Internet Security

It must be a decade since I took a computer security class as part of my degree program at Westfield State College. Since that time, computer security has become an even bigger industry.

Courtesy Google Images

During the course of my research for a term paper about Kevin Mitnick, an infamous computer hacker, I learned about the Def Con Hacking Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. According to the Huffington Post, it is an annual event that attracts thousands of the best code crackers to discuss the latest hacking techniques. Hackers can make a name for themselves by demonstrating how they find security flaws in technology that most consider well-protected.

What amazed and confounded me most about the conference was the assertion by one of the attendees that he could hack a bank account using information from an ATM slip. This prompted me to make sure that I never leave my ATM slips in the trash at the teller; I shred them.

Database breaches have had an indirect impact on me. On three separate occasions, institutes I’ve done business with have had their databases compromised. Each incident resulted in that company enrolling me, at no cost to me, in a credit watch agency. Fortunately, none of the incidents presented a financial hardship for me.

I’ve probably become lax regarding computer security. I came across an article by Mat Honan at Wired.com that reminded me how much damage a hacker can do. The article, How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking describes, in detail, the process the hacker(s) used, the data lost by Mr.Honan and the process (and cost) of retrieving just 75% of what was destroyed. (They were even able to erase data from his mobile phone and home computing devices.)

Mr. Honan’s experience has led me to re-evaluate my on-line practices. I think there are three (3) elements of internet security we should all practice:

1     1.  Don’t save credit card/bank information on a site just to make purchases and bill paying easier.

2     2.  Create complex passwords that contain a mixture of letters, numbers and characters.

3     3.  Don’t use the same password for all your secure internet sites.

I think what happened to Mr. Honan is frighteningly educational. I wouldn’t want it to happen to me.

Is anyone else concerned about leaving an electronic trail that hackers could utilize?

Not a Harley

When I was a kid I used to love riding my dirt bike; a 2 stroke Kawasaki. I think it was 180 CC’s, but it’s been so long I don’t really recall the size. I lived in a very rural area, surrounded by fields, woods and apple orchards. The orchard gave me access to the trails along the power and pipe lines. I would ride for hours and never encounter another soul.

Alas, as I aged, my fear of sustaining a serious injury pushed aside the joy of zipping over the myriad of obstacles that trail riding presented. By the time I graduated high school, my motorcycling was a distant memory.

Courtesy Google Images

I have found something that might reignite my desire to own a motorcycle. DVICE.com reported on a concept spherical-wheeled motorcycle that students at the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering at San Jose State University are investigating. The end result will be a rideable, electric motorcycle that uses balls instead of wheels. I think it looks cool; kind of like the Batpod from The Dark Night.

Courtesy Google Images

The students needed to obtain funding to study their spherical drive system (SDS) design so they assembled a sponsorship packet that outlined their team and its goals. They explained, in detail, why they wished to pursue the SDS, various aspects of the design, such as the drive system and the wheels and provided a detailed breakout of their projected costs.

I’m not an engineer or a scientist so I won’t pretend to understand all the nuances involved in making this thing operate. I just think it’s futuristically awesome-looking and I want one!

Anyone else share my desire to own a high-tech two wheeled piece of the future?

Mind Reading

Extrasensory perception (ESP) and mind reading has been a staple of fiction for generations. Television shows such as Babylon 5 featured a PSI Corps; a government sponsored organization that employed mind readers to help keep the Earth Alliance safe. What Women Want is a cinematic comedy in which Mel Gibson plays a man who acquires the ability to read the minds of women.

Mind reading has always been a figment of fiction. However, advances in technology may be changing that.

In December, 2011, Mashable conducted an interview with IBM Senior Inventor Kevin Brown. He said IBM’s vision for mind reading is this: a person wears a headset that can detect general electrical signals from the brain and sends them to a computer. Sophisticated software interprets those signals and, in turn, tells a machine what to do.

