Technological Utopianism? Power and Mechanical Efficiency Without Moral Restraint

Certainly technological progress can lead to very positive changes, however, that is only if we understand that technology is supposed to serve humanity, not the other way around.  Yet, today, technology is advancing so rapidly--exponentially--without time for conscious moral intention or consideration. Previous rules, mores, and norms--for better or worse--are discarded without blinking an eye.  So, are we wise enough, moral enough, intelligent enough to control technology? Artificial intelligence?  Apparently not, as you will see,  we have become subservient to the neutral machine/technology, devoid of any moral or spiritual value and/or meaning. . 


For one, we've become more isolated than ever before, substituting electronics for real face-to-face human interaction and outdoor activity.

Two, life, it seems, has become more complex, time consuming, and frustrating, even though technology is supposed to simplify not to mention, increase quality and recreational time. 

Three, despite easy access to information, we're dumber and more dependent (on technology) than ever.  While we have access to lots of information--way too much, in fact--information isn't knowledge if you don't understand it.  I mean, how can one have knowledge or understanding when computers do everything? 

Four, as we grow increasingly ignorant and more reliant on these emerging technologies, those who pull the strings of government and society have been and continue to be very busy translating information superiority into combat power. In other words, post modern warfare or network centric warfare to master the human domain.

The network centric warfare platform takes the individual decision making out of the equation. In other words, the system is making the decisions for you. Left to robots--real terminators--death will be on a massive scale few can imagine because believe it or not, human beings do not naturally kill other human beings. They must be brainwashed, indoctrinated, etc., to kill. Hence, the proliferation of electronic warfare games for children.





Links:

Failed Thermostat: The illusion of Control in an Information Rich Age

How the CIA made Google.

"INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a new crowd-funded investigative journalism project, breaks the exclusive story of how the United States intelligence community funded, nurtured and incubated Google as part of a drive to dominate the world through control of information. Seed-funded by the NSA and CIA, Google was merely the first among a plethora of private sector start-ups co-opted by US intelligence to retain ‘information superiority.’

The origins of this ingenious strategy trace back to a secret Pentagon-sponsored group, that for the last two decades has functioned as a bridge between the US government and elites across the business, industry, finance, corporate, and media sectors. The group has allowed some of the most powerful special interests in corporate America to systematically circumvent democratic accountability and the rule of law to influence government policies, as well as public opinion in the US and around the world. The results have been catastrophic: NSA mass surveillance, a permanent state of global war, and a new initiative to transform the US military into Skynet.

Read more...

The Gaping Holes in HTTPS and SSL Security!

Scott Ogrin, a blogger, who is a software engineer as well as an electrical and computer engineer with a BSEE and MSEE, breaks it down for you in the following article:

“ In this day and age of well-known NSA spying, everyone keeps saying that the only way to be safe is to use SSL/TLS, commonly known as "browsing with https://".

The sad reality is that HTTPS does virtually nothing to protect you from the prying eyes of alphabet soup agencies - or anybody else with enough knowledge about how these supposedly "secure" connections actually work.

It's true that connecting to web sites with SSL will certainly prevent "script kiddies" and other more winky opponents from eavesdropping on your surfing or otherwise interfering in your affairs. But as for the Real Bad Guys, forget it...

We shall begin by taking a brief dive down the rabbit hole of SSL, hopefully in a way that will make sense to even the least technically inclined among us.

This issue is, after all, so extremely important that I think everyone needs to understand what is really going on, and how web security actually works, without needing a PhD in cryptography, computer science, or engineering!

Our story begins with a little e-mail I received the other day. The basic message can be found here:

Microsoft Security Advisory (2880823)

Of course, the idea that Microsoft of all companies is warning me about security is kind of laughable, so I didn't pay much attention. Nevertheless, there was this little voice in the back of my mind that kept pestering me, so I decided to dig in and see what all the hoopla was about... or indeed if any hoopla was even warranted.

“Microsoft is announcing a policy change to the Microsoft Root Certificate Program. The new policy will no longer allow root certificate authorities to issue X.509 certificates using the SHA-1 hashing algorithm for the purposes of SSL and code signing after January 1, 2016. Using the SHA-1 hashing algorithm in digital certificates could allow an attacker to spoof content, perform phishing attacks, or perform man-in-the-middle attacks.

Microsoft recommends that certificate authorities no longer sign newly generated certificates using the SHA-1 hashing algorithm and begin migrating to SHA-2. Microsoft also recommends that customers replace their SHA-1 certificates with SHA-2 certificates at the earliest opportunity. Please see the Suggested Actions section of this advisory for more information.

Okay, so that's probably like trying to read a foreign language to most people. Even I didn't understand exactly how these hashing algorithms were used with SSL. So, I started digging. What I found nearly floored me:

MD5 considered harmful today: Creating a rogue CA certificate

Now, if you thought the M$ advisory was confusing, take a peek at the above link.

WOW! That's wild.

In summary, way back in 2008, some smart people figured out a way to make themselves a Fake SSL Certificate Authority, and they accomplished this feat by using a weakness in the MD5 hashing algorithm.  [...]

First, let's define some terms - hopefully in Plain English:

SSL Web Site Certificate

This is a digital certificate, with a digital signature, that verifies that a website is who they say they are. When you connect to a web site using SSL (HTTPS), your browser says, "Papers, please!" The remote site then sends the SSL Web Site Certificate to your browser. Your browser then verifies the authenticity of this "passport". Once verified, encrypted communications ensue. The point of the SSL Web Site Certificate is that under no circumstances should anyone else be able to create a valid, signed certificate for a web site that they do not own and operate. In order to obtain an SSL Web Site Cert, you must verify by varied means that you are the owner and operator of the web site involved. So, using HTTPS is not only for encryption of communications, but also a way to verify that the site you are communicating with is the Real Thing, and not an imposter. And of course you must pay for the certificate!

Certificate Authority (CA) Root Certificate

This is also a digital certificate, with a digital signature... But in this case, this certificate can be used to create and digitally sign normal SSL Web Site Certificates. This is the kind of certificate that a CA (Certificate Authority) has. These certificates also get passed to browser makers, and are then included in your web browser. This is so that when your browser receives an SSL Web Site cert, it can use the CA Root Certificate to verify that the Web Site Cert is in fact valid.

