Rules of Thumb: Backups and Security

Backups

Rule of Thumb 79: Every seasoned system administrator has at least two stories about backups; the punch line to one of them is ?What backups??

Corollary 1: In the second one, there were backups, but for some reason they didn?t work.

Rule of Thumb 80: Know why you back up. The strategy you need to recover from a mistake is not the same as the strategy you need to recover from a disaster, and is completely different from the strategy you need to preserve something for future reference.

Security

Rule of Thumb 81: System adminstrators are visible only when things go wrong. Security administrators, on the other hand, are visible all the time, actively making day-to-day life worse. They?re only in headlines when things go wrong.

Rule of Thumb 82: ?Secure? is to ?computing? as ?low fat? is to ?food?.

Corollary 1: We all know we ought to want it, but there are so many other more pleasant things we want more.

Corollary 2: It?s such a desireable advertising slogan that it gets slapped on everything, appropriate or not.

Corollary 3: Nobody actually goes after it until it?s too late.

Rule of Thumb 83: (Look up) Given a choice between security and dancing penguins, people will always choose dancing penguins.

Rule of Thumb 84: (Look up) The only secure computer is one that has been turned off, embedded in concrete, and buried at the bottom of a hole.