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Don’t know what’s going on in the UK, But it’s got to stop!

Uk police commissioner.png.The Washington Post reports that the UK government is demanding Apple provide them backdoor access to users encrypted iCloud data.

This is nothing particularly new for government. The FBI has been famously turned down by Apple when it came to their demands for decrypting lock codes of alleged criminals iPhones.

What is disturbing is that the UK is making this demand under cover of its “Investigatory Powers Act“. This sneaky, slimy, law makes it a criminal offense for the company under demand to say anything about being under notice, demand, or request.

0_MI5 MI6 headquarters London.So the UK government knows that they’re doing something shady, and they want to do it in complete darkness.

They do allow an appeal to a secret panel and judge. In other words the appeal process is just for show.

This demand for a back door doesn’t just apply to British citizens, the UK government wants the ability to spy, snoop, violate privacy, of anyone in the world who is using Apple iCloud.

Their justification is, as it always is with totalitarians, that they need this access to insure public safety and they can be trusted not to abuse this ability.

We can bet that they’re making, or have already made similar demands of all other encrypted cloud services. But we will never know if that’s true, and we can never know who complied, because of the double super secret provisions of “Investigatory Powers Act“.

So the continuous assault on Personal Privacy goes on. This is important because in the Apple ecosystem, iCloud is sort of a central piece. It’s so central to Apple device functionality that Apple gives everyone a little iCloud storage space when they buy their first iPhone. At that low level, it’s mostly about iPhone backups and settings.

Most people increase the amount of iCloud storage available because if you have several devices it’s convenient to have access to your all of your data from every device.

Chamber House of Commons Houses Parliament London.Do you want someone, without your permission, looking at your backup data? How about documents, text messages, photos, movies, or literally anything you’ve stored in the cloud? 

I don’t. I could live without iCloud. In fact I could live quite nicely with local storage and not have anything in the cloud. But that’s just me.

A lot of people can’t.

Most people, due to Apple’s marketing of User Privacy being one of Apple’s top concerns, have a reasonable expectation that their data will be encrypted and that no-one including Apple can access that data.

If Apple gives the UK backdoor access. Then privacy is gone. China will next be demanding their own access to user data, then it’ll be Interpol. All the while the US government will be quietly taking data dumps from “Five Eyes” member nations. Using that data to spy on its own citizens but being able to deny that they are. Our intelligence agencies will shrug their shoulders and say they can’t control what information is shared with them in a data dump from other intelligence agencies.

The UK government has become the ultimate representation of a “KAREN” and their surveillance and free speech, or rather, their definition of hate speech, policies are the biggest reasons that I have no desire to visit.

You know what? I’m good with that too. 

Even if Apple were to turn off encryption for all phones operating, or purchased in the UK, it still wouldn’t meet the requirements set forth in the “Investigatory Powers Act”.

I’m fine with the UK, UKing all over their own people. Their people apparently like this stuff.

I draw the line at them potentially expanding their bullshit beyond their little islands. I’m not impressed or interested in helping the UK assuage its feelings of inadequacy by invading my privacy. In fact, to the best of my knowledge I don’t have contact with any UK citizen or business. I believe that is true for at least the past 20 years. So why would they have any remote need to access my encrypted iCloud data?

The iCloud data they want backdoor access to may include heath data (from my watch), location data from all my devices, frequented location data, digital ID, private journal data, financial data, and via my contacts application, all my business associates and / or friends.

Notavlecase cover20 1400x775.But what they’re really interested in are my mean tweets, or off color Facebook posts, they want to know if I’m twerking on tictok, or have appeared in blackface on instagram. (After all I’m not Justin Trudeau)

Remember, authorities in the UK have repeatedly, and quite boldly, said they’ll come for Americans on American soil if we speak poorly of their muslim invaders, their shitty leaders, or their insane transsexual, transvestites, from Transylvania, on social media.

Like all “KARENS” the UK government seeks totalitarian control over everything and everyone. They want a Utopia. There’s only one catch. 

Utopia requires a mechanistic homogeneity of thought, and pesky humanity is renown for individuals that refuse to comply.

Which leaves totalitarian Utopias only one viable option. Their elites must be content to rule over a graveyard.

I personally think there can be no Utopia without it being a totalitarian state. But I’m nobody of interest.

