Night Shift.

Originally posted on Tales of the Parodyverse by Manga Shoggoth.

Parodyverse characters copyright (c) 2009 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works.

---

Just to reassure you that I still exist, can still write and still have internet access (albiet the somewhat limited access at home). The new job started on Monday, so I am now working on an extremely secure site. I'll still try to drop by from time to time.

---

Night Shift.

Never the most exciting of watches, particularly in an out-of-the-way signal box on the main line between London and the North.

There were trains to see to, of course. As the passenger services became sparse the freight services started to come into their own. Here and there the odd sleeper service.

The digital clock on the wall counts the hours. And the minutes. And the seconds.

The signalman stood at the window, surveying his domain - or at least, that part of his domain that was visible. The hours crawled past midnight into the surreal territory of the early morning. The silence and loneliness emphasised by the hum of the modern electronic signalling equipment and the mindless pocking as the digits on the clock changed.

Every so often the box would be shaken as a train tore past. The whining electric motors of the sleepers; the brash roar of the diesel freight, and the thunderous hissing of the steam engines that pulled the ghost trains.

But between these moments the signalman endured the eternal silence, watching the fields as they were illuminated by the moon.

* * *

This particular night there were people toiling in the fields. This was not as unusual as it sounds, for after the late-working farmer packs away his tractor out comes the crop-circle maker to ply his trade amongst the corn. This particular night the cereologists were blessed - or otherwise, depending on the views of the farmer - by a fine gibbous moon, beneath a clear, starry sky. The conditions were just right.

The signalman watched the pattern take form. Most crop circles followed some mathematical or artistic pattern. This one, although within a circle, seemed to have no particular pattern to it. It just looked...wrong.

* * *

The circle was completed as the pre-dawn light began to obliterate the stars, throwing the landscape into a weird mix of light and shadow. In that strange light the field seemed to convulse as the harvest formed itself into a shambling mass of corn and clay. The cereologists tried to run from their creation, but the great mass caught them by the ears.

The mound huddled for a moment, as if considering its next move, then rolled forward towards the signal box.

The signalman did not run. They are not faint hearted, those who face the watches of the night; who clear the lines for the ghost trains. The creature shambled on to the lines...

There was a flash as several thousand volts from the overhead cables suddenly went to ground. There was the wail of a steam whistle and a screech of metal brakes as a ghost train sped down the line, and into the thing.

The signalman calmly reached for the telephone.

“Euston? We have a problem...”

---

What's the deal with every company thinking they're the Pentagon these days anyway? There's no need to lock down your network with cryptographic keys and biometrics. Nobody cares about your sales figures.

I wanted to wander into the moonlit field and dance around.

Channeling my inner druid (not cereologist).

By the ears indeed...

Great to hear from you, and to get a little story to boot! Nicely done!

I didn't expect people to get that one. I wasn't sure about the punchline eiter, but it was worth a try.




I try to oblige...

When I was on the APlan project (Train Planning) we had to do several 12-hour overnight shifts monitoring the production runs. The world used to get increasingly surreal in the small hours.

And I have travelled the main lines on many occasions. Once you clear London it seems to be mostly open country.

How about the fact that my last two projects gave been Government work, my previous one required a security clearance and my new one requires the next security clearance up?

It's not just sales figures companies are worried about. Most companies hold personal (and personnel), confidential (and in some cases restricted and secret) data, and exposing that - however accidentally - can be a criminal offence. Any breach of security not only looks bad (and puts the next contract at risk), but can leave the company badly exposed.

Also it's not just data exposure. I stopped visiting the board at work because some idiot had managed to let a virus into the network. It only took us two weeks of continuous effort to clear our part of the system out (physically checking each PC, cleaning it if infected, making sure the AV software was up-to-date and working). These things take a lot of time and effort to clear up afterwards.

The only reason we managed to clear our part of the system so quickly was that we were on a spur from the main network, and as soon as the infection was noticed we cut the link. We also had several tecchies on site (our entire team) and could deal with the problem directly.

That might do it. But even so, you'd think an advanced security government organization would set up a multi-tiered network. It's easy enough to do - disable all network protocols except IP, and then give the servers with sensitive data a different set of (non-routable) IP addresses than the internet connected ones. Then designate one computer as a router/firewall between the two networks, and a 2nd lesser firewall between the network and the internet.

Voila, sensitive data that the internet can't access. And "cutting the link" is as easy as powering off the designated router computer, or pulling it's network cables.





Any simple hardware firewall and non-routable IP range will protect personal data. My home network is protected that way (Airport Extreme and 10. address range). If you have strangers who don't know about safe web surfing, then add a software firewall that looks for viruses and has a blacklist.

The part I disagree with is when they push it one step further and put in a "whitelist" firewall instead - i.e. only these company approved web sites are allowed to visit. Or they technically *have* internet access to serve *customers* outside the company, but everyone inside is blocked from using it.

They always cite "security" as the reason, but it's really about control. They don't trust their employees, so they cut the web/email access, restrict telephone access, ban personal radios and music players and cell phones, put in cameras, and make sure the employees are at their desk every instant and have no choice but to work. The problem is, by my observations...it doesn't work. The ones who goof off will do so anyway, and the ones who actually work will feel miserable to be treated like prisoners. And yes, I did work for a company once who did all that unnecessarily.

I should write a book about that. Or at least a guide.





I've gone to great lengths to keep this site free of viruses - the software, for instances, intensely filters posted text to resist the posting of viruses (or even spam, which usually contains them). It has an HTML filter, which maybe I should apply for a patent on someday, that checks every HTML tag used to make sure it's allowed. The only thing I really can't protect are legitimate looking external links.

Since I visit daily, if I even think there might be a virus I'd shut it down until it's cleaned up.