Fox News has an “Automatic Transcription” feature for its videos.  The disclaimer of “may not be 100% accurate” is understated by 95%.  Here’s the presidential oath of Barak Obama, the way their transcription software heard it:

“I. — Barack Hussein Obama I solemnly swear Barack Hussein Obama do solemnly swear. That I will execute the office of president of the United States faithfully — execute … Get off faithfully the president the office of president and — I just — the United States — wheels. — the best of — ability and will miss my children. Preserve protect and defend the constitution of the United States. Preserve protect and defend the constitution of the United States so help you got so homey — congratulations mr.”

"I will miss my children."

Woops.  To be fair, there were two people talking at the same time, which is a nightmare for voice recognition software.  

But you’ve got to love phrases like “Get off faithfully the president”,  ”will miss my children”, and “so help you got so homey.”   Maybe Fox News should hire out the transcription software as a writer for Saturday Night Live… it’s funnier than most of the people they’ve hired.

Some ads speak for themselves. This one showed up in my Gmail sidebar today:

Hint: “Certificaiton” isn’t a word. Maybe they aren’t targeting English teachers.

I used to work for a company that shall remain nameless, just in case their lawyers are reading this. We had a couple of security-related incidents that illustrated just how illusionary physical security can be in everyday companies. Here are two amusing (and true) stories with four serious lessons to be learned from them:

Over The Top

During a particularly stressful roll-out of an important software project, a customer came on-site to supervise (read: micromanage and browbeat) the final development process.

After several grueling days of work, the code monkeys all trickled home late into the evening, while the customer stayed in the office at his own insistence to keep working. He wanted a key to our server room “in case something happened,” which our IT guy wisely refused. He could stay in the office, but the main door would lock behind him and he would have no access to our servers. The IT guy wouldn’t budge, so eventually the customer relented (which should have alarmed us.)

Sure enough, when the customer was all alone later that night, something did happen: The server he was using needed a reboot. (Yep, Windows NT Server, how’d you guess?) A reasonable person at this point would have either gone home for the evening or called the IT guy. Customers, of course, are rarely reasonable, so he opted for Door #3: Break into the server room and reboot it himself.

Our office space was pretty typical, with solid-core doors and reasonably good locks, so there will be no picking locks or kicking in doors in this story. If you’re reading this at work, stop reading for a second and look up. Do you see a paneled drop ceiling? That’s what we had, along with the standard enclosure walls that aren’t load-bearing. Thus, if you pop up those ceiling tiles next to the wall, there’s often a 18″-24″ gap between the structural ceiling and the top of the wall.

Our intrepid customer stood on a chair in the hallway outside the server room, popped a ceiling tile in the grid, and crawled up over the wall in the ceiling gap, lifted out a tile in the server room, and jumped down. He rebooted the server, replaced the tile, and walked out. Not exactly Mission Impossible, but it got the job done. When our livid IT guy discovered the breach in the morning (ceiling tile dust everywhere), the customer was “encouraged” by management to return home and browbeat us from a safe distance.

Lesson #1: Don’t let non-trusted personnel stay in your facility without a minder, even if you think everything is locked down. Locks, after all, are primarily to keep honest people honest.

Lesson #2: Layered security is important. If you’ve ever had to cut a hole in drywall, you realize that an interior wall is 9/10′s illusion and can easily be breached. Spend the extra money to get cage racks for your servers, the kind that can be bolted to the floor and locked.

Fire At Will

The company was growing and we now occupied two floors of the building. We didn’t want strangers wandering in on the floor sans receptionist, however, so a security firm was brought in to recommend and install a door code system for the employees.

When you got off the elevator, there were two frosted glass doors with handles that pulled outward. These were already in place, so the security firm opted to install magnetic latches at the top of the doors. No human bean could force the magnets apart when engaged, so that part worked just fine. To enter, you had to enter your personal code in the keypad to the right of the doors. To exit from the inside, you simply had to approach the doors and a motion detector would disengage the magnetic locks by the time you touched the handle. It was simple, elegant, and expensive.

I came back in lunch just in time for our CTO to be standing outside the newly-secured doors, rather pleased with the new setup. He explained to me how it worked, but something didn’t sound quite right. I asked, “How does that motion detector on the inside work?” He explained that it works on infra-red so that not just any motion will trigger it, but only the body heat of a person. I paused for a second, and asked if I could have a sheet of paper from his notebook. I folded the piece lengthwise to give it some rigidity. Now for the fun part.

I took a breath, “Can I have your permission to set this on fire?” Amused he took out his lighter and handed that to me as well. I lit the end of the paper and then slid it vertically between the glass doors at chest level. I was standing outside the doors, but now the flaming end of the paper was inside the office space, right beneath the motion detector. The heat of the flame triggered the detector, and the doors unlocked.

The CTO, needless to say, was p*ssed. A flaming piece of paper defeated his $$$ security system in under 2 seconds. The elegant solution was useless. I didn’t hear the phone call he made to the security system, but I bet it wasn’t pretty. (In the re-telling, he remembers the flaming paper vector to be his idea.)

