Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Social: Privilege

    I ran across the Privilege challenge on Facebook. A friend posted it, and I took a minute to watch it. I ended up with 4/10 fingers still up. Not bad for a minority.

    In case you think this is just some liberal thing, I actually found this reported on Fox News with a link to the video when I searched.

    I recognize in many cases I don’t put myself in positions that would get me into trouble. I’m cautious and conservative by nature, and I don’t go out late, don’t make disturbances or trouble, and am very careful when traveling. I think about where I go and when.

    Because I have to. Not because I want to, but because it potentially could get me into trouble.

    Not likely to, but could. I do actively have this in mind.

    I’ve slipped into the white American world for much of my life. My Mom is white, I’ve been economically successful, I tried to blend in, and I try to pass. As a result, I’ve been in conversations and situations where whites, law enforcement, those in power, etc. have denigrated or actively abused people of color or women.

    I worked in a bar where the police were often used to harass, prevent entry to, or expel blacks. Why? Prejudice. I’m somewhat embarrassed I didn’t stand up for others. It felt bad, but I was looking out for myself. Police were happy to comply and complain about and support, the desire to discriminate.

    I’ve been in discussions with management where they were against hiring minorities. Often when we get down to the last 2-3 candidates, I’ve heard discussions that we should pick the white man because he fits in better than the colored person or woman.

    I’m privileged in many ways. I’m a man, I’m financially successful, and I act and speak in a way that fits in with what’s expected in the US. Maybe one other thing that stands out to me is my name. No prejudice often when someone gets a note from me or sees my name in print.

    I’m also not so privileged in some ways. I am a person of color. I’ve been harassed by government officials. I’ve had people give me poor looks, step away, or refuse to touch me. I’ve had people drop change on a surface so as not to give it to me, when they didn’t do that to the person in front of me.

    There could be other explanations for these situations, but collectively, they always serve to remind me that I’m different from many others.

  • Daily Coping 11 Sep 2020

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.

    Today’s tip is to plan a fun relaxing activity for this weekend.

    Weekends have been quiet, but they’re getting busier. I have some fall chores and volleyball coaching keeping my busy this weekend. I also have some holiday next week, and I’ll do something those days.

    For this weekend, I’m going to try and plan a night out with my wife, likely a socially distanced dinner, and maybe a walk along the river or local trail in our area. Something fun, easy, and without a lot of effort.

    Date night is always a relaxing thing for me.

  • The Real Life Software Movie Plot

    It wasn’t that long ago that Firewall was released. In it, a security executive has his family taken hostage, with the plot being that the executive will help the criminals rob the bank that he’s spent years protecting or his family will be killed.

    While I haven’t heard of this extreme happening in the real world, I wonder how far away we are from this. Recently, there was a less violent attempt at hacking, with someone offering a Tesla employee over US$1mm to slip ransomware into their network. The idea would have been to threaten Tesla with data release unless they paid up. The details are interesting, and supposedly the ransomware cost US$250,000 to build, but another company paid US$4.5mm to criminals, so maybe this would have been very profitable.

    I’m sure there have been some shady offline attacks against companies and their executives or privileged staff. I hope there haven’t been any violent ones, but I am sure that something has happened somewhere in the world.

    Ultimately, I bet that the best defense might be to limit the knowledge of who can access sensitive data, and perhaps even ensure that no one can. Only systems, and that all queries, all access, and certainly all backups, are handled by some automated system, logging everything. This might not prevent this movie plot from coming true, but maybe you’d get a similar ending, with the criminals caught quickly because some system logged the action and alerted people.

    Security is a tough world to work in and think about constantly. Many of us know this, dealing with the stress and concern on a regular basis. Hopefully none of us add in the moral dilemma that might come from an actual criminal contacting us. If they did, hopefully all of us would be able to do the right thing.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Daily Coping 10 Sep 2020

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.

    Today’s tip is to focus on the basics: eat well, exercise, and go to bed on time.

    I believe in self-care. I’ve pushed myself without regard for my own well-being at times in my life, but I do it less and less, especially for work. As my wife has said many times, the things we do in technology usually aren’t “saving babies.” We’re pushing bits around for profit, and we don’t necessarily need to go above and beyond constantly.

    Balance is important here. I try hard to take care of my physical body, my mental health, and my relationships, with efforts to reach out and touch base with those I care about. Each of those takes work, and in 50+ years, I’m still working out how to do this.

    I’m better at taking care of my physical body. Not great, as my diet isn’t anything special. I’m a comfort eater, and I like food. However, I am working through being better more often than not.

    For me, as I write this, I had a good day yesterday. Cooked some food at home, making reasonable choices for ingredients, limiting portions, and balancing different types of food. I drank lots of water, and I hit the pool for one of the last times this year.  I didn’t stay up late, relaxing with my wife and watching a little TV and getting to sleep at a reasonable hour to let me get 8 hours of rest before work.

    I’d like to think I do this more often than not, which is good enough for me.