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Young Employees Pose Increasing Risk to Networks
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Mar 17, 2008 10:42 AM
from the also-increased-chance-of-lohan dept.
from the also-increased-chance-of-lohan dept.
buzzardsbay writes "Baseline is reporting on an upcoming survey from Symantec and Applied Research-West that confirms many suspicions about the generation gap in the workplace, namely that younger workers will use your corporate network to run most any device, technology or social networking software they can get their hands on. Dubbed "Millenials," these workers born after 1980 are nearly twice as likely to use cell phones and PDAs at work, and half admit to installing unauthorized software on their employer's computers. On the upside, the Millenials are more security aware than their older co-workers."
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Gen Y Workers Reinventing IT for the Better 447 comments
buzzardsbay writes "We all know the complaints about young employees. They depend too much on their parents' money, they need constant hand-holding, they have no job loyalty, they demand more than they're worth, they disrespect older employees, and they're naive about corporate culture. But despite this conventional wisdom, there's growing evidence that the different working styles of Gen Y workers might be causing fundamental — and beneficial — changes in the way enterprises run, especially when it comes to IT. For example, they may show better judgment when making tech purchases and are often better with green IT initiatives. This is a nice counterpoint to a previous story (and resulting incendiary comments) that dubbed young tech workers a risk to corporate networks."
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they need to protect their networks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:they need to protect their networks (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:they need to protect their networks (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also about educating the employees more than anything IT can do to protect the network. If I can call one of your employees and pretend to be the remote helpdesk, and say that I need your password so I can install some software on your computer, and they give me the password, I am in your network.
It's called social engineering, and if you are good at it, you can get past ANY network or software based systems.
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Re:they need to protect their networks (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why you mitigate how much damage a single person can do.
So if you do get a password of a normal user in a corporate office, all can do is read their mail and delete their home directory. If their machine was properly locked down, you won't be able to install anything either and if their password expires in 60 days you got that long to harass them.
Yeah... Your employees will complain they can't get anything done because they can't install programs or save files on the network or modify databases as they would like. At the same time, you have to put in procedures that minimize damage if a IT person is socially engineered such as not even let them look at existing password and temp ones have to changed on login.
This technique also is useful for rogue employees who plan on going postal with your companies data.
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Re:they need to protect their networks (Score:5, Interesting)
In other news:
"That's not our problem", says area CIO. "Our problem is educating our helpdesk, that if someone calls and says he's an employee and needs a new password for his account, they shouldn't just give out a password without further identification. "
Seen it happen in three companies in the last 5 years. Each company with more than 2000 employees & one of them a fortune-500 company.
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Re:they need to protect their networks (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:they need to protect their networks (Score:5, Funny)
They use group policy security to control the network, but you wouldn't believe how little thought goes into it. We had a new team form to provide support for a certain now-defunct pacific-coast city's municipal wifi. Because supporting an internet service sometimes requires tools such as ping/tracert/whatever -- they gave us a command prompt. But because they didn't want us having all kinds of access, what they really gave us was a shortcut to a batch file, which started with a choice prompt, allowing you to 'paste' so-to-speak, several commands, such as it would not let you have a blank prompt. It would always have a command, such as C:\>ping .
Well apparently no one told them that you can concatenate commands. We soon discovered we could just use the batch file to C:\>ping google.com & start cmd and have an unrestricted command prompt. And since we're all administrators, we can use MMC, and control every other part of our access.
I've since moved past my call-taking days, but I still work for them as an analyst. Of course they still won't let me provide any kind of network security device.
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Re:they need to protect their networks (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:they need to protect their networks (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a C++/C# developer and I've been running in a normal account for over two years now. It's no biggy. I do need to elevate to local admin occasionally: I keep another session open (either with Remote Desktop or Fast User Switching).
Granted, we're specifically discussing locking down the local admin account entirely. My point is that if more developers took the time to run without admin privileges, we'd see a lot more programs that didn't ask for admin rights unnecessarily.
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Re:they need to protect their networks (Score:5, Funny)
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Fuck their networks.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Two paracitical factors inhibit this arrangement: the IT department and the human resources (legal) department. The cousin ITs believe that they can build a framework according to their training that will make us all be more productive. The HR believe the same with a different framework. But since neither of them are engaged in the primary productive activity that makes the enterprise profitable, the inevitably screw it up. In a million little and not so little ways. So we fight back.