I’m hoping that since this has been exposed and is appearing in news reports in main stream media that the idiot “KARENS” in the UK will back down. They probably will, for at least 9 months to a year.

When they think the average Joe isn’t paying attention they’ll issue another slimy “technical capability notice” and this time, they’ll make sure they gag anyone who might blow the whistle.

The UK is trying out the George Orwell path right now. They’ll move on to the mass graves anytime, and then finally will have the Utopia they’ve always wanted.

We’ll have to see what Apple does. I think perhaps it’s time to reconsider using any cloud storage media for anything.

Why make it easy for some bored fucker with nothing better to do, issue you tickets or screw your social credit score because you, at one time, 20 years ago said the “N” word, or called a bunch of Iraqis “Sand N****rs”.

I admit I think it would be interesting for the Metropolitan Police of London to show up at someone’s door here in the US to attempt to arrest them for a mean tweet.

I’m honestly not sure if that would result in body bags draped with the British flag, or that we’d find our law enforcement folks are willing to violate the US Constitution, specifically the First Amendment.

Given some of the videos of the Metropolitan Police asking nicely to enter someone’s home to arrest them of a violation of their morality and speech codes, and the potential arrestee hanging out the window saying “No! Bugger off, you gits!”

I think the Metropolitan Police would be quite shocked at the way Americans handle such things. 

British people are way more polite than we are.

Might be worth having some popcorn ready for that show.

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He’s been right about a lot, wouldn’t be surprised if he’s right about this.

President Trump.Trump said he’s going to be weeding out illegal immigrants from the Social Security system.

Since then, X has been alive with people telling us very seriously that Illegals can’t get Social Security benefits. Then acting like Trump is dumb or crazy or whatever.

Hmmm. Really? So if one of these folks is using a stolen SSN to work, you think that somehow they’re not going to use that SSN to do other things? Apply for credit cards perhaps? Mortgage loans? Bank Accounts?

Really? Nobody is that naive.

The other half had his identity stolen on a couple of occasions. Once, it was just a couple of debit card numbers, but the other time it was his whole credit history. He wasn’t aware there was a problem until he tried to get a loan for an instrument, then he found out that there was someone else running around using his social security number.

How ever did this bad person get the other half’s SSN? Oh that was due either to a medical insurance company breach, or a doctor’s office closing. We later found out that all the medical records had simply been dumped in the dumpster out behind the office.

It didn’t matter. It cost us a lot of time and money to get everything sorted out. 

If someone has your SSN, name, and date of birth, they could possibly start collecting on Social Security too.

That’s called stealing you know. Not that any of the liberals care about little things like stealing, or crime in general.

Unless it disturbs them.

When drugs come to the rentals in their neighborhoods, or an HOA socialite is mugged for her earrings in a common area.

Then liberals who previously wanted to defund the fascist police, while being kind to the poor immigrants seeking a better life, will hire a mercenary goon squad to patrol and harass everyone walking through a neighborhood.

We know that a lot of those liberals manage to look the other way, & pay under the table dirt cheap wages to illegals too. Liberals don’t seem to understand that paying someone 10 cents an hour is essentially slavery. Say that out loud to a liberal and they’ll lose their shit.

I’ve long been annoyed that everything is tied to a SSN. Credit applications, Tax filing, Mortgages, Car Loans, Medical records, Insurance, and God knows what else. 

It wasn’t supposed to be that way.

Back at the dawn of time when I got my SS card, the accompanying paperwork said specifically that this number wasn’t to be used as ID.

Yet that’s exactly what it’s been used for. Lots of people forget that SSN is an account number, to your forced contributions to a retirement savings account, that doesn’t pay a particularly good interest rate.

At this point we might as well use the number as our phone number, drivers license, and car plate number. Everyone knows our account numbers.

I’d bet we’ve all received at least 10 notices of security breaches where our name, address, SSN, and phone number has been dumped out on the internet for sale.

I’ve been informed that my personal data was leaked by the Office of Personnel Management of the United States government. You know what they said? Too bad, so sad, perhaps you should invest in a credit counseling service.

At least corporations provided credit monitoring services for a few years!

Given all of this.

Is it that far a stretch to entertain that some number of illegal immigrants might be getting social security payments they’re not entitled to?

Illegal Immigrants, as Tom Homan said, are all criminals. He’s right, and I fell out of my chair when he said it directly to someone questioning him about deportations.

