With friends like Nadine Dorries ...

[Workingman]

.... Who needs Russian Trolls?

We do our best with firewalls and access control lists and anti-virus and anti-malware and we keep our operating systems patched then this p1llock shares her technology passwords with everybody in her office ... and she says lots of MPs do the same thing.

If what she says is true then all those responsible should be rounded up, taken to the courtyard and shot. At the very least they should be sacked with the loss of all privileges. Their gadgets are connected to the HoC network and in turn to more confidential networks within government.

These revelations cannot stop here, there has to be a high-level investigation.

[manxie]

When does the revolution start WM?? hehe

The politicians today are fast becoming a fascical comedy of errors

Manxie xx

[AliasAggers]

The politicians today are fast becoming a fascical comedy of errors. Manxie

I'm inclined to agree with you, Manxie.

In fact, I'm beginning to think there are lot of comedians in all walks of life now-a-days.
What with gay marriages, gender changing, same-sex toilets, etc., etc.
Why do we have to take notice of these idiots?
Is this a sign that the human race is nearing its end?

[Suff]

Is this a sign that the human race is nearing its end?

No we're just changing again. I wonder when it will percolate through the consciences of people that all Empires die eventually. Democracy is another Empire. It is doing exactly what Rome did and will suffer the same fate eventually. Probably not in my lifetime but certainly, eventually. Except the Barbarian Horde will, this time, come armed with Nuclear Weapons.


Come on WM, you know, just as I do, that the less tech savvy people are (and Politicians keep geeks for that), the more likely they are to do something utterly stupid with passwords and IT security.

I heard, last week, that a firm of high priced solicitors, working for our firm, have a mobile phone registered for Multi Factor authentication. It hangs on the wall with the pin number stuck to it and all passwords and required phrases for every user is on a typewritten sheet stuck to the wall alongside it.

Everyone in the office is registered with the same phone number.

A classic case of the solicitors believing that they, themselves, are more important than the people who created their security, so they can just treat it with contempt.

[cromwell]

I can beat that one. I used to work for a certain police force. On of the overnight jobs was to look at the crimes recorded overnight and format them for printing next morning, when the local intelligence offices opened around the force area.

One morning, I get a call. The printer has chewed up the output in X division, could I manually re-run the job for them? Certainly. Just give me the usual user details so I can record the fault. "What is your user number?", says I. "Oh, I don't have those" says the voice on the end of the line. "The lads in the office give me the log on details so I can run this print off for them - I'm the cleaner..."

Other examples include passwords written on paper and sellotaped next to terminals so that people with poor memories can be helped...

[TheOstrich]

"The lads in the office give me the log on details so I can run this print off for them - I'm the cleaner..."...

You couldn't make it up, could you?

[cromwell]

We had a good few true, funny stories Os, but that was one of the best!

[Workingman]

The cleaner!!!

When I was at uni myself and a lad called Andy got a summer job making a load of laptops from a leading building society safe for resale - we were removing hard drives and putting forensically cleaned ones in.

On the back of the laptops there were stickers with the legendary:
Username:
Password:

and they were all filled in....... and worked!!!!

[cromwell]

Sounds about right WM. In a lot of places security takes second place to convenience.