TikTok v. QuickBooks? Preparing for Data War; Or, “Good? Bad? I’m the guy with the gun.”

While everyone is distracted, what if I told you that a foreign power was able, directly or indirectly, to gain disruptive control of the data centers where your QuickBooks or other financial data was stored?

What if, on the same day as the Sino-Taiwanese/American War begins, or perhaps the day before, the enemy shut down your data in the cloud?

You frantically start by checking your connections, since you cannot access your data. Then you call your tech support, but lines are jammed. Then you call your accountant, who received 30 similar calls and cannot do anything about it.

It all happened in a blip.

Access is stopped. You cannot get to your accounting data. You cannot process orders. You cannot invoice or account for receipts. Your business is disrupted, if not stalled, and so is one-half of the entire small business entrepreneurial infrastructure of the United States. You cannot buy and you cannot sell. [1, 2] As a last resort, you call your attorney, who informs you that there are already lots of lawsuits and complex court cases seeking equitable relief.

Alas, the problem is that your data is out of the country and beyond the control of the USA. Moreover, Quickbooks didn’t provide the native means of a backup.

The enemy is not stupid. The enemy thought ahead, patiently setting it up, like the Twin Towers. The enemy had an objective and then implemented. [3, 4]

It doesn’t happen, until it does. A flanking move in a war game. War is war. Everyone was just too self-occupied to read the signs. [5]

The quote in the title comes from the masterpiece comedy of horrors, Army of Darkness, the early prescient work of Sam Raimi of later Spider-Man fame.

In the movie, the lead character, Ash, is supernaturally duplicated, and we find “Good Ash” arguing with “Bad Ash,” finding it is tough to know who is who. To all of these words and back-and-forth argument, Good Ash pulls out his “boomstick” shotgun and resolves it with a shot to the face of Bad Ash.

In shooting Bad Ash in the face, Good Ash says that iconic line. He says the iconic line that is one of the greatest lines in all of the history of all moviedom. That iconic line of the ugly truth. That iconic line that we hate to love, or that we love to hate. That iconic line that defies words and argument. That iconic line that embraces Mother Nature and refuses all socio-politico civility for the purpose of achieving the objective.

Yes, Ash says that iconic line that perfectly subsumes the history of all jurisprudence and warfare at the same time.

Behold perfection, that timeless iconic line, a masterpiece of temporal wisdom:

Good? Bad? I’m the guy with the gun.

[6, 7, 8] Now, I hold a lot of degrees and licenses, yet I can’t reduce it any better than that. It’s a tale as old as time. The pre-human apes using a femur bone-weapon. The Targaryen dragons. Hitler’s V-2 Vengeance. The USA F-35 Lightning II.

Power tends to work to help history with judging who is right or wrong, good or bad, ex post facto, so the guy with the gun tends ultimately to be the Good Ash.

The wise timeless legal maxim corollary regarding the benefits of power is:

Possession is nine points [9/10ths] of the law.

What this wise timeless legal maxim means is that whoever has possession of something has 90% of the practical advantage. Might may not make it right, but might certainly provides a great practical real-world advantage.

This wise maxim expresses that the otherwise powerless claimant has the burden of self-help or legal process. Using self-help tends to invite legal scrutiny, which transfers the question back to legal process. And we know that legal process is slow, complicated, and much of luck. I have personally litigated in federal court regarding vendor “turn off” of client data, which is incredibly complicated.

In teachings to graduate leadership degree candidates and law students, I always include a segment on the intersection, if any, between wisdom, on the one hand, and prayer, hope, trust and reliance upon luck, on the other hand. The segment tends to be included with a strong indication that “wisdom” is often conflated with “goodness”; alas, there is never a wise fool, but there are a lot of “good” fools. Thus the addage, “Stultus sapiens non est, sed bonus saepe stultus est.” (“There is never a wise fool, but there is often a good fool.”) We just ask Elizabeth Smart [9], or read our Aesop. [10]

There are wise criminals and foolish parsons. Being good and loving persons does not make us wise. Just ask the lady who tried to save the ducks. [11]

The quintessential go-to example on this issue is the wisdom of Sir Winston Churchill. Some people say Churchill single-handedly saved Western Democracy with his foresight, grit and tenacity, no less than Abraham Lincoln saved America.

