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Old-Fashioned Security

Technology

One comment (on this article) got me thinking:

I’m speaking to my business’s IT people about getting a “cold storage” option, even just a hard drive sitting in a desk drawer we update once a week. I don’t know how much I trust our cloud based database now.

Back when I was running Grand Union’s customer management function, I was fearful to the extent of paranoia about protecting our customers’ data privacy.  So fearful was I that I made several changes (against massive resistance from IT) in our data storage process.

As with all such nascent programs of the time, when customers applied for a loyalty card, we collected their personal data (name and address) and applied a unique ID number embedded in the card’s magnetic strip (no chips back then).  Like everyone else, we delegated this task to our card provider, who included that service, plus a direct mail service in their product offering.  I wasn’t too comfortable about having our customers’ data in the hands of a third party, but you have to trust somebody sometimes, and I figured that they had more to lose in the mismanagement thereof, which would keep them honest.

Then I found out that our company’s IT department had ordered the provider to send them those customer files over to us, as a “backup” and “security” measure (of course).  I didn’t like having two sets of data out there, but being the new boy, I kept my trap shut.

Then I found out that Store Operations was in the process of setting up a little routine which would track our staff’s spending — all staff had cards issued to them (for the wrong reasons, by the way, but I’ll talk about that some other time).  So I blew up at the Ops VP — the first time I had exploded at a senior member of upper management, but by no means the last — and uttered the words that became quite legendary at Grand Union.

“Let me make one thing quite clear.  Just because we are housing the data, does not mean you can play with it.  You know who owns the data?  I DO.  And only I will dictate how the data is to be used from now on.”  (There were more words, calling them idiots for abusing our own staff when in fact we were getting free research from their behavior, but that too is a story for another time.)

The result of all this was that I took all the personal customer data off the mainframe, leaving only the unique IDs behind, and stored that data not on our department’s terminal — which of course was linked to IT — but on a stand-alone PC in my techie Kenny’s office, on which resided only the customer data (and IDs of course), and the necessary tools to manage it (I used Paradox as the database manager and query tool, and Quattro Pro as the spreadsheet program).  Incidentally, the only way I got funding for the PC was by threatening to just buy one with my own money if I got turned down.  The only way to get data off that PC was by diskette (remember them) and Jaz cassettes (once again, the best mass offline storage media at the time);  and I had the only other Jaz drive in the company (and also the only other Quattro Pro software, but that was by choice because MS Excel was and still is an inferior product).

And absolutely everything was password-protected — only Kenny and I had admin privileges.  It was unwieldy, and often frustrating, and time-consuming;  but our data was secure, which was all that mattered to me.  So when we were doing a direct-mail promotion to our customer-cardholders, Kenny and I would do the analysis, then send the promotional offer and list of customer IDs to our card provider to create the mail shot.  (The “sending” of the promo details involved handing a Jaz cassette to our account executive to take back to their IT department:  also unwieldy and time-consuming, but irrelevant to me.  And the head of their IT department was a great friend of mine, so I trusted him to safeguard the data.)

And all that was in the mid-1990s, when data snooping was rudimentary, crude and easily blocked.  Now?  Fuggedabahtit.

I do know that had anyone in my department even suggested to me that I back up our data on some Internet-based “cloud” (for the usual “convenience” reasons), I would probably fired them, for forgetting that when it comes to data — most especially private data — security matters more than ease or convenience.  I eve refused to back up our customer data on the company’s own mainframe, so protective did I feel about the issue.

And I think that people need to feel more like that today, because in today’s world data security is more, not less fragile and indeed vulnerable.

Long Time… Gone

Corporate Fuckery, Entertainment, Management

I have been a fan of Formula One racing since my early teens, which makes me older than just about everyone involved in running F1 today.

Just recently, I had a problem with my AppleTV account and couldn’t change the payment method — no need for details, but it’s a fucking nightmare and would be easier if I just created a new account.  Why am I subscribing to AppleTV, you ask?  Well, late last year F1 told me that their own website (F1.com) would no longer be streaming races because they’d sold the broadcast rights to AppleTV.  Fair enough:  it’s their absolute right to do so, and the AppleTV sub was actually cheaper than the F1 sub;  so that, coupled with my desire to watch the Slow Horses TV series (read the books, loved them), I made the change even though once I’d watched all the episodes, I found that AppleTV doesn’t have much worth watching anyway.  But there was always the F1 racing, which (did I already mention? I’ve loved since my early teens) so what the hell.

