It Begins

Once again I find myself at odds with a woman in power. She’s not even in a position of anything but minimal authority. But like so many women she apparently thinks she’s got something to prove.  Unfortunately, an older white guy presents her with an easy target. 

The older white guy in this case is me. Either I must look weak, or she figures with all the recent events, “the old guy won’t fight back because he’s white, male, and knows I’ll win.”


Here’s the crux of the issue. The rules at work say, “Document everything.” The time it takes to do this, in part due to some of the shittiest software I’ve ever seen, the complexities of proper reporting, and my admitted unfamiliarity with said software, plus a steep learning curve means that sometimes I may take 15 minutes or so collecting information or filling out the documents in the right way.  Sometimes longer, If I have to ask questions.

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That being said, I’m taking more calls every day, I’m documenting things better every day, and I’m getting better every day at doing all this.

I know I’m improving and I know this because Each day I’m more comfortable and not spending as much time figuring out the “usual” stuff.

The totally wacky stuff on the other hand takes a lot of time. Especially if you’ve got someone on the phone who is randomly talking about every thing they’ve ever had happen to them. It’s being recorded, and so you can be chastised for missing or not reporting things too.

Enter little miss twinkle twat…

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Who walks up to my work area and never bothers to introduce herself or even say hello…

“Can I help you????” said with a sneer or nasty edge, is not what someone says when they’re honestly interested in helping.

We all know it. The implied message is “YOU’RE NOT WORKING FAST ENOUGH” or “GOD! WHY IS THIS FOOL BOTHERING ME?”

And that means, that no matter how fast, or good you ever become… You’ll never be good enough.

My response was neutral, “Nope thanks, I was just documenting all the issues a call raised.”

OOOPPPSSS! Not the right answer. This is the problem men always have with the question “Does this dress make my ass look fat?

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In retrospect I probably should have said, “Yes, oh I’m so glad you’re here and thank you for your assistance I couldn’t have possibly done anything without your intervention.

But I’m kind of Harry Potter in that regard.

I shouldn’t tell lies.

Oppps, water under the bridge. 


The whole call / documentation process itself is somewhat problematic. Calls come in, problems are documented. If they’re not documented correctly, an oversight team sends the documentation back telling you what is wrong and to make corrections.

The problem is, this process is by necessity asynchronous. This means that by the time you’re being asked for corrections, days or weeks have gone by and now you have to research what was happening and try to recall why you did something the way you did.

Add to that, being saddled with a non-standard keyboard that you’re chasing all over the table and having to keep up answering phone calls and you’re always behind in everything and under stress.

My nature is to front load the process and do things ”Right” the first time. Apparently, that is not the philosophy of this “supervisor”

She’s also very new to the management scene. She’s not yet learned that whipping the slaves can be effective, but that whipping the slaves too hard, or often, inevitably leads to revolt.

Initially I assumed that all the new folks, (Like me) were under her scrutiny and being asked, “CAN I HELP YOU?”

As it turns out, apparently, I’m special.

Which ties back to my initial suspicion that she’s looking to make an example of someone and I’m the “Soft” target.

The first time, I wrote it all off to just her being concerned that I was taking too much time in the documentation process. Then IT relented and gave me a “Real” keyboard. Huzzah! I can freaking type again! So I’m accelerating and streamlining the way I do things and picking up helpful hints along the way.

The second time, I was surprised when I got the “CAN I HELP YOU?” because I was in fact working more efficiently and taking more calls. “Meh, whatever…”

She’d come over to my work area, from her work area on the far side of the building to ask her question. I was in the midst of documenting 12 issues from the last call, not including the actual corrective action.

The third time, she sent a higher level manager to check on me. OK Now, I’m pretty sure, we’ve got some kind of perceived issue… But no-one is being forthcoming about what that issue may be.

Yesterday, she was particularly nasty, while I was packing up to leave. I had one of those moments where you’re tired and I was checking around my desk area to make sure I wasn’t leaving something behind or undone and she happened to be speaking to one of her peers. I was standing there scanning my area and she interrupted her conversation to turn and look at me with what I can only describe as open hostility, “CAN I HELP YOU?”

“Uh, no… Just packing up to leave…” I answered very confused by her attitude.


When I was very young, I fought back, playing the same nasty political games, as my opponent. As I matured, I’ve tried ignoring situations like this, hoping they would go away. Later in my work life I tried more centrist positions between the two.

Where I played the political games, I won. Typically, I win, by using a scorched Earth policy. This is effective as hell but doesn’t win you many friends, and usually leaves you at the bottom of the list for promotion.

Where I tried to be “above it” I lost. In both cases I was completely miserable.

Trying more centrist positions, was just exhausting. Keeping track of all the bullshit and mounting moderate defenses takes a lot of time and thought. Time that I think is better spent doing the job I’m actually being paid to do. I know… What a fucking concept!

Memorial Day, had HR been in I’d have been in their office nipping this shit right in the bud.

Yesterday, I decided it was far more important for me to get the hell out of work and on my way home. I was tired and usually when I’m tired I tend to be a bit more direct than I would be otherwise. Folks sometimes have a problem with my “moderate” directness, I can guarantee there’d have been a major problem if I was completely unfiltered.

After being pissed off about the situation on Sunday and then pissed off again on Monday, I slept on it.

I’ve decided I’m going with a more centrist position. I think I’m going to talk to the higher level manager that she drew into this situation. I’m just going to bluntly ask what I’m doing wrong.

I’ll see if this situation is salvageable. If I get some guidance, I’ll implement what I’m told to do. If that helps, great, I suspect that it won’t, and am therefore going to begin looking for another place to be either within the company or, (more likely) outside the company.

However, I’ve also decided that if this crap continues…  I’m going to put the company’s “Zero Tolerance” policies to the test. 

If little miss annoying continues her passive aggressive harassment I’m going to file a complaint. Let’s see how Zero Tolerance works when the aggressor is a woman and the victim is a white male.

Should be interesting…

My instincts tell me that this will not end well, but I feel like I have no choice but to respond.

So twinkle twat, this old white boy ain’t gonna get fucked over AGAIN… Let’s fucking dance!

It’s Called Free Speech Dumbasses!

Constitution

Which I should add is technically what you’re engaging in when you protest by marching, and holding up signs expressing your opinions.

This is part of what the First Amendment is about, and is one of the most cherished rights we have in America.

Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

ChicagoRiot

However, once your start throwing punches, vandalizing property, tossing bricks, burning down buildings, or stealing cases of tampons because that’s all that was left to take from the CVS… Well you’re no longer engaging in free speech; now you’ve just become a bunch of thugs, and thieves.

They used to teach this stuff in school. It was called Civics.  I remember having Civics classes off and on throughout Elementary, Junior High, and High School.

Glencoe Civics Today Textbook

Of course, for the most part… I ATTENDED school and learned enough about the workings of our government to be able to operate in society. (Stuff like stop when the cops tell you to, don’t steal, vandalize, rape, or otherwise harm others, be polite and let others have their say, 

Apparently, that educational effort was lost on the crowds rioting in Chicago, or the idiot young adults on college campuses today.

I digress.

If Donald Trump wants to speak, he has every right to do so. Just like you. The same goes for Ben Shapiro, or Milo Yiannopoulos events on college campuses. 

If you get tossed out of an event where other people (equal in their rights to you, by the way,) have PAID or chosen to hear the speaker, then I see that as perfectly fine too.

If you’re going to disrupt an event that others are interested in attending, you special snowflake, are the aggressor, not the crowd. You had the option not to attend a rally, or speaking event, and you chose to attend and be disruptive. You also had the opportunity to leave if / when you found the topic of discussion offensive.

Trump

Here ends your lesson on Free Speech and the first Amendment.

Perhaps tomorrow we’ll move on to freedom of religion, and how Islam, must be equal to Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, or every other religion, or the choice by some people to not believe in a higher power.

I know it’s hard for some people to understand, but no religion or belief system is to be treated as superior to another here in America. I promise, I’ll use small words.

 

OMG! This is spooky

Donald Trump by Gage Skidmore

I’m no fan of Trump.

I think he’s a bully. If he wins the nomination I’m honestly not sure what will happen. Obviously, it will become a race between Hillary and Trump. That being said how the hell do I vote?

Cast my vote for Hillary whom I believe should be indicted for criminal behavior against the United States of America OR cast my vote for a guy who is, at best is unsavory and at worst is a nasty bully?

Do I not vote at all? 

I’m not convinced that is the right course of action either. Not participating doesn’t actually register a disagreement with the establishment.

I think the serious question that needs to be asked is WHY are so many voters turning out for Trump?

