IT: That Cyber Attack at the NHS

That Cyber Attack

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This may come across as a bit of a rant but this is a serious issue regarding IT in general not just the NHS but also Education and after talking to other IT professionals it’s a real problem.

 

As an IT worker in education we also get hit with these kind of issues, when it fails it’s end of the world when it’s working we often get asked “What do we do all day?”.  The later part is important because we are planning ahead, trying to upgrade equipment that you don’t see and generally working on development.  All under the radar.  No one sees it.

 

I remember moving onwards from Windows XP to Windows 7.  The first thing we did was create an imaging system which allowed us to mass upgrade a few hundred machines in a week.  Instead of manually building one at a time and installing every piece of software (average of 50) by hand taking 10 hours.  That system would take some months to develop, test and make sure it was perfect.  So once that was completed we would need to find the time to upgrade those hundreds of machines.  The good thing is doing student machines is easy during half terms.  It’s not often students are on site so we can easily run that system and walk away in each IT suite.

 

Staff PCs are a very different matter.. 

 

Remember those PCs are in use Monday to Friday 8-5 which is exactly our working hours (can’t be done remotely either because we didn’t have the capability).  We don’t work weekends and most public services will not pay IT over time (unless it was crucial like this Cyber Attack – if it was us in Education we would make up the hours – NOT paid overtime).  We also have to take in to consideration how many people do not follow standard procedures and save correctly.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve argued with senior leaders in Schools over saving on their network area and NOT the local computer.  What would happen if their PC is infected, dies or a fire occurs – it’s gone.  So we have to manually take that data to avoid being shouted at – delaying the job.  The member of staff would have freed up a single lesson for us which would not be long enough.  We warn them, scream and beg for them not to save locally but they continue to do so.  When senior leaders are not telling them to do so – instead it’s our fault if it fails and they lose the data….

 

So again we tend to wait until half terms.. which the NHS does not have – how lucky are we?  There are times though that staff are on site during the holidays which means we have to work around them or we get another argument with that staff member.   What if they have staff laptops? Which again over complicates the issue because we need it with us when the staff member insists they can’t survive without it.

 

I’ve often argued with staff who have had their laptops stolen, dropped and severely smashed (they denied the later one too till we spot the damage).  It’s our fault that their data is not saved on the N Drive.  One particular member of staff had it happen 3 times!  Till the Head Teacher had to have words.  That’s what we’re dealing with every day.  I’ve often had arguments about staff not saving to the N Drive – any excuse they can use they will use it.

 

This sums up one of the many reasons why this Cyber Attack has occurred – no one listens.  Why listen to IT? We know nothing.  We don’t do our best to predict the worst outcomes for IT, we don’t worry about backups and servers that die.  The only time YOU worry is when something DOES happen.

 

No one Listens to us and everyone knows better

The sad thing is when it comes to simple tasks people want us holding their hands.  When it comes to the bigger projects, the bigger fish and generally the top end of tasks – everyone ignores the IT experts.  You only have to look at twitter regarding sales reps, training seminars and other professionals to see this.  I’ve often covered these in my blog posts.  They hate us because we do know better.  Who knows a car best? The mechanic and engineer not the racing driver.  Who knows a ship (boat) better? It’s not the captain, it’s not the sailor but it’s the chief engineer.   Update:  As I was typing this I already had an IT consultant try and tell me it’s easy to make everything up-to-date completely forgetting the points I’m making.  We don’t control what budgets we get, we don’t control the amount of staff we have and we don’t control the hours we are able to do any type of maintenance.  I even had someone compare painting walls and furniture – you mean when that entire room is closed and not even IT are allowed in? That if those contractors are given 5 days to complete their work they will have it done 1 day early so IT can perform their task?  Again it shows that severe lack of understanding.  We’re IT not site managers or responsible for buildings.  Whoever planned for those contractors will not even tell IT that it’s happening even after we constantly whine about not knowing….

 

This is quite standard in our profession.

 

We can be quite annoying but we are because:

• We like to anticipate the worst outcomes, the what if scenarios and end of the world
• We like backups, to cover the system and generally make sure it’s working 99.9999% of the time
• We like official procedures and doing things properly
• We try our best to predict your needs before you even know them
• We are held back by time, money and staffing levels

 

The NHS Suffered heavy IT Cuts

Even if the Government gave the NHS more money I’d bet my body parts that we would still be in this situation.  Why spend money on IT when it’s currently working?

• Employ more nurses
• Employ more doctors
• Build more rooms
• Purchase more beds
• Hire more cleaners and caretakers
• Hire contractors to re-do rooms

 

There’s a million things the NHS would rather spend money on instead of worrying about an IT system which before the Cyber Attack was working fine.  Everyone does this.  In education IT is always one of the first areas to be hit with budget cuts and potential staff redundancies.  It’s also why Education goes through this nightmare of good periods to terrible periods – rarely in the middle.  You will have 3 years of good budgets, good staffing levels to revert back to poor budgets and too few staff.  It’s sad but it’s true.