Of course, the modern F1 is no longer the F1 I used to love.  Gone were the earsplitting roar and howls of V6- and V12 car engines, and in their place came hybrid engines, using pathetic little 1500cc turbo motors with laptop batteries to “boost” performance because Green Is Mighty and Internal Combustion Engines Are Evil, or some such nonsense.

Then this season saw new rues (a.k.a. the “formula” in the product description), which made the cars even MOAR BATTERY, except of course that batteries when used to propel cars at 300mph run out of spark within yards not miles, so we were greeted with the spectacle of the world’s finest drivers and the world’s most accomplished engineers becoming software managers.  Put in plain terms, cars would overtake other cars, and then immediately lose their position because their batteries were drained whilst theit competitors had recharged theirs so could take back the position:  repeat ad nauseam.  Not only was the spectacle unsatisfying, it became outright dangerous, as was seen in the last race where a driver with a full battery was about to move to overtake, but the car in front suddenly lost 25mph because his battery had just gone flat.  At a closing speed of 275mph, no human reactions are quick enough to address that impending crash — but amazingly, young Ollie Bearman’s were almost that quick and he pulled off the track to avoid a massive collision.  Unfortunately, his car’s battery was still in flat-out mode, and Bearman hit the barrier head-on with a force of 50 Gs.  How he survived is a miracle;  how his electric motor didn’t catch fire and turn him extra-crispy is a credit to the engineers who built the car.  Nor did his car crumple like a newspaper and turn his skeleton into soup.

Of course, the F1 organization recognized all this for the disaster it is, and have hurriedly put through a massive rules change.  They were fortunate in that next two Grand Prix races in Saudi Arabian peninsula had been canceled because Trump’s merry war on Iran had resulted in the latter sending missiles raining on the Gulf states — and nobody wanted to see battery-powered race cars having to take action to avoid incoming SCUDs, let alone their competitors’ cars, and F1 audiences in the stands deciding that watching electric go-karts play swapalongs would not be sufficient spectacle to keep them from being turned into hamburger by the aforementioned missiles.  So F1 caught a break, and having three weeks before the next race (Miami GP), changed a whole bunch of rules, making the thing even more complex than before.  (Please watch this video — it’s less than ten minutes long — to see the absolute clusterfuck that F1 racing has become.)

Why am I telling you all this?  Because after sixty-odd years of F1 fandom, I’ve decided that enough is enough.  I’m not interested in watching what F1 has become, I don’t like what F1’s owners, the foul Liberty Media, have created — four races in the Saudi Peninsula?  WTF? — and even worse, losing various countries’ Grand Prix races because European organizers can’t match those of the oil-rich Arabs.  I mean, the entire Grand Prix concept began in France, and there’s no room on the calendar for a French GP?  WTFF?

So I’m walking away.  I would say that I’ll content myself by watching the “highlights” videos on EeewChoob, but honestly, I don’t think there will be any highlights worth watching, anymore.

Here’s a thought:  throw away the stupid hybrid engines and go back to racing with real engines, the aforementioned V6 and V8 monsters, let the drivers race these cars to the utmost limit of mechanical and human performance, and make F1 watchable again.  Like it was in, say, 1975.  (And yes I know, the cars were deathtraps.  I’m not suggesting throwing out the entire car, just the stupid engines.)

I know, I know:  “You can’t stop progress, Kim;  you can’t go back to the old ways.”

And don’t suggest I try to follow other motor racing types, either.  Once you’ve watched Formula 1, all other car types resemble tortoises and hippos racing.  Even Le Mans, which I watch every year, all 24 hours at a time if there’s no highlights video, doesn’t begin to compare.

I think I’ll start watching horse racing instead.  That is, until Liberty Media buys them out, makes the owners strap rockets to their horses’ asses “to improve the spectacle”, and gets fifty racing tracks built in Saudi Arabia to host the new F1 Horse Racing Circuit, doing away with Belmont, Saratoga, Aintree and Epson in the process.