Until I heard him say it, I thought I was some kind of idiot that just didn’t understand the issue.

The moment a person crosses our border without permission, or overstays their Visa, they are, by definition, a criminal because they committed a criminal act. If they’re willing to start out committing a crime, what’s to stop them from stealing someone’s identity?

Liberals would justify even that, as okay (as long as it wasn’t their identity,) because the poor illegal is just trying to work and feed their family and they needed a SSN to work. Or retire.

Here’s something few people ever find out.

If you claim unemployment benefits, or assistance for medical costs, or disability payments, all of which are tired to your SSN. The state sends you a 1099 form. 

YES! Boys and Girls, you have to pay Federal taxes on that “Income” If you’re in a state with income tax, you get to pay them too.

So some illegal running around with your SSN can do a whole lot of damage, before they even begin to fuck you out of your tiny assed social security check.

All of this is to say, it’s very possible that some 87 year old grannie, or someone who’s contacting the Social Security office on Monday morning ready to retire, may find out they’ve got nothing because someone else got there before they did.

Trump saying that he’s ordering it to be looked into is a good thing. Even if they find nothing, at least the American People can have faith in the Social Security Administration. 

If an audit does find fraud, then booting the fraudsters out of the system means people who deserve the funds will likely get them, and perhaps Social Security will last a bit longer.

I question the Democrats screaming about Doge looking into Social Security.

We know over the years, both the Democrats and Republicans have raided SS funds. We the People assume that the money has been paid back. What if it hasn’t? Worse yet, would be finding that money is still being siphoned off for stupid projects like those at USAID.

I’ll tell you what. If all the retirees eating tuna, cutting their medications in half, and paying taxes on their SS income were to find out they’d been spending a billion a year for something like “Condoms for Convents”, or half a billion on “Feed a Jihadi for Jesus”…

The old folks (myself included) would tear down the Capitol and smash every stone to dust with their walkers & canes.

I envision exchanges like this between the Capitol police and the old folks;

“Yeah sonny, that’s a pretty badge, so what? I’m on my last legs here, I’ll be dead in 6 months from cancer. I can’t feel anything on my left side… This here is a kamikaze run for me! Tear gas? That’s all ya got? I’ve been smoking Lucky’s for 65 years! I could huff that canister & chase it with straight bourbon! So bring it, ya pussy!”

(Thanks to Grok for generating the image.)

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Sleepless on the mountain

I’d fallen asleep on the couch for a few minutes. 

It was near bedtime so when I woke up I just relocated to bed. I started to drift off and then something happened. I’m not sure what, but I was wide awake. There were the usual creaks and sounds of the house, but for some reason they seemed louder.

Then I was thinking of all the stuff I need to do, which led to what do I want to do, which led to how do I do it, and the links in the chain went on & on from there.

Eventually, I decided to get up. After all, there’s no need to toss & turn in bed keeping Jesse awake.

His response to my sleeplessness was to sigh in an annoyed way. Once I left the bed, he curled up right in the middle of the bed. I guess I’m not going to be allowed to get back in the bed until I’ve settled down.

Something has me unsettled. I don’t know what it is. There’s something familiar about it, but it’s been too long for me to be able to put my finger on it.

I’m debating pouring myself a small drink to see if that will allow me to relax enough to go to sleep.

I haven’t had a problem sleeping like this in a very long time. I’m really wound up and I have no clue why.

Maybe I’ll try writing some. I’m wondering if I’ve got an idea percolating that needs to be written then I’ll be able to sleep.

It’s possible it’s the moonlight although it’s not a full moon, it’s a bright and clear night.

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Happy February, It’s a beautiful day

It’s in the 50s here on the mountain. The snow we had last week is melting fast, but I’m not putting my snow shovels or snow thrower away just yet.

February and sometimes March have been known to throw us curve balls and drop feet of snow on us at the darnedest times.

There are a few things that I’ve noticed this year. The dog never developed his super fluffy coat. The leaves on the maple and apple tree hung on for a really long time before dropping, and the cottonwoods and maple tree are already budding.

It’s thus far, been a mild Winter here. But there’s still a month & 1/2 to go.

I often think the trees and the animals are better predictors of the weather than we are with all our technology.

