Free broadband and mobile for home schooling

[Chris]

Not available everywhere sadly, but companies have been providing free
internet access to disadvantaged families. Organised through councils so
god knows if anyone's been able to benefit.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/18/free-fast-broadband-service-launched-in-uk-to-support-home-schooling

[Andy Burns]

Chris wrote:

> Not available everywhere sadly, but companies have been providing free
> internet access to disadvantaged families. Organised through councils so
> god knows if anyone's been able to benefit.

Isn't their MO to cherry-pick apartment blocks, bring fibre to the
building, then provide ethernet within the building? Nothing wrong with
that but they won't be interested in individual homes ...

[Recliner]

Yes, but presumably many of the families eligible for this offer do live in
flats. The service only stays free for the first few months, after which
people can choose to pay for the service or not. At normal prices, that
would be £22 per month for Hyperoptic's cheapest package (50 Mbps), but
perhaps they'll be offered a discount?

Quote:

Families in 37 local authority areas, from Tower Hamlets in London to
Newcastle and Leeds that are struggling with remote learning due to poor or
no internet will be offered the chance to have a high speed connection
installed with no usage charges until the end of the summer term. At that
point there is no obligation to stick with the service.

[Chris]

Yeah, it could be that the offer is only for properties already served by
hyperoptic. I doubt they'd do this for new installations.

[tim...]

"Andy Burns" <use...@andyburns.uk> wrote in message
news:i6l3gr...@mid.individual.net...

Their FAQ appears to suggest that they supply individual homes.

But that's not why I'm posting.

I'm interested in knowing how, from a customer pov they organise cabling up
a complete block

they presumably don't do this because one person in the block wants a
connection.

They will need greater scale that that, presumably by liaising with the
block's freeholder

how do they organise that?

[Recliner]

They arrange it with the freeholder, but probably only after several
residents have responded to their preliminary marketing campaign where they
send out letters or leaflets saying that they are considering supplying the
block and asking who might be interested.

[Andy Burns]

tim... wrote:

> I'm interested in knowing how, from a customer pov they organise cabling
> up a complete block
>
> they presumably don't do this because one person in the block wants a
> connection.
>
> They will need greater scale that that, presumably by liaising with the
> block's freeholder

Maybe 50 units is about their entry-level, I found a developer the other
day doing a "promo piece" for them about the install.

[Adrian Caspersz]

On 18/01/2021 09:34, Chris wrote:
> Not available everywhere sadly, but companies have been providing free
> internet access to disadvantaged families. Organised through councils so
> god knows if anyone's been able to benefit.

The companies that are laying fibre in these times will benefit.

I can't help thinking that there is a council bin somewhere, overflowing
with discarded red tape.

--
Adrian C

[tim...]

"Andy Burns" <use...@andyburns.uk> wrote in message

news:i6nsl6...@mid.individual.net...

> tim... wrote:
>
>> I'm interested in knowing how, from a customer pov they organise cabling
>> up a complete block
>>
>> they presumably don't do this because one person in the block wants a
>> connection.
>>
>> They will need greater scale that that, presumably by liaising with the
>> block's freeholder
>
> Maybe 50 units is about their entry-level,

there's only 40 flats here in total

[bert]

In article <i6o0kg...@mid.individual.net>, Adrian Caspersz
<em...@here.invalid> writes

Councils never discard red tape - they keep it in filing cabinets just
in case they need it again.
--
bert

[MB]

Some of the reports have mentioned people donating their old laptops.

I have not heard any mention of the clearing of the computer's contents
to ensure no private information gets into the wrong hands. I would
have expected more emphasis on that.

[Andy Burns]

<https://www.cypnow.co.uk/news/article/dfe-investigates-reports-of-malware-found-on-laptops-for-disadvantaged-children>

"malware, linked to Russian servers"

"it would appear the laptops in question are refurbished"

"The safest way to ensure students received a bug free laptop would have
been to wipe the hard drives"

[Graham J]

Typically a band new Windows laptop fresh from the manufacturer is not
ready for use. Its setup has to be completed, user accounts created,
relevant apps installed, antivirus installed, and Windows Updates
allowed to bring the machine fully up-to-date.

I'm now retired but when I ran a computer business I would do this for
my customers. I know many small high-street shops do so as well. But
the large suppliers do not.