Case in point, in the USA the politicians and insurance companies have fucked-up the health care industry to the point where most employers will not hire people in order to avoid providing health insurance. They hire people on 'contracts' creating a class of permanent temporary workers. This is especially common in the electronics industry. We work some place for six months, then work another place for six months, etc... If we get sick, we point a gun at the head of some supermarket manager and have him give us the cash in the safe. It's the new American way, it will happen to you, so don't judge me for what I must do. I don't want to hurt anyone.
Anyway, we bring our own tools to new jobs. Our software programs that we customize and modify that will maximize our productivity. Tools like text editors, spreadsheet macros, graphics and CAD design programs. I'm going to spend forty hours learning CADbozoCAD when most of the industry uses BozoCAD, just because your company got it a 10% discount? Fuck that!
I'm going to put BozoCAD my computer that I work with. I'm going to create works and convert the results into standard formats. I'm going to ignore as much as possible any previous work done in any non-industry standard format. Is there a risk to your company network and even maybe the BSA Microsoft thugs? Possibly, but...I...don't...give...a...fuck. If you hire us and provide health insurance like all companies do in the rest of the civilized world, then I ( and the millions like me in this situation) would be more sensitive to these concerns. It's one of the unforseen issues that results from using perma-temps as your workforce.
Most production managers realize this and accept it. Most cousin ITs and dumb-as-shit Human Resources people don't. Because it doesn't fit into the frameworks that they built. But my paycheck depends on the companie's bottom line and as a production worker, I create that.
So it is a constant three-way battle between the cousin ITs (the information technology department of the company who maintain the company network),the perma-temps, and the HR lawyers. They ALWAYs believe that by firing us, they maintain control and security. But they don't provide the product that keeps the company in business. Their departments are not profit centers for the company.
So the game just goes around and around. This is why I have come to hate the IT department in any company. HR people are too stupid to be concerned with, and lawyers aren't human so don't waste emotional cycles on them.
Parent
Re:Fuck their networks.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Somewhere along the line here is some element of choice, and it's an element that people have somehow been taught that they don't really have anymore. "It's the best job I can get" or "that's how this industry works."
I don't accept that, and I don't think anyone else should. Once you're working at a certain level, probably just above the poverty line, you make a choice what you're going to do to earn money, and who you're going to work for. We all make these choices based on supporting the kind of lifestyle we want. If your entire industry works this way, and you hate it so badly, you should work in ways that don't make you miserable. That might mean adjusting your lifestyle. But seriously, find something that makes you happy and do it. Don't spend your life working for people that treat you like crap. I won't, even if it means living in a tent. I'm not for sale.
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Re:Fuck their networks.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:It's you, not them (Score:5, Interesting)
I have heard of many many places that now use temp agencies almost exclusively. The reason why white collar jobs are going to temp agencies, is because they can staff the positions like lightning and have them ready to be restaffed when the people have been on contract too long, and you get a really good idea of where to put certain people because of the tests the temp agency runs... I know some of this stuff can be done with a normal HR department, but it boils down to cost, temp agencies get the worker to do the same job for less pay, even when the temp agency takes a certain cut of that pay.
Parent
What about the other half? (Score:5, Insightful)
- Do it but don't admit it
- Or don't it but are way less productive than their peers
I don't know how it is for the rest of the slashdot crowd but almost everywhere I've worked it's impossible to be (decently) productive using only authorized software.
The sad thing is not a matter of cost, but a matter of paperwork. Something as basic as winrar (no, let's not go into why would I want to use winanything) is impossible to get by the official channels.
Re:What about the other half? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of "unauthorized software" are things like chat clients, media players, RSS/Weather update notifiers, games and software for personal devices (iTunes etc).
=Smidge=
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Re:What about the other half? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:What about the other half? (Score:5, Funny)
They?
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Re:What about the other half? (Score:5, Insightful)
Good luck with your job.
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Re:What about the other half? (Score:5, Insightful)
They call me demanding to know why the internet is so slow and I find Limewire running on three PCs and now theres no b/w left for anything else.
Why is the PC throwing up so many ad windows? Could it be that button bar they thought was cool was actually spyware?
The best was the office that called me complaining "outlook is broken" Only for me to discover a 1 GIG game install file in the outgoing mail folder that was causing the whole thing to freeze while it processed the file.
And then worse yet... if I ask them if they did anything lately they outright LIE to me until I spend the time needed to find out and show them exactly what they told me they didn't do. At least the older crowd is likely to be more honest and a lot less likely to intentionally install something.
