A couple of firsts

As previously noted, I have known Carl even longer than I knew Gloria.  So I went to his birthday party.  It was a bit of an adventure.

It was suggested that I check out the Hullo ferry.  The Hullo people tend to market their service as an adventure.  It's not really that kind of an adventure.  Basically, it's a bus.  I am confident in that assessment, because, after I got off the Hullo ferry in Vancouver, I took a bus out to UBC.  It's basically the same experience.

Admittedly, I was on the lower deck.  The "Comfort" class.  If you pay more, you can get the "Premium" class or the "Business" class.  If you do that, you get to bring an extra bag, you get a bigger, more comfortable seat, you get to board and disembark first, and you get to sit on the upper deck.

(The lower deck is not exactly crowded, but, if you are on a full transit, as one of mine was, you had best pay heed to their suggestion to stay in your seat for the trip.  The aisles are easy to move around in, when empty, but even a few extra people moving around tends to result in blockages.  I would really hate to see an emergency on board.)

The Hullo office and lounge on the Nanaimo side is quite nice.  It's got a washroom, it's got a snack bar, and it's got a bunch of very friendly staff waiting for the next departure.  There is a rather large parking lot on the Nanaimo side.  I was traveling mid-week, in early spring, and there was plenty of parking available.  I shouldn't have worried about it, although I did, and I went way too early.  But they have guest wifi available in the lounge area, so I was okay.

Of course, you don't embark from the lounge area, and nobody mentioned this.  You actually embark from a set of lineups that are outside the office.  Because I didn't know this, I was one of the last to board, because everybody else who does know this goes directly to the lineups and skips the lounge.

Of course, it doesn't really matter, because if you buy your ticket in advance, you choose your seat.  So I had assigned seating.  Apparently, I was charged for assigned seating.  I wasn't really given an option.

There appears to be massive confusion about what counts as luggage on the Hullo ferry.  I haven't seen such confusion over bringing massive suitcases onto a journey since the last time I was on a flight to Nigeria.  I suspect that an awful lot of people are traveling from Nanaimo to get a day of shopping in Vancouver and want large suitcases to bring back their purchases.  And apparently everybody wants to avoid the extra $25 you get charged for a checked suitcase.  Carry-on luggage is free, but what counts isn't exactly spelled out.  There is one place on the Website that mentions a twenty-two inch limit.  Even in the Nanaimo lounge there is no explanation of this, nor one of those racks that the airlines have so you can measure your bags.  Actually, in terms of the allocated space on board, you could bring a medium-sized purse, or a fairly small backpack, and that's about it.  Even a briefcase is a little bit much in the comfort class area.

The seats, even in comfort class, are starting to look a bit depressed, but are comfortable enough.  So, was the ride.  The day that I happened to travel was pretty much a flat calm, although some recent high tides had apparently pulled an awful lot of flotsam off the beaches, which may have accounted for some odd movements in the travel.  The captain was probably avoiding drifting logs.  Each trip is about an hour and twenty minutes.  The view, en route, is not exactly great, but it definitely could be improved if anybody would wash the salt spray off the windows.  Actually, when I went to embark on the ferry for the return trip, I noticed that they do, occasionally, wash the salt spray off the windows, both on the upper and lower decks.  With a hose.  On one side only.  The side that I was on was not cleaned for either of the voyages that I was on.

During the trip they run various ads on screens throughout the cabin.  The safety video also ran on these screens.  Every once in a while, there was an announcement that all systems were operating smoothly.  I would have had more confidence in this announcement had it not also been immediately followed by,(and sometimes preceded by) another announcement that the guest wifi on board was not available because of system upgrades.

It's too bad that the return trip has to be from Vancouver.  The Hullo infrastructure on the Vancouver side is pretty much non-existent.  Apparently, there is a VIP lounge in a nearby restaurant, but neither arriving in, or departing from, Vancouver did I have the time to go and explore and find out where it was.  The arrival and embarkation on the Vancouver side is attached to the new convention center.  The new convention center is rather an enormous complex, with multiple levels, and a whole bunch of attached infrastructure.  The Hullo ferries arrive at, and depart from, the Harbour Air seaplane dock.  If you are not an aficionado of the harbour area in Vancouver, you can be forgiven for not knowing where this is.  The Hullo departure area can be identified from the rather squiggly handwritten word 'Hullo' that has been added in Sharpie marker to the elevator buttons.  If you can find the area where the seaplane dock is, and if you can find the elevator.  Basically, when you arrive in Vancouver, you are two blocks from anything other than the new convention centre complex.

So I had to hoof it about five blocks up to the bus loop at the Bentall Centre complex.  God was good to me, in that one of the first buses at the stop I eventually decided on was an express bus out to UBC.  Mind you, then I was at the bus loop at UBC, and, because of various areas of construction, both the sidewalks between the bus loop and Regent College were closed.

I worked the room at the birthday party.  This was basically in Gloria's honour.  Gloria always insisted that I did very well at working a room, and was quite capable at it, regardless of the fact that this is definitely not my comfort area.  I met a few nice people, and a couple of people who I wasn't quite sure why they were there.  They seemed to be not quite sure why they were there, either.  I was able to talk, briefly, with both Carl and with Betsy.  I was also able to meet a couple of members of the family.  It's interesting that, given the time that I've known both Carl and Betsy, I, over the years, had multiple reports on the accomplishments of various of their kids and family.  But this is the first time I've actually met them.

I had to leave early in order to get back to the ferry for departure time.  This led to the second first of the day: I rode in an Uber.  One of the people that I had contacted, in regard to being at the birthday tea, indicated that they would get me back to the ferry on time, and apparently this was their solution.  It was fine.  I am still not going to sign up for Uber.

Sermon - TLIS - 2.3.2 - Covert Channel

Sermon - TLIS - 2.3.2 - Covert Channel

2 Kings 4:27

When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she took hold of his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone! She is in bitter distress, but the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me why.”

Psalm 9:15

The nations have fallen into the pit they have dug; their feet are caught in the net they have hidden.

Mark 4:22

For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open.

Jeremiah 33:3

Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.

A covert channel is a communications channel or medium which is not supposed to be a communications medium.  It's a communications channel which isn't supposed to be there, a communications channel that isn't supposed to exist.  So, by and large, no access controls exist on the channel because nobody ever thought that it would be used as a communications channel.

In information technology terms, covert channels are generally either timing channels, or storage channels.

A timing channel is some indication, usually of a completely different function, which can be used to signal someone outside the system, or outside the controls of the system.  This might, for example, be a cooling fan which will run faster, or slower, depending upon the load place upon a computer or other information technology device.  When the load is heavy, the device runs hot, and the fan will that speed up in order to compensate and try to keep the system cool.  Some attacker may be able to submit extra jobs to the system in order to make the fan run hot or cold, and can have this submission of jobs controlled by information that is only available inside the system.  Then, the sound of the fan running faster or slower will indicate the data, and can be recorded outside the access control of the system.

Because of these sorts of complications, timing channels are usually fairly low bandwidth, and cannot broadcast too much information.  However, if the information is sufficiently important, even a few bits will do.

Storage channels tend to hold information, and then, when the information is no longer needed, are abandoned or discarded.  Recycled hard drives from business computers, for example, are very seldom wiped or zeroed out in order to erase the data that's on them.  Therefore, people who go to recycling facilities are able to purchase hard drives and glean surprising amounts of very sensitive information how about certain companies.

As you might suppose, from these examples, covert channels are very often the stuff of spies.  An example of a timing covert timing channel might be the opening and closing of a window blind in a certain window or house providing information.  Another example is the famous "one if by land, two if by sea" of the American Revolution.  A dead drop is a type of covert storage channel.  It isn't supposed to be a mailbox, but it is, and people will leave bundles of information which can be retrieved by somebody else later on.

A covert channel can be used to get information out of a system.  The thing is, it can also be used to get information *into* a system.  Not always plainly, but sometimes surprisingly deeply.

With respect to the Christian life, where I am going with this shouldn't be too hard to figure out.  The world has all kinds of ways to get its messages, as opposed to God's messages, through to us.  The world does not need to directly attack us, and to overtly state that God doesn't exist.  The world can just fail to mention God at all.  In this way, the message soon comes through that, well, maybe God isn't that important after all.

