Computing desk | ||
---|---|---|
< January 3 | << Dec | January | Feb >> | January 5 > |
Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives |
---|
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages. |
This is the situation: we made a system for pharmacies that only needs a username and a password to gain access to very sensitive data. National standards, etc, now require the system to have a "two-factor authentication". For real proof of identity, you'd also need for instance a chipcard or an SMS. Both have disadvantages which I'd like to avoid. Also, I think these rules were made thinking of a system that is available via Internet for which obviously just a username and password do not provide enough security.
However, to gain access to our system you do need 2 factors. The first being able to guess a username and password; the second being that you need physical access to a PC in a pharmacy because you cannot reach the system via Internet. Even if you give someone your username and password, he'd have a hard time finding out what medication Ms. X is using. (Also, as soon as someone has access to a PC in a pharmacy, there's not much need to access a computer anyway because he could just look in the bags to see what medication people are taking.)
To make the case that we don't need extra security measures besides a username and password because the people having access to the system also must have managed to unlock the door, switch of the alarm, etc, I need an "offical" standard that acknowledges "physical access" being a "second factor" needed to gain access to a system. Does anyone know such a standard? 94.210.106.121 ( talk) 02:11, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm looking for some suggestions on software to monitor and log what has been happening on our work computer running Windows XP. Once an hour we send out the weather by modem and it almost always goes OK. Sometimes though the computer will freeze up and a reboot is in order. So we are trying to identify the problem. It would need to log not only the keystrokes and mouse gestures but also other actions that the computer performed. I've been searching for software but all I can find is stuff that assumes I want to spy on the staff. Of course the cheapest solution would be best and keyloggers can be had for nothing but I had trouble finding anything that would show what buttons were clicked with the mouse. Software to record and automate mouse clicking is available but not really helpful. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather ( talk) 02:39, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
A modem as in over the phone line. A 1-800 number. We are not permitted to send weather by the Internet. It's some sort of weird countrywide standard. The problem isn't that people forget to send the weather. It's that the computer freezes and needs to be rebooted.
We manually type in the weather and then hit send on the hour. We produce a minimum of 8,760 weather observations a year (at least one observation an hour) and a total of 9 or 24 (depends on if people were telling the truth) were sent late because someone forgot. That's 0.1% or 0.27% and not really a problem. Yes I could set a program to record the mouse pushing send on the hour but there are possible problems with that. If the software stops working or it works and the computer freezes then the observer may not notice.
I did discover earlier in my shift that one problem that causes the weather software to freeze is caused by PowerDesk Pro. If it has been run and then shutdown it does not always do so. I had to Ctrl+Alt+Del and kill the process in Task Manager.
DSl is available here but not at work. Officially we only use it for email and a once a day retrieval of NOTAMs. Of course once you have run through the 20 GB it's $18 a GB after that. At home we would probably use the 20 in under a week (a combination of NetFlix and the Roku) and in one case a friend of mine spent over $1000 the first month. There is a another company but after you use up their allowance it reverts to dial up. I go with another company that doesn't give so fast a speed but has no monthly cap. Of course we are all waiting until 2016 when we are supposed to get fibre optic from Arctic Fibre.
As far as I know we are supposed to get 4G sometime this year but until then we will have to make do with our CDMA phones. Which is the reason BlackBerry phones are popular here because it's the only company that makes a CDMA smart phone. CambridgeBayWeather ( talk) 13:57, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
Sorry I missed your other comment about a dedicated computer provided by the federal goverment. It pretty much is that already. Weather, NOTAM retrieval, email and some spreadsheets. There is a backup that we use for everything else including playing on the Internet and a couple of us, like me, bring our own laptops. Oh yes, Environment Canada don't provide the Internet, it comes from the employer. CambridgeBayWeather ( talk) 14:03, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
With respect to Talk:Transmission_Control_Protocol#Choice_of_diagrams: Does anybody here know if there is an ACK expected on the transition from "Closing" to "Time Wait" when a TCP connection is being actively terminated? -- Stephan Schulz ( talk) 11:35, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Okay, this is I am sure the dumbest n00best question ever, but here goes - I'm going to try to be very clear : Recently I decided to have my own blog - an actual non-blogger blog, with hosting, so that I could keep the files on my computer and mess with the code etc. But I am sort of busy and lazy and not the best coder, so I decided on a hosting package from GoDaddy that was bundled with Wordpress. (Yes, I hate the elephant poaching, but I also want something that is not going ot disappear and that is cheap, and I, like alot of people, don't really know much about these things). So I made my little test-stage blog honeyrococo.com and am using a "responsive theme" from Wordpress, meaning that it is supposed to automatically resize depending on the device on which it is being viewed - laptop, montior, ipad, various phones, etc.
