Author Archives: deanwebb

Who Is Next?

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There are 1.9 million persons in US prisons, correctional facilities, jails, whatever you want to call them. This includes persons incarcerated for felonies as well as misdemeanors.

The MAGA have stated intentions to deport 12 million+ persons. That is six times the current US prison population. Even if the focus is supposedly on persons committing crimes other than a violation of immigration law, the 12 million number betrays that the focus is on ethnicity, not criminality.

Less than 15% of the persons in US prisons are not citizens of the USA. That’s less than 300,000, or 0.3 million. The other 11.7 million+ persons are not currently in jails, not currently convicted of crimes, and are not currently breaking laws other than those involving immigration status.

12 million+ people is over 3% of the US population. That would mean for every 100 people I know, 3 would be targeted for deportation, focused on those who have Latin American heritage, or who look like they have Latin American heritage. US citizens who are unfortunate enough to not have documentation on their persons when challenged for it are going to be in that 12 million+ number.

Most of the persons with unauthorized immigration statuses live in what are called “split households.” They’re either married to or related to US citizens in their household. This proposed MAGA mass deportation will rip families apart.

Every historical mass deportation I’ve read about has involved brutality directed towards the deportees, their deprivation of basic resources, their denial of access to medicines, starvation, diseases, suicides, horrific deaths…

And as that deportation is being cruelly considered, I do not yet hear anyone asking this question, so I will, out loud.

WHO IS NEXT?

Love One Another

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“Not to think badly of anyone, not to wish ill to him though we have suffered at his hands, not to hurt him even in thought, this is an uphill task, but therein lies the acid test of nonviolence.”

~Gandhi, Ashram Observances in Action

 “A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

~Jesus, John 13:34-35

Where to Start with Security?

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An issue I’ve seen with many organizations is their desire to simplify their security stacks. When I think of simplification, I think of prioritization. What is it that has restricted my activity the most as an end user? That would be the place to start with security.

It’s not the firewall or the cloud gateway. When I’m on the road with my company laptop, I don’t have to be connected to or through those systems to do work in the hotel room. I can be on the hotel wi-fi and just go anywhere on the Internet and get into all kinds of fun and trouble on my own. By the same token, an entire host of security measures that lock down the data centers and perimeters will mean nothing if my endpoint becomes compromised and brings malware into my organization, when I connect to it again.

An endpoint protection agent is a strong contender for blocking bad things, but I know that there’s just a search between myself and a script I could download and run that would shut down that endpoint agent long enough for me to do other bad things… or for an attacker to do those bad things without me knowing they’re going on. So what can stop that script from elevating privileges and breaching security? Something that secures identity locally.

If the endpoint identity is locked down so that it can’t escalate privileges, it’s game over for tons of, well… games. I won’t be able to install apps that require admin permissions for their installation and I won’t be able to grant myself the admin rights needed to override the protections on my system. If I have a legitimate need to elevate privileges, then I can request those formally, have my actions recorded as I use those elevated privileges, and then have those privileges expire when the task is completed.

That identity security, by extension, then helps to hold the fort with the endpoint agent. If local admin rights can’t shut it down, then it keeps running to check on things with my endpoint. It can maintain data loss protections, keep USB drives from connecting, and protect against various and sundry other evils. And, yes, that’s my second area of protection: the endpoint detection and response (EDR) agent.

But hot on the heels of that EDR agent is a secure sandbox browser. The browser became our primary human-machine interface back in 1995, and with all its hooks into the local operating system, it’s become a primary attack vector. Having an enterprise browser that can keep all the detonating payloads in a secure sandbox would be my choice for bolstering my mobile, BYOD, and remote access options. The bonus with an enterprise browser is that it essentially replaces the need for a virtual desktop for accessing internal systems.

Those three things – identity, EDR, and secure browsing – that’s where I’d start my security simplification journey.

Prophecy as Warning

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As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I live with an understanding that people are able to receive revelations to offer guidance and comfort. God loves us, but we often confuse love with removing all problems. That’s not love, that’s co-dependence. Love is providing us with warnings when things are coming our way so that we can make ready for them. We are here on earth to learn and experience things, and those things involve dangers, hazards, pains, and trials.

If we return love to God, we heed those warnings, no matter what their source. We are able to have insight into the truth of those warnings and, as we give our hearts and minds over to trying to better understand our existences in a way that approaches God, we are more sensitive to those promptings and more likely to choose to act upon them.

God does not want us to experience our lives blindly. But it is up to us to accept the vision for the future and to be able to withstand it as we understand it. There are terrors approaching, but we can prevail if we heed prophetic warnings and make our preparations.

Walls and Bridges

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The Great Wall of China is forbidding, cold, impersonal, and crumbling.

The bridges of Venice draw tourists by the hundreds of thousands.

The bridges of London are famous and vibrant and connecting.

The bridges of New York City sing with Gershwin’s departed spirit, in that soaring clarinet introduction.

How many bridges have been put at risk due to the weight of the locks being fastened to them, fastened in the name of love?

The Berlin Wall is famous for having been torn down. Nobody wants to build it again, nobody who loves.

