Banky For President

Coming on the heels of the Benazir Bhutto assassination, there are a few making claims that the US should have done more to prevent the bombing, or at the very least, offer more guidance on how Bhutto should have been protected.

At first glance, its sounds pretty absurd, doesn’t it? The US is to blame because a foreign leader is killed on foriegn soil? A deeper look reveals a shadier underbelly that most Americans would rather not admit.

Americans don’t settle for the peace loving type of presidents. You remember the kid on the playground that stole your lunch money and threatened to pop you in the face if you told anyone? That’s how we like our presidents and we’ve been voting for these types since time began. The only exception, in my mind, being Jimmy Carter, and let’s face it, the republicans really had no shot in that election.

People fancy that John F. Kennedy would have removed us from Viet-nam. Only with perspective do we think getting out of Viet-nam was a good idea. Any attempt to de-escalate that war would have painted Kennedy or Johnson as soft on communism, setting the stage for exactly what we got in 1968, a Nixon presidency.

Liberals have been branded as big spenders and rightly so. But the conservatives are every bit as big of a spender as any liberal. They just spend money on different things. The cost of policing the world AND subsidizing businesses and citizens have created a national debt of 9 trillion and rising. We have a spending addiction because we think we can print money whenever we need it. And fighting a nameless, faceless enemy is pretty expensive. It also forces us to get embroiled in a foreign government’s state of affairs so much that the line is blurred as to where their sovereignty begins and our policing ends.

Contrary to our wishes, we’ve set up a Pax Americana, waged with weapons of war upon the world.

As long as our policy remains getting involved in conflicts we have no business being in (either morally or monetarily), we’ll continue to shoulder the blame for the problems of the world.

And no matter the candidate that gets elected next November, they’ll be forced into a policy that deep down we can’t live without. We won’t allow our president to be “soft on terrorism” and we’ll demand that whoever our enemy is at the time, they must be brought to justice. The Axis of Evil will still be there in November and if left un-checked our very way of life, our own survival, will be at risk. We can’t sit idly by.

After all, it’s the american way.

How many of you think this is a big deal?

To save you the trip, the story is about a security manager’s challenge of ensuring that when an employee leaves the company his/her access is disabled at any point that might cause a security breach.

Here’s the best quote: “Unfortunately, we have neither the budgetary nor the human resources to” ensure an employees access gets disabled properly.

My sense is that people look at this as not so big a deal and those preaching the values of security within an organization are easily identified as this guy:

It’s only when something like this happens that we wish we wouldn’t have compromised security to gain speed to market or shave a few seconds off our call average.

Here are three things to think about if you are about to start building a secure application:

1. Follow the standard practices — Leverage existing standards like OASIS or Project Liberty if you’re thinking about muckin around with your customer’s identity.

2. Do your research — Just because all the cool kids are using OpenID doesn’t mean you should. Think about how easy your solution can be phished and what it means if some savage miscreant gets a hold of that username/password.

3. Think about End-to-End — It’s not just about getting users logged in, its about ensuring those who deserve access are provided access. And keeping those who no longer have the privilege, out. If you can figure a way to get them into your database, think of the process you will need to take to get them out.

The most embarassing thing that can happen to your company is when your customers’ identity/privacy is compromised. Much like any important relationship with someone you care about, once you lose their trust, the road to recovery is a long one.