Parent
Re:What about the other half? (Score:5, Insightful)
At my work, the things I install "unauthorized" for myself and my coworkers which are 100% productivity:
Firefox
Phrase Express (text macro program)
Stardock
Microsoft Powertools/toys (the one that gives you a screenshot of each app when you alt+tab).
None are "approved" but all the techs approve of it, because they know better.
None of them use any of what you mentioned. No RSS readers, no games, no funky screensavers, no weather spyware shit. Work is laid back enough to not care (many people just browse the web all day, I mean cmon I'm replying on slashdot), but most people don't push the slacking that far. Also, we're an enormous multibillion $ nonprofit corporation and what I am telling you is like...hmm, well its a worldwide company with thousands of employees. I've talked to the CEO and even he has admitted to having a preference for firefox over IE for example, even though the CIO hasn't officially or formally approved it.
I don't mean it to be ad hominem on this, but I will say you are making a pretty general bias here that is pretty generally not accurate.
Parent
Re:What about the other half? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm more productive when listening to music (blocks out outside noise). I've worked at places where my bosses have SUGGESTED that I get a pair of headphones and listen to music at work. If anything, iTunes should make an employee MORE productive by helping them get into the zone, and less prone to distractions.
The same thing applies to media players, assuming they're used for audio and not video. Anyone suggesting that such things makes employees less productive has obviously never worked for a software development company/department.
Parent
Re:What about the other half? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where I work, the company standard IDEs for web development are Dreamweaver or Eclipse. Both are completely unacceptable. Yet, a F/OSS text editor like jEdit is nonstandard but allows me to be much more productive. Why? Because it allows me to work quickly. I have all of the powerful text editing tools of an IDE without the extreme overhead.
Also, as someone else replied, Firefox and certain plugins like Firebug and the Tidy validator are critical. I am a web developer, you see, and IE's ultracrappy javascript debugging capabilities are not even worth considering (even with the insanely useless MSFT Dev Toolbar installed). Profiling AJAX calls, or ANY HTTP request, is impossible without a tool like Firebug. And they are all nonstandard, but without them it would be more time consuming if not practically impossible for me to debug or optimize web pages.
I am not trying to install iTunes or GAIM or games. Stupid people install that stuff at work. I just want to use tools that will allow me to get the job done. The web and its technologies are rapidly changing. Company Standard Software committees do not seem to be able to keep up, at least where I work. So, you can either 1) fight the establishment and risk looking like an "OSS hippie troublemaker" and still never get what you need, 2) work with approved but ineffective and usually expensive tools, or 3) just install what you need and produce good work. Within reason, I go with option number 3.
So...unauthorized software isn't always better; authorized software isn't always better.
Parent
Re:What about the other half? (Score:5, Insightful)
- Do it but don't admit it
- Or don't it but are way less productive than their peers
I don't know how it is for the rest of the slashdot crowd but almost everywhere I've worked it's impossible to be (decently) productive using only authorized software.
Parent
Re:What about the other half? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:What about the other half? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:What about the other half? (Score:5, Funny)
Ahh, a self important ass that believes his world view is the only correct one. Gotcha.
OK OK, I'll give notepad another chance for my code editing, and I'm sure I can come up with two decent
Ya... because it's either VIM or notepad. Well have fun installing all the crap you think you need, I need to get back to doing actual work.
Parent
Also... (Score:4, Funny)
Funny that (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people born after 1980 are treated like shit in the IT industry. You are taken on for pitiful wages with vague promises of future riches, squeezed for every bit of knowledge you have, then booted out when the project(s) you are working on are finished. So it is hardly surprising that people treated so shabbily don't have a particular commitment to their workplace.
Most of the highly technical and well paid jobs (system admins and the like) seem to be already taken by well established old folk, and nobody is really interested in training anybody for when they retire. Managers take IT systems completely for granted, consider IT professionals to be lowly peons, and are in for a nasty shock when the handful of people keeping their systems running leave.
Re:Funny that (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Funny that (Score:4, Insightful)
Fine, fine, I'll get off your lawn.
The myth that young people are spoilt and have an undue sense of entitlement is starting to wear a bit fucking thin though. In what way do we have more than previous generations? Tax burdens have been moved down to lower incomes in the UK, and I believe this is also the case in the US. Public services have been gutted by privatisation. Yet because we can buy iPods these days apparently we are spoilt. Fuck you. I'd rather be able to find an NHS dentist and get free higher education than have an mp3 player. Of course, now all you old fucks have no more need of public education and have fat wage packets to pay for private healthcare, you want such things scrapped so you don't have to pay for them. That is called 'kicking away the ladder'. Then you have the fucking nerve to complain about an undue sense of entitlement in the younger generation. You simply don't want to pay now for the things you were given to help you out when you were young.
