A prize of many

Most people remember the shock and mixed opinions when President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize very early in his presidency. His stance on nuclear weapons, foreign policies, health care, and peace negotiations in the middle east had obviously made a statement to the committee.

2010: Among the nominee’s for this years Peace Price include Svetlana Gannushkina and her human rights group, Liu Xiaobo, a chinese human rights activist currently imprisoned for "inciting subversion of state power", and of course, the Internet.

The Internet, born in the 60’s under U.S. militaristic oppression, has grown in fame quickly since it’s birth. In the mid-90’s The Internet had reached international acclaim and quickly became a house hold name. The Internet began providing every culture and every person with a voice to be heard. With countless applications and communications services release by the internet, governments, and human rights advocates alike were able to quickly communicate. By the late 90’s the internet was a force to be reckoned, and had began efforts to bring the younger generations into it’s mix, providing every user the ability to use communication devices like Instant Messaging, E-Mail, and a new trend, blogging. It’s development of LiveJournal, a social network, was a big step in collecting the masses and would soon grow at an astounding rate. By 2010 the Internet has become unstoppable. Social networking services like Facebook and Twitter have been able to stop wars and provide data for relief organizations. The Internet was a huge player in the U.S. efforts in the Iran Election. While the Internet is directly responsible for opening up a new type of crime, cyber-warfare, it’s rather minor considering all the good, and the intent mind you, the internet has brought to the world in it’s short 50 years.

We, as in the collective human race, as well as governments and committee's founded by or elected by the human race, have obviously lost touch with reality entirely. At the beginning of this year, U.S. supreme court ruled that organizations should be allowed to provide unlimited resources and funding for “special interest” in U.S. government. This includes all domestic AND foreign organizations, and basically gives them the right to do whatever they please in government and elections, granting them similar power as if their were considered “persons”.

Now, only a short period of time after this completely outrageous decision, something as broad as “The Internet” gets a nomination for Nobel Peace Prize. Why the nominee didn’t consist of something a little more narrow like the founders of twitter/facebook, or the founders of Google, hell even Steve Jobs would be a better candidate, at least he can provide an acceptance speech.

Will you be looking forward to the internet’s gleeful cries if it wins the Nobel Peace Prize? How would you feel about The Internet co-hosting the Grammy’s with political figure Corporation aka “The Man” next year? Spot me your opinion, since mine is already tainted.

Social Networking – Evolution of Identity

Recently I found myself playing a few online games and noticed the API add-in for links to Facebook and Twitter. The concept was pretty basic, attach your login to Facebook to the game to instantly post game achievements to Facebook or Twitter. However this left me pondering the true scope of social networking.

Today, a friend asked me to help him with some basic information and setup on a social network. Without hesitation I began asking questions about needs and deterring from one network in favor of another, and listing a few pros and cons. That’s when it really hit me, social networking is no longer just some toy or fad. I’ve been reading a lot of articles surrounding social networks, the impacts they have, and the media attention some of the bigger name networks command. But it takes something like realizing you are somewhat of a pro when it comes to social network knowledge to really put it into perceptive.

Unlike a few others I know, I didn’t start my first profile until Myspace hit the market. I remember contemplating even joining, summing up the concept of a social network as nothing more than a waste of time and a pointless endeavor, but I joined it anyway realizing I truly didn’t have anything better to waste my time on (I was at work – graves). I began tweaking settings, adding and removing information, connecting with old and new friends and spending hours collecting information. For what? Well, at the time it was merely amusing. I was also getting into web development as a hobby and noticed that I could modify much of my Myspace profile with CSS. This led me to Photobucket and eventually Flickr, because I had to host my photo’s for my background somewhere.

Later came facebook, and facebook apps. Those wonderfully addicting games stole much of my time. I constantly see ads for Farmville, a popular facebook game. I still have my cell phone linked to facebook to get updates and comments directly texted to me wherever I go, with the ability to text in a reponse. Though I don’t use this feature as often as I once did.

Speaking of texting, next huge blocked buster was Twitter. Twitter has become so hugely popular and media effecting that the U.S. Government asked Twitter to reschedule it’s downtime last summer due to elections in Iran. President Obama sent his first “tweet” this year while pushing for relief funds for an earthquake in Haiti. Google has started displaying real-time twitter feeds in their search to help keep a constant, fresh, opinion on any matter you might be wanting to track, from politics to apple events.

Back to my original statement of connecting my game with facebook. I've been starting to see the “connect with facebook” everywhere now, from games to Digg. Usually associated is also Twitter, both performing ways to link your profile for a given site with your accounts on neither or both facebook and twitter.

Google Profiles, has recently launched and allows a user to connect facebook, along with many other social networks in order to use google to quickly search topics in the news and among friends and family. A truly scary and remarkable way social networks are influencing our internet and business experience daily. Jaron Lanier, recently published a book about how our lives are quickly becoming a blip in the net, and we’re becoming a collective hive. A very interesting, if not extreme theory. However with the advent and general push of social networks, that seems to be bringing the internet around to a very real, almost tangible feeling. Being able to not only put a face to an online persona, but also the ability to read about this person in many forms, from a simple facebook profile and friends listings to credit card purchases. I almost seems if we may be giving up TOO much of our personal information and connecting far too many of our daily habits to internet searchable media.

In a very sick and devilish way I’m almost looking forward to watching how the effect of social networks completely alter how the internet functions as the dynamic of reality and  the virtual world collide into one giant mess.

What’s your take? Do you actively engage in social networks? How do they effect you and do you see them as nothing more than a novelty, or a change of times?

Computer safety, Which OS?

A very long standing debate, both from experts, hobbyists, and general consumers. Which computer Operating System is the best? This question always ends up being synonymous with, which OS is more secure? The problem here is these two questions are completely and entirely independent of each other. Let’s look at both in more detail.

