Silicon Shecky » Michael Kavka http://siliconshecky.com IT News, Reviews and Thoughts Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:49:19 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Google.. what are you doing? http://siliconshecky.com/google-what-are-you-doing/ http://siliconshecky.com/google-what-are-you-doing/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:49:19 +0000 Michael Kavka http://siliconshecky.com/?p=1587

Google’s Bradley Horowitz recently announced that Google+ will be accepting Nicknames and Pseudonyms. Considering other changes, is Google+ drowning?

People from day one have been asking for anonymity on Google+ and now Google has a few ways to hide your real name from the world. At least that is how it seems. With the announcement a couple of friends tried setting up nicknames. And while they could add them into their profile, they couldn’t change the name that people saw. Hopefully that portion just hasn’t rolled out yet.

The Pseudonym Policy on the other hand will require some verification. The methods could be rather arbitrary as they say the will require either real world or online verification of some sort. The arbitrary nature of the verification process is where I see problems coming in. The other question is what should be a nickname and what a Pseudonym?

Finally, Google is forcing people to sign up for Google+ when they get any of Google’s services. While we all know that this is a sure fire way to artificially increase the numbers for Google+, there is another problem with this. The naming policy, unless you get an approved pseudonym, requires real information such as your full name. This limits the usefulness of Gmail as an anonymous e-mail account. Not only that, but it could drive people to picking up Yahoo or Hotmail accounts again. Forcing people to sign up for a service they don’t want and will not use is a bad business decision on any company’s part. It really makes you wonder if Google+ is drowning in its own hype.

Right now I am taking a wait and see approach. I have a Google+ account already, and I do have a Google+ page set up for SiliconShecky, which eventually I will find a tool that will post my articles to Google+ like I post to twitter automatically. Also check out this article from Ars Technica for more information.

]]> http://siliconshecky.com/google-what-are-you-doing/feed/ 0 SOPA/PIPA: What Happens Now? http://siliconshecky.com/sopapipa-what-happens-now/ http://siliconshecky.com/sopapipa-what-happens-now/#comments Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:08:56 +0000 Michael Kavka http://siliconshecky.com/?p=1583

This week there was protesting going on about SOPA and PIPA. The real question is, what happens now?

Congressmen are removing their support. the people who introduced the bills are removing the DNS blocking provisions. What more needs to happen is the question that they will ask.

First, lets start with this, a politicians promise is like a prostitute’s kiss. It is slimy and is not something you can believe. The fact that non of the congressmen who have backpedaled have given any clue as to what they now find objectionable outside of their constituents not liking the bill, is a worrisome sign. One that shows that they don’t really want to back off, and they are putting on a face until the fervor dies down. This is why we need to press the advantage right now to get these bills changed.

Karl W. Palachuk rightly claims in a Facebook post that 99% of the people who signed the petitions don’t know much about the bill. He though, like a lot of the people for the bills, try to make it about infringing versus not infringing. That is not the real problem. People like him who say that not supporting SOPA/PIPA is akin to being a pirate yourself are short sighted and wrong. The real issues are Cybersecurity, letting the foxes (RIAA/MPAA) guard the hen house, and no oversight. The Censorship angel is being used as a way to disguise these other issues that have been brought up.

For instance, there is a provision in SOPA that “bars the distribution of tools and services designed to get around such blacklists.” This is dangerous because sites such as Tor, which is used by people in places such as China and Iran to get around their firewalls, could create problems for VPNs, which could be used by people who work for multinational companies to get around the blacklists, and encryption which would prevent people from seeing what you are requesting on the net. Heck, to bypass some of the blocking/filtering, you could just modify your hosts file. Does that make every operating system illegal under SOPA?

Also think about this. The punishments in SOPA do not fit the crimes. Overbearing on the fines front, making these crimes a felony and setting jail times longer than those who beat up their wives or kids is just not right.

Now to further the argument, there is the Megaupload takedown which happened yesterday. this 2 year investigation with international cooperation sets a standard for taking down sites that are helping pirate stuff knowingly. Yes they have servers on American soil, but they are a multinational company, and Kim Dotcom was arrested in New Zealand. That right there shows that the DCMA combined with current law can take down pirates.

