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Vol. 1, No.
15
7-24-01
Technology marches on. Advances in everything from transportation to communication to genetic manipulation are taking place so quickly that the general public just can’t keep up. If we tried we’d be a huge group of unemployed insomniacs and we’d still miss 90% of it.
Technology is by its very nature morally and ethically neutral. It just simply “is.” Its use is what determines good or evil,
right or wrong. The ability to
split an atom is just ability. What
we as mankind choose to do with that ability is what history will label us
with.
Several recent technological developments are changing the very fabric of
society. GPS, the ability to
determine where you are anywhere on the planet within a few yards, is probably
the most astonishing. Using a
series of satellites to triangulate position a signal from a device on the
ground (say from GM’s OnStar system) can be bounced around in low orbit and
beamed back to earth with the approximate coordinates of the ground-based
device.
Mobile phones are another technology that has taken hold in the last few
years. Now you need never be away
from an important call or from help if you run into trouble. Some groups say that up to 33% of all
911 calls now originate from mobile phones but often the callers have no clue
where they are. To remedy that the
FCC has decreed that all mobile phone companies will have a system in place by
October of this year that will pinpoint where calls originate so that Police
dispatchers will know where to send Police/Fire/EMS units in case of
emergency.
Last in this parade of technological marvels is biometrics. This is a science that uses
fingerprints, facial recognition or the pattern of the blood vessels in the iris
of your eyes to positively identify you.
No longer will you need to punch in a PIN at an ATM or type in a password
at work. Just look at a camera or
lay a finger on a scan pad and you’re in.
In essence “you” are your password.
Helping travelers find a hotel or restaurant, getting medical care to
accident victims quicker and making corporate and government computer networks
more secure sounds just rosy, doesn’t it?
I’m sure George Orwell is grinning in his grave right now thinking, “I
told you so.”
Vehicle GPS systems have been used by a Connecticut based car rental
agency to track in real time both the location and speed of its rental
fleet. Acme Car Rental was sued
recently by many of its customers who were billed $150 per incident of exceeding
the speed limit. Seems Acme tracked
the whereabouts of each vehicle they rented, plus the velocity of said
vehicles. In a fit of unusual
common sense the court ruled that if the driver wasn’t convicted of a speeding
violation Acme couldn’t levy an additional charge. No mention was made in the court ruling
dealing with the tracking capability however.
The location verification technology required for wireless phones is
privately held and can be sold to individuals or businesses. Currently only 10% of police departments
have been able to afford the additional equipment needed for E911 mobile phone
location verification but E-Commerce companies such as AirFlash and Go2 Systems
are pushing plans to exploit it for commercial gain. Imagine driving by a fast food
restaurant and your cell phone beeping signaling an incoming call. Instead of a call from the significant
other you find a coupon for a Big Mac for just 99 cents. Ronald McDonald could know your
whereabouts 24X7.
Those two are bad, but the biometrics technology is probably the most
frightening in its capabilities.
Authorities installed cameras at the stadium in Tampa for the last Super
Bowl that monitored the fans and ran their facial characteristics through a
biometric program that had access to a database of wanted felons. On the surface that sounds like a good
idea, let’s catch the bad guys and all that. Underneath though, it all depends on the
databases that are used. Many
states, including Kentucky, have decided to digitize driver’s license photos on
new card issues (Kentucky will implement this next year). Wonder where those digitized photos will
go?
Hmmm….
Technology aside, I would urge everyone to read the Bill of Rights (the
first 10 Amendments). Leave any
preconceived notions about what they actually say aside and read them fresh with
an open mind. These were written in
plain English so everyone could understand them and can be read in just a few
minutes. Read them carefully. How many laws and practices can you name
that violate those laws?
Read them online at http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/billrights/billrights.html
and make your own decisions.
Technology has a tendency to make phenomenal changes in our way of
thinking but we need to adjust that thinking to our basic
principles.
Set Soapbox Mode=Off.
Talk to you next week ;)
Kevin Mefford,
Editor
Downloads?
Where Do I Get Some?
Each week, this feature is dedicated to one program or another that is available for download from the Internet.
I thought this
week; maybe I could point everyone to some of the sites that house these vast
storehouses.
I have found
the CNET site, www.download.com, and the
ZDNET site, www.hotfiles.com, to be the
most comprehensive sites for providing downloads with good program documentation
and reviews. Both of these
providers have huge inventories of freeware and shareware for almost any
application one could need. CNET
not only offers reviews of the software by their staff, but users may also write
reviews of the programs. These user
reviews are often more useful than the glowing reports that the software
developers offer.
Two other sites
with plenty of downloads are www.jumbo.com
and www.tucows.com. Jumbo seems to concentrate more on
games, screensavers and entertainment type programs, whereas at Tucows you will
be more apt to find some out of print programs and utilities along with current
downloads. Both of these sites have
very good inventories and search features.
While those
four sites are by no means the only places on the Internet for downloadable
software, they are among the most trusted.
All of the files have been scanned for virii and can generally be linked
to the authors to check for their authenticity.
Last, but not
least, is the techie’s favorite site.
It is AnalogX, www.analogx.com. The irrepressible AJ, Aka The Junkman,
brought this site to the attention of the 84 Online Team over a year ago and has
never let us forget it!! The beauty
of this site is that all of the utilities available here are written in Assembly
Language and rarely exceed 225KB in size.
Here, you will find many useful tools, from the popup killer called “POW”
to the connection sharing utility simply called “Proxy” and plenty of
others. Everything available at
AnalogX is FREEWARE and contains no spyware.
Now, go get
some free software and install it with caution.
Art
Maley
Security against malicious crackers, trojan programs and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks sounds like a job for system administrators at large corporate networks and web servers. In today’s online environment with “always on” broadband connections that view is no longer valid.
Home PCs are often the target of crackers looking for vulnerable machines
to plant “zombie” attack programs on.
Since the vast majority of home users have no training in security (nor
even any idea that they need it) they become unwitting accomplices to attacks on
major networks like CNN, CNet, Yahoo, EBay and even the White House.
The CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) Coordination Center, a
government funded Internet infrastructure watchdog group based at CarnegieMellon
University, has an excellent primer site designed to educate the home user about
why they need to secure their PC and how to go about it. The site is http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/home_networks.html
.
It’s a good read, written in layman’s terms, and will guide you
step-by-step through the security risks home users are faced with and how to
avoid them.
Q: Bob... love all your shows! Quick
question. Just got the @Home
cable Internet service today. Any
suggestions on which software to purchase to keep my 15-year-old son out of the
porn area of the Internet? Still have
AOL, but now not sure what’s best
to install to keep from worrying what he's looking at on @Home. Something
that is password protected maybe and he cant find a way around
it?
A: Here's some software that I highly
recommend. You can use it one of two ways. You can tell your son it's on the
computer and that you can see
everything he does or you can just say nothing
and print out what he does
and show it to him a couple of times. Both ways
are pretty effective. Here’s
the link, read all about it:
http://www.spectorsoft.com/ .
This one
is free:
http://www.softec-e.com/shareware/ws/index.html
.
Try them both (not at the same time though). One should do what you want it
to. There's always the sure fire way of activating the content advisor
in
Internet Explorer, but it's so hit and miss, it becomes a headache
after
awhile. Good luck.
A.J.
Johnson
If you have tech support
questions or ideas and/or submissions for our newsletter please email them to bob@iglou.com .
Copyright 2001, The 84
Online Team. All rights
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Information provided in this
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information provided is known to work on most systems, it may not work on ALL
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