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I would hire a "fingerprint guy" who's entire job was to run around the office unlocking terminals. Pay him minimum wage and it's still cheaper than a couple ex

I would hire a "fingerprint guy" who's entire job was to run around the office unlocking terminals. Pay him minimum wage and it's still cheaper than a couple extra terminals

mehhh 7y ago
With concurrent access restrictions, this is not likely to get you far.
eigenvalue 7y ago
Bloomberg sales and support is very hands on. If you work at a place that has a lot of terminals, there is usually someone from Bloomberg corporate walking around interacting with people, trying to make sure they are getting value/use from the terminals. If they noticed anything like this happening, you can be sure that the company would receive a nasty lawyer letter since they would be in violation of the user agreement that strictly forbids this.
- raldi 7y ago
  You might think Bloomberg would be less-than-strict about enforcing this (who wants to sue their customer?) until you realize that “we’ll forgive the breach of contract if you buy accounts for everyone we caught cheating” is a very lucrative sales tool.
- iveusedit 7y ago
  IME with a small sample of Bloomberg sales reps, they're glad to look the other way from a little funny business. They want to sheer the sheep, not skin them.
TuringNYC 7y ago
I know you're joking, but just consider who uses these terminals -- these are companies trading millions, billions, or trillions of dollars. Bloomberg terminals are expensive, but not really in the scheme of things. Also, if a company tried to steal licenses this way, there would be a whistle-blower bounty and the company would get caught soon.
- trianglem 7y ago
  How would that work legally? The fingerprint guy is literally logging in to account.
raldi 7y ago
How would people log in from outside the office?
- iveusedit 7y ago
  There is a service called "Bloomberg Anywhere" where there is a portable fingerprint reader to log into a browser-based Bloomberg Terminal rather than the dedicated-server version. The reader does not need to plug into your computer. Instead, it reads data from your monitor optically (flashing) and your fingerprint to give you a one-time code.
  - raldi 7y ago
    Right, I used to work there. What I mean is, what would a cheating company with a “fingerprint guy“ do when a legitimate user needs to log in remotely? (What if the fingerprint guy got sick, or quit?)
    - iveusedit 7y ago
      High availability cluster of fingerprint guys, naturally.
      - ethbro 7y ago
        Personally, I run 2 clusters of 5 nodes each, in geographically disparate zones. There are some shared infrastructure dependencies that aren't redundant, but generally speaking the system can survive loss of multiple nodes and/or an entire site.
    - z2 7y ago
      I'd give the fingerprint guy the B-Unit Android App, which only takes a static QR code as input. Others could send him a screenshot, and get the log-in approved remotely.

I would hire a "fingerprint guy" who's entire job was to run around the office unlocking terminals. Pay him minimum wage and it's still cheaper than a couple extra terminals

mehhh 7y ago

With concurrent access restrictions, this is not likely to get you far.

eigenvalue 7y ago

Bloomberg sales and support is very hands on. If you work at a place that has a lot of terminals, there is usually someone from Bloomberg corporate walking around interacting with people, trying to make sure they are getting value/use from the terminals. If they noticed anything like this happening, you can be sure that the company would receive a nasty lawyer letter since they would be in violation of the user agreement that strictly forbids this.

raldi 7y ago
You might think Bloomberg would be less-than-strict about enforcing this (who wants to sue their customer?) until you realize that “we’ll forgive the breach of contract if you buy accounts for everyone we caught cheating” is a very lucrative sales tool.
iveusedit 7y ago
IME with a small sample of Bloomberg sales reps, they're glad to look the other way from a little funny business. They want to sheer the sheep, not skin them.

TuringNYC 7y ago

I know you're joking, but just consider who uses these terminals -- these are companies trading millions, billions, or trillions of dollars. Bloomberg terminals are expensive, but not really in the scheme of things. Also, if a company tried to steal licenses this way, there would be a whistle-blower bounty and the company would get caught soon.

trianglem 7y ago
How would that work legally? The fingerprint guy is literally logging in to account.

raldi 7y ago

How would people log in from outside the office?

iveusedit 7y ago
There is a service called "Bloomberg Anywhere" where there is a portable fingerprint reader to log into a browser-based Bloomberg Terminal rather than the dedicated-server version. The reader does not need to plug into your computer. Instead, it reads data from your monitor optically (flashing) and your fingerprint to give you a one-time code.
- raldi 7y ago
  Right, I used to work there. What I mean is, what would a cheating company with a “fingerprint guy“ do when a legitimate user needs to log in remotely? (What if the fingerprint guy got sick, or quit?)
  - iveusedit 7y ago
    High availability cluster of fingerprint guys, naturally.
    - ethbro 7y ago
      Personally, I run 2 clusters of 5 nodes each, in geographically disparate zones. There are some shared infrastructure dependencies that aren't redundant, but generally speaking the system can survive loss of multiple nodes and/or an entire site.
  - z2 7y ago
    I'd give the fingerprint guy the B-Unit Android App, which only takes a static QR code as input. Others could send him a screenshot, and get the log-in approved remotely.