Not just because the current President of the USA is a Russian asset, but because security lives with me every day of my professional life
In Costco yesterday I found myself looking at two types of home security system.
There was the all-in, multi-camera, stream to any device and record 30-days on to a dedicated DVD solution.
I quite liked that, especially as all cameras have day/night capability, and can be panned, tilted, and zoomed remotely.
Then there was the single camera, continual-stream to your tablet/phone solution.
I quite liked that too.
But frankly, if I bought the latter, I would probably point the camera in to the house, just so that I could keep track of what the cattens get up to while we’re all out.
And the former?
Well, it’s a good-looking product, but it comes with a hefty price-tag.
While I’m mulling over the differences between the two products, and while considering whether or not I really need one, and if I do need one, why am I not utilising the NAS as the storage device…
Let’s look at another security thought.
I put a new layer of security on my nice new mobile phone last week.
It’s a fingerprint reader.
No more do I need a PIN of four random digits.
Now all I need to do is press my finger (not telling you which one) to the magic pad on my phone, and hey presto!
Robert’s your Mother’s Brother.
And nine times out of ten my phone unlocks.
Marvellous.
And it unlocks itself very rapidly.
For the tenth time, I just apply my finger again, and for half of those times it lets me in.
Yay!
I suppose there’s a problem with the other 50% of the tenth time.
When it refuses, repeatedly refuses to let me in, at the point where I exceed the number of attempts, the phone locks me out.
For 30 seconds.
Yes, it’s only 30 seconds, so who cares?
Well, I do.
Because then, to let me back in to my phone, I have to revert to a PIN.
So this morning, for instance, after we’d been swimming, the phone just didn’t want to know my fingerprints.
I found a couple of online articles in the academic world that confirmed that fingerprints change after water immersion.
And I do a lot of washing up, so my fingertip cells are continually expanded.
This is not good for fingertip recognition software.
It is also not good for playing guitar!
Or, rather, having soft fingertips on the left hand isn’t good for toughening up for fretwork.
But anyway, back to the CCTV options.
Thoughts?
The more expensive one is the better solution because… it’s more expensive.
I don’t use a PIN on my phone, I use a pattern and it is surprisingly quick.
I tried the pattern thingy. There was something ridiculous about drawing a pattern secretively
From what I’ve read, the patterns are trivial to “crack” unless you’re VERY careful every time you use it. Not only is there “follow the trail of finger grease” but I heard of an attack the other day that can narrow it down to something like 5 possible patterns by watching just your elbow as you unlock it.
I use the fingerprint reader on my iPhone but it still insists, periodically and after any reboot, that I use my PIN. Which is good, or I would quite possibly forget it. The same fingerprint will unlock my password manager. Again, I am periodically required to enter the full password for that, which, again, is a good thing.