There are other ways that the world can get its message through to us.  For one thing, God should "stay in His lane."  God is all very well on Sunday, and in dealing with issues of personal morality, but God shouldn't talk about politics.  God shouldn't talk about economics.  After all, God didn't invent these things, we did.  (At least we think we did.)

So we say that God doesn't have any particular knowledge of, or awareness of, or interest in, or expertise in public policy.  Or making laws.  Or running a society.  (Tell that to anybody who is reading their way through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.)

So, God should stay out of politics.  God shouldn't have any opinions on homelessness, or on minimum wages, or on guaranteed annual income, or welfare, or anything of that sort.  As far as the world is concerned, God really shouldn't have anything to do with that.

God shouldn't have anything to do with business, either.  God shouldn't have any opinions on capitalism, or efficiency.

In another sermon, I speak about the concept of a reference monitor.  The reference monitor can be used to check for some of the information that may be coming to you via a covert channel.  Again, as with other aspects of life, if this information doesn't pass through the Christian reference monitor, then it may be coming to you via a covert channel.  If it comes to you by a covert channel and doesn't go through the reference monitor either, then you should be looking at any beliefs or behaviors that this information is setting up in you.  Make sure to use the Christian monitor reference monitor to protect you against covert channel type attacks against you, and feeding you information that is not to your benefit.

The covert channels that the world uses against us are, once again, means of communication that we may not see as means of communication.  There is, for example, all the material all the communication that the world does to us, but on a recreational basis.  Movies, and television shows, and plays that you just use to relax will also have all kinds of messages that the world can repeat and repeat and repeat until you simply come to accept it.  The world will keep on telling you that your own pleasure is a good thing, the world will tell you not to worry too much about other people's problems.  The world will tell you that you need a nice house, or a nice car, or a vacation, or something else that is going to use up your time, attention, and resources, rather than allowing you to put them at the service of God.

The world, of course, uses advertising to get you to buy things.  But the specific things that advertising gets you to buy are somewhat secondary to a constant barrage of messages that you need to buy something, anything, anything other than what you already have.  You deserve better.  You need something else in your life, or your life has no meaning.  You need something else in your life so that other people will like you and have relationships with you.  The world also uses advertising to get you to believe things.  (I'll buy that.)

And there are other messages coming through covert channels.  Just simply the structure of our lives, forced upon us by our society.  You have to have a job.  You must have a job and make money.  You must have money in order to live.  You cannot work, for God, for God's purposes, and rely on the fact that God will provide for you, as he provides for everyone.  Without requiring you to choose a job, and work at a job which, possibly you do not like, simply so that you can have the money to live in our money oriented society.

All of these are messages that the world sends to us through channels that we don't even recognize as communications channels.

Sometimes the messages are deeper, more hidden, and more insidious.  Recently, a technical discussion on ethics and the use of artificial intelligence had one of the participants ask an AI chatbot to contribute.  The contribution was interesting primarily because of the number of rhetorical tricks that the chatbot included in its response.  However, when the response was analyzed, it could be seen that the basis of a number of the arguments boiled down to an assessment that ethics really did not exist except as an emotional or internal state in human beings.  This, of course, is tantamount to saying that ethics do not actually exist and that any decisions on moral behavior are subjective at best.  I'd say this argument is wrong.  Hidden within it is the assumption that "ethics" is basically based only on emotions.  I would go so far as to say that the argument is immoral, and an AI that would *make* the argument is immoral.  (And the company that would make an AI that would make the argument is immoral?)

What is the world telling you that it isn't even telling you?

Sermons: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

Vega Discover, world's most unstable library software

Vega Discover, a product related to a company called Clarivate,  has got to be the world's worst and most unstable library catalog software.

The layout and design is graphics intensive, consumes enormous amounts of bandwidth, and must require an awful lot of processing on the backend.   This makes the thing pig slow in operation.

However, it is the instability of the system that is the real annoyance.  Vega Discover forgets your identity and login information with startling regularity.  In the middle of a search, everything disappears since Vega Discover has forgotten who you are.  Signing on to Vega Discover is also problematic.  Maybe it will sign on for you, but probably it won't.  Most of the time I have to sign on at least six times before I get a stable connection.  I have just given up at my local library, having tried to sign on for two dozen successive attempts in a row, none of which was remotely successful. 

Sermon 83 - The Years the Locusts Have Eaten

Sermon 83 - The Years the Locusts Have Eaten

Joel 2:25

I will restore to you the years which the locust, and the bruchus, and the mildew, and the palmerworm have eaten; my great host which I sent upon you.

Joel 1:4

What the locust swarm has left

    the great locusts have eaten;

what the great locusts have left

    the young locusts have eaten;

what the young locusts have left

    other locusts have eaten.

Joel 1:15

Alas for that day!

    For the day of the Lord is near;

    it will come like destruction from the Almighty.

Many years ago I read a book with this title, "The Years the Locusts Have Eaten."  It was based on this verse, Joel 2:25, "I will restore to you the years which the locusts have eaten."  I don't remember what the story was actually all about.  I don't really remember very much about the book: I have a vague recollection that it was a story set sometime in the late 1800s.  But over the more than five decades between that time and this, that verse has stayed with me: "I will restore to you the years which the locusts have eaten."  I can't say that, over the years, I have always believed it.

But in terms of a sermon, I am getting ahead of myself.  We should really cover this in order.  The order starts with the destruction, not the restoration.

Joel is a prophet, and like all the prophets, he is either telling what is going to happen, or explaining why what has happened, has happened.  In this case, he is explaining why what has happened has happened.  The ravaging hordes have come.  The armies have invaded Israel, and plundered everything.  And the Israelites are wondering why the day of the Lord doesn't come.  Joel is explaining that the day of the Lord *has* come.  Like Amos, who follows him in the Bible, Joel is explaining that the people got it wrong: the day of the Lord is not simply a time when everything will be set right.  It will be a time when all injustices, and unfaithfulness, will be punished.  And Israel has been unfaithful.  This is, in fact, the day of the Lord.  The Lord has finally gotten tired of the people being unfaithful to him and failing to follow his commands, and has finally decided to give them a gentle reminder in the form of their being completely overrun and exiled to a foreign land.

And when an army comes, it is not just the army that comes.  The great swarm of the army comes and fights, and kills, and plunders.  The infrastructure supporting the army comes around and plunders once again, sometimes just to resupply the army.  The camp followers come along and they do some plundering themselves.  And then various opportunists come and strip off anything left behind that they can pick up.  It's like a bunch of different styles and species of locusts coming through.

And just to establish the point, go back to the plague of locusts in Egypt and look at it in context.  The plague before the locusts was the plague of hail.  The hail came and destroyed the flax and the barley, which ripen earlier than wheat.  *Then* came the locusts, and the locusts destroyed the wheat crop, and also destroyed and ate the leaves on all the fruit trees.  This is passed over very quickly in the Bible, without comment, so it is hard to see the level of destruction and devastation that this means.  This is the complete destruction of all agriculture for the entire year.  The early grain crop is gone.  The main grain crop is gone.  Also, all of the fruit for the year is gone.  The entire year's produce is gone.  Well, you say, in full ignorance of all the agricultural requirements of what comes to your grocery store, they can just eat the animals.  Well, what are the animals going to eat?  All of the fodder stocks are gone as well.  Unless there is grain in reserve, everything, and everybody, is going to starve.

Everybody loves the blossom festivals.  The cherry blossom festival, and the shorter, but even more fragrant, apple blossoms.  Those blossoms are beautiful in and of themselves and are also the promise of the crop for the year.  If there is a late frost at the wrong time, or even just a heavy rain, and those blossoms get washed away, there isn't going to be any crop.

And yet there is that promise: if the pollinators have had *just* enough time, then, yes, there will be a crop that year.  Even if the rain washes away the blossoms, the fruit is already set, and the crop will grow.

When God makes that promise, "I will restore the years that the locusts have eaten," it is interesting to look at the ways that verse is translated in different versions of the Bible.  Sometimes the word "years" gets translated as "ears."  Obviously, since the original was in Hebrew and not in English, this can't just be the problem of a single letter being missing in some transcriptions of the verse.  So, yes, sometimes God is talking about crops, but he is also talking about the years.  God is talking about the time that is lost.  The years that are wasted in various ways.

Sometimes the translation says that the years will be restored.  Sometimes the translation says that the years will be repaid.  I came across one that said that the years would be paid back *double*.  This is a reference to parts of the law, where, if you have done something wrong and defrauded or stolen something, then, in terms of making restitution, you have to pay back more than you stole in order to restore or repay and make right the wrong that you did before.