Yeah, I'm bitter. I was treated like crap and told to suck it up and that I was spoilt by a generation that had it a fuck load easier than I did. That is why I turned my back on the entire industry, although I don't hold out much chance of getting away from selfish middle-aged wankers any time soon.
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Re:Funny that (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, you were. The baby boomers. Us gen-X-ers watched them take over everything on the grounds that youth and social position should not be discriminated against, cement themselves so firmly into positions of power that nothing can dislodge them, and then kick away the ladders they found so useful on the grounds that age and achievement should not be discriminated against. You lot are the second generation they've shat on - they practised on us, and we were so stunned by the sight of our future being flushed down the toilet that we let them get really good at it. Sorry about that... on the other hand, you guys have at least grown up without the memory of hope.
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Re:fuck load easier? was:Re:Funny that (Score:5, Insightful)
"The difference between Americans and British is that Americans believe their country is wonderful and is the best one in the world while the reality is that it is terrible. On the other hand, Britons are always bitching about their country without realizing their life is actually pretty good".
I can tell you from my experience in the UK (I've lived in the UK for about 4 years, coming form Mexico) is that you people over here have it really easy. Shit, people can just stop working and the government will pay them money. "spare some change mate?" you see people selling the "big issue" and then they go to cash their check to get beer. That is being poor in this country. Let me tell you, you do not know what the fuck you are talking about.
For people in the UK life is really easy right now. It is, really. You have a hell lot of things which you take for granted. You whine that you can not get a free dentist. Oh shit, but you do not see that in other countries and in other times (even in your country) there is no free NHS even for a freaking Nurse.
So as other people already said, stop whining and go back to fucking work you lazy ass.
Parent
Re:Funny that (Score:4, Insightful)
It definitely goes both ways. Sucks for him that he took it in the ass, but it happens. I remember showing up for work during the dot bomb and finding the doors chained shut. Yee haw. Had my 20 months of "freelancing" (e.g. scrabbling for consulting gigs and contract work in an economy saturated with out of work professionals). Tons of fun.
Now I'm in my 30's and am probably one of the "middle aged" bastards he was talking about since he's a gen y kid and "middle age" can usually be calculated by adding 10 years to your current age. I remember being a know-it-all kid, and thinking I was better than people who'd worked their way up. Sometimes I was, but that doesn't change the fact that not everyone gets to start at the top.
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Re:Funny that (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Funny that (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Funny that (Score:4, Interesting)
Same old shit. "You are new, just accept your shitty pay and conditions and one day you will get the good job". I heard that before, and actually believed it for a few years. Then I saw the lack of progress me and all those around me were actually making. What you are saying is bullshit.
It isn't about greed, it is about respect and being paid your due. The amount you are paid for applying your knowledge has less to do with the quality of your knowledge than how long you have been with the company - and young people are rarely with a company for long because we are treated as disposable tools. In such an environment where what you produce is compensated for by a pittance just because you are young, there is no incentive to work hard. There is a significant incentive to run off half-arsed work, spend the rest of the time playing with your gadgets, and bullshit your supervisor with technical jargon - so after 4-5 years being bounced around the industry that is what I did. Doing so made me feel slightly better about my shit jobs, and made no difference to the rate at which I was turned over.
But like I said, I'm out now. I'm going into physics and hopefully a job where I can actually be respected for what I know.
Parent
Two Cents (Score:4, Interesting)
From the second slide: It's irritatingly true that many millenials can't pry themselves from their damn phones. Nobody should allow their phones to ring in class or during a date -- unless they're dope dealers, pimps, doctors, or on-call IT staff. That's why I prefer the company of mature women: they say a lot less, but what they say actually counts!
From the fourth slide: Not at all surprised to see that 59 % of "millenial" workers think they can install whatever they want, given that more of them are spoiled gimme-gimmes...but to be fair, I'll bet that older people are far more adept at trashing their home computers than millenials are at trashing any computer. How many times have you all had to reinstall your grandpappy's mangled, crapware-infested OS(which shall remain nameless...*wink*)?
From the tenth slide: how does better access to technology improve work/life balance? Does it enable workaholics to work from home during their offtime? Does it enable employees to feel "home" while fuckin' off on Myspace at work? I doubt that a significant percentage of those sampled were full-time telecommuters who truly felt a better work-life balance(read: they weren't "encouraged" to put in mass overtime just because they worked from home).
