>> Polycarbonate is tough stuff, but when it reaches its failure point, it 
>> fails spectacularly.
>
> ...and painfully, if you're holding it wrong. :-S

Hmm, the last CD I tried to snap... wouldn't.  I ended up bending it back 
and to several times until it cracked.  Very different to the first CDs that 
seemed to shatter instantly if you bent them past 10 degrees.

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Darren New wrote:
> Eero Ahonen wrote:
>> And if you *need* those backups, 'cause the darn HD of the workstation 
>> crashed, they are extremely secure? :)
> 
> You put an escrow key on a floppy and lock that up somewhere separate.

Yep, that has to be possible and you'll need to realize to do it before 
it's needed. It's even worse to realize you can't *use* your backups 
than realizing you don't even have them.

> Some things could be easier, yes. :-)

Well, OTOH no, they couldn't. That's pretty much one of the few 
possibilities to keep the backdoor locked.

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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On Sun, 06 Jul 2008 12:19:17 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> What is the current max length of a Windows password?
> 
> I'm not sure, and it changes depending what you're doing. Just logging
> in locally? Logging into a domain? Talking over SAMBA? Talking to a
> non-windows-NT SAMBA? It's at least 14 characters, and if you make it
> that long, the 7+7 broken hash in the login doesn't work any more.
> (I.e., at 14+ characters, you can't brute force it nearly as easily as
> at 13 characters, because Windows no longer exhibits the flaw that makes
> it easy to crack.)

Well, unless you need NTLM authentication - then the weakness is still 
there.  But 14 characters is what I recall.

>>> [1] Bonus points to any flames about AD, that you can install windows
>>> on something other than C:, and so on.
>> 
>> Not sure I follow here - unless you're saying that with AD the key
>> isn't stored on the local machine...
> 
> Only that saying "C:" is a generic term, and I'm aware of that fact.

Oh, I see.  And was that a request for flames on AD?  Because I could 
come up with a couple. :-)

Jim

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On Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:51:39 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>> What is the current max length of a Windows password?  I know my 20-
>> character password had to be cut down to 14 IIRC on WinNT and possibly
>> Win2K - the dumb thing seemed to be that when setting the password, the
>> password got truncated and then hashed, but when checking, it was
>> hashed as is (or vice versa), so if you set your password to a value
>> that was too long, you could never login.
> 
> Isn't that cute?
> 
> Yes, I ran into this too. I think it varies depending on whether you use
> LANMAN or Kerberos. (So... it's nice and reliable then!)

Yep, that it would - Kerberos wouldn't have the same limitation as NTLM.

Jim

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On Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:50:08 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>> Because not all sysadmins follow their manager's instructions.
> 
> ...which is kind of the point I was making. ;-)

:-)

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On Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:38:53 +0200, Gail Shaw wrote:

> Yeah, but while it's hard to tell if someone has followed the
> instruction "Don't read my files", it's fairly easy to tell if they've
> followed the instruction to set the boot order of a particular machine..

Not if they change it temporarily just long enough to do what they intend.

Jim

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scott wrote:

> 
> Hmm, the last CD I tried to snap... wouldn't.  I ended up bending it 
> back and to several times until it cracked.  Very different to the first 
> CDs that seemed to shatter instantly if you bent them past 10 degrees.
> 

DVDs tend to do that, too. If you bend them just right, you can separate 
the layers without breaking the plastic.

I'll never forget one time I was pissed off at a failed burn. (Screen 
saver took over, the buffer wasn't big enough to compensate; Funny, 
after that I turn screen savers off when I'm burning disks) I grabbed 
the disk from the tray like normal (Index finger in hole, thumb and last 
finger on the edges) and squeezed hard. Stupid thing shattered, driving 
a few shards into my hand ;) I learned not to take my frustrations out 
on CDs in that fashion.

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On 07-Jul-08 14:59, Invisible wrote:
>>>> Some shredders will destroy CD's BTW...
>>>
>>> I gotta get me some of that...
>>
>> Ours does CDs, it's not particularly exciting :-(
> 
> True. But I do have a pile of about 40 CDs here that I need to destroy. 
> I mean, I *could* just snap them in half with my bare hands... but it's 
> quite painful. OK if you gotta destroy beyond two CDs, but 40? No thanks...
> 
I think that microwave ovens may be a good way to destroy them. ;)

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And lo on Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:00:24 +0100, Mike Raiford  
<mra### [at] hotmailcom> did spake, saying:

> scott wrote:
>>>> Some shredders will destroy CD's BTW...
>>>
>>> I gotta get me some of that...
>>  Ours does CDs, it's not particularly exciting :-(
>
> Mine does, and be prepared to wear safety glasses while doing it  
> (especially DVDs the 2 layers really make things messy) I usually wind  
> up finding shards of CD or DVD somewhere across the room after shredding.

Hmm ours has a flip down lid with the CD slot in it to prevent backwash,  
also has a removable bin section you can clip on so the CD bits don't mix  
with the paper which is a nice touch. I suppose the fact that the cutting  
blades are about two and a half inches below the feed also helps.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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And lo on Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:23:15 +0100, Chambers
<ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> did spake, saying:

> Eero Ahonen wrote:
>> So... If we have 4 men, with intelligences 1, 8, 9 and 9, the average  
>> is (1+8+9+9)/4=6,75, so 75% of men are more intelligent than average  
>> person (who, if he existed, would be over 6 times as intelligent as the  
>> dumpest one).
>
> I usually drop the outliers (top and bottom quartiles) first.  That  
> would leave us with (8+9)/2=8.5 average, with an even 50% split :)

Yeah or spot that for a 0-10 range the mean is 6.75 and the median is 8.5
and think 'hmm I've got some odd data need the bottom end of the range I
need to look at'. It's like the old chestnut of 4 people in a room earn
£25,000 each and in walks someone who earns that combined. The average  
jumps to £40k while the median stays at £25k, which is the more accurate  
figure?

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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