It's quite unreasonable to expect a naive user such as a young school
pupil to achieve ths. Further, it's probably quite unwise, and
Microsoft anticipates this; a child following click-bait can render a PC
unusable in minutes! For Windows 10 Microsoft's expectation is that the
purchaser (generally a parent) will set up their own Microsoft Account
and create a limited account for a child via the "Add family member" and
"Add a child" features.

Does anybody know what happens with PCs supplied through the education
system?

--
Graham J

[Chris Green]

If you have any sense you don't keeo sensitive information on a laptop
(or even a desktop for that matter). A laptop in particular is easily
lost or stolen.

I.e. *don't* allow your browser to save passwords for you, *don't*
save even your customer number for bank logins, etc.

--
Chris Green
·

[Graham J]

Chris Green wrote:
> In uk.telecom.broadband MB <M...@nospam.net> wrote:
>> Some of the reports have mentioned people donating their old laptops.
>>
>> I have not heard any mention of the clearing of the computer's contents
>> to ensure no private information gets into the wrong hands. I would
>> have expected more emphasis on that.
>>
> If you have any sense you don't keeo sensitive information on a laptop
> (or even a desktop for that matter). A laptop in particular is easily
> lost or stolen.

So keep it in the cloud where anybody can get it?

Or write it on a post-it-note stuck to the monitor, like eveybody else does?

--
Graham J

[Tweed]

Properly implemented disk encryption is the way to go, eg Bitlocker. For
sensitive files you can individually encrypt the contents, as supported by
MS Office. And before anyone jumps in, the modern encryption in Office is
done properly. Individual file encryption is a good idea for sensitive
stuff, even if you have disk encryption. I’ve lost count if the number of
times that people have emailed such a file as an attachment to the wrong
person. Disk encryption does not save you from that. And yes, I know you
shouldn’t email such stuff in the first place, but people do.

[Chris Green]

No, either keep it in your head or in a well encrypted USB stick or
some such (with a backup!).

--
Chris Green
·

[Roderick Stewart]

On Tue, 26 Jan 2021 08:47:29 +0000, Graham J <nob...@nowhere.co.uk>
wrote:

>Typically a band new Windows laptop fresh from the manufacturer is not
>ready for use. Its setup has to be completed, user accounts created,
>relevant apps installed, antivirus installed, and Windows Updates
>allowed to bring the machine fully up-to-date.
>
>I'm now retired but when I ran a computer business I would do this for
>my customers. I know many small high-street shops do so as well. But
>the large suppliers do not.
>
>It's quite unreasonable to expect a naive user such as a young school
>pupil to achieve ths. Further, it's probably quite unwise, and
>Microsoft anticipates this; a child following click-bait can render a PC
>unusable in minutes! For Windows 10 Microsoft's expectation is that the
>purchaser (generally a parent) will set up their own Microsoft Account
>and create a limited account for a child via the "Add family member" and
>"Add a child" features.

I suspect that in most households the children are more familiar with
the use of computers than their parents, and usually impatient just to
dive in and get something to work without regard for anything else, so
it's unlikely that any of the preparation you describe is ever done.

During the time I spent on tech support for an internet service, it
was very common for the caller to hand the phone to a child in order
to go through the details of whatever the issue was, because they
couldn't understand it themselves. I'm not making this up. I had to
deal with it myself many times, and some of them sounded very young.
One of my colleagues once went through the setup of a wireless router
and the connection of a laptop to it by wireless with the assistance
of a lad who said he was four and a half years old.

Another colleague once had the phone handed to a child to set up the
parental control software. I'm not making this up either.

>Does anybody know what happens with PCs supplied through the education
>system?

I don't know, but would you like me to guess...?

Rod.

[Chris]

Whereas back in the real world...

Encrypt your laptop's disk and then use the computer to make your life
easier. That should include a password manager, but that's not to
everyone's taste.

[Chris]

They're often chromebooks for exactly the reasons you suggested. Without a
lot of administrative organisation which schools certainly don't have
Windows is not suitable.

[Chris Green]

But if you have an encrypted file system how do you make backups etc.??

An encrypted filesystem is all very well but it brings with it all
sorts of issues which, unless you think about them very carefully,
will come and bite you in the long term. I have seen too many "help,
my encrypted file system is xxxx and I can't mount it" messages to
want to go down that route.

