Cyber security and You

Unless you have been living under a rock since your birth you are probably exposed if not completely addicted to the everyday technology of the 21^st century. Such luxuries include IPhone’s, Galaxy’s, Xbox’s, PS4’s, Laptops, TV’s and the list endless. It seems every day we are introduced into something that is newer, that is better, that we must have. As we buy and spend and demand we dive deeper into this dependency with smarter phones and dumber people.

While we may feel protected and advanced as a society many fail to realize the endangerment not only to our privacy and security, but also to our well-being.  The amount of security put on these magical devices as they are rushed from manufacturer to the demanding consumers who refuse to wait any longer for sequels and the next generation is close to nothing. Everything today is in jeopardy, from a person’s selfies, and passwords, to their bank accounts, camera phones, and even cars and security cameras.

In movies, shoes, and video games we are seen hilarious depictions of hacking often not seeing the actual monitor or text scrolling to quickly to read and miraculous things happening to their targets, as we watch this we think that it is impossible and merely science fiction. While it may be reassuring to believe it is something that is not possible the horrifying truth is that in today’s world we live in a constant threat to anyone with the knowledge to hack into our personal devices as all information can be stolen remotely since the introduction of Wifi.

The worst part of knowing how heavily dependent our lives have become on  technology and knowing how easily accessible it has become with the growth of our network is seeing how long ago it has been started and how advanced it’s become, to the point that it is inexpensive and a broader amount of people can learn.

In 1982 the CIA knew about the KGB stealing software and using it for their own purposes, in return for the wonderful thanks the KGB thanks they were given a Trojan horse hidden inside of stolen software to control gas pipe monitoring. The Trojan horse in this case was a logic bomb that went off after a certain amount of uses and caused one of the largest explosions in history. This of course was something initially put in, in order to be impressive we need to be able to see instances of zero access rights and yet receive complete control and cause panic.

Done and done since 2010 by Stuxnet, a virus that was found in thousands of power plants around the world. This nifty little virus was able to break in unnoticed and sit idly in the power plants until it was signaled for action. Once signaled it overworked smaller mechanical pieces until they broke and hid any alarms for fixing eventually leading to the failure(or destruction) of larger machines. This virus went off in Iran to a Nuclear power plant destroying over 1,000 centrifuges. A similar incident occurred in 2003 around the areas of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, where the power went out for 2 days with the same initial start of failing equipment.

With self-driving cars powered completely by an AI and permanently on Xbox One Kinect camera and even the soon to be TV with a camera and mic can we think we are truly safe? If we cannot protect our power or our infrastructure what will keep us safe as everyday new unprotected products are rushed out? Are humans using technology to much, are we to reliant, should we change our habits, will people change, or do some people just want to watch the world burn?

Hoverboards

Image of a "Hoverboard" courtesy of hight3ch.com

I will admit that I spend a lot of time on the internet, so I am no stranger the trends that are constantly emerging. I am even used to these trends leaking into the real world, whether it be in the form of a sticker or a meme pasted on a graphic tee that is best left buried at the bottom of the drawer beneath the countless “only wear that to bed or the  gym” shirts. I can tolerate stupid trends in two dimensions. It’s when they enter the third dimension that I have a problem. Everyone remembers the planking plague of 2011, and you might even remember the “owling” aftershock that followed in the plague’s wake. The most recent trend that has caught my attention in the worst way possible is the hoverboard. Now, when I say “hoverboard”, I don’t mean the cool Back to the Future kind. What I am talking about are the two-wheeled-self-balancing-electric abominations that people are whizzing around on. There are a lot of things wrong with these things, and I’m going to rant about all of them! So, sit back, relax, and prepare to hate these “hoverboards”. 

My first issue is the name. Although there are many different brands slapped on the “personal intelligent transportation” devices, many people have resorted to calling them, hoverboards. This is sort of a funny name considering the fact that THEY DO NOT HOVER. These things are no closer to a hoverboard than roller skates are to rocket boots. The name makes this thing sound way cooler than it actually is.