 

“Patches can be deployed by SCCM” – something the IT Consultant mentioned to me.  Which costs money, which takes time to develop (anyone that knows SCCM will understand it’s fantastic but not a five minute installation).  Patching a PC also requires that machine to be on at a set time (we actually use WSUS here – something the consultant didn’t mention).  BUT – the machines must be on but when they automatically turn off late at night (we don’t use wakeup LAN – it’s in progress) it’s another milestone.  Systems like these take an age but what if you don’t have the staff? And systems like WSUS can’t be setup by a simple technician who knows how to trouble shoot.

 

We are told those PCs must not be impacted during working hours so we’ve got a period of 2 hours where those updates can deploy.  Updates are also not 100% reliable, we can at times encounter one update has killed a PC with the popular blue screen of death (although it’s no longer a BSD).  We also find that each month we don’t get 1 patch, it’s more like around 10 which must be deployed to almost 1000 PCs.  At the time when we was heavily removing XP from our site, it was a nightmare.  Fighting staff who don’t like change (we don’t make policy) fighting staff who don’t want you to interfere with their work hours (our working hours are the exact same during term time) and finally half terms are the only times we can do such large scale work.  Even those half terms get affected by students/staff on site – which we may not fully know of till last minute.  We also have the occasional building work meaning we can’t even access certain areas of the School or have power outages due to cabling works…  We currently have an entire building undergoing heavy amount of work.  Those contractors know they got till September to get their job done but what about the rest of us? Do we have to wait till staff return to actually get in to the rooms to setup IT? We’re talking dozens of PCs, boards and projectors in the space of a day.  It’s only through the sheer luck that we work well with the site staff who will demand those contractors are completed 1 week ahead of schedule so we can do our job.

 

This is what it’s like.  You are faced with the staff workers, the senior staff and contractors.  While also balancing your own holiday periods (my staff are only allowed time off during half terms).  With a team of 3 this entire thing becomes a balancing act.  We still get it done though.  IT consultants they don’t see that.  They see cooperative staff who listen to IT.  A bit like parents who see their little darling angels going to School to be nice to the teachers yet most teachers will say they are not angels and the parents don’t believe it because they don’t see it.

 

A few years ago this wouldn’t be the case and I can’t stress enough about the potential risk this School would be at if we didn’t have several changes occur.  Now this is a perfect example of what stops IT:

Lack of Time – Through endless amount of fire fighting (please see other posts about BYOD).  If there’s no time for anything to be developed what can we do?

Lack of Budget No server expenditure, no networking improvements and general IT aged to 10+ years old – To develop things like SCCM you need a  £ S E R V E R £ – usually Virtualised

Lack of Staff (2 and a bit man power employed for a very large system with heavy IT reliance)

Doing other tasks – Something especially outside of education no one understands. 

 

We’ve been expected to be:

Administration workers (printing, creating documents, dealing with letters)

Teaching assistants (supporting classrooms with general student support – not IT faults)

Media and film technician (supporting media, sound, creativity and film)

Second main reception (we’ve had a lot of parents calling us up directly)

And being teachers by showing students how to do tasks. 

 

All the above is why at times IT have issues.  It’s like saying it’s easy for a mechanic to maintain 100  cars a week while he deals with being a receptionist, finance officer and dealing with everyone’s complaints and phone conversations.  It all adds up.  Anyone that says otherwise has led a very much easy job with very little pressure  - I’ve often fallen out with IT people because they don’t realise how it is at other places.  I count myself very lucky to be where we are now at my work place.

 

Interesting thing is one of the very people responsible for my team doing the above is one of those who would complain if IT failed in any single way.  At the time we was not spending any time (not even 1 hour a week) developing.

 

Now where are we?

My team perform IT work around 95% of the year – it’s still not perfect but better.

Our servers are reliable to the point they work 98% of the year – still not perfect but we’re getting there.

Our network is 96% 1GB capacity but again still not perfect.

Our average age of equipment is now 6 years old with future ideas to help cut down costs – cost cutting still exists!

 

That’s on top of having a budget cut and staff cut.  What do we do though?  The HT has to make cost savings site wide.  Sooner or later I can see us losing another team member due to the Government costs.

 

We’ve got too many Enemies

Again it’s sad but true.  The SLT will often look at us with £££ on our heads, a resource that they can survive without.  You also have the Heads of Music and ICT who will hate us because we hold them back in their eyes.  We stop them from having what they want over what’s best for the School.  We stop them from having fancy gizmos and gadgets because we would rather spend money upgrading Windows XP to Windows 7.  We would rather spend the money replacing 10 year old equipment instead of that fancy pretty toy.  The Governors will often never see us, the kids only look at us like a stranger to reset a password and the staff… they see us as an annoyance.