Much better to separate out the bits that *really* need to be secure
and keep only those bits safe.

I really don't ever save passwords in my browser, nor user IDs etc.,
it's not particularly difficult once you're in the habit.

90% of web site passwords I really don't care about, i.e. who cares if
someone knows what I recently bought from Screwfix? (I *don't* store
card details though) So I use easily remembered passwords for that
sort of thing.

For the important bank ones I have a encrypted password manager (as
you suggest) with secure encryption and a good password I can remember.

--
Chris Green
·

[Tweed]

Encrypted file systems are simple to remount, provided you keep a copy of
the key somewhere. Bitlocker allows you to store it in a USB stick and/or
print it out. I do both. Backup is equally simple, as USB external drives
can also be similarly encrypted. A decent cloud backup provider will also
encrypt. There’s an awful lot of sensitive stuff that gets leaked onto a
file system, even if you think you are being careful. An encrypted disk
ensures you don’t have sleepless nights if your laptop/desktop gets nicked.

[Woody]

It doesn't help when HMG buy Geobook 1E laptops from a Chinese company
called Geo that no-one has ever heard of, and they arrive running W10
loaded with malware called Gamarue.I
If you do a search for Gamarus.I in theregister.co.uk you will find the
article and data published on 21st Jan this year.

[Chris]

Tweed <usenet...@gmail.com> wrote:
> An encrypted disk
> ensures you don’t have sleepless nights if your laptop/desktop gets nicked.

+1

I genuinely couldn't care less if my laptop was stolen. Obviously it would
be pain, but not a disaster.

[Chris]

Chris Green <c...@isbd.net> wrote:
> In uk.telecom.broadband Chris <ithi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Chris Green <c...@isbd.net> wrote:
>>> In uk.telecom.broadband MB <M...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>> Some of the reports have mentioned people donating their old laptops.
>>>>
>>>> I have not heard any mention of the clearing of the computer's contents
>>>> to ensure no private information gets into the wrong hands. I would
>>>> have expected more emphasis on that.
>>>>
>>> If you have any sense you don't keeo sensitive information on a laptop
>>> (or even a desktop for that matter). A laptop in particular is easily
>>> lost or stolen.
>>>
>>> I.e. *don't* allow your browser to save passwords for you, *don't*
>>> save even your customer number for bank logins, etc.
>>
>> Whereas back in the real world...
>>
>> Encrypt your laptop's disk and then use the computer to make your life
>> easier. That should include a password manager, but that's not to
>> everyone's taste.
>>
> But if you have an encrypted file system how do you make backups etc.??

Easily. You back up with whatever tool you normally use.

> An encrypted filesystem is all very well but it brings with it all
> sorts of issues which, unless you think about them very carefully,
> will come and bite you in the long term. I have seen too many "help,
> my encrypted file system is xxxx and I can't mount it" messages to
> want to go down that route.

That's why backups are really important.

> Much better to separate out the bits that *really* need to be secure
> and keep only those bits safe.
>
> I really don't ever save passwords in my browser, nor user IDs etc.,
> it's not particularly difficult once you're in the habit.
>
> 90% of web site passwords I really don't care about, i.e. who cares if
> someone knows what I recently bought from Screwfix? (I *don't* store
> card details though) So I use easily remembered passwords for that
> sort of thing.

Many sites force you to save your card details. What do you there?

> For the important bank ones I have a encrypted password manager (as
> you suggest) with secure encryption and a good password I can remember.

It's much easier to have one system rather than multiple parallel ones IMO.

[Roderick Stewart]

On Tue, 26 Jan 2021 12:57:49 +0000, Woody <harro...@ntlworld.com>
wrote:

In an ideal world, the school would be issued with a load of parts,
and a teacher would show the kids how to put them together and install
an operating system and software applications themselves.

Oh well...

Rod.

[Tweed]

In an ideal world we would have properly functioning Local Educational
Authorities. They would have a properly functioning IT department that
supported the schools. They could run a proper Remote Desktop service, and
the pupils could run a computer that had just enough resource to run a RDP
client and nothing else. For most school applications there is little
justification for anything more powerful on the local machine. Before
anyone moans about Internet connectivity, if you have enough speed for
Teams/Zoom teaching you have enough for Remote Desktop.

