Revisiting Security - Yet Another Breach

In the news this week has been yet another massive security breach - this time with the professional network - LinkedIn.  Apparently, millions of account passwords were breached and available to the criminal element. As I had to go in to reset my password, one of my previous articles came to mind and I thought it would be prudent to revisit it, and here's why...


I was discussing this breach with a colleague - I had asked her if she had changed her LinkedIn password and how it affected her.  Her response was "oh, I really don't use LinkedIn, there's not much personal information there and I have very few contacts, so even in the worst case, it probably wouldn't affect me too much".  I paused and then I responded, "Okay, so a couple of things, first of all, have you considered that your personal account information is theoretically available now, and that things like phone numbers, addresses and the such can be harvested to take out loans impersonating you?  Also, let me ask you this...this LinkedIn password of yours..it would be unique to LinkedIn and it's not a common password that you use for your email, for banking, for Facebook, right?".  With this statement her eyes got very big and she immediately went to change her password.

This is exactly the type of issues that I was referring to with my blog entry Multiple Locks - One Key.  As difficult as it is, we just cannot be using the same passwords for all websites.  It's human nature to do so as it's impossible to remember unique passwords for each site, but refer to my article, I have some suggestions on how to manage passwords effectively and safely.

Finally, should anyone have your own tips about how you manage your online identities and would like to share them, I'd love to post a follow-up article on other strategies and techniques.

Fantastic Voyage

As a virtual old-timer in the technological world, I’m very content with the little leaps and bounds that technology has made over the years. To a large extent, technology has evolved through gradual refinement more than anything else. I am of the generation that I can reminisce about an 8086 processor, a 300 baud modem or a dual floppy CGA-based system. Having knowledge and experience with these technologies grants me automatic inclusion into the TGC (Technology Geriatric Club!).

This gradual innovation and maturation is timed and controlled by the science behind the technology. Certainly, the advances in miniaturization has greatly influenced the ability to make smaller, and yet larger capacity – and faster chips.

Same sort of advances with our access to the outside world, we can have the fastestmodem and computer at home, but the true bottleneck is in the infrastructure of our cable or DSL lines.

I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but what I’m seeing lately with technology is astounding me. It seems to me that the physical limitations have been – well, maybe not eliminated, but certainly they are not impeding technological advance.

My first – oh my gosh – moment was with the advent of 3D printing. I’m probably fixating on this technology a bit, but holy cannoli – the more that I read and think about it, the more that I think that this is going to be an incredible technology as more applications are thought of for it.

Caught With My Technological Shorts Down

And here…

3-D Printing

The next innovation that caught my fancy was a monumental shift in technology as it relates to digital photography.

Next Great Technology - Digital Imaging

Next on my hot sheet is a medical technology that I’m not sure if it’s just experimental or becoming close to mainstream. This is the development of what are essentially micro-bots that can be inserted under the skin and either programmed or controlled remotely. I’ll be honest that I haven’t read much of this technology yet, but as someone who has gone through a few surgeries, I can attest that the smaller the incision, the less invasive the surgery, the easier it is on the body. As a side note, as soon as I read this particular article, I flashbacked to my youth and being fascinated with the movie Fantastic Voyage.

Are we there yet? No, not by a long shot and probably not in our children’s, children’s lifetimes but heck, when it comes to technology, I think that just about nothing is impossible but the impossible!

The more that I think about this theory of mine, the more that I think that I might be onto something. Maybe it really is a matter that our technology is maturing – that the first 40 years has been in developing the core infrastructure and technology to remove these hard-wired limitations.

Perhaps now that we have small, fast, efficient processors, (relatively) large storage devices the size of a fingernail and all of the other bits and bytes that we need, maybe now our biggest limitation is the creativity to think outside the box and to say to one’s self, “Well, why NOT?”.

It really is a brave new technological world and I don’t think that it’s going to get any less exciting.

Let’s strap ourselves in and enjoy this fantastic voyage!