Security and Privacy

Vivint Adds Security and Automation to a 1970s Era Deckhouse, Part One: The System

Eight years ago we moved into a thirty-five-year-old Deck House fixer-upper. Deck Houses are post and beam “kit” houses that are built like a barn, offer huge open space and because they have no joists or crawl spaces for running wires and plumbing present numerous challenges when renovating. It is for that reason (among others) that eight years later, we are still working on it. On the “wish list” of renovations was adding some home automation, but the cost and the unique challenges of the design made it less enticing than it might otherwise have been. At some point, I…

Editorials

Choosing Not to Share in a World of Over-Sharing, the President Takes the Lead

This photograph of the President and his staff watching the assault that eventually led to the death of bin Laden in real-time, is on track to be the most viewed image in Flickr’s history. The emotion on their faces, Secretary of State Clinton’s hand over her mouth and the laser focus of the President Obama’s eyes on the screen say pretty much everything that needs to be said about the importance of the moment. Since Sunday night there has been great speculation about whether or not an image of the terrorist’s body would be released. The debate has raged and…

Editorials, News & Features

GD QuickRant: TSA Redefines Terrorism …

Image courtesy of IVCaffeine … To Include Being Unhappy With Their Unconstitutional Screening Practices. Over at CNN there is an article that highlights a recent move by the TSA to categorize profiling of those who are unhappy with the potential added security screening as ‘potential threats’. There is also a video report. Here are a couple of quotes: the TSA‘s crack behavior detection officers are now on the lookout for “anyone who displays arrogance or expresses contempt for the screening process.” Why? Because scientific anti-terror detection techniques have now apparently revealed that complaining about poor treatment from airport security indicates…

News & Features

Gear Games Update: Playstation Network / Qriocity User Data Compromised

Yesterday I wrote about the ‘ongoing PSN outage saga’. Today things get worse. Sony has confirmed what all users feared – personal user and account information has been compromised and ‘may’ have been stolen. Here is the full text of a message I got and that every PSN and Qriocity member will get: Valued PlayStation Network/Qriocity Customer: We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011, certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account information was compromised in connection with an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into our network. In response to this intrusion, we have: Temporarily turned off…

News & Features

Epsilon, Emails, and Hackers

My guess is that, like me, you’ve received many soothing-but-scary emails over the last few days from Target, TiVo, Best Buy, maybe even your bank. They explain how, oops, someone might have accidentally tapped into their database and found your email, but don’t worry! Just maybe think twice before clicking on any email links until you make sure it’s from the company you trusted to not leak your email in the first place. It’s a headache, but not a huge problem all by itself. Except, of course, the sheer number of companies impacted. Because everyone was using the same company,…

Gear Bits

The Swingline Stack-and-Shred Has Arrived!

Not that you needed any further proof that I was a dork, I mean geek, but I found myself unnaturally excited when FedEx dropped off this package earlier today. Inside is the SwingLine Stack & Shred, a crosscut shredder that allows you to feed up to 100 sheets of paper at a time by lifting the lid on the front and laying the items to shred inside the tray. Stack, Shut and Go. The Swingline Stack-and-Shred technology is built for busy executives, small and home office users and anyone who wants an easy and efficient way to personally shred. It…

Music Diary, News & Features

Music Diary Notes: TuneSecure – Making the (Same Old) Piracy Argument New Again

Why is it that music files were the first ones that were widely pirated, yet now account for ~3% of files downloaded in a recent survey? Bandwidth – or more to the point, convenience! But as internet access speeds and download methods have evolved people are downloading movies and games and other massive files more frequently than music. For a long time folks in the RIAA and MPAA and other related media industry groups have keyed on THAT – the ever-increasing ease of piracy – as a route to eliminate piracy by making it inconvenient / uncomfortable for pirates. Their…

News & Features

Swingline Introduces the Stack-and-Shred, So You Can Keep Your Secrets Hidden

Are you one of those people who sticks your insurance finalization forms in the trash? The kind who tosses bank receipts, deposit slips, paid utility and credit card bills in the bin? Do you make jokes about filing important documents away in “drawer #13”, but you really mean the overflowing bucket under your desk? If so, then you are also the type of person who is simply begging for their identity to be stolen. Yes, really. The solution is to shred those documents as they leave your hand, before they make their way into the garbage. Don’t even let them…

Gear Bits

Here is Every Password You Will Ever Need!

Someone at Gear Diary recently had one of their personal accounts hacked, which should be yet another reminder to everyone that you never know when or why one of your accounts might get compromised. Last year I had an issue with my Facebook account, and several years ago my Steam account got hijacked. It can happen to anyone, anytime … but the passwords you use can help keep you more secure. Last week there was a interesting infograph about the 20 top passwords of all time. Here is a snip from the graph: Amusingly this week there was an article…

Editorials

Power of Tech Shown by Egyptian Protests

Photo courtesy of the The International Business Times When all of Iran seemed to be exploding in the wake of “President” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad‘s “victory” in the 2009 election, the news was noteworthy not just because a country struggling against authoritarian rule was trying to free itself, but also because of how the news got out: Twitter. Before cell phones integrated with digital cameras, smart phones, and Twitter, it’s possible that the world at large might have received no notice at all of the massive protests, deaths, vicious governmental crackdowns, and all the other info about Iran’s “Green Revolution”. Now we’re…

Events, News & Features

How Many Bloggers Does It Take to Screw in an Archerfish Solo?

