• About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
Friday, January 22, 2021
25 °f
Platte
36 ° Sun
30 ° Mon
27 ° Tue
31 ° Wed
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
No Result
View All Result
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
No Result
View All Result

The scary part

Chris Kamler by Chris Kamler
December 17, 2020
in The Rambling Moron
The scary part
4
SHARES
107
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare via Email

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you’re in a long hallway? Like at a Holiday Inn. And then when you start walking toward the end of the hallway, the end of the hallway gets further away. The end of 2020 seems to be like that for a lot of us. This has been one helluva year, and it is fully intent on going out kicking and screaming.

Now, I know most of you may think I’m referring to the election, or politics, or wearing masks, or vaccines, or any of that nonsense. I’m not. Today, I’m talking about my day job. Cybersecurity. Wait. Don’t leave. Keep reading.

RelatedNews

Magic

The Rules

Trash Day

Throughout all of the past year or two, cybersecurity has gone to the middle or back burner for a lot of us. Not that it was really on the front burner for anybody, but you get my meaning. However, leading up to the election, there was an increased focus on security around our election and security around our infrastructure. There is an abundance of evidence that our security of our election was good. Great, even. You can find people who disagree with that, but have yet to provide any evidence to the contrary.

However, this week, we learned of a very detailed hack was going on this whole time – but not on the election – this one was on the government infrastructure itself. I won’t bore you with the details because it is pretty boring. Just know that Russia likely infiltrated some software that thousands of companies and nearly the entire US government uses. This software allows monitoring of critical equipment, and by hacking that software, may have gained access to all kinds of stuff. The information is just breaking, so the depth is not yet known. But it looks pretty bad.

On the positive side, our election went great! On the downside, Russia might have access to everything.

This would be a great time to look for someone in charge of our critical computer infrastructure – except he got fired a couple weeks ago by the president. But don’t worry. This isn’t laying all of the blame at Trump’s feet. Because this isn’t the first time Russia has done this. It happened in the mid-twenty teens and the Obama administration wrote it off as garden variety spying, refusing to impose sanctions.

For people in the cybersecurity industry, it’s been a bad week. My point is that there is a need for leaders across the country — from the White House, to the office of the dog catcher — to either be better educated about just how dangerous our cybersecurity posture is, or get out of the way and let educated people fix it. The United States holds important information at the government and corporation level. Information that China and Russia and all kinds of other people would love to get. And, sadly, it just requires a little bit of elbow grease right now to get it. Until we get serious about stopping it, anything you save is simply as secure as posting a recipe on Facebook.

It’s more likely, however, that you stopped reading this after the first paragraph. Which is what most politicians do. “It’s computer stuff.” And therefore nobody pays attention. Nobody funds countermeasures. Nobody cares when stuff like this happens. Which makes the worst part of this column being that as bad as 2020 is, it’s going to repeat in 2021.

(Get more scary thoughts from Chris Kamler by checking out his Twitter account at @TheFakeNed)

Tags: elections
Chris Kamler

Chris Kamler

Chris Kamler is a 20 year veteran of Information Technology and a nearly 50 year veteran of being a pain in the rear.

He is known for his irreverence through his social media Twitter account @TheFakeNed along with his weekly Landmark columns, sports broadcasts, podcasts, and his book.

Kamler has a wife and a child and is a lifelong Northlander. His list of loves include his family and QuikTrip roller food.

Related Posts

15 Years Ago–January 19, 2006

by Ivan Foley
January 22, 2021
0

A military man who spent some time living in Platte City while stationed at Fort Leavenworth has been killed in Iraq Army Maj. Michael R. Martinez, age 43, was one of 12 Americans killed in the crash of a UH-60...

Parkville City Hall

Two incumbent Parkville aldermen face opposition

by Ivan Foley
January 22, 2021
0

Two of the four aldermen positions up for grabs at the City of Parkville will see contested races in the April 6 election. Filing for municipal candidates ended at 5 p.m. on Tuesday. CITY OF PARKVILLE There are four incumbent...

Park Hill School District logo

Six candidates for two Park Hill positions

by Ivan Foley
January 22, 2021
0

A whopping six candidates have filed for two open positions on the Park Hill School Board. That's the local headline from school board elections this spring. Filing deadline for school board candidates was 5 p.m. on Tuesday. The election is...

The Big Lie

Sometimes the big lie gets used as a political strategy

by Ivan Foley
January 14, 2021
0

Looks like Nan Johnston should just set an annual appointment time with an investigator from the Missouri Ethics Commission. Landmark Live will be a magical time when we come back to life for a show Thursday, Jan. 14 at 6...

Next Post
Weston movie

Sunshine experts, a Weston movie and writing quarters

Popular News

  • Jakob Scroggins

    Things ‘just make sense’ for North Platte senior

    33 shares
    Share 13 Tweet 8
  • Arson, murder charges filed in deadly blaze

    24 shares
    Share 10 Tweet 6
  • Weston man dead at suspicious fire scene

    21 shares
    Share 8 Tweet 5
  • State ethics board investigating Parkville mayor

    37 shares
    Share 15 Tweet 9
  • Scene of fatal fire

    16 shares
    Share 6 Tweet 4
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
Call us at 816-858-0363

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Subscribe Online
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved