Verizon, Google, and Net Neutrality

The idea of "net neutrality" is an important one. All ISPs (Internet Service Providers) work together in a collaborative way on the Internet. There are a few key points:

1. ISPs and other Internet companies do not discriminate against each other's traffic (for example, Gmail won't block all email from Yahoo! accounts to try to convince people to use Gmail, and vice versa).
   
2. Every Web site should have the same priority. In other words, pages from Amazon won't be transmitted before pages from some small Web site. This also his prevents companies like Comcast and Verizon (in my area) from trying to get exclusivity agreements with certain sites. For example, right now net neutrality would prevent Comcast paying YouTube a bunch of money in exchange for having faster YouTube connections (and effectively slowing Verizon customers). If they could do this sort of thing, it would make our lives as consumers much more complicated.
   
3. Finally, in practice, this prevents Internet Service Providers from filtering our content and throttling certain types of downloads (for example, blocking or slowing down downloads from file sharing sites).

Note that this isn't the same as monthly download traffic caps, which some providers (such as Comcast) have, and others (such as Verizon FIOS) do not.

Anyway, one of my students (thanks, Kevin!) brought in an article (available here on PC World's Web site) last semester that details a Google/Verizon pact. It sounds great in theory, but there are some ideas that may be shady. First of all, though it says the Internet should maintain net neutrality, they include the phrase "lawful Internet content", which some people interpret as a way to stop file sharing. Secondly, they do not address wireless access, because they feel the market is competitive enough. Finally, there is a provision for a private Internet which would not be covered. Though this could be something positive (stuff like health care systems), others interpret this as a way companies might find a way to exploit and get around net neutrality.

It sounds bad, but a bigger issue is this is all informal as it stands, and companies can do whatever they want at the moment. Something needs to be in place and formalized, and as I've mentioned before, most of the people in Congress do not have a technology background. I just hope we do not find ourselves in a bad situation in five years because Congress got Rickrolled by Verizon and Google.

Using Google Earth to make $75,000

Just another case of learning from my students...

In class today, we were discussing Google services, including the advanced Google search options, image search, and Google Maps. It came out during class that the town of Riverhead, NY used Google Earth in a very interesting way. People started getting summonses for having illegal pools, and it came out that they were using Google Earth to find this out. Really! Turns out they wrote about $75,000 worth of summonses before people caught on and complained.

NPR did an interview with the chief building inspector of the town, and he said they did it for the protection of the neighborhoods, saying "I use it strictly for safety." Of course, there is some validity there, because as he states, there are requirements to make sure children don't drown, and I agree with that. I also think that, well $75,000 had something to do with it. I'm a little cynical when someone won't admit to that. Of course money making is part of it. It's not just about safety.

In the "DUH" statement of the year, he stated "Most of the people that complained were the ones that didn't have the permits." Of course those are the people that complained, because they were the ones who were directly affected and may or may not have had their right to privacy violated.

The town is no longer doing this, so I think that tells us how they feel about whether it was a good decision. If they thought it was, they would have kept on doing it. My opinion? As someone who worked for a company doing government contracting, we were told that the government could not spy on its own citizens. The government tried to implement domestic spy-satellite imaging through the innocuous-sounding National Applications Office, but this idea was withdrawn over privacy concerns. If the government can't do it using our own satellites, why can they do it using Google's? Again, my opinion, they shouldn't be doing that, but that's me.

The other interesting part is Google. This sort of use of Google Earth is not prohibited, either in the main terms of service or the government agency terms of service addendum. Yes, I checked. In theory, this is fine per Google's viewpoint. Then again, they haven't updated the terms of service in a while.

Joe Biden and the war on piracy

The Vice President of the United States is working with groups to fight piracy of music, movies, and software on the Internet.  According to the article linked below, he considers it theft.  A government officer issued a report that sounds like it actually included intelligent recommendations, including working with file sharing sites based out of the United States (and therefore, not subject to our laws).  For example, sharing copyrighted files here is illegal.  However, in other countries it may not be, so how can the United States prosecute people doing it elsewhere?  (Short answer: we can not as it currently stands).  However, they can collaborate with these countries (and put pressure on them too), which is apparently what this report recommends.

This is part of a more widespread intellectual property proposal that includes things like counterfeit pharmaceuticals and other such things.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20008432-261.html

Your lawmakers and technology laws

In my CIS 152 (Internet/E-Commerce Technologies) course, we discuss some of the reasons technology is ahead of the laws.  I usually then bring up a picture of Frank Lautenberg (an 86 year old Senator from Paterson) and half jokingly asking if the class thinks this guy even knows how to check his email, let alone write laws on technology.  (And yes, I am sure he has a staffer who does the work for him)

I do know there are many committees and subcommittees who specialize in certain areas, but part of the problem is the representation we have.  A government should really represent the people they represent - in demographics, education, race, occupation, etc.  However, if you look at the numbers (scroll down to "Education" or "Occupations"), you will see that over 50% of the Senate have law degrees (57/100), while only 1 of 100 has nothing beyond a high school diploma.  None have associate's degrees.  Yes, this means 99/100 Senators have at least a bachelor's degree.  Now, I understand that you do need a level of savvy to do things politically, but it is one thing to study groups you don't know, and another thing to actually be one of those people and try to be an advocate for them.

In addition, if you look under the occupations, you will see there are (as far as I can tell) no Senators and only one Representative with a degree in Computer Science (Steve Scalise from Louisiana).  Meanwhile, there are 24 members of Congress who are medical professionals.  Of course, one does not need a degree in Computer Science to understand technology, but if you are not using the technology on a daily basis as an everyday person is, you can't truly understand the challenges the way the everyday user does. 

If I needed any more proof in my mind, the article below confirmed what I thought.  In this Washington Post article, it says that a number of Congresspersons do not even know how to use an ATM, or do not use them frequently.  This is information culled from public statements, and I am sure there are many more who, if they answered honestly, would say they also do not use ATMs.  Therefore, when reform comes across the Congressional floor regarding ATM fee reform, they do not truly understand the problem (in this case, large ATM fees) as someone who pays large ATM fees does.

So, if Congresspersons do not have a deep understanding of ATMs (which I take for granted as a pretty simple technology), imagine when someone tries to explain phishing to them...or the challenges of wardriving....or why spyware should be restricted.

I am sure they have some staff members who can inform them about these things, but it is very different when a Congressperson has first hand understanding of an issue and a passion to fix it...and another thing when a staffer gives them information on a topic.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is part of the reason why technology laws are so far behind the technology.

10 for 2010 (Technology Predictions)

I was thinking about what we are going to see in 2010, and here are some things that came to mind.

1. Standard DVD Format Gets Phased Out - Blu-Ray will become the dominant DVD media, and as a result prices will fall on these devices.  I wouldn't be surprised to see some low end Blu-Ray players going for $100 this Black Friday.  Since Blu-Ray players can play your old DVDs, people will be less resistant than they were when VHS was replaced by DVD players.
   
2. Standard Internet Sales Tax - Some smart politician somewhere will author a bill that will come up with a solution to the whole Internet sales tax issue.  Too many states (Rhode Island, North Carolina) are fighting legal battles with vendors (Amazon) over laws that were originally written in 1887 (really), and e-commerce has become so large that someone is going to fight this battle.
   
3. Office 2010 Will Disappoint - If one looks at the specifications, Office 2010 seems to do some clever things.  Microsoft Works is being phased out and there will be new tools "Word Starter" and "Excel Starter".  These will be the cheaper versions of the tools, and this is great because no one seems to be able to differentiate between "Works" and "Word".  The Ribbon interface will find its way in to Publisher, Visio, and the rest of the tools that it wasn't integrated into previously.  Microsoft will also introduce Web-based versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that will allow people to use the tools online for free, much like Google Docs.  With all that said, I just wonder if Microsoft may be overly ambitious, and cut some corners with the release of Office 2010.  I also feel like the operating system release followed by the Office release will split the focus of the company, and they are more likely to pour resources in to any Windows 7 problems that arise, following the debacle that was Windows Vista.  This would obviously take away from other projects in the company (such as Office 2010).
   
4. eBooks Take Off - eBook readers (such as the Amazon Kindle) will become more popular.  As demand goes up, prices will fall, and this will make these devices available to many people.  College students will be driven by lower prices (for example, my Internet/E-Commerce class textbook goes for $113 new, but the eBook version is $57 for a 6 month subscription), and the ability to electronically mark up your book without having to worry about ruining the resale value.
5. Netbooks Emerge - Netbooks will take off and become a popular alternative to a laptop for people that just want a basic portable machine.  As we see with cell phones, people don't always want all the stuff you get with a PC, they just want something to do the basics on, and Netbooks will fill that void. 
   
6. eNews - More newspapers and magazines will work towards making a digital model work.  According to an article linked from Magazine Death Pool, 367 magazines ceased printing in 2009 (and another 64 went online only).  This industry HAS to adapt, because times are changing.  To be quite honest, the only reason I get my paper is for the Sunday coupons, and the rest of the paper is immediately recycled.  If advertisers decide that online is where the money is, print media will have to follow.  They are also competing for advertising dollars with radio stations (both local stations like 1010 Wins and national stations like NPR) and with TV stations (again, both local news outlets like News 12 and global stations such as CNN). 
   
7. New Careers - Careers with titles like "Medical Informatics" will start to arise.  There is a need for people who have knowledge of both medical and technological concepts, and this seems like an area that will start to grow.  For example, insurance companies may not want to pay for a full-time nurse for someone, but instead have someone monitor remotely.  That person would need to interpret the results and know things like blood pressure and O2 saturation...but also be able to troubleshoot the technology if there are problems.  NJIT is one local institution that has already created a degree program for this.
8. Bing Takes Off - Bing will start to do what Microsoft Live Search didn't do: take away market share from Google.  Not a huge percentage, mind you, but it will start to make headway that other search engines could not.
   
9. Skype Makes a Comeback - Free from eBay's control, Skype will find direction and challenge VoIP providers.  Technology like a Wireless Bluetooth Headset for the PC (i.e. this one: AmbiCom SKYHS-KIT) will attract people who want the freedom to roam their apartment while making calls. 
10. The Mets Win! - The Mets will win the World Series.  (Hey, a guy can dream, right?)  I doubt even the guys at metsblog.com will be predicting this one.
    

I hope you are enjoying your 2010.

Amazon Associates Program and interstate commerce

In my CIS 152 course, we recently discussed some of the ways a Web site can make money. We discussed "affiliate marketing", where one site can advertise products on another person's site. The example we discussed was Amazon Associates.

Amazon's program is relatively successful, as far as these things go. For example, I as a person with a Web site, can advertise their products like this:



...and if you were to click on that link and buy something I'd get a (small) percentage of the proceeds.

We also talked about the oddities of interstate commerce, such as the legal mess that is wine.com's shipping policies. There are many different laws in different states, and it's tough to keep track of. When New York changed laws to require all residents to pay sales tax, though traditionally you only had to pay sales tax to companies that had a presence in your state. I knew other states would follow suit. North Carolina decided to do something similar, and it's affected the Amazon Associates program.

Any people living in North Carolina are not eligible for this program now, as of June 2009. The laws read that you couldn't tax any company that doesn't have a physical presence in your state. North Carolina decided that if there are Amazon Associates in North Carolina, that qualifies as a "physical presence", so they wanted Amazon to start collecting sales tax on all purchases.

Amazon was not interested in collecting sales tax on all purchases in North Carolina, so they decided not even to bother with North Carolina. Now, since there are no Amazon Associates in North Carolina, there is no physical presence, so there is no reason to collect sales tax on purchases made in North Carolina.

Obviously, Amazon hopes people are outraged enough to run to their Congressmen and have the law changed...but at the moment, North Carolina is out.

Following this, Amazon also made this program unavailable to residents of Rhode Island, also in June 2009, for the same reasons.

I think eventually laws will be amended to tax all Internet sales, but as we've discussed in my course, the laws are almost always behind the technology. The interstate commerce law was first passed in the 1960's, and this is what happens when you try to apply a law written 50 years ago to technology.

Video Games and the Scientific Method

I think sometimes students wonder why they have to take science courses as part of any major. Part of the reason is to teach the scientific method. No matter whether you are taking biology, chemistry, physics, or some of the other sciences, you should be learning to form hypotheses and conduct experiments to see your ideas hold true ("the scientific method").

What amazes me is that this skill doesn't seem to stick. Politicians and other people toss out ideas that just don't hold up when investigated. For example, video games are for kids (wrong: statistics show that the average age of gamers is 35). Another example, video gamers are men (true, but not as extreme as portrayed: 40% of gamers are women). If you go with the false belief that teenage boys are the only people playing video games, you can draw many poor conclusions. For example, IF most people playing video games were male teenagers, you can draw conclusions about the content that should be available on these systems.

I ran across the article linked below and it just made me think how sometimes it's easier to go with anecdotal knowledge rather than do any research. For example "every time I go in to Game Stop, it's filled with teenagers". Well, this may be true, but this is not the only place that people buy video games. Evidence can be disputed with research. Research may indicate that adults buy their video games online rather than in stores like Game Stop, for the convenience or price or whatever. However, you could draw an incorrect conclusion just by walking in to a few stores and making a generalization.

Anyway, this article is a little bit biased for gamers, but an interesting read nonetheless.

Link to article

Are the Koreans behind the latest hack, or was it Jack Bauer?

So...South Korea and the United States are under cyberattack today. Of course everyone is rushing to blame North Korea. However...if I have learned anything from watching 24...this is exactly how to set North Korea up if you want the US to go to war with them (thanks Jack Bauer!).

This is a developing story...more details coming soon I am sure. Was it done by the government of North Korea or another country, or just citizens? How much damage was really done? It looks like the FTC web site was shut down, as well as the site for the US Treasury. Could be much worse.

This is the wave of the future, folks. As we depend more on technology, it will cripple us to lose it. If all cell phones went down, how many people even know where the nearest pay phone is?

AP Article

Can you be arrested for exploiting yourself?

How can someone exploit themselves?

This is a question I asked myself when I read about the article linked below. In late March, a 14 year old girl decided to post some 30 "explicit" pictures of herself on her Myspace page. This is already a bad idea, but there is a twist. Since she is distributing what is legally child pornography, the girl is now subject to child pornography charges, and may have to register herself as a sex offender.

This is just another one of those cases of the laws being behind the technology. These laws were put in place before technology could change these things - typically, it was a lot harder to distribute these things, because you would need to actually produce the pictures, and how many kids know how to do that?

Now, it's just click and upload.

http://www.northjersey.com/passaic/14-year-old_girl_faces_pornography_charge.html

US Power Grid hacked

Apparently, China and Russia "cyberspies" have both hacked in to the US electrical grid. This does not shock me. It also may be possible that programs have been left behind that, in the event of war, could be activated and used to shut down power in the country. If this sounds a lot like "Live Free or Die Hard"...well, yeah.

Yet another example of how security is a mirage.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123914805204099085.html

Nissan vs. Nissan

Back in the mid-1990's, there were a lot of prime Internet domain names that were available. Eventually laws were put in place regarding "cybersquatting" - buying domain names that contained someone else's trademarked name with the purpose of reselling.

For example, if I had purchased mcdonalds.com before they did, and I had no legitimate use for it, I couldn't simply "hold it hostage" from a company that needed it.

However, there are many companies that happen to have the same name. Let's say, instead of registering mcdonalds.com to hold it hostage, I bought it because my last name is McDonald and I had a computer repair shop, do I have the right to that domain name?

I'd say yes. However, this being America, you can sue anyone for anything, and they could sue me. Since they have many lawyers, I'd be more likely just to give up because I couldn't afford to fight.

Would this happen? Well, it did to nissan.com.

You may notice nissan.com is not the Web site for the car manufacturer. Instead, their Web site is nissanusa.com. The reason? A small computer corporation in North Carolina, run by a man named Uzi Nissan, bought the domain in the early 1990's.

Of course, once Nissan (the car people) figured out that this was the case, they wanted the domain name, and have been dragging Nissan (the computer person) through courts for ten years. Uzi Nissan's story claims that he's spent around 3 million dollars defending his Web site addresses.

Personally, my opinion is that Nissan (the car people) should be out of luck, but of course, they have millions to spend on lawyers, so they may eventually beat Uzi Nissan in to submission, and that's a shame.

Here's his story:
http://www.nissan.com/Digest/The_Story.php

Change

As you may have noticed, Barack Obama handily won the election last week. Though not as much of a landslide as the 1984 election, it was still a strong victory for Obama.

One of the first things that has already come down is that Obama has arranged for a Web site, change.gov, where people can share their concerns and visions for America's future. It's an excellent idea, and though there are sure to be many silly things sent in and posted, it also provides an open door that the American people, and that's an admirable thing.

President Obama's first act may be to anoint himself closer for the Chicago White Sox.

Web Link:

• change.gov

Thanks to Chris B. for the heads up!

Crazy Email Hoaxes

We get them all the time. Our friends or coworkers think it is a great idea to forward something - something that makes them angry, or makes them laugh, or something.

OMGWTF They are raising kittens in bottles like bonzai trees!!!! (Not really)

Bill Gates wants to give you money! (No, he doesn't). This little girl is lost! (no, this was resolved four years ago). Help me get money out of Nigeria! (No, this doesn't work).

These things invade our email boxes all the time. If I get an email that I really think is true, I always run it through a quick Web check. One site that does this very well is Snopes - the Urban Legends Reference Pages. This site has been around in some form or another since 1995, and is very reliable when it comes to anything you might think is, well, crap. For example:

Some recent examples of Web crap that I've heard include a false list of books Sarah Palin banned in her hometown of Alaska, a false claim about all of Barack Obama's funding coming fromMiddle Eastern nations, and other such things. It is election season, after all! Snopes is a great read, just for laughs, and also a great reference.

Web Links:

• 8 Crazy Web Hoaxes (MSN)
• Urban Legends Reference Pages (Snopes.com)

Sarah Palin - Email Hacked

Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's Yahoo! email was hacked - proving hacking isn't always something that's difficult to do, with a little thought.

The person who hacked it basically launched what we would call a "social engineering" attack. Apparently, the email account required the following information to reset the password - the user name (readily available), date of birth (find it on Wikipedia), ZIP Code (easily guessed from her town of residence), and the answer to the security question. The answer to the security question was easily guessed - "Where did you meet your husband?" - given that they were high school sweethearts, it's easy to guess that it was the high school they attended, and that was also on Wikipedia.

Notice - NO hacking tools required!

The other interesting part is that the hack (see below for link to screen shots) allowed hackers to find personal email addresses of all sorts of politicians, including Governor Schwarzenegger and many members of the Alaskan political regime.

The interesting part is that the way laws are currently written, this may not technically be illegal!

PS - John McCain admits that he doesn't know how to use a computer. He's probably safe from being hacked, but it scares me to have a potential president who doesn't know anything about computers.

Web Links:

• How Sarah Palin's Email Was Hacked (PC Magazine)
  
• Information found in Sarah Palin's Email (via Wikileaks.org)
  

Internet filtering and the Olympics

We take a lot of things for granted in the United States.

You can say just about anything on the Internet and get away with it. You can call the President a moron, complain about the government, anything that isn't a direct threat basically, and get away with it in this country.

However, other countries, including China, don't have the same freedoms. Internet usage is filtered and monitored in that country. I did wonder how this was going to affect the tourists and news media who would be descending upon Beijing for the Olympics.



LeBron James and the "Redeem Team"
won the gold medal in basketball!

It turns out someone else thought of this. The Chinese government apparently opened up the country's site blocking to certain locations. For example, hotels that foreigners were staying at would be filtered less than people's homes. Very clever - this puts a lot of people in the position to go back to their home nations and say "well, they didn't block anything I tried to view..." and makes China look good. Brilliant.

There is an article from the Atlantic that talks about this - it's a little long and a bit technical at points, but extremely well written.

Link to article

Welcome David Paterson

Today, aside from being St. Patrick's Day, is a historical day.

David Paterson is being sworn in at 1 PM today to replace Eliot Spitzer as the governor of New York. Paterson is making history in a few ways. First of all, he is the first African-American governor in New York history, and secondly, he will be the second blind governor in US history.

Of course, there is the other side of it, the reason Spitzer resigned, which brought a lot of controversy in my classes when I brought it up. It turns out there were multiple women that he had, um, vacations with. One of the more recent ones has a MySpace page. It turns out she is a songwriter as well. It turns out her songs have been downloaded a lot (legally, too, believe it or not), and estimates that a lot of people have purchased her songs. Actual numbers have not yet been confirmed. Amazing, isn't it?

Z100 (a New York radio station) has been playing her song, because it apparently has been requested a lot.

Amazing, no?

Republicans go to YouTube

The Republicans are trying to reach a younger audience.

On November 28th, they had a televised debate on CNN. They also put it on YouTube.

I think this is an interesting way for politicians to try to reach a younger audience. This sort of reminds me of how Howard Dean went from being somewhat unknown to almost being the Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 because he had a blog. People are tired of political ramblings, I think the time is coming where politicians will be more "real people" who admit mistakes, rather than hide them.

Ok, maybe not, but I can hope.

Anyway...Here is the YouTube link. It apparently got very ugly, former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani faced some sharp questions from some of the other candidates.
http://www.youtube.com/republicandebate