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Child tweets gibberish from US nuclear-agency account

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71–80 of 220 posts

Re: Child tweets gibberish from US nuclear-agency account

#71

Isn't the automatic reaction of a Windows desktop/laptop user to lock their workstation (Ctrl-Alt-Del, Enter, Enter) if they leave for any reason? Edit: that was a great Chaos Monkey to reiterate security hygiene. Or was it a Mini Chaos Monkey? https://netflix.github.io/chaosmonkey/

Here's the thing: sometimes the lock screen on Windows 10 doesn't work and you can get back to the desktop simply by swiping up even when you think you should have to re-enter your password or PIN. Note that I have face ID disabled because I got really fed up of my computer unlocking itself just because I'd gone back to my desk to pick up something I'd forgotten when I locked it and walked away. This always seemed in…

Having used Windows 10 basically since it came out, on many different devices, I've never experienced this, and I lock my PC every time I step away (or at least I did when I was working in an office). I also can't find anyone discussing it, though admittedly the search terms for this are difficult (mostly all I can find is people complaining their screen doesn't auto-lock after timeout).

Can you provide anything else on this, rather than just casually claiming one of the most popular OSes has a massive security bug?

Re: Child tweets gibberish from US nuclear-agency account

#72

"Nuclear agency" makes it sound like the NRC or DoE. This was U.S. Strategic Command, i.e. the nuclear weapons agency.

... who left their computers unlocked?! Shouldn’t someone be raked over the coals for leaving a computer unlocked at an agency like that, even if it was just their marketing department?

This is the same agency that had "00000000" as the code for US nukes, with it pre-set, too?

Re: Child tweets gibberish from US nuclear-agency account

#73
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Isn't the automatic reaction of a Windows desktop/laptop user to lock their workstation Having attempted to encourage this as a habit for my users for about a year, and not a single one doing it, I've had to come up with other solutions that takes it out of their hands. (It's not business-critical for us, however we try to encourage good security habits all around). So no, I don't think it is an automatic reaction f…

IIRC, the trick is practical jokes! Change desktop backgrounds, move icons around, leave goofy/giant text Word documents, etc.

At my old job the tradition was to send an e-mail promising to bring pastries for the team the next day.

Re: Child tweets gibberish from US nuclear-agency account

#75

Isn't the automatic reaction of a Windows desktop/laptop user to lock their workstation (Ctrl-Alt-Del, Enter, Enter) if they leave for any reason? Edit: that was a great Chaos Monkey to reiterate security hygiene. Or was it a Mini Chaos Monkey? https://netflix.github.io/chaosmonkey/

My Mac takes so long to come back to a usable state after sleep that I only lock when I’ll be away for a long period of time.

Re: Child tweets gibberish from US nuclear-agency account

#76
post #63

I love Canada now more than ever. https://ibb.co/TWnNdGJ

What a wholesome response! For most companies and organizations, this is absolutely understandable. WFH is challenging, and balancing childcare even more so. In this case, though, it begs the question - why does US Strategic Command even have a Twitter account? Are they going to post fun and engaging tweets about the nuclear football? Twitter seems like something this agency should not be doing.

It’s fine to have one, but I dislike how corp/gov accounts inevitably become about their new CEO (don’t care) or Bob from accounting celebrating 30y on the job (don’t care).

Canada’s border agency account likes to tweet pics of them “expediting” vaccine clearances while border holdups are their fault in the first place.

Like, thanks for circumventing your slow process, but let’s not celebrate your on-tarmac releases as an unusual practice.

Meanwhile when they reduce their hours of operation (useful), they bury it on their website because people might (rightfully) complain too directly.

Re: Child tweets gibberish from US nuclear-agency account

#77
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Isn't the automatic reaction of a Windows desktop/laptop user to lock their workstation Having attempted to encourage this as a habit for my users for about a year, and not a single one doing it, I've had to come up with other solutions that takes it out of their hands. (It's not business-critical for us, however we try to encourage good security habits all around). So no, I don't think it is an automatic reaction f…

IIRC, the trick is practical jokes! Change desktop backgrounds, move icons around, leave goofy/giant text Word documents, etc.

Some more:

Change their profile photo (github/slack/etc).

Flip their monitor orientation.

Swap to left-handed mouse buttons (or vice-versa).

Go on Amazon and add some "interesting" things to their wishlist/cart.

Go on Youtube and "like" a bunch of random videos.

Re: Child tweets gibberish from US nuclear-agency account

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't like having to type in their password each time they come back to the computer. Especially if their password is required to be fairly long and complex, which can become tedious to have to type in constantly during the day. If you want users to adopt secure practices then you have to lower the amount of friction. Adding a fingerprint reader or some other kind of biometrick unlocking capability would proba…

Look into Windows Hello for Business. It's very nice in the enterprise for all of this. Native facial recognition or fingerprint, and various other factors can be added.

Causes all sorts of hell with Remote Desktop, however. But it’s the right direction.

For those with a Mac and an Apple Watch you can make the watch automatically lock and unlock based on Bluetooth distance.

Re: Child tweets gibberish from US nuclear-agency account

#79
post #41

It'd be nice if government agencies moved to self-hosting their own official social media systems by way of interoperable web standards (ActivityPub for example).

Does this stop their kids from typing on their keyboard? (And anyway, surely viewing a web page counts as an interoperable web standard already?)

they would implement the system such that two toddlers no less than 15 feet apart would need to type the identical gibberish characters into two terminals simultaneously in order for the tweet to be published.

Re: Child tweets gibberish from US nuclear-agency account

#80
post #41

It'd be nice if government agencies moved to self-hosting their own official social media systems by way of interoperable web standards (ActivityPub for example).

Does this stop their kids from typing on their keyboard? (And anyway, surely viewing a web page counts as an interoperable web standard already?)

Build clients for it that mandate biometric access following already-existing government data security standards.
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