 

How many will be expected to turn up Monday morning and want everything to be fixed?  You know by those staff working 9-5 mon- fri? The ones who shouldn’t be working weekends or are being paid peanuts to do extremely high pressured work?

 

You’ve also got to consider massive amount of changes that take endless amount of hours to resolve.  How many Schools go down the route of outsourcing IT, redundancies and replacement staff?  All of that takes time to resolve.  It’s like you’re trying to do your job while on a train – you’ve got no choice but to ride it out.

 

We’ve actually gone through BYOD schemes that take a lot of work out of our week and every year it’s changed in some way – taking more time.  There’s no consistency in IT especially in education.  What do people need the most? Consistency.  When you consider how much IT itself changes when other things change you’ve turned a small task to a bigger one.  The BYOD scheme occurred completely outside of the advice from us in IT.  The mess it caused was unbelievable but who cleans up that mess? We do.

 

We are NOT perfect

I once worked at a School that got heavily infected over a decade ago.  I warned those above that it could happen because we didn’t update and generally had the arrogance that it “won’t hit us”….

 

It did..  luckily enough our servers were protected because I took it out of my own hours to update them.  Our best IT suites were left untouched.  The current person in charge of IT got slaughtered by SLT (rightly so) because he only cared about his own wage package and ambition.  The sad part is.. they actually listened to him quite a lot before that day.  He knew best because he was the socialite.  He always fixed those who had the biggest voices in the School while neglecting everyone else.  Under the radar I was.

 

Then you have to think about who Schools employ – usually fresh ex-students.  They can’t manage servers, they can’t manage systems, they can’t manage budgets and they certainly can’t plan ahead.  What they can do is the simple tasks that anyone can do – reset passwords.  Not nice but it’s true.  Why do they employ ex-students? Money saving and an arrogance in to thinking IT is easy when you know the basics.  Just because someone can change a car tyre it doesn’t mean they can MOT, Service and perform maintenance on a car.  Let’s face it to fully hire a decent IT staff level you’re talking at least £80,000 when you include pensions – that’s 2-3 teachers.

 

Centralised IT

This is the biggest downside about centralising IT, resorting to agency workers and outsourced IT support.  You place all your eggs in one basket and when that has problems – you lose everything.  Centralised IT means you have more servers, less technicians and less expenditure on every day equipment.  All about one thing – cost cutting – certainly nothing more and nothing less.

 

Schools are heading down this route with MATs (Multi Academy Trusts) all for one thing – cost cutting.  They will want to link up their IT systems across the Schools, remove the need to replace equipment and cut down the staff; all for one thing – cost cutting.  They will spend money on Virtualised Servers which are fantastic but it puts them all under a single roof.

 

We will be back here again one day like everyone.  Every few years people dump a lot of money on IT, cut it all back and then revert back to day one.  The vicious IT circle I call it.  The weird thing is the very people complaining about this could be the very people who treat IT people poorly.  Whom often ask – what do they do all day.  IT is like a child where you constantly need to be vigilant.

 

I’m not surprised at all at what’s happened in the NHS and globally.  Schools often go down BYOD/Mobile technology routes because it’s pretty instead of spending money upgrading IT.  They often purchase Macs because they look pretty and you have to remember if the world was Mac – they’d be hit.  I’ve seen an infected Mac but why create virus’s and malware for systems that are rare.  Even Smartphones are being targeted far more than Macs because everyone has a Smartphone.

 

Why is IT expensive? It doesn’t have to be but you get too many fish ponds involved.  You will have the main boss, who asks a senior manager and that person talks to the consultant who then reverts to the actual IT Manager.  It takes far too many steps to get to the truth.  To the person who really is clued up.

 

While typing this blog I’ve already argued with a few who are completely ignoring these points about budget cuts.  It impacts an incredible amount.  Everyone is more bothered about throwing complaints at Hunt who let’s face it won’t understand anything or even care.  No managers at the top really deal with IT unless it’s their own iPad.  They will pass it on to someone else and down the chain.  This will all boil down to the fact that NHS leaders decided to cut back IT like most public services do.

 

Schools are not lucky – Thank the IT Staff who tend to ignore those above

Not many Schools have been hit by this mess.  It’s not thanks to good budgets or good leadership of the Schools – in fact it’s down to IT.  Those who work extra hours for no pay, those who perform remote work from home all because they care.  Many of us see the IT system as our family member.  We want the best of that IT system, we want everything to work regardless.  I can’t stress the amount of unpaid hours I’ve worked in the last 12 months let alone 4 years or almost two decades of working.  All because I care.  We’ve often seen malware infections but only on a per PC basis caused by a single staff member (had three PCs in 4 years).  Staff training really means nothing, you’re fighting staff who really don’t think about what they click on.  They save work from 10 years ago and copy to keep it.  Another 10 years they’ve built up work they didn’t know they have.

