SCRN Blog

 By Greg George
 CEO
 Spinal Cord Resources Network

The Texas legislature just passed a law that all computer repairs and help must be done by a person that has a private investigator license. In order to get a PI license you must either go through a 3 year college level degree program or spend three years as an apprentice to a PI. The law stipulates that all companies repairing software and hardware problems, as well as individuals fixing their own or family PC problems must stop immediately or face 1 year in jail and $4000 fine. Unless a computer repair facility has on-staff PIs, they must close down immediately for three years until everyone becomes a PI. It is unknown how this will effect out of state help companies like Dell or Apple, but the way the law is written, if anyone helps you with a computer issue, you can be fined and thrown in jail. The Institute for Justice Texas CHapter is suing the state for all the companies and individuals that fix computers. 

Texas has essentially made it a crime to fix computers or do any computer work if you are not a PI. Thousands of people will be thrown in unemployment lines or arrested for doing their job. All existing hardware repair companies like CompUSA or Best Buy will have to stop operations or face prison. According to reports coming out of Texas, this law was forced through by the Private Investigator lobby group to bring in more work to PIs. Obviously this was not very well thought out because how many PIs are PC or software experts and who has savings to pay the $250 - $500/hour that most PI’s charge? A whole industry has been crushed and destroyed in Texas and everyo9ne with a degree in computer science or information technology is now a criminal. All of the computer people in Texas will have to find work outside their field or leave the state so they can feed their families. However, if the families stay in Texas will they be harassed by law enforcement because their husband or wife is repairing hardware or software outside of Texas?

This does not even touch the privacy rights that this law has trampled. It isn’t anyone’s business what is on a hard drive to be repaired, or what company secrets exist in software that needs to be modified. Every computer will now be under the watchful eye of law enforcement and the Attorney General’s office to sue anyone that they believe is performing illegal activities. Parents with nude pictures of their infants have been arrested and charged with child pornography and others have been charged with hacking while trying to fix a problem for a customer. Now everything in your computer must be handed over to the state while PI’s and Law Enforcement decide what to charge everyone with. People could try and encrypt their data, but those that have done that and tried to fly in from overseas were automatically charged with terrorism. Because if you are hiding something from the state then you must be a criminal. Encrypting s09mething is analogous to carrying a bomb or other dangerous device among the public which can throw you in Guantanamo Bay for the rest of your life. 

The people of Texas must call their congressmen and senators and demand that this ridiculous law be revoked. Demand to know how this law was enacted and if your congressman voted for it. Evidently the Texas legislature believes that all it’s citizens are criminals so perhaps they need to be impeached? This would be a good time to find out if other states are thinking about legislation along this line so it can be stopped in it’s tracks. If this law were to be put into place  in California, Washington State, or Washington D.C. it would cripple the entire computer industry. Every computer expert would have to be fired and PI’s would have to be hired to replace them. However, since virtually none of these PI’s have anywhere near the computer knowledge of a computer scientist, all existing projects and customer installation would have to be stopped indefinitely. 

IT looks like the book "1984" was right on the nose about state control of everything including thought, it was just a little off on the date.

By Greg George
CEO
Spinal Cord Resources

ItWorld.com is reporting that spammers are taking advantage of the MySpace development kit to blast their junk to users. The original tools allowed developers to send out promotional messages through applications as well as sending out large numbers of messages to those in user’s email list. To stop spammers from taking over MySpace the have made major changes to keep control of messaging between each user. It is now forbidden to sending out promotional messages via instant messaging and must explain how the program works. Tools that do interface to instant messaging or email have new guidelines that must be followed or the application will not be allowed to be distributed. This also stopped developers from including unknown functionality that sent out large number of messages to their own personal friend list. Applications must ask for permission to send messages and must allow users to turn off messaging from the application.

It is sad that MySpace has had to go to this level because of spammers. Evidently we must assume that spammers will try to send out their crap any way possible. In addition to these changes to development tools we need to have laws that allow users and companies to track down and sue these people for illegally using their equipment and network. It is sad that these miscreants don’t mind taking over equipment paid for by others to sell garbage products and pills from shady, unknown pharmacies. Users must also watch any application they install to make sure it is doing only what they expect. If your friends start complaining about spam coming from  your MySpace account, start tracking down your last installs and let MySpace know what is going on. We all need to work together to stamp out this useless garbage that many times funnels money into organized crime.

