esrosedotblog

The national intelligence establishment is usually quiet at election time.

Not this go-around.

Ex-CIA chief backs Clinton, calls Trump national security threat

Morell is not the first. Michael Hayden the former head of CIA weighed in the other day on this.

These are the guys who sit with the President when it is time to shoot Osama Bin Laden or to advise when the Twin Towers fell. They have been where Donald Trump should not be allowed to go.

A threat to national security?

Sure.

He not only has a big mouth but he lies and uses information for his own purposes.

This is not a real estate deal. This is some serious shit we are talking.

And these guys are scared.

Labels: Donald Trump, security

I went through my "codes and passwords" file yesterday and eliminated more than half the content.

It was a walk down memory lane for some of it.

Old passwords to the papers that I used to get on before they had a paywall. The Boston Globe, LATimes and even the local paper no longer open their doors without a price of admission. This is changing times forward, a taste of the future for all print.

Then there are some in which the trend has turned the other way. For example, old passwords, maybe ten revisions, for my repeated difficulties with TimeWarner Cable who has a constant meltdown of its on-line service which is not service at all but torture. Fortunately they answer the phone quickly and wonders upon wonders there is an actual office nearby where I can walk in and talk to a real person who is always nice to me and competent. I would be happy with either one and both is a real pleasure, worth going into the place. The same with ATT which I still cannot rouse on the internet. Only three revisions of my password here just to avoid the drop down warnings that the one I used is no good. I go to the great guys at the local ATT store. They are also lookers which makes it even more pleasant.

Then there are the passwords to things I do not even remember. Carbonite, a security system that was one of those things you paid for but never actually got tested because having a mac there were no viruses. Also some passwords to other services, aggregators, news sources. None lasted long. Attempts to monetize them failed and now they are "This Space Available".

I had passwords for many things like retailers where I only bought one thing. Never went back.

And so on.

My cyber history for all of four years in a vaporizing trail, now vanished as I hit the delete button for over 15 passwords. I stopped counting.

I should probably not say that every one of those passwords were pretty much the same.

I swallow all the warnings with a grain of salt.

A lot of what they are worried about seems to be bullshit to me. A breach of my confidentiality is usually a gross thing like wallet theft or, if they appropriate my web records, the length and complexity of my password is irrelevant. They have it, simple or not.

Dumb stuff. My bank, Wells Fargo, decided to make people have "more secure" passwords. So they ramped the minimum letters up to 8 from six. Yet, at their ATMs where the actual money is, there is still a 4 digit pass which is called a p i n and that is it. Of course they do need my card but still.

My investment guys, Smith Barney, had gone to a system which needed at least one cap, a minimum of two letters, and something else I do not remember. There was a huge mess getting it all started. Then they got absorbed by Morgan Stanley and MS in turn went to a simple but 8 digit minimum requirement. No sense, three years later, defying the trend and making it simpler. They even gave me a live MIS guy on the phone to walk me through the new web site. He laughed when I noted the incongruity and allowed as how none of it made much difference. If they had your pass they had it whether it was four or eight or what.

Of course part of it is that only YOU know what the password is, ostensibly, and it is the mysterious ingredient unless you are really dumb enough to use 2012's dumbest.

Ours is not too complicated actually. It is just our date of meeting but not really as it is off one year and it also has letters which are initials but only in the order of how they actually appear.

One of my sons who needed to get into a website worked his way in by simple guessing. Of course he had to know us a little bit. The year and all. If I need to come up with an 8 digit figure then I just add my birth year.

Now everyone who reads this has some clues. But you don't know my usernames which, in many cases, are as hard to get as any part of it.

For many sites unless there is a credit card and many even where there is, the user name can be any name which you choose to plug in. I have used PaulNewman as well as some others as a homage. No longer as he is dead and I don't want to make it too hard for the hacker.

I went from about thirty passwords down to ten. Not everyone is on there. The money ones are not on anything but a hard copy sheet of paper on the back of a cabinet drawer here. Funny, huh? As secure as a new puppy in the middle of a highway.

