“Data is the new oil” said Kaushik emphatically. He added, “All business decisions are taken based on data and petroleum products which were the key ingredients in yesteryears due to cost of oil has been dethroned now”. Padma has been working on an Information Security project and she nodded in concurrence and made a key observation, “Since data is the key ingredient, it is important that data quality is good. If data quality is poor, management may end up taking the wrong decisions. Apart from quality, securing data so that it does not fall into wrong hands is very important.”
Prabha beat Kaushik this time on bringing Bridge into the picture. She chirped, “If data has to be protected, cards have to be protected while playing Bridge as it is most vital element in the game”. Kingo, who enjoyed this subject, “That is why I keep insisting that hold your cards to the chest so that opponents can’t peep in. I have read enough about cheating on Bridge by playing cards at a particular angle, coughing to indicate something and different methods of holding cards to convey information”
Kaushik summarized how they countered these flaws. He spoke with authority, “Bidding boxes was the first deterrent so that voice modulation on bidding was eliminated. Use of screens was the next innovation so that facial expressions and pauses could not be used to convey information. Now all international matches are video recorded for scrutiny later”
Padma wanted to know from Kaushik that while the items listed by him could be alright for face-to-face bridge, she was not sure they will work on online bridge. Kaushik responded with confidence, “Online bridge is a totally different ball game. It is still in the embryonic stage and issues like people using multiple ids, talking to partner on phone and using parallel WhatsApp channel are methods that people have used to pass on information”
Kingo and Prabha spoke at the same time, “What is the solution? What is reason why people resort to cheating?”. Kaushik summarized it well, “There are multiple motivators – prize money, prestige of winning an event and maybe as many hackers do, just to prove that your systems are not shatterproof
Everybody left hoping that the game is played in the right spirit, and we find solutions to all issues be it online bridge or face-face bridge.
Tailpiece:
Goofy was smiling as he owned nothing and hence had nothing to secure. Life is really good when you have your owners to take care of all your needs.
