Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Data Clarity

    There was an Associated Press (AP) report recently that noted Google applications track your location, even if you’re turned off Location History on your Android phone. The article has details about what the AP noted, as well as the report from some researchers that were testing the functionality. You can read the details, but the issue doesn’t seem to be as simple as the headline of the report.

    Google has responded to the claims, saying that they document and explain the various settings that need to be changed in the applications themselves to prevent any tracking. That might be the case in the eyes of the engineers that built the functionality, but I would tend to argue that the expectations, the descriptions, and explanations we use as technology professionals might not be clear enough for most users. We ought to be documenting, explaining, and even coding systems for users that aren’t as familiar as we are with the technology.

    This is an interesting issue. Not the location tracking, since I assume Apple, Google, government, and more can track my phone if they really want. To me, the issue is that we have data practices that are not clear to the end user. What Google documents, what they do with new services and features, and what the clients expect are not necessarily the same. That’s an issue, and I suspect it’s a similar issue for many companies.

    Most of us collect some level of detail from our software on how the user interacts with it. This might be a local log, or it might be some sort of telemetry, similar to what Microsoft collects from SQL Server. In either case, I think it’s important to spell out what data is being collected and to what extent this data is related to a specific individual or company. The changes to data handling as a result of the GDPR and other legislation might require that we do a better job of disclosing any data we collect, and in which specific circumstances.

    I know that data matters, but I also think that lots of the information that is collected doesn’t need to be related to a specific individual. Aggregates or tokenized data is often enough, though if you need to track a particular individual over time, such as the features they use in their install, be sure that you are very careful with any sensitive data, such as names, locations, etc. Most of us don’t have Google’s resources to combat legal action if customers find we are infringing on their privacy.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 3.6MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • Next week is SQL in the City Streamed

    This picture is out of date. I’ll make sure we get a new one next week at SQL in the City Streamed that includes Kendra Little.

    IMG_2469

    On Sept 5th, is SQL in the City Streamed. Register today and watch us talk about Azure, Machine Learning, full stack development, and more. We’ll talk a little Redgate as well.

    sitc-201809-social-grant (1)

    I’m off today to Norway for SQL Saturday Oslo, but I’ll also be prepping for SQL in the City Streamed. Hope to see you online.

  • Protecting Our Stream of Data

    Protecting the data our companies collect is important. Many of us go to great lengths to secure our databases, firewall connections, limit access, and more. However, we can’t secure the data before it gets to us, and that can be a problem. I ran across a link on Bruce Schneier’s blog that shows a criminal placing a skimmer on a credit card scanner in a convenience store. The original video is gone, but there are plenty more.

    In general, the loss of data from the application (and physical hardware in this case), isn’t really a database issue. After all, the data is essentially split into two streams, with some going to the legitimate database and other processes while another stream goes to the skimmer. If this happens, and the skimmer isn’t discovered, however, it’s entirely possible that any data loss might be blamed on the database or IT infrastructure.

    If someone suspected you were hacked because of data being lost, could you prove you weren’t hacked? Or that the data didn’t come from your database? This is impossible, since you can’t prove a negative, but would you have any evidence that could be used to bolster your claims? Is there auditing or other tracking of activity? Does your organization keep any logs that would show a lack of activity and are protected against tampering? Ideally you would find the source that lost the data, but if you can’t, it can be difficult to prove that the losses didn’t come from your systems.

    For most of us, we might not have much in the way that would show our systems have only had legitimate access. Instead we’d depend on the limited SQL Server logging, as well as other infrastructure tracking, such as firewall activity logs. The strength of our presentation would likely determine whether security staff or management accepted our claims as valid.

    Point of Sale systems are different than the applications that most of us use, but certainly we have database security concerns that we should address. I would hope that SQL Server would bolster its capabilities in this area, providing a way to set up a tamper proof log easily that accepts writes of activity from a database in some structured text file that uses minimal resources. I’m not even sure what I’d want here that I can’t get from XE, but I do think having something more robust and standardized would be nice. If nothing else, a local SQL Server could stream XE events out to a file target in a remote location that only supports writing. This wouldn’t necessarily prove anything if the connection were disrupted, but it would ensure that a business was aware of the breakdown between the instance and audit log.

    I know the ways in which people attempt to access and steal data will continue to evolve and become more complex and creative. We can’t protect against many of them from the database side, but I’d like to think that we could protect the data we have. We should ensure it is safe from theft, loss, or inappropriate access and prove we have done so.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 4.2MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • Redgate Lives DevOps

    At Redgate, we release a lot of changes to our products. In fact, this is the “About Redgate” slide I’ve been using in talks related to the company.

    2018-08-23 09_36_29-ReduceAttackSurfaceArea.pptx - PowerPoint

    If you look in the lower right, you’ll see product releases from last year (2017). We have 30-ish products, so that’s roughly 38 releases per product. Not every product releases at this cadence, but a lot of them release every week. SLQ Monitor, for example, releases every Wednesday.

    Of course, there’s the inevitable release-a-bug-and-need-to-fix-it-so-a-second-release this week, but those don’t happen too often. I’ve been tracking releases this year, and not too many were corrected in the same week, but it does happen.

    Some people say that’s the problem with DevOps, but I think it’s the advantage. I guarantee that most software releases include bugs. If you release once a quarter, are you ready to re-release in a couple days to fix something? Or do customers live with issues for a quarter? The advantage of DevOps is we can fix things quickly, in addition to adding new features quickly.

    Redgate does some amazing development work and I’m proud of the ladies and gentleman that write the code.

    I still complain, and there’s room for improvement, but they do a great job and I try to remember to thank them and complement their work when I do see them.