#i didn't even know windows xp could run gis software

[anthropologist-on-the-loose]

I'm taking over management of a public informational web map for a small local government. The guy who created it over a decade ago was good with the science/analytical side of GIS but was by his own admission not great a creating an easy-to-read map. I mean, you click on something and the popup label will read "wm_NP3: JXY209". So we're going over the map, I'm talking about some of the changes I'll be able to make like more obvious labels, and he says "oh, don't do that for everything."

"Why not?"

"Some of that's critical infrastructure, we don't actually want all that information public."

His security system was to leave the default labeling for everything and hope that the sensitive information was confusing enough that only the people who needed it for legitimate purposes would be able to figure it out.

Oh, and when I asked if he kept any metadata that might help me understand his files and labels, he basically responded with, "What's metadata?"

Anyway I will be crying in the corner as I try to decipher the data for dozens of mapping files and track down where they came from. I already found out one of our (intentionally public) data layers was last designed and updated on Windows XP so um. Wish me luck.