Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mansaxel]

I am loving my job today. I’m in a post vaccine haze and headache whilst sitting on a call with an ISO 27001 auditor while everyone talks around the bus sized holes in the processes 

You mean the guy who's discovered the search-and-replace in Word, equivalent to

Code: [Select]

sed 's/%COMPANY%/Unsuspecting people who are getting billed $BIGNUM for a simple text change/g' <\
   unique-ISO27001-policy-specially-for-you-template.txt > "Unsuspecting LTD Information Security Policy.txt"

And, of course, this is in addition to the bus sized holes.

[bd139]

To be fair this audit is not about using the template, which admittedly we had to write ourselves, but proving that we used the template to do the stuff

[med6753]

I was going through some old books/magazines and found this booklet. When I was about 14 or 15 my Father brought this home from work and it was the first time I was aware of Tektronix. When I opened it and saw that majestic Type 535 I quickly realized that ain't no Heathkit.  But it did start my life long lust to own one. It wasn't until several years later in the college electronics lab that I finally saw, and got to use, a Type 547. And I was hooked. 

The booklet has no copyright date but since it describes no suffix 535/545 and the front panel has rounded edges that places it late 1950's possibly into 1960. The rounded edge panels were the first cabinets of Tek Blue. When the 535/545 first came out in mid 1950's the front panels were squared off and the cabinets were grey.


   

[mansaxel]

To be fair this audit is not about using the template, which admittedly we had to write ourselves, but proving that we used the template to do the stuff

So, it is past the sed'ing and into "We 'ave a bloody rule book that says a manager needs to approve me going to the bog while you open the safe. Fuck that, I need to go."

[BU508A]

USPS is a giant fail. Again, and as usual. There's no way this will be delivered today when it didn't leave the Newark, NJ distribution center last night. Not the first time a package sits without moving for several days at that same center. Springfield, Masshole is just as bad. 

Looks like, that my cable arrived in Germany:

Code: [Select]

    27. Jul 2021
    14:03

    PROCESSED THROUGH OFFICE OF EXCHANGE
    DE

    23. Jul 2021
    15:32

    ORIGIN AIRLINE CARRIER DEPARTED/UPLIFT
    Fort Worth, US

    15. Jul 2021
    19:07

    ORIGIN AIRLINE CARRIER DEPARTED/UPLIFT

    15. Jul 2021
    13:03

    ACCEPTED BY ORIGIN AIRLINE CARRIER
    Chicago, US


[bd139]

To be fair this audit is not about using the template, which admittedly we had to write ourselves, but proving that we used the template to do the stuff

So, it is past the sed'ing and into "We 'ave a bloody rule book that says a manager needs to approve me going to the bog while you open the safe. Fuck that, I need to go."

Ah no it's evil this one. Much much worse. Sort of "so you have a security incident handling process - can you please run through the entire thing end to end with examples and show the documentation generated and that the resolutions were handled within your specified SLA window" 

They're doing physical security audit as well next which means they have to walk the person through the data centres remotely and show the physical security controls in place.


Edit: Big GPU spender today. Just nabbed a 2GB 1030 GTX for 70 quid. All it needs to do is drive a 4k desktop without the Intel graphics laggity hell and possibly run GTA V at 1080p

[Brumby]

They're doing physical security audit as well next ...

You just reminded me of an exercise I did some years ago.

Through a series of casual events, I was able to access my company's network room by using a broken filing hanger (imagine a thick 40cm ruler with a tapered end).  It worked on outward opening doors that were usually found to rooms with raised floors and I was able to enter more quickly than people with their swipe card.  I showed this to the relevant manager and a bit later, a large plate was put over the vulnerable area - but it wasn't big enough to stop my method, only make it a little slower.

Then one day I was addressed by someone I had never seen before asking if I had done this.  They were accompanied by someone I recognised from further up the food chain, so I said yes.  They had me demonstrate and then asked if they could have my "implement" - which I happily handed over.

Apparently there was a check around the building ... and there were several more doors found with the same vulnerability.


After further modifications, I worked out a different attack vector and demonstrated access to the network room once again to the relevant manager.  He just shook his head and walked away.  (Mind you, it was more involved and took much longer.)

[bd139]

That reminds me of the paid pen testers we had come in who stuck on Amazon jackets to get into the building and used a tape measure to unlock the security doors on a floor from the inside as they had really poor proximity detectors on them.

[mansaxel]

That reminds me of the paid pen testers we had come in who stuck on Amazon jackets to get into the building and used a tape measure to unlock the security doors on a floor from the inside as they had really poor proximity detectors on them.

At work, we are a "Protected Facility" (Skyddsobjekt) which means that we have been deemed important to society enough to make us have armed guards (which is very, very uncommon in Sweden; it's only protected facilities that are allowed to have it), we can have all the cameras we want, and we have an extended authority over our facilities where we can do significantly more than ask people to leave.