Certificate Authority (CA)

A CA is the kind of web site from which you would buy a valid, secure SSL Web Site Certificate to use for HTTPS on your site. For example: Verisign.com, RapidSSL.com, Geotrust.com, etc. are Certificate Authorities. They have CA Root Certificates for generating and signing valid SSL Web Site Certificates.

It's helpful to understand that with all these certificates, there is a "chain of command". SSL Web Site Certificates are validated and authenticated using CA Root Certificates. CA Root Certificates are validated with yet higher-authority certificates, all the way up the pyramid to The One Great Root Certificate, which is like the God of Certificates. Thus, each lower-ranking certificate is verified up the chain of command. This all happens behind the scenes, and you have no idea it's occurring.

Piece of cake, right?

Now, where do these hash algorithms like MD5, SHA-1, and SHA-2 come into play?

All certificates contain information, like:

• Web site domain (www.mysite.com)
• Site location (country, state, etc.)
• Site owner info (company name)
• Period of validity

This information is verified before a certificate is issued. Once verified, a hash of the data is generated. This hash acts as the digital signature for the certificate. The only thing you really need to understand about hash algorithms is that what is supposed to happen is this:

1. Data of any length (30 characters, 3000 characters, 40MB, whatever) is passed into the hash algorithm
2. The hash algorithm chops up the data and mathematically processes it, thereby spitting out a signature – or digital fingerprint – of the data
3. The hash of no two chunks of data should ever be the same – just as the fingerprints of no two people should ever be the same
4. The hash output is always the same size, regardless of the size of the input data (just like a fingerprint – no matter the size of the person)

Right. There is such a thing as a “hash collision”. This is when you have 2 hashes that are identical, but they were generated from different data. That’s like if you and your neighbor suddenly had the same thumbprint. OOPS!

Now, think about that for a minute... If the police were using these hashes, or thumbprints, to verify your identity, they might mistake you for your neighbor, or your neighbor for you, if you "had the same thumbprint". If they did no other checking, and just relied on that thumbprint, they might very well "authenticate" your identities completely incorrectly. BIG OOPS!

This is exactly what happened with the MD5 SSL attack outlined at the above link.

These smarty-pants people were able to carefully buy a valid SSL Web Site Certificate from RapidSSL in 2008. Before they did that, they created their own CA Root Certificate in such a way that the hash (fingerprint) of their valid, just-purchased Web Site Cert was identical to the hash of the FAKE CA Root Certificate that they created out of thin air.

Since RapidSSL had just said, "Dudes, this Web Site Certificate fingerprint is valid!", and since this was the same fingerprint on the fake CA Root Cert, the forged CA Root Certificate becomes valid.

Now, recall that a CA Root Certificate - as long as it has a valid hash/fingerpint that will validate up the "chain of authority" - can be used to generate a valid SSL Web Site Certificate for any web site in the world... And neither you, nor RapidSSL, nor your browser will ever know that anything is amiss.

Why is this a problem? For starters, consider a man-in-the-middle attack.

 You want to go to https://www.gmail.com. But some "hackers" have used another type of hack to insert their server between you and Gmail. Normally, this would not be possible, because you're using HTTPS! You're SAFE!

WRONG!

As far as anyone knows, you are connected to gmail.com over HTTPS. But in reality, what's happening is this:

1. You try to connect to https://www.gmail.com
2. The attacker diverts your request (perhaps using DNS cache poisoning or some other such attack) to a fake server
3. Since Attacker's Server contains a falsely generated, perfectly valid SSL Web Site Certificate using the tricks outlined above, your browser doesn't know any better. Everything appears to be legit.
4. You begin doing e-mail, but all your data is actually going encrypted to Attacker's Server, being decrypted and recorded/modified, and then Attacker's Server then passes the data on to the real https://www.gmail.com (using Gmail's actual, valid SSL cert).
5. You have absolutely no clue that your "secure" communications are not secure in the least!

In other words, SSL / HTTPS means that the connection between your browser and the destination server at the URL you're visiting is supposed to be encrypted. But due to the fact the certain types of SSL certificates (which help handle the encryption) can be forged, an attacker could set up their fake server that pretends to the be the real destination server, and thus insert themselves in the middle of the connection. When that is done, the attacker has control over the connection and the data, and can thus decrypt your data, manipulate it, and/or pass it on to the real intended destination server.

Now, isn't that a daisy?

"But wait!" you say. "Isn't it therefore good for Microsoft to recommend changing the hash function to SHA-256 if SHA-1 has the same potential problem as MD5 did back in 2008?"

An excellent question! Unfortunately, yes and no. Even if you, as a web site owner, change your SSL Web Site Certificate from one that is signed using SHA-1 to a new cert that is signed using SHA-2, you are still unsafe.

Why?

Because all it takes is for ONE Certificate Authority to use a "weak" hash algorithm, and someone who is up to no good can generate a forged CA Root Certificate. Once they have that, they can generate as many SSL Web Site Certs as they want - using any hashing algorithm they please - including a fake-yet-valid cert that they can use to impersonate your "secure" site!

In other words, the weakness in the hashing algorithm is just the tip of the iceberg. Due to the hierarchical "chain of authority" in the whole certificate system, if anyone manages to create a false CA Root Cert, they are more or less god in terms of creating false SSL Web Site Certs.

Thus, in order for Microsoft's words to have an effect, there must not be ANY Certificate Authority (Web Site Cert issuer) in the whole world that still uses SHA-1. In order for the "security" to actually be more secure, everyone must upgrade right now. But this isn't going to happen.

Now, if that isn't bad enough, think about all the NSA spying. Think about how many people said, "Naw, man, I just surf using HTTPS, and I'm totally safe!"

You think so?

I don't. You know why? Well, you should, by now... But there's more!

Guess who invented the SHA-1 hash algorithm in 1995?

The NSA.

Guess who invented SHA-2 in 2001?

The NSA.

So, why should all the Certificate Authorities switch from the NSA's SHA-1 to the NSA's SHA-2? Why, because the NSA created it the way they did for a reason!

