryAlsop and @AviD have been busy and not on chat much lately.

@packs OLD????

Oh yeah

How is everyone?

Speak of the devil

@RoryAlsop Spiffy... for a Monday.

@RoryAlsop Good to see you in here again.

Sipffy@spelling.win

:P

@bryantaylor re CISSP books, I did buy the ones from SRJ, and they were okay, but I got the best bang for buck from CCCURE.ORG (it was free :-) )

5:05 PM

Now, I must run off and grab some lunch.

@bryantaylor I don't know what you're talking about. ;-)

Working away from home for a couple of months at a client with a restrictive policy...

@Iszi - ninja editing skillz ftw

@packs in case you haven't noticed, rory has a script which sends him a desktop notification every time someone in chat mentions his age

@RoryAlsop yeah thanks for the rec, CCURE is the site with the white papers right? through my university I have access to a HUGE technical e-books collection, so price is not a big deal for me

cccure has white papers, practice exams, links to useful docs etc

SRJ wasn't bad but I just felt they were a tad too expensive

Yeah, I'm not taking the exam, don't have the time for that, but for a job I asked recommended reading for the position and they said just read a CISSP book

:-)

gotta go - but will try to get back on this evening. Better hotel this week. Free wifi!

5:11 PM

Haha wifi is always free for me in hotels ;)

@RoryAlsop Glad you stopped by. We've missed you, pops.

6:07 PM

@bryantaylor Usually me too, but not in the Ibis in Reading town centre :-)

@packs "pops" ;-)

6:35 PM

Drat. I had an off-by-10 error on your age.

2 hours later…

8:34 PM

@packs Do you do a lot of work with network wiring and stuff? (Or do you otherwise have solid experience with it?)

I've just got what probably amounts to a really stupid noob question regarding testing and tracing of ethernet cables.

some. Physical networking stuff isn't something I've dealt a lot in, but some.

Really it just comes down to Tone Generator usage. I know it's something I should have in my toolbox, but I've never actually had to use one. Can it be used on a live cable (i.e.: plugged into a switch or PC at one end)?

My sources say....in the general case it doesn't matter.

And if all you're doing is wire tracing, the link could be up or not.

8:50 PM

Just wanting to make sure that it won't damage the end device.

Meh, what's the worst that could happen?

@packs Could let out the magic blue smoke.

It's hard to put that back in

@packs Exactly

That's the helpdesk's problem :)

8:54 PM

This is mostly going to be used (if ever) on my home equipment.

Oh, that is your problem then

I just had to do another wiring job and got tired of not having the right tools. So, I'm gathering stuff for the toolbox.

One lesson learned: If a guy offers to do a cable run for $30, you'll probably have to make the jacks yourself.

One cable company's contractor did a run for us, for $70. Did a great job of it far as I can tell - ran it nicely and fairly unobtrusively along the necessary path, and terminated it in some decent-looking wall plates.

The new ISP's contractor more recently did a run for $30. And that's pretty much all he did - ran the cable. He terminated the ends into male plugs about 1.5" away from the insulation, and left them dangling out of wall plates made for coax jacks.

On top of that, the holes he made in the wall were just big enough for the cable to come out - I had to very carefully cut around the cable to make it big enough for a jack to go in.

nice

Our network crew is kind of like that.

We have a cabling group. They will install wall jacks, but that's it.

They don't punch down to blocks or anything else.

The only up-side to the whole thing is that he saved me the trouble of going into the attic and fishing the wire down.

The switch guys do that side :)

So was that $70 per run?

9:05 PM

@packs The guy that did the run for $70 actually made the wall plates and did a good job of everything. The guy that did it for $30 is the one that pretty much just ran the cable.

I think the last time I did any runs at my place it took me about 45 minutes per run, including punching down the jacks.

Of course, this was in a late '30s home with all the various and sundry architectural excitement that you might expect when attempting to run cabling.

@packs I've got no problem terminating the cable myself (although if I'm paying someone to do the run, I'd expect I shouldn't have to) - it's the getting into the attic and actually running the cable, and finding appropriate locations to drill holes into the wall, that I've got zero experience and self-confidence in.

yeah

I've considered having the electrical upgraded, some parts of the house still use knob and tube. If I did that I might have someone come in and do a bunch of runs the Right Way (tm)

1 hour later…

10:20 PM

Voting to close as Subjective and Argumentative, but this may also qualify as Not a Real Question:

0

Q: Effectiveness of Belarc Advisor

Hello, I have seen some people recommend Belarc Advisor for Windows hardening, especially for servers. It's supposed to check for stuff such as installed hotfixes and CIS benchmarks (<-- which are great, btw). So question is: Anybody tried it? Anybody know something better? Hypothetical situa...

windows hardening iis

10:39 PM

ello again

@Iszi - yep, Belarc is not a tool for a company, or an enterprise, although it is okay for home use. It does what it says on the tin.

@RoryAlsop Yeah, I wasn't much concerned about off-topic-ness since our scope sort of does include SOHO users to some degree. But you have a point there, too.

dunno whether I should be a tart and write him an answer saying that along with a 'read the faw on subjective questions' line

@RoryAlsop Comment, maybe. Along with mod-hammer close, if you ask me.

LOL - give it one or two more votes to close and I will

Anyway, I'm off. Catch y'all later

10:51 PM

night @Iszi

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