We all have our own years that the locusts have eaten.  So how do they get paid back?  For us physicists, we have a standing joke that there is no difference between space and time except that you can't reuse time.  Once time is gone, it's gone.

I have probably mentioned elsewhere that I never had a girlfriend before Gloria.  I never had a girlfriend in school.  I never had a girlfriend in high school.  I never had a girlfriend in college.  I never had a girlfriend when I was starting out in my working career.  You don't have to feel sorry for me.  I could have married any girl I pleased.  I just never pleased any.

So that's a possibility for years that the locusts ate.  Years that I was alone.  Years of loneliness and unproductivity.

And then I met Gloria, and we knew each other for a while, and then we got married.  Somehow we seemed to skip that whole stage of boyfriend and girlfriend and dating, but we had a really good marriage.  And a few years after we got married, Gloria admitted that she really appreciated the fact that I never had a girlfriend.  Never.  The fact that Gloria didn't have to worry about me comparing her with anyone else, because I had no one else to compare her to.

You see, other people had compared other women to Gloria, and unfavorably to Gloria.  There was a husband who decided that it wasn't worth being faithful to Gloria.  There was a boyfriend who never really did decide whether it was worthwhile sticking with Gloria and committing to her.  There were even family members who made unfavorable comments in terms of Gloria's physical attractions in comparison to those of other women.

And suddenly all those years that the locusts ate became a gift, a gift that I could give to Gloria.  Even though I had never intended to, and didn't even really realize it until long after the fact.

Of course, it took twenty years ...

I definitely have mentioned elsewhere about being fired from teaching, and the long years of not teaching or teaching very little.  But eventually I did get to teach again, and in the best teaching gig in the world.  There were definitely some years that the locusts ate, but I don't remember much about the years of non-teaching, or seldom teaching.  I do remember, and have lots and lots of stories about, the years of teaching the best teaching gig in the entire world.

Mind you, it took twenty years to happen.  And another ten for me to figure out that it *had* happened, and *how* it happened ...

Sometimes, in terms of restoring the years the locusts ate, the illustration is used of women in labour.  There's an awful lot of pain involved, but there's a baby at the end of it.  In view of the value of babies, yes, this has got to be a pretty good compensation, regardless of the pain involved beforehand.

Sometimes the years of the locust are more problematic.  I am a member of a very small group that is dealing with the idea of reconciliation (and, yes, truth) in regard to the residential institutions that our government forced upon the First Nations of this country.  In this case, it is painful to have to accept that it is my culture that are the locusts: the European invaders, the settlers.  We, as the locusts, ate the language, and therefore the culture, and therefore the families, and therefore the teachings, and therefore the structures of lives for the First Nations.  Quite apart from the fault, there is the simple fact of pain, and distress, and hurt, that has descended down not only the years but also the generations.  There is a First Nations name for these meetings, a reference to the fact that it is important that we keep these meetings as a safe space for anyone to say anything.  There is another name for these meetings: "The Road to Reconciliation."  We are not at reconciliation yet.  We are not even anywhere near it.  But we are on the road, a pathway that will, hopefully, with good will and a lot of hard work, eventually bring us to reconciliation.  To find the way.  To restore the years that we have eaten.

But you don't have to go that far, and you can have a more generic example.  Any major accomplishment is accompanied by a lot of work.  The work, particularly hard mental work in solving a problem, is very difficult indeed.  There are all kinds of efforts involved in building structures of logic and ideas and concepts, putting them together, getting distracted so that the whole thing comes crashing down in your head, and it has to be rebuilt all over again and rechecked to make sure that you haven't forgotten anything that will make the whole thing worthless.  Then finally testing it out, finding that you have missed something, and fixing that problem, putting it back together again, testing it again, and finally it works!  And all of that effort, and all of that worry, and all of that work, and everything else is forgotten in that sense of accomplishment and productivity when you finally make it work.

So, we have to consider these small accomplishments.  We have to consider that, yes, there is the possibility of restoring the years that the locusts have eaten.  It is possible, as *impossible* as the wasted years that we are in now seem, in terms of any compensation ever making them worthwhile.  God has promised that He will, and He can.

As hard as it is to wait patiently while He does.

Sermon - Garden series

Sermon 2 - Broad Beans

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/01/sermon-2-broad-beans.html

Sermon 3 - Blackberries

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/01/sermon-3-blackberries.html

Sermon 33 - Transplanting

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/02/sermon-33-transplanting.html

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Fr2al8f0bNT9fTo1nYzwV

Sermon 57 - Leaven

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/02/sermon-57-leaven.html

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3oguUslGkpVxkiFlCjxeAj

Sermon 59 - Corn

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/03/sermon-59-corn.html

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1XxT0do4aFywpZPwPWrvHv

Sermons: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

Sermon - TLIS - 3.1.2 - Christian Architecture

Sermon - TLIS - 3.1.2 - Christian Architecture

2 Peter 1:3

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

Micah 6:8

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

No, we are not going to be talking about how to build churches.

When I started to teach about security architecture, and business architecture, most people misunderstood the term architecture.  Most people seemed to see architecture as a mere plan, or diagram, or outline of how you would put together security.  The architecture is much more than that.  The architecture is not a plan or a diagram or an outline.  The architecture is what allows you to develop and put together a plan or diagram or outline.

So I started to come up with an illustration for the students and candidates.  What if you were going to build a house?  For a house, everybody understands that you need an architecture.  Generally speaking, you would try and find an architect.  So let's design a house.  What do we need to build a house?

And, generally speaking, someone would almost immediately jump in by saying four walls.  And I would jump on that.  "Aha!" I would say, "but this house is in the South Pacific Islands.  We actually don't *want* four walls.  We live in a very humid environment.  We want the breezes to blow through as freely as possible.  If we don't, we are gonna have a problem with mold.  So we don't want walls.  We might want drapes of some kind, or screens, to give us privacy.  But we don't want anything to impede the air flow.  We do want a roof, because we have a lot of rainfall which contributes to the humidity.  But we don't want walls because it's generally warm enough that we are not going to be uncomfortable.  So all we need is a roof, and some screens or other curtains.

The point of this exercise is to get you to think bigger about what an architecture is.  The architecture is so big that it is really just a set of the requirements.  What is it that we need?  For a security architecture, what is it that we need in terms of security?  For a business architecture, what is it that we need in terms of our business?  The requirements are, basically, our architecture.

You also need to learn to think smaller.  The policy, for a business, is, generally, just a few sentences.  It looks more like a mission statement than the five hundred page manual that most people think about when you talk about business policy.  In terms of our house, our architecture really should only mention the need to keep the rain off, the need for some privacy, and the need for an airy feeling, and actuality.  That is the architecture, and it allows us to create something that is appropriate in terms of an actual design and implementation.

So, when we turn to trying to design an architecture for our Christian life, We only need a few basic outlines.  Love God.  Love your neighbor.  Spread the good news.  That's it.

Anything beyond this is extraneous, and actually risks becoming an impediment.  Just like our four walls in our South Pacific home.

Many people think too small with regard to security architecture.  That is, they look at it too closely.  They think that it should be a design that is to be implemented.  They think that it should specify particular vendors and particular products.  The problem with that is that when the business grows, you may outgrow that particular design, or those particular products, or even that particular vendor.  Security architecture should be able to support the business as it grows.  You should be able to expand the business, and expand your infrastructure, without violating the security architecture.

Similarly, the security architecture should be able to accommodate new business models or business plans.  If you have a small business and you are doing business as a storefront, then, as your business expands, are you able to accommodate electronic commerce or online commerce and online business?  Are you able to accommodate that within the structure of what you have been calling your security architecture?  If not, then what you have is not a security architecture, but simply a design.

So it is with the Christian life.  Our Christian architecture should be able to accommodate our concept of God growing larger.  After all, there is that wonderful book title "Your God Is Too Small."  Our God, any idea that we have about God, no matter how large, is not large enough to accommodate the reality of God.  God is just simply bigger than we think, and bigger than we could *ever* think.  If our idea of God is not able to grow and expand as we experience more of God then our Christian architecture is too small.  It cannot accommodate all of God.  As our understanding of God expands, we are going to have to change our idea of who God is, and possibly abandon everything that we have thought and considered and planned up to that point.

