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CONNECTED DEVICES & PRIVACY

Can you keep a secret? No, you can’t, at least not for long. With ever more of your electronic devices, appliances, utility meters, fitness trackers, and home security systems connected to the internet, it’s nearly certain that at least one of them will rat on you sooner or later.

Could Your Devices Be Subpoenaed?

Allison Berman, writing for Singularity Hub, warned that the connected devices in your home could be subpoenaed as witnesses against you. She cited a 2015 murder case, for which police asked Amazon to turn over cloud-based data sent by an Alexa-enabled Echo device in the home of James Andrew Bates, in whose hot tub detectives had found the body of his colleague, Victor Collins. On the night of the murder, the device had been used for streaming music. The Echo device, equipped with seven mikes, listens constantly for the ‘wake word’ that will activate it, making it receptive to commands. Just before and after sensing the wake word, Echo begins recording sound and transmitting it to Amazon’s cloud.

Police believe the Echo device may have recorded audio germane to their investigation.

In the near future, police may solve crimes by interrogating refrigerators, thermostats, TV sets, stereos, phones, tablets, and security systems. With multiple electronic witnesses, they can obtain fairly accurate and comprehensive pictures of the crimes, as they seek to do by interviewing multiple witnesses to an auto accident.

Privacy laws regarding connected devices are very weak. Because the information is stored in the cloud, the owner or user of the devices doesn’t own the data they transmit. It’s not protected to the same degree that documents in his house are.

Could Your Connected Devices Be Hacked?

Of course, any connected device can be hacked. If Alexa is hacked, could a hostile party listen to everything you say in your home? And if you have twenty connected devices in your home, a hacker might obtain eerily accurate and complete information about what you do all day. Could he use it to blackmail you? What could a stalker do if he knows where you’ll be, when, and for what reason?

Hackers could also hijack your devices to spread false information about you. Patrick Frey, who blogs as ‘Patterico’, suffered a ’SWATting’ attack in 2011 after a hacker ‘spoofed’ his cellphone number to place a midnight 911 call. Pretending to be Frey, the caller said he had shot his wife.

Sheriff’s deputies pounded on Frey’s door and rang his doorbell. When he opened the door, they pointed their guns at him and told him to put his hands up. The deputies handcuffed Frey and placed him in a squad car. Then they awakened his wife, led her downstairs, and frisked her. After ascertaining that the children were safe, the police finally left.

The incident could easily have cost Frey his life. Cops are likely to be nervous in confronting a man they believe to be armed and to have just committed a murder.

Can You Trust Browsers and Social Media?

Loss of privacy need not require either hacking or law enforcement inquiry. Certain browsers, such as Google, and social media, such as Facebook, offer overly complicated terms of service– as long as 30,000 words. Few, if any, users read them. The rules are nearly inscrutable for a reason. They’re meant to protect providers from liability, not to protect your privacy.

Since you don’t pay for Google and Facebook services, you are their product. They earn their money through sale of advertising, so they want as much data about you as possible. Their advertisers demand it.

Two years ago, Facebook faced a media firestorm after the discovery that it had been manipulating the emotional states of thousands of users. Facebook had learned that the emotional impact of the images it showed users would affect the character of their posts. With this information, it could reinforce advertising messages.

You reveal far more through social media than you’d guess. MIT’s ‘Gaydar’ project confirmed that one could reliably infer that a particular subject was gay, based solely on his social media posts, even if he had never admitted it openly, and even if he was trying strenuously to keep it hidden. Another MIT project, called ‘Psychopath’, tracked social media posts to determine presence or absence of schizophrenia.

Can You Trust Your Smart TV Set?

On Monday, February 6, Vizio settled a lawsuit over claims that it had violated consumer privacy. The plaintiffs had alleged that Vizio’s connected ‘smart’ TV sets had been tracking ‘second by second’ data about customer viewing habits. To this, Vizio had allegedly added specific demographic information: age, sex, marital status, size of household, income, home ownership, and household value. The company is alleged to have sold this information to third parties. The third parties would use it to enable targeted advertising.

LG and Samsung have also been accused of collecting viewer data through their connected TV sets.

What Can You Do?

What can you do to protect yourself? Update your passwords often. Encrypt what you can. Always stay aware of when your connected devices are switched on.

It may help to assume that everything you do will become public- and live accordingly.

(For the most reliable connection, talk to us. We can help.)

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MYTHS ABOUT SATELLITE INTERNET

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Myths can obstruct our understanding of the world. They can keep us from seizing advantages we otherwise would have had.

Some people hesitate to acquire satellite internet service because what they’ve been told about it isn’t true. The most common myths about it are that it’s expensive, it’s too slow, and it won’t work during or after bad weather. Here we’ll examine each myth in turn.

