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How theNational EnquirerGets Some Security along with Bargain Communications
How theNational EnquirerGets Some Security along with Bargain Communications
SomeNational Enquirerreporters send in stories via computers, but there’s little danger of rival tabloids spying on the computer collecting the articles.The reason? There’s no receiving computer, actually—just an auto-answer modem rigged up to a dot-matrix that spews out paper copies at several hundred words a minute.The modem and printer can’t send messages or relay stories elsewhere. But who needs that—not when some computer-smartNational Starreporter might give his eye teeth to find out what the competition is up to?To be sure, the scheme has some problems:● TheEnquirercan’t transfer the reporters’ stories to a computer there for editing, since they are on plain old paper but not in an electronic format. Editors, however, heavily rewrite the original stories. Capturing reporters’ key-strokes for the typesetter wouldn’t help as much as at an ordinary newspaper.● Theoretically someone could still steal the hard copy (just as he or she could sneak off with a floppy disk).● The system isn’t secure against telephone tappers who could translate the modem whines.Still, the system is dirt-cheap. If knowledgeable, you could probably replicate it for less than $500 for the printer and modem. And you could send to it with just a $400 lap-sized portable.Beyond that, theEnquirer’s arrangement may be safer than leaving an unprotected computer on the phone to collect unencrypted files.
SomeNational Enquirerreporters send in stories via computers, but there’s little danger of rival tabloids spying on the computer collecting the articles.
The reason? There’s no receiving computer, actually—just an auto-answer modem rigged up to a dot-matrix that spews out paper copies at several hundred words a minute.
The modem and printer can’t send messages or relay stories elsewhere. But who needs that—not when some computer-smartNational Starreporter might give his eye teeth to find out what the competition is up to?
To be sure, the scheme has some problems:
● TheEnquirercan’t transfer the reporters’ stories to a computer there for editing, since they are on plain old paper but not in an electronic format. Editors, however, heavily rewrite the original stories. Capturing reporters’ key-strokes for the typesetter wouldn’t help as much as at an ordinary newspaper.
● Theoretically someone could still steal the hard copy (just as he or she could sneak off with a floppy disk).
● The system isn’t secure against telephone tappers who could translate the modem whines.
Still, the system is dirt-cheap. If knowledgeable, you could probably replicate it for less than $500 for the printer and modem. And you could send to it with just a $400 lap-sized portable.
Beyond that, theEnquirer’s arrangement may be safer than leaving an unprotected computer on the phone to collect unencrypted files.
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Then there’s the Dalton school case in New York City in which the four culprits, age thirteen, violated silicon sanctity hundreds of miles away. The feds caught up with them before they could steal Pepsi Cola, by coaxing an order out of a warehouse. But another computer didn’t fare so well. The thirteen-year-olds destroyed more than one-fifth of the 50 million bits in the machine’s memory, inspiring a magazine writer to call them “electronic Huns.”
More recently, the 414 Gang out of Milwaukee—named after their telephone area code—broke into computers across the country. These half-dozen or so high school students, tapping on home micros, broke into more than sixty computers and among other things they:
▪ Hooked up with a VAX 11/780 at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Eighty hospitals across the U.S. were using the computer to help treat hundreds of radiotherapy patients.[55]
▪ Broke into an unclassified computer at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory.
▪ Penetrated a Security Pacific Bank computer in Los Angeles. That may not have been so much a challenge. The account name and password both were “SYSTEM”—a word that many computer manufacturers routinely put in new machines and that their customers often forget to take out. “TEST,” “DEMO,” and “MAINTENANCE” are other old standbys.
If teenagers can wreak Attilan havoc and snoop on a bank computer, then think of adults.
So use passwords and codes, knowing their vulnerabilities. Try, anyway, to give computer crackers a good challenge by avoiding use of obvious passwords like street names or those of wives or children. Consider a two-level password; also, maybe one with two words of pure gibberish; that’s what CompuServe does. And, obviously, purge the computer of standard passwords in the “SYSTEM” vein.
