Tech support tragedy of the day

Accounting firm gets a Cryptolocker infection, which blows through their main file server like a dose of salts and encrypts the lot.

Faced with a ransom of thousands of dollars, incrementing by the hour, and a deadline before the decryption key is lost forever, the firm's IT consultant decides to wipe the server and restore from backup.  He long ago set them up with Carbonite cloud backup so no loss other than restore time.

Having scrubbed the drive array - so the files and encryption hash are now gone, even if they paid the ransom - the IT consultant now discovers he can't remember the password to the backups.  Carbonite uses 1024 bit encryption.

Fuck.

Backup plan - reimport the private encryption key directly, if that's present the password is not required.  Where is the key stored?  Oh yeah... on the server.



Fuuuuuuuck.

Last resort plan - the owner of the firm should still have the private encryption key in their e-mail.  Only the server was affected so the .PST file should be unencrypted.  The owner's response: ""I don't keep anything sensitive in my e-mail because it's not secure."

Game over.

The accounting firm has lost 20 years of customer files that might be relied on for tax or legal use, all of their workflow templates, their own business and personnel records, down to and including their own company incorporation documents.  They're going out of business, and that's before their customers start suing them for professional negligence and costs incurred.

The IT consultant firm doesn't have errors and omissions insurance, so they're going out of business too once the accounting firm's owner sues them into oblivion.

Final kicker - why didn't the IT consultant do regular test disaster recovery runs, and discover the password issue?  The accounting firm owner didn't want to incur the cost and system downtime to do so, against the advice of the IT consultant, who's now the only person left with an e-mail trail and records to demonstrate this.  So it's quite likely that they will walk in terms of the lawsuit, despite it being their negligence that caused the issue.

"But that costs money!" - any manager/executive/owner, ever.

Another terror attack in France

Another terror attack in France... large truck deliberately driven into a crowd, then the driver got out and started brassing up the bystanders.

Now I wonder who could have committed such an act?





I suppose at some point the world is going to admit that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Western values and get serious about addressing the issue, but I also no doubt that our pussified politicians will allow the situation to get a lot worse before they do so.

I'm a vigilante

For the last couple of weeks I've been back to getting the train to work again, which means getting the tram over to the station in the afternoon.

That's fine.  What shits me is the number of weetbix-packet-licence pricks who can't quite grasp the concept of stopping for the pedestrian crossings at the tram stops.  I mean it's not rocket science, it's a superstop with clearly apparent crossings.  Wavy lines, zebra stripes, fluoro yellow signs.

I've been getting very good at reaching out and giving people's wing mirrors a good firm slap as the blow by, which always results in a good firm BANG, and if I'm lucky, a broken mirror.  I've only had one cretin get out of the car and complain, and he pulled his head in smartly when I offered to remove it for him.

A couple of afternoons ago, I was a bit slow off the mark and didn't make it to a mirror in time, so I contented myself with a good solid punch to the back quarter panel.  That must have sounded really impressive inside the car, because the driver shit themselves and slammed on the brakes, with the result that the car behind him - which was also blowing through the crossing at the same speed - ran straight into the back of him.  Bonus points!

While I would have loved to get a photo, I deemed it a wise move to disappear smartly...

Your Sunday morning dose of stupid

This is one of the stupidest piece of lefty socialist thinking you'll ever hear.

Two pommie philosophers think that parents are "unfairly disadvantaging other people’s children" by.... reading to their own children.

‘One way philosophers might think about solving the social justice problem would be by simply abolishing the family. If the family is this source of unfairness in society then it looks plausible to think that if we abolished the family there would be a more level playing field.’

I have a simpler and far more practical idea.  Let's shoot philosophers if this sort of loony lefty thinkspeak is all they are good for, because I'm not seeing a lot of practical application for their contribution so far.

Armchair Socialists specialise in espousing equality, but like all academics with zero practical experience in making anything happen, they don't appreciate that it's usually done by dragging everyone back to the common denominator of the lowest achiever.  Apparently it's OK if a whole bunch of people have to suffer as a result, because in socialist-think that's better than any one person experiencing more suffering because of their own unique circumstances.

Anyone with a level of intelligence superior to a bread mold would respond to this twaddle by asking, quite reasonably, why not improve the experience of the lowest advantaged?  Ah, but that would require work, and possibly getting out of the armchair. Can't have that.  Is there any more tea?

To quote someone else who put it better than I can - 

The reality is that the only way we will have equality is by dragging everyone down to the same level. By hammering down on the hard working, the studious, the enterprising, the principled, the entrepreneurial. And this is what happens under socialism. Merit is not rewarded.

- http://www.bruceonpolitics.com/2011/02/10/why-socialism-is-evil-1-equality/

Of course, one of these cretins is now trying to back out their statement and claim they were misinterpreted, but I think the message came through quite clearly the first time.

Fuck off, you irrelevant twats.

Too early?