And just like security architecture, in terms of Christian architecture, less is more.  In order to have a Christian architecture that is able to accommodate expanding ideas about God, we have to have less specific detail and more openness.

Karl Barth's work is wonderful and has contributed greatly to theological understanding.  John Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion" is a marvelous work and has provided comfort and assurance to many Christians and theologians over hundreds of years now.  (When it was first published in French, beyond the original Latin, it immediately became the world's first best seller in a popular language.)  But in terms of utility and accessibility to the everyday Christian, I assume that many, many more people have read C. S. Lewis's less than two hundred pages that are published as "Mere Christianity."  The very title, "Mere Christianity," indicates that Lewis is considering the simplest and most basic aspects of Christianity.  Lewis is not interested in defining the differences and distinctives.  He simply wants to define what he wants to define what all Christians can agree to.  Therefore, his work is more basic and more applicable to more people.  Just about anyone from any denomination can agree to it and learn from it.

And it can stand the test of time as well.  A "mere" Christianity will be able to address the challenges of the Internet, where everyone in the world is now your neighbor.  A mere Christianity would be able to assess, evaluate, and direct the lives of Christians who are influencers on social media.  John Calvin, as smart as he was, might have had a bit of difficulty with that.

Architecture security architecture includes items such as your hardware and your software.  Christian architecture includes things like your beliefs, your philosophy, your perspective and worldview in seeing how reality actually works when there is a God behind it.  It includes other aspects as well.

The infrastructure of your life includes your resources, such as your money, your house, your car.  It also includes your very life itself: your health, your physical strength, your physical abilities, skills, and talents.  Are you willing to use all of these, as necessary, in the service of God?  Are you willing to still dedicate your life to the service of God if you start to lose some of these resources?  The architecture allows you to give a cohesive design to how you use all of this in terms of God's service.  The architecture gives you guidance as you are making decisions and makes sure that these decisions will be strategically consistent across time.  It's designed to be strategic, in that it has a longer life than any immediate blueprint or design or plan for your life in the short term.  This is one of the reasons that you don't want the architecture itself to be too specific because it can't become constrained by current or changing circumstances.  It's not going to be invalidated by changes in your understanding of the nature of God.  It should allow multiple implementations and plans for your future.  Depending on how situations change, if you don't have a Christian architecture then you will have trouble being able to quickly and effectively support needs that you see popping up in front of you, with the understanding that God has presented them to you as opportunities to help.

At a Christian meeting one time, one woman was giving her testimony, and said that she had accepted the Lord as her savior when she was four years old, and that her faith had not changed from that day to this.  I appreciate that we are supposed to have faith as little children.  I appreciate that faith is supposed to have an element of constancy to it.  But I couldn't help but think how sad it was, that her faith had not developed at all since she was four years old.  What can we know of God at four years old?  Yes, we can love him and trust him.  But we can go little further than that.  And as she had grown, evidently her faith had not.

It is this kind of issue that I seek to address when I say that we must minimize our Christian architecture, in order to accommodate a God who is large enough for the universe.  As we understand more and more of the world, God's creation of it, and the marvelous planning that went into preparing it for us, grow more evident the more you know.  Our humility, in the face of this magnificent planning, must also grow.  The more we know, the more we know that we do not yet know.  And our structure around our Christian faith must be such that it can withstand a sudden twist or shock.

I also recall another time, when I was quite alone, studying, for the first time, higher textual criticism of the Bible.  I remember the anger that I felt that I had been lied to all these years.  What was being presented to me in terms of higher criticism was obviously true, and yet all these years I had been presented with ideas and concept that were in direct contradiction to it, and were, therefore, wrong.  My faith had to withstand that kind of a shock and twist.  It did, with only a little residual anger involved.  But I can certainly understand those who have been presented with equally false information, provided by the church and the Christian society around them, and were suddenly awakened to the evidence that so much of what they believed had, in fact, been fairy tales.  And so many of them have, in that moment, turned away from the faith.

CS Lewis's mere Christianity is basic.  It emphasizes what God is, and what God is not.  It concentrates on the most basic and common elements of Christianity.  It lays out the dangers, to us, that are present in the world and in opposition to God.  For the most part it stays away from any controversial aspects and divisions between denominations of Christianity.  It sticks with the basics, the fundamentals, the most foundational concepts that we need to know to understand and follow God.  This is what our architecture needs to be.  It is no wonder that the Bible so often warns us not only that we must believe everything that is in it, but not to add anything to it.  Adding anything, as much as we may want to, carries with it the danger that this additional baggage may result in a loss of faith in the extra that has been added, with the added danger that faith itself may be lost.

Sermons: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

Sermon - CoSMI - 1.0.3 - False Assumptions

Sermon - CoSMI - 1.0.3 - False Assumptions

Proverbs 30:8

Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.

Isaiah 41:29

See, they are all false! Their deeds amount to nothing; their images are but wind and confusion.

Zechariah 10:2

The idols speak deceitfully, diviners see visions that lie; they tell dreams that are false, they give comfort in vain. Therefore the people wander like sheep oppressed for lack of a shepherd.

I must admit that I find it intriguing when people make mistakes and misunderstand situations, even if they have been given completely factual descriptions.  On occasion, I will allow these misunderstandings to persist, purely for humorous purposes.  Once upon a time I had a discussion with a young woman about using our denominational residential summer camp at Keats Island for a weekend retreat.  She was concerned about the amount of time that they would spend doing dishes.  "Oh," I said, "Hobart will take care of that."  "Hobart?" she asked.  "The dishwasher," I replied.

(For those not familiar with the equipment in commercial or industrial kitchens, I should mention that Hobart is the brand name of a line of commercial and industrial dishwashing machines.)

She misunderstood.  At this point she thought that there was a man, living at the camp facility, who did the dishes.  For the next five minutes I answered all of her questions completely truthfully.  I noted that Hobart was old, and short, and somewhat round, and of a somewhat greyish complexion.  But I never did take the extra effort to ensure that she understood that Hobart was made of stainless steel panels and piping, rather than flesh and blood.  My amusement over this whole situation was accentuated by the fact that it took place in the church kitchen, and I was stacking dishes in a different version of a Hobart dishwasher.

But sometimes we allow people to have, and to hold, false assumptions.  Especially about us.  Sometimes we even rely on them.

For example, and as a first example, generally because it's the first thing we say to anybody else, there is the standard exchange of, "how are you," expecting the answer, "fine."  Generally speaking, this is probably a lie.  We are not only allowing people to have false assumptions about us, but actively promoting false assumptions about ourselves.  Possibly we are fine.  As a matter of fact, it might be quite possible that we are more than fine.  If that is the case, we generally say so.  But if we are less than fine, very often we don't want to say so.  Very often we don't want to admit that we are less than fine.

Admittedly, we are lying to people, because they have first lied to us.  They have asked the question how are we.  And, the thing is, they don't really care.  They don't want to know how we are.  In all too many cases this is just an automatic response like saying ouch when you bump your elbow on something.  If you think that I am lying at this point, then, the next time somebody asks how are you, start telling them how you really are.  And watch to see their eyes start darting back and forth, looking for the quickest escape routes out of the room.

And, of course, on social media, we do this lying preemptively, without anybody ever lying to us in the first place.  Nobody has, in fact, asked how we are.  But we pretend that they have, and therefore start saying how great we are.  Or, and this is a more insidious and invidious way of lying, we simply tell all about the good things that have happened to us, and the interesting parts of the lives we lead, and we don't ever mention the bad things that happened to us, or the difficulties and boring parts of the lives that we lead.

Or there's another one.  This series of sermons is directed in an audience of people who are influencers on social media.  Or intending to be influencers on social media.  And there was an old book, from a number of years ago, that ask the titular title, if you were charged with being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?  Well, in your case, would there be?  You are talking to an audience of 50,000, or 500,000 or 50 million.  Whatever the size of the audience, you are talking.  You are talking about your day, your ideas, your opinions: let's face it, you were talking about yourself.  And when talking about yourself, how often, without the question being specifically asked, would people know that you are in fact a Christian?

Let's dial it back a notch.  I was married at one point.  I am now a widower.  But people don't have to talk to me very long before they know that my wife's name was Gloria, and that she was a kind, and loving, and organized, and immensely curious person, who had some interesting ideas about how much you should take every opportunity to see the world as babies and infants see it.  They may learn these things about Gloria before they ever learn that she is dead.  That's because Gloria was immensely important in my life, and has changed me, as compared to what I was before I married her, to what I am today.

