Everything feels like it's just going backwards. The internet is a horrible place, IT in general is a cesspit and ignorance can only get us so far. 

I've been working in IT now for 29 years. Obviously things have a changed a lot, some for the better, much not, and this is probably the modern equivalent of "In my day, this was all fields...". And the one thing that inspired me to write this down, other than a change of medication for "anxiety" for the first time in 20 years is trying to just get on a website.

"We need to make sure you're not a bot." "Please fill in this captcha that not even a human can read" "Tick the squares containing a crosswalk, even though only one 3rd world country on the planet uses the term "crosswalk" "Please check the notification on your phone/let us send you a text/check your Authenticator app".

Argh. I know security is a huge thing these days, because the internet wasn't a scoundrel's hive back in the good old days but there must be a better way, surely?

Sure, there was nasty things back in the 90s, but it was easy to find and therefore easy to avoid. You wanted adult things, knock yourself out. You wanted nasty things, Rotten dot com got you. You wanted good advice and chat - welcome, thousands of places and there was no expectation of anything in return, just become part of the community. Sites like EduGeek were ten a penny and it was wholesome. 

You could read news without having to pay a subscription on top of wading through the worst web design ever conceived and adverts on top of that all. Ironically back then, it was only geeks who frequented the 'Net, it was too complicated for the average person. Now everybody is on it, and you're strange if you don't use the 'Net, yet it's far more complicated now than it ever was. Yes you can get around some of these issues with decent browsers, ad blockers and related plugins, but that adds to the complication. It's easy for us, we know which are good, which are bad and which are outright existing only to steal your information. It isn't for the average Joe or Josephine. Back then, the worst you got was a nasty when you tried to download the latest Backstreet Boys album via Napster or Limewire.

Businesses need to make money to survive, but something has gotten horribly wrong in the meantime where businesses have to outright scam people to turn a profit or make more money than needed. You can't even get a straight headline any more, even from the more sensible purveyors of highly absorbent broadsheet toilet paper; you have to get scammed into visiting their site to read the article to find out you were in fact, tricked. 

"LEWIS HAMILTON UNDER INVESTIGATION, RISK OF BEING PUT TO DEATH!" turns out to be "Lewis Hamilton cut a corner in practice and got a warning from his team boss. In other news, a sick puppy may have to be put down due to a horrible illness".

Even working in IT has gotten horrid. Everything is being outsourced under the guise of protection and "insurance" - things like RPA have schools up in arms and basically throwing themselves at the mercy of these scams just in case something goes wrong. Sod the poor fools they hired to be the experts on the ground! We're all glad for help when it's needed, but when cast aside because "someone else can do it and if it goes wrong, it's on them and not us" - that's diabolical and all too common. All we can do is sit and watch, as we get relegated to changing the odd password, swapping out the toner in a printer or telling a member of staff why they can't use pirated software on their laptop. 

I mean, I fully understand why some of these things are in place but there's so much scaremongering going on that leadership teams feel compelled to do what they're told without seeking further advice or even involving the staff they pay to do half of these things for them. And any time you question anything, it feels like you've walked into the scene around the round table near the end of Hot Fuzz. "THE GREATER GOOD!"

Argh. Venting a bit on this really after having left a damned fine job of 13 years in a damned good school fully of damned good people because I was nothing more than a (relatively) highly paid password changer and the things I liked to do, I could no longer do, in order to manage the IT for another school - also wonderful people in a lovely school, being told it's all hands on, could do the things I like to do, the things that keep my hyperactive mind ticking over and within a couple of years, I'm sat down changing passwords waiting for the next thing to happen.

Don't get me wrong, there's always things to do and it's not as bad as it used to be, but the air of inevitability is hanging over it all like a bad smell. "You're free to innovate, but the innovation belongs to us, and we'll hand it to a 3rd party to make sure it gets properly destroyed".

Never mind. I can type "Password123" quicker than most people now.