SHA-1 already has been theoretically breached, and there are a few indications that SHA-2 isn't quite as super-duper-safe as everyone thinks.

Imagine you are the NSA. You want to spy on everyone, everyone's grandmother, the grandmothers' cats, and the mice that are currently being digested inside the cats. SSL is kind of a problem... It can use pretty annoying encryption. Well, hell! No problem. Just compromise the "certificate authority chain" by forging one little CA Root Certificate, and blammo! You can eavesdrop and man-in-the-middle anybody you darn well please, SSL or not!

Web sites over SSL? No problem.

E-mail over SSL? No problem.

I have said it before, and I'll say it again: There never was security or privacy on the internet, there is no security or privacy on the internet now, and most likely there never will be. Not unless some very big changes are made...

And do you know why all this (and much, much more) is possible?

Because just like you, I had no knowledge of the gaping holes in SSL. Awareness of this and many other issues - technological, political, psychological, social, etc. - is absolutely essential.

Otherwise, frankly, we're screwed.

Links:

Fake SSL certificates deployed across the internet

The Most Dangerous Code in the World: Validating SSL Certificates in Non-Browser Software

Read more...

Project Meshnet: Building a Way to Protect Internet Freedom.

Every time an Internet censorship bill like SOPA, CISPA, PIPA, ACTA, is shot down by public protest, another one pops up. To be sure, one day when we're all distracted by something else, an Internet censorship bill will pass.  That's where Project Meshnet comes in.

Whereas the network routing system Tor uses peers to connect and send information through the infrastructure that is already in place for the Internet Project Meshnet is proposing an entirely new internet with different routing protocols. Multiple computers are connected to each other via a wireless connection spanning a large area and all information, messages, documents, music, images, etc., passes from computer to computer until it reaches its destination. If a computer or node is down than an alternative route is found. In other words, the architecture of the meshnet is owned by countless individuals instead of a handful of corporate providers, which makes the oppression of free speech practically impossible.

“Our objective is to create a versatile, decentralized network built on secure protocols for routing traffic over private mesh or public internetworks independent of a central supporting infrastructure."

Links:

MeshWiki

reddit DarkNetPlan This subreddit is dedicated to organizing a decentralized alternative to traditional ISP's.

Internet Relay Chat

Read more...

Avoid Big Brother: File Sharing Anonymously

Did U.S. authorities overstep their jurisdiction when they pulled the plug on cyberlocker service Megaupload? Of course. Don't they always? But it appears that the Fed's takedown of Megaupload - note, without SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, or any other special legislation - has only encouraged more sophisticated methods of file-sharing/storing, free from the prying eyes of governments, corporations and advertisers. 

Thwarting the state:

RetroShare is a Open Source cross-platform, private and secure decentralised communication platform.
It lets you to securely chat and share files with your friends and family, using a web-of-trust to authenticate peers and OpenSSL to encrypt all communication.

HFS HTTP File Server

... it's file sharing... it's webserver... it's open source... it's free... it's guaranteed to contain no malware

DiskCryptor

PeeJe -Share is an absolutely free file-hosting service for providing webspace on our servers without the need to sign-up.

Links:

Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman

Control Your Computing Before It Controls You

Read more...

Avoiding Global Collapse: The Cyborg Solution

Is the solution to our problems, a machine vision of the world? A self-organizing model, based on an underlying order of nature - that was completely disproved in 1981 - and taken from the cold and logical world of machines, where humans are reduced to mechanistic nodes? Or, has the environmental movement been hijacked by "right winged think tanks" and "cold war technocrats" who were using the balance of nature as a political trick? In other words, is this idea of the "balance of nature", "equilibrium" "web of life" "self-regulating Eco-system" an attempt by the powerful to maintain the status quo?

Read more...

Hollywood Wants to Break the Internet.

Hollywood wants to break the Internet


PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

As promised, here’s the first installment of our closer review of the massive piece of job-killing Internet regulation that is the Stop Online Piracy Act. We’ll start with how it could impact Twitter, Tumblr, and the next innovative social network, cloud computing, or web hosting service that some smart kid is designing in her garage right now.

Let’s make one thing clear from the get-go: despite all the talk about this bill being directed only toward “rogue” foreign sites, there is no question that it targets US companies as well. The bill sets up a system to punish sites allegedly “dedicated to the theft of US property.” How do you get that label? Doesn’t take much: Some portion of your site (even a single page) must

be directed toward the US, and either
allegedly “engage in, enable or facilitate” infringement or
allegedly be taking or have taken steps to “avoid confirming a high probability” of infringement.

If an IP rightsholder (vaguely defined – could be Justin Bieber worried about his publicity rights) thinks you meet the criteria and that it is in some way harmed, it can send a notice claiming as much to the payment processors (Visa, Mastercard, Paypal etc.) and ad services you rely on.

Once they get it, they have 5 days to choke off your financial support. Of course, the payment processors and ad networks won’t be able to fine-tune their response so that only the allegedly infringing portion of your site is affected, which means your whole site will be under assault. And, it makes no difference that no judge has found you guilty of anything or that the DMCA safe harbors would shelter your conduct if the matter ever went to court. Indeed, services that have been specifically found legal, like Rapidshare, could be economically strangled via SOPA. You can file a counter-notice, but you’ve only got 5 days to do it (good luck getting solid legal advice in time) and the payment processors and ad networks have no obligation to respect it in any event. That’s because there are vigilante provisions that grant them immunity for choking off a site if they have a “reasonable belief” that some portion of the site enables infringement.

At a minimum, this means that any service that hosts user generated content is going to be under enormous pressure to actively monitor and filter that content. That’s a huge burden, and worse for services that are just getting started – the YouTubes of tomorrow that are generating jobs today. And no matter what they do, we’re going to see a flurry of notices anyway – as we’ve learned from the DMCA takedown process, content owners are more than happy to send bogus complaints. What happened to Wikileaks via voluntary censorship will now be systematized and streamlined – as long as someone, somewhere, thinks they’ve got an IP right that’s being harmed.

In essence, Hollywood is tired of those pesky laws that help protect innovation, economic growth, and creativity rather than outmoded business models. So they are trying to rewrite the rules, regulate the Internet, and damn the consequences for the rest of us.