Not much to this story (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to secure your network, you need to address all the risks that are out there. Adding a little more risky behavior does not really make for any real changes is the risks to the network. Networks are always at risk from the weakest link. A 60 year old employee who happens to do something risky is just as bad for the network as a 20 year old.
Ug. Terrible article. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're an admin tasked with security, you have to assume all users are evil, so the question should be more along the lines of, "What is the problem with your process that you are allowing these users to install unapproved software?" Symantec obviously has a big stake in convincing people that they need better security (assuming that this will drive business for their crappy products), but the simple truth is that these sorts of problems shouldn't BE problems in an adequately secured network...Even your basic windows AD setup on XP is capable of restricting software installs and such.
If you're a big believer in allowing users to install whatever crap that they think they need to do their jobs, then you'll need to invest in some solid networking gear because you're inevitably going to have more problems. Otherwise, just lock it down, set up an approval process, and be prepared to deal with a zillion complaints from people who think they're experts because they did their own myspace page.
And old People... (Score:4, Insightful)
Fair Trade (Score:5, Funny)
They're also less likely to call IT with problems like "I'm trying to make an Internet on my desktop but I can't get the file to program."
Breaking News: (Score:5, Funny)
Unauthorized software (Score:5, Interesting)
My company doesn't give me administrator privilages, but has IE 5.5 installed. They haven't told me exactly what I can or can't do with my computer (except "you can browse the web in your down-time, but don't look at porn"), but I don't think the people that immediately oversee me know enough about computers to understand installing programs and stuff (really, it's pretty amazing--they don't even know that IE 5.5 is different at all from whatever they use at home).
The computer won't let my upgrade IE, so I installed Opera and Firefox. Is this "unauthorized software"?
Now, let's go a step more complicated.
They said I can browse the web in my downtime, right. So I figured I can also download and view MIT physics lectures (yes, Walter Lewin). My computer doesn't have proper codecs to view these videos. So I had to install codecs, but the computer is very resistant to that--it took a lot of trial and error to find a codec that would install and also play the videos.
Did the larger amount of work to avoid the problems associated with a lack of administrator privileges make this "unauthorized"?
I've also tweaked the registry (this is Windows 2000) because there were several programs starting with the computer that I have no use for. "Unauthorized"?
I'm in my mid-20's (Score:5, Insightful)
I know some of my peers feel that simply having access to the Internet means they can use it during the workday either to take a break during the work period, not work at all or use the Internet on breaks. My friends don't do this but I have had co-workers who have and were generally disciplined and eventually fired for not doing their assigned work.
Personally, I feel that I have an obligation to my employer: 1) to do the tasks I am assigned and 2) to protect the information on their networks. I avoid using the Net at work for non-work tasks and social networks for these reasons.
Age, not generation (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was in my 20s, I was much more risk prone than I am now (in my 40s). Back then I considered it my *right* to be able to install whatever I wanted on a computer, and would be unconditionally annoyed and offended if it was not allowed. Today I am more aware that there are reasons for most restrictions. Yes, some restrictions don't make sense, but a very many do.
This type of thinking was in more aspects of life than just computers. Back in my 20s, I would say that I drove less cautiously than I do today. I drank more heavily, ate poorly, resented having to wear a bike helmet, jay-walked more often, the list goes on. These are all behaviours that I, and most people, grow out of.
Heh (Score:5, Interesting)
Or when I'm dealing with silly amounts of calls because one 40+ yr old colleague is stood outside on their mobile phone arranging with their wife who is doing the cooking and the other is browsing holiday sites deciding where to go on holiday next.
Articles like this are stupid, they're a generalisation and where I work it couldn't be further from the truth. 3 out of 4 of our 1980s+ born workers and 1 out of 12 of our pre 1980s born workers make up our best 4 workers, that's completely out of line with the articles findings and whilst I realise you always get anomalies from statistical samples you should also not try and dress up this kind of bullshit as general fact.
In fact look at TFA, as hard as that is when it insists on jumping to the next stat before you've had chance to check the page properly I don't notice any information how solid a test base they used.
For all I know this could be put together by some disgruntled middle aged worker who actually sucks bad at his job but like many would rather blame someone else and so decided to blame the younger generation for taking his work.
Anyone know how reasonable a test base was used for this study? As it stands I could equally put together a made up study claiming older people are more likely to steal from the work place and pass it off as being fact.
Worst of all, they're 32% more likely... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Contradiction? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I'm surprised how high the risk is anyway (Score:5, Funny)
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