City walls. Castle motes. Door locks. Google security.
We spend a lot of resources protecting the resources we have.
Today will be a short blog post. I am locked out of my Blogspot account. I am writing this on an I-phone, which is apparently some approved master device, one which approves the other devices, but apparently today approves nothing but itself.
Today a quick reflection: the artifacts which survive from ancient times are burial monuments (pyramids), religious monuments (Stonehenge, pyramids) and defensive fortifications (Wall of China’s, city walls, castles.). Americans bemoan the expense of our defense spending— I certainly do— but consider what an investment of the capacity of ancient civilizations would have been the walls at Jericho or the Great Wall of China. If a civilization has something worth having then someone will want to take it away. I liked having access to my blog and liked the idea that people who disliked what I wrote could not enter and do mischief, so therefore I have what Google calls two-factor authorization. That means I get a prompt on my phone when I sign in— is that really you, Peter? I am required to type in the 6 digit code they sent me. I do, then bingo, the city gates open.
This time they didn’t. And the backup systems gave me the notice that I have tried too many times to enter, so I am locked out. Apparently—maybe— someone last night had been trying repeatedly to access the account. Not me. Anyhow, I am locked out myself.
My blog post today was to be about distrust—what a coincidence. Trump succeeded in getting a majority of Republicans to doubt that Obama was born in the USA. He suggested that maybe a massive fraud had happened, a conspiracy that would have involved the State of Hawaii, two newspapers, and multiple witnesses. They weren’t trusted. You can’t trust Hawaii. Or hospitals. Or that this dark man with a strange name. Maybe he was really an interloper who had sneaked into the walled community.
The significant thing was not that Trump tried this gambit, but that people were ready to believe it. Birtherism worked to spread doubt that possibly a massive fraud was taking place.
Trump is saying not to believe the news media—all fake. Or public health authorities, too cautious. Or the FDA, hiding a great cure. Or our FBI or other intelligence services—Deep State. He said our voting and election systems are rigged, with millions of illegal votes. These institutions aren’t to be trusted.
He had said our judges weren’t to be trusted if they had Mexican heritage. He said the weather service wasn’t to be trusted if it disagreed with his reference to where a hurricane would hit. He said the post office cannot be trusted to deliver mail. He said the military cannot be trusted to enforce fairly the rules of engagement and discipline of our own troops.
Distrust. Frauds are everywhere.
Trump’s saying Fauci is “wrong” and that America’s problem is too much testing, may be the tipping point that changes the Trump trajectory of successfully undermining trust in civic institutions. More Americans trust Fauci than Trump. Trump has an interest to protect with a lie. Fauci appears to have no goal other than our welfare. Fauci gives bad news but he seems sincere about it.
Trump has successfully fed off Americans’ distrust and amplified it. This time, on Covid, in a sea of distrust, a majority of people distrust Trump. Political pundits can examine a million nuances and factors to explain the campaign and the polls, but that one factor may be sufficient and explain everything. We don’t trust Trump on Covid.
Trump won’t get beat by Biden. He will be beat by Trump.
3 comments:
I agree. The election is essentially a referendum on Trump.
I would disable the two step authorization, as it sounds like it backfired for you. Looks like the likelihood of your being hacked is less than the likelihood of it screwing you up!
I cannot use it because I don't have a smart phone, and if I want to get into my account elsewhere outside my home, I would not be able to access the code.
I so hope that we get rid of this insanity called trump in November.
There’s an old saying that locks are for keeping the honest people honest. The idea of course is that locks are not invulnerable by anyone with enough resources, skill and intent (think Oceans 11). With cyber security it’s not just a few bad actors, and it’s not just breaking into a house with limited damage. It can range from a 17 year old hacking Twitter, to State-sponsored cyber terrorism or countless attacks that can shutdown entire companies or industries. Remember Target? They hacked through the heating and cooling controls to gain access to the network that breached customer data. So multi-factor authentication (MFA) is one defense for now. Expect more inconveniences as those defenses are compromised. It’s Spy vs Spy (for all you old Mad Magazine readers)
But I wanted to comment on Peter’s theme of conspiracies. Reading some recent ideas about the end of democracy, its occurred to me that the GOP in general and Trump in particular do not think democracy matters- the idea that the government exists of, by and for the People. It seems like it’s only for “their“ people and on “their“ terms, and by any means, legal or otherwise.
Until now (call me naive) I thought representative government was the “big idea” where we found common ground with people who had different ideas about big vs small government or high regulation vs low, etc.... We debated and lobbied for our ideas, but we respected the democratic institution of governance. Whether it’s the “cult of selfishness” (as Krugman calls it) or something more nefarious, it seems the basic premise of our commitment to shared values- good faith - is simply gone. The Right seems to have no problem with a totalitarian demagogue as long as he’s their demagogue. In fact they flaunt it. That is, until they are some day under another’s thumb.
As students of history, the Founders knew that liberty and ‘pursuit of happiness’ for the People would be unlikely under a tyrannical leadership system. So they tried to put safeguards in place.
In order for those safeguards to work, the People (you and me) need to be curious, informed, skeptical of unsubstantiated claims, and be diligently invested and active in fighting attacks against democracy by those who would undermine it.
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