“One of the common misconceptions is that the headset is reading your thoughts,” says Brown. “It’s not. It’s just reading a level of excitement. It’s not understanding.”

Forbes reports that a group of researchers from the University of California at Berkeley, Oxford University and the University of Geneva presented a paper on this very topic on August 8, 2012 at the Usenix security conference in Seattle. Their presentation hinted at the darker side of a future where brain sensors are used to let thoughts manipulate computers. The researchers found they were able to extract hints directly from the electrical signals of the test subjects’ brains that partially revealed private information.

The ACLU has some issues regarding the possible use of this technology. They are concerned that private employers might attempt to use the technology as a lie detector in violation of Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988.

The whole thing seems a little MinorityReport-ish. I think there’s the potential for abuse of mind reading technology by well-meaning individuals. On the other hand, the use of the brain’s electrical impulses to manipulate electronic devices could be a boon for the physically handicapped.

What do you think? Would you use a hands free device that’s controlled by the electrical activity in your brain?

Google Glasses

I’ve worn glasses since the fourth grade and I’ve been called Poindexter, Four Eyes, Specs. You name it; it’s been thrown in my direction. But, I’m the youngest of five boys so there was nothing others said that could bother me, especially since my family nicknamed me Shithead.

Yup, you read correctly: Shithead. When I was but a wee lad, we traveled to DeerIsle, Maine for Thanksgiving. My uncle had hung a banner that read: Welcome Egertons. You too, Shithead. It stuck.

But, I digress. Despite the barbs tossed my way wearing glasses had never been an issue for me. I’ve worn contact lenses and I’ve considered Lasik eye surgery, but it’d always seemed easier to just don the spectacles.

I guess I’ve never understood why wearing glasses was such a big deal. So, I was happy to hear that in the not too distant future, wearing glasses might actually be considered cool.

Google, the company that is working to develop a driverless car, is developing what could possibly be a “must-have” piece of technology, the Google Glasses.

Google Glasses are being developed in the ultra-secret special projects lab near Google’s MountainView, California headquarters, and they could be the next generation of computing apparatus. Techradar reports that the glasses will run Android, will include a small screen in front of your eye and will include motion sensors, GPS and either 3G or 4G data connections. Google still needs to develop a workable interface, such as voice activation.

Initially, people wearing these glasses might seem odd to onlookers. They'll appear to be talking to themselves and bobbing their heads as they walk to avoid virtual obstacles. But as people adopt the technology, Google Glasses will become mainstream.

I think the advantage of these glasses will be the heads-up display that will provide the user with unobtrusive Internet and phone access. FarhadManjoo states that wearable computers could end up being a fashion statement. They actually fit into a larger history of functional wearable objects—think of monocles, wristwatches, and whistles.

If Google Glasses existed when I was a kid I doubt I’d have been tagged Four Eyes or Specs but I can’t imagine any technology that would prevent my uncle from dubbing me Shithead.

Does anyone care to make a functional fashion statement?

The Good and the Not so Good

The Good:

In my May 28, 2012 post, I wrote about SpaceX’s successful launch of a cargo ship to the International Space Station (ISS). It was the first time a ship owned by a private citizen had visited the ISS, and now they may have an opportunity to expand into the manned space shuttle business.

On August 3, 2012, NASA announced three companies had been contracted to design and develop the next generation of crewed spacecraft under the umbrella of NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative. NASA’s press release states the CCiCap’s objective is to facilitate the development of a U.S. commercial crew space transportation capability. Their goal is to achieve safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from the International Space Station and low Earth orbit. The idea is that the technology, once developed, would be available to the government and private sector.

The three companies are:

• Sierra Nevada Corporation, Louisville, Colo., $212.5 million
• Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), Hawthorne, Calif., $440 million
• The Boeing Company, Houston, $460 million

According to NASA, these commercial partnerships have the potential to set the agency on a course to provide new transportation into space for its astronauts, while expanding human presence beyond low Earth orbit and enabling new missions of exploration across the solar system.

The Not so Good:

NASA is working on an in-house project called Morpheus, a vertical test bed demonstrating new green propellant propulsion systems and autonomous landing and hazard detection technology. It is a full spacecraft that will be capable of carrying 1100 pounds of cargo to the moon.

On Friday, August 3, 2012, NASA completed a successful tethered test flight at Kennedy Space Center.



It went so well that NASA decided to attempt a free flight with a Morpheus prototype on Thursday, August 9th. Unfortunately, the craft crashed about fifty feet from the launch site.



NASA says no one was injured, no property was damaged (besides the vehicle), and they have been able to recover significant data that will give them greater insight into the source of the problem.

I think both these events are of equal importance. I hope NASA doesn’t give up on Morpheus. This was a setback but no one was injured and to me, the fact that they are creating a homegrown spacecraft is huge. Also, since NASA has awarded some developmental contracts I have hope that the United States space effort is not dead.

Does anyone else think both these events are of equal importance?

Curiosity Follow Up

My December 6, 2011 blog discussed the Mars Rover Curiosity. On Sunday, 8/5/12, it landed on the Red Planet in what CNN reported as a spectacle known as the "seven minutes of terror." The reason for the “terror” was the unknown; the distance between Mars and Earth caused a communications lag so the folks in mission control couldn’t follow the descent and landing in real time.

Courtesy ABC News

When they launched the rover on 11/26/11, there didn’t seem to be much hype. I don’t recall there being more than fifteen second blurbs on news casts. But after landing, ABC News ran a clip that showed the unbridled elation of the technicians in mission control when they received confirmation of a safe touchdown. It seems that every night thereafter, they’ve had a piece about some aspect of the current mission.

Courtesy ABC News

After traveling more than 200 million miles in about 8 ½ months, Curiosity has settled safely in Gale Crater on Mars’ surface. Within minutes, it sent its first image, and in the distance you can see the rim of the Gale Crater. (For all you conspiracy theorists, that’s not the Mojave Desert.)

Curiosity’s mission is to scout for signs of life on Mars and NASA expects it will function for two years.

I think it’s exciting. NASA says missions like this pave the way for manned exploration. We can only hope.

What do you think? Is the Curiosity mission frivolous or a logical step in potential human space travel?

Cruisin’ With Glory

The Glory's Atrium Lobby

The average weight gain for a five-day cruise is (the answer is at the end of this post):

a. 7.5 lbs

b. 2.5 lbs

c. 5.0 lbs

d. 10  lbs

Carnival Glory

My wife and I just completed our second cruise. It was a five day Canadian cruise aboard the Carnival Glory out of Boston, MA, with stops in St John, New Brunswick and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Our first cruise, aboard the Disney Dream, was detailed in my February 27, 2012 blog (Living the Disney Dream).

Reversing Falls Rapids
Courtesy Google Images

After a day at sea, our first port of call was St John. We did the “Top 10 Best of Saint John” excursion which was highlighted by a pair of trips to the Reversing Falls Rapids. It was the first stop and later in the day our final stop and it afforded us the opportunity to view the river moving in the opposite direction from the morning visit.

Peggy's Cove



Peggy's Cove

The following day we ported in Halifax. Our primary excursion was to Peggy’s Cove. We drove to the tip of a cramped promontory and our tour bus was parked with four other similar vehicles – and more kept coming. There's no denying that Peggy's Cove is scenic but, the combination of damp drizzly weather and so many people in this confined space made this a non-highlight for me.

Chocolate Melting Cake

Overall, I think the Carnival cruise compared favorably to the Disney cruise. For example, the meals were of similar quality and both vessels had good shows in their main theaters and comics who I thought were funny.

We must have enjoyed it; we’ve begun the process of booking a 2013 Carnival cruise.

Do you have a guess regarding cruise weight gain?

According to the Glory’s cruise director the average weight gain per day for a cruise is 1.5 pounds for a total of 7.5 pounds. I believe it!