Now my first question then is - why did I need to activate the Dudamobile mobile site? There was a button I was require to push in order to make my mobile site "go live". I thought the Internet was just the Internet and that things would be available to phones if they were available on the Internet proper, no matter what. I assumed that some things would look crappy on the phone because the formatting was iffy, but I thought that anything that was on the Internet was also available to mobile devices. Are there whole areas of the Internet (Flash issues aside) that are just not available? (So that's Q1)
Q2 is - when I finally made my mobile site "go live" it looked great online. Even my friend in London (I'm in California) who saw it on his different phone said so. It looked just like the actual online version of the site. But then there was this tool I was subsequently supposed to use from Dudamobile and I thought I had to use it - it asked me all sort of stuff about my color scheme and layout and changed everything so now the layout doesn't even seem to work if you turn the phone. This despite the fact that the original theme was "responsive". Add to this that the new color scheme is problematic because you can only have one background color on the phone, and so I have to choose something light enough for text and dark enough not to be plain white. The mobile site also looks kind of ... empty.
Q3 : When the site first went "live" and my boyfriend could see it in London, it looked great on his phone and on mine here in Oakland, because it was just honeyrococo.com, but then I guess something somewhere in the system "updated" to now always refer it to something like mobile.honeyrococo.com which is where all the ugliness transpires. Is it not somehow possible to just have the honeyrococo.com responsive site load as honeyrococo.com on phones? Why do I need to have this intermediary "mobile" version? Is Dudamobile actually providing me a needed service? Or is it some kind of gatekeeper? Or worse, a parasite? Is it only there to make sites that aren't "responsive" look good? Is there anyway to get back to that Edenic moment of having just my normal site display on phones?
Thank you in advance for any help. I am sure that I am asking the dumbest most obvious question(s) of all. Saudade7 13:42, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Well, it is the time again for me to ask stupid questions :-) This is what happened. I reinstalled my old Windows Server 2008, ran all updates, etc and now I want to download Hyper V and quite possibly other software. I found a microsoft website that offers the downloads and ran into a small problem: I have to download first Microsoft Download manager. I actually has done it many times before but in other OS. Now my Firewall blocks the download "Security Alert: Your current security settings do not allow this file to be downloaded. " - this is what I get in a small pop-up. I am kind of afraid to turn the firewall off even for a single download so I tried to set up an exception. In "Windows Firewall" I clicked on "Change Settings." A window "Windows Firewall Settings" comes up. I added TCP port 25, called it "Inbound Port 25." and nothing happened. The download is stil blocked. What is wrong? What would be the other way to run safe downloads? Thanks, -- AboutFace 22 ( talk) 18:57, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Port 25 is SMTP port for some, inbound port for others. Well, anyhow I could not find so far how to prompt for the download every time (answering StuRat's suggestion). WinSer is a peculiar environment. Microsoft Download manager is NEEDED for downloading large files whereas it can download portions of a single file piecemeal and also it keeps track of all downloads which is very convenient. Thanks for contributions. I suggest to BenRG you either abstain from your inappropriate comments ("doing things at random") or stay clear off my posts. It is a WARNING!!! And it is the last one. -- AboutFace 22 ( talk) 20:47, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
The problem has been completely resolved. Much maligned :-) BenRG was correct. I had to allow file downloads in Internet Options. Now it is done. Thanks -- AboutFace 22 ( talk) 21:22, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Computing desk | ||
---|---|---|
< January 3 | << Dec | January | Feb >> | January 5 > |
Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives |
---|
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages. |
This is the situation: we made a system for pharmacies that only needs a username and a password to gain access to very sensitive data. National standards, etc, now require the system to have a "two-factor authentication". For real proof of identity, you'd also need for instance a chipcard or an SMS. Both have disadvantages which I'd like to avoid. Also, I think these rules were made thinking of a system that is available via Internet for which obviously just a username and password do not provide enough security.