If your system permits dialing in through a modem, see if it can limit the number of tries that people can make before the modem hangs up the phone. Your dial-up computershouldshouldsend its name until the caller has given the right ID. Be careful of overly helpfulpromptsthat lead callers on to the next step. “A prompt saying, ‘Hi! This is the Last National Bank Disbursement Department,’ sort of gives the game away, doesn’t it?” says aCreative Computingarticle laying out precautions. Also, change passwords regularly. And if an employee’s leaving? Change the access codes.
Here’s what I’d ponder if shopping for a password or encryption system:
1. How hard, exactly, would it be to puzzle out? Just how many combinations would a computer cracker have to try? Could he easily do this through his own machine—or yours? You might want to consult a cryptography expert to learn how much of a challengethisparticular program would be. You’d be surprised. You may see the manufacturer’s claims instantly deflated.
2. How compatible is the program with your computer? If security is so important, choose the protective software first, then the hardware—assuming, of course, that it will run your applications programs.
3. Is the security program easy to use? If it’s too hard, it’ll be self-defeating. “Ease of use” would include how much time the security software adds to your normal tasks.
4. Are you certain the program won’t jeopardize the accuracy and completeness of your files by making you more accident-prone?
5. Should you expand your system, will the security software be able to grow along?
6. Do you want apublic keyencryption system? It works this way. You pass out a code that people can use in sending messages to you. Only you have the means to unscramble them, though.
7. Will your code be based on theData Encryption Standard(DES), published by the U.S. government and repeatedly tested by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the National Bureau of Standards? To this day the rumors persist that NSA has built in a trap door to snoop on DES-style codes. True? I don’t know. Captain Zap says, “I don’t trust it. I don’t think NSA would have approved it if they couldn’t crack it.” NSA-approved codes are overkill in all but the most sensitive systems.
Telenet has a special interest in encryption software. It is the network into which thousands of computer users dial to reach other machines and services like The Source.
In 1984 Telenet claimed to be the first public network offering encryption software—a package for the IBM and clones that uses the public-key method and sells for somewhere under $600.
“You have a directory that has all the public keys in it,” said Claudia Houston, Telenet public affairs manager, explaining the Phasor software’s operation. “You look up the guy’s key that you want to send a message to. You punch that key and your message gets encrypted.”
For a two-page message, a Telenet man says that might take thirty seconds. Then you’re ready to send over the phone lines. Even if someone wiretaps you, theoretically, he won’t be able to puzzle out your secrets.
MCI Mail also offers encryption—through a customized version of a popular communication program—and other electronic networks will undoubtedly follow suit.
“Black boxes,” or hardware that scrambles messages, might likewise help; the topic is too complex for me to cover here in the detail it deserves. This equipment usually costs well into the thousands. One security expert, J. Michael Nye, even puts out a consumer’s guide to black boxes.[56]A good black box could be just a special modem with scrambling circuits built in. “If no one elseproduces a good, low-cost modem with encryption,” says Nye, “I might start doing it myself.”