Watch this space for more analysis, but don’t wait to act. This bill cannot be fixed; it must be killed. The bill’s sponsors (and their corporate backers) want to push this thing through quickly, before ordinary citizens get wind of the harm it is going to cause. If you don’t want to let big media control the future of innovation and online expression, act now, and urge everyone you know to do the same.

Stop the Internet Blacklist Legislation

Read more...

Is Apple’s 1987's Extraordinarily Accurate Prediction a Coincidence?

Is there such thing as coincidence? Of course...to a point. However, even though we've been conditioned to believe everything is coincidence, pure coincidence is a rare occurrence.

Take technology, for instance. There is no doubt that technology's 20-30 years - or more - ahead of what we're told. Think about it. If you discovered something that gave you an advantage over everyone else, would you share it immediately? No, not if you were interested in retaining power. And unless you live in fantasy land, you know the wealthy and powerful want to stay wealthy and powerful. In fact, there is no doubt that they're not satisfied with the power they have...they want more. Hence, they wait to release technology until they discover something that gives them a much bigger advantage.

Two days ago, people eagerly awaited the announcement of iPhone 5. Instead, to the disappointment of many, including the stock market, which plummeted, along with the changing of the guard, Apple released iPhone 4s. Sadly, the next day, Steve Jobs died. 

Just hours before the death of Steve Jobs, it was released that Apple predicted the release of iPhone 4s in 1987, 24-years, prior.  Below, you can see the video from 1987 which demonstrates   Knowledge Navigator, almost exactly the same as Siri, the new language-based voice assistant, which enables one to converse with other iPhone users. It was the apple of Apple's eye decades before yesterday's announcement.

 The similarities are incredible. The agent lists messages and appointments which the user replies to and rearranges by speaking in normal english. He then searches for information, extracts graphs from a large data store (just as Siri will connect to Wolfram Alpha) and contacts a colleague by saying her name aloud.

The prediction was accurate, almost to the day.  Now, Apple is known for their long incubation periods; however, 24-years is a very long incubation period. One has to wonder, in this day and age of exponential technology growth, why areas such as the cancer, and aeronautical industries haven't experienced any real breakthroughs of note, as compared to the telecommunications and computer industry.

Read more...

Widespread Hijacking of Search Engine Traffic in US

Users must trust their ISP's DNS servers to correctly return IP addresses that indeed belong to the site the user intends to visit. In some instances, however, this trust may not be warranted.

Earlier this year, two research papers reported the observation of strange phenomena in the Domain Name System (DNS) at several US ISPs. On these ISPs' networks, some or all traffic to major search engines, including Bing, Yahoo! and (sometimes) Google, is being directed to mysterious third party proxies.

RESEARCHERS at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, California, have uncovered a major search traffic hijacking operation instrumented by a dozen US Internet service providers and a company specialising in affiliate marketing revenue generation.

The scheme works by redirecting people's search requests through proxy servers designed and operated by a company called Paxfire. The requests are then passed to affiliate programs run by Commission Junction, the Google Affiliate Network, Linkshare, or Ask.com.

Retailers pay money through these programs to those who direct customers to their business. These affiliates earn a commission for every user who ends up making a purchase or signing up for an offer.

According to Christian Kreibich and Nicholas Weaver, the two researchers who have been monitoring this operation for months, only some particular queries like "apple," "dell," "safeway" or "bloomingdales" are being hijacked.

A user who types any of these words in their web browser's address bar expects to be taken to a search page on their favorite search engine. Instead, they are directly taken to the websites of the corresponding companies that pay Paxfire and the ISP for the traffic.

Some less specific queries are also being hijacked. For example, typing Kindle in the address bar takes users to Amazon's website instead of a search engine page that also has links to Ebay, Wikipedia and reviews web sites. This deprives search engines of traffic and takes freedom of choice away from users.

According to a technical analysis published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), some of the major ISPs using Paxfire's redirect services include Cavalier, Cogent, Frontier, Fuse, DirecPC, RCN and Wide Open West.

New Scientist reports that New York based law firms Reese Richman and Milberg have already filed a class action lawsuit against RCN and Paxfire claiming violations of the Federal Wiretap Act's privacy safeguards. It also notes that as of August 2011 all major ISPs involved in the scheme have stopped hijacking traffic destined for Google, but still redirect Bing and Yahoo queries.

The two researchers point out that Paxfire's product contains an optional feature that passes people's entire search traffic through web proxies before directing the requests to the search engines. The purpose of this action is to collect information about what users are searching for and build search profiles.

Google recently announced that millions of computers are infected with a click fraud trojan that redirects search engine traffic through proxy servers run by its creators, in a similar way to Paxfire's patented technology. The company took the unprecedented step of warning affected users through alerts displayed at the top of its search page.

T his tool will tell you if your searches are being hijacked :

Read more...

Militarizing Cyberspace?

The Pentagon has classified cyberspace as a new battlefield, as they unveiled a new strategy for protecting military computer networks from hackers, designating cyberspace as an "operational domain" U.S. forces will be trained to defend.

The question that needs to be asked is, who do they plan to battle? Well, we, the people, of course.

Currently, the U.S. Department of Justice, relying on the All Writs Act that dates back to 1789, is determined to make sure that a case in Colorado will set a legal precedent allowing it to force Americans accused of crimes to decrypt their computers' hard drives. Fortunately, an encryption defense attorney is fighting the DOJ demands, applying the Fifth Amendment to encrypted information stored on computers.

The government is using DDOS (distributed denial of service) attacks to their censoring methods to silence critics and stymie opposition.

Read more...

Internet Probe Can Track You Down

Everyone knows that every computer connected to the Internet has an internet protocol (IP) address, however, it's not so simple to track the exact physical location of a specific IP address. Or, is it.

Well, now that we know that Apple’s iPhone, iPad and Google’s Android smartphones constantly track users physical location, storing the data in unencrypted files that can be read easily by anyone who finds or steals your iPhone, it turns out that although these devices make it much easier to track you, they're not even necessary to find your physical location, 

New Scientist reports that it's possible to use "businesses and universities as landmarks to achieve much higher accuracy.”

