Here it is, the story about our website mascot. It will answer all of the things you have been wondering about him and his mysterious origin.

https://youtu.be/SzbzvR_H-Kc

People didn’t begin keeping records just yesterday. This has been going on for a long time, and it’s done for very practical purposes. Validation for citizenship, training, other qualifications, various certifications: There is nothing really new about any of that.

Paper Record Keeping.

First came civil registration requirements. Some of these started in religious institutions through mandates, and then later registration of things like births, deaths, and marriages became unified on a per county basis. Most of that was already in place before the year 1900 in the western world, Europe, and North America.

By any assessment, this is very sensitive information, which has been collected for a long time, and can positively identify family relationships to a certain degree into the past. In the original, often handwritten, paper formats, it would seem like making any use of that information would be difficult, and accessing such old information doesn’t even seem like a ’leak’. Assuming the paper information is correct, complete, and continuous, what can identify any family group more strongly than that?

Then imagine taking all of that lengthy roll of historical civil registry data and doing all of the work of digitizing it. So, now it’s sitting inside of a computer somewhere in a database, maybe even a publicly accessible one.

That’s just one thing that has become a digital asset which you probably would not have chosen to make publicly accessible. It’s not always the case that your ancestry has been made public without your consent but, it seems fairly common.

School Records.

These were normally kept at the specific school which was attended. Later on, as technology advanced, these records were made digital. This was most likely done through a manual data-entry process but, it could also have been done through scanning or photographs. Early on, scanning and photos might have been too much data to hold in a computer system. Today, we might be fully digital for the whole system, right from the start. Grading, and comment entry, all could be fully digital, without paper.

It’s likely that reading and writing are still taught by hand with pencil and paper, and early work in school is still with workbooks but, the grading system is almost certainly a direct computer entry.

All the way through the school system, and everything about your time there is recorded into a digital system, maybe even if it was done after you left that school environment. Some school boards are keeping that information indefinitely.

I’m not sure who needs their grade 7 report card 40 years later. Let’s not worry too much about that but, let just notice that there is a great deal of depth.

Grade School, Secondary School, College or Trades Schools: All of the records are digital, along with any diplomas, degrees, and certifications.

Just Check Your Own Wallet.

You can see how many potential identification methods you might have. Some of them might expire, and only a handful of them will be accepted everywhere. Maybe you have a driver’s licence, a social insurance card, that’s pretty typical, and then maybe you even have a healthcare card, depending on whether the country you are living in has a universal healthcare system.

Some of those things might be accepted as identification for certain purposes. A driver’s licence is generally the standard within the country, while a passport will be accepted while travelling abroad.

Paper Records Were Great.

The only problem was that every now and then a giant fire would consume the building which was holding the records, and the result would be that the records from that region would no longer be complete. The equivalent today might be a data corruption event but, it probably wouldn’t effect all of the data on any given system.

Today the downside seems very much to be that the centralization of information, and the great stride we have all taken towards digitizing as much of our data as possible has some huge risks associated with it. The data can be leaked through various means. That data can become a ransom after malicious groups hack whatever system contains the data. The data is almost never stored in a way that is incredibly secure, and depending on which country you are in, a sufficient percentage of your personal identifying data may already have been compromised in this way.

How much data needs to be stolen from the various places where it’s kept before we have, being potentially sufficient if assembled, an external method of false identification. Is this already the case for some people? It’s possible that there is enough leak exposure that it could compromise the correct identification of some people. This is very difficult to estimate. There is no way of knowing whether there is coordination between the criminal groups who have stolen data, and the leaks that we hear about are only the ones that have been discovered. Still, these types of leaks are best seen through the lense of a ‘big-budget action film’. How is the data used? Do they sell it? Hold the data for ransom and threaten to expose it publicly? Maybe. It’s all speculation as to what actually becomes of the data, as we rarely see any follow up reports showing where stolen data was ever used.

That isn’t the only way that data can fall into the wrong hands.

Data Can be Compromised in Other Ways.

Malicious actors can also take data from a company where they work. It can be done in a way that is almost completely invisible, and probably undetectable. In the age of paper records, it was possible to read a letter left out in plain view, or any other document which might be in plain view. Information could have been compromised that way. Then again, big budget movies have taught us that burglars can break in and then start photocopying data in some large centre containing massive amounts of paper documentation. This is not incredibly likely at the moment and with the current technology. There might be some paper documentation submitted and handled by humans at some points but, a lot of the work is done on computers where each user is authenticated.

Does the authentication take care of all security concerns? Maybe. It depends entirely on how the system is laid out. It also depends on the specific system, and the age of that system. There are some systems where ‘any-access’ is essentially equivalent to ‘all-access’. There are yet other systems where any type of legitimate access can easily be upgraded to an all-access-pass, by someone with a little bit of knowledge. Some older systems have very well known exploits, and those loop-holes aren’t closed yet. There is a lot left to the old fashioned ‘honour-system’ but, we know that the incidence of criminality in any organization is approximately the same as in the rest of society. It’s no different, there will always be some people willing to take something when no one is looking, or in a way which they believe cannot be percieved or traced back to themselves.

So, it’s possible, and very likely that data can be breached and subsequently leaked, without any trail, and without anyone knowing. This is most likely to happen on a smaller scale, something more like ‘pin-point’, a single breach of a single person’s confidential information. Even a leak of information of this smallest kind can be significant for the person who

Basically everything on this page is just Madd-links and all that. Enjoy.

Just to get things started, here’s a hit track from the King Of Pop, Michael Jackson, everybody’s favourite singer. He’s not Canadian but, I’m including it anyway because it’s universal and everybody loves this guy. He was at the Superbowl, absolute height of his career, AMAZING…

Michael Jackson (He’s just doing all the biggest super-hits at the Superbowl in 1993, wow.)

