Tag: Computers

Razors & Computer Security

Remember back when razors came as a single blade? Then we advanced to twin blades and multiple blades. My current razor has three blades. It’s all in the pursuit of the closest shave possible.

And that was a good thing. It used to be so hazardous walking on the street as a man. You’d be going along, minding your own business, when, suddenly, a car screeches to a halt beside you, lights flashing. Uniformed people would leap out and surround you. “Let us feel your shave,” they would order, “to ensure it’s the closest that it can be.”

You had no choice but to comply, or risk getting sent to a barber for a shave. Our nation had no tolerance for any but the cleanest shaved man.

That’s how it seemed, at least from the commercials and advertisements.

I’ve always been amused by that approach, that more blades mean a closer shave, and more particularly, that a close shave is critical to civilization’s continued existence. We seem to be going down a similar path with computer security. If one layer of authentication is good, two is better. Hence, they’ve launched double-layered and two-step authentication. Naturally, it’s doomed to fall. Experts don’t seriously believe an absolutely secure computer is possible, if it’s accessing the web.

But I see a day in the future when companies and websites will tell you, “We’re more secure, because we have three layers of security.” Then someone else will announced, “Our security is better because we have four layers,” and the security race will be on.

Razors and computer security weren’t the first to think that if some was good, more was better. Remember American car ads, touting lower, longer, wider?

1949 Hudson Ad-02

Ford probably took the idea of more is better to an unusual but clever conclusion. They speculated that if some was good, then more is better with its front-end dive on braking. If some dive indicated your car’s brakes were doing their job and stopping you, then more dive would indicate better braking, right? They saved a lot of money and gained sales by gaming people into the perception their brakes were better because of that impressive front-end dive when you slammed on the brakes, when nothing had been changed.

Of course, we’ve always had the cubic inch and horsepower race. Still do, actually. Because, as they say, if some is good, more is better.

Probably why we have so many nukes in the United States. At least it feeds the perception that we’re safer.

Like with computers.

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A Dream of Reassurance

The dream leaped into chaos. ‘They’ were trying to become organized.

First, we were working in packed offices. All were dressed in dark blue utility uniforms and black jump boots. Men and women were present, but no children, and no elderly. Thirty people were using office space planned for ten people. I was upper middle-management, which afforded me more freedom and space. While the majority worked at two rows of tables, side by side by side, elbows to assholes, my space was in the back. But  the filing cabinets, telephones, and coffee fax machines were at the front. I was required to go forward to get what I needed, and then go back via a narrow row. The two people in charge would often be in that narrow row, talking, planning and consulting, forcing me to wait and fume with impatience.

So I began thinking ahead about other things that I could do. I knew, in the dream, we would be leaving soon. We would not be able to take much. There was something confusing in the dream about carefully cutting our pockets from our shirts to make quasi-gloves to protect our hands, and wearing strange netting as leggings to protect our legs.

The order came to pack up. Confusion and noise levels increased as we, and thousands of others, left our offices and crowded into a marshaling area. I followed all the instructions. Inspectors went through to see how everyone was doing. My activities impressed them, which amused me.

But horror struck me after a while. I realized that I’d done as instructed, and had packed my laptop into my luggage. My God, what a mistake, I thought. I was distraught, believing, people handling the bags will rip me off. I’d never see that computer again, and all my work on it would be lost.

At that point, I began stirring from my sleep, and the dream. As I did, a voice said, “Don’t worry. You’re not going to lose anything. You still have everything you need.”

Just before I left the dream, I was given my wheeled black travel bag. I opened it, and there was my laptop. I awoke, pleased and relieved.

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Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, ARPANET. Without you, we would be lacking the Internet.

Some will whisper, this is an anniversary, not a birthday. Maybe they’ll make such a remark on the Internet.

