Who, Do You Imagine, Might Ultimately Be Responsible For Your Online Safety?

Sunday 29th November 2009

Simple - just look in the mirror!

Some years ago, the Health & Safety Executive issued a poster designed for use in industrial environments.  It featured a reflective silver upper part and underneath it the text "On reflection, THIS person is responsible for your safety".  Unlike the petty "Elf & Safety" which we all experience in day-to-day life, factories must do all they can to enforce real "Health & Safety", for obvious reasons.  They therefore take the physical safety of their personnel very seriously.  Depending on the size and nature of the factory, this often includes full-time Safety Officers and regular staff training courses, as well as subsidised safety workwear such as boots, goggles and helmets.  There may even be "Golden Eye" and "Golden Foot" awards for staff who would otherwise have suffered serious injury, had they not been wearing the appropriate protective workwear.

The online world is similar in some respects to an industrial manufacturing environment, both in that safety is paramount and that it is, ultimately, the responsibility of the individual concerned.  Although there are no physical Safety Officers to enforce safe Internet usage practices, there are a number of Internet Security Suites which aim to ensure the surfer's online safety.  These are all very well, but just as with the potentially hazardous conditions in factories, the ultimate responsibility for online safety lies with the individual concerned.

Does that enticing link on a website or in an email look "too good to be true"?  Then it probably is.  Does that email claim that you have won a prize in a lottery, which you do not recall entering?  Another scam.  Another favourite trick is to ask the surfer to install a free program which will allegdly perform a system checkup/virus sweep/registry cleanup/scumware check.  Yet another scam.  Far from removing scumware or viruses, it is itself a virus!

In industry, there is no substitute for safe working practices.  On the Internet, there is no substitute for safe browsing practices. 

Christmas Is Coming, The Goose Is Getting Fat...

Sunday 22nd November 2009

Please put your pennies in the UPS manufacturers' hats!

During the summer, demand for electricity tends to rise in proportion to the temperature, as people switch on fans, air conditioning units and so on.  Demand then tails off until the cooler weather returns in October and November, encouraging the use of electric heaters.  Peak demand, of course, arises after Christmas, when winter really sets in.  Once Spring comes round, demand falls again until the summer, when the cycle repeats itself.

Outright power failures are one of the most visible consequences of an increased demand for electricity, but not the only one.  Problems may also arise with the quality of the supply.  It is relatively simple to defend sensitive equipment against power surges, but other threats are not so easily mitigated.  "Dropouts", when the supply is interrupted for a millisecond or two, or "brownouts", where the voltage is temporarily reduced, can represent a serious problem.  Mains-borne interference, where a high-frequency oscillation is superimposed on the "normal" mains frequency, can be particularly damaging.

Fortunately, there are a number of manufacturers of equipment which can remedy these situations.  Among the best-known names in this field are APC, Chloride Power and Liebert, all of whom have ranges of uninterruptible power supply devices, with models appropriate for any situation.  Their websites are an excellent source of technical information and include guidance on sizing etc.

Unfortunately, protection against mains problems is not free.  Depending on the nature of the problem and the power draw of the equipment to be protected, as sizeable investment may be required.  As always, the cost of such an investment must be balanced carefully against the potential loss which might arise if the protection were not provided.

The Command Prompt - Your Friend Or Your Foe?

Sunday 15th November 2009

Opinions are, of course, divided

Graphical User Interfaces are now so common that many people are quite unable to imagine how it is even possible to interact with a computer without one, let alone to do anything useful.  Every modern operating system comes as standard with at least one such interface, while Linux distributions typically allow the user to choose between four, five or even more and switch between them more-or-less at will.  This belief in the absolute necessity of a GUI causes users to make panic calls to Helpdesks, saying that "They have broken their computer".  What has happened, of course, is that they have accidentally clicked on "Command Prompt" in an obscure corner of a menu.  Quite rightly, Windows has opened a black Command Prompt window and is waiting for meaningful character-based input from the terrified user.  Never having seen this behaviour before, the user is unaware that he can clear the "problem" merely by typing "Exit" and pressing the "Enter" key, or by clicking on the little cross in its top right corner.

This lack of familiarity with the Command Prompt is Usually found only amongst Windows users, since Linux users are generally rather more accustomed to taking advantage of the facilities it offers.  A GUI is undoubtedly an excellent tool for organising information and displaying it in a user-friendly format.  Windows Explorer and, in the Linux world, KDE's Konqueror, are essential when navigating the labyrinthine directory structure of a modern hard disk.  The Command Prompt does have a "Tree" command, but it is a poor substitute.

The Command Prompt does win hands-down, however, especially for tasks such as file maintenance and script-based activities. Imagine trying to delete or copy all the files in a given directory, whose names have a specified character in the third position from the left. With the Command Prompt, it is easy, since it supports wildcards such as "?" and "*".  With Explorer, it is necessary to set up a search, then sort and sift the results to ensure that only the required files are being processed.

Help with the sometimes-arcane commands and their syntax is readily available, of course - merely type "Help" and press the "Enter" key.

Make Your Network Redundant!

Sunday 8th November 2009

What?....Surely you cannot be serious?

Actually, yes - but please remember to bear in mind the famous advice given to the Greeks by the Oracle at Delphi.  Although the Delphic Oracle was not unique, it was by far the most highly-regarded one in he Ancient World.  Nowadays, it is usually remembered for its habit of giving ambiguous, obscure or even practically incomprehensible advice.  A large part of this reputation is due to what happened when it was consulted by the Athenians. 

At the time concerned, the Athenians were under threat from the Persians, the Superpower of the day. They had previously consulted the Oracle about the likely outcome of the war and were told that, in effect, they would be annihilated.   An unwelcome prophecy indeed!  They therefore tried again and this time the Oracle advised that they should "Surround themselves with wooden walls".  Wisely, they did not take this advice at face value and use wood to build their city walls.  Instead, they built themselves a powerful navy of wooden ships, which they used to defeat the Persians in a great sea battle at Salamis and, subsequently, save Greece. 

"Networks are now so essential to modern business life that their critical components need to be redundant", as the Oracle might have advised in its usual ambiguous manner.  This "redundancy" is not to be interpreted in the sense of "No longer required", but rather in the sense of "Not required under normal circumstances, but ready for use at a moment's notice if necessary".  Depending on the size and complexity of the network, this may mean as little as keeping a spare 8-port switch, a ready-configured router and a handful of 2-metre patch leads in a cupboard.  In the event of a problem, the failed unit is merely disconnected and replaced with the spare one.  Such a strategy usually costs so little as to be a "no-brainer", even for the smallest business.  For an enterprise-class network, "redundancy" effectively means "At least two of everything, with automatic detection and recovery in the event of a failure, all without any interruption of service to the users".  Unfortunately, such a high-availability network is achievable only with careful design and planning, as well as some considerable expense.  However, its cost must be balanced against the losses which would arise were the network to be unavailable for more than the briefest interval. 

Never will the architect of cost-saving find his status plunging from "Hero" to "Zero" more quickly than when the business is unable to function due to a network failure....