rschroeder · NAM SME · ✭✭✭✭✭

It's not only the Feds who need awareness. Anyone who uses any outside providers for WAN services, or who overlaps with WLANs, or relies on a cloud service (A.S.P.'s, please!) needs awareness. At a previous job I would review Novell services on a daily basis, and was very familiar with the number or print services and…

I'd also add every Cloud IT Support Team must know, document, and print out their downtime procedures so everyone's covered when the Cloud fails in any manner. Regarding monitoring, I like what I've learned from the current month's Mission regarding Librato, Papertrail, TraceView, and Pingdom.

I'm not certain how to feel about legalizing hacking DRM. I'm sympathetic to farmers who need repairs to expensive equipment, and who've been accustomed to doing their own repairs for generations. When they find they can't repair their big tractors without outside programming assistance, and the financial cost of that…

I saw the facial recognition article earlier in the week. It's a hoot! And it's an alarming wakeup call. Even given the exceptions and caveats & best practice advice, it's plain to see that faces are not plain to identify accurately by machines. BUT! If I was mistakenly identified as a possible target for interrogation or…

You put your finger on the heart of the issue when you discovered technical people saying "I don't have those numbers." We, as I.T. professionals, resolve issues and move onto the next task or fire without knowing the cost benefit to the organization--because we are not in Management. Management works with those…

I do not fully trust my country's new government because they're inexperienced in governing. Because they seem to be the antithesis of the good progress that has been made in the last 50 years. Because I have the impression they're more concerned with money than things I think are most important. Things like good health…

Still fighting a merger of three larger organizations, trying to get EVERYTHING uniform. Closed out most of four data centers, built up two others to handle everything. E-mail and financials--all shared, all good. Web filtering, still unique per original business group. Internet solutions, two combined, a third still…

I could get on board with everyone sharing their DNA info--even being mandated to do so--only if that same data weren't used to influence decisions about those people. Cons: * Will an insurance agency raise your rates, or forbid you from being insured at all, based on information they glean from your DNA that indicates you…

One day I opened up my PC's Netware view and found dozens of new binderies on the network. And since there should only have been two left (we were migrating out of Novell), I was pretty curious. Long story short, I discovered the WAN provider for my business and a local City IT infrastructure had overlapped the City's…

Yes, I read between the lines and acted accordingly. My comment was for wabbott​ and others who may be having difficulties with this question and its hints.

Many challenges remain: * Teaching people how to create appropriate passwords:* Corporate security standards must be created * Policies must be created to ensure users are required to meet the standards * Passwords must meet corporate security standards * Corporate security standards must be tested and enforced for all…

I'm happy to be the picker of nits for you, Scott.

I see what you did there, Cool Hand Luke. I'd bet anytime your DevOps is slow, you can find the root cause in one or more people. Folks not accepting the changes, not up to the challenges, perhaps simply not trained enough to be part of the solution, so they have become part of the problem.

I can't view that. Do you have a screen shot to put in there? Or maybe a different link to share?

Microsoft Relying on Linux for Security? Well of course! Everyone KNOWS you don't run Microsoft's products if you want reliability, don't they? ;^) What'll They Do When Autonomous Vehicles Replace Professional Drivers? What did postal workers do when e-mail replaced their purpose? Or when Greyhound and U.S. Passenger…

Zoom runs mostly on AWS instead of Oracle? Honestly, as an end user, I don't care which one it runs on. I DO care about the security problems I've observed with using it. HUGE problems. So I don't use it. It doesn't matter if it's on AWS or Oracle, when it's another product with poor security, don't use it and the issue…

Leverage the tools you have and benefit from their work. This is where SolarWinds excels. But don't assume all your automation / tools are correctly setup--or even capable--to do the specific jobs. Verify this before relying on your current configurations & tools' capabilities, lest you discover something was missing in…

July 12, Question 9--I LOVE it! There's nothing like this kind of question and answer to make a person stop being an automaton and start thinking, understanding, and comprehending. Reading isn't enough. Reading without assumptions is required. SEEING what's there is required. You almost had me, wabbott​, with this one! But…

I've tested that option in the past. You get a red X for the day, you get the question "wrong."

"S.C.R.", eh? It makes me smile to read your new description of the event. Have you ever experienced zinc whiskers in a data center? I have! https://nepp.nasa.gov/Whisker/reference/tech_papers/2004-Brusse-Zn-whisker-IT-Pro.pdf When they break off of raised floor tiles, as a result of opening or closing or dropping those…

Oh, the HOOLIGANISM! http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/20170918/snatched-bacon-leads-to-waffle-house-arrest

I appreciated the generically specific information from the Bloomberg article about companies insufficiently securing customers' private data. I read the section pasted below and thought "How secure is our contact info in Thwack?"

When the return of the SQL Slammer was advertised last year, I was surprised it was even a thing anymore. Who wouldn't have known about it and closed the holes that leave their products vulnerable to it? Who wouldn't have replaced vulnerable/faulty applications with new ones without the problems? Apparently lots of folks.…

I'd no idea time zones were so hard until I researched it in the last few years. Our records have veracity through correlation of NTP, but all our businesses work in the same time zone. I don't like to imagine the vulnerabilities accompanying being in more than one time zone. Especially for those smaller, lesser-known time…

I was on the same track--I found a bass amp that was super-lightweight and efficient and I heard it in concert and loved it. I found out the brand and model and it was several thousand dollars more than I could justify. Sigh. I shopped around and found it's no longer made, and is still far out of my budget even on e-bay.…

They are on top of actions or gifts that may be interpreted as possibly intended to influence purchasing decisions.

One PC dedicated solely to SolarWinds products runs the four monitors on the left. A second PC runs the two 22" screens in center, where I do most of my work. The laptop on the right is perfect for mobility, packet captures, and testing. I don't manage the biggest network, but with 256 data closets and six formal data…

I'm running NPM, NCM, and NTA. Do the extras make a difference? Would I still be able to add more polling engines without having to start a new NPM Main instance up?

The article about learning the best skills from non-technical people is a good one. Thank you for sharing it!

Yep. Everything old is new again. Except paper tape & punch cards. Those will always be old. But storing data to DNA--that's cool and new! And you can fit 300 TB on an ounce of DNA, and its archival properties aren't bad--a million years! When I think of the shared server time I used back in the early '70's, via a 2400…