The various tax forms should be available now, and that means I’m going to be working for the government sorting all this bullshit out. I’m still working through all the tax nightmare left behind by the passing of my other half, and the COVID era. Apparently the accountant really fucked up the filings from 2019 on… So yipeee! I get to spend a ton of time unfucking the mess.

I wish Trump would just do away with the IRS already! There are so many things I could say about them. Most of it boils down to just the plain weird stupid shit about our tax code.

Chief among some of this is why is the tax code so damn complex? Why do we have an entire industry built around dealing with taxes that the fucking government takes right off the top, they know how much they’ve taken, then they jump us all through hoops where we file in terror of making a mistake then they always find mistakes that cost us more.

Why the fuck don’t they just send us a bill? Better yet, go to a flat tax, Even better… Stop taxing us altogether!

I’m annoyed about it.

I hate that over the past four years so much of our tax money was literally wasted on endeavors that did absolutely nothing for the American people.

I’ve also come to reject the premise that taxes allow us to have a safe and productive nation. 

That is absolute bullshit.

With our taxes going up over the past 16 years, I submit that we do not have a safer more productive nation. In fact I would say it’s exactly the opposite.

Maybe I’ll do some real research and then podcast about it.

In the mean time, I’m going to breathe, and see what I can do about enjoying this beautiful day.

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I admit it, I hate looking for a job, and have come to hate editing my resume.

Employment signs.I miss the days of simply having a resume that represented my work history.

Back in the day, because of my industry a resume could be cut & dried. We didn’t need to jazz it up or modify it for each application. We chiseled our history into a document that didn’t change.

We’d write a cover letter explaining that we’re appreciate the opportunity to interview and we’d interview with the hiring manager, not a committee of people from unrelated departments.

I’ve never understood the philosophy of Edna from accounting participating in an interview for a dude who was going to be slinging solder in the board repair department.

Unfortunately, the hiring process, over time, became more like a sorority rush, or the election of prom king & queen. Or perhaps more like the example provided recently by congressional confirmation hearings.

I’ve been in interviews where the hiring manager didn’t actually get to ask relevant questions or the answers “Timed-out” because the other unrelated departments needed to ask their irrelevant questions.

Point of interest… the troubleshooting procedure for a $50,000 high speed dye sublimation printer is radically different from changing toner in your desktop laser printer.

That troubleshooting procedure is not something that can be described in 5 minutes. However, to a hiring manager, the description of that process can tell him if the candidate has done the work and is qualified to do the job.

As a hiring manager, I’ve been overruled when requesting a small number of interviewers. HR’s explanation is, “Larger, more dynamic interview processes allow for determination of the candidates ‘team player’ abilities.” Trouble is, most of the people in my field are introverts. Many are just one step shy of being hermits. The really qualified, super smart, radically capable folks in my field are great in one on one, or one on three interviews. But put them in front of a crowd of 6 or 8 people asking them irrelevant questions and they freeze completely.

Not that HR departments ever listened to a hiring manager’s reason for keeping the interview small.

I digress. 

Several years ago, I’d been laid off, I was struggling with my resume, not because it didn’t represent me and my work. But because it wasn’t “Hip & Modern”. It wasn’t getting the attention it used to get because the HR departments dumped it into a database. The hiring manager didn’t see my resume unless someone in HR thought it was worthy.

It used to be, you mailed your resume directly to the hiring manager & they handed their selections to HR to schedule an interview. Way back in time, the hiring manager was on your phone themselves asking when you could come in for an interview.

Anyway, my resume was tailored to answer a hiring manager’s initial curiosity and provided enough technical data to peek interest.

That wasn’t working anymore. HR saw information that they couldn’t make heads or tails out of, and didn’t have the ability to do anything but robotic searches for keywords.

I’ve related the state of HR pre-screens.

HR: Do you know networking?
ME: Yes
HR: Do you know IP?
ME: Yes
HR: Do you know Ethernet
ME: Yes
HR: Do you know MAC address?
ME: Yes
HR: Do you know packet?
ME: Yes

All of those questions are encompassed by the answer, “Yes” to the first networking question.

A full and complete answer which doesn’t allow them to fill in check boxes is this, “I’ve been in the industry since RS-232 terminal connections were MUXed at 9600 baud to Super Mini computers like the Nova 1200 series.

I’ve worked with both token ring and the common star networking topology in use today. I’m certified in the operation of several network sniffing tools and therefore am familiar with the OSI networking model.

