Category: Security

The Forces of Insecurity

Bernard Lambert September 13, 2021

IT security is in a revolution via the present-day challenges and how they are overcome. Some idea of the future is the speculation that follows.

We are presently countering invasions of the communications systems, the destinations along their routes, the systems at any of those destinations, and theft of the information in those systems. It is a vigil. The most often mistake made toward guarding against these things is to “bolt-on” some device or system and let it do the work. The vigil is left to the robots to alert you when things go awry. A most recent hack even invaded the very systems used to do such monitoring.

We are reacting to such things and not being proactive. High grade, high paid help is not employed here. A NOC or SOC is set up where the labor is cheap and fingers crossed; things won’t go wrong. Because of specialization in applications, systems, and networking individuals seldom have the combined talents necessary and are willing to work for much less compensation. The worst I have seen it is for the 150 monitoring systems in a global enterprise dropping from sight without anyone knowing for a long time.

workThat instance was easily remedied with robots to watch the robots along with continuous visual feeds to the NOC and enterprise management personnel. The vigil was reintroduced and easily used. What can stump everyone after such systems begin a cascade of information coming your way, is the sheer volume of the info stream and the adverse effect it has upon the operators of the NOC or SOC. One cannot keep up with the avalanche of data. This is a self-induced attack.

In all cases, the staffing headcount requirement has been woefully inadequate once problems arose. The “averaging” done on personnel cost neglects the real need in a real crisis. Because these happen in an instant an organization cannot react in a timely fashion with such short staffing. Problems are not “headed off”. Some are postponed to a future project. The response is thus untimely.

My recommendation is to establish a broad-based knowledge team to install and operate this vigil in a distributed fashion. You can use a cloud, do a hybrid, or build a data center. The team you hire to do the systems, application, networking, virtualization, cloud security, and compliance issues must have integration experience and integration skills. Yes, pay the man or woman more than fifty-five an hour.

What is your experience??

Real Is NOT!

The sacrifices made by everyone repelling the insurrection the ex-president fomented have gone unnoticed. We did get to see Officer Sicknick’s memorial. Many politicos were in attendance. The news tried to give it a solemn treatment. I did not get a feeling in the last weeks that the followers of the insurrectionist have any concern for life, our government, or the citizens of our country.

Nor have I seen any of the most fervent of the followers show remorse for the loss of life, the damage to the capitol, or the damage to the American spirit. The selfish and self-serving rationale that is prevalent among those insurrectionists is that their leader and their way of life has been stolen. The conspiracy theory driving that lust is a complete unrelenting lie provided by and continuously fueled by the ex-president. They are not driven by truth but by suspicion.

The last time we as a country got into killing each other so openly was during the time we worked to shed ourselves of slavery. That too spilled over into the killing of leaders. Abraham Lincoln was killed by the same kind of despot as killed Officer Sicknick. The ex-president’s pursuit of the damn lie is apparently to feed his ego and wallet (campaign funds) while trying to reform power in the Republican party. The Republican party cannot make up its mind to condemn the actions of the former president.

The worse thing in this is the state-level hooliganry being conducted by our errant Republicans like Ward, Biggs, Gosar, and Lesko. They lost, they will not admit it, and they are going about the business of restricting ballot access at every turn now that an election has proven their coward ex-president is unwanted.

Arizona Republican leadership is cowardly, xenophobic, racist, and does not represent moderates in the party. They still believe there will be a Mexican invasion of Arizona. They may be uninformed about the fact that those races and religions were here before the eastern immigrants showed up. They are cowards given their lack of concern for the citizens of Arizona.

Backing the craziness of the previous administration is a testament to our Republican leaders’ ignorance, lack of concern for their constituents, party loyalty beyond reason, damage to the residents of Arizona and the United States, and disregard for the law.

For several decades we in Arizona have taken issues to the ballot in order to get the most fundamental of issues resolved because our legislature is working their personal agendas and the citizen’s needs go for want. Arizona’s legislative process is unamerican as a process. Their legislative product is unwanted by the masses.

