Monthly Archive for June, 2006

I was walking through a dark area of the church doing lockup earlier tonight and pulled out my trusty keychain light. I have been using keychain LED lights for a year now and tried several.

The big problem I have with LED lights is that they typically use the expensive button batteries so even though the LED will last 10.8 billion years the batteries last 2 months. It isn’t worth replacing the batteries though, so I am building up a collection white LEDs for a project to be named later.

The AAA LED

I have one LED flashlight which uses a single AAA battery so it is easily replaceable, but not as bright as some other LED lights. The problem with it is that the end with the keychain hook is a button to turn it on. Sometimes while in the offices in the dark I would accidentally flash the light while it was aiming behind me and I would think that there was someone there or there was something wrong with someone’s computer.

A light with a switch

The Beamer Micro Light from SuperBrightLEDs.com is a good quality flashlight. My problem is that it has a switch to keep it on without squeezing. This would typically be great, but I end up burning through the batteries too quickly. If I kept it on a lanyard and not on a double keyring full of keys in my pocket that would do better. It comes in Red, Blue, Green, and White. I have recommended the red LED with a switch to the worship department for use at the soundboard. some of the other colors may be useful as well (info on color uses & lights at night).

The one I am using now: Cheap

While I may have some nice multi-LED lights in the future I am currently using the cheapest one I can get. I purchased this light from SurplusComputers.com (they added me to their weekly mailing list, but did remove me when I opted out). You can buy the 10 pack for $10.99 with free shipping or one for $0.99 plus shipping. They are very bright and light up full hallways when my eyes have adjusted to the dark, but their big benefit is they are cheap. I bought 2 packs and have them out for my security staff to add to their key-rings. Considering the Worship Center main lights use about 100,000 watts, a $0.99 flashlight is nothing if it keeps them from using house lights to push aside the darkness.

Edit: I almost forgot one reason why I posted this. I got this for my Dad for Fathers Day. An iBeam watch with magnifier and built in LED.

Seen any neat USB drives laying around recently? Could be a trick.

If you are like me then you could probably relate to the hapless credit union employees gathering up free USB drives and plugging them into their computers.

There are several reasons:

1. Looking for identifying information on whom the drive belongs to (that would be my reason).

2. Curiosity and general snoopiness (I will not admit to that being my reason).

3. Desire to have a free USB drive (I didn’t take the first 4, but I will take the fifth).

Autorun
You can read the comments at the bottom of the article and see the discussion about Autorun, and I would suggest turning that off.
For Microsoft users, you can grab the TweakUI Powertoy provided by Microsoft, or you can just open up “My Computer” and right click on your CD or DVD drive and select it to “Take no action” or “Prompt me each time . . .” under the “autoplay” tab. For USB drives you can plug one in and then do the same thing. For floppy disks you should just not bother using floppy disks.

Click Click Clickity Click
In the story it appears as though Autorun was not the culprit. Rather it was curiously clicking files that cause them to activate. This would also be a threat for Mac computers if the written code was designed for a Mac. If someone is targeting you then they would write it for your system so the feelings of invulnerability in a Windows world would become a liability.

Security Policies
One commenter stated that all employees who fell for it should be fired. While at the time of this post there were some replies against his comment none of them included an important consideration. I have several people working for me doing security. Each one of them has made a bad mistake that compromised the security of the building. My rule is that a mistake is not a firing offense but rather an opportunity for education. Once the problem has been pointed out and discussed then the likelihood of a repeat on the error is minimal. Why fire someone for making a mistake when the person who hire to replace them will make a similar mistake. If God killed us at the moment of our first sin then I wouldn’t be writing this and you wouldn’t be reading it.

Update – June 12: I have been looking at updates to this story and decided to add them here.

1. According to a response from someone who appears to be with the company that did the USB attack, they simply relied on people having the “hide extensions for known file types” option selected. I hate that option. I have it off on my computers, but I support people who use it and so troubleshooting over the phone is difficult when they have no idea what they are clicking. The extension is one more level of protection to help Windows users.

2. There is software that will help protect you from USB issues like this, but the low tech option looks cheaper (grab some glue).

The next USB drive I find laying around at the church will be plugged into a computer. Hey, if one of the ministers loses important information I want to make sure it gets back to them. However, I will be a little more careful.