“Installing Archerfish Solo is now as easy as screwing in a light bulb – literally.” Okay, now we’re talking… a product tag line that promises something I can handle. No drills, hammers, screwdrivers, or circular saws. The Archerfish Solo is advertised as “thinking camera” featuring “built-in Homeland Security technology” that allows it to interpret what it sees, so it only shows you what you want to see – those types of activities that made you install a security camera in the first place – rather than making you weed through hours of uneventful video. Cernium Corporation, makers of the Archerfish…

Editorials

I Always Feel Like … My Apps Are Watching Me!

A few weeks back I ordered two things from different online vendors, one for my brother and the other for my parents. I used an email address I rarely use, an account on which I only get a few spam messages a week. Naturally within hours I had received a months’ worth of junk email! One vendor was sending me messages directly advertising their own stuff … but aside from them I was getting tons of other sales messages. Some of those messages were related to the purchase I made from the other vendor and others were classic ‘wide-casting’ spam…

News & Features

SplashID KeySafe Unlocks Your Cold, Security-Obsessed Heart

Well, now, what do we have here? Generally a software company, SplashData has now taken one of their best known software products and merged it with a hardware product. The SplashID Key Safe is a 2 GB USB drive made to fit on your keychain, but featuring a portable version of SplashData’s well-known password protection program, SplashID. We’ve reviewed various incarnations of SplashID on this site a number of times in the past and we’ve always had good impressions of it. I’ve always liked SplashID because it’s available for so many different platforms. The Key Safe includes many of the…

News & Features

Random Cool Stuff: Honda’s App Tells If You Were Naughty Or Nice on FaceBook This Year … But Beware!

Since the advent of the web there have been sites like ‘Santa Trackers’ and ‘Naughty or Nice’ tests that would tell you about your behavior based on answering some questions. And since these were aimed at kids they would never ask anything that would allow a truly evil path. But what would happen if someone were to analyze your Facebook history for the past year? If you head to Honda’s Facebook site, you can start the ‘NaughtyOrNice-a-Tron’, which will dig through everything you’ve done on Facebook this year and then spit out an answer about how you have behaved. It…

Editorials

The Frightening Power of the Social Internet

These days, everything is “social.” CNN wants me to know how many people have “liked” an article, the New York Times has embraced Twitter, and you don’t even need to go on TV to get your 15 minutes of fame … now all you need to do is cause a controversy on the internet! Strike a metaphorical match, and voilà, before you know it the smoldering fire you lit has everyone buzzing. Until the next #topic comes along that is. Yes, the social internet has taken our Attention Deficit Society to all-time highs … or is it lows? Truth be…

Editorials

Random Scary Stuff: Privacy vs. The Internet

We all know that being a so-called ‘netizen’ requires sacrificing a bit of privacy. The problem is knowing exactly where that line is between what you need to expose to get business done and what you should keep private even at the expense of being able to do something you want. Well … as the funny Venn diagram above shows, it isn’t easy to find that line, and often not even in our control! Because as a recent WSJ.com article shows, our ability to find the balance between online activity and personal privacy is being greatly outpaced by the race…

Reviews

ADT PULSE Interactive Security System Review

When the new ADT PULSE system became available in my area I immediate jumped at the chance to have it installed in my home. PULSE not only allows for the ability to arm and disarm one’s home security system from anywhere in the world, it does much more. The new ADT PULSE system is all about home automation. It includes lighting, temperature control, video, and more. As a kid this sort of thing seemed like something that would exist in the far, far future, maybe not even in my lifetime. But it turns out that future isn’t far off at…

Reviews

Gear Gadget Review: The Flipside x2

Last night I went to pay for something. I pulled out my wallet and the woman behind the counter looked at it and said, “Now that’s a nifty gadget!” “Thanks,” I said, “I like everything about it but the color; I wish it were black.” “NOOO! she said, that’s my favorite color. I love it!” As I walked away I thought to myself, “Thanks for the first line of my review!” We reviewed the first iteration of the Flipside Wallet about a year ago. In fact, if you go to the Web site our conclusion that “This wallet is a…

News & Features

Stop. Think. Connect: Reminding Kids to Stay Safe While Online

Parents with kids who are growing up in this internet age have undoubtedly got more to worry about than parents even five years ago. It is imperative that our younglings understand that anything posted on the internet (even if only briefly) can come back to haunt the poster (or the postee) forever. Vicious gossip, bullying, hurtful photos … these are things that can be magnified to unbearable proportions when posted online. I found this cute video today; it may see simplistic at first, but it’s message is right on. This video was created by EMC Corporation and RSA, its Security…

eBooks, News & Features

Amazon’s New Pirated Book Policy

(image courtesy Houston News) Just last year. there was a pretty serious controversy over how Amazon handled pirated books in the Kindle store. Since anyone can upload a book to Amazon, a version of 1984 was uploaded and sold without the copyright holder’s permission. Amazon took an unfortunate stance of removing all copies without warning, only to find a huge internet uproar emerge from the “big brother” behavior. Luckily, Amazon has learned from those mistakes. Their Australian store mistakenly sold a book under Jamie Oliver’s name that was not actually written by or affiliated with the chef. Rather than yank…

Editorials

Facebook, Places and Privacy… a Few Thoughts

(via posterart.com) Facebook has entered into the next phase of its social network evolution with the addition of Facebook Places, a location-based social sharing feature. Facebook Places allows users to share with friends their current location, tag important places (“where I made my first text message”), and perhaps meet others who are near by. This feature leverages the current technology of “Check-Ins” by using the GPS location on the user’s phone. These location-based tools were previously only available on applications like Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, Twitter and Yelp! But having Facebook enter this location-based app market raises potential privacy and safety…