Yes Piracy is a problem. Then again its always been a problem. Should we shut down libraries because people might not (and do not) return books thereby getting them for free. Heck they read them for free through the library. You can get movies, music all of it for free from a library. Why not shut them down? The point being that no matter what, there will be it. I have yet to see confirmable numbers on what it actually is doing to the entertainment industry, but with the amounts of money the execs get pain in bonuses, it really can’t be hurting them too much.

You can go to sites like ArsTechnica.com and find a wealth of information about SOPA and PIPA, what they could do with the laws, extreme examples such as I have posted, and more. There is a wealth of good information out there, and people do need to actually take time to make educated decisions about these sorts of laws.

Finally, think about this. How often do the worst case scenarios come true? Look to the past, see what controversial laws have been enacted without oversight, and how they have been abused over the years. See what groups like the RIAA and MPAA have done in playing the role of Chicken Little (Cassette Tapes, VCRs etc..) over the years, and how they have been proven wrong. We have to decide at some point our own future and not let it get silently dictated to us by a bunch of corporate goons.

]]> http://siliconshecky.com/sopapipa-what-happens-now/feed/ 0 We Hear But Do Not Listen http://siliconshecky.com/we-hear-but-do-not-listen/ http://siliconshecky.com/we-hear-but-do-not-listen/#comments Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:19:58 +0000 Michael Kavka http://siliconshecky.com/?p=1577

People don’t listen. I recently did a little test on my personal Facebook account. I posted a quote from a Republican candidate, said how the quote sounded like Pre-WWII Nazi propaganda and waited. I was not disappointed as people pointed to only part of the statement.

It was an interesting experiment that confirmed what I feared. Most people see and hear only what they want to, and are blind to the rest.  So what does this have to do with the world of IT? Plenty. think about when you deal with a customer/client/user. Do you only hear party of what they are saying,or do you hear the whole thing? Is the client only hearing certain things you are saying? Where is the disconnect and how can one get past it?

Now this disconnect is shown in all its glory with SOPA and PIPA. Congress is listening to the entertainment industry. the refuse to hear what the tech industry has to say. It is a sham that could make us more unsecure. The techniques of domain blocking they are talking about are not only used by oppressive regimes to control what their citizens can see on the Internet, but is used by the very same people that they are trying to stop.

Think about this, you get an e-mail from what looks like a legitimate source, and get sent to a good forgery of the website. The link showed the right address, until you really dig into it. Next thing you know, you have become a victim of identity theft. This is the sort of misdirection that SOPA and PIPA use. Redirecting and falsifying the DNS records. This is what DNS-Sec, which has been years in the making, is supposed to curb or stop.

The RIAA and MPAA, who are so knowledgeable and innovative in the tech world that they are still trying to avoid it, swear that these laws won’t harm security and won’t damage DNS-Sec. Yet the experts who have been DENIED a chance to talk to the committees about the technical issues, are saying the exact opposite. Congress still won’t listen.

Don’t get me wrong, as much as I don’t like the RIAA and MPAA for overextending copyrights so that they don’t have to innovate, they have a right to want help in controlling piracy of their work. To me its not for the Artists who make millions of dollars, but for the lowly engineers, the secretaries, the people who make normal wages and want to keep their jobs. Yes piracy is not as big as it once was, and as more and easier legitimate means come to get entertainment, it goes down. Also, you will never be able to completely stop it. The pirates always find a way around things.

In a world where Identity Theft is a larger problem than Piracy, where something such as DNS-Sec and other security measures that are impacted or killed by bills such as SOPA and PIPA, what is the right solution. SOPA and PIPA definitely are not.  Feel free to e-mail this to your congressmen and senators, for them hearing from us, the people who employ them, is the only way to truly stop it.