 Security:

This is a multilayer question. Hack attempts, malware, spyware, virus’s etc. generally have one common goal; to steal information and acquire access. Computer attacks mostly fit into 2 categories – Attacks for profit, or attacks to harm a large company, usually as a political statement.

Let’s start from the bottom and most basic. Physical access. Criminals with the intent to gain access to your computer by means of directly and physically accessing it usually do this in public areas, coffee shops, airports, stores, parks etc. They will either lift the entire machine, or quickly access it while if left unattended. Obviously this is not the most common, but does happen. I have worked for a company where several laptops storing sensitive information when missing or were stolen in public places.

In this scenario the thief has more tools at his disposal, but usually just wants to make a profit selling the machine. In cases that the machine has windows or linux, they will usually sell the machine as is, or reinstall the OS. However, if the thief does want access to the machine each is vulnerable, but I’d have to go with linux as the safest. Mac’s have a quick access account reset method that could be done in minutes. Holding Apple key + S while the system is rebooting will drop the user at a “root” prompt (root being system level access that is otherwise disabled on macs). After that it’s a few steps away from resetting the password or creating a new admin account. Windows has a similar vulnerability, ERD commander, which is used by many professionals to reset passwords or attempt to repair non-working windows machines.

OS and Web attacks:

This is really 2 parts, however they culminate into online based attacks. all 3 major OS’s have their flaws and security measures. Microsoft has by far added the most advanced and secure options as well as multiple ways to manage them. They now also offer free anti-virus software, which is as decent as any free and most paid subscription based anti-virus programs. The ads depicting Windows Vista with annoying Pop-ups asking for permission to run programs is NOT new to Mac or Linux users. Each ask for elevated privileges usually by asking for an Admin username and Password to run or install certain programs. Windows Vista did take it a bit farther by occasionally adding one extra security dialogue box, but nothing more intrusive then mac and linux already implement. Point being, when a virus or malware gains access to the system, it must also gain access to an admin account, making it a bit more difficult to infect. We can equate this to security measure to the protection you may have in your house. If the thief gets in your house without being detected, it’s up to your in-home security to block them, which most people don’t have. Anti-virus programs and these annoying security measures are a last resort step to prevent infection, and generally are not too effective on any platform. If the virus is new, or altered enough, your anti-virus program likely has not published a definition detection for it.

These leaves us with the entry point. The most important step in preventing attacks. there are 3 major points of entry with all 3 OS’s. Instant Messengers, E-Mail client (both web and module software), and the biggest being the web browser itself. Since there has been a major focus on security with all platforms it’s becoming more difficult for attackers to gain access to a computer, so the attackers must also adapt. Most attacks now use a form of social engineering in one way or another.

Instant Message attacks usually pop up in the form of a link. Bots are setup to spam as many contacts as possible usually with a saying similar to “Hey check this out”, or “Is this a picture of you?”. If the end user clicks the link they are directed to a site that instantly downloads Malware/Trojans, then infects the users IM account and sends the same link and quote out to everyone on their contact list. This results in getting what seems to be a legit IM from a friend saying they found a picture of them and to go check it out.

Email, or “Spam”, is a very common practice to infect PC’s. This can range anywhere from free or cheap medication, real estate properties, to something more convincing like spam appearing to be from fedex saying they were unable to deliver a package, or delta saying that a flight plan had changes. The latter usually containing a zip file with supposed information about the problem. Once the zip file is opened, or the link is clicked the computer is infected and begins spamming out messages from the users mail client as well as opening holes for attackers to use their computer in a “botnet”. Anti-virus programs are usually useless against these attacks, relying heavily on spam filters to block both executable files and harmful links, but they still can and will get through with enough effort.

Onto the browser attacks. Browser attacks are the absolute most common and devious attacks, spawning arguments, debates, and development cycles commonly known as the “browser wars”. The vast majority of attacks on a computer come from browsers and always implement a certain level of social engineering. A website may clone a legitimate website, appearing to the user to be exactly where they wanted to go. Upon entry, or clicking on a link, will start downloading and infecting the users machine. Other attempts will advertise a video, game, download, or other such material enticing the user to visit based on the user assumption that they would truly like to view or use the advertised product. There is almost no end to the number of infected sites falling in this range and often requires great care and scrutiny from the user to avoid these traps. This type of attack usually exploits a security hole in the web browser or 3rd party plug-in to gain access, especially when the site includes Flash or Java content. All browsers developers work extremely hard to prevent security holes and patch their software, but they do require the user to constantly update their software.

In the end, attacks come down to very basic elements. if a user is not allowing automatic updates, or downloading updates that require manual updates, they are more prone to attacks. Every OS, browser, mail client, and IM client require regular updates to remain safe and must be attended to. In a more fundamental aspect, since these attacks on the general public are aimed at money and pure numbers. The most common OS/browser/IM client used are quite obviously going to be the most common attacked which sheds a very real light on what advertisers would rather you not know. It’s not a matter of what OS is more secure, it comes down to what OS holds the largest user base that will be most frequently attacked. If windows was the minority in the OS wars, it was suffer far less attacks then a Mac.

In an article from Cnet, Jeremiah Grossman from WhiteHat Security put it best, “from a consumer's perspective you probably should be using the word 'safe' rather than 'secure'; two completely different things. 'Secure' is a supermax prison. 'Safe' is a playground in suburbia. Follow?”

In the end, consumers should not be looking at their choice from a security perceptive. The choice should be summed up by what you need from your computer, and what options each has to meet your needs. State of security will be a combined effort between software updates and extreme caution. Until Software developers are able to remove the human element and social engineering aspect of security vulnerabilities, nothing will ever be secure on the net.