Image courtesy of User SAFE4WORKS on Reddit.com/r/wastedgifs

      
        Now, let’s talk about what this thing is. It is a seqway without the handlebars. Those things have been around for years and people, other than Paul Blart, don’t seem to pay too much attention to them.  What happens when the battery runs out? Then you’re stuck carrying around a 22 pound (yes I did my homework) hunk of rubber, metal, and plastic. I’m sure your convenient “cruise” to school would be quickly made an inconvenience when you have to carry around your dead hoverboard. Another issue I have with thing is, what happens when you hit a ledge or a curb? According to the IO Hawk website, their vehicle can overcome obstacles up to ½ inch high. Ha! I wouldn’t make it 10 yards with the condition of the sidewalks in my city. Also, be sure not to get this thing wet! Otherwise, you’ll have yourself a nice new 22 lb. paperweight.

        My final, and possibly most important, issue with these hoverboards is the question of whether or not this is really more convenient than walking. I mean, maybe it’s a little faster, but there are way cheaper options that go way faster (i.e. a bike). Surely you might be able to legally ride it on sidewalks, but wouldn’t it be a terrible game trying to weave in and out of the people who are ALL going more slowly than you. It’s annoying enough passing one person who is too slow, I want no part in passing all of them. They just don’t seem practical.

In conclusion, if  I wanted a  product that allowed me to move around a l little faster,  get caught on every pebble, and make me look like a fool, I’d go get myself a nice pair of  size 11.5 Heelys. Seeing internet stars, musicians, and celebrities all over the internet does not justify spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on one of these things. If you want to waste that much money, just send it my way and I’ll find a better use for it! Rant Over.

Online Harassment with John Oliver

Investigative comedian John Oliver hosts and produces a TV show on HBO called Last Week Tonight. On his show, he uses the attraction of comedy to effectively communicate often serious social and political issues with his audience. In this video regarding “Online Harassment”, John attempts to describe the darker and often overlooked aspects of online culture. 

The topic of online harassment is not only amusing for John Oliver to riff on but also central to understanding and interpreting certain facets of this course, which will act as a medium for examining the relationship between computers and society. Starting his video with a “Rick Roll” and following up with a ‘90s AOL advertisement, John cuts to satirizing the internet culture from its origins without hesitation. Moving on to a more serious note, John reads some Twitter insults directed at him as a comic way to start tackling a bigger issue: the malicious nature of some internet users. One female gamer recalled various threats she had received, such as “I’m going to stick an egg in your vaginal canal and punch it.” Other women gave accounts of sexism in the video game industry, citing bomb threats, rape threats, and death threats. Oliver then shows, however, that this is unfortunately not exclusive to video gamers. Female writers also commonly receive vicious online harassment. Writer Amanda Hess explained her negative experiences on NBC and referred to tweets as examples, such as this one displayed by Oliver.

When attempting to contact police about online harassment, Hess was told by the officer that he was unsure if the threats and harassment are even considered a crime, explaining that he did not know what Twitter is or how it works. Highlighting other key issues such as lack of revenge porn victim defense laws, the victim-blaming sentiment in media culture, and ineffective legislation, Oliver continues to point out the horrors of online harassment scenarios. Ending with a parody video which further criticized internet bullying and the lack of legal defense against it, Oliver comically wrapped up his segment while driving the point home.

Throughout his segment, Oliver focuses primarily on how women can be harassed online. With stronger and more frequent examples to use as evidence, the malicious internet treatment of women is an effective way to get a viewer angry about online harassment. Unfortunately, this type of behavior does not have exclusively female victims. Regardless of gender, John Oliver makes some amazing arguments for the implementation of legislation which would protect these victims. If someone threatened to murder another person in real life, the authorities would offer protective services and investigate the accused. The same scenario online does not receive this treatment. In this modern era, it is important that we are held accountable for what we do on the internet. As Oliver points out, the internet and reality are one in the same. You can legally buy stocks on the internet, transfer funds, sell a product, hire an employee, advertise a product, and collaborate on projects. All of these online actions are real and affect more than just the digital universe; however, in some areas making a death threat online does not carry the same sense of reality.

 So how can we police this? With what system can we prevent this? We do have systems which address non-personal threats, such as the NSA which patrols for national security risks. What we need, however, is a system which can assign real accountability for the harassment delivered on the internet. With online usernames, proxy servers, and a variety of other easily accessible barriers, it is complicated to identify a solution. While we cannot let these issues continue as they are, we also cannot provide the resources necessary to solve them. And even if we could, our government often cannot agree on the legislation necessary to do so. Personally, I’m unsure of what the solution may be. What I am sure of, however, is that this is a serious problem that we, as a society, need to decide how to best resolve. The first step in doing so is to spread awareness as John Oliver does in his video, and hopefully as I do a little more in this post.

