[yesterday: 3.4 miles]
Anyone who has been alive for more than a few years has seen something good ruined by misappropriation and misuse.
When I started out in computer programming I was interested in the power that could be brought to bear through simple programming. And over the years I have been in the business the world has seen an explosion of computing power and the application of that power through world wide networks. It is amazing.
But, inexorably, all of the good power of computer networks is corrupted by evils inherent in human nature. It is not unusual to read in the news that hackers have stolen a database full of credit card numbers. And we are hearing now about the theft of a large body of information about government employees. [There is no safety, even there.]
I know people who have left email behind. But most of us continue on, on twitter and facebook, email, buying and selling over the internet.
I personally don’t think it is the end of the world, but it is a sadness. Something I found so interesting and amazing, has been so easily corrupted.
So now a lot of my job involves meetings and discussions about how to authenticate who people are; how to keep data safe from unauthorized access; how to keep systems both accessible and protected. The techniques of a few years ago have been eclipsed by the “bad guys” and we have to employ new ones.
I’m getting tired of it, frankly.
One reply on “The corruption of all things good”
Where I work, a large bank, risk management and cyber security is huge. It’s the one area where we have seen tremendous growth in resources. A banks reputation is a business critical resource. There are economies of scale and the costs are covered by more transactions than smaller institutions may have. (If I ran a small company I’d contract it out as long as the third part would accept all costs of any breeches they let happen.) Employees get phishing e-mails that are generated by corporate to test gullibility. (“A package is unable to be delivered please click here to blah blah blah….”). We have 260,000 employees, more or less.
Speaking of large institutions, the IRS is large but under funded and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a serious data breech there. Just a matter of time. Lots of smart folks across the globe, and countries sponsor this, too.