Closing in

The new method zooms in through three stages to locate a target computer. The first stage measures the time it takes to send a data packet to the target and converts it into a distance – a common geolocation technique that narrows the target's possible location to a radius of around 200 kilometres.

Wang and colleagues then send data packets to the known Google Maps landmark servers in this large area to find which routers they pass through. When a landmark machine and the target computer have shared a router, the researchers can compare how long a packet takes to reach each machine from the router; converted into an estimate of distance, this time difference narrows the search down further. "We shrink the size of the area where the target potentially is," explains Wang.

Finally, they repeat the landmark search at this more fine-grained level: comparing delay times once more, they establish which landmark server is closest to the target. The result can never be entirely accurate, but it's much better than trying to determine a location by converting the initial delay into a distance or the next best IP-based method. On average their method gets to within 690 metres of the target and can be as close as 100 metres – good enough to identify the target computer's location to within a few streets.

Moreover, creepy researchers are harvesting a wealth of intimate detail from our cellphone data, uncovering the hidden patterns of our social lives, travels, risk of disease—even our political views.

Just try not to get yourself on the Main Core list, which supposedly lists more than 8 million Americans.

“There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.”

-- senior government official who served with high-level security clearances in five administrations,

Read more...

Cybersecurity, the Internet Kill Switch and the Rule of Law.

The recent communications blackout in Egypt has given us a glimpse at what could possibly happen here. For decades, Egypt, a strong U.S. ally-and the second-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, after Israel-has been the recipient of approximately $2 billion in American aid every year, almost all of it in military aid, according to the Congressional Research Service, since the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty.

In other words, for the last 30-years, Egypt has been/still is a U.S.-supported dictatorship under President Hosni Mubarak. You don't have to be a rocket-scientist to figure out which side receives the most U.S. support.   Why most, and not all? In order to keep the Military Industrial Complex strong, it's necessary that the U.S. prop up both sides of any conflict, because when you dig  below the surface, you will see the money cycles right back to line the pockets of the Military Industrial Complex: Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics Corp, Boeing, Northrop Grumman Corp, Raytheon Co.  Therefore, generating conflict in and of itself is what's key.

Anyway, this dynamic could be easily seen as the Egyptian government pulled the Internet kill switch, disconnecting its people. While the US claims non-support of the Egyptian blackout, the US State Department continues to lobby for Boeing, the company who owns Narus, the creator and distributor of the  Internet off switch, and who sold to Telecom Egypt, "real-time traffic intelligence" or "Deep Packet Inspection" equipment needed to repress protester dissent, according to Tim Karr of the media policy group Free Press.

So, now that Egypt has returned to the Internet, what about us? What about the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act? Well, unfortunately, this legislation will return.

Senator Susan Collins, the Republican ranking member on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and one of the sponsors of the Act, said, “My legislation would provide a mechanism for the government to work with the private sector in the event of a true cyber emergency. It would give our nation the best tools available to swiftly respond to a significant threat.” Moreover, it shall "not be subject to judicial review".

Here's the thing.  The Communications Act of 1934 already grants the President unchecked authority in times of emergency. Stated in the 1934 Act, it says, if a "state of public peril or disaster or other national emergency" exists, the president may "authorize the use or control of any...station or device." Why do we need more legislation? Why block judicial review?  Why give Homeland Security and DHS secretary Janet Napolitano, in particular, the final word over the courts? It's just another excuse to throw away the "rule of law" whenever the powers that be decide to manufacture declare a "crisis".

"Egypt's information blackout is an extreme step designed to disrupt planned marches, to block images of police brutality, and to silence dissent once and for all. But the shuttering of the Internet and most telecommunications by the Egyptian government also means that the government can take unmonitored action against its citizens, which poses a dire threat to human rights." -- Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

Links:

RE: Civil Liberties Issues in Cybersecurity Bill

How Egypt Shut Down the Internet

Future Nightmare Scenario: An Internet Block
The following statement is enough of a nightmare in and of itself, nevertheless, the rest of the article is very interesting.

"Less than an hour later, Rep. Boehner (R-Ohio), Speaker of the House of Representatives, is sworn in as the 45th President of the United States."

FreeNet is free software which lets you anonymously share files, browse and publish "freesites" (web sites accessible only through Freenet) and chat on forums, without fear of censorship. Freenet is decentralised to make it less vulnerable to attack, and if used in "darknet" mode, where users only connect to their friends, is very difficult to detect.

Communications by Freenet nodes are encrypted and are routed through other nodes to make it extremely difficult to determine who is requesting the information and what its content is.

Egyptians Find New Routes to the Web

"When countries block, we evolve," an activist with the group We Rebuild wrote in a Twitter message Friday.

Read more...

Operation Hijack the Internet Begins!

Expansion of government power continues. What a surprise.  This time, they're seizing websites, 82 of them, to be exact. Yep, the Department of Homeland Security - without due process, a trial, and in possible violation of one of the more important limitations on Copyright law, the doctrine of “fair use” - is seizing and shutting down internet websites.  Why? They claim "copyright violation".

Well, if that's the case, Homeland Security could take care of the unemployment problem, as that's how many people it will take to combat "copyright violation" on the Internet. And we know that's not the intention here, so, what is?  Maybe the suppression of information and knowledge?  Because, you know, an informed citizenry and the ability to communicate information and knowledge at lightening speed is a very frightening scenario for the profitable powers that be.

Apparently, they are serious.  The bill, Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act , which, if it goes through, will not only do what it claims, but in addition, will serve other purposes, lingers on the Senate Legislative calendar.  And what is "online infringement" anyway?  Couldn't that be just about anything? 

First, these seizures may be just a short preview of the kind of overreaching enforcement we’ll see if the Congress passes the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA). That bill, which was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Nov 18, gives the government dramatic new copyright enforcement powers, in particular the ability to make entire websites disappear from the Internet if infringement, or even links to infringement, are deemed to be "central" to the purpose of the site. Rather than just targeting files that actually infringe copyright law, COICA’s "nuclear-option" design has the government blacklisting entire sites out of the domain name system — a reckless scheme that will undermine global Internet infrastructure and censor legitimate online speech. As we’ve noted, one of the most pernicious effects of COICA is likely to be just what we’ve seen here: the takedown of legitimate speech.

