Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Protect Internet Freedom – NOW

Published by John on January 18th, 2012

Just in case you’ve missed it , congress is working on a law called the “Stop Online Piracy Act,” and a partner law, the “Protect IP Act.”   It’s why Google has the big black thing on their logo, and why Wikipedia is blacked out.   I’ll give you the gist based on what I read in the two acts (and not simply a bunch of news articles):

  • The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA – HR 3261) allows the government to take action against a person, making them personally liable, for anything on a web site they own or run that contains anything perceived to violate copyright.  Who decides?  Anyone who thinks that a site violates copyright and puts a phone call into their Attorney General or Department of Justice.  The government is then REQUIRED to put out a court order, take legal action, and then sort out the details.  (Translate: shoot first, ask questions later.)
  • The Protect IP Act (S.968) is even more far reaching, requiring search engines like Google to censor content out of their index.  It also requires the government to shut down a site first, and ask questions later.  In fact, Protect IP will provide the means for the government to shut down a site, the site’s owner may not know for hours, days, or weeks what happened or why.  (Translation: shoot and be sure the guy is dead first, then let God sort it out.)
As a musician and a web guy, I’ve always been in favor of intellectual copyright protection.  I still am.  It’s the right thing to do, and it’s good for business.  Creative people work hard, they create stuff we like to buy, and we should buy it instead of stealing it.
SOPA and Protect IP don’t protect IPs or Stop Online Piracy.  Instead, it gives the government unilateral control of all IPs and becomes the Imperial Wizard of American Internet Content.  It creates a HUGE government censorship complex responsible for monitoring IP addresses, and deciding which sites get to stay and which have to come down.  These two laws empower our government to sue and jail anyone who stands in their way.    It will turn the Internet into a huge police state, run by our benevolent Department of Justice.
Less government is better than more government.  It costs less.  It takes politicians out of our personal lives.  Our government is hosting wars in several countries.  The dollar isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.  Washington spends far more than it takes in.  But our government can’t stop doing stuff like that, so instead, it will take money from the big media outlets and go into the internet censorship business.
SOPA and Protect IP aren’t going to help internet favorites like Facebook, Google/YouTube, Twitter, and Zynga.  These laws will kill internet startups, small creative groups, new bands, independent filmmakers, young artists, and the proverbial internet “little guy,” (or “little gal” if you prefer).  These laws WILL help huge media companies kill competition, control all innovation, and use the profits to support politicians through the infamous Super-PACs that work diligently for both sides of the political aisle.  Those responsible for sustaining the Internet Police State will be given an endless supply of offender intelligence by the media companies, whose new and improved profit margins will support a cadre of individuals responsible for watching their competition and feeding intel to the government.
Yes, the Internet is the Wild West, and bad things have happened to good people.  The Internet is utterly out of control.  That’s how it was designed.  It is OUR responsibility to conduct ourselves honestly and stand for positive change.  This law won’t just kill the NEXT Google, Wikipedia, Facebook and Twitter, it will kill the ones we have right now.  It would be just plain stupid for us to enact a gargantuan law, spawning yet another government regulatory institution, to take away the last level playing field on the planet.
No Comments »
Posted in Economics, Freedom of Speech, Internet, Technology

Fawkes on Facebook – a nasty little attack

Published by John on November 16th, 2011

facebook virusThere is a nasty little Facebook identity attack making the rounds.  Many sources now point to something called “Fawkes” malware, by an international “hacktivist” group called “Anonymous,” or a splinter of the same organization.   Check your Facebook account regularly, just to be safe.

What does this virus do?

This particular piece of malware takes over your news feed and begins publishing all sorts of links to pornography, bestiality, self-mutilation, and general filth and yuck.  As a consequence, all your Facebook friends will suddenly receive post after post FROM YOU with this sort of material.  Depending on what your friends are used to from you, this might just be embarrassing.

How is it spread?