]]> http://siliconshecky.com/we-hear-but-do-not-listen/feed/ 0 Shecky Tweets for 2012-01-07 http://siliconshecky.com/shecky-tweets-for-2012-01-07/ http://siliconshecky.com/shecky-tweets-for-2012-01-07/#comments Sat, 07 Jan 2012 05:20:00 +0000 Michael Kavka http://siliconshecky.com/shecky-tweets-for-2012-01-07/

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]]> http://siliconshecky.com/shecky-tweets-for-2012-01-05/feed/ 0 Oh Verizon, You are screwing up http://siliconshecky.com/oh-verizon-you-are-screwing-up/ http://siliconshecky.com/oh-verizon-you-are-screwing-up/#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:01:53 +0000 Michael Kavka http://siliconshecky.com/?p=1572

Extra charges for single online pay, 4G outages, the FTC starting to look at their business practices. Verizon, what have you done?

I was going to give a review of the Motorola Droid Razor today, but decided to push that off. See the Razor is available only through Verizon, and I noticed yet the start of another outage of 4G services this morning. Verizon has said these outages are growing pains, and were the 4G network brand new, I would accept that, but it is not. Verizon has had their 4G network up for just over a year, and should know how to handle growth. They were the ones who didn’t have the issues AT&T had with the explosion of smartphones. Of course that was CDMA vs. GSM. Now its LTE vs. LTE, and AT&T might have the advantage.

See both are using the LTE network, which requires the use of a SIM card. AT&T, whose network is still known for poor quality, and lots of drops, at least has a head start in dealing with the issues of a network that requires the SIM cards. I wish I had proof, but it seems that the SIM cards, or at least networks that require them, are not as stable here in the States as a network like CDMA which has no SIM card. (At the time of writing this, the 4G network just came back up after being inaccessible for an hour). It would be interesting to hear from someone on the differences between the two networks and why the ones that need SIM cards seem to be more unreliable.

Now this is on the heels of the FTC announcing it was probing Verizon over the $2 convenience fee it was going to charge and then pulled back on. Verizon’s statement is that even paying online has its costs. And they are right, there is equipment and software costs, maintenance on the systems, and hardening the equipment against hackers and other forms of data breaches. Still the costs are the same, whether for an automated system or if people pay individually. That is, unless they have to use 2 separate systems, or the company that is processing the payments is charging them an extra fee. Either way, there are other options to reduce the cost. If you think about it from a security standpoint though, the single payment, which I use, is a safer bet, not just from people knowing they have the money in their account, but from a security breach standpoint.

Just think about it. If you sign up for Automated payments, Verizon and the third party who processes the payments, both have your bank account or credit card information saved on servers. These servers are supposed to be PCI compliant. Even if they are, PCI compliance is a joke. Think of the banks (all of which have to follow at least PCI compliance) or stores (Which have to be PCI compliant) or anything that does online transactions, and how many breaches we hear of. Now think about how many breaches we don’t hear of, at least not immediately. Now look at single payment options, where you can choose not to save the payment info on their servers. Yes there are still problems that can arise from man in the middle attacks, spoofed SSL certificates, etc.. but once you make that payment, the info is not supposed to be stored anywhere. That means if Verizon, or their third party payment processor, has a security breach, your payment information should not be compromised. In reality it might just me being paranoid, but from a logic standpoint it does seem safer.

Now, Verizon did withdraw the $2 fee idea pretty quick, but expect to see it show back up again and again. The bigger thing Verizon has to worry about right now is the amount of bad press they are receiving. They need to remember that pissing one customer off means that customer is going to tell their friends and family, and eventually it can and will take a toll on business.

]]> http://siliconshecky.com/oh-verizon-you-are-screwing-up/feed/ 0 Shecky Tweets for 2012-01-04 http://siliconshecky.com/shecky-tweets-for-2012-01-04/ http://siliconshecky.com/shecky-tweets-for-2012-01-04/#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2012 05:20:00 +0000 Michael Kavka http://siliconshecky.com/shecky-tweets-for-2012-01-04/

