Geek

Think, Part 1.

“Black Mirror”, Season 3 Episode 1, “Nosedive”. 2016 publicity photo.

Looking for inspiration to write software today, I did a search for “future technology”. Usually I watch Corning’s “Day of Glass” presentations or what Microsoft envisions 2020 will look like in the world of Surface and Office, but today some other suggestions were presented. One of those suggestions was the video from Korean Telecom featured in the blog entry earlier today.

The other was a link to the first episode of the third season of “Black Mirror”. The episode is simply titled “Nosedive”.

I’ve seen ads for “Black Mirror”; as I understand it, the episodes are standalone affairs, many based on future technology and how society reacts and implements it. Cursory research shows that the episodes can be quite dark. Some describe them as “nightmare inducing”. I have enough going on in my mind at any given time to fuel my own nightmares; I don’t need any exterior help to further the cause. However, the description of this episode was intriguing. Starring Bryce Dallas Howard (I remembered her from “The Help”) as Lacie Pound, the episode focused on a society that was completely dependent on Social Networking status. Everyone was rated on a score from one to five. Contact lenses allowed you to identify anyone around you and their current score or rating. People, strangers, co-workers, and friends alike, rated you on your interaction. Was that conversation worth five stars? Did the waitress deserve three stars? Perks in society were based on your ranking, for example, Lacie wanted to move into an apartment that required a certain ranking and she was only able to afford it if she ranked higher than a 4.5; the higher ranking would bring her a 20% discount on her weekly rent. Airline tickets and amenities were based on the same ranking system. Clubs were restricted to a minimum ranking. Your ranking was your collateral.

The driver for this implementation was to keep society calm and friendly. If you swore or screamed or did not “behave as expected”, your peers would rank you down and you would be ostracized. The more stars you had, the more impact your opinion impacted another’s rating. They were the Social Influencers. They even had counseling services to help you find a way to boost your rating.

How perilously close is our society to this scenario?

I am too busy on Social Media. I often say I use Twitter to keep up with current events, follow friends, and share my opinion on the state of the world. Some of the third party apps I use show a graph of how much of an impact I am making through my Twitter account. How many “hearts” did I get? How many people retweeted me? How many followers do I have at any given moment?

I will admit right here and now that I was elated when my follower count first went over 500 a few years ago. It recently climbed over a grand. That made me smile. It made me feel something. After watching this episode of “Black Mirror”, I can’t help but think a little hollow.

For all my life I have wanted to be one of the cool kids. I remember sitting in Room 220 in Lura Sharp Elementary School in sixth grade. Are desks were arranged in clusters; my desk was part of a cluster of four of us. We had greasy hair, we talked about geeky stuff, and we sat together in the cafeteria. Near the door was a group of six desks. In later years they would be the popular kids; the senior class president, the star quarterback, the girl with the parents that could afford to buy her a miniature Pong game. I was invited to join their group when one of their peers left for another school. I moved my desk and was welcomed into their club. I felt like I had some sort of status. It was nearly 40 years ago but I can remember it like it was almost yesterday.

It’s pretty much documented that “Likes” on Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc) triggers a bit of a Dopamine high. This past weekend I was telling my friend Jeff how I felt when Earl and I walked into a restaurant on the 70th floor of a skyscraper overlooking the city. Admittedly, and I know this is quite shallow of me, I feel a ping of acceptance when an Instagram photo is liked by one of the cool IGers. When I muster up the courage to “Friend” someone on Facebook that I haven’t met in person yet (but we obviously have same interests, like both belong to the National Gay Pilots Association or something), I feel like I’m climbing some sort of social ladder. Years ago, back in the heyday of personal blogging, Earl and I ran into a fellow blogger in Manhattan. He recognized us and was pleasant. That meant a lot to me. Not too long after that, I attended a happy hour where a man, a very hot man, introduced himself to me. I said, “um, we are friends on Facebook.” His reply? “We are? Wow, I don’t remember you.”

I remember feeling a little crushed.