[Java Jive]

On 26/01/2021 10:12, Roderick Stewart wrote:
>
> I suspect that in most households the children are more familiar with
> the use of computers than their parents, and usually impatient just to
> dive in and get something to work without regard for anything else, so
> it's unlikely that any of the preparation you describe is ever done.
>
> During the time I spent on tech support for an internet service, it
> was very common for the caller to hand the phone to a child in order
> to go through the details of whatever the issue was, because they
> couldn't understand it themselves. I'm not making this up. I had to
> deal with it myself many times, and some of them sounded very young.
> One of my colleagues once went through the setup of a wireless router
> and the connection of a laptop to it by wireless with the assistance
> of a lad who said he was four and a half years old.
>
> Another colleague once had the phone handed to a child to set up the
> parental control software. I'm not making this up either.

LOL!

Wes Borg - Internet Help Desk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI2xK6zbaoI

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

[Theo]

Roderick Stewart <rj...@escapetime.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
> In an ideal world, the school would be issued with a load of parts,
> and a teacher would show the kids how to put them together and install
> an operating system and software applications themselves.

Good luck building your own laptops that way. Presumably in the next room
will be someone taking apart a pallet of ready assembled new laptops to
provide that load of parts?

(there is little commonality of parts between laptops, beyond SSDs/HDDs and
removable RAM, so the best source of parts is an identical laptop)

Theo

[Theo]

Tweed <usenet...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In an ideal world we would have properly functioning Local Educational
> Authorities. They would have a properly functioning IT department that
> supported the schools. They could run a proper Remote Desktop service, and
> the pupils could run a computer that had just enough resource to run a RDP
> client and nothing else. For most school applications there is little
> justification for anything more powerful on the local machine. Before
> anyone moans about Internet connectivity, if you have enough speed for
> Teams/Zoom teaching you have enough for Remote Desktop.

These are Celeron laptops with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. They already
'have just enough resource to run a RDP client and nothing else'.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06/we-bought-walmarts-140-laptop-so-you-wouldnt-have-to/
gives you the picture (the Geo laptops are slightly better with double RAM
and storage).

Zoom over RDP is going to end really badly, by the way.

Theo

[Chris]

Agreed. Although TBF many well financed orgs struggled with the sudden
change to begin with.

> They could run a proper Remote Desktop service, and
> the pupils could run a computer that had just enough resource to run a RDP
> client and nothing else. For most school applications there is little
> justification for anything more powerful on the local machine.

Not sure I agree. How does this help with teaching over Teams etc?

Unless it's properly specced you also have a single point of failure for
the whole school.

> Before
> anyone moans about Internet connectivity, if you have enough speed for
> Teams/Zoom teaching you have enough for Remote Desktop.

That's part of the problem. Often they don't have enough speed for zoom.

[Graham J]

Chris wrote:
[snip]

>> Before
>> anyone moans about Internet connectivity, if you have enough speed for
>> Teams/Zoom teaching you have enough for Remote Desktop.
>
> That's part of the problem. Often they don't have enough speed for zoom.

But even then, Remote Desktop will work fine. I've used it over dial-up
with a bit of patience ...

But it's not a teaching product, it is a computer maintenance/management
product.


--
Graham J

[Tweed]

A Remote Desktop service removes at a stroke all the issues of keeping the
local machine in tune, virus free, configured correctly etc. The other
method is to use something like Azure Active Directory and keep the local
machines well locked down. The trouble is that only really works if the
local machines are from a limited pool of hardware types.

If you don’t have enough Internet speed for Zoom/Teams you are a bit
stuffed in most sorts of interactive remote learning.

[Tweed]

No, Remote Desktop is wider than that. Many universities now provide all
the required course software over Remote Desktop - it cuts out the
nightmare of trying to maintain the students’ own personal machines, and
resolves a lot of licensing issues as well.

