Category: Technology

Fark led me to a set of helpful tips about how to handle giving your old computer to someone else. Here’s a summary of what Kim Komando, noted radio computer “expert,” suggests as steps or protocols for what you can do to safeguard personal information you might have on the P.C.:

1. Don’t want a big hassle? Give the computer to a trusted employee, friend or family member.
2. Reformat the hard drive and re-install the operating system.
3. Buy software and overwrite the disk, again and again and again.
4. You’re totally paranoid, so get out the acetylene torch.

That’s it, Komando? That’s all you have? What about step 5?

If you don’t know what Protocol 5 is, you’re not totally paranoid.

I guess not everyone can afford an atom-smasher in the basement.

The META Group, a bunch of people marketing themselves as people you can pay to think for you, alerts us to this great danger – Camera-Enabled Phones Pose Significant Liability for Most Enterprises, Warns META Group:

STAMFORD, Conn. (December 9, 2003) — With the cost of adding cameras to mobile phones becoming marginal ($2-$5 per phone), META Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: METG), expects the majority of phones to include this capability within two to three years. However, for many organizations, cameras represent a significant liability or security risk — such as inappropriate candid shots of employees, pictures of production lines.

While the quality of most cameras in current phones is poor, it nonetheless represents a potential channel for leaks of sensitive data or other images that can produce unintended consequences. META Group recommends setting up a clear policy of no camera-enabled phones.

While META Group invites any of you with change in your pockets to visit its Web site for a vigorous upturning and shaking called its “high-value” approach to generating quotable blather, META Group does not address the similar dangers of disposable cameras, regular cameras, or human memory that can also capture and transmit proprietary information to your world-class, best-in-class, best-of-breed enterprise caliber solution’s competition. But none of these buzzwords would yield hits in a current search for “relevant” news. Which is what META Group’s really trying to do, to get you, a key decision maker in your organization, to look at them like a precocious child who can recite poetry it doesn’t understand.

Look in wonder, friends. I wonder who pays these guys, and if I can get in on the grift.

(Link seen on Hans’s site.)

Applied Digital has announced a new service to allow consumers to pay for merchandise using microchips implanted under their skins. Shidoshi, you might ask, should I worry about the implications of this for my own personal paranoia?

No, student, this is a false alarm. Applied Digital is a corporation in its last throes of death, but it yet retains a marketing department or a piece of software that generates press releases on a regular basis. Because the company features a chip that goes under the skin, its press releases receive a lot of play in the trades when they want to shock or titilate the public.

Implanting payment methods or identification will never become prevalent.

You should worry, instead, about the reasons why the powers that want to be won’t need you to undergo elective surgery to track you.

Meditate on’t, child.

1. Using Internet Explorer, open and read this story, “The end is near for pop-up ads“.
2. Close the browser window.
3. Examine the CNN Money pop under ad that displays when you close the window.

The last line of this story, about a principal at a charter school who uses RFID in the student IDs to keep track of the children, really sums it up properly. To address the concerns of the critics who think this might be problematic and invade the privacy of the students, he says:

“It’s as private as anything else can be when your information is stored on a server,” he said.

Anyone here who would accept that as a valid answer, please send me an e-mail with the reasons why that’s okay. Be sure to add your social security number and mother’s maiden name for validation purposes. Thank you.

(Link seen on /..)

So it’s only taken me some what, two years, to notice this, but now that I have, it’s under there. Every day when I reboot, bam! It’s in my face:

Based on NT Technology. Windows NT Technology. Windows New Technology Technology.

Sure, it’s not as egregious as PIN Number on an ATM Machine, but come couldn’t you buy better with billions of dollars? I’m only fifty an hour, werd.

I have increased the size of my unit by 4 inches!!!!

Well, I have finally replaced the 15″ monitor with a honking 19″ flat screen model. I’d promised myself one once I finished my novel, but it’s taken me a year to get around to it.

Not to channel Ravenwood or anything, but man, I remember when our color televisions grew to 19″.

And our mothers wouldn’t let us sit this close to them, much less for 10+ hours a day.

Ha, ma! Joke’s on you, huh?
Oh, sorry, ma’am, you looked like my mother until I got within six inches of you.

A link via Instapundit leads me to this story. Although it’s about the fallilbility of voting machines, the author thinks the voting machines should be subject to the same sort of scrutiny as electronic slot machines:

One such outside auditor is Gaming Laboratories International (GLI). To certify a new device, or even a software upgrade, vendors send GLI all of the source code, all of the tools needed to build the code, maybe a development computer, and even an in-circuit emulator if that’s how you debugged your code. Expensive? You bet. Accurate? It sure seems to be.

GLI tears the design apart, digs into the guts, finds back doors impossible to isolate via testing and ensures the customer will lose by exactly the amount specified. Tests check both functionality and threat resistance. Technicians zap every square inch of the gaming machine with a 27 KV prod – because cheaters often try to rip off the devices using ESD to confuse the electronics. GLI jimmies the coin box, and generally simulates all of the attacks observed by those hidden cameras in the casino’s roof. That’s regression testing of a whole new order.

That’s the right way to conduct your quality assurance testing. I wonder if GLI is hiring? I figure the logical progression for my career is to cause actual physical damage. Maybe UL needs a thug.

Regardless, while my resume travels in the mail, I am inspired to bring in a heat gun to work tomorrow to see how the application works when I am flipping bits.