Is God important in your life?  Has God made changes in you?  Would people find that out, just simply by talking to you, or by listening to you talk on your social media channel?

Or, let's take it in another direction.  What if you are presenting to your followers that you are a Christian, but your faith is a little, shall we say, fluid?  Do you really believe?  Or are you relying on the fact that there is a large Christian market, and that being seen as a Christian allows you to penetrate that market.  Is your belief in God rather vague?  Should you really be presenting yourself as a Christian, when you aren't really sure what you believe?

In trying to find Biblical or scriptural passages to support this sermon, I found a number of things that seem to relate oddly specifically to social media.  For example, there is Isaiah 41:29: "See, they are all false! Their deeds amount to nothing; their images are but wind and confusion."  Can you think of a more appropriate description of social media?  So it would seem that trying to ensure that you are as honest as possible when posting something on social media would be a very good thing, if only to cut through the masses of misinformation and even disinformation that is spread out there deliberately.

And then there was Proverbs 30:8, "Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread."  I found this amazingly appropriate.  So many of you, with aspirations as influencers, are trying to make your daily bread, your livelihood and living, as influencers from your social media account.  And pay attention to that "neither poverty nor riches" aspect.  So many people think that being an influencer is the road to riches, but if you are making your daily bread, if you have enough to get by on and enough for your needs, why is it that you need riches?

And the final passage, from Zechariah.  If you have aspirations to be an influencer, you have aspirations to be a shepherd.  You are attempting to lead people.  You are attempting to influence them and guide them.  Make sure that you do it truthfully.  Make sure that you are doing it honestly and well.  If a blind guide leads blind followers, the Bible also tells us that they will both fall into a ditch.

This (CoSMI) is a series of sermons and devotionals directed at those who work as influencers in the field of social media.

Sermon - CoSMI - 1.0.1 - Authenticity

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2026/04/sermon-cosmi-101-authenticity.html

Sermon - CoSMI - 1.1.3 - Reputation

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2026/04/sermon-cosmi-113-reputation.html

Sermons: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

I'm glad my pain, grief, and depression can bring such joy into the lives of others

He always seems so vastly amused by my grief and depression.  The fact that I am suffering seems a constant source of hilarity to him.

In reality, of course, it's probably nervous laughter.  Nervous laughter is very common.  We human beings are not good at identifying our specific emotions.  If we feel a strong emotion, it's likely to get diverted to some other emotion.  So if you are afraid, or angry, or have some other strong emotion, and expressing that emotion is inappropriate in the situation, you tend to laugh.

And I certainly inspire terror in all kinds of people in the churches.  I mean, he's a minister, you might think that he might be able to handle it a bit more than most.  But apparently not.  So he laughs at my grief and pain.

All the ministers know that I am grieving and depressed, of course.  They even joke about it.  Well, not exactly joke about my pain, but joke about the fact that you never asked Rob how he is.  You know what the answer is going to be.  Terrible.

I know that I terrify people in the churches.  My very existence terrifies people.  They don't want to think about the possibility of having a life like mine, and every time they see me, they have to.  They have to consider that, without some hidden sin, without any particular lack of faith, something bad could happen to them, and they could lose something very significant to their life, and their life could be much worse than it is now, regardless of how it is now.

So the people in the churches don't talk to me, and often actively avoid me, and learn, very quickly, never to ask Rob how he is doing or feeling.

But not all that many actually laugh at my pain.

Searching questions about genAI

I'm writing a sermon, as a part of a series of sermons and devotionals for influencers on social media.  The idea is what I remember as part of a song, possibly from the 1970s.  I couldn't remember the name of the song, or the singer, or the group.

Google failed me at finding the song.  But a number of colleagues disagree with my assessment of genAI as being a solution in search of a problem.  They claim that it is best seen as a kind of search engine.  So I gave it a try.  And they were right!

Sort of.  ChatGPT failed.  Claude failed.  Meta AI failed, although it unhelpfully suggested a bunch of other unrelated songs.

But DeepSeek succeeded.  Which I, of course, find rather heavily ironic.  The Godless Communists are the ones to help me find a gospel song, and the material for my sermon.  (Qwen, interestingly, didn't find the song I wanted, but *did* find a not completely dissimilar *gospel* song.)

The song is, apparently, a standard in bluegrass gospel music and may have been performed by various artists.  The version I've found, and the one I recall, is "If I Forget the Ones," by Dogwood.  I've now found a couple of hits on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92B9AtXqrUk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_3-h960Mx0

Sermon - TLIS - 8.0.3 - Protocols

Sermon - TLIS - 8.0.3 - Protocols

Deuteronomy 5:29

Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!

James 1:22

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

I watch too many Hallmark movies.  I particularly like the ones that involve royalty: princes and princesses, generally marrying commoners, generally Americans who are completely ignorant of royal protocol.  Usually, in these particular movies, the commoner either gets into conflict with, or runs roughshod over, the royal protocols.

There are, of course, protocols involving royalty, and celebrities, and diplomacy, and a number of other human activities.  As a matter of fact, I know an awful lot about protocols, because we deal with protocols in technology.  And it may surprise you to learn that we have protocols and technology for pretty much exactly the reason that the nobility and royalty have protocols.

Protocols are there to manage and mitigate expectations.  Protocols are there to ensure that communication takes place.  Protocols are particularly there to ensure that communication takes place, even between two parties who have not communicated previously.  This happens whether you are a commoner meeting royalty, or two diplomats representing different countries, meeting together, when they haven't had any dealings previously, but are now in conflict, or two devices on the Internet trying to send messages back and forth about their status.  Protocols establish a minimum standard for the most basic level of communication, regardless of what that communication is about.

Aside from knowing what protocols are, and do, and the importance of protocols, I have to admit that I have very little use for them.  I am a systems analyst.  I deal with problems.  In particular, I deal with problems that have occurred and are not subject to, or do not respond to, the usual standards of troubleshooting.  As Einstein's definition of madness indicates, if you keep on doing the same thing, over and over again, and it keeps on failing, then why try the same thing and expect it to work on the twenty-seventh time around?  I am the person that people call in when what they know, and what they have tried, and their normal protocols, have failed.  Therefore, I only deal in situations where the protocols *don't* work.

This is why, when my father explained a problem that had taxed the church's board for four months without any kind of a resolution, I was able to provide the solution before he had it even finished explaining the problem.  This is why, when a friend of Gloria's commented that I usually think outside the box, Gloria replied that she didn't think that I realized that there *was* a box.  I look at things differently.  I have to look at things differently, because all the people who looked at the things in the same way have been unable to solve the problem.  The normal protocols didn't work.  And, realistically, for so many of the jobs that I have had in my life, I have had to be the person who solved problems when the normal protocols didn't work.  Therefore protocols simply do not work for me.  I have no use for them.

Protocol often goes by another name: tradition.  That's the way we have always done it.  It is a perfectly valid reason to do it again that way.  Why reinvent the wheel? If it has worked before, it will, most likely, work again.  The problem arises when the way we have done it before no longer works.  If the way we have done it before doesn't work anymore, then doing it the same way is still not going to work.  You therefore have to break the protocol, and break the tradition, and do something new.  And you need somebody like me, who is not bound by the protocol and tradition, to find a new way to do things.  Or, if the way that we have done it before still works, but it doesn't address a new problem that we desperately need to have addressed, then the way we have always done it before is not going to solve the new problem.  Once again, you need something new to solve the new problem.

I have said that protocols are there to facilitate communication and processes.  At first glance, this may seem to be counterintuitive.  Like security itself https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2026/04/sermon-tlis-011-security-is-hindrance.html , protocols are often seen as an impediment to communication.  After all, how do you communicate, if you have to do it in absolutely the right way and with absolutely the right forms and words?  However, there are definite reasons for it.

As I have pointed out, similarly to the situation with security, the use of protocols is often regarded as an impediment to communication, rather than a means for communication to exist.  Sometimes protocols actually are a there for the purpose of impeding communication.  Not necessarily preventing it, but sometimes delaying it.  Sometimes protocols exist so that conversation can be slowed down.  This takes place in communications technology, as well.  Sometimes it is necessary to slow down communication so that errors aren't made, and aren't propagated.  Sometimes you need to slow down communications so that you make sure that what is said is said properly, and communicated without error.  Sometimes protocols are there to make sure that information is transmitted in the proper format.  Sometimes protocols are there to make sure that the proper things are said, and that certain unhelpful things are *not* said.  All of this can be seen as impeding communications, in terms of delaying, or making the communications more difficult.  But, in actuality, the intent is to make sure that people think about their communication.  To make sure that what is said is helpful and appropriate and moves the process forward rather than creating a problem.