We are charged by duty to remember our history and Churchill’s scuttling of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kébir, killing 1,300 French Allies. Objective matched to action. Doing what needed to be done to achieve the primary objective. [12, 13] Wise, not necessarily good. [*4] A fool and his country are soon parted. [14] And neither Churchill nor Abraham Lincoln was a fool, doing what was necessary.

So, why did Churchill order it, sinking his own allied French Fleet, killing 1,300 of his own allied French soldiers? The truth might be ugly, but it’s not complicated. Churchill studied Abraham Lincoln and knew the primary objective. [*12, 3, *13]

Churchill did not trust. [15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23] Churchill may have prayed, and Churchill may have hoped, and Churchill may have wished and desired. But Churchill didn’t trust. Serpents and doves. [*5.2]

Indeed, Churchill was not going to trust his own “allied” French. Churchill was not going to trust the enemy Hitler. Churchill was not going to trust time. And Churchill was not going to trust future circumstance.

Churchill met the truth face-to-face, and Churchill pulled the trigger.

Like Lincoln, Churchill refused the risk. Churchill controlled what he controlled, now, in a war. He told the French to do it themselves, they would not do it, so he did it for them.

Everyone argued about it. People still argue about it. [*12] Good? Bad? It doesn’t matter. Churchill knew his primary objective, and he was the guy with the gun. If wisdom and goodness intersect, it’s Wisdom’s choice. Goodness rides on Wisdom’s lap, by invitation only. [*4] Like Lincoln, Churchill knew what needed to be done, and he did it. Not everyone can do it. It’s too hard. It hurts too much. That is, to make the decision and then to do it.

But back to QuickBooks.

I’ve been a technology lawyer for 35 years. I was a SysOp before the Internet was invented, and I personally installed my first office network using telephone wiring, pre-coax-10Base2. I was lead counsel against Google—now a seminal textbook case—for their claimed StreetView trespass and privacy violations. I understand technology better than many, if not most, good and bad. [24]

Intuit might want one online version of QuickBooks; indeed, it’s easier to manage and to upgrade and update. That’s the good. But, then, they have possession of our office data. That’s the bad. Possession is power.

If Intuit (or anyone) has our data, then it has the gun. If we have our data, then we have the gun. Good? Bad?

The new technology gurus tell us it’s all about the cloud. Sure, thinking to retain possession and control of these things might be thought old-fashioned, but that does not make it unwise. Wisdom is staid. I saw a post with a frustrated consultant who could not get a straight answer from Intuit as to data location. Not good.

The key is to think and to make a decision, with prudence, considering what is at risk, simply asking: “Who has my data? Where is my data? What contractual or regulatory guarantees do I have that my data is in the United States, subject to legal process, access and vendor responsibility?” That is, “Who has the gun?

I am not a fan of government regulation, particularly where liberty is implicated, but I do think it wise, at a minimum, for companies that warehouse financial infrastructure data to be regulated to certify the location of the data warehouse stores and duly to identify the human beings residing in the United States who have personal responsibility for the data maintenance, access and integrity.

Lest we forget, Tik-Tok’s primary objective is survival first and profit second.

TikTok ultimately controls our data through a foreign power that does not hold to American free speech as a political philosophy. That is the truth. A foreign power with a gun, a big gun. That is the truth. Words and argument about free speech do not mitigate risk or power of possession, being a feign. [25] TikTok is a corporation, TikTok is not a human being. TikTok does not eat, it does not sleep, and TikTok does not feel pain. TikTok does not love free speech. TikTok loves only its own survival, which is its primary objective. That is the truth. [*2, 26, *23]

Wisdom is nothing if not prediction. (“Sapientia est praedictio.“) [*22] Wisdom will reflect, “Who’s the guy with the gun? How did he get it, and did I give it to him voluntarily? Did my operational team make prudent inquiries? Is my company responsible as a fiduciary with customer data?

