News of the Day

On the teevee today, they're talking about the State Department contractors who accessed Barack Obama's passport records.

I have some expertise in this sort of thing. I engineer software for another governmental agency, which maintains sensitive medical records. The way this system works is that the patient records have a VIP flag. If that flag is set, it excludes certain classes of users from accessing those records. If a person works a job where it is appropriate for them to have access to information, and they try to access records for a VIP, the system puts up huge banners of warnings on their screen and requires them to confirm they want to access the record.. and the access is logged.

I don't know specifically if it fires off a notice to somebody that the record was accessed or not. I can't even speculate on that.. but the State Department's system obviously does.

The point is, was this a "user" who accessed the records? It would have given them a warning.

But, of course.. all of this is meaningless to the software engineers. By it's very nature, the engineers have to have complete access. It's a generic term called "root" - so named after the Unix operating system, but has since come to apply in a more generic sense to anyone who has complete access.

When you have root, you can look at the actual data as it exists in the operating system, and there is no tracking of that. So.. the State Department system worked as security applies to users.. but this doesn't mean that the geeks in all government agencies aren't running rampant through sensitive systems. Nobody could know about that.

Computers run the world.. and the Geeks are the Lord of the computers.. and so ultimately.. who do you think rules the world?

Hmmm.. that might make an interesting novel...

/update

And I forgot to mention.. that there is a VIP flag means that there are people who are in a class where somehow it's important that their records be protected and given special consideration.

The State Departments system doesn't register a blip if yours or my records are accessed without proper cause.

This is the nature of the computer age. Wouldn't it be amazing if there was no digital record of every aspect of your life.. from your birth, to your taxes, your travel, your social security contributions, your criminal history (if you have any), your bank records, your purchasing history, your address(es), your medical records, your prescription medication records, your education records.. employment records?

What else am I missing here?