However, to gain access to our system you do need 2 factors. The first being able to guess a username and password; the second being that you need physical access to a PC in a pharmacy because you cannot reach the system via Internet. Even if you give someone your username and password, he'd have a hard time finding out what medication Ms. X is using. (Also, as soon as someone has access to a PC in a pharmacy, there's not much need to access a computer anyway because he could just look in the bags to see what medication people are taking.)
To make the case that we don't need extra security measures besides a username and password because the people having access to the system also must have managed to unlock the door, switch of the alarm, etc, I need an "offical" standard that acknowledges "physical access" being a "second factor" needed to gain access to a system. Does anyone know such a standard? 94.210.106.121 ( talk) 02:11, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm looking for some suggestions on software to monitor and log what has been happening on our work computer running Windows XP. Once an hour we send out the weather by modem and it almost always goes OK. Sometimes though the computer will freeze up and a reboot is in order. So we are trying to identify the problem. It would need to log not only the keystrokes and mouse gestures but also other actions that the computer performed. I've been searching for software but all I can find is stuff that assumes I want to spy on the staff. Of course the cheapest solution would be best and keyloggers can be had for nothing but I had trouble finding anything that would show what buttons were clicked with the mouse. Software to record and automate mouse clicking is available but not really helpful. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather ( talk) 02:39, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
A modem as in over the phone line. A 1-800 number. We are not permitted to send weather by the Internet. It's some sort of weird countrywide standard. The problem isn't that people forget to send the weather. It's that the computer freezes and needs to be rebooted.
We manually type in the weather and then hit send on the hour. We produce a minimum of 8,760 weather observations a year (at least one observation an hour) and a total of 9 or 24 (depends on if people were telling the truth) were sent late because someone forgot. That's 0.1% or 0.27% and not really a problem. Yes I could set a program to record the mouse pushing send on the hour but there are possible problems with that. If the software stops working or it works and the computer freezes then the observer may not notice.
I did discover earlier in my shift that one problem that causes the weather software to freeze is caused by PowerDesk Pro. If it has been run and then shutdown it does not always do so. I had to Ctrl+Alt+Del and kill the process in Task Manager.
DSl is available here but not at work. Officially we only use it for email and a once a day retrieval of NOTAMs. Of course once you have run through the 20 GB it's $18 a GB after that. At home we would probably use the 20 in under a week (a combination of NetFlix and the Roku) and in one case a friend of mine spent over $1000 the first month. There is a another company but after you use up their allowance it reverts to dial up. I go with another company that doesn't give so fast a speed but has no monthly cap. Of course we are all waiting until 2016 when we are supposed to get fibre optic from Arctic Fibre.
As far as I know we are supposed to get 4G sometime this year but until then we will have to make do with our CDMA phones. Which is the reason BlackBerry phones are popular here because it's the only company that makes a CDMA smart phone. CambridgeBayWeather ( talk) 13:57, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
Sorry I missed your other comment about a dedicated computer provided by the federal goverment. It pretty much is that already. Weather, NOTAM retrieval, email and some spreadsheets. There is a backup that we use for everything else including playing on the Internet and a couple of us, like me, bring our own laptops. Oh yes, Environment Canada don't provide the Internet, it comes from the employer. CambridgeBayWeather ( talk) 14:03, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
With respect to Talk:Transmission_Control_Protocol#Choice_of_diagrams: Does anybody here know if there is an ACK expected on the transition from "Closing" to "Time Wait" when a TCP connection is being actively terminated? -- Stephan Schulz ( talk) 11:35, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Okay, this is I am sure the dumbest n00best question ever, but here goes - I'm going to try to be very clear : Recently I decided to have my own blog - an actual non-blogger blog, with hosting, so that I could keep the files on my computer and mess with the code etc. But I am sort of busy and lazy and not the best coder, so I decided on a hosting package from GoDaddy that was bundled with Wordpress. (Yes, I hate the elephant poaching, but I also want something that is not going ot disappear and that is cheap, and I, like alot of people, don't really know much about these things). So I made my little test-stage blog honeyrococo.com and am using a "responsive theme" from Wordpress, meaning that it is supposed to automatically resize depending on the device on which it is being viewed - laptop, montior, ipad, various phones, etc.
