Tech Stuff

Attention, Broadband Users!

Broadband Users’ Activities To Be Monitored

Charter Communications, the fourth largest Internet Service Providers in the United States, has reportedly begun telling some of its 2.7 million broadband users that they’ll be monitoring every web site they visit to help web advertisers deliver targeted ads.

Charter offers an opt-out option.

Take it.

And tell them they should really be going the opt-in route instead.

If your broadband provider is not Charter, better find out if your provider is following or thinking of implementing the Charter model.

Thinking the Web is a private place really does require the willing suspension of disbelief.

This Is Progress?

😯

The Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday:

Because pretty soon, we’re all going to have video cameras in our cellphones.

Also known as cellular video cameras. Meaning anyone will be able to broadcast from anywhere. Live.

[…]

At first, a phone that can shoot video might seem like just another gadget with just another feature. But the leap here is that coupling a video phone with the Web makes showing, sharing and storing video just about effortless.

[…]

Meaning it’ll be harder to get away with bad behavior. Start weaving too much on the 405, and the fellow behind you might send live video of you to the police. As well he should.

And that probably means, with the increased risk of being caught on tape, that the cautious among us will tend to shy away from unwise choices. I know my turnstile-jumping days are over.

I. Do. Not. Like. It.

Call me a phobic of some sort. Call me old-fashioned. Call me a security-and-privacy nut. Call me paranoid.

And call me a prophet.

This. Is. Not. Good.

On the other hand, this kind of technology emphasizes this Lesson-for-Living: Live the right way.

Imagine somebody using one of these phones to broadcast this riveting video-documentary: Mark Roth at WalMart.

What would viewers learn about the genuineness and depth and live-ability of my Christian faith? 😯

So, my friends, live your life and wear your face as though somebody were watching.

Soon they may well be.

(Actually, your fellow humans have been watching you for a long time. This technology just expands the audience as well as saves your life for future reference and review.)

Then there’s the matter that He has been watching you (and over you) from before your birth.

Now go do the right thing.

Parents, Guard That Door!

I confess I’m amazed this in in the New York Times:

The Undercover Parent

Not long ago, friends of mine confessed over dinner that they had put spyware on their 15-year-old son’s computer so they could monitor all he did online. At first I was repelled at this invasion of privacy. Now, after doing a fair amount of research, I get it.

Make no mistake: If you put spyware on your computer, you have the ability to log every keystroke your child makes and thus a good portion of his or her private world. That’s what spyware is — at least the parental monitoring kind. You don’t have to be an expert to put it on your computer. You just download the software from a vendor and you will receive reports — weekly, daily, whatever — showing you everything your child is doing on the machine.

Scary. But a good idea. Most parents won’t even consider it.

[…]

Some will say that you should simply trust your child, that if he is old enough to go on the Internet he is old enough to know the dangers. Trust is one thing, but surrendering parental responsibility to a machine that allows the entire world access to your home borders on negligence.

Some will say that it’s better just to use parental blocks that deny access to risky sites. I have found that they don’t work. Children know how to get around them. But more than that — and this is where it gets tough — I want to know what’s being said in e-mail and instant messages and in chat rooms.

There are two reasons for this. First, we’ve all read about the young boy unknowingly conversing with a pedophile or the girl who was cyberbullied to the point where she committed suicide. Would a watchful eye have helped? We rely in the real world on teachers and parents to guard against bullies — do we just dismiss bullying on the Internet and all it entails because we are entering difficult ethical ground?

Second, everything your child types can already be seen by the world — teachers, potential employers, friends, neighbors, future dates. Shouldn’t he learn now that the Internet is not a haven of privacy?

Parent or child or not, you really ought to read the full article. Thanks to Harrison Scott Key over at WorldMagBlog for calling my attention to it.

I think I’ll print it out for my teens to read. And I’ll also see what’s available for parental monitoring software.

OK, I just did a quick search and found this site right away: http://www.monitoringsoftwarereviews.org.

And here’s some software available via Amazon:


PC Pandora [NEW - Version 5.0]     Sentry at Home

eBlaster 5.0     Spector Pro 6.0

Another Security Lapse

This time at Facebook — Security Lapse Exposes Photos:

A security lapse made it possible for unwelcome strangers to peruse personal photos posted on Facebook Inc.’s popular online hangout, circumventing a recent upgrade to the Web site’s privacy controls.

The Associated Press verified the loophole Monday after receiving a tip from a Byron Ng, a Vancouver, Canada computer technician. Ng began looking for security weaknesses last week after Facebook unveiled more ways for 67 million members to restrict access to their personal profiles.

But the added protections weren’t enough to prevent Ng from pulling up the most recent pictures posted by Facebook members and their friends, even if the privacy settings were set to restrict the audience to a select few.

After being alerted Monday afternoon, Facebook spokeswoman Brandee Barker said the Palo Alto-based company fixed the bug within an hour.

So how many millions of lines of code does it take to run Facebook? And how many more bugs might there be, waiting to be discovered?

Here are a few more paragraphs from the above story:

The latest lapse serves as another reminder of the perils of sharing sensitive photos and personal information online, even when Web sites pledge to shield the information from prying eyes.

Before the fix, Ng’s computer-coding trick enabled him to find private pictures of Paris Hilton at the Emmy awards and of her brother Barron Nicholas drinking a beer with friends and photos of many other people who hadn’t granted access to Ng.

[…]

Despite the risks, more people than ever — especially teenagers and young adults — are publishing personal photos and other intimate details about their lives on the Internet.