Myth #1: It’s Expensive

This was true several years ago. It’s not anymore. Huge advances in technology have multiplied speed and bandwidth, and greater efficiency has dramatically reduced consumer price. Seven years ago, the most basic satellite internet service cost $79.00 per month. Today, HughesNet’s entry-level tier, with a download speed of 5 megabits per second (5 MB/S), costs just $29.99 per month. This is highly competitive with DSL and cable broadband services.

Myth #2: It’s Too Slow

One if the most persistent myths about satellite internet is that it’s too slow to be practical. It was true several years ago, but not now. At the dawn of satellite internet, download speeds averaged about 750 kilobits per second (750 KB/S), and upload speeds averaged about 256 KB/S. HughesNet now offers plans with top download speeds of 5 to 15 MB/S- comparable with cable internet- and upload speeds of 1 to 2 MB/S.

Myth #3: The Signal Lags

You need only about half a second. There is some latency in sending and receiving signals, because they bounce off of a satellite 22.500 miles high, but this limitation has been highly exaggerated. You’re unlikely to be hampered by signal latency unless you’re playing interactive games. You probably won’t notice any effect on your e-mail, web browsing, social media posts, or sharing of photos.

Myth #4: Bad Weather Critically Disrupts the Service

Extremely severe thunderstorms or blizzards can interrupt the signal temporarily. This condition, though, is not as serious or as frequent as it’s been made out to be. You’ll begin receiving the signal again once the storm passes.

By contrast, severe weather can knock out cable service, for entire neighborhoods, for days or even weeks at a time. This is especially true if the cables are flooded or cut by falling trees.

Don’t let myths keep you from the internet service that works best for you. If you have any questions, talk to us. We can help.

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CONSCIENCE & THE MACHINE

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Conscience and Emerging Technology

We want to believe that technical development is unalloyed blessing. As our tools get better, out lives get better. What could possible go wrong? Why should any new technology trouble anyone’s conscience.

In fact, many of our the most prominent voices in politics and the press predict the imminent arrival of a secular Eden. Mankind’s third great technological leap, they say, is already on our doorstep. It will bring universal prosperity. With abundant food, water, clean energy, and leisure for all, there will be nothing to fight over. Peace will reign over the whole Earth. The long-promised Utopia, the pundits say, at last is at hand.

Is this too simplistic, though? Should we avoid some types of innovation? Should technological development ever trouble conscience? Should we worry that our quest for better living will pave the road to Hell?

Some analysts argue that emerging technologies bring new temptations. Conscience should not make us cowards, afraid of any new tool or technique. But many emerging technologies entail thorny ethical questions. Driverless cars, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and gene-editing could be horribly destructive if used in the wrong way.

Here, we will examine the ethical dilemmas presented by just two emerging technologies: virtual reality and facial mapping.

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality:

Since the invention of the printing press, pornographers have been quick to exploit every innovation in information technology. Virtual Reality, combined with sensors attached to the user’s body, could create an immersive experience nearly indistinguishable from actual sex. VR lovers would be physically perfect, always available when wanted, and never present when unwanted. Will most of us prefer VR mates to flawed flesh-and-blood lovers? Will we stop mating? If we do, does the human race have a future?

VR experiences in general, offering realism conventional movies couldn’t match, could become extremely addictive. Will millions of people refuse to leave their VR environments to address problems in the relatively boring and colorless real world?

Information Technologies:

When I was a small child, I often heard people say, “The camera doesn’t lie.” It wasn’t true then, and it’s even less true now. We can lie far more effectively with cameras than without them. Every improvement in information technology can augment deception.

With Face2Face, a digital facial capture and mapping tool, a couple of wags overlaid real-time facial mapping over source video of Donald Trump, making him seem to say hilariously preposterous things– not that he’s incapable of doing so on his own.

With Face2Face, other CGI tools, and advanced audio editing, we could convincingly put words in anyone’s mouth. We could fake almost any event involving almost any character. With such video and audio manipulation in the wrong hands, we may be unable to trust any online videos, so how will we know what’s accurate? Do we have to read source code to be sure?

More to come…

In a future post, we will explore other innovations that provoke vexing questions of conscience. Among these will be gene-editing, radical life extension, driverless cars, and artificial intelligence.

(To keep abreast of technology, you need reliable internet service. Talk to us. We can help.)

(The accompanying image is a still from the Roman Polanski movie: Macbeth.)