If I try something like that, I'm likely to end up talking to the guards, unless the trial was sanctioned by the security department. This most likely is an upgrade from last work, where such activities would result in looking at the barrel of a FNC 80 and worrying about where in the terrain the FN MINIMI is deployed...

[Saskia]

to prevent this I recommend a Dillon Aero sentry coupled to a movement / face recognition system. Similar to a CIWS.

[Saskia]

That reminds me of the paid pen testers we had come in who stuck on Amazon jackets to get into the building and used a tape measure to unlock the security doors on a floor from the inside as they had really poor proximity detectors on them.

At work, we are a "Protected Facility" (Skyddsobjekt) which means that we have been deemed important to society enough to make us have armed guards (which is very, very uncommon in Sweden; it's only protected facilities that are allowed to have it), we can have all the cameras we want, and we have an extended authority over our facilities where we can do significantly more than ask people to leave.

If I try something like that, I'm likely to end up talking to the guards, unless the trial was sanctioned by the security department. This most likely is an upgrade from last work, where such activities would result in looking at the barrel of a FNC 80 and worrying about where in the terrain the FN MINIMI is deployed...

In the facility that my Hubby was guarding you would first have hit the ground and then you would have to answer those questions.
They are not using FNs, they live by "in Glock we trust. And we back it up by AUGs"

[nixiefreqq]

DON'T DO IT!

do not get a shingles shot in one shoulder and a pneumonia shot in the other.  (or in swmbo's case shingles and tetanus)

one non-working arm is bad...... two is much much worse.  and you cannot sleep, because one side hurts and then you roll over on the side that hurts worse (over and over) until you give up and go watch old episodes of "cannon" and "barnaby jones" (or whatever flickering all night images you can find).

my head feels like someone hit me with a brick and swmbo is still carrying around a trash can for her dry heaves.

when the quack says get both shots......... run.   (or take one and offer to come back in two weeks for the other).  and when we get the shingles booster in 3-6 months i'm gonna' insist they give it in my butt cheek.  it took two of us to change the water bowls for the animals this morning because swmbo could not lift her arms to turn on the water.  to get out of bed i had to roll onto the floor and then crawl over and climb the dresser.

we are basket cases.

the covid shots were a walk in the park compared to this shit.

[Specmaster]

DON'T DO IT!

do not get a shingles shot in one shoulder and a pneumonia shot in the other.  (or in swmbo's case shingles and tetanus)

one non-working arm is bad...... two is much much worse.  and you cannot sleep, because one side hurts and then you roll over on the side that hurts worse (over and over) until you give up and go watch old episodes of "cannon" and "barnaby jones" (or whatever flickering all night images you can find).

my head feels like someone hit me with a brick and swmbo is still carrying around a trash can for her dry heaves.

when the quack says get both shots......... run.   (or take one and offer to come back in two weeks for the other).  and when we get the shingles booster in 3-6 months i'm gonna' insist they give it in my butt cheek.  it took two of us to change the water bowls for the animals this morning because swmbo could not lift her arms to turn on the water.  to get out of bed i had to roll onto the floor and then crawl over and climb the dresser.

we are basket cases.

the covid shots were a walk in the park compared to this shit.

That kinda sounds to me as if they pushed the needle to deeply into your muscle, and now it is reacting. I had similar when they gave me my flu jab. The nurse just took aim at my arm and jabbed it in and whipped it out again. Everything was fine for a couple of days and oww you bugger it hit me really hard, could hardly move the arm for a few hours. It still gets like that if my arm is freezing. Covid jabs, no problems at all with either of them.

[Cerebus]

A quick snapshot of the state of the GPSDO project. I'm finally getting the kind of stability figures I'd like to see.

 By the way, next time I start out on a project can someone please stop me if it looks like every debugging or verification step will take 24 hours minimum to do. The progess on this has been glacial becuase of how long you have to wait to see if what you've changed is good/bad or if you need an extra bit of information. Basically what might be a two minute test on the bench for anything sane becomes a 24 hour test for this.

The results of the latest overnight run:



Looking good. This is the first time I've put fine grained results out there (64 seconds samples). Earlier efforts have only been for long averaging times.

RMS frequency error (aka standard deviation), excluding the startup transients, is 30 x 10^-12 (or 3 x 10^-11 if you prefer it in that form). Mean frequency error on the same basis is 3 x 10^-12.

A frequency stability of 3 x 10^-11 represents a 'good' OCXO. I've done some rather sketchy comparisons of the 4 OCXOs in my batch of them and this particular one seems to be one of the two 'good' ones in this batch, the other two are merely 'OK'. I don't have stability figures on the exact same basis for the other three becuase, you know, "24 hour tests".