Labels: internet, security

FACTOIDS

The NSA leaker/traitor (well, I had to say so as it is what I believe along with Brad Manning) is a Ron Paul supporter!! (two exclamation points)

He has run to one of the most repressive regimes (Hong Kong) in the world. They don't just listen in they come to your house.

He is straight. (big sigh of release here as I don't have to find ways to support him because he is gay).

A slight side trip, Glenn Greenwald the rabid lefty who is somehow sponsoring Snowden is gay and does not live in the US because his partner can't come here. They live in Brazil. Weird.

Booz Allen Hamilton was known as one of the lesser management consultant companies and were fading before they got into NSA and became a prime vendor.

This all broke while China and the US were in talks about cybersecurity. China controls Hong Kong.

That is enough for now.

I am fascinated with these guys. How does this mental frame of mind come about? It will be interesting.

I suspect that this will have all of the impact of the Pentagon Papers which, if you remember, eventually had hardly any impact at all except to keep the media busy for a while.

Which is good.

Someone said today that the IRS should celebrate with an Edward Snowden day. To say nothing of Obama who, as stories develop, gets a big relief as all the stories lead away from him. For now.

Labels: security

TWISTED KNICKERS

I am not surprised, well, really, I am, that the lefties are so totally freaked out about the NSA revelations today.

I am not one of them.

I have never doubted that there was surveillance. Else why have FSA in the first place.

The other thing is that this approach to national security is not new. We all know that. What people seem most upset about is that they looked to Obama to take these procedures down. To nullify them.

Look. Obama is on the record as approving FSA in the first place and is a centrist in the tradition of most if not all Presidents since Eisenhower. You think he is different somehow now?

Here is the other thing.

Do they honestly believe that these measures are so malignant that we should removes some very basic protections in this day and age? National security is not a paranoid fever dream. It is at threat.

Steve Benen and I agree.

The Consequences of NSA Surveillance?

Notice the question mark?

I really believe that strong measures are being taken to not violate people's privacy. I never, ever worry that someone is taking something away from me somehow, somewhere. If I don't worry about Amazon data mining me or Google or someone else, why the USA? The NSA? And remember, the NSA is part of USA. These are citizens too.

Sure. Someday, this could all be used for nefarious purposes. But does anyone seriously think that is happening now? Or is likely to any time soon?

Please.

The hysteria started with the subpoenas issued to some reporters at the AP and Fox.

There were and are grounds to believe that security leaks did occur. The press got pissed.

Now they are jumping all over this.

Another angle. There are as many tin hats on the left as on the right. I hate to admit it but that is true.

I am in the middle with Obama. I vote. So does everyone else. I think I made the right choice. I have to let go of some of my micro-worries and not apply them to the national interest.

Labels: Administration Obama, security

YOU GOT MY ATTENTION

The other day, I did a post about spices and I put up a photo of McCormick blends, the combined mystery ingredients that make up things like Montreal Steak and Mesquite Smoked. Grill Mates, they are called.

Today, I went to Amazon and ordered a DVD and a book. Never mind what. Nothing about spice certainly.

And there, right under my order in the "shopping cart" were shown the very same spices, sold in combo. Grill Mates.

One. I have never ordered these spices from Amazon.

Two. The spices had absolutely nothing to do with the DVD or the book I bought.

Someone is cross pollinating.

They said this would happen. There is a term for it. Data mining.

It has never happened to me so blatantly.

I don't like it.

But whatcha gonna do?

There it is.

Everything I put on the web will go into whatever else gets put into the web and when it comes out, there will be me.

I am not aware that there is any connection between Amazon and Blogger, or rather Google. Well. Not aware.

Not thinking more like it.

The millennium.

It is interesting that there is not more crossover like this. But look for it. If they can catch my temporary interest in on-line images of spice and plug it into my book and dvd purchase, they can and will connect anything.

Labels: internet, security