Thimbles & Care

Time to examine the anatomy of the British Library ransomware nightmare.

The Rhysida ransomware attack on the British Library last October didn’t have the visceral physical aspect that creates a folk memory, but it should for anyone who makes enterprise IT. Five months on, not only are significant systems not restored, they’ve gone forever. Remedial work and rebuilding is going to drain cash reserves intended to last seven years. It was and is bad. What makes it even more exceptional is that we now know what happened and why.

The gories are all in a substantial, detailed report released by the British Library itself. It’s a must-read if your life involves any risk of a 2am phone call demanding you drive to the datacenter, even more so if it’s the CEO pulling up the Teams meeting in ten minutes. Truth is, it’s worth much more than a read, once you realize what the report represents. To get there, let’s look at what the institution actually represents.

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If you have any years on you in this game, you will have first-hand experience of some of the factors identified in the report as enabling the disaster. Legacy systems too old to be safe, too expensive in time and money to replace, while more pressing needs exist. People who are asked to do too much with too little. The deadly inertia of complexity. New projects that leave older systems to wither in the shade. Security that rigorously defends against the wrong thing. The report is, as befits the institution itself, a comprehensive catalogue of important stories.

I don’t pretend to have any skill at budgeting, but I fear that too often asking “how much will it cost to do this?” is not balanced with asking “how much might it cost if we don’t do this?”

He didn’t quite make it to 90 years old.

When I taught High School Computer Science over three decades ago, I was able to convince the school district to purchase Pascal for the Apple IIe’s they had. It was much better than trying to teach CS in Basic.

I followed a link from somewhere a couple of months back and ended up at this old post, reminiscing about a much earlier time: Tales from the Chad Box. I was still in school in the era he talks about, so I don’t have direct memories of most of this.

Just a note that I’ve added small updates to the “About” and the “A good idea revisited” pages above.

And just to reiterate, I think UT CMP is awesome.

Redditor discovers legendary 1956 computer in grandparents’ basement

The computer in question is an LGP-30, the computer from The Story of Mel. Those of you who visited my office back when I still worked on campus may have noticed a quote I posted to my bulletin board from this story: “If a program can’t rewrite its own code, what good is it?”

This is a bit scary: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems. I’ve often joked about being a software guy, but clearly at some point there has to be hardware for it to run on.

(I did play with hardware some back when I was young. It’s probably been about 40 years since I soldered anything, though.)

I probably should have posted something here earlier, but as of March 7 I’m back working for the University, but only part time. I’ve been enjoying doing things I hope are useful, but without as much stress, and with more time for other things.

As I noted in my last post, I started working for what was then the Data Processing Division a little over 34 years ago. Now, today, January 31, 2022, is my last day working full time for the University. I will be coming back part-time in March, but I want to mark this milestone with a few comments.

First of all, I want to thank the leaders of that old Data Processing Division where I started, not only for hiring me but also for creating and fostering the developer community I have had the privilege of working with for the past three decades and more. I would mention names but I’m sure I’d forget someone. It saddens me that some subsequent management members haven’t appreciated how much that community has done to support the University, and how much more impoverished the University would be without it.

I also want to express how grateful I feel for all the members of that community. It has truly been a blessing and privilege to work with you. I salute your efforts to make the University a better place to work, do research, study, and learn. I am grateful for the many kind comments about me and the things I’ve been able to accomplish that I’ve received from people I’ve worked with acknowledging my retirement.

I hope that those of us who work designing, building, and maintaining information technologies never lose sight of the fact that, as much fun as those technologies may be, they only exist to serve actual human beings. We have an obligation to make the technology work for people, and not the other way around.

Finally, although I expect most people are aware that I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there haven’t been very many occasions during my time at work when I’ve felt like it was appropriate to discuss my faith. As I leave, I want to affirm that I do believe that Jesus of Nazareth was in fact the Son of God, born of a virgin in fulfillment of prophecy, and that he suffered for all our sins, died on the cross, and rose from the dead. I believe that salvation comes through his name, and in no other way. I also believe that Jesus called Joseph Smith to restore his church in our day, and that Joseph translated the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God from records kept by ancient prophets who lived in the Western Hemisphere.

Goodbye for now! I hope to get to work and talk with you in the future.

On September 27, 1987, 34 years ago today, I started working for the Data Processing Division at the University of Texas at Austin.

I just got a notice that this blog would be archived for inactivity if I didn’t post anything. By golly, I haven’t posted anything for a year.

I guess with all the COVID stuff I haven’t found myself with much to say.