Be Careful When Following the Crazy Yellow Brick Link Trail

Links, what are they? When you go to a web site, links are the little bits of information that when clicked on will take you to another website of similar context. The thing is, with these strange and mysterious human minds of ours that we know so little about, these links if navigated subconsciously can take one to places of information you normally would never travel to. You could start out in the light and end up in a black hole. Let me give you an example of a trail I recently traveled without really thinking.

The other day I decided to search for a web site about one of my all time favorite musicians, Arlo Guthrie. Arlo Guthrie is a folk musician, son of another famous musician Woody Guthrie. When I was a little kid, one of the coolest things to do was to listen to his story/song entitled 'The Motorcycle Song'. So, I found his personal website through a Google search and it was pretty cool, and very positive. Guthrie runs a charity organization and a multi-religious church center where money is raised to help people with illnesses as well as giving less fortunate people a place to pray, meditate or just get off the streets.

So, I'm reading all about Arlo in his biography and there's a link to his court statement at the famous Chicago Seven court case. Well, as I'm a young guy I had never heard of this case, my curiosity was piqued and I clicked on the link. Next I was reading Arlo's funny comments about the time he was arrested for disposing of garbage in an illegal area on Thanksgiving because the dump was closed. Of course if you know about Guthrie you'd know that his famous song 'Alice's Restaurant' was based on this story. I get to the finish of the court transcript and there's a link for the 'Famous Trials' web site that the Chicago Seven trial was a page of.

Not thinking, I click on the site and start to absent-mindedly scan through all the famous court cases listed. Remember, I was originally looking up my old buddy Arlo, now I'm in a world of laws and crime. Well, I come across this crazy looking face: Charles Manson, and for some unknown unconscious reason I click on his court case. I didn't know much about the guy, but maybe because both my parents are x-hippies and he was from their era...

Now I'm spending an hour of my time (and nothing is more valuable than time, except love and peace) reading about the gruesome murders of Manson's Family as his group of devoted followers was called. I didn't consider myself interested in this sort of evil stuff, and still don't, as my feeling after the experience was one of distaste, sadness and plain wonder as to how people can do these sorts of negative actions.

In the end, following the absent-minded link trail led me to a place so much darker than where I started. I don't know if I ever would have spent an hour of my life reading about Charles Manson otherwise. It's not my cup of tea you know. I'm into peaceful music, humorous novels, Tai Chi and foreign films. This can be taken as a sign that we must be careful, conscious and alert when we are searching the Internet. It is such a huge mass of information, and like all things in existence has its dark side as well as its light. Be careful Dorothy, the yellow brick link trail can lead to the wicked witch as well as the wonderful world of Oz.

Open Sesame - Password Security

"Open Sesame!" is probably the most famous password in literature. It gave Ali Baba access to vast treasure. In the realm of technology, computer passwords also give access to valuable treasures: precious business and personal data.

Information about your personal life, buying habits, credit quality and life style is valuable to those who can profit from it. For the Corporation, information has even greater worth. It is not the "Bricks and Mortar" but the intangibles such as intellectual property, client lists, market strategies, pricing and compensation that account for over half the value of the modern enterprise.

All of this personal and business data most likely resides on a database somewhere and is available with a password. In fact, passwords are the most common means of entry in any system. They are also acknowledged as the most vulnerable points for security. 

"Weak" or compromised passwords are the easiest way for hackers to gain entry into a system.

Simple or short passwords can be easily discovered through "brute force" or "dictionary" 

attacks which concentrate intense computer power to crack a password. A two letter password, for example, has only 676 combinations. A password with eight letters offers more safety with 208,000,000 combinations.

Ideally, a password should consist of 8 or more characters. They should also contain 

a mixture of upper and lower case letters, symbols and numbers. "A$d3B5i9X" would 

be an example. Microsoft security has encouraged the concept of the "Pass Phrase" as an alternative. A phrase such as,"TheLastGoodBookUBoughtCost$25!" has all of the needed elements and is also easy to remember.

The human factor or social engineering contributes to password compromises. It is estimated that employees share their password eight times a year. Passwords can also be cajoled from untrained or naïve workers. The standard rule is NEVER share a password. 

Remember the cliché of the "Six Degrees of Separation." You cannot know who will eventually end up with your password and own it.

To cope with these issues, many leading edge firms are adopting a defense in depth strategy utilizing three elements to better safeguard their information

The three layers of authentication consist of: 

What you know...

A strong password or pass phrase 

What you have...

A Crypto-key, smart card or token 

Who you are...

A biometric aspect such as fingerprint, hand, or retinal recognition

Usage of these three defensive measures will increase dramatically in the future as people seek to thwart ever increasing threats to their private and personal information. 

Many companies will be mandating them as a significant part of their security best- 

practices to safeguard an extremely valuable asset: their treasured data.

© 2004 Terrence F. Doheny