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Captain Zap’s Wisdom on Protecting Your Dial-up Computer
Captain Zap’s Wisdom on Protecting Your Dial-up Computer
The Captain and friends stole—via computer connections—over $100,000 in goods and $212,000 in services, including a $13,000 Hewlett-Packard minicomputer. He received a $1,000 fine and two and one-half years’ probation, with fifteen hours a week community service.Far from being 100-percent antiestablishment, however, Zap is a Philadelphia Republican fond of wing tips. (“They show good breeding.”) And a computer security consultant, a client, praises him as “a damn good technician.” A computer-crime expert named Jay BloomBecker isn’t so keen on the use of e×-criminals in security: “There are a lot of people just as bright who have stayed within the law.” Regardless, Zap has some good tips for security-minded computer users, especially those with dial-up machines. Among them:▪Don’t think of computers as gods.“Remember, there’s just another human at the other end.”▪Spread out your computer numbers; you might even use different telephone exchanges.Don’t have numbers adjacent to each other—like 555-1212 next to 555-1213. If you do, your computers will be easier targets for hackers withWarGames-style dialing programs that scan local exchanges for computer numbers.That’s good advice from Zap. In the same vein, even if you have just one micro, you might consider trying to get a phone number in an exchange miles from your actual location. You might even want to use a tie line to another city. It all depends on whether you think the costs would justify the added protection; for many businesses they wouldn’t.Also, you might keep your modem number secret from people who don’t need to know. A Hollywood director, fearful that computer-smart science-fiction fans might tap into his dial-up machine, used such a precaution. Only he and his regular callers knew the number. His super-secretive approach obviously wouldn’t have worked in a typical business, especially one with many phone lines coming in. Also,nothing’s foolproof; suppose an electronic snoop unlocks your building’s wire closet.▪If possible, use modems faster than 1,200 baud.Then, says Zap, “most hackers’ modems can’t keep up.” Most small computers’ modems transmit at 300 baud, about 300 letters or numbers a second.▪Remember that hackers can be ingenious.“Don’t be smug just because you have a dial-back modem. That’s a device that makes callers tap out a special code, and then it rings them back at their authorized location. You can get around it by tying into the central office and setting up a three-way call—without anyone hearing you. I know hackers can set up three-way calls. I’ve done it myself.”▪Protective devices, however, are better than nothing at all.“Despite their limitations, I’d still install a call-back arrangement or a device that asked you for a code—or maybe a combination of the two. A combination usually would be much better.”▪Don’t get hung up on protecting your dial-up computer with just hardware or just software—use both.“Black boxes can help keep the wrong people from breaking in. But you also need good security software to controlhowdeeply even authorized people can get into your computer. You want some people—like customers—to have onlypartialaccess to the goodies inside your system.”▪Watch what you throw away.“Some hackers can log onto your dial-up computer after first poking through your trash—for printouts with passwords and similar material.” Another hacker jokingly refers to “The Dempster Dumpster Library.”
The Captain and friends stole—via computer connections—over $100,000 in goods and $212,000 in services, including a $13,000 Hewlett-Packard minicomputer. He received a $1,000 fine and two and one-half years’ probation, with fifteen hours a week community service.
Far from being 100-percent antiestablishment, however, Zap is a Philadelphia Republican fond of wing tips. (“They show good breeding.”) And a computer security consultant, a client, praises him as “a damn good technician.” A computer-crime expert named Jay BloomBecker isn’t so keen on the use of e×-criminals in security: “There are a lot of people just as bright who have stayed within the law.” Regardless, Zap has some good tips for security-minded computer users, especially those with dial-up machines. Among them:
▪Don’t think of computers as gods.“Remember, there’s just another human at the other end.”
▪Spread out your computer numbers; you might even use different telephone exchanges.Don’t have numbers adjacent to each other—like 555-1212 next to 555-1213. If you do, your computers will be easier targets for hackers withWarGames-style dialing programs that scan local exchanges for computer numbers.
That’s good advice from Zap. In the same vein, even if you have just one micro, you might consider trying to get a phone number in an exchange miles from your actual location. You might even want to use a tie line to another city. It all depends on whether you think the costs would justify the added protection; for many businesses they wouldn’t.
Also, you might keep your modem number secret from people who don’t need to know. A Hollywood director, fearful that computer-smart science-fiction fans might tap into his dial-up machine, used such a precaution. Only he and his regular callers knew the number. His super-secretive approach obviously wouldn’t have worked in a typical business, especially one with many phone lines coming in. Also,nothing’s foolproof; suppose an electronic snoop unlocks your building’s wire closet.
▪If possible, use modems faster than 1,200 baud.Then, says Zap, “most hackers’ modems can’t keep up.” Most small computers’ modems transmit at 300 baud, about 300 letters or numbers a second.
▪Remember that hackers can be ingenious.“Don’t be smug just because you have a dial-back modem. That’s a device that makes callers tap out a special code, and then it rings them back at their authorized location. You can get around it by tying into the central office and setting up a three-way call—without anyone hearing you. I know hackers can set up three-way calls. I’ve done it myself.”
▪Protective devices, however, are better than nothing at all.“Despite their limitations, I’d still install a call-back arrangement or a device that asked you for a code—or maybe a combination of the two. A combination usually would be much better.”
