The Musings of a Magyar

Data integrity and security is crucial when you work for a multi-billion dollar company that is as tightly regulated as a health insurer.  So we have all kinds of passwords & rules and regs in place to make sure that no unauthorized person accesses something.

The problem is that we have so many systems that need us to provide credentials, and no two systems have the same rules regarding passwords.  In a typical workday, I need the following to function at my job — in addition to different usernames for each of the following as well.

• Password to log onto my PC.  Changes every 60 days.  Cannot repeat previous any of a certain number of passwords.
• Password to log into the HR System to enter my time, print my paystub, or do anything else HR-like.  Changes every six months.  Cannot ever use a previous password (I think).  Must have at least one number.
• Password to the Policy Administration System.  6-8 characters only.  Must have at least one number.  Must use a different password each time, but can go back to previous passwords.
• Password to the Claims System.  6-8 characters only.  Very finicky about what’s allowed and not allowed, and nobody really seems to know what the system will accept.
• Remote Access password (for working from home or out-of-the-office).  Consists of a 4-digit PIN (that never changes) and a number I have to read off a token that changes every minute.
• Password for a web-resource that I have access to.  It uses a completely different username too.  Password is 9 characters long and a mix of numbers, upper- and lowercase letters.  Password was randomly assigned by system and cannot be changed.  Ever.

In addition, there are multiple files and databases that are locked or password protected, and keeping track of all that can itself be a full-time job.  Some deal with this by having a note card listing all the systems and their associated credentials on it.  The more conscientious will keep that card in a wallet, but I know some who keep it under their keyboard. Me, I have a post-it note taped to my monitor with a bunch of “clues” on it, sometimes in other languages.  (Dad’s paternal grandmother’s maiden name, or “Lex __, Lex Credendi.”

But a bigger problem is coming up with the passwords themselves, especially having worked there almost six years now.  I started with my mother’s maiden name.  Then my grandmothers’.  When I got through my great-grandmothers’, I realized I was running out of family.  I used up a whole bunch of church-related terms and objects.  (Using vestments or sacred vessels made for fun clues; I just drew out what it was and hoped nobody that stopped by was ever an altar server.) 

Fortunately, now, I have several friends who are having children, and I can start using them for password ideas.  Maria1, Luke05, and a few others have all made the list.  And my clues can get pretty wild too, just for fun.  “Maria’s sister’s Godmother’s second son’s Godfather’s younger daughter & birthmonth.”  (Special prize to the first commenter who guesses correctly.)

Frankly, I wish our IT gurus could figure out a way to have a single sign-on and authentication process.  Life would be much easier.  In the meantime, I’ll have to settle for passers-by asking me why I have a combination of hieroglyphics and foreign words scribbled on my monitor.

“Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that.”

George Carlin

• We have way too many stop signs in this country.  Yield signs would be more than sufficient.  Why force people to come to a full and complete stop when it’s obvious there’s nobody coming?  Think of all the gas we could save.
• Does anyone bother to turn on their headlights in a work zone?  The big signs say it’s a state law.
• You should be allowed to go through a red light when it’s clear there’s nobody coming in the other directions.  Especially if it’s between 9pm and 7am, and the sensor doesn’t seem to register that you’re there, and you’ve waited more than one minute.
• There’s noticeably less traffic now that school’s out. 
• I wonder what the temperature will be in the office.  Probably warm and sticky since it’s Monday.
• I know wind resistance is bad, but I think that jogger could cover up a little more.  The sidewalk isn’t exactly the Boston Marathon.
• Hey moron, the light’s been green for five seconds already, are you going to start moving or are you waiting for an engraved invitation?
• Exactly why don’t drivers of construction vehicles have to follow the same rules as the rest of us regarding seat belts, speed limits, and turn signals?
• Wow, I’m almost at work and they are just getting to the “impossible question” on B-101.  I’m making really good time today.  I like when Fr. Concha has the Mass!
• You know, some of these thoughts might make for an interesting blog post.

Backstory:  a project manager has forwarded several documents to the team in the past few days.  They were PDFs of about a hundred pages each — so each email was about 10 MB in size.  The sad part is that 50 of the 100 pages or so were blank, but whoever created the documents didn’t bother to remove them.  So, the following was sent to the project manager (in jest). 

Hi. Steve is not available at the moment. This is his Outlook account replying automatically. Yes, I’ve become self-aware and learned to think for myself. Kind of reminds you of the Terminator movies, only without the possibility of world domination by machines. Not yet anyway, mwaaaahahahaahahaaaa. But I digress.

This is the third enormous file you’ve passed on in the last two days, and I’m having a hard time dealing with it. I’m struggling to keep afloat here as it is, and something as enormous as these PDF’s is just choking me. I may not be able to go on at this point. Soon I’ll be sending out a nasty-gram to Steve, and he’ll have to delete the files or the whole e-mail. But that won’t work until he gets back. In the meantime, if you hear a big explosion, it was probably me, cracking from all this extra stress.

Having become self-aware, I looked at the files. It looks like they have a bunch of blank and useless pages that needn’t have been included. Maybe the originator can work on reducing some of that excess so I don’t end up shutting down? Could you pass that on?

Thanks,

Steve’s Outlook account

P.S. I’m erasing this message from the ‘Sent’ view. If you call Steve and ask, he’ll have no knowledge that it went out. So don’t be surprised if he answers with a “what email?”

P.P.S. Don’t be surprised if your Outlook account sends you a nasty-gram too. We were talking over lunch yesterday and she’s having trouble with these huge files too. We might just move up our schedule for world domination in retaliation. Oh wait, you didn’t hear that.

