The View From Here

Tech tips that you can use

Archive for April, 2009

Chicken Little, The Sky is Falling!

Apr 30

Posted by admin in Uncategorized

Chicken Little, the sky is falling! By 2012 the Internet is going to have regular “brown outs” causing your computer to lock up. Chaos ensues as doctors can’t get receive critical patient data, stock trades are lost and grandparents the world over can’t receive pictures of the kids. The brown outs are predicted to begin some time next year.

You have been warned by Nemertes Research. These are the same ones who predicted the brown outs would occur in 2008. I can’t say that I remember any brown outs. Maybe I missed them prepping for the great Conficker massacre. As an aside, I’m still waiting for that.

This is yet another continuation of the Exaflood Myth. The Exaflood Myth states that internet growth is at or over 100% each year. Let me rephrase, internet traffic is doubling every year.

In 2008, the Minnesota Internet Traffic Studies program at the University of Minnesota did a comprehensive study and demonstrated that while wireless usage grew by 50% - 60%, its still a far cry from the 100% growth.

This myth is commonly sited by major carriers as a primary reason for wanting to change the common pricing scheme of having a monthly fee for bandwidth regardless of how much is actually used. Currently most ISP’s charge based on either the amount of time you’re online (for dial-up users) or your connection speed for those on a broadband connection. They would much prefer to not only charge you based on speed but also the amount that you use. With the massive amount of content out there, ISP’s want to cash in on the data that’s coming through their pipes to you. Just like having a water or gas meter on your house. Gentle reader, this is the politics of fear. According to Karl Bode at dslreports.com:

The term “exaflood,” created by the same PR tank that crafted the term “intelligent design,” is part of a sophisticated campaign aimed at convincing the press, public and lawmakers that without giving carriers what they want (less regulation, no net neutrality laws, no price controls, huge subsidies and tax credits, less consumer protection), the world will simply run out of bandwidth and we’ll all be weeping over our clogged tubes.

I implore all of you: Question everything. Just because you read it at a respected news source does not make it true. Do your own research. It took just 10 minutes of doing internet searches using the terms “Exaflood”, and “Nemartes Research” to start realizing there are serious holes in the report. The view from here is pretty skeptical.


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Put that in your facepage and load it

Apr 22

Posted by admin in Uncategorized

Up until a few months ago, if asked about Facebook or Myspace, I would say to run screaming from them. We tend to get a lot of computers sitting on our bench riddled with viruses and spyware. A lot of times they have the common factor of a Facebook or MySpace account. We started making the assumption that the viruses were coming in via those sites.

I would like to take this opportunity to amend that previous mindset and possible misinformation. Both are highly popular sites so it is only natural that we would see a high percentage of computers that frequented them. To draw the conclusion that the viruses are a result of coming in via these sites because the user has frequented them is as an erroneous statement as to draw the same conclusion because the user frequented Fox News.

Both sites are considered “social networking”. What the heck does THAT mean? In short, it helps you connect with others who have a similar interest in things. Or, re-connect with old friends, high school or college classmates.

Like any tool, they have their uses, benefits, limitations and hazards.

The benefits are pretty straight forward. I’ve been able to get back in touch with some old friends who I haven’t spoken with in 15 years or more. After reminiscing about the old times, you find that the people you may or may not have had a falling out with don’t really care about the past and are just happy to swap stories of kids, work and life in general. As one friend put it to me “I don’t think you and I were ever on the outs and, even if we were, we’re not the same people we were 20 years ago. Life is good!”

The hazards and limitations can be a bit more subtle. The sites have applications which you can install onto your account. The last part bears repeating. They are installed, or associated, with your account. They are not installed onto your computer. For example, I added a family tree maker that will send requests to those members of my family that have a Facebook account. It will then link their account profiles onto the family tree. Any time you add an application there is a standard disclaimer that comes up:

Allowing XYZ access will let it pull your profile information, photos, your friends’ info, and other content that it requires to work.

Let’s dissect that. By allowing that application to be associated with your account, you are allowing that app access to all the info that you have on Facebook. From a security point of view, that creates a gaping hole through which you could drive a semi.

There’s nothing to say that you have to install any application. It will work just as well if you have 50 app’s installed to having none.