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IBM PREDICTS FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES

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This morning, IBM Research released a report predicting five major innovations that will affect our lives profoundly by 2022. Among its predictions are:

Artificial Intelligence and Mental Health: Computers will analyze patient speech and written words. Anomalies will reveal developmental disorders, mental illness, or neurological disease. Medical personnel will be able to track these conditions in real time, without having to wait for the patient to visit the clinic for a checkup. A I tracking through wearable devices will complement drug therapy and clinical treatment.
Superhero Vision: Our eyes detect less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum. With hyperimaging tools and A I, though, we could ‘see’ far more than is revealed in visible light. With portable devices, we could sense hidden opportunities or threats. Our cars could ‘see’ through rain or fog, detect invisible hazards such as black ice, and tell us the distance and size of objects in our paths.
Macroscopes: With machine learning and software, we could organize information about the physical world. Billions of devices within our range of vision will gather massive and complex data. This is what IBM calls the ‘macroscope’. It will enable us to read and instantly analyze the useful data all around us, while filtering out irrelevancies.
Medical Lab on a Chip: By analyzing body fluids, devices you carry or wear will tell you if you need to see a physician. A single chip will handle all of the detection and analysis that currently requires a full biochemistry labs.
Smart Sensors that Detect Pollution: With much more sensitive sensors, we could easily detect storage and pipeline leaks. Even the most minute and invisible leaks could be caught in real time. Sensors will report problems at the speed of light.

In previous reports, IBM predicted classrooms that learn you, touching through your phone, and computers with a sense of smell.

(To take full advantage of emerging technologies, you need a reliable internet connection. Talk to us. We can help.)

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TOP TRENDS IN NEW TV SETS

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With the annual Consumer Electronics Show about to end, we’ve gotten a glimpse of the near future in the market for video displays. In years past, LED and LCD displays with High Definition (HD) resolution were all the rage. They work well, but they’ve been around long enough that they almost seem passe’. Manufacturers are now producing flexible screens, OLED and QLED technology, and 4K or Ultra High Definition (UHD) resolution.

If you want your TV set to offer the best possible picture and sound, investigate displays with the following features:

4k and Ultra HD

As their names imply, 4K and Ultra HD (UHD) screens display four times the number of pixels in an HD screen. Only a few content providers offer their programming in 4K or UHD format, but more are adopting it every month. Within two years, 4K will be standard.

High Dynamic Range (HDR)

One of the top trends in TV innovation is High Dynamic Range (HDR). Unlike 4K or UHD, which are brute-force approaches to picture sharpness, HDR does not entail simply stuffing more pixels into the display.

HDR is a new technology altogether. It offers much brighter highlights, deeper shadows, more detail and subtlety in the midrange, and a wider color gamut than conventional TV. Most observers say it improves the picture more than 4K does.

OLED and QLED

Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) and Quantum Light-Emitting Diode (QLED) displays are at the top in picture quality. They offer far better contrast and color saturation than LED, LCD, or plasma screens.

OLED screens have been far more expensive than competing types, but this is changing. Samsung and LG have learned mass-manufacturing techniques that are making their prices much more competitive.

Both LED and QLED look impressive. There may be subtle differences in picture quality, but they are so small, most of us wouldn’t notice them. Both are clearly superior to everything else.

(For top performance in internet service, at a price that fits your budget, talk to us. We can help.)

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RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN OVERTURNED

We all want privacy. We have a right to it, don’t we? We want to forget our more embarrassing moments, and we want others to forget them, too.

Unfortunately, the internet’s memory is eternal. Every Facebook post we write, and every tweet we send, can come back to haunt us. Our friends, colleagues, and casual acquaintances have their own digital records of our lapses in judgement; and their audio, video, and text records can wreck our reputations. Follies we forgot about years ago can still thwart our job searches and romantic prospects.

It may be wise for us to manage our lives as if every moment outside of our homes is in the public record. After all, there is a very strong chance that it is.

But if we fail, what then? Are we doomed to relive our worst moments for the rest of our lives?

Some governments have decided to enforce digital privacy by statute. The European Union, among other entities, has embraced a ‘right to be forgotten’ rule. Under its terms, Google and other browsers will have to make certain information ‘unsearchable’ at the subject’s request. One’s embarrassing past will simply disappear from the internet. Nobody will ever find it again.

With the EU’s support, almost every expert expected other governments to adopt similar laws.

It’s not so certain now that this will be the case.

Search engines have challenged the ‘right to be forgotten’ in court. This morning, they scored one of their first major legal victories in the matter. Brazil’s highest court ruled that such laws place too heavy a burden on search engines, forcing them to become censors.

If other courts, in other states, follow suit, the ‘right to be forgotten’ may become unenforceable. The internet is international, and information can’t be confined within national boundaries.

We probably can’t rely on digital censors to protect our reputations. We may just have to assume that everything we do will become public- and act accordingly. And be careful with selfies.

(To get the internet service that works best for you, talk to us. We can help.)