    Hell and Heaven

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    These things are a matter of personal choices. One is not thrust into one or the other against one’s will. One picks a course, a direction in life, and then arrives at the destination. If one is not pleased with an ultimate destination, different choices need to be made while still in mortality in order to avoid that destination.

    And if one is sure of arriving at a destination, one needs to consider one’s choices all the more carefully – there is nothing sure about arriving anywhere for a person not tending one’s course.

    Time to Speak My Mind

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    Lately, I have chosen to avoid making political statements most of the time. I make an exception to say that I do see a great and grave danger in the Republican Party platform, politicians, and recent history. I see their calls for voting security result in vigilantes suppressing black voters as in days of segregation. I see their calls to support the family result in laws that bind women and children to abusive husbands. I see their calls for cheaper energy not only pollute our nation more, but oppress Native Americans and violate treaties one more painful time.

    I see them demanding better conditions for the common American, but they vote so often to line the pockets of the rich.

    Not all legislation that emerged from Republicans or the Trump administration was terrible: there were some good things, and they deserve acknowledgement. It is not like Republicans are an enemy that must be destroyed. Rather, I see them as deeply misguided – a people that must be taught with patience and love.

    But know this: I do see those who vote for Republican politicians as people who will one day deeply bemoan their choice. Their leaders obscure their true intentions and have repeatedly shocked their followers with cruel laws that the judges they have appointed will uphold. There is no question in my mind that a vote for a Republican is a vote against freedom.

    Why do I say that? I say that because, collectively, the Republicans are polluting the nation, ignoring our international obligations, stripping women of rights and dignity, and restoring Segregation. I am opposed to those things, so I will speak against them and vote for the party that is opposed to those things, and that means I will vote for the Democrats in November.

    Choose Peace, Love, and Forgiveness

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    There is a difference between admitting wrong, accepting consequences, and making amends versus denying everything, blaming others, and making noisy distractions. The first is part of building the Kingdom of God. The latter is part of making war against God.

    Choose who to listen to: avoid those who always have a justification and never an apology. Seek out those who advocate peace without limits, love without exceptions, and forgiveness even towards mortal enemies. Avoid those who demand violence, vengeance, and retribution. Peace, love, and forgiveness are all parts of the most powerful, and most humble of forces in the universe – that which will prevail – while those other things are all hazardous to the soul we will need for eternity.

    Contracts and Covenants

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    Let us suppose I hire a painter to paint a house I own out in the country. I sign a contract in which I agree to pay for travel expenses an amount up-front, and a final amount upon conclusion. We travel to the site and discover the property has burned down. True to the contract, I pay for travel and up-front expenses, but that is all. The house being burned down means the contract cannot be fulfilled. I terminate the contract without fault and the painter and I go our separate ways.

    Now let us suppose the same situation, but we have a covenant to paint the house. Together, we rebuild it, as the covenant places a moral and spiritual obligation to see to it that a painted house results from our efforts. The money for the job is not as important as the job. We do not go our separate ways, because we have a covenant that implies we maintain and watch over that house.

    This is why I do not have a contract with God. I have a covenant. The covenant is to return my soul to Him, and I labor with Him in that effort.

    My Political View

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    Since the foundation of the nation and before, there have been men, organized in whatever Party that would give them shelter, who gained and maintained power by placing other people, the weak and vulnerable, in separate classes, thereby depriving them of votes, economic choices, and equality before the law. This has been the great evil that stood for slavery, for disenfrachisement of women, against workplace safety, against overtime pay, against paid time off, against limiting the work-week. It continues to work to strip votes from nonwhite communities, refuses to pass legislation that would break cycles of poverty and imprisonment, and which obstructs legislation that would keep our lands and cities from being overwhelmed with pollution.

    Its leaders are obvious in their love of money, and it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. They are obvious in their recycling of language and slogans used to support both slavery and segregation as they demand none speak or teach of the shame their political ancestors cursed our land with human bondage, lynch mobs, and cold-hearted justification of economic inequality.

    In my own state of Texas, this Party has been in power for decades, and under their watch, with their knowledge, they have permitted school districts to take money that was supposed to service needs for the poor and handicapped children and merge it with the district general fund. This means that schools remain illegally underfunded and that services that could have prevented the Uvalde shooter and others like him from murdering children in schools were not provided, in violation of both federal law as well as our communal obligation to the most vulnerable and precious members of our nation, our children.

    Make no mistake, money is involved in the politicians who preside over the deaths of our children. Those denials of services mean lower property tax rates, the savings of millions for those who support that Party – to them, the money is more important than the lives of children. They claim to be very religious, but so did the priests of Moloch, who sacrificed children to idols for the wealth of Carthage.

    A Party that fights to reverse civil rights legislation, that works to make the rich richer, and that presides over the deaths of children in the name of lower property taxes is the enemy of freedom and the unity of the nation.

    And that is why I do not support the Republican Party. I have to live, work, and worship alongside those who do and I know that the only true victory is through surrounding them with love, to the point where they willingly surrender the lies that sustain the illusions that justified their fight against peace, equality, and true justice.