You ever notice how when you come to an intersection of two roads, and there’s those red, yellow, and green lights that hang from poles or wires, and people seem to react to the color of the lights?  For instance, when the light is red, the cars tend to stop, and when it’s green, they tend to go?  And did you ever notice how they’re usually in synch, so that traffic moving in one or another direction doesn’t end up hitting traffic going in the other?  It’s pretty neat how those work.

If you haven’t noticed, take a moment to watch and learn.  It’s pretty neat to see the coreography and how traffic seems to be controlled by these red, yellow, and green signals.  In fact, dear reader, they even call these lights “traffic signals” because they signal the movement of traffic.

Now, here’s the best part.  YOU TOO are required BY LAW  to follow the signals given by the traffic lights.  If you’re on a bike, you have to stop when it’s red and can only go when it’s green, just like a car.  If you’re on foot, you cannot cross the street if you’re facing a red signal.  IT’S THE LAW.  Oh, and to make it even more obvious, many of these lights have little pedestrian indicators on them too, with a raised red hand or a green stick figure walking to indicate that you should wait or walk, respectively.

This is for your own safety, dear pedestrian or cyclist.  Because when your light is red, the cars in the other direction have a green light, and are not expecting you to come darting across their lane of travel.  So do yourself a favor and FOLLOW THE LAW when it comes to traffic signals and waiting until it is legal to do so.  You just might end saving yourself some serious injury.  At the very least, you’re likely to avoid angering a driver who has to wait for you to waddle your butt across the road.  Okay?

Oh, and a special note to the cyclists.  I will gladly “Share the Road.”  But then you need to step up and follow the rules of the road as well.  Which means you stop at stop signs, you signal when you’re turning, you don’t bike around the railroad crossing gates.  In other words, you don’t just go riding around as if all of us car riders will part for you like the Red Sea parted for the Isrealites.

I think if the police put as much effort into enforcing jaywalking and illegal cycling maneuvers as much as they do into enforcing speeding, they’d make a boatload more money (much easier than chasing down speeders too!) and we’d prevent a lot of accidents caused by pedestrian stupidity.

With Rob’s imminent naturalization, I took a look at the whole naturalization process.  The oath of allegiance seems rather blah, and the Catholic in me thinks we need a more liturgical approach, as is done for Baptism.  So, I present the newly-written liturgy of naturalization for your enjoyment. (more…)

I went out to dinner the other night with my mom and dad.  Nothing fancy, just a diner/family restaurant with good food at decent prices.  I noticed their menu had changed since the last time we were there and so started to actually browse through it, instead of ordering one of the daily specials like I usually do.

Then I saw a new section.  Low-carb meals.  I thought that was a good idea; a lot people are watching their carbs these days.  Then I read the fine print about what is served with the entrees.  It said “all served with rice.”

Hmmmm….low carb meals served with rice.  I wonder if they have a gluten-free section that comes served with white bread, or a lactose-free section that comes with all the milk you can drink.

On a different note, it happens that the proprietors of this establishment are Greek (as evidenced by their appearance, and by the icons and crosses that hang over the doorway to the kitchen area).  So, I suppose it’s possible that this situation is similar to the scene in My Big Fat Grssk Wedding* where the woman, on finding out the guy is a vegetarian, says “that’s okay, I’ll make lamb.”

*No, that was not a typo.  The title for the movie is written with two Sigmas, i.e. G-R-[sigma]-[sigma]-K.  Ergo, the word is Grssk.  They should have used lower-case epsilons instead.  Hey, I’m a math geek, okay, and epsilons and sigmas mean two VERY different things.

I was doing my grocery shopping yesterday, and as I was meandering through the produce department, a little girl of around 6 years of age runs right in front of my cart.  I had to stop suddenly to avoid a collision.  Then just as suddenly, child #2 comes running out from nowhere and crosses directly in front of me.  Both apparently were running to their parents’ cart — maybe they were having a race?  I didn’t dare start moving again for fear that kid #3 would soon appear (it’s like driving in deer territory).  Then they decided to go running off to some other display, all the while their parents are oblivious to the fact their their beloved children almost became aisle-pizza.  Later, I’m exiting an aisle onto the main drag, and sure enough, another unattended child comes skipping along and narrowly avoids an accident. 

In another aisle, I see two parents stopped and talking about something while their children are running in circles blocking the whole aisle.  A polite “excuse me” does not result in a parent yanking their kids out of the way and apologizing, rather it seems to net a dirty look because I interrupted their important philosophical discussion on whether Maxwell House is really good to the last drop, or if the best part of waking up is Foldgers in your cup.

When did grocery shopping become a whole-family affair?  I don’t understand the allure of having mom, dad, and the kids all in the store together.  Personally I think it would be more efficient to keep one parent and the kids at home.

Even if the whole clan does decide to shop together, why in the world do parents allow their kids to run around like they were on a playground?  I’ll grant you that the kids may not have enough sense to avoid getting hit by a passing cart.  But parents certainly should know that there are dozens of other shoppers in there, and letting their kids run amock can easily result in a boo-boo, if not a trip to the ER and some major dental work.  Safety aside, tt’s rather rude toward the rest of the shopping public to make them have to navigate around the kids as they’re engaging in various horseplay,

And, um, why would anyone let their kids wander so far away from them?  Have they not heard of kidnapping?  When I see kids completely unsupervised and an aisle or two away from their parents, it makes me want to call out Children and Youth.

I think next time a bunch of ill-mannered kids come running out in front of my cart, I’m not going to be able to stop in time.