This is just sad...

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This is an article I found earlier today relating to prosecutors overstepping their bounds in a number of California cases.  It is always painful for me to hear about situations like these, where a miscarriage of justice once again ruins the lives of those it is meant to protect.  The problem that I see as common among all of these types of cases is that the prosecutor typically works in some way that is both underhanded and typically illegal; presumably to get a conviction.  While I can understand it is their job to get those convictions, I doubt an employee at Wal-Mart would be commended for stealing money from people's wallets or giving away things from the shelves.  I mean, their two primary functions are to obtain people's money and move merchandise.  Right?

I can not be certain (because of different state's and county's rules) but most often I think this situation stems from the DA's office being an elected position.  The best way to get into a higher seat of power or retain your current one is to have many convictions, damn the consequences.  This is especially true among the ADA's under the current DA who most likely want to curry favor with their boss, or work towards over-taking him/her.  While I do not discount the guilt of those who act dishonestly in court, I do feel it has more to do with the system than the individuals.  I do not profess to have an answer, nor a suggestion, on how to fix this.  However, I do feel that if something is to change fundamentally in the system, it will most likely need to be spearheaded by innocence organizations such as the ones mentioned in the article.

Old people should not make laws.

The article that I posted is one of the most irritating stories related to computer crime that I have ever read.  I just want to begin by saying that I am totally for the freedom and speech and expression, however there is a line that has been crossed in this situation.  There is a difference between a company (in this case Facebook) having full rights to it's digital information and a company being allowed to obtain and hold in secret the effects of a criminal act.  In my mind, this is comparable to a non-employee walking into his friend's office, lighting up a blunt, getting arrested, and the company being allowed to hold onto the illegal marijuana and do with it as they wish.  The law was originally created to protect Facebook and other such sites from being held liable for what users did using their software/hardware.  It was NOT intended to give Facebook an all access pass to digital information that crosses it's internet threshold.  Seriously, what brilliant mind thought that a company should be given... Oh yeah... Old, rich, white guys... Sorry, I tend to forget that our lawmakers tend to think the internet is a series of tubes and that every company is just someone who tends the horses... But anyways, I just read this article and wondered if anyone else felt the same as me.  There has to be some accountability on the part of Facebook, even if it just means destroying the digital information (as best they can) so that it can not be dispersed further.

Going to start blogging more!

Despite the fact that my few initial attempts at blogging were total failures, I feel that I now have a responsibility to myself to begin anew.  The failure to write is my own doing; it was mostly due to my own lazy nature, but also because I felt no real reason to write my thoughts down.  I have always had a bad habit of keeping my thoughts to myself except in certain personal arenas such as talks with my family, with my fiance, or in the CS lab.  Having graduated and started my life in the "real world" I feel it will be important for me to express myself in a way that college used to let me do and I have little real time for recently.  I fully intend to use this space as my personal page and possibly write down some of the research and intellectual ventures I hope to work on.  If that becomes a more regular occurance, then I may make a blog dedicated specifically to my research.  I want to start independantly looking into digital security and computer forensics on a more driven scale and possibly start taking some graduate level criminal justice classes in the near future if I can afford it.  Until this starts up, I will just ramble like I used to.

On that note, working security is fun and boring at the same time.  By this I mean that it is nice to help people at the company I do security for and it is nice to be in a position that is actually related to what I went to school for.  The problem is, I thought the security position would be much more exciting than it has turned out to be.  It most likely is just the site where I am working, and I will not complain because it beats all my old jobs.  I just hope that in the meantime I can boost my resume a bit with some of my own efforts in learning and can work towards a more computer focused position in this company.  They mentioned that a bank needed a security officer with programming experience but then I got placed at a medical facility's front desk.  I don't want to push my luck however, because I know just how nice this job is and everyone that works above me treats me well... for a change.

I can't wait to start my training at AlliedBarton tomorrow. That is all...