And speaking of horses’ asses:  so long, F1/Liberty Media — and AppleTV.  Neither of you is worth the trouble of supporting anymore.

Unmasking

Terrorism, Traitors / Fifth Columnists

Let’s take the lace panties off this pork chop, shall we?

California woman arrested, accused of trafficking weapons for Iranian govt

The lace panties would be the “California woman” appellation.  In fact:

On Saturday, 44-year-old Shamim Mafi was detained at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

According to First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, Mafi, a California resident, was charged with brokering deals involving Iranian drones, bombs, and ammunition that were allegedly intended for Sudan.

In addition to the accusations, authorities say records linked her to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Court documents indicated that the ministry allegedly provided instructions and funding for her to establish a business in the United States to operate from.

Here’s the pork chop:  this Iranian tart is in fact an Iranian government mole, involved in all sorts of subversion and other Fifth-column activities.  She’s a “California woman” only in terms of her place of residence — she is apparently a resident alien and not a U.S. citizen  — but the term used is just a figleaf to conceal her true nature and activities.

I’m just surprised that One America News used the figleaf in their headline — it’s normally the Left who use such nomenclature in referring, for example, to a criminal rapist illegal immigrant as “a Maryland man”, and so on.

Note to OAN:  Stop doing that.

Kicking His (Gr)Ass Blue

Anti-Gun Nannies, Resistance, The Gun Thing

Let’s hear it for the Kentucky state legislature:

When Democrat Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear recently vetoed two pro-gun measures, lawful gun owners in the Bluegrass State were hopeful that pro-gun lawmakers in the state legislature could garner enough votes for an override.

Gov. Beshear vetoed House Bill 78, which would provide critical liability protections for firearm industry members against third-party misuse of the products they manufacture and sell, and House Bill 312, which would create a provisional concealed carry permit for lawful young adults ages 18, 19, and 20.

On April 14, the state legislature convened for a veto override session and successfully overrode both measures. The override vote totals for HB 78 were 80-19 in the House and 31-6 in the Senate, while HB 312 was overridden by 81-to-18 and 28-to-9 margins.

I still can’t understand how the Bluegrass State ever came to elect a Democrat governor in the first place, but as long as the voters keep the legislature in line with solid conservative majorities, we should be okay.  (“We” in this case being Kentucky gun owners, with whom I share a deep and lasting bond through my Readers.)

Would that all states could be this way:  as a country, we’d be in far better shape.  (And by “we”, in this case, I mean everybody and not just gun owners)

More Gubernatorial Ass-Kicking

Legal Stuff, Resistance, Rights

I really like this trend (if it is indeed a trend):

The Kansas State Legislature overrode Governor Laura Kelly’s veto of a bill named in honor of assassinated political commentator Charlie Kirk that strengthens free speech protections on college campuses.

House Bill 2333 received two-thirds support in both chambers this month, overruling the governor’s objection. 

Part of the bill, known as the Kansas Intellectual Rights and Knowledge Act or KIRK Act, protects “expressive activities.” It deems outdoor areas “public forums for the campus community.”

“Any individual who wishes to engage in non-commercial expressive activity on campus shall be permitted to do so freely, so long as the individual’s conduct is lawful and does not materially and substantially disrupt the functioning of the postsecondary educational institution,” the act states. 

Here’s the reason for the veto:

Gov. Kelly argued the bill was unnecessary as free speech is already protected.

Yeah, just like the right to own guns is “already” protected by the Second Amendment — except where it isn’t, in states like California, New York, Illinois and other Blue shitholes.

I hate the fact that we need additional laws to underline the freedoms already supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution (like this KIRK law and the USSC’s Gruen decision);  but these are the times we live in, sadly.

And it’s safe to say that it should be so unlikely that the KIRK law should be necessary on, of all places, college campuses — except that it’s in these very institutions where free speech is most threatened, whether at the hands of radical Left students’ “counter-protests” or at the hands of radical Left college administrations.

Let’s have more KIRK laws, then, and more veto overrides of this nature.