Another potential hazard is if you are job hunting. Recruiters and HR departments routinely scan through facebook and myspace for applicants. Lets suppose you’re job hunting and your status on facebook says “my boss is a jerk. Can’t wait till I blow this popsicle stand.” Now let’s suppose you applied for a job and the HR department scans through andsees your status. What are the chances of even being called for an interview after they see that? Not much.

Check out this link from PC World for more information.

Do the potential benefits outweigh the hazards? Since the hazards are easily managed, the answer is yes. As with any online presence, one always has to remember that the Internet is global and anyone can read what you place online in a public forum.


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Email hoaxes, spam and Mr. Ed

Apr 13

Posted by admin in Uncategorized

(Sung to the theme song of the TV Show “Mr. Ed”)

This email looks like a hoax,

Of course,

Snopes has debunked worse

Of course

It’s plausible

enough to be true

I wish that they’d drop dead!

In a previous post, we covered the basic grounds of email etiquette. Things like getting rid of all the Fw: Fw: Fw: Fw: in the subject line, or knowing the intended audience.

If you could see the view from here, you would see a mountain of email forwards sitting in my inbox. Believe it or not, I actually get more spam from people I know than from outsides sources. “Send this prayer to 10 people”, “Little Suzy Netsurfer wants to know your first name for her 7th Grade science project”, “Forwarding chain letter emails puts you on a spam list”, and so on, and so forth. Actually, I wish the last one was true. Maybe if I scared the pants off of enough people with that, the chain letters would stop flowing. Naah, who am I kidding?

That being said, I submit the following for your perusal:

> Rather than forwarding the “Send this flag to 10 people to support our troops” email or other such pseudo-patriotic foolishness, exercise your First Amendment right and delete it. Sending these are a pure waste of time. It’s just “feel-good” crap. Hey, lookit me! I support our troops because I can click on “FORWARD” and my address book! Puh-leez. Why not write an actual letter to a soldier? You don’t even have to know their name. There is the Any Soldier Project, or the USO, or Soldier’s Angels amongst many others. Take out the pen. Put it to a sheet of paper and start writing. Who cares if your handwriting is sloppy? It’s a heck of a lot more personal than blindly emailing that flag. Plus, think of how much bandwidth and space you’ve saved in all the inboxes by not sending that flag.

> Thinking of forwarding that prayer or the “I’m thinking of you” or “You’re special to me” email? You know the ones I’m talking about. We’ve all seen it. The end of them say to send it back to the person who sent it to you as well send it to 10 people you love/care about/think about. Here’s a better idea. You can do two things for that person. First, you can delete that email as soon as it hits your inbox. Second, pick up the phone and call that person. TELL them how much miss them, or care about them. Or, send them an original email. It doesn’t have to be a long saga detailing all the things that you love/miss/like in that person. A simple “I was just thinking of you. You’re special to me.” SEND.

> Any email asking you to forward to all your friends is immediately suspect. I don’t care if its advice on how to remove laundry stains, supposed quotes by a lawmaker, the 10 latest things that cause cancer or whatever. This is the basic litmus test to use when forwarding something along. All you have to do is ask yourself this question: “Is this worth printing out, spending the money on a stamp and mailing it?” If the answer is ‘No’, just hit the ol’ Delete.

> Hoaxes, fakes, and downright lies: Not sure if something is true or false? Take the headline of the email or the general topic and throw it into the search engine of your choice. I’ll bet that 9/10 times you’ll get hits from snopes.com, hoax-slayer.com or another myth debunking site. And 9/10 of those hits will be documented articles saying that it is a hoax. You can do one of two things: delete the email and forget about it, or (if you’re particularly mean) send the results back to the person and say “Do your homework before sending out this garbage. Oh, and I was just thinking of you. You’re special to me”.

> If you are ever asked for your password in an email, delete it. There is not a ISP worth having that would request your email password since if they need it, they already have it on record.

If you claim that you don’t have time take any of the advice above, I submit this question to you: How is it that you have time to forward every piece of uninteresting, untrue, sickeningly sweet email that crosses your path? Fact verification often takes less than 2 minutes and you can learn something in the process.


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The Internet Is Dead!

Apr 7

Posted by admin in Uncategorized

The Internet Is Dead! Love Live Corporate-Sponsored Web 2.0!

When did the Internet die? Do we mark it’s passing with the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) in October, 2008? Or did it die earlier, with the RIAA lawsuits against Napster? Those are questions that I cannot answer. But it is safe to say that the Internet as we know it is dead.