Protocol for royalty is there for a reason.  People want to be near other people who are powerful.  However, if this access is not restricted, then the powerful person gets mobbed, and cannot use his or her power effectively.  This is the same whether the powerful person is a monarch, or a CEO, or a celebrity.  (When movies first started being made in British Columbia in a big way, the American actors were often delighted at the fact that they could walk down the street and go into a restaurant like a normal person, and not be mobbed.  In that case the reticence wasn't reticence as much as an outgrowth of the rather extreme politeness that is part of the Canadian mindset.) 

Establishing a protocol helps to manage expectations.  People don't expect to be able to get near the monarch, since protocol says that you shouldn't.  People don't expect to be able to talk to a monarch, since the protocol says that you don't talk to them monarch unless the monarch talks to you first.  Similar protocols apply to CEOs and celebrities.  They manage the expectations of the general public.  This allows those people to conduct their affairs in relative peace.

Similarly, in diplomacy, protocols govern the communication.  If two nations are at war, it doesn't do to grab the two leaders of the two nations and stick them in a room.  First of all there are negotiations with third parties.  The third parties contact representatives of the two belligerent nations.  Protocols are established or modified in order to determine what topics are allowed to be discussed, and what topics are *not* allowed to be discussed.  This is why diplomatic negotiations take so long, and seem to be so ineffective.  However, keeping the two belligerents apart prevents them from directly addressing insults and vituperation against each other.  Therefore, when they finally meet, an awful lot has already been agreed to, and the chance of inadvertent insults upsetting the entire process has been minimized.

As I say, in the technical world we use protocols a lot. Protocols are an agreed upon form.  I have addressed the issue of establishing communication with synchronization and acknowledgment packets.

We have protocols in the Christian life as well.  This may come as a surprise to those of you who think that their particular church is fairly non-liturgical.  But liturgy is simply what you do on a traditional basis.  Some churches have formalized their liturgy, and have books of common prayers, and lists of scriptural passages that they read, regularly, at various set times of the year.  Other churches do not have quite such a rigid structure written down, but still have a very rigid structure anyways.

For example, pretty much every church is going to have some congregational singing, announcements, scripture reading, a sermon, prayer, and a benediction.  Oh now these aspects of the service may come at different times.  Some may have the announcements first.  Some may have the announcements in the middle.  Some may have the announcements at the end of the service, or even after the benediction so that it almost seems like the announcements are not part of the service.  However, in reality, they are.  When they give the benediction, nobody leaves, and everybody stays to hear the announcements.  The announcements are part of the liturgy.

Oh, and then there is also coffee time.  Coffee time is part of the liturgy.  Sometimes it is before the service.  Sometimes it is after the service.  I attend a couple of churches where they have coffee time actually within the service itself, generally just before the sermon.  (I suppose serving people caffeine just before you preach a sermon is a good way to ensure that a larger number of them will actually stay awake during the sermon.)  But very few churches do not have any coffee time at all.  Coffee time is part of the liturgy.

We even have a liturgy for campfire devotions at Christian summer camp.  You want to burn off any excess energy the kids have left over, but then get them quietly off to sleep at night.  So you have three fast songs, two slow songs, and a devotional.

And liturgy is tradition, and tradition is protocol.  There are protocols in our Christian churches.

There are also some protocols in our approaches to God.  And there are good reasons for these protocols, as there very often are for most protocols.  We are to love God.  That is a given.  But we are also to fear God.  Fear not as in anxiety or terror, but fear as in respect not simply for the power of God, but for His righteousness and holiness.  We must love God, yes.  But we must also recognize the fact that we are not worthy of God, or God's love.  God is consistent, and grants us his love constantly.  This very constancy may inure us to the fact that the love is constant, and we may begin to feel that we deserve this love.  Fearing God, and humbly considering our own lack of holiness, is an important aspect of the Christian life.

Sermons: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

OSF - 2.22 - scams - recruitment

OSF - 2.22 - scams - recruitment

Recruitment scams typically come either via email or through social media sites.  Social media sites, particularly those directed at either career planning, professional development, or building your network of connections, can provide the scammers with a fertile recruiting ground.  Typically those on these sites are eager to divulge their skills and interests, and this allows scammers the ability to target the supposed job specifically to the victim they want to approach.

Recruitment scams are aimed at the unemployed or underemployed and are taking advantage of the vulnerability of this population to any offer of employment.  As with any scam, there are going to be some variations in the approaches here.  For example, an advanced be fraud may initially be making an appeal strictly to greed.  However, over time, a number of scammers moved away from the greed motivation, and augmented it with appeals to conscience or the desire to help.  Those particular forms of advanced fee scam stress either the pitiable nature of the illness that the scammer is supposedly suffering from, towards the end of their life, or the appeal to assist in creating a charity, and improve the lives of others.

Recruitment scams come in a wide variety of forms.  Sometimes it is a specific offer of a particular job.  In this case, the scam may be aimed at the potential employee.  In some cases, the scam is simply a phishing scam, where the scammers are trying to pick up personal information, and possibly banking or credit card information, from the supposed potential employee.  In other cases, the scammers are trying to sell, or upsell, the potential employee on training courses, certification facilities, resume services, or other services or products that may be presented as enhancing the potential employee's ability to find work.

Specific offers of specific jobs are sometimes targeted at existing employees of an existing company.  In this case, the scam is also a phishing scam, but is primarily aimed at obtaining information about the company at which the individual is currently employed.  Obtaining information about wages, terms of service, job satisfaction, and so forth can be used in industrial information gathering.

Sometimes the recruitment scam is more generic.  A fairly vague offer of work may open the door to different kinds of scams.  Sometimes the jobs are actual jobs, but very often these result in offers of gig economy type jobs.  The gig economy jobs, very often based on completed submitted work, may initially seem attractive, but once specific requirements are factored in, the hourly wage may be ridiculously low.

In addition, with regard to gig economy work, potential candidates should always realize that the payment may be contingent upon acceptable work, with the employer being the sole arbiter of what work is acceptable.  In this case, workers may find that they are doing an awful lot of work which is being supposedly rejected by the employer, but is actually being used for postings on social media and other types of situations.  This type of work is probably being reduced by the use of artificial intelligence to create slop for social media sites, and so the likelihood of encountering this particular type of recruitment scam is somewhat decreasing.

As noted, recruitment scams may be simply phishing scam approaches.  Sometimes it is not bank account or financial information that the scammers are concerned about, as much as obtaining information about the candidate.  People will be less cautious about providing details in a job interview situation, or what seems to be a job interview situation.  Normal job interviews do not, of course, delve into deeply personal matters: in many jurisdictions, this is forbidden by law.  However, very few people faced with a job interview situation will be too terribly concerned about the niceties involved with whether or not the interviewer is allowed to ask you that particular question, particularly if the interview seems to be a friendly one and the questions are being submitted in what seems to be an informal chit-chat part of the interview.  This obtaining of personal information can be passed along to scammers of other types, who will then have the ability to target this particular individual for more specific types of scams as their situation indicates a vulnerability to a specific approach.  

Sometimes it is different difficult to make a distinction between a recruitment scam, and the simple fact of an over eager recruiter, who has a job that isn't very good, and simply wants to use a shotgun approach to get absolutely anyone to take the work.  On the basis that I am an expert in a few different technical fields, and I'm a published author, I am subject to frequent approaches from supposed "publishers" who are, in fact, simply looking for writers-for-hire to turn out the latest hack job on the latest technical topic of interest.

An obvious protection against the recruitment scams is simply to contact the company for which you are supposed to be working, and find out whether they are, in fact, hiring that position.  However, sometimes the scammers try to circumvent this in a variety of ways.  For example, sometimes the job is a supposed contract job which, when the particular contract is completed, may lead to further appointment with the parent company.  Sometimes the project to be undertaken is a secret project, and is supposedly not widely known even among the employees of the company that is purportedly to hire you.  There are a variety of approaches that can be taken in order to prevent you from simply contacting the company, and particularly the human resources department, to find out whether or not anybody knows who you are, or is it aware of the position you are being offered.

