Slashdot Mirror
Is it Just Me, Or Is Our Mainframe Missing?
xnuandax writes "Here's a salient lesson for those system security personnel who spend their time fretting over the theoretical crack-ability of their 1024 bit encryption keys. Australian Customs have recently suffered a rather unfortunate set back in their "War Against Terror" with the admission that two of their secure mainframe servers have been wheeled out of the building by persons unknown. I'll bet my $2 that the root password on those boxes was 'trustno1'."
My last contract at a bank we did that; I won't mention the city, but the bank owned the buildings all around it and used them for storage. We had a bunch of contractors coming in for a workstation rollout, and the first day on the job I had them wander around the building, without ID of any kind, and just grab random computers and haul them across the street, using whatever explanation for it they felt like.
it was the NEXT DAY before any inquiries came in.
Oh, they also used the signs on the buildings you could see through the windows as admin passwords.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
It was only on the second last day that someone questioned my actions. Until then, nobody thought twice about an unfamiliar person sauntering up their desk, unplugging their desktop PC, and walking off. Because the old PCs were so dusty, I wasn't even wearing my normal business attire -- instead, I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
This is by no means unusual. I've been to places where the IT employees did not know which servers do what, how many servers they actually have, or what the passwords are. In a place like that, a missing server may not be noticed for days!
I hate to give MS any credit, but even they figured that one out. Check out their Ten Immutable Laws of Security. -- "Law #3: If a bad guy has unrestricted physical access to your computer, its not your computer anymore."
US Federal law says that staff who earn part of their wages from tips must be paid at least $2.13/hr.
:) It saved my ass though, I had to be in like 3 places at once, and got everything accomplished on a very short timetable.
Many restraunts do that. You work, you get $2.25/hr (or whatever the boss is nice enough to pay you). So in most places, the staff are very dependant on your tips.
I tip 20%, and then adjust by service. If the service seriously sucked ass, you may get nothing. If you were really good, you may get 20% rounded up to the nearest $10. ($85 dollar meal would get a $20 tip). Knowing most people are complete idiots who don't tip for good service, it's worth it for me for two reasons. 1) they deserve decent pay if they did a good job. 2) I expect good service next time I come in, and will probably get it. Usually if I tip well and come back another day, I get better than average service. Places I go regularly, I don't have to ask for my drink, they'll have it ready by the time I'm seated.
But, tipping doesn't excuse impoliteness. Well, you probably wouldn't get a tip if you're looking at all your customers saying "What kind of idiot....", but the polite waiter gets pleases and thank you's, and a good tip.
But in some parts of the world, this isn't expected or acceptable. I gave a taxi driver in Europe a $10 tip for getting me from point A to point B in no time. He was polite, held the door for me, yada, yada, yada. He was completely flabergasted that I gave him anything extra.
In New York, I gave a taxi driver $20 for getting me from Times Square to the WTC in less than 5 minutes. Of course, stop lights and lane markings are frequently meaningless, so that helped accomplish the time.
In some US cities, you may be lucky the car doesn't hit you driving away if you don't tip.
Flight attendants don't take tips, and get offended when you offer one. I haven't quite figured that one out yet. If I buy a beer from a fight attendant, they are the bartender, and the bartender always get tipped.
So, maybe in the UK you don't take tips, fine. In some countries it's most of the money that they make. In some jobs it's the majority of their paycheck.
I don't tip because I have extra money. I tip because I've worked just about every shit job there is at some point in time, and can completely relate to them having to deal with asshole customers every day who think that $2.25/hr actually pays the rent in most metro areas.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
My experiances traveling in Toyko paralell this. I've worked as a waiter in the United States and am quite familiar with the $2.13 per hour rule. Tips are a vital part of the salary. Tipping in those situations is not only appropriate but expected. Fundamentaly, waiters can't make a living at their jobs without it.
In Japan, however, things are a little different. Japanese custom considers a gift of money to a stranger (so basicly tipping) to be the rough equivilent of giving money to a begger on the street. Thus the waiter who accepts a tip is implicitly stating that he does not make enough/have enough to support himself and his family. (The Japanese are very focused on the implicit meanings of things) This is an afront to dignity, pride, and honor. Tipping in Japan is not only unexpected, it's RUDE.
I honestly didn't belive the tour book when I read this. However a very polite and kind waitress in a sushi bar explained this to me while I was reeling from the 16 hours of jet lag.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
If this really was a mainframe, then the thieves essentially just got the CPU and no sensitive data was taken. Unlike a Win32 machine, a mainframe does NOT have any data (beyond configuration information) stored inside the box. All data exists on external DASD or tape devices. Unless the thieves wheeled those out, too, they didn't get anything sensitive.
Buzzing the information Superhighway at Warp speed
Region 1 DVD's not allowed??
Since when??
Region Free DVD players are legal in Australia (Thank you Alan Fels!!)
Burma?
At most places, security is an underfunded joke. The only serious security that I have seen is at some military installations, where sensitive areas have MPs with weapons, who actually look at IDs and access lists, and have clear orders to shoot any idiot who tries to breeze through the entrance, even if it's the commanding general.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
You work, you get $2.25/hr (or whatever the boss is nice enough to pay you). So in most places, the staff are very dependant on your tips.
Also, don't forget that minimum tax withholding for waiters in the US is calculated on base salary plus a percentage of the waiter's gross sales (used to be 8%; not sure what it is now). This makes that $2.25 even smaller; when I waited tables, 2 weeks of full-time work would net me a $20-$30 paycheck. It also means that if you fail to tip your waiter you're actually costing him money because he's paying tax on income he never receives.
> "TOO MANY CASTERS" (referring to how they wheeled the servers out?)
Yes!
You win the prize, a decrypted 8-bit character!
Here you go: @
And everyone's right about the moderators. They screwed the pooch on this one. Metamods, go remove their mouse fingers.