This actually works!
Great article on how Microsoft’s corporate culture under CEO Steve Ballmer has led to its decline:
At the center of the cultural problems was a management system called “stack ranking.” Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees. The system—also referred to as “the performance model,” “the bell curve,” or just “the employee review”—has, with certain variations over the years, worked like this: every unit was forced to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, then good performers, then average, then below average, then poor.
“If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, two people were going to get a great review, seven were going to get mediocre reviews, and one was going to get a terrible review,” said a former software developer. “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.”
Supposing Microsoft had managed to hire technology’s top players into a single unit before they made their names elsewhere—Steve Jobs of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Larry Page of Google, Larry Ellison of Oracle, and Jeff Bezos of Amazon—regardless of performance, under one of the iterations of stack ranking, two of them would have to be rated as below average, with one deemed disastrous.
For that reason, executives said, a lot of Microsoft superstars did everything they could to avoid working alongside other top-notch developers, out of fear that they would be hurt in the rankings. And the reviews had real-world consequences: those at the top received bonuses and promotions; those at the bottom usually received no cash or were shown the door.”
C’mon, folks. A simple vulnerability assessment would have discovered this issue.
In what can only be called the mother of all inept network deployments, guest access was left on this Internet-facing content management system and a file marked PUBLIC that was supposed to be only for the staff of the airport had a sub folder called /security which had the airport’s network documentation, security procedures documents, airport terminal hardware manuals and internal financial documents. All of this was found within the first 30 minutes of only basic Googling from his airplane waiting seat, says Halfpap.
The biggest concern is the lack of response from the airport’s IT staff:
Armed with this information he contacted the airport in January 2012 to talk with the CIO or someone in charge of information security. But Halfpap got no response. No voice mails were ever returned. Halfpap tried contacting McCarran Airport via email as well and via its public Twitter account; he got no response.
From NewsBiscuit, via JWZ:
Popular pet names Rover, Cheryl and Kate could be a thing of the past. Banks are now advising parents to think carefully before naming their child’s first pet. For security reasons, the chosen name should have at least eight characters, a capital letter and a digit. It should not be the same as the name of any previous pet, and must never be written down, especially on a collar as that is the first place anyone would look. Ideally, children should consider changing the name of their pet every 12 weeks.
Expectant mothers have also been advised to choose carefully where they give birth. Anywhere that has a place name is best avoided. These are listed on maps, which are freely available on the Internet.
It’s a good idea too, security experts have warned, for children not to get friendly with certain teachers. For instance, Miss Smith may be enriching your son’s education but he should try and see if he can’t make a favourite of Father O’Grinnighan-Scythe II, even though it may mean a lot of staying late.
We tried to call Barclays’ security expert R0b Ste!nway for a comment, but he was not available for 24 hours, having answered his phone incorrectly three times in succession.
via Children warned name of first pet should contain 8 characters and a digit | NewsBiscuit.
 | Kevin Jarnot jarnot 9846 Tracks |
 | Tarkus Emerson, Lake & Palmer 3 days ago |
 | One of a Kind Part II Bruford 5 days ago |
| One of a Kind Part I Bruford 5 days ago |
| Hell's Bells Bruford 5 days ago |
 | Knowing Anderson & Stolt 2 weeks ago |
