Linux nerd and consultant. Sci-fi, comedy, and podcast author. Former Katsucon president, former roller derby bouncer. http://punkwalrus.net/
I was in a discussion the other day about this, and someone brought up the “freedom vs. security” as the kind of “trade” someone assumes if they would, with complete freedom, fuck up someone else because they had no restrictions. We were discussing how the reason most laws exist is because somebody fucked it up for someone else.
Here’s the thing: Trump may has said he allowed it via executive order, and whatever. But you come after data I was sworn to protect? Come here with a judge-vetted legal warrant and court order. Oh, you’ll fire me? Then I did my job. I’ll be arrested for doing the right thing, not cowardly giving in “because they might yell at me.” Yeah, I did that once, and I got a big fat nothing out of it. I got out before the S&L crisis, but I saw it coming a mile away. I have no loyalty to some rando from South Africa. I have a loyalty and duty to my job and country and fellow citizens.
My hope, and it’s a thin hope, is that they really can’t fucking do anything with the data because they don’t understand it. Or lied they have it, and we let them believe this lie as part of the protection. They only have 200 copies of “WideWorldImporters Sample Database for SQL Server and Azure SQL Database” and think it’s real. Or whatever. Unlikely, but I gotta have hope somewhere. Part of this is because I know how PII is stored, and it’s not like one large file. It’s multiple systems with “just in time” joins and a horrible complex mess that’s a wonder it works at all. A bunch of 19 year olds and a rich liar are monkeys with baseball bats hitting a random laptop as a comparison. Millions are spent on contractors to work with it, and rarely does any single one person know how it ALL works. Just pieces of it. And some of it was in COBOL. What, one of those kids has a spare PDP/11 in their garage? But, maybe that’s thinking too hopefully.
Even if they suddenly stopped, it will take decades to undo the damage they have already done.
Side note: “the launch codes” are not like, two hex keys to launch nuclear missiles. It’s so much more complicated than that, that I used to fear in the 1980s that the Ruskies would bomb us flat before someone with the right laminated notebook was located. “What? The keys didn’t work? Didn’t anyone test if the keys fit? NO???” I’m not saying that’s an exact case, but an example of shit I have run into. I have to also hope for sheer incompetence saving us, like out of the movie Brazil or something. God damn, this is a bleak dystopia.
I had the same thing happen at a bank, my manager threatened to fire me if I didn’t hand over my login and password. After being trained to never give anyone, even your boss, the login and password. And why? Because she was doing illegal things under the teller’s logins. If she had gotten caught, I would be blamed. So I quit that job. And then the whole S&L scandal happened, and I was unsurprised. After that, I learned never to give anyone a login and password. I tell myself it’s a test. I’ll be fired for giving them the login and password. And if they fire me, well, get another job. I have skills to get another job these days.
And yeah, “well, your director will just give it to them.” That’s on my director. I will at least lose my damn job without a guilty conscience. I know I did my part for the right reasons.
This doesn’t anger me as much at the people just letting this happen at this point. Those of us who have taken the DISA training about PII and such are told never to share this info. But someone is allowing it. I mean, maybe if they have a gun to your head or jailed your family, maybe, but who the fuck is rolling over and just going “okay?” If these fuckers can do it, this data was never safe.
A friend of mine started the anime meme “Is this a butterfly?” She’s actually employed as a translator for anime, so it made sense.
These are two types of cartoon sounds when a character snores.
The “Inside you there are two wolves” is the name of a proverb which began being parodied towards the end of 2018 and through the beginning of 2019. In the original proverb, a grandfather says there are two wolves fighting inside him, an evil one and a good one. His grandson asks, “who will win?” The grandfather replies, “The one you feed.” In parodies, the story is often simplified to “There are two wolves inside you. One is X. The other is X. You are X.” The proverb’s actual origins are murky. It has been attributed to Christian pastor Billy Graham in 1978, as well as the Cherokee Native American tribe.
Also does anyone still port knock these days?
If they did, would we know?
Basic setup for me is scripted on a new system. In regards to ssh, I make sure:
My systems are not “unhackable” but not low-hanging fruit, either. I assume everything I have out there can be hacked by someone SUPER determined, and have a vector of protection to mitigate backwash in case they gain full access.
I have done a lot of personal study on this. There are “Christians” and there are “Team Christian.” Actual Christians usually practice what they preach, or try to. The “Team Christian” folks are like people who have a favorite football team: they wear the jerseys, watch the games, and claim the tribal aspect of “I am good, they are bad,” but know nothing of the philosophy or inner workings any more than the average football fan plays professional football, or run the corporation end that manages the team.
Also, like most bullies, they love saying the opposite just to make you mad. “If Jesus were alive today, he would have shot all the immigrants with a machine gun,” so you go “NO HE WOULDN’T HAVE YOU EVEN READ A BIBLE YOU HYPOCRITE GRRRR!!!” and they laugh at how mad you got. Like a bully saying “nice hair!” because they know it will make you angry, and they’ll act all innocent.
Saw this coming from a mile away. I was wondering when this ax would drop. What a shame; I grew up to PBS/NPR.
