Notices by Bob Young :verified: (fifonetworks@infosec.exchange)

Adobe is now processing all your PDFs in the cloud, by default. The setting to “Enable generative AI features in Acrobat” was on, and I didn’t know it until I opened a document and Adobe asked me if I wanted a document summary. It’s annoying to have to click “No,” so I opened settings to disable the prompt.

THE PROBLEM
I sign Non-Disclosure Agreements for many of my clients. Adobe is a potential leak of protected information. I don’t know what Adobe does with this information. I don’t know what they store, or for how long. I don’t know what country (or countries) the data is stored in. I don’t know what LLMs are trained with this data. And I don’t need to know. What I need to know is that they won’t use default opt-in as a legal excuse to wiretap my information.

I recommend that you check your Adobe settings on all devices, for all Adobe accounts.

#CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks

#cybersecurity

You've heard the talk about colonizing Mars?
Well, here's a wild theory for you:
Human life originated on Mars.
Humans polluted the planet.
As the atmosphere grew less hospitable, they began burrowing underground.
Entire cities were inside the planet, and the surface of Mars became more and more barren.
They developed space travel.
They learned that Earth, although closer to the sun, was habitable with a little terraforming.
The population increased. They began running out of resources, and they began running out of room in the planet’s interior.
As the conditions on Mars deteriorated, a group of wealthy people built spaceships and moved to Earth.
Over time, evidence of human habitation on Mars became less obvious.
And over time, the story of human colonization of Earth from Mars was lost.
Then, on Earth...

I bought this mouse jiggler and – bonus! – it came with a USB-C to -A adapter. I’m a sole proprietor; no one from corporate is spying on me, so I don’t need it to look busy. The reason I bought it is to keep computers from locking while I’m doing updates. It’s a pain to keep re-entering the password to check on the status of an update in progress. I had never thought of using one for this purpose until just the other day, so I ordered it and now I’m going to enjoy using it a lot on various client computers.

Poor Mrs. Charlton! When my Government teacher in high school taught us how laws are enacted, and how the system of checks and balances work, I don’t think she ever imagined that the system could fail so spectacularly.

When I post rants against cloud service providers in the Fediverse it’s received very well, lots of boosts and likes.
When I post the same thing on LinkedIn, haters gonna hate. Employees from Microsoft, Google, and Amazon tell me all the things wrong with my stupid opinions and why their cloud services make them the Messiah.
The Fediverse seems to be the last bastion of privacy and decentralization.
Don’t fall, Fediverse. The world needs you.

@bamboombibbitybop
More background on the word "grok." The word was created by Robert Heinlein, a famous science fiction writer. He used the word in his book, "Stranger In A Strange Land," published in 1961. The book was a staple of the hippie movement of the late 1960s and early 70s. I read the book in high school in 1972. From the beginning, the word has meant deep understanding, profound comprehension. That's why the word was used by programmers even as early as the 80s that I know of.

Today is the Washington State IT Industry Forum. Bill Kehoe, WA State CIO, delivered the keynote address.

(Paraphrased and summarized):
"Sure the economy is tough and State budgets are lean. Nevertheless, the State and Industry need to work together, communicate, assess, adapt, and keep moving forward."

#CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks

#cybersecurity #InformationTechnology

Get your stuff out of Google Drive.
Get your stuff out of OneDrive.
Get your stuff out of iCloud.
You're running out of time.

@varx Tying every Signal account to a real phone is a smart move to reduce the number of fake accounts. Hacking around that protection mechanism is unfortunate.

Microsoft is getting ready to do away with MFA for its web-based products. No, this is not clickbait.

Beginning in February, if you log in to a web-based service, Microsoft will keep you logged in by default. Go ahead and close the browser window, it doesn’t matter. You’re still logged in, unless you deliberately log out. Think about hotel computers, library computers. Think about women in an abusive relationship.

It’s no longer MFA if Microsoft reduces authentication to device authentication. They won’t be requiring proof of identity of the person in front of the screen.

If you sign in to a Microsoft web-based app on a computer that is ACCESSED BY OTHER PEOPLE, you are at risk.

ACTION STEP
Even though Microsoft is placing the notification at the top of the screen right now, there are people you know who won’t understand what it means. There are people who won’t even notice the message. Make sure your friends and family know how to explicitly sign out after every session on a shared computer.

One last note: Microsoft says that instead of logging out you can use private browsing (for example, Google’s incognito mode). I don’t recommend this option, because sometimes software doesn’t behave quite like the coder thinks it will. For the most reliable security, log out.

#CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks

#cybersecurity #privacy

As a hiring manager who has interviewed plenty of candidates, here’s some advice for recruiters, interviewers, and HR people who are involved in the hiring process.

Are you ready? Here it is.

Stop focusing so heavily on the candidate’s interviewing skills, and focus on their job related skills. They’re nervous. They may be in financial distress. They’ve been an engineer/analyst/clerk for years, but they’ve only spent a few hours in their entire life in interviews. If they suck at interviewing, so what? It’s your job to see what they bring to the table after the interview is over.

Instead of putting the burden on the candidate to be impressive, put the burden on yourself to uncover the talent and traits that are needed.

#HR #hiring #interviews #jobs

On another forum I'm "talking" to a person who uses a Gmail account, and on some online job applications, it rejects his email and says, "Please enter a valid email address." At first I thought he might have an email address with some of the characters that are technically allowed in the RFC, but that not all systems support. But when I found out he uses a Gmail address, I wondered: do any online job application systems restrict Gmail addresses as a spam prevention tactic?

How to read technical documents effectively and quickly. (No, I didn’t see “easily.”)

I read a lot of work-related non-fiction. Think contracts, tech manuals, the US Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), IETF RFCs, and so forth.

Today I’m reading a couple hundred pages of stuff from NIST. Specifically, NIST SP 800-171 and NIST SP 800-171A.

I have a system developed over time, and it occurred to me that others might benefit from learning about it.

The steps below are directly related to the format of the NIST documents I’m reading today, but they apply in general to a lot of other material as well.

1. Download the PDF. It’s much more versatile to have a local copy. You can search it, expand/collapse the table of contents (ToC), etc. Don’t read the HTML online. Download it.

2. Open the ToC. Read all the chapter headings. Collapse the subheadings; just focus on the chapters.

3. If it has an acronym list near the end, open and read the entire acronym list.

4. If it has a glossary list near the end, open and scan the glossary list. You may not want to read all the definitions at this time (I don’t), but when you come across the word or phrase in the document later, if it’s not self-explanatory, you’ll remember it was in the glossary and you can go check it out for more information.

5. Now go back to the ToC and expand the subheadings for chapter 1. Read the subheadings so you get the idea of the flow of the chapter.

6. Read chapter 1.

7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for each chapter.

I should also mention that I’ve taken a speed reading course. Speed reading is real, and it works. You can take a course at some community colleges, or you can buy a book or get info online and do self-paced learning. But definitely become familiar with the techniques of speed reading.

By using steps 1-7, you’ll be able to skim a lot of the material without reading it too deeply, because you’ll have a mental framework on which to hang the information as you read it.

But remember, your goal is not speed, your goal is effective learning. Slow down wherever you need to, and be comfortable with your own pace.

I hope this helps someone.

What's wrong with this server room?