[Chris Green]

In uk.telecom.broadband Chris <ithi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Chris Green <c...@isbd.net> wrote:
> > In uk.telecom.broadband Chris <ithi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Chris Green <c...@isbd.net> wrote:
> >>> In uk.telecom.broadband MB <M...@nospam.net> wrote:
> >>>> Some of the reports have mentioned people donating their old laptops.
> >>>>
> >>>> I have not heard any mention of the clearing of the computer's contents
> >>>> to ensure no private information gets into the wrong hands. I would
> >>>> have expected more emphasis on that.
> >>>>
> >>> If you have any sense you don't keeo sensitive information on a laptop
> >>> (or even a desktop for that matter). A laptop in particular is easily
> >>> lost or stolen.
> >>>
> >>> I.e. *don't* allow your browser to save passwords for you, *don't*
> >>> save even your customer number for bank logins, etc.
> >>
> >> Whereas back in the real world...
> >>
> >> Encrypt your laptop's disk and then use the computer to make your life
> >> easier. That should include a password manager, but that's not to
> >> everyone's taste.
> >>
> > But if you have an encrypted file system how do you make backups etc.??
>
> Easily. You back up with whatever tool you normally use.

Yes, but can you restore if the keys are on the possibly broken or
stolen laptop?

> > Much better to separate out the bits that *really* need to be secure
> > and keep only those bits safe.
> >
> > I really don't ever save passwords in my browser, nor user IDs etc.,
> > it's not particularly difficult once you're in the habit.
> >
> > 90% of web site passwords I really don't care about, i.e. who cares if
> > someone knows what I recently bought from Screwfix? (I *don't* store
> > card details though) So I use easily remembered passwords for that
> > sort of thing.
>
> Many sites force you to save your card details. What do you there?
>

I don't think I've ever come across one, and if you do you're relying
on *them* to keep those details safe!

> > For the important bank ones I have a encrypted password manager (as
> > you suggest) with secure encryption and a good password I can remember.
>
> It's much easier to have one system rather than multiple parallel ones IMO.
>

Er, that's what a password manager is!

--
Chris Green
·

[Chris Green]

In uk.telecom.broadband Chris <ithi...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm the same, and mine isn't encrypted.

Do you back up the files on your laptop? If so, and it was stolen,
could you restore them?

--
Chris Green
·

[Adrian Caspersz]

On 26/01/2021 12:57, Woody wrote:
>
> It doesn't help when HMG buy Geobook 1E laptops from a Chinese company
> called Geo that no-one has ever heard of, and they arrive running W10
> loaded with malware called Gamarue.I
> If you do a search for Gamarus.I in theregister.co.uk you will find the
> article and data published on 21st Jan this year.
>

https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/21/dept_education_school_laptops_malware/

An £87M contract to Computercenter
https://bidstats.uk/tenders/2021/W01/742457459

That's a big enough organisation that can build an OS configuration to
spec, using a customised image ...

However a Register forum post sums it up ...

"I'll never connect my computers to to government sites...even if that
means I have to starve to death! Any child of mine brings something like
this to my home i'd immediately take a hammer to it and send him/ her to
bed with no tea....."

--
Adrian C

[Tweed]

>>> But if you have an encrypted file system how do you make backups etc.??
>>
>> Easily. You back up with whatever tool you normally use.
>
> Yes, but can you restore if the keys are on the possibly broken or
> stolen laptop?
>

The files are decrypted as the files are read by the backup program. They
get re-encrypted as they are recorded onto the backup disk, using that
disk’s keys. As long as you have the key for the backup disk you can plug
that disk into any other machine and restore. If you are daft enough to
keep your external disk’s keys on your laptop’s disk then there’s not much
to be done to help you.

[Chris Green]

In uk.telecom.broadband Tweed <usenet...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>> But if you have an encrypted file system how do you make backups etc.??
> >>
> >> Easily. You back up with whatever tool you normally use.
> >
> > Yes, but can you restore if the keys are on the possibly broken or
> > stolen laptop?
> >
> The files are decrypted as the files are read by the backup program. They
> get re-encrypted as they are recorded onto the backup disk,

So every time you backup you provide the key/password? Do you do
hourly and daily backups (I do).

--
Chris Green
·

[Tweed]

No. The main computer remembers the key for the usb drive. Have you ever
tried Bitlocker? It is well thought out.

[Chris Green]

Ah, rather like ssh-agent. All very well but if someone steals your
laptop while it's turned on they have access to everything!

Mine is secure against that.