▪Don’t get hung up on protecting your dial-up computer with just hardware or just software—use both.“Black boxes can help keep the wrong people from breaking in. But you also need good security software to controlhowdeeply even authorized people can get into your computer. You want some people—like customers—to have onlypartialaccess to the goodies inside your system.”
▪Watch what you throw away.“Some hackers can log onto your dial-up computer after first poking through your trash—for printouts with passwords and similar material.” Another hacker jokingly refers to “The Dempster Dumpster Library.”
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Don’t lose track of security threats around your office itself while worrying about modems and encryption. Would you believe that you can’t absolutely erase an electronic file—say, a letter or report on your disk—just by following the directions in your software? A snoop might recover the information with a special program like Disk Doctor. Luckily, however, you can zap a sensitive file by magnetically “writing” over its part of the disk. Say you want to wipe out a letter 500 words long, File A. Well, do the following:
1. See if your disk has a file at least 500 or 600 words long. If so, make a copy. If not, type out a file that long. I’ll call this new file “B.”
2. “Write” File B’s contents under A’s name. “Overwrite” in other words.
3. Erase A.
Toreallyerase an entire disk? Well, don’t depend on your computer’s “copy” program or “format” program. Instead, just sweep a magnet over it—within a quarter inch or so.[57]
So much for the James Bond kind of data security. Now on to coffee spilled on floppy disks.
Whether it’s coffee or Coke, unless you’re careful, you’re possibly going to be your own biggest data-security threat. Just ask people like Betty Cappucci, a quality-control manager with the Dennison Kybe Corporation in Kopkinton, Massachusetts. “Most of the time,” she says of returned disks, “it isn’t the disk—it’s spit or fingerprints. All you have to do is look at offices with people eating their lunch near their computers.”
“We see disks coming back with cigarette ashes and coffee stains,” said Jack Fitzgerald, who at the time was a field engineer with another disk maker.
And it isn’t just the very smallest computer users who abuse their disks. “The big problem in computer facilities,” he says, “often is cleanliness. I’ve been to a large investment firm in New York City and seen apple cores on the floor, Big Mac containers near the disks. And yet they were complaining of data-loss problems.
“This was a major investment firm with all sorts of ads on news programs and football games about how carefully they protected your money,” says Fitzgerald. “No investor lost money in this case because the firm at least had backup disks. But the company itself lost thousands of dollars of processing time—money they could have spent helping their investors earn more.”
A programmer with a Florida accounting firm, however, didn’t even have a backup when his disk crashed on a large computer.
“He was actually crying on the phone,” Fitzgerald recalls. “He had lost two disks. And he was willing to pay $20,000 to get data off them. His job was on the line.
“I’ve had disk crashes myself,” Fitzgerald says, discussing his off-hours work on his micro. “I was developing a small game similar to Space Invaders. I lost power on my computer and about three hours of work. I ignored one of my basic rules, which is to back up about every 20 lines—make a copy on a second disk.”Captain Zap’s rule is, “Every fifteen minutes, save on both disks.” That’s extreme. Like all forms of security, apply this in relation to the trouble it would take to recover a loss.
Even Paul Lutus, famous in the industry for his work developing Apple software, has a scary crash story.[58]
He’d toiled to develop a new program, of which he took two copies to the company. An electronic glitch cost him one of the copies. The sun melted the other. It seems that Steve Jobs, an Apple cofounder, had put the disk under the windshield of his car. “I ended up very carefully prying apart the case of Jobs’s copy and switching the floppy disk inside to another case so we could recover the programs,” Lutus says. “I haven’t always been so lucky.... For me the biggest drawback to personal computing is the quality of the mass storage. I dislike floppy disks intensely.”
