Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The Poor Sneaks Refused to Sign the Petition – 17 Jan 1901

Noyes JF MDIn Charles Logie’s letter to his daughter, Beatrice in mid-January 1901, he reported that the ‘cursed doctor’ was forcing school teachers in American Fork to be vaccinated for diphtheria and smallpox

The weeks of debate on the subject had come to a head.  People were standing on street corners vocalizing their feelings and had created a petition to stop the vaccinations because there hadn’t been a case of either of these diseases in town.  School teachers were forced to either be vaccinated or loose their jobs.

Not all citizens agreed to sign the petition and Charles called out the Dunkley family in particular.  Doctor John Franklin Noyes was the only physician in town and had the authority and desire to enforce the vaccination rules.  Contrary to his other letters, it is apparent in the strokes on the paper that he was writing with some emotion and not purposely introducing misspellings. 

The citizens had apparently spent some time researching the right of the health board to close schools that hadn’t administered vaccinations to their students

Charles was disappointed with one of his sons who forgot to contact his mother on her birthday.  Frances Gailbraith, their boarder, felt bad because of the death of her cat and the fact that as a school teacher, she was forced to receive a vaccination.

The saga of the right of government against the desire of local citizens continues…..

 

American Fork Jany 17/01 (1901)

Dear Beatrice,

Your letter duly arrived this morning we were very Glad to hear from you as we are quite anxious about your health Since you had to be vaxinated.  I hope that you will not expose your Self unnecescarey & be sure to Keep yourself well wraped up. 

We are pleased to hear that you are having some pleasure out your way, but try not to expose yourself to the cold night air.  We are having an awfull time in our city.  Doc Noyes as ordered all children & teachers turned out of our Schools unless they submit to be Utah American Fork Original Forbes School vaxcinated by him.  So Forbes, Galbraith, Mrs. Wooton, Bill Robinson & Miss Neff complied. The rest kept out untill this week & they were notified to comply with the orders or else resine.  So the others submited with the exception of Miss Sumption who has Heart complaint & Cora Bromley would not allow herself to be impared upon by a cursed docter that is swindling the people against their will.

Bishop Bromley is looking after the interests of his daughter & there is talk that they will sue the trustees for her wages on the plea that she is perfectly competent to fill her part of the contract & that she is turned out of her employment without cause.

We had a rousing meeting in the Opera house last Monday night.  We had the law books there & everything read that had any bearing on the power of the health board & there is nothing to sustain them in closeing the Schools where there is no epedemic & we have not a case of Small Pox in our town.  We have got up a pertition to the Legislature asking them not to pass a compulsery vaxination law & nearly all of our people are signing it.  There are some few exceptions.  The poor Sneaks of dunkleys refused to sign the pertition. 

We got a letter from Walter yesterday & he sent Mother a five dollar piece for her birthday present.  He is a good fellow to think of his Mother.  Charlie is not so generous

Write again Soon & let us know how your are geting along.  Mother thinks She ought to hear from you by next Sunday.  I don't know of any thing else. Galbraith is still lamenting over the demise of her pussey.  She says it makes her inside pain her & now this vaxination trouble is on, She is pretty nervous.

The people are talking on the Street corners like they do on election times.  If there is an account of our meeting or anything about our doings in our paper we will send it to you. 

I will close for this time hoping this will find you quite well.  I am please to say we are well at home.  Annie & Perry were down today they report all O.K. up their way.

I will now say adieu for this time & remain your affect old Father.

Chas Logie

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Destroy That Drive

A fellow recently demonstrated his ability to recover data from a hard drive whose data had been overwritten a seven times using a data shredder program set to a supposed DOD data destruction standard.

If you have ever had any experience with identity theft, you understand why the hackles on the back of my neck stood up when I read the story.  I’m a genealogist.  I have a lot of data on my hard drives that contains private information about living individuals. 

From time to time I buy a new computer or hard drives and migrate my data to them.  I’ve always wiped my old drives with partition removers and then a five or six overwrites with data shredder programs thinking I was ‘protecting’ my data from dumpster divers.  In most cases, I probably did, but now, I’m not so sure.

I have a friend who manages computers worldwide that contain extremely sensitive data.  He leaves nothing to chance when retiring an old hard drive.  He takes out into the parking lot and breaks the disk platters into many pieces and throws the pieces in multiple dumpsters scattered around the city.

Is this an extreme action?  Maybe a little, but having had experience with identity theft, I find that I’m inclined to agree with his policy.  I don’t use a ten pound double-jack hammer on my old drives, but do use a 3/8” drill bit to create twenty or so holes in the drive platters before tossing them.  Additional scratches and gouges on the platters are encouraged during this process.

How are you disposing of your old computers and hard drives?   Are you carefully doing your best to remove the data using a method other than just dragging your data files to the trash and then deleting them?  Are you crushing your old floppies that had data on them? 

How about your thumb drives?  Do you keep the data on them encrypted?  The odds are that you will loose one or more of them this year or next.  It happens, especially if you are visiting libraries or other venues doing research.  We download data to the drives and in the excitement of the quest walk off at the end of a day and leave the thumb drive plugged in to the computer we were using, or on the floor after falling out of our bag, pocket, or case.  Frequently, we have all or part of our genealogy data on these drives and an unscrupulous finder may have a treasure trove of information to mine for nefarious purposes.

Think about the ramifications of someone getting the data about you and other living folks in your database and I’m sure you’ll be encouraged to make a substantive plan to remove or destroy it on your old machines.

Is the physical destruction too much work or you don’t have a drill?  Talk to the law enforcement officers in your area.  They may need some targets for their shooting range.  A hard drive painted orange may be a perfect target for some of their exercises.  Just remember to ask to observe the destruction.

If that isn’t the answer and you don’t want to destroy them yourself, consider a shop like Compax that will do the work for you.

Whatever method you use, be sure to do it.  Don’t set yourself up for a potentially disastrous problem.

 
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