Tech consultant for Olympia, Lacey, And Tumwater

In defense of the TSA Staff

Security Theater

Please notice that I do not say I support the TSA, I do however feel sorry for the TSA staff that is being forced to put up with not only a horrid thankless job, but also horrid uneducated attitudes from very arrogant and ignorant people. Let’s get some facts straight right away. I am pretty sure they know that this is more about the theater of security than keeping anyone safe. Anyone with half a brain knows how to by pass those security check points. Got a private plane? Move on through. This does not make you any more safe and the people about to feel you up know this. They also know there are better ways that will actually make you more safe than this (CLICK HERE).

Wearing clothes made to hide your “naughty bits” will not hide your naughty bits. This is the area they now are forced to check, so why would you think for a second that wearing clothes that hide those parts will keep those parts hidden? What it will do is get you a nice cavity search or at least a full strip search. You just made both your life and the life of the TSA staff member worse. Good job dumb ass!

I have heard some say, “If they didn’t like doing this they would quit their jobs.” Really? You think so eh? They have solid jobs in an era of extremely high unemployment. These jobs give them great health care, retirement, paid vacation, sick leave, and more. Many of them have put years into these jobs and have gained very valuable seniority. Yet you think they will just quit the job and go flip burgers for half the pay and none of those benefits eh? Wow, you are dumb. People will put up with all kinds of hell for a good paying job with great benefits. If it was up to them they wouldn’t be doing this either. Ever hear of “Don’t kill the messenger?” The people at the airports are not who you should focus your anger at. They are just the puppets being forced to do a horrid job by the people that hide behind a desk.

If we are going to stop this insanity we need to focus our anger where it belongs. We need to direct it to our senators, our congressmen, the suits of the TSA that actually make the decisions. Abusing the TSA people at the airports just gets you bent over in a back room with a hand up your ass and makes everyone involved less happy. Unless you enjoy getting that cavity search for being a jackass?

The problem with security questions on PayPal

The problem with security questions on PayPal is that they are made for people much younger than I am. They want you to remember what your first pet’s name was and other things no one past 16 can remember. They ask who your favorite teacher was. I had several that I liked, but no favorite. They ask things that I just have no answer for, so I end up just filling something in like “suck”, “idontknow”, or “blowme” just so I can get into my account. It doesn’t make anything more secure. It just locks me out of my account so I have to call them. They could avoid this by making the security question either optional or letting the user fill in their own security question. I can remember who my favorite band is. It’s been the same for well over a decade and I don’t see it changing. I can remember what my favorite whiskey is, my favorite vodka, my favorite president, my favorite Linux distro, and tons of other things. So let the user write their own security question or it kind of defeats the purpose. You might as well make it a “Facebook Connect” situation so that a hacker can get into everything with just one password.

I know this is a really short blog post, but this is all I have to say on the matter. Plus it is too long for a Twitter message. So it had to go here.