Paul Tracy won the Molson Indy in this year… Need I say more? The depth of winningness in sports in this specific year doesn’t even seem real but, it is.

In this single year, the Blue Jays won the World Series(again), Paul Tracy won the Molson Indy, and Toronto’s Basketball Team was founded. Could there even be a better year chosen for Canadian Sports? And… the Toronto Maple Leafs were in the final for the Cup(they lost).

In the entire history of Canadian Sports there has not been, nor will there ever be a better year. This year, this 1993 year, was, and will always be the best year for Toronto and the biggest year ever for sports in this beautiful country.

Nothing matches up to it, and nothing can Ever match up to it. Teams have won since then, here and there, and those are all good positive things but, the sheer volume of massive stuff going on in the City of Toronto in that particular year is completely unmatched at any time.

This article will prove, without a doubt that when Jung-Yul Kim won the Vanier Cup in the year 1993, that this was no ordinary win. The pomp and circumstance of the year itself, the timing of the win, and the extra-ordinary factors at play made that win massive because it is part of this iconic year in Toronto, and in Canadian, all-time sports and cultural history. There was nothing as big as that, and there may never be anything as big as that ever again.

Watch these clips if you don’t believe me (in order of when the events occurred).

Leaf Goals from the whole playoffs in 1993 (April/May)

Paul Tracy Wins the Molson Indy (July 18th)

Toronto Raptors Basketball Inception (September 30th)

Joe Carter Walk-Off Home Run (October 23rd)

This one gives the whole story in a tight video presentation by the CBC.

Miracle U of T Vanier Cup Team (Afternoon of November 20th)

Long story short: The football season almost never happened. If you just look across everything else that took place that year, this was the icing on the cake for Jung-Yul Kim. It was his catapult into the Big-Leagues and he was later drafted into the CFL. That’s another story entirely, just in case you thought it couldn’t get any bigger than this moment. Spoiler alert, it can, and it did get bigger.

Here are some music and video links, Highlighting Canadian Musicians and other stuff from 1993, just to get you in the mood.

#1 super-hit “INFORMER” by a guy called “SNOW”

That was a massive hit song… HUUUUGGEEE!! When Snow got out of jail it was #1… just completely nuts. Just information, this guy’s Irish and his cousin is Steven Page. Yes, the lead singer of the Bare Naked Ladies. So here’s a clip from Conan O’Brien, also from 1993, ‘cause that’s what this article is all about, showing that Jung-Yul Kim actually is super-famous for a reason.

Toronto’s very own Bare Naked Ladies On Conan O’Brien! (1993 of course)

“Brian Wilson”, isn’t that everybody’s favourite Bare Naked Ladies song? Just kidding, every Bare Naked Ladies song is everybody’s favourite song.

How about some Tom Cochrane: “Life is a Highway”? (‘cause he’s Canadian and it was technically around since 1991)

Plus this song is super-awesome, so why not include it here in this go-to article for Canadiana?! Let’s do it!

Crash Test Dummies(1993)

You didn’t think I was going to forget about this song did you? No way, it’s too good.

Blue Rodeo, 5 days in May

It’s like there are too many to even list… I’ll give it a shot here.

The Tragically Hip: Fully Completely. Need I say more?

Track 1: Courage

Live at Woodstock (1999)

New Orleans is Sinking(killer whale tank version)

What else do we have here? 1993! What else you got?! Movies! TV!

On the television we had “Seinfeld” (it’s the Season 5 Bloopers Reel), easily the best TV show in human history, no question. “The Simpsons”, it doesn’t get better than that, and just starting out was “The X-Files” (this is the season 1 trailer, 1993), which you had to stay up late to even watch it because it was spookie or whatever. Also, we can’t forget “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” (Theme Song! season 4 was a bummer with his dad showing up and all…), obviously, everybody loves Will Smith.

Movies?

You basically can’t talk about 1993 without mentioning the movies that were going at the time. For me, my personal favourite pick would be “Harrison Ford: The Fugitive”, and I almost forgot Tommy Lee Jones was in that too. All I remember is that one line “It wasn’t me, it was the one armed man!”

Classic. Not to mention “Jurrasic Park” (Jeff Goldblum), a first of it’s kind for graphics, and it really looked real! Just think, dinosaurs! Eating people for some reason… come on!

One more movie, then maybe I’m done on that front: “Dazed and Confused” (Matthew McConaughey), a cult-classic film.

The Country Also had the coolest Prime Minister of all time: Jean Chrétien, who everyone remembers from the time that he choked that protester. Classic.

That didn’t happen in 1993 but, it’s still an awesome Canadian moment, so I’m linking the Shawinigan Handshake story right here:

Jean Chrétien greeting a protester

He’s basically Canada’s best ever Prime Minister, who everybody universally loved.

Oh Yeah, I forgot… This was all supposed to prove what a huge win the Vanier Cup really was for Jung-Yul Kim in 1993.

Well, mission accomplished. The Vanier Cup win of 1993 was a huge win in one of the most iconic and amazing years in the history of the City of Toronto, and the history of our nation. Jung-Yul Kim was and is part of that spectacular history.

Here is a link to his trading card, for number 62:

Jung-Yul Kim: #62

Guess what? The Football Greatness didn’t stop there.

The next article I will write about Jung-Yul Kim is going to tell us the story of the Calgary Stampeders, and their amazing Grey Cup win in the year 1998. Who knows, maybe it will also serve as an Ode to all things Canadian in 1998. Why not, who can stop me…

This is my website now. This is Nathan Murdock but, I’m El-Presidenté now, presiding over this new and improved Free Press Website.