Within a week the motion sensor was removed, and a huge red “PUSH TO EXIT” button was installed to the side. I can’t tell you how many days it took before people stopped smashing into the magnetically-locked doors and remembered to push the button first.

Lesson #3: Get a second opinion before you implement a security system. Have another firm (or team) evaluate the first proposal to identify potential flaws.

Lesson #4: Good security is rarely convenient. I cursed that red button nearly every day I worked there. Inconvenient, but much better than the motion detector for that setup. Better still, the glass doors should have been replaced with wood or steel, one with an overlapping lip to thwart lock picking and flaming pieces of paper. (In that case, the motion detector could have stayed.)

—

Do you have any security horror stories to tell? I’d love to hear them.

First off: It’s a girl! The TechBrew baby squad has a new addition with Anna Ruth Woodman. (No word yet when she’ll be blogging.)

When a geek dad like me is stuck in waiting rooms and hospital guest chairs for hours on end, coupled with lack of sleep, we tend to get a bit carried away with wanting hi-tech solutions to age-old problems. Here are the top three things I wish I had for birthing in the information age:

#1. Mobile Cervix Monitor with RSS and Twitter Capabilities

You just never know when baby will come until mom’s cervix does its thing. Rather than wait for the doctor to check (or water to break), use the Mobile Cervix Monitor to keep tabs on baby’s pending arrival.

The MCM is a standard latex diaphragm installed with a low-power bluetooth chip and a pressure sensor built into the rim of the diaphragm. Cervical dilation and effacement data would be monitored and beamed to mom’s cellphone, which would both alert mom to changes and update an RSS feed for dad. Really social moms could enable the option that sends updates to Twitter as well.

#2. Daddy’s Diaper Monitor

The DDM would have a blue-tooth or wireless transmitter that velcro’s to the front of a diaper. Real-time data would be monitored by a network-aware app on your local PC, which not only can send out alerts (email, RSS, Tweets), but can provide statistical graphing on just how long it takes food to go from bottle to bottom.

#3. Mommy Wants Ice Cream Alert System

The MWICAS functions by simple electrodes placed on the scalp of the new mom. She is instructed to think about ice cream, and the system records the neural patterns. Whenever the pattern is detected again, the system sends alerts to dad right away. This system probably shouldn’t have an RSS feed, because a standard 15-minute refresh cycle on a typical Feed Reader is guaranteed to be 14.5 minutes too late.  (I recommend using the SMS option whenever possible.)

I’m feeling generous to the LazyWeb, so I haven’t patented these ground-breaking ideas. I’ll just be happy when somebody builds them and sends me a prototype. Thanks in advance. Oh, and I could really use #2 and #3 later today, if that isn’t too much trouble. I think somebody needs ice cream.

Once upon a time, you had to go to a plumbing store to buy the stuff for a new sink. You’re going to need clamps, hoses, faucets… the works. An employee at the store with “Dave” on his shirt comes up and says, “I recommend the Really Simple Sink. I invented it, and it just works.”

Another guy named R.C. wanders over and agrees. “I love it. The faucets works pretty well, but there are a couple of extra parts you need to make sure it doesn’t leak. People make a lot of mistakes when they install it. So some of us have made a couple of minor changes to the seals and valve stems.”

Dave looks miffed, “The sink is fine the way it is.” He juts out his thumb at R.C., “Pay no attention to him. He only installs sinks, he’s not authorized to modify the design.” R.C. looks surprised, “You said I could, and you were even helping me.” Dave shakes his head, “I stopped helping, and never said you you guys could change anything.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t. The design is fine.”

“You discontinued this line, so customers can’t ever upgrade. To use the sink, people have to change some parts and get a better instruction manual.”

“No, they don’t!”

“Yes, they do!”

At this point the debate starts getting pretty heated. You get the sense they’ve had this discussion before. While they argue, you notice another employee in the next aisle. You go talk to him, noting the name on his shirt. “Hi Sam, I need a sink.”

He nods, “Try this one by Atom Manufacturing. It isn’t as popular as the older Really Simple Sink, and it is a little harder to install sometimes, but it serves the same purpose.”

“Will it leak?” you ask. Sam nods again, “Not usually, but anything can happen over the years. But if it does, you can upgrade it to a newer model. The design is actually an industry standard, so a bunch of plumbers are constantly working together on how to improve it.”

“So… what happens if the Really Simple Sink leaks?” He shrugs, “You’re out of luck; the sole inventor has discontinued that model. He’s focusing more on open-pipe machined levers these days. So, you’ll have to figure out how to plug the holes yourself. But that may not be so bad in a residential setting.”

“Oh,” you say, “But I have to install this one at work.” Sam raises an eyebrow. “You’ll want to be careful, then. Commercial plumbing has higher inspection standards.”

“I guess I’d better buy the Atom one, then.”

He smiles, “Oh, they’re both free. It’s the cost of owning one you have to watch out for.”

The End?

“Calling The Plumber” by Red Rover Studios

Click here to view the embedded video.