See, I think one of three scenarios might have happened:
As a writer, one of the aggravating tropes we have to follow is, “make the story believable,” when reality sometimes doesn’t align with “a good story.” Some criminals are really that stupid, and some armchair theory, based on decades of movies, books, and TV shows, you expect “hey, this is what they SHOULD have done is.” And they didn’t. It’s like when a chessmaster has to watch complete amateurs play chess. “Obvious strategies” are ignored, and basically both players are just not thinking past their last move.
I also wonder what the trade value of gold might have been in that universe? For all we know, it might be an either/or situation. Like “Well, I could have my favorite takeout every Friday for a year, OR the newest smartphone.” Both are tempting but for different reasons. Like, “I could buy a lot of turnips, potatoes, and beer with one golden smurf and not have to worry every month if I have enough food, but then they taste REALLY good on their own.” Gargamel struck me as someone who didn’t have a lot of money, so having been poor myself, I understand this weird conundrum. Also, having a golden smurf to trade might bring unwanted attention from locals would who assume he has LOTS of them, and rob his home looking for them.
“Another option” meaning what? Drive thru coffee? We do have Dunkin’s here, but none of them are drive-through. This may be different the further north you go, however.
Going to Starbucks doesn’t mean I have to look down on people. Life’s too short for that. I judge people on the complexity of content of character, not “Oh look, a ‘basic bitch’ with Starbucks and Ugg boots. How droll.” Having “no taste” and “too lazy” are classist statements anyway, “no taste” according to what standard? Lazy compared to what? What standard are you adhering to to “be proud of not being a tool?” Anyway, independent of your personal judgement of people just trying to get through their day, they are going to keep doing it and not caring about any of the complexities.
Starbucks is a service. You don’t have to like the service. I don’t get my legs waxed, but I don’t look down on those who do. Same thing. People are more than just their personal choices of our selective judgement. I recognize that Starbucks is popular, even if I don’t care for it. My reasons are basically I am cheap, and have to watch my sugar intake, so most of those milkshakes-posing-as-coffee are off limits. But if I am on a Starbucks run with someone, I am not going to patronize them like somehow I am some intellectual balloon rising above the mists of their complacency. Life is too short for that nonsense.
My wife was an insurance adjuster for a major company, and that’s EXACTLY how it goes.
So many people on the Internet say “Ugh, Starbucks is shit,” like they are proud about it. Truth is, a LOT of people drink at Starbucks. The one near my house had a drive through line so long, they redid part of the shopping center parking lot to accommodate it. It’s been renovated twice in ten years. Starbucks sells more than just “coffee that is shit,” they sell a service that few can compensate without having to set up something in your own house. Frankl;y, half of the stuff out of there is caffeinated milkshakes of varying consistency. Starbucks is a service that sells coffee, and that convenience is what draw so many people.
The average person doesn’t care about unions, good coffee, or any of that. They want to get a nummy candy treat packed with caffeine to drive to work. That’s it. It’s really just that simple. And until it gives people instant massive diarrhea or some other personally-affecting scandal, they will just keep doing it out of habit. habit is a strong motivator, especially when you’re fucking tired and just want to get to work that you hate anyway.
There’s also an “acceptable risk” that companies will take. Not sure about food service, but I have been in meetings where 5% of customers fucked over is considered acceptable, with the dollar figures that follow. They probably take into account the total number of lawsuits they get for poisoning people, and the cost of the impact to the bottom line via lawsuits and bad marketing versus actually fixing the issue.
For example, if 10,000 people get food poisoning a year from iced tea, probably only a small percentage of those people will trace it back to McDonald’s iced tea WITH tangible proof. It might be easier to pay for those lawsuits than actually fixing the issue. They’ll pass some kind of memo out, showing they addressed the issue, and then blame the store management. Nothing really changes.
I look at it like, he kept us safe! Couldn’t hurt, right?
Give them time to write it up! They police are having problems with the shared Google Doc permissions.
The DC Metro system has no public bathrooms. This causes problems, if you can imagine. I was starting my first week of work in Silver Spring, and as I was exiting the station, there was a woman in leather spandex stirrup pants yelling at the station manager she needed to use the bathroom. The station manager told her “we don’t have bathrooms, lady.” Back and forth as I passed them. Then the woman just said, “A-IIGHT!” backed up, pulled down the spandex, pulled aside her thong, squatted, and dropped a huge, coiling log right in front of the turnstiles.
We had a homeless (?) guy named “Gandalf.” he was named that because he wore a stadium jacket with a broken zipper, tied at the waist with a rope, big floppy hat, and a cane. Used to rant in tongues. Near where I worked was the (now former) Discovery Building, and during “Shark Week,” they put a HUGE inflatable shark “through” the building (head on one side, tail on the other. This thing was stories high). Gandalf used to spend time across the street, shouting biblical phrases at it like he was banishing some demon. Thanks for keeping us safe, Gandalf.
Before they build the STSS, there were “gangster types” that would hang around, gun handles poking from their waistbands. That stopped the DAY after football player Plaxico Burress nearly shot his dick off in a nightclub by having his gun stored in a similar way. Never saw guys flashing their gun like that since.
No. I have known a lot of attractive people get bullied by jealous bullies. Imagine you’re attractive, guys checking you out, and girls who work HARD to get noticed see you get noticed without much effort. You may even be, “no thank you,” like you have a choice. And they will seethe because they think it’s unfair you “have it so easy.” Logic and reason do not apply to bullies, they only know how to “preemptively retaliate” to keep the status quo in their head,