News Corp.’s MySpace.com, the only online social network larger than Facebook, suffered a security breach that exposed its members’ private photos earlier this year.

And don’t forget about the security breach an Gmail. And plenty of other sites. (I wonder how long till we hear of a breach at Carbonite or some other online storage site.)

My urgent advice: Use the Internet (Web, email, chat, IM, storage, etc) as though it weren’t private and secure.

Expensive Free Wireless

As one who has used public wireless in airports, coffee houses, libraries, and elsewhere, I found this article particularly interesting.

Public Wireless, or its Evil Twin?

The next time you’re in an airport, train station, bus station, coffee house, or other public place and decide to “jack in” to the Internet, you might well be exposing yourself to identity thieves — or worse.

Here’s how it works: the girl across from you in the airport coffee shop has a laptop in her briefcase that’s set as an ‘access point’, or a ‘WiFi hotspot’. She’s even given the access point a legitimate-sounding ID, say, something like “Free Airport WiFi”. You power up your own laptop, quickly browse for available networks, see “Free Airport WiFi”, note that it’s unsecured but ignoring that, you connect.

On connecting, her computer promptly proxies your access to the web and begins feeding your laptop with look-a-like pages for your banks, email access portals, or other sites. She’s recording everything that passes through her access point. She’s an “evil twin”.

I don’t understand how it can be done. But that doesn’t change that reality, does it?

If you use public wireless, you’d be well served to click the link to read the full article. It includes some safety tips and precautions.

Cellphone Radiation and Your Cells

So you’re thinking, “Not another anti-cellphone scare piece!”

Well, click the link and read the full article anyway. 🙂

How Cellphone Radiation Affects Your Cells

Radiation from cell phones is too weak to heat biological tissue or break chemical bonds in cells, but the radio waves they emit may still change cell behavior.

Scientists exposed 10 female volunteers to radiation at 900 megahertz from GSM phones to simulate an hour-long phone call.

[…]

This study shows that even without heating, molecular level changes take place in response to exposure to cell phone frequency electromagnetic radiation.

[…]

We believe the biological damage comes both from the modulated signals that are carried ON the carrier microwave and the carrier wave itself. However, they do their damage by two entirely different mechanisms. These modulated information-carrying radio waves resonate in biological frequencies of a few to a few hundred cycles per second, and can stimulate your cellular receptors causing a whole cascade of pathological consequences that can culminate in fatigue, anxiety and ultimately cancers.

[…]

Do you suffer from any of these common illnesses and ailments, which have all been scientifically linked to cell phone information-carrying radio waves?

  • Alzheimer’s, senility and dementia
  • Parkinson’s
  • Autism
  • Fatigue
  • Headaches
  • Sleep disruptions
  • Altered memory function, poor concentration and spatial awareness

[…]

To date, there are few alternatives to ensure complete safety, but there are some common sense recommendations:

  • Limit the amount of time you spend on the phone.
  • Limit your exposure to WiFi routers. Find out where they are located in your work environment and stay away from them.
  • If you have any land-based (non-cellular) portable phones, do NOT use anything other than the 900 MHz phones as the Gigahertz phones stay on continuously, blasting you with information-carrying radio waves 24/7.
  • Use the speakerphone instead of putting the phone to your ear; this is probably one of the single most important steps you can take other than not using your cell phone.
  • Use a wired headset to limit your exposure to the cell phone — ideally, an air-tube headset that conducts sound but prevents any radiation from traveling up the wire to your brain. Also make sure the wire is SHIELDED, which prevents the wire from acting as an antenna that could attract more information-carrying radio waves directly to your brain.
  • Limit calls inside buildings.
  • Use the phone in open spaces as often as possible.
  • Limit use by children and preadolescents.

That’s my public service announcement for today.

Disclaimer: I tend not to like cellphones, though I’ve owned one for years. (And we have three in our household-of-five.)

And now in the Thousand Words Department:

If a rat used a cellphone....

Note to SPCA and PETA: Regarding the above abused rat, I’m only the messenger. Thanks.

(I think SPCA stands for Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I suppose they’re good pals with PETA — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.)

Found: Transitional Life Form

Scroll down for updates. Original post date/time: February 18, 2008 @ 09:04

No, I’m not talking about Big Foot or PlatyPus.

Nor am I talking about a winged lizard nor a walking turnip.

Not even a man with the head of a bird and the ears of an elephant.

Nope, it’s something I saw on the Web on Saturday evening and again this morning.

Key Bank: Transitional Life Form

If you want to see in real-time my incredible discovery for yourself, go here.

Dare I hope a Key Bank person sees this?

Now tell me, how’s that a transitional life form?

And another question, what general life lessons do you see in the screen capture above?

And this one yet: How might this post fit under Christianity 101?

OK, now it’s 7:54 am on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 — and nobody’s tried answering my questions.

To answer the first question, here’s what I just got done commenting to Key Bank:

www.key.com/managecredit seems to me to be a transitional life form.

That is, it’s between Brick-and-Mortar philosophy and Web-Business philosophy.

We can do account management online . . . if we do it during certain business hours on business days.

So Saturday I noticed that my payment was due on 2/18. But I couldn’t pay online since it wasn’t Monday-Friday.

So Monday I tried to make a payment, but couldn’t since it was a holiday and your Bricks-and-Mortars were closed.

This morning I was finally able to make a payment. (Thanks for the convenience of using the Web!) Alas, it’s late.

Transitional life forms are frustrating. And in my online banking experience, Key is so far unique. In a not-so-positive way.

Do you have plans to transition fully into the Web-Business philosophy?

Thanks.
Above all, love God!