Archive for the ‘tech’ Category

The Privateers of the 21st century…

Posted: June 11, 2009 by datechguy in tech
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…are on the internet:

Today’s cyber world is akin to medieval Europe. International law grew out of fear of endless retribution and the need for order. Later in the Cold War, treaties and hot lines emerged from the Berlin and Cuban missile crises. Again, frightful experience led to deterrence and restraint. Current efforts to build sweeping cyber-policy will fail because the sequence is wrong. Leaping to a legal framework is futile without first understanding the realpolitik cyber-rules, definitions, and various red lines. It is simply too early to build a global consensus for the problem.

We do not know because we don’t have sufficient precedents. We don’t strike back. We don’t impose a direct and immediate cost on those we believe are attacking us. Instead, we gnash teeth over possible unintended consequences, collateral damage, escalations, and violations of treaties with dubious and unclear applicability to the cyber-world.

Applying “real world” law by analogy is inherently inadequate.

Is cyber-espionage acceptable or an act of war? Is crashing an electrical grid a “use of force?” Is disabling a firewall trespassing espionage, or an attack? The technical differences are almost indistinguishable.

This is not news in the sense that China has been hitting and hitting us for a very long time. Third world nations have used cyber fraud to enrich their citizens and have provided protection (likely for a cut) to these bandits.

China itself has it’s own vulnerability issues, just next door is a country full of first rate programmers that has no love for China.

I think rules are pretty useless since there is no incentive for China or Russia or Nigeria to respect them. The best move is to frankly is to shore up our own defenses and strike back in kind, there are plenty of non government hackers in the US who wouldn’t mind a challenge. When their systems are being hit in the same way. Then you have an incentive to make and enforce good law.

It’s going to be pretty much a cyber cold war.

My method is foolproof!

Posted: May 15, 2009 by datechguy in tech
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Glenn Links to a very useful article for ATM users:

When Brooklyn, N.Y., resident Nick McGlynn stepped into a Chase bank in April, he quickly noticed something was wrong with one of the ATMs. “I saw a mirror that looked out of place,” McGlynn says. “It was in the center of the ATM, above the keypad. So I pulled on it and it came right off. Then I pulled on the card reader and it came off too. They were both held in place with double-sided tape.”

McGlynn had discovered an ATM skimmer—a device attached to an ATM by criminals looking to steal bank card information and/or PINs. The simplest skimmer setups involve little more than a $300 magnetic stripe reader and a hidden camera aimed at the ATM keypad. The reader snaps up your card’s information, and the camera records your PIN as you enter it. With this information, a perpetrator can create and use a phony plastic clone of your card. Or, if the setup features a camera aimed at the card reader so as to record the card’s printed security code, they can also use the information to make online purchases.

My method is to avoid this is perfect. I don’t have an ATM. card and all my banks know me by face and hat.

Remember technology advances help crooks too.

Good thing we have mainstream journalists…

Posted: May 7, 2009 by datechguy in internet/free speech, oddities, tech
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…otherwise stuff like this might happen:

Shane Fitzgerald, 22, a final-year student studying sociology and economics at University College Dublin, told the newspaper he placed the quote on the website as an experiment when doing research on globalisation.

He quoted Oscar-winning composer Jarre as saying, “One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life.

“When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear.”

The quote was posted on Wikipedia shortly after Jarre’s death and later appeared in obituaries in major British, Indian and Australian newspapers.

He was rather surprised:

“I didn’t expect it to go that far. I expected it to be in blogs and sites, but on mainstream quality papers? I was very surprised about,” he said.

He said the hoax remained undiscovered for weeks until he emailed the newspapers that had been deceived to tell them that they had published an inaccurate quote.

The Irish Times said that despite some newspapers removing the quote from their websites or carrying a correction and the fact that it had been dropped by Wikipedia, it remained intact on dozens of blogs, websites and newspapers. (emphasis mine)

Via Stop the ACLU. Joe “what would we do without mainstream newspapers” Scarborough must have been shocked but in addition to canard of the superior fact checking and diligence of reporters and newspapers vs bloggers it highlights two important internet points:

#1 Wikapedia is not and should not be a primary source on anything. I will link to it on occasion but remember the Glenn Reynolds rule concerning it.

I’ve had my own problems with them in the past, though short-lived and (to me at least) no very big deal. My sense is that the wiki format works pretty well when issues are uncontroversial, but that it doesn’t handle politics very well.

And if you don’t believe it check out this, this, this, this, this and this. (most via Glenn)

Second and rather important. Remember that web pages are often forgotten. If bad information gets out on net and is corrected at it’s primary source that doesn’t mean that it will ever be corrected in the sites that copyed it. Keep this in mind whenever you read any web site. Even mine.

I thought apple was the company of the people?

Posted: April 28, 2009 by datechguy in tech
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I think that Apple might actually be a business out for profit:

Reports of cracked hinges on the laptop are nothing new, but we always assumed Apple would eventually ‘fess up to the problem and comp those repairs. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case, and we just got another report of a hapless MacBook Air owner who has a broken hinge that Apple says will cost $800 to repair, despite the fact the laptop is under warranty. Our own MacBook Air Rev. A had the exact same problem — the hinge becomes loose over time, then suddenly catches and cracks from normal use, it’s not from undue stress — and Apple did the repair for free, but only after we escalated the issue to a manager, who let us know how very nice of them that was. From reading various reports, that seems the exception to Apple’s repair policy, which lists this sort of damage as “accidental,” and we’re wondering how widespread this issue may be.

This would make a very interesting Mac vs PC counter ad.

Via Glenn.

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