--
Chris Green
·

[Chris]

Chris Green <c...@isbd.net> wrote:
> In uk.telecom.broadband Tweed <usenet...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Chris Green <c...@isbd.net> wrote:
>>> In uk.telecom.broadband Tweed <usenet...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>> But if you have an encrypted file system how do you make backups etc.??
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Easily. You back up with whatever tool you normally use.
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, but can you restore if the keys are on the possibly broken or
>>>>> stolen laptop?
>>>>>
>>>> The files are decrypted as the files are read by the backup program. They
>>>> get re-encrypted as they are recorded onto the backup disk,
>>>
>>> So every time you backup you provide the key/password? Do you do
>>> hourly and daily backups (I do).
>>>
>>
>> No. The main computer remembers the key for the usb drive. Have you ever
>> tried Bitlocker? It is well thought out.
>>
> Ah, rather like ssh-agent. All very well but if someone steals your
> laptop while it's turned on they have access to everything!

Only if you leave yourself logged in and unlocked. Which at least the Mac
won't let you do.

> Mine is secure against that.

Secure against what? Your backup being stolen?

[Chris Green]

In uk.telecom.broadband Chris <ithi...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Only if you leave yourself logged in and unlocked. Which at least the Mac
> won't let you do.
>

How do you use it then? There must be some sort of idle time setting
before it kicks you off.

> > Mine is secure against that.
>
> Secure against what? Your backup being stolen?
>

No, against my laptop being stolen, even when turned on.

--
Chris Green
·

[Roderick Stewart]

On Tue, 26 Jan 2021 15:21:09 +0000, Java Jive <ja...@evij.com.invalid>
wrote:

Wonderful! With the exception of the holding procedure (We were told
always to ask permission) every single example presented humorously
here can be matched with something I actually experienced, in some
cases every day. Nobody who reported an error message could ever tell
me what the error message actually said, or if they could, they hadn't
thought of Googling it themselves (though I usually did this straight
away while they were still talking), and some really did call while
their computers were switched off. Sometimes they'd call from work
about a problem with a setup at home, or they'd call from a friend's
house, or a landlord would call about a problem reported to him by his
tenants several miles away. You could ask them to press the "Enter"
key and they wouldn't know which one it was, or they'd look for it on
the screen, or you'd ask them to describe something on the screen, and
it would become apparent after a long struggle that they were looking
at the keyboard. It was relentless. I even met a few who couldn't
read; what they did with their computers goodness only knows.

Rod.

[Roderick Stewart]

On 26 Jan 2021 15:51:34 +0000 (GMT), Theo

Computers don't have to be laptops.

They're usually better computers if they're not laptops, and not just
because they also offer the opportunity of a learning experience by
building them yourself. It seems a shame to me if the opportunity of a
learning experience is missed, in a school of all places.

Rod.

[Tweed]

The Raspberry Pi is a much better platform for teaching children about the
nuts and bolts of computers. For one thing, it’s an awful lot cheaper.

[Theo]

Roderick Stewart <rj...@escapetime.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
> Computers don't have to be laptops.
>
> They're usually better computers if they're not laptops, and not just
> because they also offer the opportunity of a learning experience by
> building them yourself. It seems a shame to me if the opportunity of a
> learning experience is missed, in a school of all places.

Many kids in need of government issue computers won't have somewhere to put
a desktop PC. They'll be working on the dining table, on the sofa, on their
bed... If there are multiple kids in the household, there may not be
multiple desks in multiple rooms to put them on (it's hard to have multiple
people doing Zoom calls from the same room).

Plus those families receiving benefits have had any spare space ruthlessly
targeted over the last decade, the Government declaiming it as the 'spare
room subsidy' (aka bedroom tax). So the space which could have been used for
home schooling has been taken away.

Theo

[David Woolley]

On 26/01/2021 18:12, Chris Green wrote:
>> Many sites force you to save your card details. What do you there?
>>
> I don't think I've ever come across one, and if you do you're relying

> on*them* to keep those details safe!
>
This was very common in the early days of web commerce. At the very
least, you would need to come back, after the purchase, to explicitly
unregister the card with them.

Personally, I don't even like sites that force me to create an account
with a password.

[Chris]

There are a few, but not many.

> and if you do you're relying
> on *them* to keep those details safe!

Exactly my point. You can't depend on them so make sure to keep details as
secure as you can. If a hacker has your details from one account they can
then use it elsewhere, including CC details.

