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Coworker: I need to get data out of this system built on top of an Access database, what’s the best way to do it?
Me: Open the Access database and do a dump.
Coworker: We can’t do that.  It’s a regulated system and is locked down beyond what anyone but the creators would be able to undo.

I was skeptical, so I asked her to ask Joe, a seasoned Access warrior and see what he could do if it.

Me:  Were you able to get it?
Joe:  Yes.
Me:  Was it hard?
Joe: Two mouse clicks.

I sometimes don’t know how we’d get our jobs done if our predecessors had known what they were doing.

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A year or so ago the security chief at work was replaced and the new one has been really on top of snow delays generally posting building open delays the night before.  I checked the emergency line near midnight and the building was scheduled to be open on time meaning the plows would be running overnight.  I came into work today and the parking lot was a mess and the walk was unsalted.  Only around 9 did people start coming in as the building had a 2 hour delay notice that had been posting this morning, so I talked to the head of security.

Me: When did the delayed open go out?
Security Chief: 5 AM this morning.
Me: Why not the day before?
Security Chief: It was actively snowing so we weren’t sure if we’d do a delay or a close.  Besides, what idiot would drive in under the conditions we had this morning?
Me: Yeah, what idiot.

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After yesterday’s awesome discovery regarding FTP setups I tried to find other ways of setting this up. One option was to remote into the computer and email a file but with a caveat as I explained to the person requesting the solution:

Me: I think I have a solution, email yourself.
Him: How?
Me: Get subscription to GoToMyPC.com and remote into the computer and send an email to another account.
Him: Great, how do I set it up?
Me: First you need to go home and setup the account.
Him: Why?
Me: It’s blocked from work.
Him: But I can remote home, can I use that?
Me: Probably, so, remote to your computer at home via VPN then setup the account on your laptop and use that to remote into your computer here.
Him: Is this the simplest way to do this?
Me: Using your office computer to remote into your home computer to setup a remote account to get a download to put on your laptop that then won’t be accessible from work but only from home or remoting to home. Yes.

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I’m working on a project at work requiring pulling up data from a remote location to something that our guys can then parse. My first idea was to have it upload to a local FTP site through FlingFTP or another tool but was stymied by firm not allowing inbound FTP connections so I contacted tech support:

Me: I was wondering if I could get a port opened so I could upload to an FTP site locally.
Tech Guy: What do you need?
Me: I’m looking to automatically move some data from a remove device to a local computer.
Tech Guy: FTP is terribly insecure, is there another way to do it?
Me: I suppose we could use SFTP.
Tech Guy: We don’t allow SFTP, only FTP and I don’t think we’re going to make an exception in this case. Please try another method.

So, I’m not allowed to use FTP because it isn’t secure enough but which is still apparently doable but our firm bars SFTP, the vastly more secure option, across the board. Awesome.

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Over the past month, I’ve been migrating my passwords from weak security to 37 character random strings using Keepass which has a portable version and allows me to connect to my key database remotely.  But even after changing my passwords I’m miffed that I can’t write my own security questions used for authentication and am stuck with the stock “what was your first job?” which is easy to figure out with some digging.  So, I’ve been putting in fake answers and recording the proper responses and have answered enough that I could provide a reasonable back story to my fake person Joe Baloke.  Joe had an odd childhood as he went to school at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters and his first car was an Eremotherium which he took to his job at a ninja factory.   Some of the details of his sordid class are shrouded in mystery but I think he’s got enough background to get a library card.

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We’ve been going through a bit of a slimming down at work material-wise getting rid of a large quantity of excess materials, mostly by just shit canning them.  One material we use, comfort panel, is an oleophilic (absorbs oil) material and I thought it’d work great at the Camporee for an idea I’ll simply call “Paintball Art”.  I found a roll of the stuff that was marked “SCRAP” but it was a bit big.  Probably near a few thousand feet long, 5 feet tall and I’d say near 100 pounds, so not something I was going to slip into my pocket, brief case or under my lab coat.  My boss helped me orchestrate Operation:Take Something We Were Throwing Out Anyway and at the end of the day, we rolled out the stuff and dumped it in my car.  As I was returning the cart I used I was stopped by security.

Security Guard: Sir, what did you just do?
Me: I put a roll of scrap destined for trash into the back of my car.
Security Guard: But you used the tank cart, the Security Captain thinks it could have been propane.
Me: That’s ridiculous…
Security Guard: How can we tell if we don’t look?
Me: Well, the roll I took was 5 foot tall, white, had no cap, was hollow and was non-chalantly dumped into my car.  Propane tanks are four foot tall, blue and kinda explosive.

She didn’t buy it and checked anyway.  She poked the roll with her flashlight a bit, as if somehow I’d found a way to hollow out a propane tank or tried to determine how snuggably soft it was.

Security Guard: Hm…  So, how do you like the Toyota Matrix?

Next Friday: Stealing a propane tank.