 

The thing is none of these ‘attacks’ are new.  Malware has been around for many years I think my first case of malware was around 10 years ago.  These attacks can impact education and who will be the ones blamed – IT.  While those at the top who have made the cutbacks and held back IT will be blameless.  Not many Schools can afford qualified and experienced staff – most leave education to go to business.  Many of us can earn £10K more outside of education but we enjoy the challenge it brings (plus the not so stressful half terms with not many on site).

 

So before you moan about people at the top think about those IT who actually have made big differences for peanuts (also earning less than those working in the NHS IT departments).

 

How many of us have developed systems outside of normal hours because we’re firefighting all day.  Spending our days resetting passwords, in classrooms fixing PCs and projectors while attempting to keep old outdated servers running.

 

At the time I returned to work on Monday I had already gotten over a dozen emails of staff who attempted to advise or ask are we okay.  My response to everyone was we’re safe (touch wood).  We removed XP, we keep our system updated and I made it very clear that this was the result of all the hard work we had done.

Remember us.

 

The rant

Do apologise for this seeming like a huge rant but I’ve personally been on the end of something very similar.  You are being held back by budget, time and staffing yet it’s still your fault.  You have everyone phoning you up while your still trying to fix the problem – each interruption delays you fixing it.  You have everyone telling you how to do it better; when?  Yes set it to go automatic even though you’ve not got the time or money to get that system setup in the first place.  A good little example – while I type this I’m remotely installing a piece of software.  In two whole days this is the only 20 minute window I have.  The member of staff does the same hours as me and this can’t be done remotely because of the type of software it is.  Any issues with this – it’s scrapped and I have to wait another three whole days for a chance to do it again.

 

I even remember having to stay back several evenings with a severe server failure.  One night I left on time to remotely carry on to have one member staff question to someone else why am I not staying till late to get it working.  This is the state of people that don’t fully understand IT and working with day to day people (especially large amounts with SLT who don’t want downtime).  If you tell me Downtime must happen regardless – you’ve not working in Education.

 

We’re going to be installing SSDs to every PC next year – can this be done automatically? No.  Each one has to be done by hand.  We also don’t have the means to build up those SSDs beforehand (we don’t even have them yet till budget renewal in September – meaning can’t do it during the Summer break).  This will not only cause downtime of the staff PCs but require manual installation of SIMs (won’t image) and the staff member to save all data to their network drive (not going to happen no matter how much I beg/scream).

 

People have little to no idea what it’s really like to work in an environment held back by so much, while everyone expects the world.  No one cares till it breaks, when it’s working people think we’re playing games.

 

You look at this cyber-attack, it was really caused by some one click a link on an email after already being warned not to.  That person will not be in trouble, will not get a talking to or anything.  Yet no one cares about this no one cares that this was truly caused by the everyday user.

Personal: Why the word Rape is forgetting the real victims

Why RAPE is becoming far from dangerous not only to real victims of RAPE but to those who falsely accuse and even imprison others.

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I’m going to start with something.. this is incredibly hard to admit.  I’ve been accused of rape by an ex.  This was years after we stopped seeing each other.  I can't stress that this is really hard to.. discuss openly.  I've touched upon it in other articles but never really fully described how it felt.  

I got a call asking to confirm my identity at a police station, which I of course did.  Sat down wondering what on earth am I here for?  Am I being called up for jury (no idea how the procedure is) or have I witnessed something without knowingly realised.  No – A RAPE allegation has been made.   My heart it rock bottom, my life is over, this must be my fault..  I work in a School my job is gone.. my relationship at the time would be finished.. Prison.. I want to die.    It was an Ex who made an allegation.  An ex that I had not seen for some years… why is she doing this.. I know we didn’t end on good terms but it wasn’t world war either.. why…  what could I have done.  This was pretty much my response to the officer – I’m dead?  I’m guilty because there’s no proof that I’m innocent.  All those text messages between us.. everything… there’s no proof…..

The officer who was talking to me at the time admitted that yes I’m correct.  He admitted that having dealt with hundreds of cases this is seemingly like an upset ex.  She seemed more interested in getting “one up” on me instead of being a victim.  She seemed more interested in me “grinning” than anything.  The officer was completely understanding at the time and I must say without his comfort I don’t know what I would have done.

