What if your computer was manufactured by a company that cloned copies of the computers they make so that every chip and piece of hardware had the same serial numbers that yours has? And what if they made dozens of clones and sold them to the highest bidder?
What if this cloned computer would provide the same data as yours for:
Governments, the military, private security businesses and big business and schools often buy computers in bulk from the lowest bidder. Sometimes this bulk purchase will have specific conditions and at other times it might just be for 200 off the shelf computers of a specific brand and model. Perhaps a specific business is used for all purchases.
A website may be used for ordering which may be more convenient than other methods since the website will store your credit card number, shipping address and offers a credit line after you provide them with all of your confidential information.
Before the Internet came into existence I would install a dozen or more new Macintosh computers for a client and create a new in house network to be used primarily for my FileMaker solution. I wasn’t converned then with hackers from 4000 miles away but I was very concerned about what the employees with permission to use the databases.
Now I am. I installed Ad Block Plus and Ghostery plugins in Google Chrome and they are advising me as to the many data stalkers on various websites.
Free isn’t free on the Internet. Free means you are being tracked, stalked, mined, analyzed, beaconed and made part of BIG DATA and its stalkers and compilers and sellers of information. Even Filemaker Pro can be made to stalk, track and compile data. Do your users know you can grab the titles of all the documents in their Documents folder and even insert selected files into containers without them knowing about it? Do you know your new developer could do this to your computer?
Even Social Security and other government agencies employ a company to compile data about what sites we visit. The NSA isn’t the only government snoop…
The Governments’s Data Grabbing Company
Truly a market for clone computers, don’t you think?
Today with the Internet I would be seriously worried about setting up a network for a new client or where to host their files and if there files were as secure as they can be made. I would also install my fmpFirewall so they can study what is happening inside their database.
My thought is that what is to prevent that manufacturer from cloning each computer one or more times and selling them to other countries or businesses? And now one of those computers can be used to log in via your in house wifi and FileMaker would think it was the other computer, right?
I would also be concerned with what information I had provided over the Internet when asked by various websites for personal information that I wondered why they would need that. Today when asked I would provide fake information if I could.
Why are so many websites asking for so much personal information just to read their web pages or blogs or download a pdf, etc.
This email was a spam sent to me stating that I qualified as part of a group lawsuit… There are many FileMaker databases on the Internet storing the same information about clients. Lawyers may have 50,000 or more criminal records in a database. Teachers are creating personal databases of their ‘bad’ students which they share with other teachers and persons unknown.
Now you would theoreticaly have two or more computers capable of creating the same Persistent ID and the same ….
So, let’s assume that your database contains really critical information. If I were writing a spy novel or a plot for a movie featuring a FileMaker database I might create a scenario where the FileMaker solution contain highly sensitive information about potential terrorists. The company with the government contract was growing rapidly and the owner had blogged about what his company does and has a Facebook account and placed a notice that he would be hiring a dozen new people who needed FileMaker data entry and several to work as developers.
His twitter and other social networks were being read by various spy agencies and terrorist groups and their people were among the hundreds of applications this owner received over the Internet from the various employment agencies and unsolicited emails.
So the plot thickens like sour cream and a few of these spies are hired and naturally provided with their locked down totally secure computers and given account names and passwords and various credentials from Microsoft or Apple and VPN accounts and all the security stuff hackers love to crack.
The spy or spies are provided with cloned computers that match the computers of various work stations such as the developers or head honcho or the data entry clerks and so on. In spy movies it is popular for the hero or the villan to open a password protectd door that reveals hundreds of high tech weapons and he selects one. In my story that door will open to reveal a hundred laptops or Macs that are the exact clones of various computers within the organization he has been hired.
So, now when the spy logs in as Mr. Big the FileMaker database will see the exact same Get()s that it would if Mr. Big logged in…
There could be a dozen spies newly hired with clones of Mr. Big’s computer and logged in to the FileMaker database at the same time. Or into a 4D database or a FoxBase database, etc. (fmpFirewall is designed to notice if more than one person is logged in using one account but how many databases do this?)
So now the terrorist organizations are acquiring information that allows them to avoid capture, etc. If every group avoids being captured, etc. then their newly hired spies might be discovered so plots are hatched and a number of groups are sacrified and allowed to be blown up or die during an attack on their compounds. The spies remain safely employed.
Note: I am available to consult as a FileMaker developer if anyone wants to create a TV episode or move around this theme.
There, I’ve changed your world like I said I would. I’ve made you think and maybe lose a little sleep tonight.
Password dialogs don’t guarantee security of your database. Two factor authentication can be spoofed.
There are two types of people to worry about: those in the outside world who are trying to get into your database and those who you have given permission to log into your database.
How secure is your database in terms of those you have allowed inside?
#filemaker Clone My Computer, Please… What if your computer was manufactured by a company that cloned copies of the computers they make so that every chip and piece of hardware had the same serial numbers that yours has?
