Dear Users... (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people) - Page 69

JoeMorgue · 20th November 2020, 10:08 AM

It's okay. We're all beat by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the Royal Printers in London who in 1631 omitted the word "not" from "thou shalt not commit adultery" in the Book of Exodus in their printing of the King James Bible.

They got called before the Crown and the Archbishop of Canterbury to explain themselves, fined about 50,000 dollars in modern money, and had their printer licenses revoked.

TragicMonkey · 20th November 2020, 11:03 AM

Originally Posted by JoeMorgue

It's okay. We're all beat by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the Royal Printers in London who in 1631 omitted the word "not" from "thou shalt not commit adultery" in the Book of Exodus in their printing of the King James Bible.

They got called before the Crown and the Archbishop of Canterbury to explain themselves, fined about 50,000 dollars in modern money, and had their printer licenses revoked.

Ah, yes, "the Wicked Bible". Caused quite a stir over such a simple mistake.

While the previous year there had been a similar error with "the Bizarre Bible" which accidentally replaced the entirety of the Book of Daniel with the words "lettuce hippopotamus all that she wants is another baby she's gone tomorrow ninja crocodile" repeated over and over. It took fifty years before anyone noticed.

Wudang · 20th November 2020, 12:25 PM

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

While the previous year there had been a similar error with "the Bizarre Bible" which accidentally replaced the entirety of the Book of Daniel with the words "lettuce hippopotamus all that she wants is another baby she's gone tomorrow ninja crocodile" repeated over and over. It took fifty years before anyone noticed.

They still haven't noticed a similar mistake for Revelations.

TragicMonkey · 20th November 2020, 12:35 PM

Originally Posted by Wudang

They still haven't noticed a similar mistake for Revelations.

Sigh. [pedant]That's not the name of that. It's not "The Book of Revelations". It's "The Book of Mega Star Crystal Princess Megumi-chan and the Magical Robo Knights".[/pedant]

The Man · 21st November 2020, 08:27 AM

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

Yeah, we're going through the process of migrating to Office 365 right now. It's a pain, but I do believe that it will be better when the process is complete.

Now that the process is more or less complete, it definitely is better in a number of ways. It's faster and less prone to random errors, and Outlook doesn't seem to drop into Working Offline for no apparent reason any more.

The transition has been pretty tricky, but I think we're better off for it.

We were using G-mail but moved to Office 360 some years ago. Unfortunately our G-mail documentation wasn't transferring very well. Fortunately, our customer, at this site, was using G-mail and since that documentation was mostly reporting for them and we all had been given customer G-mail accounts. We migrated that documentation to the customers G-mail site. Now I have two work E-mail accounts and even two work computers. As part of the customers system security is that their accounts and sites should only be accessed on their equipment. So work from my company, that i create on our computer, I have to E-mail to myself on their E-mail site to print out on their printers from their, provided to me, laptop.

TragicMonkey · 21st November 2020, 10:17 PM

I just spent about nine hours (on a Saturday!) to figure out a weird variance between two SQL queries that should have been returning identical results. Turns out that, for whatever arcane processing reasons, if you happen to be doing a partition by window function to assign row numbers and order it by multiple columns and specify descending for one of them, you then have to specify ascending for the others instead of just leaving it assumed because it may decide to just do that second column descending, based on whatever it feels about the rest of the query.

It only affected 16 results out of 340,000 and nobody but me would have even noticed, but god damn I could not relax until I figured out why it was happening! Or rather, how to fix it. The why of it has something horrible to do with "parallelism" and the workings behind SQL processing. I don't go too deeply into that stuff because it hurts my brain and drives me mad. MAD, I tell you!

Thankfully it's such a blastedly niche situation it will be unlikely to ever occur again in my work. Still, if it does, now I know! Hooray!

RecoveringYuppy · 21st November 2020, 10:35 PM

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

... if you happen to be doing a partition by window function to assign row numbers and order it by multiple columns and specify descending for one of them, you then have to specify ascending for the others instead of just leaving it assumed because it may decide to just do that second column descending, based on whatever it feels about the rest of the query...

There is no guarantee of implicit ordering in SQL. If you care about or depend on order you must specify it. It's also generally bad practice to depend on sorting by clustered keys, your DB admin should be able to change that in any way they think will benefit performance.

TragicMonkey · 21st November 2020, 10:44 PM

Originally Posted by RecoveringYuppy

There is no guarantee of implicit ordering in SQL. If you care about or depend on order you must specify it.

I know that, for choosing which columns to order by, but I've never before had an issue where I wrote "order by field x" and it decided sometimes to order it descending; I thought the default behavior was to order fields ascending unless told specifically DESC.

Filippo Lippi · 22nd November 2020, 02:37 AM

Friday night something changed in our UAT database causing the same table load job to fail in two of our overnight batches (it probably failed in the third one, but no one cares about that one at the moment). The DBA's (contractors working at our mainframe service provider) tried something, didn't test it, instead they hoped that Saturday night's batches would run OK. They didn't.

Now, they've said that they thought the changes they made were dynamic, but maybe weren't, and have their fingers crossed that tonight's scheduled recycling of the databases will fix the problem.

I am annoyed

Wudang · 22nd November 2020, 06:32 AM

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

I know that, for choosing which columns to order by, but I've never before had an issue where I wrote "order by field x" and it decided sometimes to order it descending; I thought the default behavior was to order fields ascending unless told specifically DESC.

Oh. I had a read of the SQL 92 standard (as that's what I continue to work with) and it says

Quote:

3) If an <order by clause> is specified, then the ordering of rows of the result is effectively determined by the <order by clause> as follows: a) Each <sort specification> specifies the sort direction for the corresponding sort key Ki. If DESC is not specified in the i-th <sort specification>, then the sort direction for Ki is ascending and the applicable <comp op> is the <less than operator>. Otherwise, the sort direction for Ki is descending and the applicable <comp op> is the <greater than operator>.

http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~s...ql/sql1992.txt

I may need to reread that a couple of times to make sure it says what I think it say.