So he asked if we can do an interview, would I like a Lawyer.  I said no lawyer.. let’s do this now.  I had to go in to a large amount of details about our relationship, the sex we had and generally everything.  To a complete stranger sitting there asking me questions about something that occurred years ago.  I had to go in to detail about sexual positions, what we did and where.  It was very uncomfortable and all I could think about is why… prison.. why…

The ex had said what I was accused of: forced her in to oral, I had said no but I asked a few times but she didn’t do it not once.  She said it was not something that she likes so that was that. Officer said did I force her in an alley? I said we only did things in the car twice maybe three nights and her apartment for the rest.  I had to go in to detail where in the apartment – main room and bedroom quite a few times.  Was there anyone else about? No but she had talked about us.  In fact some of her friends commented how happier she seemed now she has a boyfriend.  I believe it was this last bit of detail that helped my side.  The additional parts I said during the interview was the fact we’d have to get her friends involved at the time (they all moved on years ago).  What about text messages? All deleted.  Who keeps text messages let alone sexual ones?  Ones where she would message me about coming to hers to do stuff to her.  I had to say about her being on top and even when she wasn’t on top – she’d offer because she preferred it and she knew I did too.  I even mentioned the fact that towards the end our relationship was falling a apart and I begun seeing someone else.  That someone else posted something on my Facebook page and my ex instantly responded “that’s not appropriate”.  That was also something that wasn’t mentioned – jealousy by my ex who had accused me of RAPE.    I had to also mention the fact she would at times greet me in nothing but a bath robe…  text me wanting to see me.. wanting to sleep with me (actual words in text messages not assumptions).

This was incredibly hard to sit there and say.. .. my life was still over.. I’m guilty till proven innocent.

After the interview the officer said again that he has to take it to someone else because of the lack of evidence, two people are going to decide if this goes further.   Two people are going to decide my fate, court and prison is all that’s running through my head.  He said it does seem like a disgruntled ex who perhaps has seen my picture on social media happy and not liked it at all.  Perhaps she has suffered something at home and had to report it not realising we might be able to track me down.  The officer said – if I had sold my car they wouldn’t have tracked me down.  He said that perhaps she has been raped and instead of giving the real ones name she chose mine out of a hat.  Really didn’t make me feel good at all… 

He offered to be there if I wanted to talk.  I just wanted to go home.  I told my other half and she didn’t know how to react.  She was shocked (considering I’m not the person to pressure anyone in to sex let alone RAPE).  She too didn’t know how to react.

I think the fact I was able to recollect so much from memory was what saved my life.  I got the feeling that maybe my ex had not been so forth coming about the details.  About going on top voluntarily several times, sex in the apartment and in multiple locations.  We had been seeing each other for a few months.   And we had never really drank anything so there was no intoxication – I had to drive all the time and she wasn’t much of a drinker.

It was some months I later found out that it wouldn’t be going any further.  This was one of those moments I felt beyond relief, a life defining moment.  Again the officer offered to talk to me.  I said thank you it’s okay.  He advised that I block her instantly on any social media and never make an attempt to contact her.  He also said on how she reacted "I bet he's grinning about this".  My reaction? That's the least I care about I could have seen prison.  I feel beyond relief... I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.  All those questionable thoughts that were going through my head.  One being suicide.  I'm not built for prison.  Prisons that are full of rapists, murderers and the worst people in this Country.

I said I can’t do nothing about what she has put me through because it didn’t go to court? He responded yes sadly.  So a false RAPE accusation that made me actually consider nightmare scenarios will end here?  No..  even now it still sits in my head years after the accusation.  Her life continues to go on.  Regardless of the reasons for doing it.. her rape accusation is no different to a real rape victim.  The fact that it would even get this far with no evidence, her word against mine and the only reason I got let off was what exactly? Nothing really.  Maybe it was the difference in interviews and that was it?

So my story is over..  but what of others? what of real rapes or drunk rape accusations or false rape accusations?

It made me really think about all those other people, every rape allegation that hits the press – are they true? Are they false accusations?  How many men have been falsely imprisoned.  For what? Because the woman didn't feel good about her self? Had a bad life event? Or generally thought about the guy and wanted to hurt him.

The truth is I am guilty of something, I’m guilty of going through a period where I didn’t want serious relationships. I only wanted fun like men typical do at a young age.  I gave up on relationships having so many that failed.  So yes I am guilty of something.  I’m guilty of sleeping with someone knowing I didn’t want to spend my life with.  I used her for pleasure, company and nothing more.  I'm completely guilty of becoming the very person I resented (my other exs) who didn't want to settle down when I was young.

So I put this to you – Next time you hear a RAPE allegation.  Slowly think,
what would a woman do when she’s been dumped?
What would a woman do if she woke up in a hotel room after a night of sex to find the man has gone?
What would a woman do to a man if she found out he was cheating?
What if she saw him being the husband, father to her children and seeing him with another woman?

So again I put this to you.  Could a RAPE accusation really be a false one? So easily? With little to no evidence?  We are in dangerous territory right now where real victims are being ignored while police are wasting their time on false accusations because if there’s no evidence it’s one person’s word against another.  This is not how justice works.