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I think this speaks to a serious dissatisfaction with the status quo. How many of us over the past 24 years have found ourselves voting for the least objectionable candidate?

This isn’t what our electoral process is supposed to be. We should be voting for the best candidate. The candidate that is best able to unify us, and provide guidance not for themselves, select groups, or special interests, but for all the people in this country.

TedCruzWide

Who do these candidates represent? 

We the People? Or more likely the power elite…

Clinton is certainly associated with the Washington Elite. Trump is obviously connected with the wealthy power brokers and I question, if he had to decide between the people or the power brokers of American business which would he choose?

I suspect that the people would lose.

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The problem is We The People can’t take another four years of losing.

So where does that leave those of us who want our country to be unified and moving forward?

Nowhere.

I once described the kind of person I wanted as a president. 

Ambassador Sarek

My thoughts on the matter haven’t changed.

I want a president with the following qualities; a statesman, honesty, conviction, and honor, someone for whom logic, not emotion and rhetoric, is first nature.

Thus far I’ve seen nothing even close to that from any of the candidates.

If he were real, I’d vote for Sarek in a minute!

Just some food for thought…

JROppenheimer LosAlamos

I wasn’t planning on another piece about Apple v. The FBI. But here goes…

For all those pundits, wags, celebrities, politicians, and now Rabbis speaking out and telling Apple that they should decrypt the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, I submit this.

Apple is apparently applying the thought Robert Oppenheimer had after he helped create the atomic bomb.

When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.
– J. Robert Oppenheimer

I believe this quote is often paraphrased to;

Just because you CAN do a thing, doesn’t necessarily mean you SHOULD do a thing.

I’ve lived my life using that paraphrase as a test for certain actions. I look at it as a cautionary signpost for all scientists and researchers.

Project t virus by linkin368 d3gt57g

Just because you can modify the DNA of influenza to deliver a genetic update to all the people of the world… should you? What about murphy’s law? Can you really limit the unintended consequences? 

OR is it simply better to recognize that never creating the technology is the best course of action?

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All these people saying Apple should crack the phone, have no idea what they’re talking about. It’s not an easy task, even for Apple. Cracking encryption isn’t what you see in the movies. 

You don’t just plug a widget into a port, have some dialog about how cool you are and then hear a beep as the NSA computers start spilling all their information onto your impossibly small storage device.

At this point it’s unclear if the iPhone in question is using something as simple as a 4 digit code. It’s likely, but depending on the IOS version being used, the phone could be locked using a phrase.

If there’s a passphrase the odds of success hacking it with a brute force attack drop precipitously with each character added to the passphrase length.

James comey fbi

The brute force attack that the FBI is describing is crude and there is no guarantee that if they win in court, forcing Apple to be their bitch, that when they finally get into the phone there won’t be a nasty little application that has encrypted all the files the FBI wants using an entirely different algorithm, from another manufacturer.  If that’s the case, is the FBI going to get another court order? Probably not, because this is about the FBI making an example. Apple just happens to be the biggest target. 

It’s just as likely, this Jihadi fucker was using a messaging application that wiped the messages 5 minutes after they were read.

Federal and state fbi agent

If the guy was at all concerned about security, He probably turned off all the Apple Tracking software, I know I did right after Edward Snowden blew the whistle.

I’m not a criminal, but I value my privacy and am willing to forego my phone being able to tell me where the nearest Häagen-Dazs is, to maintain my privacy.

This means that Apple providing a custom operating system to disables the automatic wipe on the phone and allow unlimited access to the phone’s password system is likely not going to get the FBI anything more than they already have based on cell tower records.

By the way, because of the number of towers in the San Bernardino area, cell tower data can pinpoint the movements of this Jihadi asshole to within a couple hundred feet or less.

The NSA Actually Has A Program Called SKYNET

So the FBI is lying right from the get-go, when they say they want access to the phone so they can figure out where this Jihadi and his diseased rancid whore of a wife, were before, during the shooting, and after. 

The cell tower records would already provide that information and if the guy turned off his phone while visiting some nefarious underworld figure. Or dropped it in a Faraday bag or cage…

LOKSAK SHIELDSAK Flexible Fabric Faraday Cage Anti RF Protective Bag RF Fortress Radio Frequency Camouflage NDIA SOFIC 2014 David Crane DefenseReview com DR 10

Then the FBI would still get nothing from the phone because at that point the phone would have been cut off from the cell tower or any GPS information and likewise wouldn’t have been able to transmit any of that information.