RecoveringYuppy · 22nd November 2020, 08:48 AM

Originally Posted by Wudang

I may need to reread that a couple of times to make sure it says what I think it say.

I think it says what TM expected. And what TM expected is what I would expect now that I understood he only assumed the default order and not implicit sorting.

TragicMonkey · 22nd November 2020, 09:18 AM

I'm more of a practical worker than an expert in theory-- I tend to just try things until they work, and verify it from looking at the base data. In this case there was a lot going on, way too much grouping by one field while sorting by another to get the combination of a third field's data in light of what a fourth field contains... I regard overly-complex queries like prescription medication: the more you throw in there, the more likely there's going to be some interaction you don't want. I prefer to keep it simple, even if that's less elegant and requires grunt work in Excel afterwards. (I like to dump the raw data into Excel and do pivot tables, so if anyone questions my numbers I can just point to the actual detail underlying everything. Couldn't do that here because there was just too much data.)

I'm not actually expected to be a SQL guru in this job -- we have a much more technical team for the real stuff, I'm one step away from them closer to the business side of things. They know more about how the databases work, but I know more about what the data in it actually means and can be used for. So I'm not a complete failure. But I'm definitely not an expert in this crap, even after twenty years of playing with it.

arthwollipot · 22nd November 2020, 07:10 PM

Today is going to be the last time I'll be working from home. During COVID our policy has been that if your shift ends earlier than 4:30 it's done in the office, and if after then, from home. So I've been doing a lot of late shifts from home. This week I'm on that shift again but the setup I have does not agree with the wrist splint I have to wear because of my injury so I've arranged to do the rest of the week in the office.

As of next week the department has annnounced that COVID will no longer be a reason to work from home, so we're all going to be back in the office anyway.

TragicMonkey · 23rd November 2020, 07:10 AM

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

As of next week the department has annnounced that COVID will no longer be a reason to work from home, so we're all going to be back in the office anyway.

Is the pandemic considered sufficiently under control where you are to make that reasonable? I'm in the US Midwest which is currently enjoying a resurgence that dwarfs the previous outbreaks. My employer decided in late summer that we'd continue working from home until June 2021 at the earliest, and that was before things got bad. Unless these vaccines prove to be effective and are distributed in the next couple of months I suspect my employers will push back that June date further.

catsmate · 23rd November 2020, 04:17 PM

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

Today is going to be the last time I'll be working from home. During COVID our policy has been that if your shift ends earlier than 4:30 it's done in the office, and if after then, from home. So I've been doing a lot of late shifts from home. This week I'm on that shift again but the setup I have does not agree with the wrist splint I have to wear because of my injury so I've arranged to do the rest of the week in the office.

As of next week the department has annnounced that COVID will no longer be a reason to work from home, so we're all going to be back in the office anyway.

We're planning on returning in April.

arthwollipot · 23rd November 2020, 04:48 PM

There has been zero community transmission in the ACT for months now. We've had a tiny handful of returning diplomats test positive, who have gone immediately into quarantine. We're small, there's widespread testing, and there is no known wild virus. It's as safe as it can be. Hardly anyone even wears a mask here.

Filippo Lippi · 23rd November 2020, 11:51 PM

The recycling of the databases did not fix the problem, but, have no fear, the technicians at the service providers managed to move the ticket from "new" to "in progress"

Darat · 24th November 2020, 04:48 AM

Originally Posted by Filippo Lippi

The recycling of the databases did not fix the problem, but, have no fear, the technicians at the service providers managed to move the ticket from "new" to "in progress"

Progress is happening!

arthwollipot · 24th November 2020, 04:36 PM

I appear to have successfully navigated Password Day.

It's a non-trivial exercise for me. I have four passwords that I have to maintain for several different systems, three of which require two-factor authentication using different methods.

At least Password Day only occurs once every three months in this organisation.

novaphile · 25th November 2020, 11:45 PM

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

I appear to have successfully navigated Password Day.

It's a non-trivial exercise for me. I have four passwords that I have to maintain for several different systems, three of which require two-factor authentication using different methods.

At least Password Day only occurs once every three months in this organisation.

KeePass is your friend.

Sadly, we're moving to Thycotic Secret Server.

arthwollipot · 25th November 2020, 11:55 PM

Originally Posted by novaphile

KeePass is your friend.

That's not on the Approved Software List and is therefore not possible to install on Australian Government computers.

Originally Posted by novaphile

Sadly, we're moving to Thycotic Secret Server.

We have some staff using that. Our Password Reset Self-Service facility is Thycotic.

Blue Mountain · 26th November 2020, 06:24 AM

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

That's not on the Approved Software List and is therefore not possible to install on Australian Government computers.

We have some staff using that. Our Password Reset Self-Service facility is Thycotic.

Perhapth that explainth why people have trouble uthing it.

xterra · 26th November 2020, 06:57 AM

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

[KeePass is} not on the Approved Software List and is therefore not possible to install on Australian Government computers.

You could install it on your mobile phone. While you would have to manually type the password on your government computer, at least you wouldn't have to remember it.

I have about 120 entries in my KeePass database. Some of them take the form of, say, 15 characters, only seven of which are normal alphanumeric. There is no way I am going t remember them, especially for sites that require changing a password every three months.

lauwersw · 27th November 2020, 02:07 AM

I use Password Safe, https://pwsafe.org/, because it's recommend by our corporate security guru AND by Bruce Schneier. It only works locally and not with a cloud service, which is one more reason to trust it.

