Network Security Blog

I thought the last couple of days sucked for me personally, but after getting to work this morning and finding out about the earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean, my problems suddenly seem very, very small in comparison.

Yesterday, I locked myself out of the house, and with the rest of my family still on vacation, I had no easy way of getting back in the house. A broken window in the front door allowed me to get back in, but also taught me a valuable lesson in home security: locks and doors are only aimed at keeping the casual lawbreaker out of your house. A determined intruder will break in, no matter what. I guess the same goes for all the computer security we practice on a daily basis; a truly determined intruder is going to find that one host that’s improperly configured. Human error is still our biggest security threat.

Then, this morning, a truck kicked up a rock that almost shattered the windshield on my wife’s car. I hadn’t realized how bad the damage was until I got to work. Let’s just say that I was very lucky, because if the rock had hit a foot higher, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be here to post this. I’m hoping insurance will cover the majority of the costs for this.

But this was topped by one of my co-workers, who discovered on X-mas eve a short in his house wiring that was bad enough to blacken the wiring all the way out to the transformer on the street. His electrician is saying problem will cost over $5000 to fix. Luckily, home owner’s insurance should nearly cover all of it.

On the other hand, I’m alive, in good health, as are my family, and my house wasn’t hit by a tsunami or earthquake this weekend. I think I’ll take all of my minor problems and just be thankful.