Bike welds, spray paint, and cybersecurity
On the corner of Fort Lane and Gentile Street, beside an aging strip mall with a drugstore, a five-and-dime and a Safeway, was an empty lot—empty except for the yellow, knee-high grass typical of August summers in my hometown. The whole field smelled drier than a canvas sack of wheat; some days the heat of the sun by itself was enough to burn it up. And there, along the trail, my old Huffster soared, leaning and squeaking all the way, with dust flying from its deflated tires.
My best friend Tracy and I had been stress-testing our pedal bikes. His was a sparkling red Schwinn with a white stripe down the side, chrome fenders and all; mine was a weary old street bike Santa had picked up at the five-and-dime. It had started as a blue-and-yellow Huffy road bike with a banana seat, and in 1984, vintage road bikes weren’t super cool. BMX bikes were cool. So my 1977 Huffy had been rattle-can painted flat white. It now sported an orange saddle seat from my brother’s discarded ten-speed. The tires were balding and weather cracked, not BMX dirt-track style—road style. It was a Franken-bike. And it had spent way too many frigid winters leaning against the side of our trailer house.
The one thing my Franken-Huffy had going for it was its weight: not a lot of steel in my steed. It was a feather. (The Schwinn, in contrast, was a steel tank. It rode like a tank, and it jumped like . . . well, a tank. In that, and only that, Tracy was jealous of the Huffster.) But here amid the tall, drooping, grass and stifling August air, the glory days of my cracked-tire, rattle-can abomination came to a sudden end.
Midway through the final jump of its dwindling life, the Huffster came unglued—not literally, but almost. The welds holding both tubes to the gooseneck released their grip, weakened by the cumulative stress of too many jumps and too much extreme weather. I landed on my feet in the dust, kicking up a cloud, which settled at last over the faded, white frame. Then I turned. The rusty handlebars, forks and front tire looked as they always had; the sad remains of the powertrain had collapsed.
In 1984, the Huffster died. But the Internet was just emerging from its digital nursery. What Tracy and I could not have known then as we strolled sullenly from the yellow field (making a quick stop by the drugstore for a cold Coke) was just how the Internet would affect our world forty years later. Its users have been conditioned to think of computer and network security as the products of intentional design. Truth is, security’s an afterthought. It quite literally is not a requirement. The systems you think are baked into your shiny new laptop have actually been cobbled together and hastily bolted on, much like the structures of the Huffster. And the comfy reassurances and guarantees from its makers are little more than a superficial, flat-white veneer.
We advocate not just for a single coat of illusory security paint, but for many solid layers, as well as a healthy dose of foundational stability. It’s called Defense in Depth. It means you have several layers of protection. And maybe more importantly, you use a dedicated security company like Cybereye in addition to your regular IT company.
Several of our stalwart readers here in Cochise County have informed us that the knowledge they’ve received through this column has helped them to avoid being scammed. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am for that. We are very grateful to the Sierra Vista Herald for allowing us space to rant about cyber crime. You, our beloved readers, can help us. If you’ve found valuable information here, tell your friends to get the paper so they can benefit, too. (Quality cyber training rarely comes at such a low expense, after all.) Help us reach out to local businesses. The Cyber Guys have a cybersecurity consulting business (also insanely affordable) based in Cochise County. Essentially, we provide preventative treatment for the cancer of ransomware, as well as other kinds of malicious ware. But we need your help spreading the word
Computer security is what holds our digital world together . . . until it doesn’t. But my poor Huffster with its ruined tires and unsteady, cobbled structure had little more than a film of white paint for reinforcement, and even knowing this, I abused it without a second thought. Don’t fall into that same trap.