Few realize how long people worked on ARPANET and its principles and processes and what its success actually represents. Like Philo Farnsworth and other inventors, their work is used but rarely remembered and celebrated. Most ARPANET and early Internet pioneers worked in teams. They’re remembered but no celebrated but they had some nifty ideas. Their accomplishments helped drive Internet development. Without them, we’d not have bloggers sharing opinions, dreams, hopes, frustrations and cat photos and videos, and complaining about government, politics, manners and movies. WordPress would probably be a lot smaller and less successful.

Where would Amazon and eBay be without the Internet? What would Facebook be without an Internet?

Seriously, take a moment to imagine a Facebook without an Internet and the web.

I need not add the rhetorical amendment asking where the rest of us would be and what we would be doing, but I kinda did.

Going back to my early Internet and computer learning reminds me minicomputers once roamed the electronic frontier. Remember the Burroughs Corporation?

Sure, some remember. Some also remember the Nash Rambler.

Such is the case with inventors, engineers and their work. Their ingenuity shapes our lives but we remember few of them. As always, the winners shape the marketing we refer to as history.

Ah, it’s all ancient history, way back, like a long time ago. Here we are, on the Internet, clicking, scrolling, and googling away the morning.

Happy New Year.

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M.A.D.

Yep, M.A.D.: More Awesome Dreams.

The dream waves continued last night. All the remembered dreams were about going on picnics. Thinking about this, I laughed: this is all a picnic. What a ‘tude.

So the three dreams were about going on picnics. Each had wonderful weather and different settings. I was an adult in each but in different stages of life. In dream number one, I was youngest and my picnic companions were mostly family, augmented with friends. The second dream featured military members (although none were in uniform – I just ‘knew’ they were military members), while the third dream was community. Again, it was a surprise and a laugh to think, interesting, I’m going on picnics with three pillars of my existence in family, military and community. Although I knew in the dream this is what these were, nobody from any of those areas of my life were actually there. That is, Mom was there but it wasn’t my Mom from life.

All the dreams shared a very joyful, flirtatious, happy and energetic atmosphere. The picnics were planned and now were being executed with small details gone awry. For instance, in the first picnic (with the family), there was confusion about my food and the proportions, but I was working it out. In the third dream, the ‘community’ dream, a young female stranger sought me out as we were preparing to leave. She had a computer issue and couldn’t open a file with a certain application, and was asking for my help.

I won’t subject anyone to further details. They were cool dreams and I awoke feeling uplifted, rested and energized. I laugh just remembering them. I give them four point five stars on my scale of one to five.

After all, they weren’t perfect.

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Sometimes….

Sometimes, you want an outlet. Or a second opinion. For me, this usually comes when computer and connectivity issues crash my plans activities.

Because I’m left wondering, is it me? What is causing this? Is it Google, Chrome, OS, the Internet connection, the web site, computer security, plug in failures, or one of the add-ons, or some misplaced value, or an update running ‘transparently’ in the background? And then I go through each of those, looking for answers about why this is happening, but not finding any. I track to sites like isitdownrightnow.com. By the third incident on one -day, exasperation is spilling over into my tranquil writing-like-crazy processes. Worse, this is the third day in a row….

My evil twin whispers, “Yes, but wasn’t this week of the monthly updates?”

Yes, yes, my evil twin is correct. Update Tuesday, when Microsoft unleashes its fixes and updates and sometimes called Patch Tuesday (please don’t confuse it with Patch Adams) was this week. Microsoft’s updates trigger a tsunami of other fixes, which often include a software entity whose updates or fixes don’t work. Or, some organization doesn’t update its software and now is out of compliance, aka, broken.

Of course, as Wednesday follows Tuesday, Exploits follow Updates. The released updates reveal what needed to be fixed. As all systems and orgs don’t immediately update their systems or launch a corollary fix to address the revealed issues, exploits are quickly developed and deployed.

Yep, anything can happen after Update Tuesday. It drives me mad because here I am, alone on my desert island of computer use, wondering, WTF is going on?

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