>>> For the important bank ones I have a encrypted password manager (as
>>> you suggest) with secure encryption and a good password I can remember.
>>
>> It's much easier to have one system rather than multiple parallel ones IMO.
>>
> Er, that's what a password manager is!

Well no. You've got your password manager and a remembered list, haven't
you?

[Chris]

Chris Green <c...@isbd.net> wrote:
> In uk.telecom.broadband Chris <ithi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Only if you leave yourself logged in and unlocked. Which at least the Mac
>> won't let you do.
>>
> How do you use it then? There must be some sort of idle time setting
> before it kicks you off.

I can only comment on a Mac, but with Time Machine it's completely
transparent. Once the backup disk is connected I get a backup every hour in
the background. All encrypted and secure.

>
>>> Mine is secure against that.
>>
>> Secure against what? Your backup being stolen?
>>
> No, against my laptop being stolen, even when turned on.

How is it secure? An unencrypted laptop drive is trivial to extract data
from. An encrypted one not so much.

[Roderick Stewart]

On Wed, 27 Jan 2021 09:54:33 -0000 (UTC), Tweed
<usenet...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Roderick Stewart <rj...@escapetime.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
>> On 26 Jan 2021 15:51:34 +0000 (GMT), Theo
>> <theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> Roderick Stewart <rj...@escapetime.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
>>>> In an ideal world, the school would be issued with a load of parts,
>>>> and a teacher would show the kids how to put them together and install
>>>> an operating system and software applications themselves.
>>>
>>> Good luck building your own laptops that way. Presumably in the next room
>>> will be someone taking apart a pallet of ready assembled new laptops to
>>> provide that load of parts?
>>>
>>> (there is little commonality of parts between laptops, beyond SSDs/HDDs and
>>> removable RAM, so the best source of parts is an identical laptop)
>>>
>>> Theo
>>
>> Computers don't have to be laptops.
>>
>> They're usually better computers if they're not laptops, and not just
>> because they also offer the opportunity of a learning experience by
>> building them yourself. It seems a shame to me if the opportunity of a
>> learning experience is missed, in a school of all places.
>>
>> Rod.
>>
>
>The Raspberry Pi is a much better platform for teaching children about the
>nuts and bolts of computers. For one thing, it’s an awful lot cheaper.

I've heard about those. Can you do your homework on one after you've
finished building it?

Presumably you'd also need a monitor, keyboard, mouse and
loudspeakers, and a camera if you want to take part in Zoom sessions,
and perhaps a printer as well, and a desk to put everything on. Once
you've budgeted for all that, what percentage of the total would you
save by choosing a Raspberry Pi for the computer itself, rather than
something more conventional?

Rod.

[Chris]

They run linux so as long as you can do what you need on linux - and for
most school work that should be the case - then yes.

> Presumably you'd also need a monitor, keyboard, mouse and
> loudspeakers, and a camera if you want to take part in Zoom sessions,
> and perhaps a printer as well, and a desk to put everything on.

All those are required for a desktop PC also.

> Once
> you've budgeted for all that, what percentage of the total would you
> save by choosing a Raspberry Pi for the computer itself, rather than
> something more conventional?

You can get a bundle for <£100 which plugs into a telly. So a fair bit.

The same could be said for getting a desktop PC over a chromebook.

[Chris Green]

Roderick Stewart <rj...@escapetime.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
> >>
> >
> >The Raspberry Pi is a much better platform for teaching children about the

> >nuts and bolts of computers. For one thing, it?s an awful lot cheaper.

>
> I've heard about those. Can you do your homework on one after you've
> finished building it?
>

Nothing much to build, you just turn them on and they work.

> Presumably you'd also need a monitor, keyboard, mouse and
> loudspeakers, and a camera if you want to take part in Zoom sessions,

Same as any computer, OK laptops have them built in but people still
often add a 'proper' mouse, speakers and other extras. A desktop needs
exactly the same 'extras' as a Raspberry Pi.

> and perhaps a printer as well, and a desk to put everything on. Once
> you've budgeted for all that, what percentage of the total would you
> save by choosing a Raspberry Pi for the computer itself, rather than
> something more conventional?
>

A Raspberry Pi is decidedly cheaper than most 'tower' systems (the
computer bit of a desktop) so you'd save the difference between the Pi
and the tower. What percentage that would be would depend on the cost
of the other bits, quite a lot might well be obtainable for little or
nothing from sources such as Freegle/Freecycle.


