Best Of

FPT:

Brilliant yet again by Avanti West Coast - full VIP experience, bike and panniers carried onto train by two polite and energetic Gen Zers, strapped up and made safe, adjacent seats block booked for cyclists, careful coordination depending on where we are getting off.

Sometimes, Britain really works. The only issue is there are only 4 spots, rather than the 20+ you need on a service this size.

The problem is 20 bikes is probably the equivalent of 30 seats and that is a lot of potential revenue lost.

It's dead easy to do - you just have a larger space with fold down seats, half a carriage or a whole carriage. Priority to disabled people, booked (and paid for) cyclists (and maybe luggage), then casual users.

The issue is that the rail company do not have equality as a core value of their company culture, despite whatever waffle in on the website.

My photo today: a cycle/mobility aid space on the Belgian railway:

FPT:

Brilliant yet again by Avanti West Coast - full VIP experience, bike and panniers carried onto train by two polite and energetic Gen Zers, strapped up and made safe, adjacent seats block booked for cyclists, careful coordination depending on where we are getting off.

Sometimes, Britain really works. The only issue is there are only 4 spots, rather than the 20+ you need on a service this size.

The problem is 20 bikes is probably the equivalent of 30 seats and that is a lot of potential revenue lost.

It's dead easy to do - you just have a larger space with fold down seats, half a carriage or a whole carriage. Priority to disabled people, booked (and paid for) cyclists (and maybe luggage), then casual users.

The issue is that the rail company do not have equality as a core value of their company culture, despite whatever waffle in on the website.

My photo today: a cycle/mobility aid space on the Belgian railway:

When somebody who has paid £££ for a ticket is obliged to stand to create space for a bike that is being carried for free, things can get a bit fractious.

In the good old days when trains had proper guard's vans, my dad was able to get his Norton Commando back to Woking when its chain broke.

Passwords are evil little things.

So many are required nowadays, that it is near-impossible to memorise them, especially if they have to change, and so people tend to use the same passwords for many sites, or subtle variations thereon.

An alternative is writing them down. But that means you can only access them if you are where they are written down, and if someone gains access to the list, you are screwed (unless you somehow encrypt or obfuscate the list).

And so a compromise is password managers; which means you need to 'trust' the organisation running the manager, and that all your passwords might be exploitable if someone gains access to the manager.

The big practical benefit of password managers for home users right now is that they give you a degree of phishing protection. If you clicked something that you think took you to hsbc.com when really it took you hsbc.com.kp, the password manager won't recognize the site and won't fill the password in.

Weak password allowed hackers to sink a 158-year-old company
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2gx28815wo

Panorama tonight. A ransomware attack destroyed KNP (Knights of Old lorries) and 700 jobs were lost.

Stay safe, everyone, appears to be the advice of the NCSC.

(This is not a parable for dicking around with the layout of PB.)

That's a depressing read. I think we need to criminalise paying the ransom but set up a government insurance scheme that supports small-medium size businesses during and after attacks.

Where then is the incentive for companies to have IT security?
The competent and the utterly negligent are treated equally.
The other problem is that this is international crime and state-sponsored.

Amazing how civilisation used to exist just fine without passwords.

Polybius on how the Roman military operated:

The way in which they secure the passing round of the watchword for the night is as follows: from the tenth maniple of each class of infantry and cavalry, the maniple which is encamped at the lower end of the street, a man is chosen who is relieved from guard duty, and he attends every day at sunset at the tent of the tribune, and receiving from him the watchword—that is a wooden tablet with the word inscribed on it – takes his leave, and on returning to his quarters passes on the watchword and tablet before witnesses to the commander of the next maniple, who in turn passes it to the one next to him. All do the same until it reaches the first maniples, those encamped near the tents of the tribunes. These latter are obliged to deliver the tablet to the tribunes before dark. So that if all those issued are returned, the tribune knows that the watchword has been given to all the maniples, and has passed through all on its way back to him. If any one of them is missing, he makes inquiry at once, as he knows by the marks from what quarter the tablet has not returned, and whoever is responsible for the stoppage meets with the punishment he merits.