Now can we please move the fuck on?

That doesn’t work if you want an interview. Just so you know.

After talking with several people about my resume, I decided to get “Professional” help with a rewrite.

I was not pleased and didn’t get my money’s worth. This professional made my resume a word salad of meaningless drivel worthy of Kamala Harris.

I hated it, and guess what? As an experiment I submitted it to a couple of job application requests and got LESS response than using my old monolithic resume.

However, seeing what this professional had done, I tried to hybridize, incorporating some elements from the so called “professional”. It hasn’t helped.

I’ve also noticed that the resume rewriting services aren’t being pushed on LinkedIn as they were in 2019 – 2021. I’m guessing that enough people expressed their dis-satisfaction that LinkedIn decided it was a bad business model.

Since I’m actively looking for a job again I’ve been re-evaluating my resume. I’m not even pleased with the hybridization. There are too many strained sentences that fail to make the point. It looks like hyperbole and oversell. It feels like I’m telling lies.

I guess that’s the bottom line. It feels like the only way to get ahead, or in this case, just to get a freaking job is to dishonor myself by being what I am not.

It comes down to how much am I willing to give up in order to retain my honor?

Why can’t I just be who I am? Why can’t I apply for a job, without having to retool my resume again and again to highlight skills for each particular position? What does this do to my resumes already floating around out there? Are those the lies, or is this new one I’m sending, the lie?

I left management instead of continuing to slug my way up the corporate ladder. Apparently that was a no no. It always creates questions and my truthful answer many people take as a lie. 

I didn’t like what management at my level was becoming, and I didn’t want the whole corporate thing. I just wanted to do my job, then go home at the end of the day. I didn’t want to be on call 24/7 or deal with employees calling out sick then giving me excuses and having to sit in judgement. I just wanted to sit at my desk, produce good results, and be at peace.

To HR, this appears to have been a demotion, a failure in my ability. For them, the mad scramble to ascend to the heights of corporate infrastructure is the only measure of success.

For me, success was sleeping in my own bed at night, next to the person I loved, having enough money to pay the bills, and to not remember or care about the political machinations going on at work.

I truly wanted all the Machiavellian shit to be well above my pay grade.

HR and in some cases hiring managers don’t get it.

I’m no threat to anyone’s career because I’m not interested in politics. A lot of older hiring managers get it. But the gatekeepers in HR who, to be honest, are mostly female can’t process that way of thinking. 

They view everything as a means to an end. They’re always processing through the lens of breaking the glass ceiling. In that mode of thinking there is never an equilibrium between satisfaction and income.

The other thing that is really weird about job searching these days is that some recruiters only want the last 10 years, others want your full job history. The former say 10 years is good enough and demonstrative of your most recent experience. They’ll also say that no-one is going to read a long resume.

The latter say, having your whole job history is valuable and that interested hiring managers will read it all.

I’m not sure which is the right answer. Honestly I’m not sure that anyone really has the “Right” answer. I have come to realize that most people have zero respect for experience. 

I used to resent that. Now I look at it as a function of their education. The 20 to 30 year olds (myself included when I was that age,) always think they know best. When I was in school I was taught the value of history and on my first jobs I learned that experience often trumped book knowledge.

The elder mentors I was so fortunate to have in my career would say things like, “You can do it that way, which is by the book, and it’s gonna take 4 hours to assemble and disassemble. OR we can unbolt the unit, turn it on its side and access the broken part through an assembly access panel on the bottom. We’ll be done in an hour and can go have lunch. Your choice sport.”

I think a lot of the 20 & 30 year olds these days don’t have plain spoken mentors. They might not be getting the benefit of a mentor because there’s a lot of fear about thinking outside the box, so to speak. Someone is always going to raise a stink if you don’t do everything by the book. These days, the stink raisers can really fuck up a situation, and they manage to drag everyone down to their very limited view of any situation.

I guess that’s why I’m reworking my resume yet again. It’s why we have committee interviews that only muddy the waters about every candidate. It’s possibly why interviews these days feel like “The Dating Game” or Prom elections.

Oh well, back to the resume…

P.S.

If you’re looking for a worker that’s happy to do his job, show up for work every day, be trouble free, non political, and no threat to your position. Send me a message. If you’ve got a remote position available, let’s talk because if I don’t have to drive anywhere or deal with people, I’d work pretty damn cheap.