Whether a laptop would be a better choice is another matter, it could
well be that a laptop makes sense for a child in a house with limited
space and needing to use it in more than one place. While a Pi is
more easily carried around than a desktop machine I wouldn't really
call it portable like a laptop.

--
Chris Green
·

[Tweed]

You raised the issue of building a PC as a training aid, and then using it
for schoolwork. I think a ready made PC with a properly configured image is
by far the best route to give a child a decent educational platform. A
Raspberry Pi is not really for that, but is much better as a platform to
learn about the nuts and bolts of computing. They are two quite different
tasks and should not be confused.

A of all necessary bits for a Pi is around 120 GBP

https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-desktop-kit?variant=29391053783123

On top of that you need a monitor. That’s around 80 GBP, or cheaper
surplus, second hand etc.

[Adrian Caspersz]

I'd go conventional.

For less than £100 from eBay, you can get

Lenovo ThinkCentre M73 Micro
Tiny PC
i3 4130T, 4GB 128GB SSD Win 10 Pro

A lot more performance then a Pi, also small and not mad on the electric
bill.

They also takes memory up to 16GB, something I find useful for virtual
machines and such.

--
Adrian C

[MB]

On 26/01/2021 08:53, Graham J wrote:
>
> So keep it in the cloud where anybody can get it?
>
> Or write it on a post-it-note stuck to the monitor, like eveybody else
> does?

I suspect that is becoming more common as just about every website now
requires two step verification often with long passwords that cannot be
remembered.

Many require use of the Microsoft ID or its use if you forget your main
ID / password so it is a universal access to many sites.

[MB]

On 26/01/2021 10:58, Chris wrote:
>> I.e.*don't* allow your browser to save passwords for you,*don't*

>> save even your customer number for bank logins, etc.
> Whereas back in the real world...
>
> Encrypt your laptop's disk and then use the computer to make your life
> easier. That should include a password manager, but that's not to
> everyone's taste.
>

Some IT managers don't live in the read world and expect people to use
very long passwords using gobbledygook characters, change it VERY
regularly but not write it down anywhere!


The handing out of free laptops reminds me of the scheme many years ago
when there was an experiment somewhere to give everyone in block of
flats free PCs. Within days had been sold through the local pub!

[Woody]

Its more annoying where, for instance, VM will only let you use letters
and numbers for you password - it rejects any other typographical
characters.

D'oh!

[Chris]

This was the main reason I started using a pw manager. Previously I used a
mental mnemonic that generated complex passwords that were unique to each
site, however it couldn't cope with arbitrary restrictions made by the site
e.g. min/max length limits. I was having to memorise the pw for these
increasingly common websites that I had to give up. Life has been so much
easier since.

[Chris Green]

In uk.telecom.broadband Chris <ithi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Most web site passwords I just use the simplest formula, my 'magic
word' plus a few letters from the web site name. The vast majority of
web site passwords I really don't care if someone guesses them. I
mean, do I really care if someone finds out what I have bought from
Screwfix? I don't save credit card details there.

--
Chris Green
·

[Roderick Stewart]

On Mon, 15 Feb 2021 16:51:56 +0000, Chris Green <c...@isbd.net> wrote:

>Most web site passwords I just use the simplest formula, my 'magic
>word' plus a few letters from the web site name. The vast majority of
>web site passwords I really don't care if someone guesses them. I
>mean, do I really care if someone finds out what I have bought from
>Screwfix? I don't save credit card details there.

Somebody who was able to hack into those "easy" web accounts might be
able to discover information about you that would help them to hack
into the others. You probably have quite a selection of personal
information distributed amongst lots of different sites, apparently
harmless, but not if somebody collected it all together.

Rod.

[Chris Green]

I don't tend to fill in any of the non-mandatory fields, so I don't
think any sites have anything more than my name, address, phone number
and a list of what I've bought.

... and even my 'simple' password is moderately secure. So if someone
guesses it they'll have access to one web site, they won't know how it
was generated and won't know what other sites I've used it for.

--
Chris Green
·