Hellbound · 27th November 2020, 08:05 AM

Ascendo DataVault is the one I use. It also can work locally, although you can have it keep an encrypted backup on your iCloud or Dropbox. You can synchronize between different devices (say, phone and desktop) via wireless or the aforementioned cloud storage as well. Very configurable, and by default it has Categories for business vs personal, and a lot of pre-made templates for things.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

grmcdorman · 27th November 2020, 08:58 AM

Originally Posted by lauwersw

I use Password Safe, https://pwsafe.org/, because it's recommend by our corporate security guru AND by Bruce Schneier. It only works locally and not with a cloud service, which is one more reason to trust it.

There are also Linux, Android, and I believe iOS ports. The Android version has a companion app that will sync the password file to common cloud services like Google Drive (yes, that does introduce a cloud feature, but a] it's not dependant on it and b] since it's not the cloud service providing the password app, it should be safer).

Wudang · 27th November 2020, 10:19 AM

Originally Posted by grmcdorman

There are also Linux, Android, and I believe iOS ports. The Android version has a companion app that will sync the password file to common cloud services like Google Drive (yes, that does introduce a cloud feature, but a] it's not dependant on it and b] since it's not the cloud service providing the password app, it should be safer).

Yes, yes and yes. I just keep my password file in Dropbox. I don't keep whole passwords in it. Just 2-3 letters that indicate which mispelled obscure word is the base and then more chars indicating the individual permutation. And the key to vault is yet another mispelled word that I heard a few times before I saw it written. That and the robustness of the PasswordSafe app is good enough for me.

alfaniner · 27th November 2020, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by Wudang

Yes, yes and yes. I just keep my password file in Dropbox. I don't keep whole passwords in it. Just 2-3 letters that indicate which mispelled obscure word is the base and then more chars indicating the individual permutation. And the key to vault is yet another mispelled word that I heard a few times before I saw it written. That and the robustness of the PasswordSafe app is good enough for me.

I have all my passwords in my Bookmarks. Well, clues to them, actually. That helps when I find I've had an account for years that I haven't touched, and suddenly they send me an email with a new policy or something. Just happened with Shutterfly. Of course, it's a hassle to try to find out how to close your account.

CORed · 27th November 2020, 12:56 PM

Originally Posted by Wudang

They still haven't noticed a similar mistake for Revelations.

How would you tell? I only ever read Revelations once, and all I got from it is that I want to avoid at all costs eating whatever kind of mushrooms the author ate before he wrote it.

Blue Mountain · 27th November 2020, 04:52 PM

Bruce Schneier released the first version of Password Safe in January 2002, but it was a Windows-only application for years.

In December 2002, due to a dearth of passwords managers for Linux, I wrote my own using a text file encrypted using GPG (Gnu Privacy Guard) and managed with a Bash shell script. I may have looked at Password Safe at the time, but if I did I would have passed it over because it was Windows-only.

KeePass was released 11 months later in November 2003, but again was a Windows only program; KeePassX didn't happen for another 13 years, in October 2016.

From a security point of view, my password manager is, to put it politely, deficient. It decrypts the password file to plain text on a RAM drive and edits it using vim. Although the file's permissions don't allow other users to read the file, any program that can scan memory would likely be able to see the vim buffer. I use copy and paste to transfer passwords from the vim file to (typically) the web browser, which uses the X clipboard. Although I haven't investigated it, my understanding is the X clipboard is terribly insecure.

I haven't bothered migrating to KeePassX because what I'm using for now is good enough.

grmcdorman · 27th November 2020, 08:17 PM

I'm not aware of the X clipboard specifics, other than - like the Windows clipboard - it's readable by any application. In the X Window System, in particular, any application that can connect to the display can get the clipboard, including remote applications if you've enabled network display connections. Most modern systems disable that, though, and even when enabled there is a security handshake. That said, I don't think the X communication protocol is encrypted in any way.

On Windows and Android, Pwsafe, and I believe most other password managers, will "type" your password for you (virtual keystrokes). I'm not sure if the Linux ones can do that; some applications reject generated keystrokes on Linux for security.

novaphile · 27th November 2020, 09:06 PM

Note that KeePass doesn't need to be installed to run, it can be used in portable mode. Even with the entire thing on a thumb drive...

(And if you prefer, it can be run from an encrypted thumb drive like an 'iron key')

Wudang · 28th November 2020, 06:39 AM

Originally Posted by Blue Mountain

From a security point of view, my password manager is, to put it politely, deficient. It decrypts the password file to plain text on a RAM drive and edits it using vim. Although the file's permissions don't allow other users to read the file, any program that can scan memory would likely be able to see the vim buffer. I use copy and paste to transfer passwords from the vim file to (typically) the web browser, which uses the X clipboard. Although I haven't investigated it, my understanding is the X clipboard is terribly insecure.

I haven't bothered migrating to KeePassX because what I'm using for now is good enough.

Sometimes you just reckon something's working well enough and move on. There was a rumour at a place I worked that the ops automation team could only implement the designated crap software by leaving all kinds of security holes* because IT security were largely arrogant knobheads. Worse than IBM corporate audit who were IT illiterate accountants.

*I am unaware of any such activity or loophole, nor would I be disposed to discuss such a loophole if it did in fact exist.

Darat · 29th November 2020, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by Wudang

Sometimes you just reckon something's working well enough and move on. There was a rumour at a place I worked that the ops automation team could only implement the designated crap software by leaving all kinds of security holes* because IT security were largely arrogant knobheads. Worse than IBM corporate audit who were IT illiterate accountants.

*I am unaware of any such activity or loophole, nor would I be disposed to discuss such a loophole if it did in fact exist.

There used to be such a weakness in one of the old and now retired Home Office systems that collated reports from the then state of the art police database system, which logged users, time of log in, what was queried and so on. Really good audit logs. However the only way they could "share" data was to emulate a terminal and "type" in a query, this was done via a hardcoded telephone number (with a dialup modem.....) one side of the emulated terminal was always logged in. If you knew the telephone number you could dial in from anywhere and run any query you wanted and nothing was logged. We found this out when we were trying to test some queries but didn't have enough test data and found that one of the original team had left instructions on how to login in.. I.e. power up your modem dial the number and low and behold you had access.

