Breaking Cat News by Georgia Dunn for October 01, 2021

Oh good, all four robber mice are here. Now we can get Violet’s narration as well!

OK, from the top: NATASHA is white. VIOLET is brown. ALICE is black. AGNES is gold.

Of course, not having the passwords would only slow Burt down a little. Fortunately, Grimtech, like most of us, does not change their passwords unless forced to do so.

(Side note: When you force me to change my password just when I’m starting to remember it, the password tends to get a bit rude after a while.)

Orange cat update: Romeo came back! And he brought what was obviously his brother! Clever boy. So now we have orange lovebug Romeo and slightly bigger orange Mercutio. Mercutio had dinner and a wash while I sat out there with them and then trotted off; Romeo stayed for talking, skritches, pictures, and treats. Had to leave him outside again tonight, but he seems to be doing OK. Just needs a chance to go home with someone. :)

I love Natasha dancin’ on the keyboard. And of course she knows the password….And there’s Georgia’s name and the date right there on the keyboard. Yes, folks, we’re telling The Story!

I don’t know which is more disturbing. That the passwords are so poorly protected that even the lab mice know them, or that they haven’t been changed in forever.

Burt’s an experienced hacker, and I’m not just talking about furballs.

It’s October 1. Don’t forget to turn your BCN calendar page featuring Burt along with cameo appearances by the entire RCO crew!

Mice, mice everywhere and not a one to squeak… And it’s not breaking in if you know the passwords. Possibly.

Wow! Those two had a mazing job. And all the cheese they could find. Why they left that for a life of crime I’ll never understand.

Mazes? I expect huge retorts full of bubbling liquids, weird equipment with huge flashes of electricity, and terrified lab assistants who dare not speak about the horrors that are being formed.

Looks like a mazing story.

I don’t thinks anyone will keeps years of security footage archives. It’s not practical or possible to store such humongous amounts of video data. CCTV systems usually overwrites after a week or month or something like that typically.

Awww, the little hospital gowns on the girls! :)

“Dinner for one laughter”

- Well, I must say that everything looks mice.

- Is everybody here?

- Indeed, they are, yeah. Yes…They are all here for telling the story

- All the cages are laid out?

- All laid out as usual

- You may now serve the cheese.

- Mazes today?

- Mazes every day!

- Same procedure as every year…

The late, great Otis Redding: Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay

Running this dumb maze every day

Earning some cheese, I’ve gotta say

It gets so boring and monotonous

There’s gotta be a better way,

I’m just running this dumb maze every day

Wasting time

…….

I left my home in a far-off field

Headed for Rhode Island one day

There must be more to live for

Not gonna wait for things to come my way

I’m tired of running this dumb maze every day

Wasting time

…….

Looks like nothing’s gonna change

I’m gonna have to do it my way

I won’t do what the people tell me to do

So I’m gonna do it my own way, yeah!

…….

Running around the same old maze

I am looking for better days

I didn’t go and roam

To make some dumb old lab my home

I’m gonna escape from running this old maze

Get my own cheese, no more running this maze

No wasting time!

Burt toe beans!

Echoes of …The Rats of NIMH and Archy and Mehitabel.

Same as it ever was.

Love the signature.

Love the way Natasha types. Touch key, of course.

Burt has red feet!!!

Burt, what can’t you do? You are so COOL! Swoooon!

At work once I added it up and I needed 29 different passwords with all the apps that I used.

And we’re off!!!

Oh, yeah

Mmm

Still don’t know what I was waitin’ for

All my time was runnin’ wild

A million dead end chutes and

Every time I thought I’d got it made

It seemed the treat was not so sweet

So I told myself to get free

But I’ve never caught a glimpse

How the others must grimly make it

I’m much too bored to face the rest

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Turn and face the strange

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Don’t want to be a lab rat, man

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Turn and leave the strange

Ma-ma-ma-ma-mazes

There’s gonna have to be a different plan

Crime may change me

But I can’t waste time

Mmm, yeah

- David Bowie – Changes

Oh the things ive seen done to mice.

Notice that Burt is up to no good with the robber mice surrounding him. They are a bad influence.

Well…at least they had been given medical gowns…

I did my doctoral work at Duke University which is surrounded by various labs, etc., as well as the hospital. My apartment was across the street from West Campus, and on pretty days as I walked to class, I’d pass guys in lab coats with cages in their hands. They were taking their lab animals for walks in the sun. Not all labs are full of monsters.

Ah, yes, the three different types of keyboard: QWERTY, Dvorak and GEORGIA.

OK, here’s hoping: they hack in, and collect the footage, and before they leave, they turn everything higglety-pigglety.

That’s extremely tidy cage litter. I suppose they have chores to do every morning like sweep and groom the litter, spin the ball bearing in the water bottle, and so on.

A rhyming password. I use pass phrases sometimes. I try to avoid their making sense.

Off-topic

In honor of National Black Dog Day, I’m changing my avatar back to my sweet Conan.

Loving that Burt has a technically and an obviously.

Love all the robber mice there. And I do believe that the one has a heart over her head.

From the archival footage, Natasha was eating a little too much mouse kibble (probably out of boredom). Her tail is a little, um, plump.

Does video Natasha look like she’s grimacing as she says mazes every day?

OT – Bennett, day 6

OT: October and TinyKittens

So the Robber mice are laboratory mice? That’s a revelation – at least to me! Have we been told this before?

Some additional tips for personal cyber security:

Get an add-on like “Ghostery,” “Https Everywhere,” and or “NoScript,” and use them. I have all three running. They can be configured not to interfere with sites you trust.

Be paranoid about the sites you trust. There are six on my trusted list, and even some of those I view with suspicion.

Set your browser to delete cookies when you quit the browser, and quit the browser before you go to an important site. For example, if I were to go to any financial site after browsing Amazon, I’d quit the browser first. In fact, I usually quit the browser between all sites. A few more seconds is worth it in terms of privacy and security.

Avoid clickbait. Always.

Never click a link in an email from any site unless you would bet both kidneys that the email is from a trusted source. When I get an email from my bank, for instance, it usually has a link to the log in page. I don’t follow it. I navigate to the bank site in my browser. Actually I use my password manager to take me there, but that app is completely under my control.

“Eternal vigilance is not merely the price of liberty. It is the price of life.”

Burt sure comes in handy.

You run one maze, you’ve run ’em all.