The Crapolla According to Fek'Lar

You Know You're DOOMED When...

you develop a food allergy to Aspartame.

You've stumbled onto another issue of The Crapolla, a journal written for software professionals. No not the managers; I mean the people who do the work.

This Crapolla is sponsored by...

In This Issue...

Whose Identity?

Fumble!

Are you feeling safe? Sucker! Info giant ChoicePoint has admitted that it sold information about 300,000 people to a group of disreputable persons. A company named Card Systems didn't follow their own procedures and allowed someone to download a ton of MasterCard data. These companies have been in the news, but they are not isolated incidents. In the past year over a hundred companies who collect and process personal data about you and me have leaked, sold, or lost the data in a manner that puts our identities and personal financial health at risk. This industry screws up about once every three days. My question is what makes the blackhat hackers any worse than the corporations that through incompetence or malice fumble the data?

If I were to start collecting data on people and using it to make money, let's say I collected credit card numbers and sold them to whoever could pay, I would be looked at as a very bad person. How dare I traffic your credit card number? But big corporations do this every day. You can not open a bank account or hold a credit card without agreeing that the bank is going to collect data about you and it is going to "share" it with "affiliates". Share means sell, and Affiliate means customer who wants to buy data about you. This is in the fine print that you read in the bathroom. You read that, don't you?

What makes the bank's actions reputable at all? In the past five years we have seen how some publicly held corporations have been no better than organized crime syndicates when it came to the integrity of their financial statements. I don't see a difference between these particular corporations and the blackhats out there who want to steal using my identity.

The point of a corporation is to limit legal liability. Because of this, a corporation can break laws and as long as they sacrifice the person who pulled the trigger. There's damned little anyone can do about it. Will anything happen to ChoicePoint or Card Systems? Will they be made to answer for the damage they have done in court? I'll bet no.

If you want to find a real industry that should be regulated I say forget the broadcasters, the personal information brokers can do more damage. Here's a group of bozos who really need to be held accountable. Although I consider the blackhats to be criminals as well, I think companies who do not take reasonable actions to protect our data (like isolating computers with sensitive data from the Internet) are accomplices to the crime.

What if a CEO had a fiduciary duty not just to his shareholders but to the people whose data he held? What if he could go to jail for its mishandling? I think data security would get a lot better. Today no one is accountable for these screw ups.

Doctor Who?

Who did you say? The Doctor, that's Who. He's back, but not on U.S. television. I asked a co-worker from the WTHAIS London office how Who is these days. He responded by burning the first four episodes on DVD and bringing them over during a business trip.

The new Who is very good. The show is updated, doesn't stop to explain itself, and is what was great about the old Who. It has monsters, a main character who is more that he lets on, and it has a streak of irony and humor.

Trouble is I've blasted through all four episodes, and there's no telling when Who is appear again on my Sony. Of course we know that Who will get a deal in the U.S. It's an unqualified hit in Britain. It has to show up here, or too much money will be left on the table.

Until then we must get Who by unusual methods. My co-worker has promised me more. I've also heard of a guy who has a TiVo placed in London that he FTP's to and pulls off the episodes over the Internet. I suspect this will continue until someone announces when and where Who will be in the States.

Now if I could just hop a ride in the TARDIS to go back a while to a time when Diet Coke wasn't on my list of suspect causes for a food allergy I've picked up.

This Issue's Headline submission to the National Daily World Enquiring Globe.

French President Jacques Chirac says British "Cuisine" Worst in Europe after Finland

Insulted Fins Declare War on France. Brits Surprised to Learn They Have "Cuisine"

Let's play, "Who said this?"

Heard in the halls of various software companies.

"We have live errors!"

"It's the artificial breakfast of champions."

"I've been here 8 years!"
"Jeez... Some convicted murderers get less time that that!"
"But they don't get showered with millions of worthless stock options!"

"I'm actually a great believer in humiliation as a training method."

"My wife keeps borrowing my speakers and blowing them out on her computer."
"Dude, you're taking this community property thing way too far."

Excuse Me

I'm out of water.

Fek'Lar
(The Last Honest Geek)

Remember: The Crapolla contains my personal opinions. That's right they're mine, so get your own! And you kids get off my lawn!

Although written with the software professional in mind, my mind tends to wander all over the place, and I sometimes write about politics, mass stoopidity, dumb things I saw, and whatever else comes to mind.

From time to time, I use salty language, thus The Crapolla is not intended for children, or certain people in the Bush Administration.

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EOJ

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