We must face it. Saving countries and saving democracies is not pretty. To do what must be done. Not everyone is strong enough to do it. It hurts too much.

Each age has its war-shift surprise by technology.

When it happens, it will be a just a blip, causing pervasive catastrophe and disruption. The ambush is coming, just like it always has throughout time and history. We have to get ahead of it. It’s going to happen. The only question is when.

Therefore, let us not be fooled, but rather, let us do what is necessary, and face it.

Tik tok. Tik tok. Tik tok.

_______________________

[1] The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Hegemony—Chapter 6 Excerpt—Responsibility [#GRZ_180]

[2] The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Hegemony—Chapter 7 Excerpt—Wall Street [#GRZ_181]

[3] The Priest-Patton Scale; Or, Objective-Based Leadership [#GRZ_162]

[4] The Three Noble Cardinal Rules of Wisdom [#GRZ_189]

[5] ONE®: The LinkedIn Reference Set [#GRZ_183] 5.1 24.5 ONE: 988 [L12:54] (“Reading Signs“); 5.2 ONE: 963 [T10:16] (“Duality, Serpents and Doves“)

[6] The Reason Why Political and Economic Systems Fail; The Executive Summary [#GRZ_145]

[7] Absolute Power Resolves to Self-Interest – No. 53. The Lion’s Share – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [#GRZ_98_53]

[8] Justification. No. 32. The Wolf and the Lamb – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [#GRZ_98_32]

[9] Wisdom v. Compassion, Or, the Elizabeth Smart Prediction – No. 60. The Woodsman and Serpent – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [#GRZ_98_60]

[10] The Essential Aesop – Epilogue Reference – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [#GRZ_98_114]

[11] On Wisdom and Luck; Or, Getting Lucky is not the Same as Being Wise [#GRZ_155]

[12] The Lincoln Leadership Dilemma; Or, The Primary Objective [#GRZ_176]

[13] The Warrior Mindset – Stand for America® [#GRZ_80]

[14] A Fool and His Country are Soon Parted; Or, The Late American Lifeboat Debate [#GRZ_171]

[15] Hiring on Hope – The Business of Aesop™ No. 90 – The Cat-Maiden [#GRZ_13]

[16] Nature Conforms Action – No. 50. The Scorpion and the Frog – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [#GRZ_98_50]

[17] Wisdom v. Compassion, Or, the Elizabeth Smart Prediction – No. 60. The Woodsman and Serpent – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [#GRZ_98_60]

[18] Think Ahead. The Thing From The Seed. – No. 57. The Swallow and Other Birds – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [#GRZ_98_57]

[19] Trusting the People, Trusting the Deal – The Business of Aesop™ No. 13 – The Wolf and the Crane [#GRZ_53]

[20] Bad Bargains, Power, and Vulnerability By Temptation – No. 13. The Wolf and the Crane – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [#GRZ_98_13]

[21] Same for You, Same for Me – The Business of Aesop™ No. 48 – The Two Pots

[22] Trust, by Tendency and Prediction. No. 36. The Wolf and the Sheep – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [#GRZ_98_36]

[23] On Leadership and Trust. [And, Should We Trust the U.S. Government?] [#GRZ_160]

[24] The Google Privacy Case – 10 Year Anniversary – Business of Aesop™ No. 101 – The Porcupine and the Cave [#GRZ_84]

[25] VI. Simulation and Dissimulation; Or, The Art of the Lie. – Back to Basics Abridgement Series [#GRZ_190]

[26] The Corporate Transparency Act; Or, The Master Stroke of Genius, or Horror, Depending… [#GRZ_191]

The expression set forth in this article are solely the author’s and are not endorsed, condoned or supported by any affiliation of the author.

“Stultus sapiens non est, sed bonus saepe stultus est.” (“There is never a wise fool, but there is often a good fool.”); “Sapientia est praedictio.” (“Wisdom is prediction.”) ~ grz


© 2023 Gregg Zegarelli, Esq. Gregg can be contacted through LinkedIn.

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