I have to admit that I try to keep my social media feeds pretty honest. I don’t have an online persona, I’m pretty much “what you read is what you get”. And I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve sought out validation for nearly every one of the almost 50 years I’ve been on this planet. But how real is any sense of validation one would find on Social Media? How real are the timelines we see? How true are the photos we see? How good is the person with so many Facebook friends that they can’t accept any more requests?

A few years ago, I was remarking to Jamie the drop in the number of “likes” I was getting on Instagram after I shaved off that enormous mustache I had. I’ve often said that Jamie is a very old soul because he said, “Fuck ’em”.

Screen Shot 2018-01-16 at 8.38.57 PM

My rating hasn’t been the same every since. And you know what? That’s OK.

I love television shows that make us think. If you want to think about your Social Media existence and what it really means to you, I highly suggest you watch “Black Mirror” Season 3, Episode 1, “Nosedive”.

It’s a solid 5 stars.

16 January 2018 by J.P. Deep. Geek

Future.

I’m always interested to see what others are thinking our future technology will look like. It’s felt like we were just on the edge of something “big” since smartphone technology became mainstream in the late 2000s and early 2010s. I think we are long overdue for the next jump in innovation. The question is, are we ready for it?

I could see this happening.

KT Future Technology – Smart Work from Jai Ryoong Kim on Vimeo.

16 January 2018 by J.P. Geek 1

iPhone X.

I’m still making discoveries about my new iPhone X. I’m thoroughly enjoying my new phone, especially the form factor and the way it fits in my hand. Prior to this phone I was using an iPhone 6s Plus: I loved the real estate but the form factor was too large. I feel like I can text with one hand.

I’ll probably write a proper review once I feel I’ve figured out all the nuances but here’s a couple of quick hits:

The OLED display is absolutely amazing
The cameras are outstanding. I took a couple of night photos from our balcony here in Chicago this evening and the clarity is amazing.
The camera also took great photos during my flight yesterday. I wish I had taken the same shots with my iPhone 6s Plus, but it’s already been wiped out and is on it’s way for refurbishment. Comparing other flight photos taken last winter with my 6s+ I can see a nice difference in photo quality.
The new gestures, due to the lack of a home button, became natural to me within an hour. The only thing I miss about the lack of a home button is knowing which was is up when I pick up the phone in the dark
Battery life has been amazing
The transfer of my data went about 90% well. There are a few apps that didn’t transfer settings over, but I think that falls on the apps developer.

For the past 48 hours I have been very pleased with this phone. Nothing has made me say “why?” and I’ve had no sense of frustration at all.

The iPhone X is definitely an evolution of the smartphone. I don’t care if the features are available from other manufacturers or on other operating system. It works well for me and I’m quite pleased.

7 January 2018 by J.P. Geek 0

Crowdsourcing.

Earl and I binged watched the last three episodes of CBS’ “Wisdom of the Crowd” tonight. There are two remaining episodes scheduled for January; the show has been cancelled, mostly because of the alleged sexual misconduct charges against series star Jeremy Piven. It’s a shame this show has been cancelled as it’s taken this long for the show to find its stride. The technology is a bit showy for television but the concept of the show is interesting: a crowdsourcing application is used to solve crimes. The show also tackled some interesting challenges we are seeing in today’s society, including video “stars” being stalked by other users. On the show the video platform is called AllSourcer, but in reality it’s YouTube. Our society is fueled by notoriety and this one episode in particular tackled that head on.

It’s a shame there’s only two episodes of the series left. Like “Century City”, the short lived lawyer show on CBS from 2004 that took place in the year 2030, “Wisdom of the Crowd” is just finding its ground as it meets its early demise.

One of the things I like about “Wisdom of the Crowd” is the use of crowdsourcing. Engaging users into an application platform and urging them to make quality contributions to the information being shared is so compelling. Using the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ to solve problems that plague us today should be where we’re headed with technology today. We have a great number of steps in that direction: Waze, Wikipedia, Yelp, TripAdvisor: all of these platforms rely on quality content from contributors. There has to be a sound, trusted way to curate this incoming data. This is tricky for software engineers, this is tricky for algorithms and this is tricky for human screeners, but the community contributing to the platform bears the ultimate responsibility.

Is our society today ready to handle wide-scale crowdsourcing efforts? I wish this was the case but honestly I’m skeptical, especially with the amount of disinformation that is spread on the social networks. There are many bad actors that use Twitter, Facebook, etc. for building distrust and spreading lies as fact. They’re the new avenues for FUD: Fear, Uncertainty and Distrust. At one time I would have considered Twitter a crowdsourced event platform. Earlier in Twitter’s history I used it as a source of late-breaking news. Today I’m skeptical of anything I see on Twitter. The company has failed in securing the authenticity of the information on their network. This is a shame, because Twitter had the potential to be one of the greatest crowdsourced platforms out there. But they went for the numbers and the revenue. Quantity over quality. Ad revenue over accurate information. A wasted opportunity that has moved into the realm of notoriety.

I’m intrigued by the concept of “Sophe”, the crowd-sourced crime solving platform on the show “Wisdom of the Crowd”. I like to think that if users think they are doing good thingin the world through an app, they’ll share their information at face value and hopefully bias is set aside. Is the U.S. ready for a real-world “Sophe”? Only time will tell. I’m sure someone out there is already working on building such a platform. I know I would participate.

In the meanwhile, I’ll keep writing quality reviews on Yelp and TripAdvisor and sharing data on Waze. I like being a voice in the crowd to make the world a better place.

1 January 2018 by J.P. Geek 0

Barn.

As found along old US Route 66 near Odell, Illinois. I dream of driving what’s left of Route 66 from end-to-end.

23 December 2017 by J.P. Geek 0

Net Neutrality, Part 2.

These are the members of Congress who pushed for the repeal of Net Neutrality and how much each has received in donations from the telecom industry.

14 December 2017 by J.P. Geek 0

Net Neutrality.

I’d write a long blog post of why the FCC’s vote to repeal Net Neutrality is one of the more idiotic things to happen in D.C. in, oh, the past week, but I don’t want to use up my Internet access rations just yet.

14 December 2017 by J.P. Geek 1

Security.

So this morning Apple released a security update for their latest version of macOS, called High Sierra. Earlier this year, macOS High Sierra was touted as being a new version of the operating system on Macs that would bring stability and a whole bunch of enhancements under the hood. The focus of High Sierra was to make its predecessor, macOS Sierra, better.

The purpose of today’s Security Update was to correct an issue that was announced throughout Social Media yesterday: that a user with physical access to a Mac was able to get to root user privileges, otherwise known as “Administrator” without using a password. Entering root as a username and then skipping the password prompt with a carriage return granted full access to the Mac. No password necessary. From there, anyone could do ANYTHING they wanted on the Mac: change usernames, delete everything, send out email, anything and everything is possible with root access to a Unix based machine.

To say that this was a security concern is a vast understatement. You wouldn’t be too far out of the realm of reality if you were to say that this was probably one of the biggest security blunders of the computer age.

The fact that this was pushed to production as part of the official version of macOS is mind boggling to me. Absolutely mind boggling.

Look, mistakes are made. I get that. As a software developer by trade I make mistakes all the time. My code is far from picture perfect and I’ve caused more than one user to scratch their head as software I’ve written has gone way off into the weeds due to simple bugs that I later squashed. The thing is, a lot of my bugs are found and corrected long before the software is released. That’s why we have things like UAT, or User Acceptance Testing. That’s why I spend hours testing and retesting my software before it even gets to UAT. To think that this sort of thing was missed by the macOS team at Apple, which one would presume is a large team at one of the largest corporations in the world, is mind boggling to me.

I’m impressed with how fast Apple pushed a patch to users. But honestly, I want more. I want to know how it happened, how secure the patch is and what the macOS team is going to do to avoid making a blunder of this magnitude again. This isn’t a matter of holding the Mac wrong or dropping a Mac from a ridiculous height and then claiming it can’t withstand the pressure, this is Security 101 on what is touted to be one of the strongest operating systems in the industry.

Apple dinged my faith and my trust in their software with this latest gaff. How do I know that my text messages aren’t going to start broadcasting to the wrong person? Where’s my guarantee that my data will always be encrypted and secure when bugs of this magnitude are starting to appear in their oldest operating system?

When a user pays a premium price for Apple’s products and services, they should never be expected to Expect Less. Mediocrity is not an option. Apple used to do better.

They need to prove that they can do better once again.

29 November 2017 by J.P. Apple. Geek 1

What Is Net Neutrality?

Since I’m the “go to” IT guy in the family, here’s how I explain Net Neutrality, and why it’s important for us to keep it around.

Think of Net Neutrality like this. Right now you can use your Internet connection for anything it’s capable of. Now let’s liken this to electricity. If Net Neutrality was repealed on your power connection, your power or hydro company could charge more for what you use your power for. Basic package? Lights only. Want to add heat or an electric stove? Well that’s a different tier. Want to use your electric dryer? If you buy it from us you can go to a new tier. If you buy it from someone else, you only get 110V instead of 220V. The power company objects to personal massagers and whirlpool tubs, so they don’t get any power at all.

See the problem here?

Net Neutrality protects your use of the internet to use it how you want to use it with equal access to everything available. The big telecoms say they won’t change a thing, but why would we want to repeal that guarantee? Do you trust your cell phone company? Do you believe your cable company has your best interest at heart?

Do you want to make a difference? I lifted this from a friend’s post about Net Neutrality. Make the call today.

Only five people at the FCC get to vote on Net Neutrality: Ajit Pai, Mignon Clyburn, Michael O’Rielly, Brendan Carr, and Jessica Rosenworcel. Clyburn and Rosenworcel plan to vote to keep it. Call the other three!

Ajit Pai: 202-518-7399

Michael O’Rielly: 301-657-9092

Brendan Carr: 202-719-7305

27 November 2017 by J.P. Geek 2

Uber’s Data Breach.

This is another reason I stick with Lyft. Uber is convenient, but it’s a wicked creepy company.

From the New York Times.

SAN FRANCISCO — Uber disclosed Tuesday that hackers had stolen 57 million driver and rider accounts and that the company had kept the data breach secret for more than a year after paying a $100,000 ransom.

The deal was arranged by the company’s chief security officer and under the watch of the former chief executive, Travis Kalanick, according to several current and former employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details were private.

The security officer, Joe Sullivan, has been fired. Mr. Kalanick was forced out in June, although he remains on Uber’s board.

The two hackers stole data about the company’s riders and drivers — including phone numbers, email addresses and names — from a third-party server and then approached Uber and demanded $100,000 to delete their copy of the data, the employees said.

Uber acquiesced to the demands, and then went further. The company tracked down the hackers and pushed them to sign nondisclosure agreements, according to the people familiar with the matter. To further conceal the damage, Uber executives also made it appear as if the payout had been part of a “bug bounty” — a common practice among technology companies in which they pay hackers to attack their software to test for soft spots.

The details of the attack remained hidden until Tuesday. The ride-hailing company said it had discovered the breach as part of a board investigation into Uber’s business practices.

The breach at Uber is far from the most serious exposure of sensitive customer information. The two breaches that Yahoo announced in 2016 eclipse Uber’s in size, and an attack disclosed in September by Equifax, the consumer credit reporting agency, exposed a far deeper trove of personal information for a far larger group of people.

But the handling of the breach underscores the extent to which Uber executives were willing to go to protect the $70 billion ride-hailing giant’s reputation and business, even at the potential cost of breaking users’ trust and, perhaps more important, state and federal laws. The New York attorney general’s office said on Tuesday that it had opened an investigation into the matter.

Dara Khosrowshahi, who was chosen to be chief executive of Uber in late August, said he had only recently learned of the breach.

“None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it,” Mr. Khosrowshahi said in a company blog post. “While I can’t erase the past, I can commit on behalf of every Uber employee that we will learn from our mistakes. We are changing the way we do business, putting integrity at the core of every decision we make and working hard to earn the trust of our customers.”

A spokeswoman for Mr. Kalanick declined to comment.

The revelation of the breach and the way it was kept quiet renewed questions about the tenure of Mr. Kalanick, who has faced criticism over his management style and practices after Uber came under scrutiny for its workplace culture this year. The New York Times also reported on a secret program called Greyball that had been undertaken on Mr. Kalanick’s watch, in which Uber staff members surveilled law enforcement officials in order to evade them. Since his exit as chief executive, he has been sued by one of Uber’s earlier investors for fraud.

The breach is also a black mark for Mr. Sullivan, who was a prominent figure in the information security industry. Mr. Sullivan joined Uber as the company’s first chief security officer in 2015, after serving as the head of security at Facebook for seven years.

Unlike many cybersecurity executives, Mr. Sullivan was previously a lawyer and had studied cyberlaw at the University of Miami. He began his career in the technology industry as a federal prosecutor during the tech boom of the late 1990s, working at companies including eBay in 2002, where he was head of trust and safety.

Mr. Sullivan’s decision to join Uber was seen as a win for the company. As Uber’s ranks of drivers and riders had grown, people in and outside the company became worried about privacy and security. Uber had faced complaints about driver and rider assaults, as well as allegations that it was not doing enough to protect rider data. Mr. Sullivan was tasked with keeping drivers and riders safe.

The other Uber employee who was fired alongside Mr. Sullivan was Craig Clark, the company’s legal director of security and law enforcement. Neither Mr. Sullivan nor Mr. Clark responded to requests for comment.

The company’s decision to conceal the breach and pay the ransom quickly raised questions among security experts. Many have repeatedly warned companies against paying hackers a ransom to cover up breaches or return stolen data, advice that was included in a 2016 statement from the F.B.I. And several states including California have laws mandating that companies disclose when they are breached by hackers.

“Companies are funding organized crime, an industry of criminals is being created,” said Kevin Beaumont, a cybersecurity expert based in Britain. “The good guys are creating a market for the bad guys. We’re enabling them to monetize what years ago would have been teenagers in bedrooms breaching companies for fun.”

Uber has experienced breaches before. The company was hit with a data breach in May 2014, an event Uber discovered later that year and disclosed in February 2015. In that attack, the names and driver’s licenses of more than 50,000 of the company’s drivers were compromised.

This latest breach puts Uber in another difficult situation just as the company is working to repair its battered image and preparing to seek an initial public offering in 2019. Mr. Khosrowshahi has characterized his tenure at the company as “Uber 2.0.” As part of that, he has tossed out the aggressive corporate values that were prized by Mr. Kalanick and given the ride-hailing service a new list of values that includes “doing the right thing. Period.”

Uber has hired Matt Olsen, former general counsel at the National Security Agency, as an adviser, and has retained Mandiant, a security firm, to conduct an independent investigation of the security breach. Uber said Mr. Olsen planned to reorganize the company’s security team.

But the damage has already been done, and Uber officials are aware of the long road back to good standing with the public.

While it is not illegal to pay money to hackers, Uber may have violated several laws in its interaction with them.

By demanding that the hackers destroy the stolen data, Uber may have violated a Federal Trade Commission rule on breach disclosure that prohibits companies from destroying any forensic evidence in the course of their investigation.

The company may have also violated state breach disclosure laws by not disclosing the theft of Uber drivers’ stolen data. If the data stolen was not encrypted, Uber would have been required by California state law to disclose that driver’s license data from its drivers had been stolen in the course of the hacking.

An Uber spokesman declined to comment.

24 November 2017 by J.P. Geek This Ain't No CNN. 0

Geek

Think, Part 1.

Future.

iPhone X.

Crowdsourcing.

Barn.

Net Neutrality, Part 2.

Net Neutrality.

Security.

What Is Net Neutrality?

Uber’s Data Breach.

About J.P.

Meta

All The Places

Pages

Recent Posts

Blog Resurgence

Geek Stuff

Legacy Blogroll