Tag: security

April 18, 2024 – Your Life, Or Your Rights

April 18, 2024 /

It is no secret that I am not a stranger at the hospital. Every since I can remember, there has been a sign on all doors saying the usual things. No Smoking on campus, Service animals only and no weapons allowed. Of course, I took this to mean bad guys should not bring weapons or cause violence inside the hospital.

It should be common knowledge my stance on things. I believe in self-reliance. The police are there to take a report and find out or bring to justice after the fact. Gun free zones are no fight back zones. When someone juiced up or pissed off comes to the hospital with a rifle, they will have their way. None of this makes me any bit safer, in fact I feel less safe being completely disarmed.

A lot of gun people like to talk a tough game. ‘I’m just not going to go to some place where I have to be disarmed. I am going to take my business elsewhere.’ I do agree with that sentiment to a point. I am going to support businesses that reflect my values. However, my wife’s oncologist is within the walls of the hospital. I am not there by choice several times a week. One of my values is to stay alive.

Entering the hospital is almost like going through the airport. The metal detectors are pretty sensitive and they have a screen that shows the approximate location of whatever it detects. The problem is that almost every single person sets it off. That means a wanding, pat down and bag search. If I am trying work at the same time, I have a whole bag items that set off the metal detector.

It does no good to opine that times have changed. I have been carrying a pocket knife since middle school. It wasn’t allowed their either, but I learned that if I just kept my mouth shut and used it with appropriate discretion that it wouldn’t be a problem. I have lost track of the number of times my knife set off the screeners at the airport because it is second nature to have it with me.

I think that probably the most insulting part of the process is that when I have had my bag gone through, it is a very high level look. Not every zipper was opened and they didn’t get to the bottom of my bag. The reality is that this isn’t even an allusion of safety. I get hassled, people are having to wait on me all so that if I really wanted bring something like a weapon in, I just have to put it at the bottom of my backpack.

What is there to really learn here? Well, not that much. If you are not a frequent hospital visitor or you haven’t been since before August of last year, you are in for a rude surprise. We don’t really have much of a choice of doctors or hospitals either. Be prepared to lose control of your life in more ways than just your sickness.

End Your Programming Routine: I think that my gripe with the situation is clearly documented. The only thing I can really do is comply and hope that nothing bad happens. I acknowledge that the risk of something happening is very, very small but I sure feel naked without my pocket knife. In some ways, it makes me feel juvenile or even criminal. All in the name of safety.

August 16, 2023 – They May Be the Devil But Boy, is Customer Service Good

August 16, 2023 /

We have had two pedestrians hit in the crosswalk in the last couple of months. Both of them were not caught on the doorbell camera. So, we have decided to expand our camera network. I want the doorbell camera to really be focus at someone at the door, not every motion on the street.

We are also trying two different technologies. One is solar and the other is has a hardwired kit. The trick will really be if our wi-fi will be able to reach the location that I want to put the cameras. The solar powered one I put up, the battery died after the first day. I think that it is the wi-fi and not the solar charger, but we will see. I just ordered a wifi extender today. I suppose that I should check the output of the panel as well.

Hanging the camera, I was trying to screw in the wire management clips and I knocked the camera off the mount. It fell about 12 feet into the plants and dirt. I climbed down the ladder picked it up and re-attached it to the hangar. I then went about trying to get the right angle on the camera.

Only, the app said that the camera was offline. I checked and it was connected to the Ring network. This is a wi-fi extender that we had to purchase so that our back door camera would work. If the signal is weak, the battery winds down constantly trying to connect (even when it is connected to power). But, the extender is father away than the wi-fi router so I wanted to change networks. In order to do that, I need to access the camera and hit a button.

No connection. I thought I would take the battery out (re-boot) and again, no connection. I gave up for the day and I did some research online. I couldn’t figure anything out but that they had a technical service number. I decided to give it a try, expecting the worst.

Someone answered on the third ring, not a phone tree or anything. I know a little about support and the first answer (tier 1) is usually all the triage level activities. I was asked if I had a second battery, which I have with the other camera that I have not installed yet. I tried that and no connection. The next thing she did was ask me where I purchased it and whether I wanted to return the camera or have Ring provide a replacement.

They emailed me a return label for the non-functioning camera and I had the replacement in a couple of days. Now, I did not try to hoodwink them or anything like that. I told them that I set it up and it was working until I knocked it off the mount. I wanted them to know that I caused the problem. I could have had a replacement the next day from Amazon. That being said, I did not want this camera ending up in someone else’s hands if there really was something wrong with it. I have little faith that it wouldn’t end up in the ‘warehouse’.

End Your Programming Routine: I suppose that it is a sad state of affairs when things go the way that they are supposed to go but yet pleasantly surprised. I neither like nor trust that all my data is going into Amazon’s cloud. That being said, they sure are making it easy to give it to them.

March 9, 2020- Personal Security in the Digital Age

March 9, 2021 /

I was first exposed to an open source password manager called KeePass a number of years ago. When I worked in support, I had to have many different accounts at the ready, often on a moments notice. One of the biggest disadvantages was that it was limited to a computer, at least I was smart enough to only put work relevant information on it.

A couple of years ago, I thought that I would want to start using an application like this again. I found one for the phone called MiniKeePass. Early in 2020, the app makers announced that it would no longer be supported by the end of the year. So, I have been ‘riding dirty’ every since.

The problems are, one that there is a lot of information currently saved in MiniKeePass. I also had an old system using Evernote. How to get it out before it is lost forever by an OS update or some other problem. You would be surprised the number of job board logins, etc I have accumulated over the years. According to Apple, it can be backed up, but how do you access the database?

As a result, I am in the search for a good password vault. I need to get these things moved before something happens. I don’t have a lot of requirements, just a few. I don’t want to pay for a service but I am willing to buy an app. I don’t want cloud back-up and potential security vulnerability of someone else storing. Lastly, I would like to be able to access it from multiple devices.

Searching around, I found this app Myki. It is free and it shares across devices. The biggest downside I have found so far is that you have to purchase additional categories. So, for instance I don’t really want to have 400 accounts in one view because I only use four of five routinely.

I am taking a sort of hybrid approach. You can create custom ‘Notes’. I create a note on the category that I want to keep track of. Then I add all the seldomly used accounts under the custom notes. The drawback of such an approach is that you will not get the auto-fill functionality on a webpage. Or said differently, Myki will not fill in account information automatically. I am OK with that, these are accounts that I may never use again.

On a slightly related note, I have been trying out the Brave browser and the Duck-Duck-Go search engine. Post the Capitol riots, I found out that Mozilla is not the patron saint of freedom like I previously thought. One interesting thing about the Brave browser is that you are awarded cryptocurrency for using it. This is one of those things that may never amount to much but there is no harm.

I have known about Duck-Duck-Go for years. This is a search engine that values privacy. So far, I have been happy but I have heard that it is not quite as diligent as Google. I guess we will see.

So, those are some new options for privacy and security. My preference would be to have the same ID and password everywhere, but that is far from secure and a best practice. I am trying to change habits now before something happens.