Is it justice that I had go through that period of months where I didn't know if a call was coming, demanding me to be arrested or appear on trial?  For that ex of mine to get "scott free"?  Is that justice?  Even now the emotional damage caused by it lingers in my head.  That what if any other ex of mine decided to do it? What of those one night stands or flings I had? What If they do the same thing?  Nothing stops them.  Most of my previous relationships like most people didn't end well - it's why they became my exs.

Again what is justice exactly?  We instantly brand every man a rapist for sleeping with a woman who's had a few drinks.  What if they are both just as intoxicated?  If a woman isn't capable of giving consent because she's had 4 bottles and a few shots (still capable of walking straight, talking sense and fully aware of what she's doing and where she's going) - does that mean she isn't responsible if she decides to drink drive? Which still occurs even now by adults.  Does that mean that no actions caused by her being drunk is she held accountable?  And before you jump on the band wagon - I deem drunk where you're no longer "tipsy".  I consider tipsy where you're not much over the limit of driving.  I consider drunk where you've been out for a few hours, had a few rounds and maybe a few shots.  I do not class drunk as being paralytic or unconscious and not able walk.

Again what is justice exactly?
If a woman claims to having no recollection of the night.  What proof is there? None.
Only her word.
What proof is there that she got on top, did multiple positions and freely had sex for a few hours? Only her word.

I've had drunk sex, I've had sex only with girlfriends at the time that were drunk.  I've never not been with a woman that didn't remember or regret it during the relationship.
What if they had though?
What if they hated me for it?  What stopped them saying the word rape.  Nothing.  Evidence? none. Only her word against mine.

Think about a different situation.  Two men in an alley, one man has a gun and is about to kill the other bloke.  They both fight.  The man who had gun is the one who gets shot.  Finger prints of both men are on the gun - no witnesses.  Both men claim it belongs to the other guy and they were attacked by each other.  If there's no major witness potentially the guy who was fighting for his own life could be the one sentenced to prison for attempted murder.  Technically it's possible.

I once watched an American report (only within the last few days of April 2017).  It was a woman who got 2 months for falsely sending a man to prison for 4 years.  Only reason this came to light? Because guilt hit the woman too much and she confessed.  After a man had already spent 4 years in prison.  She apologised and said sorry.  She got two months - is that justice?  All this was about false sexual assault.

There was no evidence, only her word against his.  This is the justice of society we live in.  You have real victims worried about not getting a sentence and you have victims of false allegations going through what I went through.  Do you think my ex has any remorse over it?  No I doubt it.

So again how does justice work?

In all my years, I've never constantly asked "do you consent to this".  No one does.  Love, sex - it's all about the heat of the moment.  Unless you are doing or trying different things (fetishes etc) who really asks do you constent to this every 2 minutes?  I've never been asked if I consent to sex ever.  And I've never needed to ask.

When you touch each other, when you kiss each other - breathing increases, the groans and the moans.  You feel each other harder.  Clothes come off, sex occurs.  That's normal.

Are we at this stage where we also have to record it? to prove it was consent to then be in trouble because we secretly recorded it?  Only a few of my exs would have consented to recording it.  BUT should I ? to prove I never raped some one in my life?  Do I keep text messages showing the sex chat that occurred?  to prove everything was willing - BUT some may say just because they say yes to text doesn't mean it was yes in person (which is true) BUT doesn't make me look innocent nor guilty does it.

So once more... is this how justice works?  Remember this - rape really is rape.  There are no ifs buts or maybes.  Rape is forcing some one to sex against their wishes (conscious or not) and that can be for a man or a woman.  If being drunk is considered to be "unable to consent" that works for the man and the woman.  And before anyone says - a man has to "get it up" I've been so drunk that I struggled to remember a night out yet I do know I had sex with my other half at the time - she didn't let me forget it because it was as if I had taken viagra (didn't go down the whole night).  I do believe I initiated it though.  Serious question - If I was a woman would you class that as rape?  I don't because I know being sober or drunk I'd wanted it with her anyway.

Another example I want to use.  Once I woke up to oral, I will admit it was an incredible shock but a good one.  Is that rape?  Even though again it was my other half at the time.  I didn't consent.  I didn't say yes.  I woke up to it happening.

I don't class the bit above as rape.  I guess because the other halfs at the time knew what I liked and didn't like.  And perhaps thats the key point here?  My other half now loves 50 Shades of Grey.  I can't be like that though.  Probably too afraid of hurting her.  Yet if she fell out with me could she accuse me of rape? I know she wouldnt but some one in her position could.. that's the scary thought.

Remember - think about what rape really is.  Remember there is a difference to having a few drinks, capable of walking etc but being unconscious.  If it's rape because a woman has had too much to drink - I assume she would sleep with anyone? If she's able to determine that she wants to sleep with you but not anyone else - is it rape?  Luckily enough I've never been in a one night stand as a result of drink - it's a turn off for me.  And I would never advise it to anyone.

We're living in dangerous times regarding rape and my life almost ended because of one sick woman who either needed help or resented me/men to the point that she wanted to end my life without care or hesitation.