Most likely users contract the virus by installing a Facebook app, intentionally or not, and the virus is in the code itself.   The virus may also “clickjack.”  ”Clickjacking” is particularly nasty, because the user will innocently click on a button that performs a seemingly innocent function, which may or may not trick the user into revealing pertinent personal information, and may also launch the virus in the user’s account.  Imagine clicking a button called “show me pictures of kittens,” and before you know it, all your friends receive salacious imagery courtesy of you.

What can I do in response?

The best suggestions include the following:

  • Change your Facebook password.
  • Remove any unwanted Facebook apps.
  • Purchase and use security software.
  • Engage in very safe internet practices.
There are several good tips articles out there.  Here are a couple of suggestions:
Anonymous and Hacktivists
Occupy eviction

Occupy Wall Street Protesters evicted early monday (Courtesy BBC)

“Hacktivist” is a new buzz word out there, referring to individuals who engage in computer hacking for a political agenda.  The international hacker group “Anonymous” has publicly declared its sympathies with the Occupy Wall Street movement.  It threatened to launch an attack on November 5th (Bonfire Night – see below), in response to the New York City Police Department’s October plan to clear the Occupy Wall Street protesters out of Zucotti Park so it could be cleaned.  The Occupy protesters boosted their numbers, the NYPD never cleared the park, and the attack didn’t happen.  Then, early Tuesday morning, November 15th, the NYPD cleared the park.  This time, there was no announcement, and little time for the Occupy protesters to bolster their numbers and launch a response.  As it turns out, most Occupy protesters go home every night, so the NYPD chose a particularly sparse time of day to clear the park.  Within hours, the Facebook attack began.

Guy Fawkes Mask

The Guy Fawkes Mask continues to be an iconic image for the Occupy sympathizers

Fawkes, Anonymous, and Occupy

There are some interesting correlations between the Facebook attacks, the Fawkes movement, and Occupy.  History has cast Guy Fawkes as the lead conspirator in the “Gunpowder Plot,” a 17th Century plan to blow up the English Parliament in protest against the monarch’s oppression of Roman Catholics.  (Wikipedia has a nice read on this.)  Before the plan could be implemented, one of the planners had second thoughts.  Innocent people, some of whom were fighting the religious oppression, would be killed in the attack.  They sent an anonymous letter to authorities, Guy and several co-conspirators were caught, tortured, and executed.  Ever since, on November 5th, Brits celebrate “Bonfire Night,” burning an effigy of a significant political figure, or of Fawkes himself.
  • The Gunpowder plot, like most terrorist acts, would have killed innocent people, including those with Catholic sympaties.  The Facebook attack is entirely indiscriminate, it appears, and has in all likelihood attacked those sympathetic to the Occupy cause.
  • The Gunpowder Plot was foiled because some participants had reservations about killing innocent people, including some advocates for their cause.  The group that followed through was a splinter of the original conspiracy.  So, it seems, is the Anonymous group’s Fawkes attack.
  • While Occupy lacks some clarity in its message, consistent themes include the oppression of the poor by the rich, and the treatment of corporate entities as human beings.  Fawkes and his co-conspirators sought to overthrow an oppressive government and its leader to replace it with one more sympathetic with its cause.
There are, to be sure, some significant differences.  The most significant is that the Gunpowder Plot would have killed lots of people.  Hopefully, nobody will come to serious physical harm via a malware attack.
Internet Safety
The late 70s and early 80s brought us a host of new diseases, including AIDS, and with it, a new awareness of the consequences of our actions.  Sadly, Internet safety operates by many of the same rules.
  • Be careful who you connect with.
  • Giving someone permission to “hook up” with you can have dire consequences, so be very careful.
  • Always use protection.
  • You have tremendous value as a person, and so does your identity, so beware how much of yourself you reveal to the world.
These metaphors are open ended, so those old enough to know can understand the warning.
No Comments »
Posted in Facebook, Malware, Politics, Protest, Technology

Thank you, Steve.