Tumblr continuing on a downward slope

Tumblr is a micro-blogging web platform that lets users share all sorts of text, images, and videos. Although many of its users gravitate towards sharing content about fictional works, Tumblr blogs can be about anything the user chooses. In June 2013, Yahoo bought Tumblr for approximately $1.1 billion. Ever since the purchase, users have noticed some negative changes to website.

One simple change has been the oversimplification of the site’s design. Instead of keeping your blog statistics, such as how many followers you have and how many blogs you follow, off to the left of the page, they are now pushed into a floating header bar, along with messages, options, and notifications. Even if this change is small, it is still inconvenient.

The most annoying addition to the website is the introduction of advertisements. The sponsored posts on Tumblr are more active than ever and they are completely unwarranted. Originally, there were just recommended blogs near the top of the website. But currently, as you scroll down the dashboard, these dumb-looking frames containing ads keep popping up. I joined Tumblr because I had the freedom to pick and choose which content I wanted to see, but now that freedom has been taken away.

Another bothersome aspect is the fact that there are plenty of other problems the Tumblr staff could be working on. Users have constantly and actively voiced their opinions about issues such as: fixing the video player, implementing an effective chatting system, or allowing for more access control settings for private blogs. However, these cries have gone unheard as the staff continues to make updates that go against the wishes of the community and decrease the usefulness and enjoyment of the site.

Tumblr plays an important part in many users’ lives. Millions of teenagers use the website to discuss their interests and make friends through previously nontraditional methods. Countless others use it to discuss serious issues plaguing our society, such as gender or racial issues. The degradation of the site only grows the frustration of these users who may not have a place to shares their ideas and values. If the site continues down this path, its popularity may wane and another site may be able to take its place. Although I doubt this will happen anytime soon, it is still a possibility if Tumblr keeps disappointing its users. 

Sony Brings Game Streaming to PS3

            Video game companies like Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft often find themselves asking “How will we sell our games and consoles that are for out-of-date models once our newest product is released”. Well Sony is about to take a stab at this issue with its PlayStation 3. Now that PlayStation 4 has been on the market for a while, sales have significantly slowed for older games available on the PlayStation 3 as gamers are upgrading their systems rather than buying older games. Sony’s solution to this problem is to make a large list of around 100 PlayStation 3 games stream over their PlayStation Network. This allows people who own a PlayStation 3 to access any of these titles without a disk for $19.99 a month (similar to having Game Fly, but specifically for your system and with a better selection available). This not only attracts the PlayStation 3 consumers due to convenience, but also enables them to save countless dollars on games. Sony is using a bold strategy in doing this as they are selling the use of these games at a heavy discount in hopes that it will boost activity of sales significantly enough that they still make a large profit margin.

This online game streaming introduced by Sony will however offer them little risk as it significantly reduces their cost of producing physical games and cases. Uploading the games to the PlayStation 3 Network will take some initial capital, but much less than the amount it would cost to produce so many games that they offer that they may or may not sell in video game stores. It is definitely a wise decision to install this sales strategy as sales of all goods recently has been shifting toward more online-based and lacking sales in person at stores so this should benefit their game sales. When sales of an older system are slacking, it makes a lot of sense to me to accommodate the consumer and make the product more readily available. This PlayStation 3 video game gallery will become available on May 12^th and I suspect sales will be pretty high. To attract potential customers Sony is offering a 7-day free trial to any PlayStation 3 owners who have not yet signed up for the service. I presume most if not all customers who use the free trial will purchase at least one month of the game streaming service for $19.99. They also will be offering the newer games for PlayStation 3 at a one-time extra cost. This essentially is the same thing as buying these games at the store, but makes it available digitally and without the hassle of the CD. Sony is the first video game company to attempt this strategy so it will be interesting to see how it works out for them. I would not be surprised if both Microsoft and Nintendo make an effort to offer a similar online gaming service as they always try to keep their consoles on a level playing field.