So in summary a profoundly ignorant hillbilly from West Virginia runs the Republican party. She is actually an insult to my kin back there in West Virginia. A lottery winner represent a small enclave of religious conservatives, and the rest endorse the errant behavior of the ex-president. All have worked very hard to limit poll access and voter registration.

The methods of party politics has changed in my lifetime in that constituent needs are now secondary to the bent to devolve, diminish, ruin, gut, and change the laws and policies of the state and nation to further their hidden agendas.

One need only follow the money to see what we get is what the lobbyists have paid for by way of “campaign donations” to Senators and Representatives. This is true in state and national elections and campaigns

Forget not what has transpired. We have to wait two years for the next election cleanup.

Bernard Lambert February 3, 2021

The Shame!

I have not been accepting of any of the Trump agenda. It is because I have never liked bullies. The bully talk has now escalated his “vote-fraud” lies to the point of inciting riots in Washington. I have watched this all day. The formality of the Electoral College vote acceptance was caused to move when the riot spilled into the Senate chambers. Late in the day after 4 PM, the President held a video in the back yard of the Whitehouse telling everyone to go home. The formal acceptance was crushed. The respectful acceptance of his loss has escaped Trump since election day. His destructive rhetoric has come to finish his presidency exactly as it has been; tell them what they want to hear then do what you want through lies and intimidation.

The media and Trump’s PR folks will have some difficulty “covering-up” the mob rule Trump has drummed up. I am sure Trump will blame the “liberal press”.

The next thing will be moving this “liberated” mob out of the Capitol building. Mob behavior can go either way. Trump thinks telling them at 4PM that they should go home will suddenly disband and go home. This too shows his leadership shortcomings as he does not understand the energy and unpredictability of a mob. People are going to be hurt. Our trust in the system is going to be hurt.

Don, of all the things you have done, this is the most despicable.

Bernard Lambert – January 16th 2021 14:49 MST

What?

You know there are the laws, morals, mores, and customs we live by. They can differ widely but generally true up to being socially acceptable.

I believe we are experiencing a human being reducing themselves to behaving like a cornered animal. He has a considerable following but not the popular or electoral votes and he is cornered and striking out.

Bernard Lambert – November 20, 2020

The Truth Is …..

Truth should be simple and lasting. Well, I can hope. I can listen. I can think about it. I can seek many sources of information. I can do everything in my power to gain insight into everything I need to survive. It gets complicated in a hurry.

My first concern about truth is time and timeliness. While we cannot get back a minute of time while in the pursuit of truth, we spend it lavishly. Some just wait for it. Some just chase it. All spend a considerable amount of time finding the truth. Learning of it late or when it is no longer relative allows the truth to disappear into the moras of lies in circulation.

My second concern about truth is simplicity. When the only paper document you get with a product or service is a legal agreement in thousands of words, we have successfully evaded the truth. The hate mongers on the Internet build sites just to peddle discord and are successful because of the ease of having such a large audience. None of them offer simple truth.

We have come to a time where civility has been stripped away from public behavior. So far as the individuals who are demonstrating and protesting are concerned, they have been civil. The bad actors amongst them have caused all of the damages. Obviously the truth is being seen by millions of eyes and each of us has a different opinion of what the truth is even then.

While we observe things this political season, let’s try to keep truth lasting and simple….somehow!

Bernard Lambert – September 7, 2020

Liar’s Dividend

I was listening to an interview on the TV where the fellow described the method where one tells a lie and continuously reinforces it to further one’s cause. He was describing Trump behavior. After a thorough detailing of how it works we were reminded that this behavior has a common name; Liar’s Dividend.

What was very interesting was that the way it works was well explained. The one telling the lie can set the agenda by first offering up the lie. Thereafter anything that reinforces that lie is used to keep it out in a debate. In that process, the lie is made legitimate because it is accepted by at least a small group of supporters.

Fast forward to today….

Wharton School gradute speaks dividend!

Bernard Lambert – September 7, 2020