Security by obscurity.

We assumed at the time that this would have been one those cases when the proper solution I.e. they couldn't connect was unacceptable to those who wanted it.

JoeMorgue · 29th November 2020, 04:10 PM

Originally Posted by Darat

There used to be such a weakness in one of the old and now retired Home Office systems that collated reports from the then state of the art police database system, which logged users, time of log in, what was queried and so on. Really good audit logs. However the only way they could "share" data was to emulate a terminal and "type" in a query, this was done via a hardcoded telephone number (with a dialup modem.....) one side of the emulated terminal was always logged in. If you knew the telephone number you could dial in from anywhere and run any query you wanted and nothing was logged. We found this out when we were trying to test some queries but didn't have enough test data and found that one of the original team had left instructions on how to login in.. I.e. power up your modem dial the number and low and behold you had access.

Security by obscurity.

We assumed at the time that this would have been one those cases when the proper solution I.e. they couldn't connect was unacceptable to those who wanted it.

//Total Hijack//

McLaren, the British Supercar maker, still has to maintain an ancient, early-90s Compaq LTE 5280 laptop specifically for remote support on its legendary McLaren F1 supercar. When the car (which seriously is one of the most legendary cars ever made) was produced McLaren knew they couldn't hope to have a McLaren mechanic physically available at a convenient location for all their buyers, so installed (for the time) fairly advanced diagnostic software and a modem in the car should owners could have issues remotely diagnosed and even fixed in some cases.

Jalaponik Article: https://jalopnik.com/this-ancient-la...abl-1773662267

Doug Demuro review of Jay Leno's F1 (modem is shown at the 7 minute mark if the timestamp doesn't work: https://youtu.be/EkYVXIWAPnc?t=419

arthwollipot · 29th November 2020, 05:39 PM

We go through the discussion about password managers in this thread on a semi-regular basis. I think by now we all understand that pretty much everyone in the discussion uses a password manager. I use Lastpass myself. But password managers are not part of the standard operating environment for government computers, because the people who make security decisions in government do not understand security.

JoeMorgue · 29th November 2020, 06:53 PM

- I use Bitwarden myself

- My user base would sit in the corner crying and banging their head against the wall if I tried to introduce something as complex as a password manager. They don't do change. They don't do change on a level I honestly can't even exaggerate for comedic effect. They write down all their passwords in a little notebook they keep in their desk drawer and that's just the way it is. Telling them to stop doing it that way is like telling the tide to stop coming in and out.

Password manager software is across the board incredible if you choose to and want to use. Forcing it on users who don't want it is a massive security problem waiting to happen.

arthwollipot · 29th November 2020, 06:55 PM

Originally Posted by JoeMorgue

- I use Bitwarden myself
- My user base would sit in the corner crying and banging their head against the wall if I tried to introduce something as complex as a password manager. They don't do change. They write down all their passwords and that's just the way it is. Telling them to stop doing it that way is like telling the tide to stop coming in and out.

My octogenarian dad has all his passwords written down, but at least he recognised the need for them to be written down in code.

TragicMonkey · 29th November 2020, 08:04 PM

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

My octogenarian dad has all his passwords written down, but at least he recognised the need for them to be written down in code.

My septuagenarian mother writes all her passwords down in plain text...but on multiple notecards, notebooks, loose papers, post-it notes, etc. She'll have the same account listed with eight different passwords because she never crosses out an old one, or indicates when one has been changed. She actually got scammed two weeks ago but the guy phishing her on the phone lost patience and gave up because she couldn't get into her own account to give him control of it. (She actually did have the correct password written down, but didn't realize it was case sensitive because she'd never consider the need to write a note to that effect. And when I got her to add ! as the required "special character" to the end of passwords she wrote it down dutifully but then ignored it because she thought her past self was just being emphatic about what the password was, not that the punctuation was part of it.)

She's following a family tradition of elderliness: her own father was so confused and so hard of hearing that scam artists calling him up would give up in frustration. He had a very thick accent that died out decades earlier so few people could understand him, and with his hearing he couldn't understand anybody else, so it was quite a wild ride to watch him answer a phone call. "What? What? What? The bank? No, this isn't the bank, you have the wrong number! What? What? What? Oh, you're the bank? What? Why didn't you give me that boat loan in 1939? What? Hello? Hello? They hung up!" *hanging up on someone literally screaming*

arthwollipot · 29th November 2020, 08:24 PM

Fun fact: We use Jabra-brand headsets, and we have Cisco Jabber installed to handle phone traffic.

This has caused confusion.

20th November 2020, 10:08 AM	#2721
JoeMorgue Self Employed Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Florida Posts: 29,936	It's okay. We're all beat by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the Royal Printers in London who in 1631 omitted the word "not" from "thou shalt not commit adultery" in the Book of Exodus in their printing of the King James Bible. They got called before the Crown and the Archbishop of Canterbury to explain themselves, fined about 50,000 dollars in modern money, and had their printer licenses revoked.
	__________________ Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." Last edited by JoeMorgue; 20th November 2020 at 10:20 AM.

20th November 2020, 11:03 AM	#2722
TragicMonkey Poisoned Waffles Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Monkey Posts: 58,938	Originally Posted by JoeMorgue It's okay. We're all beat by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the Royal Printers in London who in 1631 omitted the word "not" from "thou shalt not commit adultery" in the Book of Exodus in their printing of the King James Bible. They got called before the Crown and the Archbishop of Canterbury to explain themselves, fined about 50,000 dollars in modern money, and had their printer licenses revoked. Ah, yes, "the Wicked Bible". Caused quite a stir over such a simple mistake. While the previous year there had been a similar error with "the Bizarre Bible" which accidentally replaced the entirety of the Book of Daniel with the words "lettuce hippopotamus all that she wants is another baby she's gone tomorrow ninja crocodile" repeated over and over. It took fifty years before anyone noticed.
	__________________ You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara.