Leakers, motivations and consequences

We may have discussed this in class but I wanted to point out something about the differences in US government leaks. There are three major leaks that we can look at: Snowden's NSA documents, Julian Assange's wikileaks and the military documents leaked by Bradley/Chelsea Manning. (Future notice, I'm just going to refer to Bradley/Chelsea as Manning for convenience)

The idea of this blog post is to try to figure out the motives, goals and ideas that these leakers want to accomplish. In my mind Snowden and Manning are very similar in their intent. They are on the inside of their program and see what harm or injustices they are committing. Snowden was a system administrator, which means that he had a much larger amount of access than a typical NSA agent. After watching the documentary "Citizen Four" that had the initial interviews with Snowden when he was running from the United States, I believe I have a better idea of what his motivations were. His access allowed him to see all of the massive programs that the NSA was using to gather mass surveillance. In my mind, his motives were along the lines of, 'The people have the right to know what this government agency is doing and what they are collecting.' Different than most leaks, Snowden went directly through a specific set of journalists. Other leaks post everything at once, while his is pieced together and given context by a journalist.

Manning is similar to Snowden on the motivation part without a doubt. After leaking her documents, called the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs she writes, "This is one of the most significant documents of our time removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of 21st century asymmetric warfare." Manning leaked a couple of videos of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan firing on targets without proper identification that they were targets. These leaks were carefully selected and trimmed of identifying information. She saw the injustices that the US military was committing and like Snowden, felt that the public should hear what is happening. Unlike Snowden, Manning leaked her information through Wikileaks.

Finally there is Assange, who had created and set up wikileaks. He is completely different than the previous two characters. His role is the stateless anarchist born in the internet age. Any leak he receives, he will post. When the documents detailing how the US government talks, deals with, and feels about certain other countries was leaked I think it showed his truer motives. He was just being an anarchist and hurting these countries how ever he could. It didnt matter to him about the actual content but how much this would sour relations or hurt a country.

And for a final point I think that it is important to note what happened to every single leaker. Regardless if they leaked because of moral conviction, these leakers were all discredited, attacked on personal basis, or made more important than their documents. Examples of this are Bradley/Chelsea Manning's gender identity issues, Julian Assange being charged and extradited for rape and Snowden being labelled as a traitor or a Russian spy.

This may be a simplistic view, but it seems that regardless of your motive or how you leak information about how the US government runs, every single possible card will be used against you. And the more painful thing is that the public will care more about the story of the leak over the actual leaked data. These should all be lessons to those who make the choice to leak any information from now on.

Small Robots, Big Strength

In one of the CNN articles that I examined entitled "These tiny robots have superhuman strength," microrobots approximately the size of a Matchbox car have the ability to pull 2,000 times their weight.  These robots, which are being developed by engineers David Christensen and Elliot Hawkes at Stanford University, have been able to pull weights, drag full cups of coffee, and pull objects up a wall in a lab setting.  Right now, there are two sizes in development.

Several real-world applications for the robots include equipping them with CO2 sensors and sending them into a devastated area or burning building to find survivors.  The small size of these robots also allows them to be sent to place objects in tough-to-reach spots like rafters of a factory, making them applicable in many office and production settings.

Since each robot costs only about $20, Christensen explains that it's not a big deal if one goes missing or gets lost in action.  Each robot can be made in under two days in a lab using 3D printers to make the parts.  Their design is heavily inspired by geckos and ants, "whose feet adapt when they climb or carry a load."  The 'feet' of the robot have spikes that stick to the ground.

The robots can haul an object by planting itself on a hard surface and then pulling a string attached to the object in question.  It repeats this process until the object reaches its destination (provided that there is nothing in the way)

Right now, the robots have only been in development for a few months and will appear at several robotics conferences in the near future.

The engineers hope that the robots can, after being fully developed, work just like an ant colony and accomplish tasks as a team.

My initial thoughts when reading this were if the robots were developed and redesigned in a way that allowed them to climb over obstacles (much like a real ant), they would be much more useful.  Their small size allows them to be ideal for situations in which humans are too big or are unable to reach, and it would be easy to attach a camera or other sensors and open up possibilities for many more uses.  Of course, there will be issues that present themselves such as privacy issues for attaching a camera to something so small and having it have the potential to be very hard to detect.  The engineers did not mention if this would be a product that would be available to the general public, but it would certainly bring about new challenges.

The article definitely does its best to glamorize the technology, and the robots themselves are not all that impressive yet, but what I found most interesting was the engineers' idea to use these tiny robots as a whole unit and colony as opposed to a singular device.  I feel like a lot of robots are expected to perform all functions on their own, and the idea of using many of these tiny little robots to accomplish a goal is interesting.  I also like the idea that we're taking a cue from something that works so well in nature and adapting it. I would be interesting to see how long full development takes on this project.

article:  http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/30/technology/strong-microrobots/index.html