This has been something very hard and very big to get of f my chest.  Justice has certainly not been done.  I will spend my life knowing how close it came.  She will spend hers probably not even feeling guilty for it.

All of the above isn't about stopping victims from coming forward, it's about everything being questioned because as much as that poor rape victim should have justice.. so should a false rape victim.  Both can have their lives severely damaged and no going back.

Review: Andromeda Mass Effect

If you want to skip to all the negatives please go down to the bottom of this review.  The flaws in this game are fundamental ones in gaming development, not the story, not the characters and certainly not the amount of content.

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Right.  If it wasn’t for those bad points I would be screaming at the top of my voice “WHAT A GAME”.

Instead it’s still a brilliant game.  The story is very typical Sci Fi which will be enjoyable by so many especially Mass Effect fans.  And yes – huge spoilers coming.

So the story

It’s very Sci-Fi and you certainly get the feeling that not everyone will live.  So the Ark which your character starts on arrives in Andromeda to find the Galaxy in a huge mess.  Not only do you have to deal with a weird space spreading anomaly but you’ve got a species who are hell bent on killing you with no remorse.  The previously arrived people have struggled, split and suffered a lot of deaths.  Morale is low and resources are limited.  It really does look like no one will live.

In your first mission you get a huge feeling that something much more is going on in the story.  Ancient ruins, an unknown race willing to kill and this mysterious AI SAM.  Brilliant.

Each planet has plenty to do and plenty of story, my favourite well.. I won’t go in to detail but it had a nice twist at the end.  In fact there seems to be quite a lot of future plot lines coming with teases and hints.    The impressive part is the lack of plot holes, instead it goes out of its way to show you there is more going on.  You learn one of the reasons why they wanted to send people to Andromeda but there’s a mysterious benefactor.

This is all my kind of story, esque of Babylon 5, Halo, Star Trek but more importantly previous Mass Effect games.  Remember this is Mass Effect.

The Characters

There’s too many to name on good ones, bad ones and the annoying.  The important part though is so many become memorable.  The way the characters develop really separates itself from Mass Effect while still being.. well Mass Effect.  Previously it was easy for me to fall out with them and I would wish I could kill them.  This time around they seem willing to follow you but even when there are moments of discourse they still believe in you.  The rivalry this time around only really exists with one people – The Kett.  I will add this, I didn’t like Liam what so ever.  A strange character to me that seemed out of place.

Music and Graphics.  Keep it simple – brilliant and can’t complain.  Typical Mass Effect.

Content

Beyond amazing? I managed to hit 60+hours and still had some simple tasks to achieve and mining, this game has an unbelievable amount of content.   And the important part is some of it is very relevant to finding out what’s been going on.  You find out more about why you’re out here, you find out what’s happened to the other Arks and why working together is important.  You get to establish bases on several colonies which can only be done by completing a ton of side quests etc.  Which is again fantastic.  While driving around you will find little side quests and tasks that you can complete.  The sad part is? When you’ve got to the end.  I can’t stress how much more I want from this game.

I have to add though, the only sad part about establishing bases – you can’t physically build them.  When you start asking yourself what move could they have added to a game that’s almost a master piece…. We do have something that’s worth the money.  I really hope one day in future Andromeda games they will add this feature.   What more could they have added? This is a good thing to say because I can’t think of anything else.  I’ve read a lot of comments from people who have played 40+ hours and said they did everything but somehow managed to miss obvious quests (not tasks they are a bit harder to locate, not always with a quest marker but random locations of something you found)….  Which to be makes me think did they really complete the game and explore everywhere?  I’ve still got some map locations small areas unexplored..  96% complete I currently sit.

I guess one of the reasons why I am almost in love with this game is how single player has not been neglected (content wise).  It’s a bit like giving us a film with zero story or zero character development.  You’re only in for the explosions and deaths.  This game does not neglect single player story nor does it feel like it was etched on a pizza box.  I will rarely buy a game just for its multiplayer features and find it ludicrous to spend large sums of money on a game like that.  When you look at some of the best most played MP games you look at Counter Strike which was never expensive to buy even in its time.  You got a game just for MP and nothing more.

Now we have finally a game that provides a full single player experience.  And unlike COD/BF games it provides more than 15 hours of game play.

UPDATE

So I’ve done something that I rarely do, I’ve started a fresh game (New+) which grants same money, resources and skills to carry over.  I very rarely go through single players again unless the story really grips me and I find the game fun enough.  And even after playing for just two hours I still that sense of enjoyment and need to complete every task.  For me this is quite a thing because not many games make me feel this way.  Even the original Mass Effect games only got me doing this so I could gain the best ending – nothing more.

