Beginnings VI.

After these jobs (that helped me to familiarize myself with the world of computers and other parts of information technology) I was proposed to take a part in project - developing human resource information system. It should be database application running on PCs! Details aren't important, the contract was very complicated (it was in the old communist's regime), but I have to admit that the amount of renumeration was very interesting for me (as a student). Unfortunately we didn't finish the project because I graduated shortly after the start of project and then I had to get in obligatory military service.
It lasted one year. And the Velvet Revolution began one month after my return to the civil life.
Everybody knew that the changes would be very dramatic so the project was frozen.

Security issues II.

Every day we can read about computer related crimes or crimes committed using computers. Frauds are the most attractive because amount of non-cash transactions could be very high (try to write down on paper digits representing an amount of one hundred - it's "1" + "0" + "0" - and then change it to one thousand - you should only add a "0" - it is very easy contrary to adding cash ;-) ).
Many of these crimes are committed by stealing passwords - this is very old method already used by picklocks (or safebreakers or safecrackers). They knew that many users of very reliable safes couldn't remember password (or were lazy to remeber it :-) ) and wrote it down and the paper laid to the memorable place. Secretaries placed it under desk pad, in the current time they stick it under keyboard or similar place. It is the same as to write your PIN code on your credit card - very memorable place, but for all people who will deal with card.
Why am I writing about this old bad practice?
Because there are many methods and tools for securing any kind of property - for example safes :-) - that are sufficient in most cases, but people annihilate their safeness by theirs bad habits.
And it applies also for computers and computer supported technologies. People are the weakest link.

Security issues I.

Security ! It's a very important thing that people are interested in all the time from the beginnings of their being. Their interests range from personal security over tangible property security to intangible property security (currently it is mostly intellectual property).
At the present time we use personal computers on a daily basis as a helper (or assistant or aid) in work and also at home. So there is much information stored in computers' internals and the most of it is very important for us. And some information is confidential. But hardly anybody is aware of this. We find the true value of our property at the moment we lost it - or somebody takes advantage of it. (It is similar to our interest in our tangible property.)
I know that it is well-known truth, but when I see what the computer users can do and can't do, I am not so sure about it.

Beginnings V.

Concurrently with studies I tried to earn some money not to be dependent on my family support.
I started as a night watchman of a "big" computer which was located in one big room together with its peripheral devices. There was air condition in the room to keep stabilized environment of the room. I worked here for almost 2 years and I liked this job, because the team was very friendly and I didn't have too much duties.
Next job was in another computing centre and I was helping to start using a PC reasonably. As I remember, the manufacturer of PC was NCR, it has 2 floppy disc drives and external Winchester disc with capacity 10 MB (!). I don't remember size of internal memory nor type of processor. It ran on MS-DOS 2.11 and I could use Turbo Pascal v3. I remember that I developed one - hopefully useful - printing utility for them during my one year long part employment. Not much? ;-)

Beginnings IV.

And the "revolution" in IT - called PC - was going on. Also in the Czech Republic.
We obtained the first PC for our Department (of Probability and Mathematical Statistics). That PC was assembled by agriculture cooperative - one of the funny things of those years at the end of communist era.
I had a little experience with Turbo Pascal, that was very popular at the time, so I could start to use this PC as one of the first users and I also prepared part of my dissertation project on this PC. But I had to write the written part of my dissertation on typewriter, because there were no text editor for this purpose with Czech support. The first and good one was Text602, which evolves to 602PC Suite (see Software602 Inc.).