Here’s how you can help your floppies and data survive threats more immediate—sloppiness and stupidity:
1. Zealously enforce a no-drinking, no-eating policy around disks, at least if trouble develops.
2. Remember the Rothman Dirt Domino Theory. Dirt, dust, and grease often can sneak up on your floppies indirectly, in stages. You start with clean hands. Then, however, they fall domino style when you touch a dirty table or one with your office mate’s submarine-sandwich drippings. You return to your own desk briefly before you yourself leave for lunch. You don’t work with floppies then, and you wash your hands after eating, but during your brief stop at your desk before lunch, you’ve already left a trace of grease behind, anyway. Your disk box picks it up when you set it on the wrong spot on the desk. Then, working with the floppies, you lay one atop the box. Now the disk itself fails. Alas, most disk failures aren’t gradual like a recording that gets progressively noisier until you can’t stand to listen to it anymore—they tend to be sudden and total.
3. Realize that floppies don’t always mix well with office materials that correct errors the old-fashioned way—erasers, for instance, white-out fluid, or that unavoidably flaky correction tape.
4. Know about other natural enemies of floppies or at least of the data on them. Beware of airport metal detectors. A disk maker says this isn’t a problem; but don’t gamble, since a magnetic detector, misadjusted, might still mush your data. Beware, too, of telephones atop disks: the magnets in them are powerful.
5. Don’t even let your floppies rest against your computer’s screen,which, like a television’s, can be full of static electricity, attracting dust.
6. Remember that the more information you can pack on a floppy, the more vulnerable it may be to damage from dirt, fingerprints, magnetic fields, and other causes.
7. Clean your disk heads. Don’t use rubbing alcohol. “Try something like a Freon-based material with 91 percent pure alcohol,” Fitzgerald says. “You can get it at some computer stores.” Or, after every twenty hours of operation, use a cleaning diskette, three of which typically come in a $15 package. Each disk, says Fitzgerald, will last about thirty cleanings.
8. Have head alignment checked, to reduce disk errors. With heads out of whack, your machine may be the only one that can read your disks—not even identical machines. A crude way of assuring proper alignments, in fact, might be to see if other machines can read disks written on your micro.
9. Buy quality disks. Of course, the more you spend on disks, the more expensive your backups become—discouraging you from making them. Find a balance between cost and convenience that suits your security needs.
Timing—that’s the secret to saving your electronic diamonds or rhinestones on your floppies, whatever the quality.
In the past, working just with paper, timing meant to me nothing more than the Rothman Chronological Method. The newer the document on my desk, the closer it would be to the top of the file. It wasn’t the most efficient way. But I rarely lost material, just temporarily misplaced it. Computerizing, however, I worried.
“Floppies are treacherous,” my friend Michael Canyes said like a John Bircher discussing commies. “They always trick you when you least expect it.”
“Thanks,” I said. “The way you’re encouraging me to computerize, I’m beginning to think you actually want to sabotage me. Help me lose my manuscripts and all that.”
“Just back up your copy page or so,” Michael said.
“Isn’t that a lot of trouble?”
“Maybe twenty seconds. Then you’re protected if the power fails. Or maybe your computer. You can’t afford to have your material stored justin onin onyour chip. It’s just temporary. You cut off the current a fraction of a second, it’ll forget everything. You’ve got to get your stuff on the disk ASAP.”
All right, I supposed my creative juices wouldn’t dry up during the half minute the disk drive was whirring.
“The ‘Save’ command on WordStar isKS,” Michael said. “Just hold down the ‘Control’ button on your computer while you’redoing that. Then you’ll hear a whir and the disk drive clicking away.” Somehow my Kaypro was coming across as an animal to be fed during training; the clicking could be the sound of a dog chomping up candied biscuits after a successful lesson.
“You’re also going to make backup disks,” Michael said. “Sort of like electronic carbon paper.”
“I don’t have time,” I said.
“You’ll find time. You can do it in just a minute or so. You can even use a scratch disk to be safe.”
“What’s a scratch disk?”
“Suppose the power failed or something went wrong with your machine while you were making your copy,” Michael said. “Then you could be up the creek without a paddle. You might lose both the original and the copy.”
“So?”
“That’s why you have a scratch disk. You copy on it first. If something goes haywire, then you’re still safe. Because, during your last work session, you made a backup.”
“Theoretically,” I said.
“And if something goes wrong while you’re recording on your permanent backup disk, then you can just work from the scratch disk. It’s just what it sounds, sort of a scratch pad.”