Online scams, frauds, and other attacks (OSF series postings)

Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2026/02/osf-220-scams-organized.html

Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2026/02/online-scams-frauds-and-other-attacks.html

Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2026/02/osf-225-scams-advance-fee.html

Sermon - TLIS - 3.7.2 - Reference Monitor

Sermon - TLIS - 3.7.2 - Reference Monitor

Psalm 94:15

Judgment will again be founded on righteousness, and all the upright in heart will follow it.

Psalm 119:66

Teach me knowledge and good judgment, for I trust your commands.

Matthew 12:36

But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken.

When I teach the information security seminars, I have to make sure, when we come the part of security architecture that is entitled reference monitor, that the students and candidates realize that this is a concept that we are talking about.  You will never be able to go into a computer store and buy a reference monitor.  There is nothing in an operating system that you can purchase that will be labeled as the reference monitor.  There is no piece of equipment that is a reference monitor.

The idea behind the reference monitor concept is that, somewhere buried in the internals of the operating system, there is something, somewhere, that carries out this one particular function.  That is, anytime a subject wants to have access to an object, that request has to go through the reference monitor.  It doesn't matter what the reference monitor is.  It doesn't even matter if it is implemented in hardware or in software.  It doesn't matter what the rules are that govern the reference monitor.  If every single request, by *any* subject in the system, to any object in the system, has to go through one particular location that will grant or disallow access, that is a reference monitor.  If there is even a single request that can go directly from a subject to an object without going through this central checkpoint, then the system does not have a reference monitor.

Microsoft Windows, for example, does not have a reference monitor.  Any window in the Windows operating system can send a message to any other window in the system.  And "message" can be a command for the window to do something, to perform some kind of action.  This was used, to rather disastrous effect, when somebody created a virus called Shatter.  Shatter was able to operate because Windows does not have a reference monitor.

This is one of the reasons that we say that security has to be designed in from the beginning.  It is also one of the reasons that I hate, loathe, and despise Facebook.  (One of the other reasons that I hate Facebook is that you are the product that Facebook sells.  Facebook's whole business model is built on taking information that you give to Facebook, and then selling it to, well, actually, absolutely anybody who wishes to buy it.)  When Facebook was first implemented, we in the security field noted that it had all kinds of security weaknesses in it.  When we had said this often enough, Facebook decided that they would implement some kind of security controls.  And so they did.  And then they built more functions on top of all of that mess, and we complained that the functions themselves were not secure, and so Facebook slapped a bunch more security controls on top of *them*.  Now Facebook has such a huge number of security controls, in such a huge number of places, all of which will apply to certain aspects of Facebook, but not to others, that even those of us who are experts in security cannot figure out how to ensure that information on Facebook that you want to be secure is, in fact, secure.  (Always remembering, as I have pointed out, that anything that you tell Facebook, Facebook feels justified in selling to anyone else.)

(Do I have to point out, overly strongly, that Facebook does not have a reference monitor either?)

Do you have a reference monitor in your Christian Life? 

Does every thought, every action, everything you say, have to pass through a Christian reference monitor?  Does everything that you say and do get measured against Christian standards?  God's standards?

For all too many people, the answer is no.  I have, in another sermon, noted the fact that an entire men's retreat, men who were considered to be leadership within their churches and pillars of their Christian communities, greatly disliked material on work and business life that was presented to them at a men's retreat.  This was because it challenged their assumptions that, as long as they went to church on Sunday, they could do what they liked the rest of the week.  God didn't really care about business, and didn't really care about how they made their money.  But that isn't true, and the speaker, who had put together this wonderful, Biblically sound, thoroughly scripturally grounded material on how to do work, and how to conduct your business, as a Christian, did a terrific job, but was roundly rejected by most of the men at the retreat.  They didn't like the challenge to the prosperity gospel, or the challenge to the acceptance of capitalism as being completely consistent with Christianity, or the idea that how you made your money still had to be consistent with what God demanded of you.

And many people are like that.  Sometimes they fence off Sunday.  Sunday is for God, and Sunday is dedicated to God.  And they go to church in the morning, and they don't do anything particularly bad in the afternoon, either.  But, come Monday morning, it's a different story when they go off to work.

Or some men just build a fence around work.  Sunday is a holy day, and time with the family is holy as well.  And God gets to direct how that time is spent, and how they love their wives, and how they bring up their children.  But that doesn't have anything to do with what happens when they get to work.  Work is beyond the fence.  So the reference monitor that acts the rest of the week, suddenly inoperable from nine to five, Monday to Friday.

Sometimes the separation isn't necessarily time-based.  Maybe it's idea based.  There are certain ideas, and concepts, and activities, and conversations, that God is in charge of.  And God's requirements, and God's ideas, are to be a priority at those times.  But then there is there are the other times.  There's times with the guys, when it's time for locker room talk.  And that talk is a little bit raunchier, and wives and children are not as respected, and are even targets are ridicule and disappointment.

And remember, if you think you have a reference monitor, but whatever you think of as a reference monitor doesn't mediate access control for everything, then, no, you don't have a reference monitor.  (Gee, I seem to have heard that idea before.  Something along the lines that, if you sin at all, even once, you are a sinner.)

There is another way to use the idea of the reference monitor in measuring your Christian life.  Whatever doesn't go through the reference monitor, that is an indication of a false idol in your life.  If business is more important to you thank God, or even if business decisions don't get past through the Christian reference monitor, then business is an idol in your life.  If your family, and you're dealing with your family, don't pass through the Christian reference monitor, then your family is an idol in your life.  If something as small, and seemingly innocent, as going fishing doesn't pass through the Christian reference monitor, then fishing is an idol in your life.  If anything, education, choice of career, choice of girlfriend or wife, choice of romantic partner and or spouse, choice of the family dog; any of these things that don't pass through the Christian reference monitor should be examined to see if they are false idols in your life.

Also check the information that may be coming to you via a concept from another sermon covert channel, the covert channel.  See if this information is passing through your Christian reference monitor.  If it isn't, there's a good chance the world is making yet another attack against you, trying to feed you information that is contrary or detrimental to your Christian life.

And taking all of this together, if something is bypassing your Christian reference monitor, and coming possibly via a covert channel, and is possibly an idol in your life, that idol has set up in your life its own reference monitor.  You may be making decisions based on this false idol before even passing anything along to be judged by God's standards.

Sermons: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

Homomorphic encryption and authorization

Homomorphic encryption and authorization

While submitting topics to a professional group for a presentation, I came across homomorphic encryption and was idly playing with the idea.  And suddenly realized that there is a use for pretty much any form of it, which we tend to need these days.

We have, of course, been using homomorphic encryption for years, even though it has been recently rediscovered anew.  Homomorphic encryption is simply the encryption of content, and then the use of it for various functions while still encrypted.  If you choose the right algorithm for the encryption, you can perform certain functions on the encrypted material and get valid results without ever decrypting the information, and therefore exposing it to disclosure.

As I say, although recent research has developed new algorithms which allow us to add, multiply, and perform other specific functions with homomorphic encryption and encrypted data, we have been using it for years.  The way that we have been using it is the way that we store and verify passwords.  We do not store the plain text of the password.  We store a version of the password that has been one-way encrypted by means of some kind of hash function.  Storing the hashed version of the password means that the original password cannot be discovered or disclosed.  We never decrypt the original password because we can't.  (Yes, yes, I know all about rainbow tables.)  (As a matter of fact, we'll be talking about rainbow tables in a minute.)  We simply compare the encrypted hash of the password that has been entered with the encrypted hash of the password that we stored.

And I remember a situation which is quite common.  We want to grant access to a number of our employees.  Possibly all of our employees.  Possibly all of our employees and a few contractors as well.  We do not want to issue them all usernames and passwords and to authorize those particular identities for access.  That would involve an awful lot of administration.

This is a common situation and is typically seen where a building is secured and the main entrance is guarded in some form, with verification of the access rights of those who are entering.  Very often we have a loading bay at the back of the building.  The loading bay is very often used as a sort of unofficial employees' entrance.  Of course, we have to provide access to any vendors and delivery drivers who are making deliveries to our loading bay.  So we give everybody a PIN to unlock the door of the loading bay.