20th November 2020, 12:25 PM	#2723
Wudang BOFH Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: People's Republic of South Yorkshire Posts: 13,384	Originally Posted by TragicMonkey While the previous year there had been a similar error with "the Bizarre Bible" which accidentally replaced the entirety of the Book of Daniel with the words "lettuce hippopotamus all that she wants is another baby she's gone tomorrow ninja crocodile" repeated over and over. It took fifty years before anyone noticed. They still haven't noticed a similar mistake for Revelations.
	__________________ "Your deepest pools, like your deepest politicians and philosophers, often turn out more shallow than expected." Walter Scott.

20th November 2020, 12:35 PM	#2724
TragicMonkey Poisoned Waffles Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Monkey Posts: 58,938	Originally Posted by Wudang They still haven't noticed a similar mistake for Revelations. Sigh. [pedant]That's not the name of that. It's not "The Book of Revelations". It's "The Book of Mega Star Crystal Princess Megumi-chan and the Magical Robo Knights".[/pedant] (It's just "Revelation", not plural.) In the OVA, Megumi-chan becomes a vampire because she unified her Star Crystal with the Galaxy Fountain to defeat the Wizards of the Dead. It's worth watching because they switch up the relationships so Akiko is dating Hideo and you know that means wacky antics!! catface
	__________________ You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara.

21st November 2020, 08:27 AM	#2725
The Man Unbanned zombie poster Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Poughkeepsie, NY Posts: 15,123	Originally Posted by arthwollipot Originally Posted by arthwollipot Yeah, we're going through the process of migrating to Office 365 right now. It's a pain, but I do believe that it will be better when the process is complete. Now that the process is more or less complete, it definitely is better in a number of ways. It's faster and less prone to random errors, and Outlook doesn't seem to drop into Working Offline for no apparent reason any more. The transition has been pretty tricky, but I think we're better off for it. We were using G-mail but moved to Office 360 some years ago. Unfortunately our G-mail documentation wasn't transferring very well. Fortunately, our customer, at this site, was using G-mail and since that documentation was mostly reporting for them and we all had been given customer G-mail accounts. We migrated that documentation to the customers G-mail site. Now I have two work E-mail accounts and even two work computers. As part of the customers system security is that their accounts and sites should only be accessed on their equipment. So work from my company, that i create on our computer, I have to E-mail to myself on their E-mail site to print out on their printers from their, provided to me, laptop.
	__________________ BRAINZZZZZZZZ

21st November 2020, 10:17 PM	#2726
TragicMonkey Poisoned Waffles Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Monkey Posts: 58,938	I just spent about nine hours (on a Saturday!) to figure out a weird variance between two SQL queries that should have been returning identical results. Turns out that, for whatever arcane processing reasons, if you happen to be doing a partition by window function to assign row numbers and order it by multiple columns and specify descending for one of them, you then have to specify ascending for the others instead of just leaving it assumed because it may decide to just do that second column descending, based on whatever it feels about the rest of the query. It only affected 16 results out of 340,000 and nobody but me would have even noticed, but god damn I could not relax until I figured out why it was happening! Or rather, how to fix it. The why of it has something horrible to do with "parallelism" and the workings behind SQL processing. I don't go too deeply into that stuff because it hurts my brain and drives me mad. MAD, I tell you! Thankfully it's such a blastedly niche situation it will be unlikely to ever occur again in my work. Still, if it does, now I know! Hooray!
	__________________ You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara.

21st November 2020, 10:35 PM	#2727
RecoveringYuppy Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 10,350	Originally Posted by TragicMonkey ... if you happen to be doing a partition by window function to assign row numbers and order it by multiple columns and specify descending for one of them, you then have to specify ascending for the others instead of just leaving it assumed because it may decide to just do that second column descending, based on whatever it feels about the rest of the query... There is no guarantee of implicit ordering in SQL. If you care about or depend on order you must specify it. It's also generally bad practice to depend on sorting by clustered keys, your DB admin should be able to change that in any way they think will benefit performance.

21st November 2020, 10:44 PM	#2728
TragicMonkey Poisoned Waffles Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Monkey Posts: 58,938	Originally Posted by RecoveringYuppy There is no guarantee of implicit ordering in SQL. If you care about or depend on order you must specify it. I know that, for choosing which columns to order by, but I've never before had an issue where I wrote "order by field x" and it decided sometimes to order it descending; I thought the default behavior was to order fields ascending unless told specifically DESC.
	__________________ You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara.

22nd November 2020, 02:37 AM	#2729
Filippo Lippi Illuminator Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 3,319	Friday night something changed in our UAT database causing the same table load job to fail in two of our overnight batches (it probably failed in the third one, but no one cares about that one at the moment). The DBA's (contractors working at our mainframe service provider) tried something, didn't test it, instead they hoped that Saturday night's batches would run OK. They didn't. Now, they've said that they thought the changes they made were dynamic, but maybe weren't, and have their fingers crossed that tonight's scheduled recycling of the databases will fix the problem. I am annoyed
	__________________ You can't defeat fascism through debate because it's not simply an idea, proposal or theory. It's a fundamentally flawed way of looking at the world. It's a distorting prism, emotionally charged and completely logic-proof. You may as well challenge rabies to a game of Boggle. @ViolettaCrisis

22nd November 2020, 06:32 AM	#2730
Wudang BOFH Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: People's Republic of South Yorkshire Posts: 13,384	Originally Posted by TragicMonkey I know that, for choosing which columns to order by, but I've never before had an issue where I wrote "order by field x" and it decided sometimes to order it descending; I thought the default behavior was to order fields ascending unless told specifically DESC. Oh. I had a read of the SQL 92 standard (as that's what I continue to work with) and it says Quote: 3) If an <order by clause> is specified, then the ordering of rows of the result is effectively determined by the <order by clause> as follows: a) Each <sort specification> specifies the sort direction for the corresponding sort key Ki. If DESC is not specified in the i-th <sort specification>, then the sort direction for Ki is ascending and the applicable <comp op> is the <less than operator>. Otherwise, the sort direction for Ki is descending and the applicable <comp op> is the <greater than operator>. http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~s...ql/sql1992.txt I may need to reread that a couple of times to make sure it says what I think it say.
	__________________ "Your deepest pools, like your deepest politicians and philosophers, often turn out more shallow than expected." Walter Scott.