97% complete with a 2^nd run over, again a few small tasks to complete.  Even with the carry over stats you can still die, you can quickly find your self overwhelmed and still require cover.  The ending is still satisfying – I find this better than Mass Effect 1 by far in regards to how it ended.  There’s a ton of questions you end up asking yourself.  With the original series it was all about the Reapers – nothing more and nothing less.  This game has been designed knowing there WILL be a sequel and that the story for that is already laid out.

I’d recommend this game though.  In fact it makes me wish this was a TV Series on the quality level of Expanse.  If I was rich..  I’d be funding this TV show in a blink.

Special mention notes:

The story does touch base on Commander Shephard from the Milky way, mentions the reapers and attempts to contact the Milk way.  And the good thing is it doesn’t feel like it’s all rushed like Star Wars Episode 3 in the last 10 minutes in the game.  In fact a lot of the extras you have to work for and do a ton of side quests.

Although this for some is a negative people have mention Halo, how the story is quite similar I’m not going to count it as a negative because I can relate Halo to other Sci-Fi’s that existed before.  I won’t count this as a negative, we are seeing a lot of science fiction shows, games and movies touch base on this – existence before us. In fact the original Mass Effect reminds me of Babylon 5 where ancient technology had been discovered on Mars.  It also reminds me of Total Recall and even Doom (game/movie).  So it goes to show before throwing a tantrum at its Halo similar story remember most stories today are not fresh or brand new (let’s face it, most are struggling to come up with brand new ideas) so instead they take old ideas and make them their own – something which has also been done for a long time.  A lot of story lines come from Mark Twain, you have StarGate, Star Trek which have again all touched base with civilisations that existed before us.   Again I’m sure I have missed a lot of shows and games that have done the same.

Conclusion? I’d buy this game in fact I did and it’s been a long time since I didn’t regret paying money for it.  I’ve gained the hours out of it and in all honesty without saying too much I played this game before I purchased it and if it wasn’t for questionable methods I wouldn’t have spent my hard earned money on it.

A weak 8/10 because of the animation issues and glitches galore otherwise this game would be superb.

Other Reviews

I’ve seen others mention the voice acting? Why? They are performed by above Z Lister celebrities who still work.  Some have come from Game of Thrones, one even came from an actor in Cowboys and Aliens working alongside the likes of Harrison Ford (for far more than 2 minutes of screen).  One worked alongside Jennifer Lawrence in Hunger Games.  These are real actors and actresses who are current earners and not exactly struggling for work.

The Story, The references to Mass Effect.

Why are these negative? No seriously.  What’s so wrong in continuing this story?   I think it’s fantastic when a story continues.  I hope we do get to see what happened more from Earth after the Reaper conflict.  That we do indeed find out if civilisation fully survived after it all (because let’s face it they lived but we don’t know any more than that).

I’d like to know if they give us more on the Reapers? Could they be behind the Kett? Will we see some kind of strong link between the Milky Way and Andromeda?

Probably not but who knows.

I wonder if all the people who hate this game, loved the Mass Effect series? That series had its issues, problems, plot holes and yes glitches (just nowhere near as bad as Andromeda).  People need to be comparing this game to Mass Effect 1 which was the start of story not all 3 put together.  I’m finding those who don’t rate this are angry over the way this game is portrayed 600 years later and we have no idea if our beloved characters from the Mass Effect series are alive (they’re not).  The same ones that complained about the ending are complaining how Andromeda ends?  It ends exactly how it should – no more no less.

Right the BAD STUFF

Four things sum up all the negativity in this game – GLITCHES, ANIMATIONS, FACIAL EXPRESSIONS and the AI

You will find:

Quest Glitches (I found two even after the update)

Animation Glitches (although not a ton now with the update – there’s still quite a few)

Questionable Script moments like you’re playing multiplayer with geeks/dorks instead of professional adult script writers but it’s a tiny issue…

Location Glitches

Random Deaths

Cliff Glitches

Shooting through walls (standard mobs)

Mobs hiding in walls (no joke) and still able to shoot you

Serious animation glitches where heads look like they are possessed

And don’t get me started on the EYES that can’t look at you…

Did I mention glitches? Ugh.. those glitches..  they do hit you…

The animations are a serious issue.. they don’t feel like people… and expressions… when a character looks angry they look constipated..  when they look very annoyed.. they look like normal.. when happy, in love and sad they all look normal.  There is only two expressions Very Angry or very Normal.

The AI is very poor, you will find a random guy just stand still while being shot at.  Another AI randomly move for no reason and don’t start on your own allies who at times get in your way.

If the majority of glitches didn’t exist in this game I can’t stress to you that this would truly be a master piece.  Not only the best game in the Mass Effect series but potentially one of the best games of its kind.  It makes you want more, it makes you want to find those little details and that’s before touching Multiplayer.

The good news is, the glitches are being resolved so if you have not purchased this game yet I’d wait till around JUNE 2017 to purchase it.  Most of them hopefully will be a distant memory.