Now my first question then is - why did I need to activate the Dudamobile mobile site? There was a button I was require to push in order to make my mobile site "go live". I thought the Internet was just the Internet and that things would be available to phones if they were available on the Internet proper, no matter what. I assumed that some things would look crappy on the phone because the formatting was iffy, but I thought that anything that was on the Internet was also available to mobile devices. Are there whole areas of the Internet (Flash issues aside) that are just not available? (So that's Q1)
Q2 is - when I finally made my mobile site "go live" it looked great online. Even my friend in London (I'm in California) who saw it on his different phone said so. It looked just like the actual online version of the site. But then there was this tool I was subsequently supposed to use from Dudamobile and I thought I had to use it - it asked me all sort of stuff about my color scheme and layout and changed everything so now the layout doesn't even seem to work if you turn the phone. This despite the fact that the original theme was "responsive". Add to this that the new color scheme is problematic because you can only have one background color on the phone, and so I have to choose something light enough for text and dark enough not to be plain white. The mobile site also looks kind of ... empty.
Q3 : When the site first went "live" and my boyfriend could see it in London, it looked great on his phone and on mine here in Oakland, because it was just honeyrococo.com, but then I guess something somewhere in the system "updated" to now always refer it to something like mobile.honeyrococo.com which is where all the ugliness transpires. Is it not somehow possible to just have the honeyrococo.com responsive site load as honeyrococo.com on phones? Why do I need to have this intermediary "mobile" version? Is Dudamobile actually providing me a needed service? Or is it some kind of gatekeeper? Or worse, a parasite? Is it only there to make sites that aren't "responsive" look good? Is there anyway to get back to that Edenic moment of having just my normal site display on phones?
Thank you in advance for any help. I am sure that I am asking the dumbest most obvious question(s) of all. Saudade7 13:42, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Well, it is the time again for me to ask stupid questions :-) This is what happened. I reinstalled my old Windows Server 2008, ran all updates, etc and now I want to download Hyper V and quite possibly other software. I found a microsoft website that offers the downloads and ran into a small problem: I have to download first Microsoft Download manager. I actually has done it many times before but in other OS. Now my Firewall blocks the download "Security Alert: Your current security settings do not allow this file to be downloaded. " - this is what I get in a small pop-up. I am kind of afraid to turn the firewall off even for a single download so I tried to set up an exception. In "Windows Firewall" I clicked on "Change Settings." A window "Windows Firewall Settings" comes up. I added TCP port 25, called it "Inbound Port 25." and nothing happened. The download is stil blocked. What is wrong? What would be the other way to run safe downloads? Thanks, -- AboutFace 22 ( talk) 18:57, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Port 25 is SMTP port for some, inbound port for others. Well, anyhow I could not find so far how to prompt for the download every time (answering StuRat's suggestion). WinSer is a peculiar environment. Microsoft Download manager is NEEDED for downloading large files whereas it can download portions of a single file piecemeal and also it keeps track of all downloads which is very convenient. Thanks for contributions. I suggest to BenRG you either abstain from your inappropriate comments ("doing things at random") or stay clear off my posts. It is a WARNING!!! And it is the last one. -- AboutFace 22 ( talk) 20:47, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
The problem has been completely resolved. Much maligned :-) BenRG was correct. I had to allow file downloads in Internet Options. Now it is done. Thanks -- AboutFace 22 ( talk) 21:22, 4 January 2014 (UTC)