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  • FTC to refund rogue security software victims: http://t.co/882BjLPV #infosec #
  • Meet #SOPA author Lamar Smith, Hollywoods favorite Republican http://t.co/Z0T6HjDc #STOPSOPA #
  • #SOPA Hearing is live! http://t.co/5frj83XN #STOPSOPA #
  • You go Mr. ISSA!!! #STOPSOPA #
  • CSPAN is being blocked from the #SOPA hearings. Way to go Congress. #CORRUPTION #
  • Congressman #Berman who like Congressman #Smith are in the #MPAA pocket tried to stop reading of #SOPA Talk about anti-american #
  • I'm just waiting for the #RIAA and #MPAA to try and completely shut down the Internet here in the U.S.A. #
  • The #RIAA and #MPAA want to us #DNS #Poisioning to block websites under the claim of piracy. #STOPSOPA #
  • @DJPheonyx that's how its been since the start of it. in reply to DJPheonyx #
  • As I listen to the #SOPA bill read, it sounds like Project #Guttenberg will become illegal under it. #STOPSOPA #
  • #SOPA also sounds like it would stop people from quoting other sources. #STOPSOPA #
  • Wow, I didn't know Extensive Porcess meant pushing through in 2 months. #STOPSOPA #LamarSmith #
  • Wow, Mr. Conyers must not have been listening. It definitely talked about blocking sites via DNS. #STOPSOPA #SOPA #
  • And it did address non-foriegn websites. #STOPSOPA SOPA #
  • 3 people speaking, not a single person of the oposition to #SOPA #STOPSOPA #
  • Wow. #Goodlatte is contradicting everything that #Conuyers statement. #STOPSOPA #SOPA #
  • Well Mr. #Berman censorship is censorship. Period. #SOPA #STOPSOPA #
  • Wow. Way to put it Mr #Chaffetz "We didn't bring in the Doctors the Nerds to see how this is going to work!" #DNSSec #STOPSOPA #SOPA #
  • Wow Congresswoman #Jackson Lee just said that #SOPA prevents Online Privacy! #STOPSOPA The truth comes out! #
  • Comments and Debating still going on at the #SOPA Hearings. Some people there are smart enough to say we need technical advice on this first #
  • And there it is. #Congressman #Issa just brought up the hip-hop blog that was seized for a year. #STOPSOPA #SOPA #
  • *Facepalms* Mr. Goodlatte the whole #SOPA bill is not clearly defined and imprecise. #STOPSOPA #
  • "WHO's Read the Bill?" #MelWatt #STOPSOPA #SOPA #
  • Judge gives Universal Music 24 hours to explain takedown spree http://t.co/WcaYX7ld #DCMA Yep and they want more power now. #SOPA #
  • Nice explanation of Domain name vs. IP Address. #SOPA #SOPAHEARINGS #
  • And the idea of dynamic IP addresses being separated out fails. #SOPA So far if votes go along this line, it will pass out of comittee. #
  • And now they break to go vote on other measures in the full house. #SOPA #
  • Wow, the Arrest of a football player on drug charges is trending and #SOPA is not. Talk about priorities out of whack. #
  • How many of you feel that #SOPA talk is being repressed by the media because their parent companies are for it? #STOPSOPA #
  • #SOPA debate is back on. http://t.co/5thPTnqw #STOPSOPA #
  • From @DarrellIssa "This is a bill about Denial. It will not stop piracy as they will find a way around our block." #SOPA #STOPSOPA #
  • @UncleCozmic Yep, and on the web sites. in reply to UncleCozmic #
  • I'm hearing reports that some sites with #SOPA articles are now missing them #Censorship @DarrellIssa #
  • How can Mr. Watt even debate this when he has said he doesn't understand the tech aspects and how it would affect us? #SOPA #
  • WOW. Mel Watt who has said he knows nothing about Technology has said #SOPA does not hurt #cybersecurity #
  • #Internet #Censorship seems to be in place again. #SOPA information disappearing. and #Twitter stopping it from #trending #YRO #
  • I weep for those who say that #SOPA will become law today. They are just trying to get it out of committee to the full house. #
  • Watching the #SOPA hearings I now understand why #Congress is a joke, how we keep loosing our liberties, and why things need to change. #
  • that should be losing our liberties. damn twitchy finger. #
  • RT @SteveKingIA: We are debating the #SOPA and Shiela Jackson has so bored me that I'm killing time by surfing the Internet. #
  • @Raithnor They don't give a crap. They have accepted that we are screwed and always will be. in reply to Raithnor #
  • @Raithnor If that were true, this bill wouldn't have gotten this far. I'm a bit of a curmudgeon about this, but based on current events. in reply to Raithnor #

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