Second, the seizures also show why this kind of enforcement doesn’t work; seized sites were available at other domain names within hours. If the United States government increases interference in critical DNS infrastructure to police alleged copyright infringement, it is very likely that a large percentage of the Internet will shift to alternative DNS mechanisms that are located outside the US. This will cause numerous problems — including new network security issues, as a large percentage of the population moves to encrypted offshore DNS to escape the censoring effects of the procedures outlined in COICA. Presumably the DOJ and the DHS should be committed to improving network security — not undermining it.

Third, it’s hard to believe that this kind of action is the best use of the Department of Homeland Security’s resources. What investigations didn’t occur while the DHS spent it time and energy pursuing the agenda of large media companies? Moreover, it’s highly unlikely that this publicity stunt will really help creators get compensated. The best way to help artists of every stripe get compensated for their work is to make sure that there is a thriving marketplace of innovative digital businesses to pay them — business like OnSmash, which is committed to promoting new and unheralded artists.

Read more...

Information Overload: Separating the Crucial from the Trivial

With the arrival of the Internet, the amount of information available is estimated to double every 18 months or sooner. This continuous flood of information with no frame of reference for managing it makes separating the crucial from the trivial an anxiety producing and overwhelming task.

Society has a harder time adjusting when media becomes more abundant than when it is scarcer, so every time a great shift occurs in the delivery or distribution of the body of knowledge that is available to society - such as the printing press - people at the time of its occurrence  feel overwhelmed, and unable to focus or keep up  with the overflow of material.  The new media can be very distracting, in part, because it is has not yet found its place...it’s a novelty and novelties divert our attention.

Institutions, such as implementing an entire structure to teach children to read were built to mitigate the downsides and increase the value of literacy after the printing press arrived.  Billions of dollars and countless hours per year are required each and every year in order for   print to be a valuable thing. In the same way, new institutions will have to be created to ensure the value of  this new media.

Basex estimates, based on data it has gathered, that information overload costs the U.S. economy a minimum of $900 billion to $1 trillion per year  in lost productivity and reduced innovation.  This is based on information overload in the office and how much businesses are losing due to inefficiency of workers who are changing taks so often that when they go back to the first task, they have long recovery time where they try and regain focus and that is incredibly costly to a business when you have employees who aren’t focusing at all. 

Breakdown of knowledge worker:

28%-Unnecessary interruptions followed by "recovery time" to get back on track

25%-Creating content-productive!

20%-Meetings-some productive, some not

15%-Searching for information (and an estimated 50% of searches fail)

12%-Thinking and reflecting

Read more...

Search, Seek and Find Links

Academic Info - maintains more than 25,000 academic sources, including annotated subject directories and digital collections from academic groups, libraries, and museums. There are also a lot of ads on this site; try not to be distracted from the real content.

About us - offers descriptions of various Web sites, relying on its users to flesh out its content.

Complete Planet - the deep web directory. Find information that cannot be accessed by surface Web search engines in this directory of more than 70,000 specialized search tools and databases.

Directory of Open Access Journals - provides free access to full-text online journals. Allowing you to search by title or by subject

Go To Web 20 - is a directory of Web 2.0 sites. Go2Web20.net allows you to filter your results by tags and sort them alphabetically or by date.

How to search the web - teaches you how to find anything you are looking for on the Web, and will direct you to more Web sites to help you in any search. It will make you a smarter searcher, whatever you are looking for.

Infomine - compiled by various libraries, is a good resource for university-level research. It has links to databases, electronic journals, electronic books, bulletin boards, articles, researcher directories, and more.

ixquick - is the most comprehensive engine there is; it searches and compiles results from 12 of the most popular search engines on the Web. It's also the most private web search. ixquick does not log your ip or make a record of your searches.

Kw Map - Keyword map for the whole internet.

Library Internet's Index - In January 2010, the website "ipl2: information you can trust" was launched, merging the collections of resources from the Internet Public Library (IPL) and the Librarians' Internet Index (LII) websites. The site is hosted by Drexel University's College of Information Science & Technology, and a consortium of colleges and universities with programs in information science are involved in developing and maintaining the ipl2.

Lycos -

Online Education Database - has "The Ultimate Guide to the Invisible Web." This guide tells you what the invisible Web is, why it exists, how to make a site "visible," and how to search for sites on the invisible Web. The guide also provides a useful list of invisible Web search tools, organized by category.

Public Library of Law - offers a free searchable database of case law, statutes, regulations, court rules, constitutions, and legal forms.

Searchzooka - Never type the same search twice! SEARCHzooka provides a one-stop organizing/bookmarking tool for all your advanced Internet searches. By saving your commonly-used searches, you can save time and effort by launching searches at the click of a button rather than typing and retyping the same searches.

Seek Logo - 200,000 images available for viewing and downloading.

Sweet Search - A search engine for students

Whonu is one of the very first semantic Web search engines available. It offers over 300 search sources and a smart interface that contextualizes what you enter. Information is double partitioned by file type and source. The variety of options might be a bit intimidating, but for power research, whonu looks like one of the most promising search tools available, with an effort made to present structured meaning. Killer feature — saved query history using a row of dots.

Topix - Easily narrow the search to a certain time period.

WWW Virtual Library - is the oldest catalogue of the Web, started by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of HTML and of the Web itself, in 1991 at CERN in Geneva. Unlike commercial catalogues, it is run by a loose confederation of volunteers, who compile pages of key links for particular areas in which they are expert; even though it isn't the biggest index of the Web, the VL pages are widely recognized as being amongst the highest-quality guides to particular sections of the Web.

Yabigo - Search results in three columns: Google, Bing and Yahoo

Zuula - allows you to search across multiple platforms by putting them all in one location. After entering your search term, you'll be given a typical-looking results page. What makes it unique is that by clicking the tabs listed across the top of the page, you'll be given the results for your search term on each of the search engines listed. Google, Yahoo, MSN, Gigablast, Exalead, Alexa, Accoona, and Mojeek are all in one place.

Read more...