22nd November 2020, 08:48 AM	#2731
RecoveringYuppy Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 10,350	Originally Posted by Wudang I may need to reread that a couple of times to make sure it says what I think it say. I think it says what TM expected. And what TM expected is what I would expect now that I understood he only assumed the default order and not implicit sorting.

22nd November 2020, 09:18 AM	#2732
TragicMonkey Poisoned Waffles Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Monkey Posts: 58,938	I'm more of a practical worker than an expert in theory-- I tend to just try things until they work, and verify it from looking at the base data. In this case there was a lot going on, way too much grouping by one field while sorting by another to get the combination of a third field's data in light of what a fourth field contains... I regard overly-complex queries like prescription medication: the more you throw in there, the more likely there's going to be some interaction you don't want. I prefer to keep it simple, even if that's less elegant and requires grunt work in Excel afterwards. (I like to dump the raw data into Excel and do pivot tables, so if anyone questions my numbers I can just point to the actual detail underlying everything. Couldn't do that here because there was just too much data.) I'm not actually expected to be a SQL guru in this job -- we have a much more technical team for the real stuff, I'm one step away from them closer to the business side of things. They know more about how the databases work, but I know more about what the data in it actually means and can be used for. So I'm not a complete failure. But I'm definitely not an expert in this crap, even after twenty years of playing with it.
	__________________ You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara.

22nd November 2020, 07:10 PM	#2733
arthwollipot Observer of Phenomena Pronouns: he/him Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Ngunnawal Country Posts: 69,607	Today is going to be the last time I'll be working from home. During COVID our policy has been that if your shift ends earlier than 4:30 it's done in the office, and if after then, from home. So I've been doing a lot of late shifts from home. This week I'm on that shift again but the setup I have does not agree with the wrist splint I have to wear because of my injury so I've arranged to do the rest of the week in the office. As of next week the department has annnounced that COVID will no longer be a reason to work from home, so we're all going to be back in the office anyway.
	__________________ Please scream inside your heart.

23rd November 2020, 07:10 AM	#2734
TragicMonkey Poisoned Waffles Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Monkey Posts: 58,938	Originally Posted by arthwollipot As of next week the department has annnounced that COVID will no longer be a reason to work from home, so we're all going to be back in the office anyway. Is the pandemic considered sufficiently under control where you are to make that reasonable? I'm in the US Midwest which is currently enjoying a resurgence that dwarfs the previous outbreaks. My employer decided in late summer that we'd continue working from home until June 2021 at the earliest, and that was before things got bad. Unless these vaccines prove to be effective and are distributed in the next couple of months I suspect my employers will push back that June date further.
	__________________ You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara.

23rd November 2020, 04:17 PM	#2735
catsmate No longer the 1 Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 23,487	Originally Posted by arthwollipot Today is going to be the last time I'll be working from home. During COVID our policy has been that if your shift ends earlier than 4:30 it's done in the office, and if after then, from home. So I've been doing a lot of late shifts from home. This week I'm on that shift again but the setup I have does not agree with the wrist splint I have to wear because of my injury so I've arranged to do the rest of the week in the office. As of next week the department has annnounced that COVID will no longer be a reason to work from home, so we're all going to be back in the office anyway. We're planning on returning in April.
	__________________ As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves.

23rd November 2020, 04:48 PM	#2736
arthwollipot Observer of Phenomena Pronouns: he/him Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Ngunnawal Country Posts: 69,607	There has been zero community transmission in the ACT for months now. We've had a tiny handful of returning diplomats test positive, who have gone immediately into quarantine. We're small, there's widespread testing, and there is no known wild virus. It's as safe as it can be. Hardly anyone even wears a mask here.
	__________________ Please scream inside your heart.

23rd November 2020, 11:51 PM	#2737
Filippo Lippi Illuminator Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 3,319	The recycling of the databases did not fix the problem, but, have no fear, the technicians at the service providers managed to move the ticket from "new" to "in progress"
	__________________ You can't defeat fascism through debate because it's not simply an idea, proposal or theory. It's a fundamentally flawed way of looking at the world. It's a distorting prism, emotionally charged and completely logic-proof. You may as well challenge rabies to a game of Boggle. @ViolettaCrisis

24th November 2020, 04:48 AM	#2738
Darat Lackey Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: South East, UK Posts: 96,096	Originally Posted by Filippo Lippi The recycling of the databases did not fix the problem, but, have no fear, the technicians at the service providers managed to move the ticket from "new" to "in progress" Progress is happening!
	__________________ I wish I knew how to quit you

24th November 2020, 04:36 PM	#2739
arthwollipot Observer of Phenomena Pronouns: he/him Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Ngunnawal Country Posts: 69,607	I appear to have successfully navigated Password Day. It's a non-trivial exercise for me. I have four passwords that I have to maintain for several different systems, three of which require two-factor authentication using different methods. At least Password Day only occurs once every three months in this organisation.
	__________________ Please scream inside your heart.

25th November 2020, 11:45 PM	#2740
novaphile Quester of Doglets Moderator Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Sunny South Australia Posts: 2,931	Originally Posted by arthwollipot I appear to have successfully navigated Password Day. It's a non-trivial exercise for me. I have four passwords that I have to maintain for several different systems, three of which require two-factor authentication using different methods. At least Password Day only occurs once every three months in this organisation. KeePass is your friend. Sadly, we're moving to Thycotic Secret Server.
	__________________ We would be better, and braver, to engage in enquiry, rather than indulge in the idle fancy, that we already know -- Plato.

