[Sussex] Teasing the Vendors

[Geoff Teale]

Hmmm

Well, I have two very similar tales... 

00000000	

IN my last job a sales guy from RipSaw (a manufacturer of QNX based kiosks)
bought in a new kiosk product for us to test.  He proudly announced that the
kiosk was a 100% secure system.  He then had to sit back and watch while
Larissa busted the lock on the access panel with a screwdriver, inserted a
QNX install disc , mounted the flash and did a rm -rf * 

Moral of the story - never tempt a Croatian R&D engineer ;)  

10000000

Again, at my old joint they used to force us all to go on MCP courses (and
actively encouraged us to take the MCSE exams) - nothing actually wrong in
that, but we got onto the courses to discover that the trainer was clueless.
This had been noted before, but this time round he had the misfortune to be
infront of a room that was composed of 8 Unix Sysadmins and two Technical
Consultants from the R&D/Special Projects group.   

This particular course was on setting up a Network using Windows NT 4
*yawn*.  The room was laid out as two rows of five machines for students and
an instructors machine at the front of the class acting as the PDC.  THe
instructors machine was hooked up to a projector that displayed his desktop
for the class to see.

The instructor talked us through the process (from the book) of securing the
PDC and then went on to spout on about the importance of security and how
Microsoft were market leaders in this field.  Finishing his lecture on the
subject he turned and smugly patted his machine - "this is now a secure box"
he claimed.  At that very moment Nick (a Unix sysadmin) and I completed our
work, and there on his desktop, for all the class to see was a picture of
Tux next to the word "Secure?".

We therefore taught him the first lesson in security - when you set your
password, it helps if it isn't "Password" ;)

He didn't come back to train us any more after that..


-- 
geoff.teale at claybrook.co.uk
tealeg at member.fsf.org

"make music like mercy that gives what it is and has nothing to prove"
 - Ani DiFranco "Up Up Up Up Up Up"


The above information is confidential to the addressee and may be privileged.  Unauthorised access and use is prohibited.
 
Internet communications are not secure and therefore this Company does not accept legal responsibility for the contents of this message.
 
If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful.
 
Claybrook Computing Limited is a subsidiary of Claybrook Computing (Holdings) Limited
Registered Office: Abbey House. 282 Farnborough Road, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 7NJ
Registered in England and Wales No 1287205
 
A Hogg Robinson plc company