While MySpace is trying to keep their property clean, you need to do the same thing on your PC. It is very easy for hackers to take over your computer and send spam or save child pornography on your hard drive. It is critical that the latest anti-virus, anti-malware, and anti-spyware be installed and constantly updated. For those that are not interested in becoming a system administrator for Microsoft, you should take a serious look at Linux and OSX. We believe that both operating systems are much more secure then Windows and do not need to be running all these security programs. OSX runs Windows if you need, and there are many more programs available that run directly on the Mac.

 The first podcast for Spinal Cord Resources is available. It is in mp3 format so everyone should be able to listen to it.

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Enhanced Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By Greg George
CEO
Spinal Cord Resources Network

Mailboxes have started to fill up with requests to go to a website and verify your iTunes account which has been under attack. According to the email, there have been too many attempts to access the account and that you will be highly restricted until you type in your iTunes login and password along with a credit card number and your mother’s maiden name. This should be an old tune for those used to watching hackers try to get personal information by using social engineering. Social Engineering is a person trying to gain access to something by pretending they know someone or something and want to give you something for it. In this case the hackers want to give you full access to your iTunes account back in return for personal data typed into a web page. If you get one of these emails you should mark it as spam and make sure it is deleted. Do not click on it if you are running Windows are Internet Explorer as the site may also include damaging content that allows hackers immediate control over your computer.

This is a good time to download and use Firefox to protect you fr0om these kinds of attacks. Firefox looks at the displayed URL vs. what is behind the link to make sure they are the same. Invariably they are different in a hacking attack and Firefox can warn you that you are going to a hacker site. There are also sites that are well known as hacking sites which are checked against by Firefox and you are informed if you try to go to one of those sites. These technologies protect your personal data as well as your computer. Many times hacking sites have damaging code written for Internet Explorer that gains administrator access without any display to the user. Firefox has taken a very important eye toward security which makes it harder to attack it and gain access. Plus, since the source code is free for anyone to look over, there are fewer chances of bad security code being left in the finished product.

Also make sure that your anti virus, anti spyware, and anti malware packages are up to date. There are many ways to break into a Windows computer and the only way to at least be warned is to run these programs. They take memory and CPU speed from your computer, but that is the reward for running Windows. This is also a good time to make sure the latest updates and patches are applied to your computer. There is no reason to be running an old version of Windows that is wide open to many kinds of attacks. Many popular viruses and malware capitalize on people not keeping their computer up to date. Once hackers are in your computer they can use your computer as a download site for illegal software and pornography. Some of this material can get you thrown in federal prison for years even if you had no idea what was going on in your computer. It is not worth jail time to not keep your computer as secure as possible.

Closing up always verify the link on the screen is really where it will go. If you put your cursor over a link the real location will appear at the bottom of the window. If that is not the company URL you were expecting then you are under a phishing attack. This is an easy thing to avoid and it can save your credit cards as well as other logins from being compromised. Hackers would love to gain access to your EBay account or PayPal account. They can purchase things with no questions asked while you try to figure out what was going on.

By Greg George
CEO
Spinal Cord Resources Network

Top Tech News has an interesting story about telephone use in the US. Up to this point more people used land lines rather then cell connections. All homes and businesses have been wired for telephone as well as Internet connectivity. Cell phones have been slowly eating away at the number of landlines that were asked for and now most people are going to cell exclusively. Telephone companies have priced themselves out of the land line business with unlimited calls and minutes to anyone in in the US and Canada. With landlines charging fees on top of per minute rates to local calls as well as long distance made it a no-brainer to switch. The switch became even easier when congress made it a law to transfer your telephone number when you moved services. Now you could shop for the best service that fit your needs and always can bring your telephone number with you. It became simple to give cell phones to the kids as well as employees to keep in touch. Now services like Vonage are even further cutting into normal landlines by allowing customers to use their existing Internet connection to make calls. This gave virtually all the same benefits of having a cell phone for home use. Fortunately telephone companies have been investing heavily in cellular and Internet services which has offset the loss of land line customers.

The biggest benefit is that you can carry your phone around anywhere allowing you to be connected at all times. Plus one phone number can do everything. It is now possible to get all your connectivity with one device that works everywhere. The rise of cell traffic has been evident in other less developed countries where it is far easier to build cell towers rather then wiring up every building. In Mexico it can take years to get a land line installed (but not hooked up to the local CU) where getting a cell phone connection takes only a few minutes. Both monetary reasons as well as customer service reasons mark the end of the land line. It is far cheaper to put up a tower to give service to an area that you know  will be used rather then hooking up a land line to a pay phone that may never be used. Plus with landlines still charging per minute for services a customer can pay for a cell phone within a few months of purchasing it. Many young people are only purchasing a cell phone, they never get the land line hooked up in their apartment. It is nothing more then an added expense that is tied to the apartment.