25th November 2020, 11:55 PM	#2741
arthwollipot Observer of Phenomena Pronouns: he/him Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Ngunnawal Country Posts: 69,607	Originally Posted by novaphile KeePass is your friend. That's not on the Approved Software List and is therefore not possible to install on Australian Government computers. Originally Posted by novaphile Sadly, we're moving to Thycotic Secret Server. We have some staff using that. Our Password Reset Self-Service facility is Thycotic.
	__________________ Please scream inside your heart.

26th November 2020, 06:24 AM	#2742
Blue Mountain Resident Skeptical Hobbit Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Waging war on woo-woo in Winnipeg Posts: 6,401	Originally Posted by arthwollipot That's not on the Approved Software List and is therefore not possible to install on Australian Government computers. We have some staff using that. Our Password Reset Self-Service facility is Thycotic. Perhapth that explainth why people have trouble uthing it.
	__________________ The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Gustav Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895 (from the French) Canadian or living in Canada? PM me if you want an entry on the list of Canadians on the forum.

26th November 2020, 06:57 AM	#2743
xterra So far, so good... Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: On the outskirts of Nowhere; the middle was too crowded Posts: 3,698	Originally Posted by arthwollipot [KeePass is} not on the Approved Software List and is therefore not possible to install on Australian Government computers. You could install it on your mobile phone. While you would have to manually type the password on your government computer, at least you wouldn't have to remember it. I have about 120 entries in my KeePass database. Some of them take the form of, say, 15 characters, only seven of which are normal alphanumeric. There is no way I am going t remember them, especially for sites that require changing a password every three months.
	__________________ Over we go....

27th November 2020, 02:07 AM	#2744
lauwersw Thinker Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 151	I use Password Safe, https://pwsafe.org/, because it's recommend by our corporate security guru AND by Bruce Schneier. It only works locally and not with a cloud service, which is one more reason to trust it.
lauwersw Thinker Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 151

27th November 2020, 08:05 AM	#2745
Hellbound Merchant of Doom Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Not in Hell, but I can see it from here on a clear day... Posts: 14,347	Dear Users... (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people) Ascendo DataVault is the one I use. It also can work locally, although you can have it keep an encrypted backup on your iCloud or Dropbox. You can synchronize between different devices (say, phone and desktop) via wireless or the aforementioned cloud storage as well. Very configurable, and by default it has Categories for business vs personal, and a lot of pre-made templates for things. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
	__________________ History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes it just yells "Can't you remember anything I told you?" and lets fly with a club. - John w. Campbell

27th November 2020, 08:58 AM	#2746
grmcdorman Graduate Poster Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 1,346	Originally Posted by lauwersw I use Password Safe, https://pwsafe.org/, because it's recommend by our corporate security guru AND by Bruce Schneier. It only works locally and not with a cloud service, which is one more reason to trust it. There are also Linux, Android, and I believe iOS ports. The Android version has a companion app that will sync the password file to common cloud services like Google Drive (yes, that does introduce a cloud feature, but a] it's not dependant on it and b] since it's not the cloud service providing the password app, it should be safer).
	__________________ "Hello. My name is Inigo Skywalker. You are my father. Prepare to die."

27th November 2020, 10:19 AM	#2747
Wudang BOFH Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: People's Republic of South Yorkshire Posts: 13,384	Originally Posted by grmcdorman There are also Linux, Android, and I believe iOS ports. The Android version has a companion app that will sync the password file to common cloud services like Google Drive (yes, that does introduce a cloud feature, but a] it's not dependant on it and b] since it's not the cloud service providing the password app, it should be safer). Yes, yes and yes. I just keep my password file in Dropbox. I don't keep whole passwords in it. Just 2-3 letters that indicate which mispelled obscure word is the base and then more chars indicating the individual permutation. And the key to vault is yet another mispelled word that I heard a few times before I saw it written. That and the robustness of the PasswordSafe app is good enough for me.
	__________________ "Your deepest pools, like your deepest politicians and philosophers, often turn out more shallow than expected." Walter Scott.

27th November 2020, 11:31 AM	#2748
alfaniner Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 24,605	Originally Posted by Wudang Yes, yes and yes. I just keep my password file in Dropbox. I don't keep whole passwords in it. Just 2-3 letters that indicate which mispelled obscure word is the base and then more chars indicating the individual permutation. And the key to vault is yet another mispelled word that I heard a few times before I saw it written. That and the robustness of the PasswordSafe app is good enough for me. I have all my passwords in my Bookmarks. Well, clues to them, actually. That helps when I find I've had an account for years that I haven't touched, and suddenly they send me an email with a new policy or something. Just happened with Shutterfly. Of course, it's a hassle to try to find out how to close your account.
	__________________ Science is self-correcting. Woo is self-contradicting.

27th November 2020, 12:56 PM	#2749
CORed Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central City, Colorado, USA Posts: 10,006	Originally Posted by Wudang They still haven't noticed a similar mistake for Revelations. How would you tell? I only ever read Revelations once, and all I got from it is that I want to avoid at all costs eating whatever kind of mushrooms the author ate before he wrote it.