But we know that the FBI has nine OTHER phones they want to force Apple to help them unlock. 

Apple icon apple

The problem here is that Apple has never created the software to unlock or hack their devices.

Why should they?

Apple tells you, “don’t lose your password, we cant help you if you do.”

So they have a secure device, and they can insure the device’s security because they’ve never created any software to undo their encryption or their locking mechanism.

Just because you CAN do a thing, doesn’t necessarily mean you SHOULD do a thing.

Achmed

Dear Apple customer… “If you loose your password, you can wipe the phone and start over. We strongly recommend you have the data backed up. Apple provides the iCloud service for this purpose.“

It’s recently come to light, that the FBI ordered the San Bernardino County IT department to change the password on the iCloud account and therefore broke a link that could, with Apple’s help, have gained access to the phone.

Now the FBI wants to use a court order to force Apple to UNFUCK their fuckup. But that’s not the end game.

The end game is that the FBI wants to force manufacturers to build government backdoors into all devices. 

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The FBI is using “terrifying terrorists” and criminals, to spook congress and the courts into passing legislation that mandates government access be built into all machines. They and their supporters are using the time honored B.S. line;

For the safety and security of the public…” or that old favorite “We do this for THE CHILDREN

I’m not sure I believe in the slippery slope argument but I do think it’s a very short walk to losing rights that we’ll never get back.

That walk begins with statements that start out, “It’s worth losing a little privacy, or freedom, or changing the laws, or, or, or,  for safety.” see; The Patriot Act

 When I see our government behaving this way, and I hear people saying, “it’s just a little invasion,” I can’t help but think of the poem The Hangman.


I could see a time in the future when it’s illegal for you not to have your phone on your person.

After all, the government would only want to keep track of your movements and communications to insure your safety… Right?

Back doors in our devices are, I think just a stepping stone to full surveillance.

You have nothing to fear, if you have nothing to hide.

Stand with Apple – Go Dark

Apple

Apple is a target plain and simple.

If the US Government succeeds in their ploy to force Apple to create custom code that decrypts the San Bernardino terrorist’s iPhone we all loose.

This is not about the rights of terrorists. Put a bullet in the brain of all terrorists and let God sort ‘em out. I truly don’t give a flying fuck about some Muslim asshole that should’ve been turned around at the border. I’m honestly surprised that they even can use a smart phone isn’t there some fatwa saying followers of Islam must remain in the 12th century?

Tim Cook

Anyhoo…

This fight between Apple and the Government is about access and control. For over a year we’ve been hearing the FBI telling us they don’t like encryption. The NSA doesn’t like it either and with good reason. They can’t spy on average citizens and don’t even dare to think that’s not exactly what they want to do.

idiots happen

Last night on the news I heard average people being interviewed saying stuff like “Well if it’s to fight terrorists it’s worth giving up a little freedom and privacy.”

To those people I say this.

YOU’RE MORONS!

Emperor Ming

The same argument was made right after 9/11, and that gave us The Patriot Act which is by the way still in effect.

Some of the more sinister things about the Patriot act are the scope of Presidential power, the ability to indefinitely detain a citizen without due process, and the unprecedented scope of surveillance that is now permitted.

Remember how pissed off everyone was about the Edward Snowden revelations? How we found out that the NSA was recording all kinds of information from our phones? Yeah, that’s what comes from giving up just “a little freedom and privacy.”

Edward Snowden.

Apple can’t fight this fight alone. Even Apple and Google together can’t fight this fight.

We’ve gotta help.

We do that by going dark.

You can buy encryption from a variety of vendors.

But you can find some excellent encryption for free if you go looking for it. Open source encryption is pretty robust.

VPN

Encrypt everything you own. All your drives, all your files stored in the cloud. Then find a VPN service that you like and think you can trust, if they’re European even better.

Make sure that their data is end to end encrypted and use the service all the time on every device you own. 

It’s not just about taking a stand. If your information is encrypted, then it’s a lot harder for bad guys to get their hands on personal data that could be used to hurt you.

Encrypt

Make it a cause. 

#godarkforprivacy
#godarkforapple

The only way we keep our rights and privacy to to defend those rights and privacy vigorously.

Thats my public service announcement for the day.