Protect Your Computer From the Bad Guys Links

Unfortunately, in cyberworld, the bad guys are only getting worse. They tend to stay one or two steps ahead of the good guys, and sometimes the biggest problem in computer security isn't necessarily the computer itself, but computer operator ignorance

"It really speaks to a Web 2.0 world. People communicate differently today, people transact and pay their bills differently today, and that drives today's criminals." -- David Marcus, director of security research and communications for McAfee Labs

Enlightening links:

Protecting you computer from online bad guys is no joke

Watch Out: Cyber Threats to Expect in 2010

12 things computer users should fear in 2010

End-to-end encryption: The PCI security holy grail

Seven reasons websites are not secure - Many sites you visit are laden with malware.This is advice on how to protect your systems.

How to Secure Windows and Your Privacy -- with Free Software

Although safer, Linux Ubuntu is not immune to dangerous attacks from malicious software.

Mac Security Reality-check: Scams

Who Knows Who Your Facebook Friends Are?

The Complete Guide to Facebook Privacy

Read more...

Hollywood Studios Slash Wholesale Prices on DVDs.

Update: Shoppers, just in time for Christmas, big big savings on DVDs are coming your way. You can thank RedBox for commoditizing the movie business. In case you live under a rock, RedBox is a company that has about 22,000 red box movie dispensers all over America in supermarkets, retail stores, pharmacies, etc., where you can rent a movie for $1.

So, why does this translate into big savings on DVDs? Well, the studios are desperate to make up for this shortfall in the sales of DVDs so they are cutting whole-sale prices. That includes Blu-ray discs and players. Wal-Mart and Target are offering Blu-ray DVDs for as low as $8.99 and Blu-ray players as low as $79.99.

Gone are the huge profits of years past, and the revenue streams Hollywood has traditionally experienced, as the DVD sales continue to decline by double digits annually, flat box office returns for the last decade, and an international market that's drying up. In addition, steep competition continues to grow with 500 cable channels, countless videogames, free online video content galore. And then there is the exploding array of options to deliver movie content and the inevitable marriage of your TV to your computer screen/Internet, if not already hitched. Yes, it's clear that Hollywood isn't the only kid on the block anymore.

Disney CEO Bob Iger said, this past weekend, at a conference on the USC campus: "[The] business model that formed the motion picture business...is changing profoundly before our eyes."

In other words, if Hollywood doesn't find a new business model that reflects the current push toward digital distribution technologies available today, as well as keeping an eye to what's right around the corner, and embrace, rather than try to displace the generation of consumers who are used to getting their content for free, Hollywood may become a squally hood.

Mark Gill, Founder and CEO, The Film Department, an independent film financing company, and formerly president of Miramax LA, which has recently gone from 500 workers down to 20, says independent film studios have been hit hard and by the end of next year, the number of movies released in theaters will be cut in half.

In addition, Hollywood will have to cut overhead costs, marketing costs, picture production costs, and the biggest one of all, talent costs.

"Meaning, if you're a big movie star, if you're a top filmmaker, you used to get a big, nice back-end of the movie -- you got part of the profits. By in large, the studios are cutting back on all of that. They're saying, 'you share in the risks with us; you don't get first-dollar gross, you don't get a share of the profits right away; you have to wait till we break even with all our expenses; and then, if the movie is still successful you can share in the profits." -- Patrick Goldstein, columnist and blogger for the "Los Angeles Times"

The quality of studio movies will surely suffer, as the emphasis will shift away from creative content to marketing because marketers, who know more about creating brands that can live across multiple platforms, than what goes into making a good movie will increasingly take over the movie studios.

However, chasing the almighty dollar, by focusing on marketing rather than producing a good movie will backfire on them, as the Internet enables all of us to tap into trusted communities who are more than willing to share what they think is good and not so good. In addition, there is more, and a greater diversity of content being produced than ever before. This wealth of creative talent is able to both produce and distribute content without going through a centralized system, therefore, not bound restrictive marketing forces and to traditional marketing campaigns that try to sell consumers on what is good.

"Not every idea has to start at the widest reach platform. It used to be that when writers would develop an idea, the initial target was TV or film. What’s starting to evolve is that writers are approaching smaller platforms where there is not as much available audience - like publishing or digital - but where they’re allowed to express their creation in a more undiluted manner…one that reaches the market quicker where they can show what they want to do, and then try to leverage some degree of early traction and success in smaller platforms to bring to larger platforms like TV or film."

Hollywood used to be driven by technological change whether it was the invention of sound, color, television, or even new audio formats. But then things changed... around the time of home video, that Hollywood started to lose their mojo. They tried to maintain and protect old business models that were starting to deteriorate, and they chose to take a heavy-handed approach, imposing their ideas of what's "good" - more like what would make them the most money - on the consumer, and started making movies that were marketable vs movies that were enjoyable or good. The exponential growth in technology that has occurred and will continue is forcing Hollywood to adjust or go bust.

Links:

Hollywood's Sales Floor How independent film is faring in a tough economy. The annual American Film Market is the less glamorous side of the movie industry.

TVersity is a free program you can download from tversity.com. It works by installing a media server on your PC that allows you to manage your internet and home media on a multitude of devices, beaming the media to your device. Not only that it goes through all the necessary format conversions automatically enabling transmission of your media to every known set-top device supported by *DLNA. It's also supported by Universal Plug and Play (UPP), so you don't have to figure out all the various networks, ports, etc.

*Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) - is a global collaboration of 245 of your most trusted brands, all working together to help you create the home entertainment environment you’ve always imagined.

Read more...

Defeat the Conficker Worm Before it's Too Late.

Sunday night, Sixty Minutes warned us about the insidious worm, Conflicker, which will begin trying to connect to 50,000 web domains to receive further instructions tomorrow, April 1. It's anyone's guess as to what those instructions will be.

A complete analysis of Conflicker worm including a list of all the sites you will not be able to access if infected by Conflicker can be found here.

How to diagnose and defeat the dangerous Conficker worm from USA Today's blog provides more links and information regarding the Conflicker worm.

If you can't get through because the web address or URL contains one of the hundreds of names Conflicker blocks you can click on this Microsoft malicious software removal site, which doesn't contain "Microsoft" in the URL. Here, you'll find a free all-purpose malicious software scanner.