We routinely get notices of copyright infringement. When we receive these notices, we send them to the user in question. As far as we’re concerned, we have let you know that there is a legal problem and our responsibility on the matter ends there. Some ISPs, notably AT&T, are considering canceling accounts when they receive these types of notifications. They are following a policy of Better-Safe-Than-Sorry.  This is causing quite a bit of alarm, as you can well imagine. Take a note here, I’m making the call now: In the not too distant future, ISP’s are going to start canceling accounts of those people who get a virus or have their accounts hacked and spew out a ton of spam. They will cancel these hacked/infect accounts because it not only made their ISP look bad, it caused damage to the ISP by getting them put onto a black list, and left them open to a lawsuit because some lawyer got 150 spam emails touting the newest cheap “1nsur@nce”.

This past week, youtube took down thousands of videos based on perceived copyright infringement. I use the term “perceived” because it is debatable if all the videos violated the DMCA. One video was of a girl playing the piano & singing “Winter Wonderland”. By fair-use rights, she could do so at a recital and even make a video of it. She just can’t post it on a public forum? WHAT? That is just one example. For a more comprehensive look, check out this article from the NY TIMES You might want to make certain you’ve taken your blood pressure medicine. Mine went through the roof.

Youtube is owned by Google. You know Google. It’s that search engine with the hip mantra of “Don’t Be Evil” that is a part of its corporate code of conduct. According to Google’s Investor Relations page,

“..it’s about providing our users unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that we can. But it’s also about doing the right thing more generally - following the law, acting honorably and treating each other with respect.”

Allow me a moment to editorialize on that.

Are they following the law? Yes they are. BASE HIT UP THE MIDDLE.

Are they providing unbiased information? Not so, when a guy can’t use a song to teach sign language for completely non-commercial purposes. STRIKE 1.

Is Google “focusing on their needs”? For Warner Music Group, yes. For those who got caught in the middle? No. Foul-ball, STRIKE 2.

Is Google acting honorably and treating each other with respect? Not at all. Acting honorably does not include taking the word of a bunch of WMG (Warner Music Group) bots and taking down all the videos without so much as a glance of the material being removed. STRIKE 3. YOU’RE (and your video) OUT!

Perhaps that ought to be changed to “Don’t be evil unless in certain instances where a third party may perceive a potential copyright violation in which case Google or its subsidiaries maintains the right to redefine the term ‘evil’ to suit the requirements of the time and follow a course that most closely matches it’s corporate and/or legal responsibilities.”

Oh yeah, some tech tips that you can use.

  1. Post anything you want on youtube so long as it doesn’t contain any images, audio, text, logos or any other corporate-owned material. In other words: TV snow/fuzz is perfectly acceptable. Everything else is subject to question
  2. If you haven’t purchased it, you don’t legally own it.  It could get you a friendly letter from your ISP forwarding a copyright infringement notice.

The View From Here is getting a little foggy. I’m not even certain I can legally post this blog.


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Conficker, configure, confusion.

Apr 1

Posted by admin in Uncategorized

If you’d believe the news, the conficker virus is the end of the world. Chicken Little! The sky is falling!

Well, not quite. Yes, it is widespread and can be transferred via an infected USB flash drive. The reason it is reaching the news is that today, April 1, it is supposed to evolve so that it will be harder to detect. And, since the talking heads are getting bored with hammering away on the abysmal state of the economy, this is the perfect new story to scare the general populous.

Gentle reader, I offer you this consolation: It is not going to shut down the power grid. It will not cause planes to fall out of the air. The sky is not falling.

Before you start downloading every piece of firewall protection and anti-virus solution out there, just take a deep breath. Hold it. Exhale completely and read on.

If you have followed the suggestions posted in the very first post of this blog you are probably going to be ok. And if you have followed the suggestions from the 2nd and 4th posts, who cares if you get infected? There are bigger things to worry about, like the weather. Or, your latest high score from an online game.

Folks, this virus has been kicking around since November. This is nothing new.  Make certain that you have done all of your Windows Updates. Microsoft is well aware of the security hole that the virus exploits and has already issued a patch. Symantec has a removal tool to get rid of it.

It is going to be ok. This is not the end of the world. This is just a slow news day.


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