Just to give you a feel the results of the 'sketchy' tests were 69 ppt (i.e. 69 x 10^-12) for this OCXO, 51 ppt for the other 'good' one and 161 ppt and 162ppt for the 'OK' ones.

Preliminary figures suggest that the innate drift for this OCXO is about 0.64 ppb/day.

[Specmaster]

I think it's more the fact that no one wants the job now. I mean you can do an AWS cert and get paid more than a dentist for sitting on your arse at home all day and sounding like you know what you're doing 

Not everybody takes money as the most important thing. I once turned down a job that paid noticeably more, in favour of one I thought (correctly) was more interesting

You’re right there but it’s not much fun poking around inside people’s faces. A dentist told me that once.

No surprises there! Much like being a commercial pilot, or...

I was lucky in that I enjoyed (almost) all my jobs.

Yes. A friend of mine is a commercial pilot or “plane supervisor” as he calls his job now. He was a tube driver before that.

I am loving my job today. I’m in a post vaccine haze and headache whilst sitting on a call with an ISO 27001 auditor while everyone talks around the bus sized holes in the processes 

Put some offers on stuff because I’m bored. Let’s see if they bite…

Good luck; I'm surprised you found anything!

Found a few things. All offers rejected 

Thats a real pain when all offers come back rejected and not even a counter offer.

Been to the dentist this morning, all done, no problems at all, 5 minutes in the chair while some glue was mixed up, extra thickly and applied, crown positioned and held in place for a few minutes, advised that it would take 24 hours to fully cure so soft things only on the menu today, £23 all in, winner winner, chicken dinner.

[mansaxel]

By the way, next time I start out on a project can someone please stop me if it looks like every debugging or verification step will take 24 hours minimum to do.

You should take up gardening, just to put quick turnaround times like 24h in perspective. 

[Saskia]

Thinking about planting Carolina Reapers in the front garden of our new house. Should be quite a surprise to any of those vandals who like to steal fruit, veggies, etc.

 

[Saskia]

Good news:
my midway arcade arrived
Bad news:
box was repackaged with DHL tape

Ebay said: you need to open a return
I said: fix your global shipping program, the seller did not eff up, Pitney Bowes did and I expect them, not the seller, to uneff the situation.

[Cerebus]

Just had a Chinook come thundering past overhead. That they have got permission to fly in London controlled airspace is usually a sign of one of two things: (1) an air display I didn't know about, (2) trouble.

[bd139]

Happens occasionally here. They land at the Royal Military School of Music for some reason.

[med6753]

Happens occasionally here. They land at the Royal Military School of Music for some reason.

The tuba player fell over and needed a lift. 

[med6753]

It's very rare to see any sort of military aircraft in this area other than once in a while catch a C-17 flown by the NY Air Guard out of Stewart Airport in Newburgh. They used to fly C-5's but they were retired.

But when I was a kid and Stewart Airport was Stewart AFB different goodies all the time. Biggest (and loudest) was multiple flights of C-119 Flying Box Cars. Upwards of a dozen or more flying at low level such that the house shook. There was also a squadron of B-57's, the US version of the British Canberra Bomber, until they were sent to Vietnam where they promptly got shot to hell. The Army had flights of CH-21 "Flying Bananas" which are the twin rotor ancestor to the Chinook. They also got sent to Vietnam. Assorted F-86, T-33, F-101 and did catch an F-104 once. When I was in 6th grade our class took a guided tour of the base and saw a lot of the same aircraft up close.

And up until 1962 the U.S. Navy still used blimps for coastal patrol. Once in a while one would fly up the Hudson River. Now that duty is done by the Coast Guard in Dolphin helicopters. 

[bd139]

Tripped over this. In line with the collections of display technologies that we all have lurking 

[mansaxel]

Just had a Chinook come thundering past overhead. That they have got permission to fly in London controlled airspace is usually a sign of one of two things: (1) an air display I didn't know about, (2) trouble.

We got rid of our Vertols (Chinooks little brother) and then, in panic, had to buy MOTS, which means BlackHawks without ANY mods. Yes, they've got three crowns painted on them, and they 're modified to take our Model 58 machinegun in the side gunner position, but that's about it. They very occasionally pick up or drop off people at a helipad close to one of the Headquarters facilities near where I work.

[Robert763]

Hmm, Mounting the RFID reader on a plastic box has the "useful" effect of defeating the anti-tamper while allowing access to the wiring  . Then there was the case where they fitted a full height turnstile. The poles on it made a handy ladder to climb up, cross over the fence and climb down...
 Many years ago a good friend of mine  went to work for a week by showing a ski pass to security. He reported it and got a formal warning for not using the correct pass. I don't know what they said to security....