But this creates a problem.  We have given everybody the same PIN.  We have an awful lot of employees, and we have a bunch of contractors and delivery people and vendors who also need access.  Everybody gets the same PIN.  Not everybody takes the same care of it.

So we have a situation where we start to realize that unauthorized people have been given the PIN and are misusing the access.  Now, we could issue everybody with an individual PIN.  However, we've only got 10,000 possibilities, and if we have a thousand employees and vendors and contractors who need PINs, then that means that our address space is going to be pretty close to exhausted.  Somebody is probably only going to have to try ten PINs in a row to hit one that will in fact work.  Or we could just change the PIN once a month, and then tell everybody, absolutely everybody, what the new PIN is.  That will possibly limit the misuse for the first part of the month, but it's another big administrative task on an ongoing basis.

So we issue everybody a different password.  But the thing is, they all hash to the same PIN.  (Getting a set of passwords of this nature is where the rainbow tables come in.)  Putting an alphanumeric keyboard in place, and a little bit of hashing circuitry, we can use pretty standard security hardware for all of this.

(I mean, we could, if we wanted to, just simply use the alphanumeric conversion that allows people to remember phone numbers more easily.  No, it's not a terribly good idea in security terms: it's too easy to figure out what's going on.)  (And in case you think that I don't need to warn people about that because nobody would be stupid enough to ever use it that way, I do have personal experience of a chartered bank who actually did this in order to make their online banking compatible with their telephone banking.  Once I figured out what they were doing, I used all kinds of variations on my password, and they all worked.  I never used my actual password again for logging on to their online banking.)

At this point, everybody's got the same access code, but none of them know it.  Everybody's got a different password.  They use the password, and they get access.  If we start to notice misuse, all we have to do is look at the actual password that is being typed in and figure out who is giving away their password.  We've covered the authorization part, in terms of access to the building, and now we have some accountability, in terms of who is being cavalier with password security.

Sermon - CoSMI - 1.1.3 - Reputation

Sermon - CoSMI - 1.1.3 - Reputation

John 14:9

Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

Since this series of sermons is directed at those who are influencers in social media, reputation is pretty much everything.  On social media, perception is reality.  Your reputation is who you are.  How you present yourself is pretty much everything that anybody knows about you.  Your reputation is your brand, and your brand is your resource, your power, your actual influence.  If people trust you and think that you know what you were talking about, and that you say useful things, then they will believe you about things that they know little about.  Your reputation, which is basically the same thing as your brand, mediates how much money you will make as an influencer, how many vendors will be interested in sending you their products or having you use their services, will manage how many followers you have, how many likes your posts get, and all kinds of other things.  Your reputation is, on social media, pretty much everything.

So, you will want to think carefully about your reputation.  You will want to plan how much of your actual self you present as your brand, and therefore your reputation.  You will want to curate those parts of your life that you want to present, and those parts of your life which, well, you don't exactly hide, but you don't display, either.

Your reputation is everything.

So, what do you choose your reputation to be?  Which parts of your life do you present, and which do you not.

And, most particularly, for the purposes of this series of sermons, are you presenting yourself as a Christian?

As I pointed out in the sermon on authenticity there are issues of openness and honesty here.  You may think that there are certain aspects of yourself which do not have any relevance to your brand as an influencer.  And your belief, or lack of believe, in God maybe one of those.

Let me pose a hypothetical question to you, as I once presented to my then twelve-year-old grandson.  He had been making all kinds of anti-religious statements, knowing that it would upset both me and his grandmother.  So I asked him, given that God is the most powerful entity in the universe, as a matter of fact not even in the universe, since God created the universe, and therefore must exist outside and beyond the universe, and created any other universes that there may be, and given that this God, maintaining everything that does exist by thinking about it all, all the time, wants to be your best friend.  Given all of that, is there anything, anything at all, that is more important?  He thought for a couple of seconds and immediately spat out the answer "money!"  "God invented money," I immediately replied.  You could see, on his face, that he was coming up with all kinds of alternate ideas, but immediately realized that all of them would get basically the same response.  Finally he said to me, "you're messing with my head, aren't you?"  "Yes," I replied.

But the point remains.  If you believe in God, truly do believe in God, is there anything more important in the entire universe?  CS Lewis once said that Christianity was such that, if true, it was of infinite importance.  If untrue, it was of absolutely no significance whatsoever.  This is true.  If God exists, the fact that God exists, and the fact that God loves us and wants to be in a relationship with us, is more important than absolutely anything else that there is.  It is more important than our troubles, is more important than our concerns, it is more important than our efforts and dreams.  But if God does not exist, then the universe is simply one of those things that happens from time to time.  The universe is either mechanistic, or random, and either option means that nothing is of any importance or consequence whatsoever.

So, then, you run a channel, and have a brand and reputation as an influencer on social media.  You have a certain number of people who follow you and trust your advice.  You have a field of interest or expertise where you proffer opinions and information.  Whatever your topic may be, it probably does not have an awful lot to do with religion.  So, why bring God into the discussion?

Well, do you believe in God?  If you believe in God, is God it all important to you?  Given God's importance in the grand scheme of things, one would think that the answer was obvious, but it may not be.  Possibly you believe in God, but you believe that God really isn't terribly interested in what you do on a day-to-day basis.  If that is the case, that I would say that you really don't believe in God.  Or, rather, that the god that you believe in is too small.  Certainly the God that I believe in has his eye on the sparrow, and clothes the wildflowers in the field.  This is not to say that God is distracted, but rather that God is able to pay attention to absolutely everything in the universe, and therefore can pay attention to everything that happens to me.  And if this is true, then it has to affect my life.  The belief that there is someone who loves me, even in the darkest moments of my life, who is counting both my tears and my successes, in preparation for me to have a relationship with him, eventually in eternity, well, that has to be important.

As I have mentioned in another sermon, I was married at one time.  My wife has now died.  I am a grieving widower.  But anybody that I meet, and have a conversation with, fairly quickly learns that my wife's name was Gloria, and that she was an amazing woman.  They very often learn this before they find out that she is dead.  Gloria was important in my life.  Gloria changed my life.  And my life changed, rather drastically, once again after she died.  And if I have to mention my wife, my wife who is now dead and no longer with me, in pretty much any conversation even with a stranger, then why should not God, be mentioned in pretty much any conversation that I have with anybody?

There are two additional factors to consider when you are deciding whether or not to present yourself as a Christian in terms of your reputation as an influence on social media.

The first one is that if God actually is a part of your life, and therefore, in a sense, a part of you, that will definitely have an impact on your opinions, your presentation, your choice of topics or products to consider, and a number of other factors.  Don't you think that that is important for your public, your followers, to know about you?  It's something that can be a factor in whether or not they trust you, or realize the types of opinions that you are going to be providing.  There is a possibility that some of you will consider that being a cryptic Christian, your belief in God hidden, and seeps through in your opinions while bypassing any negative ideas that your public followers may have about Christians or Christianity.  That is a factor to consider.  But also consider that if that is the case, your God is the God of truth.  Do you want to be using hidden tricks in order to spread the message of the God of Truth?

The second point to consider is that you may believe that talking about God will harm your own reputation.  Yes, since you intend to be an influencer on social media, and your reputation is a major consideration in that choice of a career, then yes, you must be realistic in considering how admitting that you are a Christian might impact your reputation itself.  There will be those who will believe that, as a Christian, your opinions are skewed and therefore may not be valid.  I myself work in a field where a number of the leading members are vociferously and even militantly atheist.  These are colleagues that I have to work with on a regular basis.  Some of them have flatly stated that they consider that a believe in God is evidence of damaged cognitive skills: that somebody with a working brain simply cannot believe that God exists.  And I have to make sure that I work very diligently to demonstrate that my work, and decisions, and opinions in the field are supported by solid evidence and consideration.  So, yes, I do understand how the admission of being a Christian can have an impact, and sometimes a negative one, on your reputation.

But remember that there will also be those who will, even though they may or may not be public and vocal about their Christian beliefs, side with you.  And then there is, of course, the fact that if you do your work properly, do your work diligently, back up your opinions with evidence and solid consideration, then it will become clear that your work, and opinions, and presentations, are in fact useful and valid.

And one more thing.  Is protecting your reputation worth it if this means denying God?

CoSMI is a series of sermons and devotionals directed at those who work as influencers in the field of social media.

Sermon - CoSMI - 1.0.1 - Authenticity

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2026/04/sermon-cosmi-101-authenticity.html

Sermons: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html