Silicon Shecky

Google uses the moniker, “Don’t Be Evil,” but is that the truth behind the company? A look at Google Plus might change your mind.

Google+ is an interesting creature. One that is gaining popularity rather quickly. It is also one that might not last due to Google’s own policies.

The buzz around Google wanting people to only use real names in Google+ is gaining more and more steam. People are not happy with this idea. Everyone thought that Google+ would be better than Facebook. It definitely has the potential to compete with Facebook. The naming issue is turning into a stumbling block.

I will not go into depth on the whole idea of hiding from stalkers using a pseudonym in a social media setting. Instead I look at it from a natural way to know people. I have a great deal of online friends. I know them by their names from games, from forums, form other places that you don’t use your normal name. So when I see that Joe Shmo instead of DJ Cool J has added me to their circles, I have to sit back and wonder who the heck is following me? For that matter, Google+ is only as usable as the people you have in your circles, and if I cannot find them easily, which means nicknames, pseudonyms, etc, then I am not going to use the site.

Google though, sees the whole Social Media world as data. Just like search, just like AdWords, it is all data that can be used with algorithms to extract bits of information. That information can then be used to send targeted advertising to you. This increases the chance that Google and the company who is advertising can make some money off you. Its all about making a buck.

So should it surprise anyone that Google wants to mine what you say in Google+. What you Link to? Who you are? The amount of data that Google can dig up on each one of us through public means can really give a good profile of us. That can be used for Advertising, or worse, should Google decide to use it for “Homeland Security” purposes.

The book In The Plex by Steven Levey takes a good look at Google. Brin and Page (Google’s Founders) are all about the data and search. Data especially, because they want to have everything in the world indexed in one spot. Just imagine if that data fell into the wrong hands.

Lulzsec, a group that some people applauded. The were showing security holes. Well, truth is they are a bunch of bullies and jerks.

I love music. More so, I enjoy some Internet Radio Stations. I find a lot of the smaller ones tend to play all sorts of stuff I have not heard before, and broaden my musical tastes. These independent stations will go through the FCC to make sure they are compliant with the outrageous Licensing fees that the music industry puts on them. The FCC is even willing to help pay for that licensing, in turn for a few small things such as playing 5 minutes of real news every so often. Its something the government does right.

So when a few of the stations I listen to all of a sudden had problems with their web sites, and a few had problems with their streams, I figured I would talk to the tech people and see if I could help. Each one of them gave me a similar story of what was going on. Lulzsec was trying to blackmail them. Yep, these independent stations, all of whom get some help from the government, were facing DDOS attacks from Lulzsec. That was not the only thing. They are getting automated phone calls from Lulzsec demanding the admin password for their radio streams so Lulzsec can break in whenever they want to and take over the station.

I won’t mention the names of the stations, since they have called in the FBI on this. I just look at this and go, what a bunch of script kiddie jerks. I mean if Lulzsec were the “Elite” hackers they claim to be, couldn’t then have just hacked the servers that host the radio stream and taken it over that way? Heck, most Internet Radio Stations use either IceCast or Shoutcast stream servers. those servers tend to be Linux based, and usually have Apache on them. How do I know this? Well, I help some volunteer radio stations with tech at times, so I have learned the setup. Heck for that matter, I set up a Shoutcast server at my house so I could do some testing, and stream music to my different devices around the house. It isn’t that difficult.  If Lulzsec wants to broadcast over the Internet, and they are such high end people, then why not just make their own server for streaming, like they do for their IRC?

Think about it. If a group is so boisterous, it wants the press. It wants to be heard. The most elite in the hacking world though, you will never hear a peep from. They lurk in the shadows. They keep their egos in check. They create things for those kiddies that want the attention. Those are the tough ones to find. Until then, we have to keep dealing with jerks like Lulzsec.

The case of the mysterious stopping spooler has been solved. At least this time.

Good old Microsoft. You send in errors, look up errors and can not find anything from Microsoft itself. Half the time the people in the Technet Forums treat people with almost a snark to them, and don’t listen. Canned answers, no answers, and worst of all no information.

I recently had one of those spooler.exe keeps stopping problems. Went through all the logs, did my Internet searches and came up with an answer. c:\windows\system32\spooler\print needed to be cleaned out. Simple answer, which I found archived from a forum question about 4 years ago. Not an official Microsoft forums mind you, just a general IT forum.I find more things away from Microsoft than on their site.

It is frustrating. I am sure all of you have run into something similar. You look in the event logs and there is the “Click here for more information” link in the error message. Of course 99% of the time when you click on that link, the more information is sorry, we have no information on that error. The rest of the time it is just a general description that already has been stated inside the log entry.

Why does Microsoft tease us so? They have the perfect mechanism to help us, the ones who support their products, and yet they shun us. Yes there is a lot of other information out on the net, but sometimes you run into errors that you can’t find anyone else who has solved the error. Sometimes you want that information from Microsoft, without having to call them up and use an incident or pay for an incident. Last time I called up Microsoft, I had the problem figured out while on hold because the Microsoft Technician was asking for help. He couldn’t find information on the error codes.

Microsoft wants to be a big name in search. They have the perfect mechanism to help take Google down a peg with the links in the error log entries. Why they don’t get that working properly, I have no clue.