27th November 2020, 04:52 PM	#2750
Blue Mountain Resident Skeptical Hobbit Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Waging war on woo-woo in Winnipeg Posts: 6,401	Bruce Schneier released the first version of Password Safe in January 2002, but it was a Windows-only application for years. In December 2002, due to a dearth of passwords managers for Linux, I wrote my own using a text file encrypted using GPG (Gnu Privacy Guard) and managed with a Bash shell script. I may have looked at Password Safe at the time, but if I did I would have passed it over because it was Windows-only. KeePass was released 11 months later in November 2003, but again was a Windows only program; KeePassX didn't happen for another 13 years, in October 2016. From a security point of view, my password manager is, to put it politely, deficient. It decrypts the password file to plain text on a RAM drive and edits it using vim. Although the file's permissions don't allow other users to read the file, any program that can scan memory would likely be able to see the vim buffer. I use copy and paste to transfer passwords from the vim file to (typically) the web browser, which uses the X clipboard. Although I haven't investigated it, my understanding is the X clipboard is terribly insecure. I haven't bothered migrating to KeePassX because what I'm using for now is good enough.
	__________________ The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Gustav Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895 (from the French) Canadian or living in Canada? PM me if you want an entry on the list of Canadians on the forum.

27th November 2020, 08:17 PM	#2751
grmcdorman Graduate Poster Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 1,346	I'm not aware of the X clipboard specifics, other than - like the Windows clipboard - it's readable by any application. In the X Window System, in particular, any application that can connect to the display can get the clipboard, including remote applications if you've enabled network display connections. Most modern systems disable that, though, and even when enabled there is a security handshake. That said, I don't think the X communication protocol is encrypted in any way. On Windows and Android, Pwsafe, and I believe most other password managers, will "type" your password for you (virtual keystrokes). I'm not sure if the Linux ones can do that; some applications reject generated keystrokes on Linux for security.
	__________________ "Hello. My name is Inigo Skywalker. You are my father. Prepare to die."

27th November 2020, 09:06 PM	#2752
novaphile Quester of Doglets Moderator Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Sunny South Australia Posts: 2,931	Note that KeePass doesn't need to be installed to run, it can be used in portable mode. Even with the entire thing on a thumb drive... (And if you prefer, it can be run from an encrypted thumb drive like an 'iron key')
	__________________ We would be better, and braver, to engage in enquiry, rather than indulge in the idle fancy, that we already know -- Plato.

28th November 2020, 06:39 AM	#2753
Wudang BOFH Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: People's Republic of South Yorkshire Posts: 13,384	Originally Posted by Blue Mountain From a security point of view, my password manager is, to put it politely, deficient. It decrypts the password file to plain text on a RAM drive and edits it using vim. Although the file's permissions don't allow other users to read the file, any program that can scan memory would likely be able to see the vim buffer. I use copy and paste to transfer passwords from the vim file to (typically) the web browser, which uses the X clipboard. Although I haven't investigated it, my understanding is the X clipboard is terribly insecure. I haven't bothered migrating to KeePassX because what I'm using for now is good enough. Sometimes you just reckon something's working well enough and move on. There was a rumour at a place I worked that the ops automation team could only implement the designated crap software by leaving all kinds of security holes* because IT security were largely arrogant knobheads. Worse than IBM corporate audit who were IT illiterate accountants. *I am unaware of any such activity or loophole, nor would I be disposed to discuss such a loophole if it did in fact exist.
	__________________ "Your deepest pools, like your deepest politicians and philosophers, often turn out more shallow than expected." Walter Scott.

29th November 2020, 10:07 AM	#2754
Darat Lackey Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: South East, UK Posts: 96,096	Originally Posted by Wudang Sometimes you just reckon something's working well enough and move on. There was a rumour at a place I worked that the ops automation team could only implement the designated crap software by leaving all kinds of security holes* because IT security were largely arrogant knobheads. Worse than IBM corporate audit who were IT illiterate accountants. *I am unaware of any such activity or loophole, nor would I be disposed to discuss such a loophole if it did in fact exist. There used to be such a weakness in one of the old and now retired Home Office systems that collated reports from the then state of the art police database system, which logged users, time of log in, what was queried and so on. Really good audit logs. However the only way they could "share" data was to emulate a terminal and "type" in a query, this was done via a hardcoded telephone number (with a dialup modem.....) one side of the emulated terminal was always logged in. If you knew the telephone number you could dial in from anywhere and run any query you wanted and nothing was logged. We found this out when we were trying to test some queries but didn't have enough test data and found that one of the original team had left instructions on how to login in.. I.e. power up your modem dial the number and low and behold you had access. Security by obscurity. We assumed at the time that this would have been one those cases when the proper solution I.e. they couldn't connect was unacceptable to those who wanted it.
	__________________ I wish I knew how to quit you

29th November 2020, 04:10 PM	#2755
JoeMorgue Self Employed Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Florida Posts: 29,936	Originally Posted by Darat There used to be such a weakness in one of the old and now retired Home Office systems that collated reports from the then state of the art police database system, which logged users, time of log in, what was queried and so on. Really good audit logs. However the only way they could "share" data was to emulate a terminal and "type" in a query, this was done via a hardcoded telephone number (with a dialup modem.....) one side of the emulated terminal was always logged in. If you knew the telephone number you could dial in from anywhere and run any query you wanted and nothing was logged. We found this out when we were trying to test some queries but didn't have enough test data and found that one of the original team had left instructions on how to login in.. I.e. power up your modem dial the number and low and behold you had access. Security by obscurity. We assumed at the time that this would have been one those cases when the proper solution I.e. they couldn't connect was unacceptable to those who wanted it. //Total Hijack// McLaren, the British Supercar maker, still has to maintain an ancient, early-90s Compaq LTE 5280 laptop specifically for remote support on its legendary McLaren F1 supercar. When the car (which seriously is one of the most legendary cars ever made) was produced McLaren knew they couldn't hope to have a McLaren mechanic physically available at a convenient location for all their buyers, so installed (for the time) fairly advanced diagnostic software and a modem in the car should owners could have issues remotely diagnosed and even fixed in some cases. Jalaponik Article: https://jalopnik.com/this-ancient-la...abl-1773662267 Doug Demuro review of Jay Leno's F1 (modem is shown at the 7 minute mark if the timestamp doesn't work: https://youtu.be/EkYVXIWAPnc?t=419
	__________________ Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate."