My friend had an old laptop he brought to me today. It was pretty old. It has 64 MB of RAM, a 233 Mhz processor, a 4 GB hard drive, a dead battery...a real winner! In addition, whoever set it up installed Windows XP on it, so it takes FOREVER to start up.
He asked me if I could put it in Spanish so he could send it to his niece in Puerto Rico.
I decided to take a look and see what I could do. After all, it keeps my tech skills fresh!
As I have never done a Spanish install before, I first started by going to the Windows control panel. I took a look around, and went in to the language settings. Ah ha, I thought, this should fix it. I switched everything to Spanish, restarted the machine, and waited for it to work.
Sadly, this did not work. The Windows XP system files were installed in Spanish, and this did not even change the Start Menu to Spanish. It made sense when I thought about it. All the programs were already installed in English. A little Internet research showed that in order to do what we wanted, I would need a special installation of Windows with a new license key. License keys are generally tied to a specific version of Windows, so even if I got the Spanish version, I doubted the existing license key would work.
I was also sure that my friend did not want to pay for a new XP license for this machine.
At this point, I had a few options. I could have considered pirating the key, but my personal ethics ruled this out. Even if they didn't, the risk of downloading stuff from torrents/file sharing networks (0-day viruses, getting caught) would deter me.
Besides, when I thought about what my friend wanted for his niece, it was a computer that allowed her to do Internet research and type papers. At this point I decided to investigate Linux. I figured there should be a Spanish distribution of Linux, and it would certainly run better than Windows on this machine.
I am familiar with Ubuntu Linux, but it did not look like there was a complete version, so I did some searching and found Asturix, a Spanish Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. I downloaded the CD image and burned it on to a CD.
I brought my new CD back to the old laptop, and tried to open the CD-ROM drive. No response. Luckily, I know about the trick to open a stuck CD-ROM drive with a paperclip (that's why that tiny little hole is on the front of the drive!).
I opened the drive, inserted the CD, and started the machine. I walked away and came back, and it booted directly in to Windows. I restarted, and went in to the BIOS (the computer's basic input/output system). It was correctly set up to try the CD-ROM drive before it booted off the hard drive.
I restarted again, and paid attention this time. When the computer restarted, the CD-ROM drive made a very odd sound and then stopped spinning, and then the computer booted in to Windows. To verify, I went to My Computer, and the CD-ROM drive wasn't even listed, which means it was malfunctioning.
Normally at this point, I would consider creating a USB boot drive, but this machine was so old, the BIOS did not support it.
At this point, I considered partitioning the hard drive, but it just wasn't worth the effort for me.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
Fall 2011 - What I'm Teaching
I've got my tentative Fall schedule set up. I figured I would pass it along.
At PCCC - Passaic Campus
CIS-101-P02 Computer Concepts and Applications
Monday, Wednesday 8:55AM - 10:10AM
CIS-101-P01 Computer Concepts and Applications
Monday, Wednesday 10:20AM - 11:35AM
At PCCC - Paterson Campus
CIS-152-ME1 Internet/E-Commerce Technologies
Thursday 7:05 PM - 9:35 PM
CIS-170-M01 Website Design and Tools
Tuesday, Thursday 11:45 AM - 1:00 PM
CIS-290-M01 Database Fundamentals
Tuesday, Thursday 10:20AM - 11:35AM
At Bergen CC - Paramus Campus
INF-163-001 Internet Concepts and Applications
Monday, Wednesday 3:55 PM - 5:50 PM
At PCCC - Passaic Campus
CIS-101-P02 Computer Concepts and Applications
Monday, Wednesday 8:55AM - 10:10AM
CIS-101-P01 Computer Concepts and Applications
Monday, Wednesday 10:20AM - 11:35AM
At PCCC - Paterson Campus
CIS-152-ME1 Internet/E-Commerce Technologies
Thursday 7:05 PM - 9:35 PM
CIS-170-M01 Website Design and Tools
Tuesday, Thursday 11:45 AM - 1:00 PM
CIS-290-M01 Database Fundamentals
Tuesday, Thursday 10:20AM - 11:35AM
At Bergen CC - Paramus Campus
INF-163-001 Internet Concepts and Applications
Monday, Wednesday 3:55 PM - 5:50 PM
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The battle for online sales tax
Funny, we were just discussing this in one of my classes, and now it jumps in to the news.
There are a number of ways to make money online. Advertising is an obvious one, along with having a Web catalog. There are always sites that do on-demand publishing like CafePress where someone can design shirts and link to their store there, and CafePress handles the printing and shipping.
One of the other ways has traditionally been affiliate marketing. This is the type of thing where I can link to someone else's site, and they give me a percentage of any sales generated by you clicking on the link. Many companies, such as Overstock and Amazon have these types of programs.
For example, I have one that I don't push through Amazon Associates here. That link takes you to Amazon, but if you bought something, Amazon would give me a small percentage of it. This is a great program, with very little risk to either side. Amazon makes money, so do I, and my users may buy something they were going to buy anyway through the link.
However, this has also been at the center of a big war. This is not a new war. However, online retailers do not need to charge sales tax to residents of a state in which they do not have a physical presence. So, take NewEgg. They are located in California, so they are required to collect sales tax for anything sold to California residents. However, they do not have a physical location in Alaska, so residents of Alaska do not have to pay sales tax on NewEgg purchases. Of course, companies like WalMart and Best Buy have been fighting this for years, because they feel like it puts them at a disadvantage. State governments don't like this either, but a Supreme Court decision (Quill v. North Dakota) from 1992 said companies without physical locations in a state do not have to charge state sales tax (this ruling was for mail order catalogs).
With many states in dire financial situations, this has become even more of an issue. Some states have made the argument that if a site has affiliates in a state, they now have a physical location in that state. Since I live in New Jersey, this would mean Amazon now has a physical location in New Jersey and must charge sales tax.
To me, this is a very loose interpretation of the law, but a number of states have passed laws to require any companies with affiliates in their state to collect sales tax. Amazon's response has been to just end the program in the states that pass this type of legislation. Amazon terminated the program in Rhode Island, North Carolina, and Colorado, so anyone who lives in those states can not be affiliates. Amazon has been doing battle with New York over this issue, and (to summarize the legal blah blah blah) the state basically now has to prove that having an affiliate in a state is really the same as having a sales representative in a state.
This is now even more newsworthy because Minnesota has a bill in the Senate that would try to collect Internet sales tax. The article linked also states that Minnesota made $20 million in income tax from Amazon Associates, so they are on the brink of losing the program.
In addition, the governor of Illinois today signed into law a bill that did the same thing as other states, and Amazon predictably cut ties with affiliates in those states. I am not sure if the Illinois government really expected anything different, but now Amazon Associates is no longer available in Illinois. Walmart, as a company that already charges sales tax to everyone, is pushing their affiliates program, since this is the only option some people have.
If the government really wants to do this right, maybe the original law needs to be revisited, because it has become a big staring contest.
There are a number of ways to make money online. Advertising is an obvious one, along with having a Web catalog. There are always sites that do on-demand publishing like CafePress where someone can design shirts and link to their store there, and CafePress handles the printing and shipping.
One of the other ways has traditionally been affiliate marketing. This is the type of thing where I can link to someone else's site, and they give me a percentage of any sales generated by you clicking on the link. Many companies, such as Overstock and Amazon have these types of programs.
For example, I have one that I don't push through Amazon Associates here. That link takes you to Amazon, but if you bought something, Amazon would give me a small percentage of it. This is a great program, with very little risk to either side. Amazon makes money, so do I, and my users may buy something they were going to buy anyway through the link.
However, this has also been at the center of a big war. This is not a new war. However, online retailers do not need to charge sales tax to residents of a state in which they do not have a physical presence. So, take NewEgg. They are located in California, so they are required to collect sales tax for anything sold to California residents. However, they do not have a physical location in Alaska, so residents of Alaska do not have to pay sales tax on NewEgg purchases. Of course, companies like WalMart and Best Buy have been fighting this for years, because they feel like it puts them at a disadvantage. State governments don't like this either, but a Supreme Court decision (Quill v. North Dakota) from 1992 said companies without physical locations in a state do not have to charge state sales tax (this ruling was for mail order catalogs).
With many states in dire financial situations, this has become even more of an issue. Some states have made the argument that if a site has affiliates in a state, they now have a physical location in that state. Since I live in New Jersey, this would mean Amazon now has a physical location in New Jersey and must charge sales tax.
To me, this is a very loose interpretation of the law, but a number of states have passed laws to require any companies with affiliates in their state to collect sales tax. Amazon's response has been to just end the program in the states that pass this type of legislation. Amazon terminated the program in Rhode Island, North Carolina, and Colorado, so anyone who lives in those states can not be affiliates. Amazon has been doing battle with New York over this issue, and (to summarize the legal blah blah blah) the state basically now has to prove that having an affiliate in a state is really the same as having a sales representative in a state.
This is now even more newsworthy because Minnesota has a bill in the Senate that would try to collect Internet sales tax. The article linked also states that Minnesota made $20 million in income tax from Amazon Associates, so they are on the brink of losing the program.
In addition, the governor of Illinois today signed into law a bill that did the same thing as other states, and Amazon predictably cut ties with affiliates in those states. I am not sure if the Illinois government really expected anything different, but now Amazon Associates is no longer available in Illinois. Walmart, as a company that already charges sales tax to everyone, is pushing their affiliates program, since this is the only option some people have.
If the government really wants to do this right, maybe the original law needs to be revisited, because it has become a big staring contest.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
No, your operating isn't perfect either
When I was in college, I gave up on Microsoft's operating systems (I got tired of Windows freezing on me) and ran a distribution of Linux called Debian for a few years. For my needs, it worked well, probably even better than a Windows system did. I did a lot of programming, and the Linux operating system was very similar to the Unix (Solaris) operating system that our assignments ran on.
When I teach introductory classes, I have students who have Macintosh computers at home or people running Linux. When we come to computer security, I will generally mention the idea of antiviruses. I generally will have some student say "I don't need one because I am not running Windows". Sometimes, I even get "you can't get a virus on a Mac (or Linux) system".
This is factually incorrect. In security, there are no absolutes. There are viruses, malware, and other programs which end up out there for both operating systems. This doesn't mean the Macintosh and Linux operating systems aren't inherently safer, however.
If I am a hacker, I have to determine my audience (much like a research paper). Who am I hacking? The answer is probably something like "new computer users". Most new computer users are not running Linux, and therefore, if you are writing an exploit, you want to target non-Linux users. Similarly, if you are writing an exploit through the Web, you want to target your biggest audience, and that would be Windows operating system users running the default browser (Internet Explorer). Of course there are other reasons you might target the Windows/IE combination (such as Active-X controls).
The reason this is on my mind...out at the Pwn2Own hacker challenge, some folks from a French penetration testing company hacked a fully patched Mac. They did it using an exploit in the Safari browser.
Link to story
Teams will also compete to create more exploits for a number of different browser/OS/plug-in today and tomorrow.
When I teach introductory classes, I have students who have Macintosh computers at home or people running Linux. When we come to computer security, I will generally mention the idea of antiviruses. I generally will have some student say "I don't need one because I am not running Windows". Sometimes, I even get "you can't get a virus on a Mac (or Linux) system".
This is factually incorrect. In security, there are no absolutes. There are viruses, malware, and other programs which end up out there for both operating systems. This doesn't mean the Macintosh and Linux operating systems aren't inherently safer, however.
If I am a hacker, I have to determine my audience (much like a research paper). Who am I hacking? The answer is probably something like "new computer users". Most new computer users are not running Linux, and therefore, if you are writing an exploit, you want to target non-Linux users. Similarly, if you are writing an exploit through the Web, you want to target your biggest audience, and that would be Windows operating system users running the default browser (Internet Explorer). Of course there are other reasons you might target the Windows/IE combination (such as Active-X controls).
The reason this is on my mind...out at the Pwn2Own hacker challenge, some folks from a French penetration testing company hacked a fully patched Mac. They did it using an exploit in the Safari browser.
Link to story
Teams will also compete to create more exploits for a number of different browser/OS/plug-in today and tomorrow.
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Most Popular Pirated Movies 2010
I was wondering what the popular 2010 searches were, though not on the Google search engine. I was wondering what people were searching for on the torrents. This follows up to my post about keywords people were using to find me.
So, I did manage to find a site that was referenced by Gizmodo, who I trust. The site TorrentFreak had a list of the top ten pirated movies of 2010.
The list is linked below, but I am not surprised that the most popular movie was Avatar. However, I was surprised that the movie Kick-Ass was second, though it was a low-grossing film. While Avatar made almost $2.8 billion, Kick-Ass brought in around $100 million. It's the second lowest grossing movie on the top ten list.
I was also surprised that Iron Man 2 was not higher up the list (it came in at number 5, after Shutter Island).
The sheer number of downloads (16.5 million of Avatar alone) makes it apparent why movie companies are trying to crack down. Then again, Avatar did make almost $2.8 billion dollars, so it is pretty doubtful the Internet cut in to the profits THAT much.
Kick-Ass and the Hurt Locker, on the other hand...maybe.
TorrentFreak's Top 10 downloaded movies of 2010
So, I did manage to find a site that was referenced by Gizmodo, who I trust. The site TorrentFreak had a list of the top ten pirated movies of 2010.
The list is linked below, but I am not surprised that the most popular movie was Avatar. However, I was surprised that the movie Kick-Ass was second, though it was a low-grossing film. While Avatar made almost $2.8 billion, Kick-Ass brought in around $100 million. It's the second lowest grossing movie on the top ten list.
I was also surprised that Iron Man 2 was not higher up the list (it came in at number 5, after Shutter Island).
The sheer number of downloads (16.5 million of Avatar alone) makes it apparent why movie companies are trying to crack down. Then again, Avatar did make almost $2.8 billion dollars, so it is pretty doubtful the Internet cut in to the profits THAT much.
Kick-Ass and the Hurt Locker, on the other hand...maybe.
TorrentFreak's Top 10 downloaded movies of 2010
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Stalking? There's an app for that.
A large part of Facebook's appeal is the ability to add apps to your account. Games (such as Farmville or Vampire Wars), social apps (like Yelp or horoscope apps), self improvement apps (dieting apps, investing tips) and many more can be found on the site, many of which are free.
There are times where Facebook will determine that certain apps violate their terms. For example, in early 2009, Burger King created an app that, if you dumped 10 friends, would give you a free Whopper. Really. Facebook's rationale was that apps are not allowed to tell people if you've dumped them as friends, and this app did.
Facebook just pulled the plug on an app that many contended was a stalking app. Breakup Notifier was an app released recently. The whole purpose of the app was to let you know if someone's Facebook relationship status changed. For example, if someone was listed "in a relationship" and changed their status to "single", you would be alerted.
Many people view this as a stalking app, but in my opinion, if someone puts this information out there publicly, there really isn't anything wrong with it. I could just as easily bookmark a profile and revisit it to see if someone changed their profile status, and I would also be able to see it through my News Feed. This app would just monitor it for you and send you a response via e-mail when that status changed, providing you with real time information.
Facebook has apparently permanently disabled the app, citing some reason or another. Was it the 3.6 million users it amassed in a week (and the strain it added to their servers), was it complaints, or was it something else? I would guess complaints. I am assuming that the same people who post their relationship status publicly are the same people who wrote to Facebook to complain.
Undeterred, the creator of the Breakup Notifier has created another app, Crush Notifier. This works very much like speed dating. Let's say Sally has a crush on Tim. She would mark that she has a crush on him, using this app. Tim would not receive notification of Sally's crush, so Sally does not risk rejection or awkwardness. However, if Tim marks through the app he has a crush on Sally, they would both receive e-mail notifications that they like each other. Crush Notifier even has a business model, where you get two uses for free, and would need to use Facebook credits to receive any further e-mails.
Amazing how social media continues to change society, huh? Well, as Ricky Bobby said, "Does that blow your mind? That just happened!"
There are times where Facebook will determine that certain apps violate their terms. For example, in early 2009, Burger King created an app that, if you dumped 10 friends, would give you a free Whopper. Really. Facebook's rationale was that apps are not allowed to tell people if you've dumped them as friends, and this app did.
Facebook just pulled the plug on an app that many contended was a stalking app. Breakup Notifier was an app released recently. The whole purpose of the app was to let you know if someone's Facebook relationship status changed. For example, if someone was listed "in a relationship" and changed their status to "single", you would be alerted.
Many people view this as a stalking app, but in my opinion, if someone puts this information out there publicly, there really isn't anything wrong with it. I could just as easily bookmark a profile and revisit it to see if someone changed their profile status, and I would also be able to see it through my News Feed. This app would just monitor it for you and send you a response via e-mail when that status changed, providing you with real time information.
Facebook has apparently permanently disabled the app, citing some reason or another. Was it the 3.6 million users it amassed in a week (and the strain it added to their servers), was it complaints, or was it something else? I would guess complaints. I am assuming that the same people who post their relationship status publicly are the same people who wrote to Facebook to complain.
Undeterred, the creator of the Breakup Notifier has created another app, Crush Notifier. This works very much like speed dating. Let's say Sally has a crush on Tim. She would mark that she has a crush on him, using this app. Tim would not receive notification of Sally's crush, so Sally does not risk rejection or awkwardness. However, if Tim marks through the app he has a crush on Sally, they would both receive e-mail notifications that they like each other. Crush Notifier even has a business model, where you get two uses for free, and would need to use Facebook credits to receive any further e-mails.
Amazing how social media continues to change society, huh? Well, as Ricky Bobby said, "Does that blow your mind? That just happened!"
Saturday, February 19, 2011
I am the number 6 Google result for "cat-proof software"
Statcounter (the site I mentioned which showed what browsers people were using to visit my site) provides a lot of cool features. If I had my own Web server, I could get this same information by perusing my Web server logs, but since I am running a site through Google's Blogger service, I don't have access to those.
Statcounter logs all sorts of information, for example, computer IP address, operating system, browser information, screen resolution, and more. One of the other things that is cool is that it can tell you how people found your Web site, assuming they didn't just type it in to their address bar.
For example, if you Google:
Professor Cameron blog
I am the first result for this. This makes sense. If you were to then click on that Google link, I would be able to see that someone Googled that and found me using those search terms. I can also see which search engines people used to find me. Of my recent visitors, 55 found me using Google, 7 using Bing, 4 using Yahoo!, and 1 using Ask. (Note: Statcounter only logs the most recent 500 visits for free users, and many of them didn't find me using a search engine, hence the small numbers).
I sometimes will pop on the system and see how people for finding me, and there are always some interesting results.
For example, I have a number of searches I would expect. The following searches led people to me (again, some Google, some not):
interesting computer stuff (name of the blog, that makes sense)
professor cameron (makes sense, that's me)
fun stuff with professor cameron (I assume someone just forgot the name of my blog here)
eric cameron pccc us (that's me!)
In addition, there are searches that turned up specific blog posts of mine. I have a number of searches related to computer hardware disposal (due to a recent post), PCCC Panther Alert (something I've discussed a few times - PCCC's emergency alert system), Zune disaster (an older post), an assortment of things related to Microsoft Office hotkeys, and other such searches. As a matter of fact, I am the number 6 result on Google for cat proofing computer due to a post from last year.
Then, there are the bizarre ones. These serve to show me that search engines, though amazing, still have a ways to go. Here are some of the bizarre searches that have led people to my site:
Anyway, you can see searches like Professor Cameron porn would lead you to this site because somewhere in a page is each of those words. I posted about pornography a few times, and of course Professor Cameron is on every page, so yeah, that works.
I am pretty sure whoever was searching for that was disappointed when they found my blog.
Statcounter logs all sorts of information, for example, computer IP address, operating system, browser information, screen resolution, and more. One of the other things that is cool is that it can tell you how people found your Web site, assuming they didn't just type it in to their address bar.
For example, if you Google:
Professor Cameron blog
I am the first result for this. This makes sense. If you were to then click on that Google link, I would be able to see that someone Googled that and found me using those search terms. I can also see which search engines people used to find me. Of my recent visitors, 55 found me using Google, 7 using Bing, 4 using Yahoo!, and 1 using Ask. (Note: Statcounter only logs the most recent 500 visits for free users, and many of them didn't find me using a search engine, hence the small numbers).
I sometimes will pop on the system and see how people for finding me, and there are always some interesting results.
For example, I have a number of searches I would expect. The following searches led people to me (again, some Google, some not):
interesting computer stuff (name of the blog, that makes sense)
professor cameron (makes sense, that's me)
fun stuff with professor cameron (I assume someone just forgot the name of my blog here)
eric cameron pccc us (that's me!)
In addition, there are searches that turned up specific blog posts of mine. I have a number of searches related to computer hardware disposal (due to a recent post), PCCC Panther Alert (something I've discussed a few times - PCCC's emergency alert system), Zune disaster (an older post), an assortment of things related to Microsoft Office hotkeys, and other such searches. As a matter of fact, I am the number 6 result on Google for cat proofing computer due to a post from last year.
Then, there are the bizarre ones. These serve to show me that search engines, though amazing, still have a ways to go. Here are some of the bizarre searches that have led people to my site:
- simple one touch notification pagers from chef to servers 163-001
- i get taken advantage of a lot
- AVERAGE TIME WASTED WAITING FOR OLD COMPUTER
- Bergen Community College, "flight simulator"
- Professor Cameron porn
- wife playing world of warcraft when supposed to take children +subpoena
Anyway, you can see searches like Professor Cameron porn would lead you to this site because somewhere in a page is each of those words. I posted about pornography a few times, and of course Professor Cameron is on every page, so yeah, that works.
I am pretty sure whoever was searching for that was disappointed when they found my blog.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Web browser usage
Sites like Statcounter can track happenings on your Web site. For example, I can tell you of my last 500 visitors, 49% used Firefox, 27% used Internet Explorer, 6% used Google Chrome, 2% used Safari, 0.4% used Nutch, and 0.2% (one user) used Konqueror.
We see a lot of statistics regarding Web browser usage. It does vary by region. Firefox and Chrome seem to be more popular in Europe. According to Statowl, the latest numbers for the US, around 60% of users are running Internet Explorer, and only 20% running Firefox. World numbers are somewhere around 47% for Internet Explorer and 31% for Firefox, according to Statcounter.
None of these will be 100% accurate, but they do paint a picture for us. Why are my users more likely to use Firefox than the average world user? I would assume that, as I maintain a technology-related blog, my users are more likely than the average user to use a browser like Firefox.
If I were doing Web design and I had these numbers, I would need to make sure the browsers my users use were the browsers I was testing my site in. Though it really should not happen, there are times a page looks different in Internet Explorer and Firefox (for example).
It is interesting for me, as someone who is not running a for profit site, to look at these statistics. For someone who IS running a for-profit site, this information can be critical.
We see a lot of statistics regarding Web browser usage. It does vary by region. Firefox and Chrome seem to be more popular in Europe. According to Statowl, the latest numbers for the US, around 60% of users are running Internet Explorer, and only 20% running Firefox. World numbers are somewhere around 47% for Internet Explorer and 31% for Firefox, according to Statcounter.
None of these will be 100% accurate, but they do paint a picture for us. Why are my users more likely to use Firefox than the average world user? I would assume that, as I maintain a technology-related blog, my users are more likely than the average user to use a browser like Firefox.
If I were doing Web design and I had these numbers, I would need to make sure the browsers my users use were the browsers I was testing my site in. Though it really should not happen, there are times a page looks different in Internet Explorer and Firefox (for example).
It is interesting for me, as someone who is not running a for profit site, to look at these statistics. For someone who IS running a for-profit site, this information can be critical.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Spy vs. Spy
A few years back, I attended a workshop hosted by NJ Infragard. It's a group that puts on workshops related to security, specifically computer security.
(Amusingly enough, every time I mention Infragard, I get an email from someone telling me how "bad" they are. I also get a comment every time I post anything remotely related to Web design, from someone who hates a stock photo company called Getty Images. Always interesting to see what brings out the commenters and emailers!)
Anyway, that said, one meeting had the key speaker being Kevin Murray, of Murray Associates. His company is one that is part of an industry I didn't even realize exists. His company will come in and sweep your company for wiretaps, listening devices, and the like. It was quite educational for me. He told some crazy stories about how far people go to spy, in politics, and in private industries like pharmaceuticals.
Anyway, the company maintains a blog with tons of news involving espionage, privacy, and security. This site is definitely one I check out from time to time. I enjoy computer security, but I am not actively involved in it on a day-to-day basis. Reading the perspective of someone who is out there in the field is entertaining and educational for me.
Link to Kevin's Security Scrapbook
(Amusingly enough, every time I mention Infragard, I get an email from someone telling me how "bad" they are. I also get a comment every time I post anything remotely related to Web design, from someone who hates a stock photo company called Getty Images. Always interesting to see what brings out the commenters and emailers!)
Anyway, that said, one meeting had the key speaker being Kevin Murray, of Murray Associates. His company is one that is part of an industry I didn't even realize exists. His company will come in and sweep your company for wiretaps, listening devices, and the like. It was quite educational for me. He told some crazy stories about how far people go to spy, in politics, and in private industries like pharmaceuticals.
Anyway, the company maintains a blog with tons of news involving espionage, privacy, and security. This site is definitely one I check out from time to time. I enjoy computer security, but I am not actively involved in it on a day-to-day basis. Reading the perspective of someone who is out there in the field is entertaining and educational for me.
Link to Kevin's Security Scrapbook
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Happy Birthday Facebook!
So Facebook turned 7 yesterday...and to celebrate, it seems to have developed a problem. For many users, the site is down, and the Internet seems all a-buzz over it. Rumors of the site shutting down start flying and people get crazy.
This is the longest outage I can remember (around 12 hours). I can imagine there are many people who are lost right now...or angry they can't play Farmville or Mafia Wars...or can't communicate with friends because it seems like no one keeps track of people's email addresses anymore.
This does seem to be an issue with certain people's accounts. My professor one works fine, but most of my friends can't get in, and I can't get in to my personal account.
I am sure heads will roll at Facebook after such a long outage.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
"I Will Smash Your Face In"
I've been reading a book called God Save the Fan, by Will Leitch, founder of Deadspin. Deadspin, of course, is an independent sports Web site Leitch started because he felt the people who should be reporting sports news (i.e. ESPN) wouldn't report things in an unbiased manner for fear of damaging their relationship with different sports leagues.
Anyway, in his book, one of the chapters talked about how people idolize players that, if they met them in person, they would not really like. For example, it's easy for me to say Derek Jeter and David Wright and Eli Manning seem like nice people, but I've never met them, and can't know for sure. I'd assume they are similar to most of us, in that they have bad days, make bad decisions sometimes, and have their own insecurities. In the past, the only way players and the masses generally communicated was through press conferences with local reporters who wouldn't always publish everything a player said, for fear of damaging their relationship with the player and team. If I work for the local NBC affiliate and made a certain player angry, the player (and perhaps his teammates) might just give important news to the CBS affiliate, damaging my ability to do my job.
Enter Twitter.
As I have discussed in the past (here, here, here, and here), leagues have tried to crack down on Twitter use, in part to protect the league and in to protect the players from themselves.
The NFL is at a crossroads at the moment. The collective bargaining agreement has run out, and no one is quite sure if the NFL will exist in the fall. Some players are not happy with that idea, and Antonio Cromartie (cornerback, for the NY Jets) called out the union leadership. A player from the Seahawks, Matt Hasselback tweeted (and then deleted) a comment saying someone should ask Cromartie if he knew what CBA stood for. Of course, this could have been a joke, but you can't hear the tone of a message over the Internet. Hasselback apparently decided to delete the message, but once you publish, people see it!
Of course, Cromartie took offense to this, and instead of calling Hasselback and talking with him, tweeted that he will smash Hasselback's face in. Really.
Just because you are a professional athlete doesn't mean you are professional (see: Rae Carruth, Lawrence Phillips, etc.).
So, who knows if Hasselback is a jerk, or if Cromartie really wouldn't smash someone's face in over a comment. Either way, the way news is reported is changing.
Anyway, in his book, one of the chapters talked about how people idolize players that, if they met them in person, they would not really like. For example, it's easy for me to say Derek Jeter and David Wright and Eli Manning seem like nice people, but I've never met them, and can't know for sure. I'd assume they are similar to most of us, in that they have bad days, make bad decisions sometimes, and have their own insecurities. In the past, the only way players and the masses generally communicated was through press conferences with local reporters who wouldn't always publish everything a player said, for fear of damaging their relationship with the player and team. If I work for the local NBC affiliate and made a certain player angry, the player (and perhaps his teammates) might just give important news to the CBS affiliate, damaging my ability to do my job.
Enter Twitter.
As I have discussed in the past (here, here, here, and here), leagues have tried to crack down on Twitter use, in part to protect the league and in to protect the players from themselves.
The NFL is at a crossroads at the moment. The collective bargaining agreement has run out, and no one is quite sure if the NFL will exist in the fall. Some players are not happy with that idea, and Antonio Cromartie (cornerback, for the NY Jets) called out the union leadership. A player from the Seahawks, Matt Hasselback tweeted (and then deleted) a comment saying someone should ask Cromartie if he knew what CBA stood for. Of course, this could have been a joke, but you can't hear the tone of a message over the Internet. Hasselback apparently decided to delete the message, but once you publish, people see it!
Of course, Cromartie took offense to this, and instead of calling Hasselback and talking with him, tweeted that he will smash Hasselback's face in. Really.
Just because you are a professional athlete doesn't mean you are professional (see: Rae Carruth, Lawrence Phillips, etc.).
So, who knows if Hasselback is a jerk, or if Cromartie really wouldn't smash someone's face in over a comment. Either way, the way news is reported is changing.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Metadata and You
I first encountered the word metadata back when I started creating Web pages in the mid 1990's. Programs called "search engines", like Webcrawler and Altavista, would automatically find your page and make it available for the world to find. They did have issues adequately describing your page, so as a Web developer adding "meta tags" was critical. It was a way of adding text that did not show up in the Web browser, but allowed search engines to find information about your site.
Metadata is something that is used today in many areas, from computer forensics to corporate espionage. I will give you a regular example first. As a professor, there are times when I think something might be an exact copy of someone else's file. The first thing I will do is take a look at the file properties. In Office 2010, I would go to the File tab and select "Info". On the right side are properties. I can see very easily the name of the person who created the file. In a computer lab, most people probably have the same user name, so that may not tell me anything. However, if you created it at home and gave it to a friend, there is pretty damning evidence since your friend has handed in a file with your name in it. Other ways include "date created" - this tells me the day and time the file was created. I am of course not opening up my whole bag of tricks here, but these are two ways to investigate a file further.
In terms of corporate espionage and hacking...many times, the metadata in programs such as Word (and most of the rest of Office) includes data like username, company name and a file path. If this file was created on a network drive, I now know the name of one of your company's internal servers and possibly your username. This information is valuable for hackers!
If you are distributing a file from Office, also be aware if your company uses tracking changes, revisions, comments, or hidden text, that information can be included in a file you distribute. If a member of a company's staff left a comment in the file, there is a good chance it could be found. You can use the Office 2010 Prepare for Sharing options to minimize this risk, though once again, most people do not realize this.
Even programs like Photoshop can cause metadata issues. Let's say you have an image, and you choose to blur out bits of it. Photoshop will save a thumbnail as part of the file, to make it quicker for the operating system to give users a preview. Therefore, a smart hacker may be able to see your original image using some advanced techniques. Programs such as jStrip will help minimize this risk, but many people don't realize it is a risk.
Like many other technology issues, the only way people know about this generally seems to be if they are burned by it.
Metadata is something that is used today in many areas, from computer forensics to corporate espionage. I will give you a regular example first. As a professor, there are times when I think something might be an exact copy of someone else's file. The first thing I will do is take a look at the file properties. In Office 2010, I would go to the File tab and select "Info". On the right side are properties. I can see very easily the name of the person who created the file. In a computer lab, most people probably have the same user name, so that may not tell me anything. However, if you created it at home and gave it to a friend, there is pretty damning evidence since your friend has handed in a file with your name in it. Other ways include "date created" - this tells me the day and time the file was created. I am of course not opening up my whole bag of tricks here, but these are two ways to investigate a file further.
In terms of corporate espionage and hacking...many times, the metadata in programs such as Word (and most of the rest of Office) includes data like username, company name and a file path. If this file was created on a network drive, I now know the name of one of your company's internal servers and possibly your username. This information is valuable for hackers!
If you are distributing a file from Office, also be aware if your company uses tracking changes, revisions, comments, or hidden text, that information can be included in a file you distribute. If a member of a company's staff left a comment in the file, there is a good chance it could be found. You can use the Office 2010 Prepare for Sharing options to minimize this risk, though once again, most people do not realize this.
Even programs like Photoshop can cause metadata issues. Let's say you have an image, and you choose to blur out bits of it. Photoshop will save a thumbnail as part of the file, to make it quicker for the operating system to give users a preview. Therefore, a smart hacker may be able to see your original image using some advanced techniques. Programs such as jStrip will help minimize this risk, but many people don't realize it is a risk.
Like many other technology issues, the only way people know about this generally seems to be if they are burned by it.
Thursday, January 06, 2011
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:
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.
- 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).
- 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.
- 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).
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.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Web Templates
Back in the stone ages of the mid-1990's, I developed Web pages by hand. Some of my students seem pretty impressed that I can still code a page by hand, and seem to want to do things that way as well. My advice at this point is to not do it that way. A good working knowledge of HTML can be useful in order to tweak a page, or if you are writing a script to generate a dynamic Web page. However, for static Web sites, it generally makes a lot more sense to just use a Web development tool such as Adobe Dreamweaver.
As someone who is not a graphic designer, I would have problems making attractive Web sites. If I were really planning on doing Web development, I would either find a graphic designer to work with, or plan on purchasing some sort of package. Many times, designers or design companies will sell templates to Web developers for this purchase. For example, a site like Project Seven sells some really nice designs that I would never be able to create for $60. The nice part is they are designed for use with Dreamweaver, and should cleanly plug right in to your interface.
I look back on some of my early Web work, and it was clumsy, but by purchasing the rights to something like that, I'd be able to make some really professional sites with very little effort.
As someone who is not a graphic designer, I would have problems making attractive Web sites. If I were really planning on doing Web development, I would either find a graphic designer to work with, or plan on purchasing some sort of package. Many times, designers or design companies will sell templates to Web developers for this purchase. For example, a site like Project Seven sells some really nice designs that I would never be able to create for $60. The nice part is they are designed for use with Dreamweaver, and should cleanly plug right in to your interface.
I look back on some of my early Web work, and it was clumsy, but by purchasing the rights to something like that, I'd be able to make some really professional sites with very little effort.
Friday, December 24, 2010
NORAD Santa tracker
It always amazes me how people use technology.
As a child, I remember writing a letter to Santa. Now, you can email Santa.
Just to one-up that, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command - a joint Canadian/American effort) has launched a Santa tracker, complete with Google map and computer graphic video. Pretty cool stuff! If I had a small child to show this to, I would certainly do so.
noradsanta.com
Hope everyone has a nice holiday break. Looking forward to doing some recharging myself.
As a child, I remember writing a letter to Santa. Now, you can email Santa.
Just to one-up that, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command - a joint Canadian/American effort) has launched a Santa tracker, complete with Google map and computer graphic video. Pretty cool stuff! If I had a small child to show this to, I would certainly do so.
noradsanta.com
Hope everyone has a nice holiday break. Looking forward to doing some recharging myself.
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