Published by John on October 5th, 2011

We knew this day would come, but it doesn’t make it any easier, really.  At 56, Steve Jobs was a creative genius who passed well before his time.  He had a remarkably simple, elegant, and noble idea.  Technology should be for everyone.  It should be simple and straightforward to use, it should be highly functional, reliable, and even fun.  Technology should be so well designed that it becomes an extension of our creative energy.  And he actually made that happen.

Bill Gates may have written the operating system that seems to run most of the known universe, but to this day it STILL looks like the Mac OS knock-off it has always been.  Steve was much bigger than an operating system.  He kept the faith through the OS wars, and then he launched us into the post-OS era.  He created stuff you didn’t have to know how to use before  you used it.  He put TV, tunes, and the web anywhere we needed it.  And he made stuff that always – and I mean ALWAYS – worked.  (My 20-year-old Macintosh Plus still runs.)

Steve Jobs changed the world, and I’m not overstating that one bit.  At first it was the personal computer itself, which set off a 30-year revolution.  Then, when cell phones needed a facelift, he gave us a smartphone that made sense and worked reliably.  Now, with the iPad, Apple is ushering in the next generation of personal technology.  Either he had the great ideas, or knew them when he saw them and managed to develop them into something remarkable.  We may think of terms like the PC, the smartphone, the laptop, and the tablet, but what we really mean is the Mac, the iPhone, and the iPad.

Like any creative genius, he wasn’t a saint.  In his younger days he dropped acid, experimented with drugs, he could be temperamental and at times egotistical, I heard he was a pretty tough boss, and he didn’t always make the best business decisions.  But he had some truly remarkable human qualities that eclipsed these flaws.  He studied.  He learned.  He listened.  He was curious.  He knew what the brand stood for and did his best to carry the flag.  He understood Apple as a company, but even more so as an ethos on the forefront of technology.  And in good times and bad, as long as they would let him, he stood by the products and services personally.

Sometimes our best hope is to leave this world a little better than we found it.  Steve Jobs’ legacy is that he left the world a whole lot better, and did so over and over again.  Sure, he made billions doing it.  I like that.  He made a good product, an ORIGINAL product, and people lined up to buy it.  It made their lives, and our world, better.  I hope that, in a few years, when my turn comes, I’ll be able to say the same thing.

Thanks, Steve.

No Comments »
Posted in Technology
Tags: , , , ,

Occupy Wall Street .com

Published by John on October 2nd, 2011

NYPD prepares to make arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge

Absolutely new and different, yet somehow, it isn’t.  The U.S. economy is on the rocks, the global economy following, and there are protesters occupying Liberty Plaza on Wall Street.  And, bit by bit, these occupations are beginning to spread across the country.

The Liberty Plaza Protesters Have a Stocked Kitchen, Child Care, and a Strong Net Presence

The protests are, perhaps, a bit less focused as the ones we remember from the late 60′s and early 70′s.   The protesters are mostly young people, and they’ve been camped out in Liberty Plaza for over two weeks.  They set up a kitchen, cots, child care, and speakers 24/7.   The place has the look and feel of a hippy commune with smartphones.

But there is one major difference: They’re wired.  They have a web site, http://occupywallstreet.com, and they have a live feed from the protest.

This is the politics of protest and change in the 21st century.  At first the protests were largely ignored by national media, popping up in only some of the New York news outlets.  Then it went viral on the internet.  Now that similar protests are popping up all over the country, the media is paying attention.

People are protesting for jobs, against corporate greed, for democracy, against capitalism, for government action, and against political leaders.  The protesters are, in many cases, out of work.  The protest is politically left, but hasn’t yet declared for or against a candidate.  The sit-in on the Brooklyn Bridge on Sunday afternoon looked like the sit-ins of the past.  We’re seeing an American classic unfold, right on the web.

1 Comment »
Posted in Education, Politics, Poverty, Protest, Technology