There should be an Effulgence thread

[Bluelantern]

EFFULGENCE LIVES!

[anthusiasm]

CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES COME ON
*:･ﾟ✧ *begins dancing and flinging sparkles* *:･ﾟ✧

[cbhacking]

Much rejoicing is had!

Also, the idea of the centuries-future reintroduction of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device, a source of much consternation for some businesses that operate in various degrees of secrecy) is amusing me greatly.

[Kappa]

Explain BYOD? I have like 60% of an understanding of what you're talking about.

[jalapeno_dude]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bring_your_own_device

;)

[cbhacking]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bring_your_own_device - the intro/summary explains *what* it is fairly well. What makes it funny is that it's a real problem that people like government contractors / agencies have, where people want(ed) to bring in relatively insecure devices like early iPhones instead of their secure-but-very-limited corporate-issued Blackberries or whatever. It's not even so much that the employee-preferred devices are *inherently* insecure, as that they aren't under the agency's control and therefore tend to give headaches to the people responsible for making sure data isn't exfiltrated somehow / an attacker can't use a malicious app on somebody's phone to pivot into the internal network / an employee's data is securely deleted when they leave the agency or lose the phone.

The usual solution is called Mobile Device Management (MDM) and basically means voluntarily handing over part of your control over the phone/tablet/pen/whatever to the company/agency, in exchange for them allowing it on their network. The MDM administrator can then restrict apps that are allowed to be installed, force apps to be installed, remotely wipe the device, require the presence of a password/PIN to unlock the device, ensure corporate data stays in a separate and encrypted area from general storage, and so on. All the major mobile OSes in the world today support this to one degree or another. On of the major reasons Blackberry has been having so much trouble is that back when they did MDM and almost nobody else had any concept of it, they were the *only* choice for sensitive business, but now everything from a cheap Android phone to an ultra-consumer-focused iPhone have enough MDM options that many agencies have switched from issuing Blackberries to having people just do BYOD.

"Somehow, despite regulations, they keep creeping in. In fact, ImpSec analysts are the source of more than half of the pseudonymously published clever tricks for disabling network features or irrecoverably wiping data storage."

is so, so very accurate... except that in most real-world examples, for everybody who publishes a way to disable network features there will be two who look for (and may or may not publish) a way to get the devices onto networks where they aren't supposed to be. The ratio is probably a lot better at a place like ImpSec, but you'll still have people who want to be able to check their corporate email without needing to enter a password every time they pick up the device. People are dumb like that (among people who aren't required to have one, it's amazing how many people don't lock their smartphones with a PIN or anything).

[Kappa]

I totally didn't know that there was a name for this phenomenon, it just seemed like an obvious thing.

I think ImpSec is particularly good about having employees who understand the point of data security regulations, and for the most part the pens are being used as an equivalent of a whiteboard more than an equivalent of a smartphone. But people want to use them for everything, so Linya is going to be getting a lot of security-oriented suggestions. She'll probably end up having to make a second model with better crypto processing and miscellaneous relevant features and restrictions that Illyan will deem acceptable for general office use at ImpSec. XD

[Bluelantern]

So... did Tumblr influence fried my brain or I getting some vibes between Ekaterin and Lynia?

[Alicorn]

Linya is bi, Ekaterin is purple and unhappily married, and they get along, but there's not anything besides that.

[cbhacking]

OT, but...

did Tumblr influence fried my brain or I getting ... ?

Yes. :-)