Category: Internet matters

Posts about the internet

The TOR browser bundle

The TOR browser bundle seems like a reasonably effective and very easy-to-use means of circumventing web censorship and surveillance.

The speed of web browsing falls significantly when data is routed through the TOR network, but tools like this are increasingly essential as governments undertake more and more inappropriate meddling with the free flow of ideas online.

There are versions for various operating systems. I have tried both the Windows and Mac OS installs and they are both easy to use and at least a bit effective in avoiding tracking and censorship. Remember, however, that TOR is useless if someone is tracking all your web traffic at your point of connection to the internet, for instance by reading all the traffic through your broadband connection or cell phone. If you are worried about that, use public networks along with TOR, or set up an encrypted connection to a proxy or virtual private network and then run TOR from there.

Remember, all security bets are of if an attacker gets malware on your machine or gains physical access to it.

The second rule of the internet

Back in 2010, I described what I called the ‘first rule of the internet‘:

Against a sophisticated attacker, nothing connected to the internet is secure.

To this, I feel like I should add a second item:

Everything is internet now.

While there were once large numbers of electronic systems entirely disconnected from the internet, nowadays virtually everything is either connected to the internet constantly or occasionally connected to a device that is online. Your cell phone is probably always accessible to a sophisticated attacker using the internet, and the same is probably true for landlines using VoIP. Many of your computers are probably constantly connected to wireless networks (themselves targets for attack) and exposed to the wider internet through your broadband connection at all times.

Web integration with computers has reached the point that Google’s Chrome browser now treats ‘search’ and ‘GMail’ as apps within the Chrome environment.

The implication of combining the first and second rules is pretty plain. If you manage to attract the attention of a sophisticated attacker, they can probably get into the contents of your cell phone and your GMail account, as well as the hard drive of your PC and laptop, the ubiquitous webcams now built into computers, and so on. There is also a good chance they can take over your email, websites, Twitter accounts, and the like and use them for their own purposes.

Demonstrating British Columbia’s beauty

One of the big reasons for opposing the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline is because of how 200 oil tankers a year would threaten the coast of British Columbia.

I think everyone who has seen that coastline understands its beauty and ecological importance. At the same time, I suspect the idea can be made more salient for people by showing them photos and video of the areas that could be affected if the pipeline goes through.

It’s not clear what the most effective approach would be for reminding people about what is at stake. Really there is a spectrum of possibility, ranging from fantastic shots taken by talented photographers on top-notch gear and shown in magazines and galleries to amateur shots taken by visitors and ordinary British Columbians and uploaded to Facebook or Flickr.

In all likelihood, many approaches will be tried simultaneously. For my own part, I have been thinking about a potential photo show that would incorporate photos of the B.C. coast as well as photos from the successful protests against the Keystone XL pipeline, which took place in Washington D.C.. Toronto may not be the most appropriate venue for that, since people here don’t have much of a personal emotional stake in the integrity of west coast ecosystems.

Perhaps I should try and find the time to set up yet another website, where people could contribute photos from B.C. and explain why they oppose the Northern Gateway pipeline…

Repeated ad infinitum

XKCD is right, this is worth a look today:

List of common misconceptions
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Note:

  • Nero didn’t fiddle while Rome burned.
  • The ancient Greeks knew that the Earth was spherical, and how large it was.
  • Napoleon was not short. He was slightly taller than the average Frenchman.
  • The Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free slaves in the northern states.
  • The Great Wall of China cannot be seen from space using the naked eye.
  • People did not evolve from chimpanzees.

Etc, etc, etc.

SOPA blackout

Many websites in the United States, Canada, and around the world are joining together to protest SOPA – the Stop Online Piracy Act.

The bill, which could become law in the United States, would have unfortunate consequences for the internet as a whole. I agree with Michael Geist that Canadians should be concerned.

I remember the exciting beginning of the internet, where people thought it was a medium that effectively could not be censored and which would allow people to freely and honestly share information. Some of the sites that still do that most successfully – sites like Wikipedia – are threatened by laws that make them excessively liable for copyright violations and by imposing other restrictions.

As Wikipedia puts it:

The United States Congress is currently considering striking out major rights of free speech and other laws which make Wikipedia possible, forcing us to censor our editor discussions and the information we show you for the benefit of lobbyists. If passed, it would destroy the freedom of individuals to write without censorship, on every website we have, in any language, anywhere in the world.

Here’s hoping this show of opposition from some of the most important sites on the web will help kill this legislation.

Open-source Mac software

There seems to be some useful software here: Open Source Mac – Free Mac software, all open-source, all OS X.

For the unfamiliar, open-source software is software where the authors provide the underlying computer code to everybody. That lets you examine how it really works, compile it to run on a range of machines, and make custom modifications.

Much open source software is free.

P.S. While I am appreciative of free and open-source software, there are a few pieces of commercial software that I really wish I could buy for a bit less money: the latest version of Photoshop, a copy of Office for my laptop, a commercial version of PGP, etc. EndNote would also be useful, as I ramp up research for my doctoral thesis.

Where Macs come from

This week’s episode of This American Life is powerful and thought- provoking. It’s about manufacturing in China, the ten million person city of Shenzhen, and how most of our computers and phones and miscellaneous gadgets are made by hand by millions of workers working at least twelve hours a day.

Apple has been conducting its own investigations of labour practices among its suppliers and has been publishing annual reports about them since 2007.

—
Posted from my iPhone

[Update: 25 March 2012] This American Life discovered that the episode they broadcast on Apple factories contained a number of fabrications. They have retracted the episode and released another detailing what went wrong in their fact checking process: “We’ve discovered that one of our most popular episodes contained numerous fabrications. This week, we detail the errors in Mike Daisey’s story about visiting Foxconn, which makes iPads and other products for Apple in China. Marketplace’s China correspondent Rob Schmitz discovered the fabrications.”

Stratfor hacked

A few times before, I have mentioned the website Stratfor. They normally provide a very ‘realist‘ take on global politics. They have interesting sources of information and arguments, and I have found them to be worth reading.

Unfortunately, their entire database of past and present subscribers has been stolen by hackers and released online. If you have ever given them your credit card number, you should probably contact your credit card company immediately to cancel it and have a new card issued with an updated number.

It’s probably a good idea to change your credit card number every few years, regardless. The people at MasterCard said that website hacks like this happen all the time. So often, in fact, that they didn’t want to hear any details about it at all. There are probably a lot of websites that would not notify their users in the event of a breach like the one Stratfor has suffered.

As a side note, this hack demonstrates a couple of things about security. First, the more you hold yourself up as being an expert about security, the more alluring a target you risk making yourself for hackers driven by prestige. This is why the websites of people like the CIA are targeted so often (though such hacks probably aren’t indicative of significant security breaches). Second, there are reputational risks associated with having lax security, especially if you represent yourself as a security expert. I have no doubt that Stratfor’s business will suffer at least a bit because of this.