Alert reader “Martin Simmons” (I assume he’s a reader, since I got this message in my Hotmail box which I make available for you, gentle readers) sends me this warning:

From : “Martin Simmons”
To : stlbrianj@hotmail.com
Subject : Stlbrian j – Porn found on YOUR computer!
Date : Sun, 21 Sep 2003 03:43:36

MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: from ([67.167.16.201]) by mc5-f10.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.5600); Sun, 21 Sep 2003 03:38:39 -0700
X-Message-Info: JGTYoYF78jEmAVs0XODqK3fTx/8P7QHe
X-Message-Info: ALYqAGt3oIELxgQxtYO3XDTcnoQ7gxpN1lk7V

X-Message-Info: lcOMLY2qAGOtx3wIEXLgQ5tcYa3DTnQ5gzpl1A5
Message-Id: <20030921433636.hD5lb9HMWuZjMe@>
Return-Path: gpdqzcl@canada.com
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 21 Sep 2003 10:38:39.0772 (UTC) FILETIME=[852CADC0:01C3802C]

zvEach web site you SEE is STORED ON YOUR COMPUTER!pgsgt
mchkvCleaning Cache or History DOES NOT stop snooping!snx
syjxsPROTECT YOUR PC – DO IT INSTANTLYpcnbj

Thanks for the warning, buddy. I’m sorry I didn’t reproduce your link for my readers, where undoubtedly they could click to replace their porn with your Trojan Horse, but you’ll probably get enough zombies out of your mailing to make it worth your time without any of us.

Also, please note that I don’t want to get rid of the porn on my computer. It’s taken me a long time to collect what I have, and it’s schnucking hard to find good hot girl-dressed-as-a-clown-on-cypress photos anyway. Who knows when I would get a chance to replace them?

Cue the Wagnerian music and get ready for the jump cut, but Hans has slain his tribe of Tusken Raiders on his way to the Dark Side. Allow me to translate for those of you who are not geeks: A developer who’s into Java and, worse than Linux, Macs, has something nice to say about Microsoft, or at least something not fervid about open source:

Novices require simplicity. Microsoft has to dumb down its tools for the novice developer, but the Java community often seems to feel no such compulsion. I’m watching some coworkers struggle to become fluent in Struts. They are rightfully offended by how often they have to learn some little workaround rather than the obvious approach simply working.

I’ve come to realize that with many open source projects, any problem that has a reasonable workaround tends not to get addressed. Just as Microsoft often fails to fix behavioral defects before devoting resources to new features, the bazaar tends to permit usage defects since it’s more rewarding to add new functionality. Can’t we find a happy medium?

The answer is, unfortunately not. Hardcore open sourcers who do that sort of thing for the fun of it are gearheads who would rather debate the merits of the Borg-Warner T5, whether it’s great or whether it sucks. Their esoteric knowledge separates them from the simple novices, and they don’t want to simplify. They want to be gurus.

So come to Microsoft, Hans. Uncle Bill wants to include everyone. Even people who used to have blue hair. Uncle Bill forgives. Uncle Bill loves.

Click Trust Microsoft and let Bob show you the path to simple development and simple user interfaces.

Of course, I might get huffy at times, but TechDirt quickly restores my faith by linking to this important study guide for people who would like to become A+ Certified, like me:

Step By Step: How To Destroy Your Computer

I am an A+ Certified Computer Technician, werd, and when I built my sooper (for the time) PC from a collection of suh-weet parts (dualie, DDR ram, 128 Mb UGP video, the works), I put it all together and flipped the switch on the back, and….

Nothing. Power supply didn’t start up or anything. As you techno-savvy people know, computer cases come with no doc whatsoever unless you buy the latest nuclear-plant models, so I kinda thought you flip that on and off switch in the back, wot? Who wouldn’t think that?

So I ordered another sooper case and waited a couple days for it to come. When it did, I inadvertently turned on the switch and hit the reset button. Oh, wait, you see, it’s got a power toggle switch on the back and a power button on the front! The back is absolute power, like the plug, and the front button turns the thing on when it’s been shut off. Intuitive.

So I take a little umbrage when some TechDirty says:

It appears that plenty of office workers are still quite uncomfortable with their computers. A new study has suggested that one in seven office workers doesn’t even know how to turn their computer on. About 20% needed help in saving or printing a document. Companies are spending quite a bit of money employing extra IT staff just to help with these sorts of basic issues. Of course, I do wonder a little about this study. These are all the sorts of tasks that you really only need to be taught once: “You see that button? Good! Now, press it.” Also, there’s no indication what job functions these people held, so it’s tough to determine if this really is a big deal.

I was talking about this with my beautiful wife just yesterday. Our neighbor, an active but elderly man in his 70s, got a hand-me-up computer from his techno-savvy son just so he, my neighbor, could see what computers and the Internet were all about. His son gave him a three minute overview, but after the son had left, our neighbor had to give him a call to learn how to turn the computer off.

You see, you press the button to turn it on, but you select a command from this menu to turn it off. Intuitive.

Makes me want to invite all you computer “designers” (overworked developers and engineers with other priorities in mind, no doubt, when you inflict these iniquities upon the end users) into a conference room with no windows and lock the door behind me so I can counsel you. With a SCSI cable, if necessary.

This, I guess, is what makes me a good tester (I make no assurance of quality except for the testing, thank you). I hate computers. It’s like the Ben Kingsley character says to the little kid in the trailer for Searching for Bobby Fischer: “Do you hate your opponents?…They hate you.”

Of course, when SkyNet becomes self-aware, I will be first on its list. Johnny C can wait. It’s gotta make sure I don’t needle the developers into patching its self-awareness first.

What was my point? Oh, yeah. Computers and their myriad and non-intuitive interfaces sux. Werd.