“Oh, I’ll use paper, thank you,” I persisted. “The best backup yet. It’ll be years before it falls apart. And who knows? Maybe by then the Library of Congress will be preserving my manuscripts.”
Michael withheld a guffaw.
“Well, I can type a mean streak on my Selectric,” I said. “I can get my stuff back into the computer in no time.”
Always the patient teacher, Michael didn’t argue.
Presumably, however, another writer nowadays would have agreed with Michael immediately. His editors had been looking forward to having the printer set type from the disk he’d submit with the paper version of his manuscript—a crowded floppy storing every single byte from his toil. Then the editors could bring the book out six or eight weeks faster, with the disk in the printer’s hands. But in this unlucky man’s case the disk never reached the printer’s hungry computer—he hadn’t, alas, made an electronic copy. A case of hubris if ever there was one.
You might avoid such traumas by following the Rothman Chronological Method II (RCM II), a lazy man’s form of data security for those with fast printers:
1. Every five minutes or so, type out the “KS” or an equivalent and dump your work of the moment into the disk—for, ideally,permanent preservation.
2. Every half an hour make a printout of your recent work. With a fast printer, that’ll still be faster than messing around with an electronic copy at this point. Remember, you still have the backup disk from your last work session. So even if the original fails, you’ll need to reenter just the newest material.
3. Every day make your backup floppy. You might forget about the scratch disk and make two copies.
What about working with hard disks? Well, Winchesters are more dependable than floppies. On the other hand, they commonly store many times more material than do the soft disks—meaning perhaps a fiftyfold increase in your agony if one fails.
“Always try to use an uninterruptible power supply with your Winchester,” warns Fitzgerald, whose former company produces hard disks as well as floppies. Some manufacturers say their hard disks don’t need this protection. But, in general, it’s a good idea; here’s why.
Normally, the head picking up the magnetic patterns is only ten or twenty thousandths of an inch from the oxide-coated disk. The disk is aluminum—and shear-prone in the event of a crash. Instead of the typical soft whirl, you’ll hear an ear-piercing squeal like a car brake out of adjustment, except that the aftermath will be more costly. Repairs may run into the hundreds of dollars, not to mention the loss of data.
Not every power failure will produce a disk crash. But why gamble with your Winchester and its data?
An uninterruptible power supply will protect them by pumping out juice long enough for you to know something is amiss and shut the disk down. It sells for several hundred dollars, commonly, and is normally worth it.
“Also,” says Fitzgerald, “be sure the drive is grounded and shielded as the manufacturer recommends. If not, power surges could cause it to lose track of its data.”
He suggests one more precaution. Since the disk and the head are so close, why not warn furniture bangers? This could change. Hard disks are shock mounted in some portables nowadays, so that the equipment isn’t quitethatdelicate. But I’d still try not to be too klutzy around it—and to be careful in other respects.
You can back up a Winchester in one of several ways:
1. Dumping to floppies. It’s cheap but slow. Then again, you can speed up the process by updating only the files you’ve been working on. You just “write” over them.
2. Transferring the Winchester’s contents to a special tape drive large enough to hold them. This method is fast but may cost you a good $1,500.
3. Dumping to an ordinary videocassette recorder. Although slow, it’s okay up to around 100 megabytes or so, and you can set the VCR timer to “watch television” off the Winchester at night when you’re not using it.
“Interesting,” you say, “but how about the lap-sized portable I’m considering? How do I protect the information inside that?” The best way, of course, is not to lose the memory and the rest of the portable; as a well-practiced raincoat forgetter, I’ll never be the ideal owner of a lap-sized portable.
Common sense, too, suggests that you not store a lap-size portable inside a car with the sun blazing down—bad news for heat-sensitive chips and other parts.
If your portable uses abubble memory, your data-security problems are milder in some respects than with other kinds. The bubbles are tiny magnetized areas inside a small metal container. Magnetized “north,” a bubble might mean a bit specifying “one.” Magnetized “south,” it could mean zero. (You’ll recall that bits form a byte standing for a letter or number.) Magnetic bubble memories aren’t that much faster than disks, but theykeepremembering forever—unlike the CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) RAMs used in many portables.