Additional tools:

F-Secure Easy Clean

Enigma Software Free Conflicker Removal Tool

Norton Conflicker Removal Tool

Microsoft says they are checking into this and suggested this last-ditch option: contact Microsoft Customer Service and Support at no charge, using the PC Safety hotline at 1-866-PCSAFETY.

Read more...

Founding Fathers Sanction Open Source Society

No, the Founding Fathers have not come back to life - although if they did, they wouldn't last long after witnessing what's left of the Constitution - however, their writings and example send a clear message on the topic of "open access".

Some proprietary companies claim and will continue to claim that open source or open access is communist or anti-American. The Founding Fathers would have claimed the opposite, as they had definite opinions on the free flow of information and remained very skeptical about copyright laws. They would cringe at the idea of extending copyright as we do today, as it creates monopolies and offers no public benefit. Consider the greatest inventor of all time, Benjamin Franklin, who never patented a thing he invented.

Almost 240 years ago, a good friend of Ben Franklin, Joseph Priestly, illustrates this point further. Primarily famous for figuring out that plants create "good air" therefore replacing the air animals consume, Priestly proved to be revolutionary in more fields than one - in particular, science, religion, and politics - and far more influential than he was given credit.

According to Steven Johnson, author of "The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America" Priestly is "the missing philosophical link between our founding fathers." Priestly greatly influenced the Founding Fathers including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, who Priestley wrote to after his discovery of "good air" and with whom he had a collaborative and intellectual relationship.

"That the vegetable creation should restore the air which is spoiled by the animal part of it, looks like a rational system." -- Ben Franklin responding to Priestly

Years later, after Priestly accepted a job as a minister, he moved into a temporary residence adjacent to a brewery, to await the house he was supposed to move. While there, he noticed a haze coming off the brewing beer and upon further investigation, discovered carbonation, hence his discovery of soda water. He immediately published the recipe for his new invention without thought to profit, as Steve Johnson writes, "The idea of proprietary secrets, of withholding information for personal gain, was unimaginable in that group." Of course, years later, in 1783, Johann Schweppe patented the process, which continues to provide "personal gain" through today.

Ben Franklin said the following regarding the subject of open access after he invented the Franklin stove:

I wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled "An Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces; wherein their Construction and Manner of Operation is particularly explained; their Advantages above every other Method of warming Rooms demonstrated; and all Objections that have been raised against the Use of them answered and obviated," etc. This pamphlet had a good effect. Gov'r. Thomas was so pleas'd with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declin'd it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously. -- Ben Franklin

The idea behind the Founding Father's thinking was that the free flow of ideas and information foster the growth of original thought, and as Ben Franklin said, attract the attention of genius who can improve upon and solve problems half understood.

Fast forward to the last Presidential campaign. Obama used open source software and McCain used proprietary software. With proprietary, society gets the soda water, and with open source or open access, society gets soda water and the recipe for the soda water. President-elect Obama's tech agenda seems to support the latter. His choice of Julius Genachowski to chair the FCC is at the very least, an improvement. So, even though the first stab at a Broadband Bill is disappointing, it appears that net neutrality, open source and a more level playing field just might have a chance.

"We can’t allow a system of gatekeepers to get built into the network. The Internet shouldn’t be harnessed for the profit of a few, rather than the good of the many; value should come from the quality of information, not the control of access to it." -- Damian Kulash Jr. lead singer of OK Go

Some Open Source links:

Open sustainability camp

Open source car

Open source comes to medical instruments.

Software industry vs. software society

Open Democracy - aims to build the open source model for news analysis and opinion

Read more...

What's New in Web Based Applications?

Under the Radar showcases emerging startups and identifying trends. Listed below are some of the cool web based applications available:

blist - is a web based database with flash interface that eliminates the need to wedge data into what's become the psuedo database, Excel. It democratizes the function of organizing data by allowing the user to store photos, lists, star ratings, documents and create new blists in each cell in a completely user-friendly environment.

GetSatisfaction, people powered customer service for absolutely everything, is a place where people can get the most from the products they use, and where companies are encouraged to get real with their customers.

Kwiry, turns text messages into reminders you retrieve online.

Magento is an open-source eCommerce platform with "design flexibiity, modular architecture and rich functionality."

NuConomy goes beyond the old page view model of site analytics and starts to measure engagement. It is a two way API, allowing your site to make changes automatically depending on input from the service. Correlation, which shows how things on the site affect other things, page hits, ratings, comments and other metrics can be weighted differently to come up with an overall algorithm to compare authors. It removes the human element which can slow things down.

SlideRocket, very similar to PowerPoint is a rich Internet application. It offers the ability to "design professional quality presentations, manage and share libraries of slides and assets, and to deliver presentations in person or remotely over the web."

SlideShare, SlideShare is the best way to share your presentations with the world. Let your ideas reach a broad audience.

Splashtop allows you to read e-mail, chat with friends, or surf the Web seconds after pushing the power button.

SupportSpace gives you instant access to a robust network of certified tech support experts.

Vello generate conference calls instantly or scheduled in advance, from anywhere, at any time.

Read more...

Steve Jobs Makes Bill Gates Look Like a Saint.

I get the feeling Steve Jobs is not a very nice person. This is not the first story I've heard about the kind of man he is. I apologize if it turns out Jobs is giving away his fortune anonymously and is some kind of saint, but I doubt it.

Jobs, worth $3.3 billion, making him the 67th richest American, is certainly in a position to make the world a better place, but if this story is any indication of the way he runs his business, I'll never buy an Ipod, iMac or anything with the Apple name. Viruses and all, I'll stick with Bill Gates...at least the guy puts his money where his mouth is.

I like Mr. William H. Gates, Sr., Bill Gate's father, as well. I posted about him a few years back.

William Gates Sr., Bill Gates' father, is an advocate for a fair economy and Responsible Wealth which is a national network of businesspeople, investors and affluent Americans who are concerned about deepening economic inequality and are working for widespread prosperity. Our three primary areas of work are tax fairness, corporate responsibility, and living wages.

He truly believes that the wealthiest of us have a debt to the "source of their opportunity" which is the United States that enabled them through a stable government that educates its citizens, provides law and order and keeps us safe from harm, and supports research that gives them the necessary information to build wealth.

Read more...