What Can a System Administrator Do? The Zoom Example
December 22, 2020
I don’t want to make a big deal of what is common knowledge among those who are system administrators. My French bulldog does not worry about a person with root access. He chews his bone and barks at UPS trucks.
I, on the other hand, do know what system administrators can do and do do. After more than 50 years of professional work, I have learned first hand what unmanaged, poorly supervised, and careless watching of watchers can yield. Let me tell you: There’s quite a bit of excitement out in the real world.
But why listen to an old timer who should be ensconced in a Covid ridden old-age home?
Navigate to “Ex Zoom China Employee Faces US Dissident Censoring Charge.” To make the story short, a person with root access or access to functions of a system administrators censored customers’ information.
Is this important?
Yes, but not because Zoom is more or less like other successful high technology companies.
The action illustrates the inherent weakness of existing controls over systems access. The alleged perpetrator may have been acting due to personal beliefs. The individual could have been paid to block the content. The person with access could have been following orders.
The point is that a system administrator can do many things: Monitor a colleague, gather data in order to blackmail a person, alter information, block content, and define what is real and verifiable.
Let’s take another step. Read “Study Finds That Robots Can Pressure People to Do Risky Things.” Let’s assume that some people are more likely to respond to robot pressure. A robot can be either a Boston Dynamics type of mechanical reindeer or a software script. An engineer with root can instruct a software robot to deliver information of a specific type to people. Some of those people will respond and maybe do risky things. Other people will believe the outputs and make decisions within that information frame. Like goldfish in a bowl of water, the environment becomes that which is accepted. That’s what a system administrator can do if so inclined and operating without oversight.
Is the online information reality real, accurate, or shaped?
Stephen E Arnold, December 21, 2020
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