An RAM will develop amnesia if your power fails, and a CMOS RAM is no different. It’s just that the CMOS keeps the power requirements extralow so small batteries can dribble out the needed juice after you’ve “officially” switched your machine off. This “hibernation” may last weeks or months. (Check your instruction manual.) You’re in great shape, however, only as long as your batteries are; the Eveready commercials may talk of nine lives, but your data may have only one. Someday your care may count more than ever. Low-cost CMOS RAMs may eventually store thousands of pages on one chip; and power failure might not be the only risk.
Imagine. You can tap out a chapter of your 1,000-page great American novel some bitter winter night, lazing on the rug by your fireplace. Your lover is stroking your back and—ZAP! Since CMOS RAMs are such low-voltages devices, think what thousands of volts from static can do.
Here’s one solution to the portables’ static problems. Before computing, you might discharge yourself on a nearby vent or anything else that’s grounded. You can also spray your home andoffice rugs with Static Guard or its equivalent. And you also can use a static mat—cheap at your local computer store—if the zaps persist.
What about a plane thirty thousand feet up? Then you might try discharging yourself against a metal ashtray before using your portable. If it’s all plastic, with no metal parts, by the way, your risks are much less than otherwise. But they’re still there.
Whatever style portable you’re using, remember the importance of backups—however inconvenient or costly. Through a cable called anull modem, you can pipe valuable reports from your portable to a larger computer a few feet away. You may want to do this, anyhow. Your lap-sized computer simply may run out of storage room much more quickly than a bigger machine and may lack floppy disks to spread those bits and bytes around. So make sure your portable software lets you zip material back and forth between machines.
“And in the field? What backup technique, then?”
Well, you’re often stuck with slow, tape-style storage. And mini-disk drives may be expensive and take up room if they’re not already in your portable.
But why not see if your company will let you send valuable reports over the phone for temporary storage in its big computer? You can also stash them away inside a desktop computer hooked up to the portable the same way. And there’s yet another answer. Rent electronic storage space on a commercial computer network like The Source of CompuServe.
In the future, maybe computer memories—on little portables and desktops alike—won’t be so temperamental. Perhaps there will be superreliable CMOS RAMs. Or how about practical, low-cost disks that you use lasers to “read” and “write” on? Dreams, dreams!
Meanwhile, most of us struggle along with floppies and must keep thinking, Backup! Handle carefully! Clean! Maintain! and How often? In summary, keep asking yourself:
1. How much time or money does it take to enter your data or set up your computer equipment?
2. How easily could you duplicate or replace it?
3. How much time or money do you have for copying, cleaning, maintenance, whatever precaution you’re taking?
Do keep data security in perspective. Remember, even if you must be a zealot at times, it’s just part of surviving with your computer. Harold Joseph Highland, a data-security stalwart in his work—a believer in two backup disks of book manuscripts—tellsof people who make out very well with far less copying. They are students at the University of Minnesota, computer-science majors, and they trudge through snow and ice carrying unbacked-up floppies in their books. Their professors are tolerant. If a disk fails and a student’s assignment is late, they understand. The students can’t afford too many floppies, and some just don’t have the time for backups. It’s the same, perhaps, at countless other colleges, and maybe that’s only right for twenty-year-olds who’ll learn soon enough about disappointments beyond the campus.
But you’re in business, perhaps, without a friendly professor ready with a sympathetic nod. Your making regular backups is just plain good sense, and if you don’t, you deserve what’s coming to you.
Isn’t that what data security should be about?
It needn’t be Orwellian at all. If anything, in fact, Winston Smith had more of a data-security problem than Big Brother. Privacy, certainly, is an important data-security element, as is what the jargonists callintegrity—accuracy and completeness of files. Think of Winston Smith and his appreciation of history and Big Brother’s propensity for tampering with the contents of back issues of theLondon Times! Even if “1984” has already become a year, the number, to true believers in data security, remains a warning.
This will be especially true as more and more machines swap secrets over the wires between home and office.