Wednesday, October 21, 2020
Umopapisdn
I neglected to mention I received the security hardware token from the Corporate Overlords. It's the size of a USB thumb drive but it's not USB. It's just a simple device with an LCD screen and a green button. You press the green button and a number shows up on the screen and that's your “password” for the moment.
Pretty simple and I've used it once so far to log in.
But when I went to submit my timecard for today, I had to reauthenticate. No big deal, just hit the button—“12h522h“.
Odd, I thought, I thought this was numeric only. Perhaps a few segments are burned out? So I type “1265226” and no go. I try again with the same value and again, no go. By the time I want to type it in a third time, the token went blank. I hit the button and get … a backwards “J”? “6” maybe? What is going on?
A few moments later I get a sequence of numbers with a backwards “J“ and an “h”.
It takes me a few more minutes to realize I'm holding the security token upsidedown.
Sigh.
There are three graphic symbols on the token along one edge. With the token oriented one way, the three graphic symbols spell out a word. Flip the token upsidedown and the three graphic symbols spell out a different word. And what's amazing is that one of the symbols reads as a “E” one way, and as a “D” in another.
Yeah, the symbols are that abstracted.
Boy do I feel stupid!
I thought it stood for “Girl In File” so of course it's pronounced …
The three letters “G,” “I” and “F.” Together, they represent an image format, but there is some controversy over how it's pronounced.
Tom Scott presents the arguments for the two ways GIF is pronounced, but I like Mike Rugnetta's take which is a completely different pronounciation based on “ghoti” (the alternate spelling for “fish”).
