SOX - Security Policy

I was asked to solve an interesting problem today. The problem is to hide the database password from everyone but the production system that uses it. The db account information is currently stored in properties files. The properties files are in plain view on the production boxes, along with the version control system, etc... The goal is to have the password reside in a single spot, and in such a way, where it is still accessible by a couple of production system across the globe, but is not known by anyone but the senior manager and the dba. hmmmm. It should also be possible to change the password by modifying it in one spot, and have every system automatically start using the new password. hmmm again.

I thought about this for a bit, and came up with using public/private key cryptography. The idea is to put a private key on each machine that needs to use the production db account. The private key will only be accessible by the system account. The system properties file will contain a guest database account that will have access to a password table. The password table will contain a crypted account information that was encrypted by the dba or the manager using the associated public key. So, the dba crypts the db account using the public key, writes the crypto into the table. Each system has a guest account to read the table and has access to the private key which will decrypt the account. The system will then drop the guest connection, and re-create db pool using the decrypted production db account. The solution sounds good, but has a major flaw. It requires a guest account on a production database system. The guest account might not sound very dangerous, but it allows the hooligan to start from within the database rather than have to figure out how to even connect to it.

Heuristic

manifesto

More to come...

Humility

I saw something today that I would not wish upon my worst enemies. I saw humanity at its core. There was nothing that could have been done. Nothing in the world could have changed it.
Our bodies are extremely fragile, and it all ends as quickly as it starts.

The Rabbi said it was meant to be. Our lives are pre-ordained, he said. It is what it is. Fate.

He went on to say that we come in to this world with our hands closed, and leave this world with our hands open. In the beginning we are selfish, and want for ourselves, at the end we take nothing except for who we were.

There was nothing to do. I stood at the edge watching as her husband shoveled dirt. It was an unbearable site, but it had to be done. And, he had to do it. To be in that position is absolutely unthinkable, the absolute misery. But it had to be done. It was very important.

That's it. That was the end. There was nothing that anyone could have done. How can our lives be so fragile, and we spend them so recklessly. The Rabbi said that what we take from this world is who we were, what we accomplished, our respect, our dignity, humility.

Time goes by so quickly. It rushes by, going quicker and quicker. I feel it now; every day time goes faster and faster. Hours roll into days, weeks, months, years. Years go by as fast as a minutes. Ideas, moments, events, opportunities, gone as quickly as they appear. Some are forgotten and lost, others remain as a memory, a feeling, wrapping themselves around us, forming who we are, what we shell take.

I need to take life more seriously, or perhaps, the goal is to take it less seriously. Be a person said the Rabbi, that's it.