With radio, television and Internet all coming together into a common media, it is obvious that the Internet will be the hub to get everything you want for communications. There will be no reason to drive down to the local movie rental company when you can instantly watch everything that you want on any television in the house. The same cable brings in the Internet connection and telephone service over the net (VoIP). ISPs will be the only players around to get the services you want for your house. It remains to be seen if telephone companies can keep their grip on the cell phone market. The telephone companies tried to use the same per minute business market for the Internet and it failed miserably. No one is going to pay per minute when you can talk forever for a small monthly fee. The advent of the newer smart phones (Blackberry and iPhone) you can have everything in the palm of your hand. It will be interesting to see what services are brought to the home and handheld as Internet speeds get ever faster.

By Greg George
CEO
Spinal Cord Resources Network

Online backup services are cropping up all over the Internet. They promise to make backups easier to do and storage and maintenance is all handled by the hosting company. This sounds like a real answer to the gigabytes that are never backed up on personal computers everywhere. Those of us that are the computer resource for computer problems routinely are stuck trying to repair dead hard drives because years of letters, data and pictures are stored there. Of course no one ever does backups so we are stuck trying to pry data off of a bare metal drive. Any backup is better then none at all - right? Not when you give all your personal documents to an unknown entity.

All these backup services have some kind of free aspect where you can dump several gigabytes of your most prized possession, pictures, letters and whatnot on their servers. That is very nice but companies must make money to save your mountain of data on their servers for free. How exactly does a company give you 2 gigabytes of space for free on real rack mounted servers in protected air conditioned rooms watched over by high paid technicians? By rifling through your data and then using that information to send you advertisements either through snail mail or spam in your inbox. So now your person information is known by the backup company as well as their “partners”. Are all of these companies trustworthy? Are they safe from hacking and data loss?

None of these companies explain what they can do with your data and what measures they are taking to protect your assets. If there is a break in will the company let you know what was stolen in a timely fashion? Some states have laws that force companies to tell customers when their data has been compromised, but most do not. Plus companies have a nasty tendency to never tell anyone of a break in. Last month the University of Miami lost a backup tape that had the personal information of 2 million patients. The university waited until media sources broke the story to let anyone know what happened. Supposedly they were going to let all those patients know what happened, but some are still waiting for their letter. It is expected that because of HIPAA guidelines medical data is to be protected, but obviously companies and universities don’t care about what happens to your information.

All of your backups could be stolen by hackers and they could sell that information to those involved in banking fraud. Suddenly you would find out your bank accounts are all emptied and your banks have no information on what happened. The onus is up to you to prove illegal purchases are not from you and that you are the victim of data theft. This is all the more complicated if the backup company you use has been hacked but they refuse to acknowledge the attack. This doesn’t leave many options to the individual except to sue the online backup company to release all information tied to hacking and data loss. That type of case could take years to complete and cost you tens of thousands of dollars. And this is just to get an admittance of a problem, not any remedies or money to pay you back for all your losses.

This hornet’s nest of problems proves that the last place to store your data is online. The data on our hard drive is valuable to you and it may be impossible to replace it. Your hard drive is a mechanical device that will fail eventually leaving you with no way to access the data on it. This scenario is easy to avoid by purchasing an inexpensive extyernal hard drive and some software to store your information. Now you control when backups are done, what is stored, how it is stored, and who has access to it. In an emergency like a hurricane you can grab the drive andbring it with you. That way if your house is damaged or destroyed our data is safe. Keep your data safe and secure by taking responskbility to save t yourself on your own equipment. This beats the alternative of the hackers and online thieves owning your data and selling it for their own purposes.

By Greg George
CEO
Spinal Cord Resources Network

The Internet has changed dramatically over the last few years from just viewing websites to using virtual applications in your browser. To keep you data safe sites have created logins and password entry points for each of their users. Virtual email is a good example of where the Internet is going. Most people have moved from using a mail application like Outlook or Thunderbird. It is easier to use a web based interface because it allows you to get your mail anywhere on any computer. Instead of dragging your laptop around you can drop into an Internet cafe and log into your email application ton get to your letters. All of the major sites like Yahoo!, Google, and MSN ask for a login and password before they let you in. Some sites generate a password for you in an effort to create hard to guess passwords. For a single site this is simple and easy to work with.

Fast forwarding to 2008 we have all kinds of applications on teh web including word processing, spreadsheets as well as social gathering sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. All of these sites give you access to powerful applications in a virtual environment through your browser. Again, you can store all your files in these applications and access them from any computer on the Internet. The bad news is the use of passwords on all these sites. Some use your email address as your login to make t easier to remember what your login is. The bad news is if the bad guys know your email address they can start to break into these sites by trying passwords based on your dog’s name, children’s names, or other items that are easily retrieved from public records. If they manage to break in they can use that password on other sites. If you use the same passwords on different sites you are giving crooks an easy way to access anything you have on the web.

Using the same password on all these sites open you up to an attack that may open all the files and data you have to crooks. If the bad guys get into your Google account, they have access to your email, files associated with Google Applications (word processing, spreadsheet, powerpoint), analytics which displays important data about your websites, and adsense, which sends money to your account. As you can see, this one password opens up important files as well as banking data. Now expand the user of the same password and you give thieves access to many aspects of your life and you’ll never know until it is too late. The answer is using different passwords for each site. But rather then trying to remember zillions of different passwords, come up with a strategy to create different passwords. Perhaps use part of the URL of the site in the password so that each one is but can be easily memorized. Another method is to use specific numbers rather then letters in passwords that are different for each site but can be easily recreated so you don’t have to memorize all of them.

These are just two methods to create different passwords for each site but still be able to quickly remember them. Don’t leave yourself open to attack if any of your site logins is compromised, make sure all the passwords you use are different so the crooks can’t get into any other sites. Otherwise you may end up spending many nights trying to fix your credit and figuring out how to get back all of your old emails.By Greg George
CEO
Spinal Cord Resources Network

By Greg George
CEO
Spinal Cord Resources Network
T-5 spinal cord injury

For most of us the web is a massive color newspaper that contains virtually anything you would ever want. For those that are blind navigating the web can be almost impossible. With web 2.0 applications, mouse clicks give you more control over your page and media. But for page reading software figuring out where the next block of text or submit button location can be impossible. Each rendition of HTML, the tags used to create web pages is becoming more and more complicated. These tags control where the next text location should go, which may not be the next sequential location on the page. Applications like Google’s word processor and spreadsheet use a programming language called Javascript to dynamically control the display. This makes the user experience much closer to a native program like Microsoft Word, but can be impossible to navigate for the blind. Most programs that read web pages have a very difficult time dealing with dynamic web pages. Since there is no standard way of interfacing to Javascript programs, audio programs just stop operating or start reading from places somewhere else on the page.

Navigating in the operating system has also become more complicated. From Windows 3.1, Microsoft has made a concerted effort to make all commands available from the keyboard. By Windows XP time frame, most applications worked well with text readers and virtually all commands were available directly from the keyboard. However, with the release of Vista, many commands were no longer available from the keyboard and applications don’t have a centralized way of dealing with the keyboard. A ray of light is the search function build into Vista which allows applications to be run without having to know their location. The search function also allows the user to find a document and run the application tied to it. However, many menus have have changed and several functions are mouse only. Trying to find a particular function with voice software can be maddening when you know it is there, but cannot navigate to it. The upgrade to Vista appears to be more of a problem then a solution. Sighted users have a long list of complaints against Vista and many have switched back to XP. Blind users are finding out that using programs in Vista means that functions don’t exist or have moved to strange new locations in the menu system.

While Web 2.0 is causing grief to the blind community, website protection schemes called CAPTCHA is making websites unaccessible. CAPTCHA is a scheme to keep programmatic spamming software from gaining access to websites. Google and Yahoo use this scheme to verify a user is human before they are allowed to create a mail account. To utilize this technology, a jumbled set of text in a fuzzy background is send to the user. Thee user must then type in the characters they see to gain access to the site. Here is where the rub begins, how does a blind person read something that by design is jumbled and blurred. One CAPTCHA, reCAPTCHA has the capability of reading the text to be typed in, but that assumes the web reading software can decipher the code surrounding the reCAPTCHA so the user knows where to click. Spammers and hackers are forcing virtually all sites to employ some kind of verification before alowing users access. This is going to make it ever more difficult for the blind to aceess websites, blogs, and online applications.