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TRUMP PRESIDENCY PREDICTED BY THE SIMPSONS

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Is Donald Trump’s election to the presidency a complete surprise? It was for most journalists. It may be for you. It isn’t for Matt Groening, the brain behind The Simpsons TV series, though. He predicted a Trump presidency fifteen years ago.

In 2001, Groening and his crew produced an episode in which Bart Simpson dreams about his future as an adult. The adult Bart, who wears a ponytail, sunglasses, and a Hawaiian shirt, is the lead singer and guitarist for an unsuccessful band. The band is so desperate, the few dive bars that will hire it pay only in popcorn shrimp.

In the extremity of his financial duress, Bart seeks help from the Federal Government. He visits the White House, where his sister Lisa is “America’s first straight female president”. This implies, of course, that the first female president was… eh, never mind. While Bart and Lisa are talking in the Oval Office, Milhouse Van Houten, the Treasury Secretary, rushes in and tells Lisa that her predecessor, Donald Trump, left the country broke.

Maybe the actual Trump presidency will leave America in better fiscal condition. But we’re not making any predictions.

The Simpsons was not alone in predicting Trump’s presidency. Adam Corolla, a comedian who hosts a daily radio show and a weekly podcast, predicted it eight years ago. On his radio show, Corolla said, “He’s gonna be president in eight years. You understand that, everybody?” His co-cost, Theresa Strasser, groaned at this. Corolla repeated his assertion: “He’ll be president one day. It’ll be in our lifetime.”

Corolla’s not infallible. Strasser asked him, “Will he still have Melankia, or whatever her name is?” She obviously meant Melania, Trump’s third wife.

“Oh, no, no no”, Corolla said, “because she will have passed her 38th birthday.”

(To get the best internet connection, talk to us. We can help.)

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DNA FOR YOUR COMPUTER

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Will your next computer be built from your genetic material? Though you shouldn’t start shopping for your DNA based PC yet, organic computers may soon become the dominant means of processing data.

Most of us think of computers as mechanical, and built from silicon chips. They process data in binary form: tiny electrical charges representing ones and zeroes. Many computer scientists, though, believe that we’ve gotten nearly as much out of silicon as we ever will. It gets ever more difficult to shrink circuits further, so we may not be able to improve computers much through conventional methods.

Enter the organic computer. Leonard Adleman first demonstrated a DNA computer in 1994. He used it to encode and solve the Traveling Salesman Problem, a puzzle that had long bedeviled mathematicians: how to plot the most efficient route between 14 hypothetical cities.

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) can store massive amounts of information. It encodes data in four different sequences of molecules. We will simply call the four types C, G, A, and T. They process information through bonding between DNA pairs. Their input is single strands; their output is transformed strands.

The programming of such computers is more chemical than electronic or mechanical.

Early organic computers were difficult to work with, and unsuited for most data processing tasks. Since then, biochemists have learned how to encourage different types of organic bonds. Organic computers now can carry much more information. More recently, some computer scientists have found efficient ways to coat DNA strands with gold. From these strands, they can build much smaller circuits than they can with silicon.

With this latest development, a practical all-purpose organic computer may be on the way. We could have organic computers by 2020.

In 1994, Leonard Adleman said, “Like quantum computing, organic computing is very futuristic. Both make the point that computation doesn’t have to take place in a box that sits on our desk.”

(To get the most from your computer, you need a good internet connection. Talk to us. We can help.)

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VOTE CAREFULLY & RESPONSIBLY

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What We Won’t Do

With one of the most contentious presidential races in history underway, it’s tempting to weigh in on the matter. I offer no endorsements, though. I have a different perspective on political responsibility.

I don’t cover election campaigns here. For this blog, I address public policies– FCC ‘net neutrality’ regulations, for example– only when they’re likely to affect our industry directly. For other publications, I write short articles satirizing politicians once in a while. I try to be even-handed in this, and I’ve mocked Mr. Trump as often as Mrs. Clinton.

The Question is Why, Not How

I will not tell you whom or what to vote for, but will comment on what moves you to vote. One of my pet peeves is the ads that nag every adult to cast a ballot. “You must vote!”, you are told. “If you don’t vote, don’t complain!” There are others of that type, the upshot of which is that you are nearly a criminal if you choose to sit out an election. All of the cool kids will be voting, and you don’t want to be one of clueless dweebs mocked by the cool kids, do you?

To hell with that! The uninformed or unmotivated voter is one of the most dangerous creatures in existence. Anyone who has to be told that an election is underway should take it as a certain sign that he/she lacks the minimum mental engagement for voting responsibly– no matter how brilliant he/she may be otherwise. There is no virtue in merely casting a ballot. Those who don’t know the issues, the backgrounds of the candidates, or much about history or economics, are ripe for manipulation by demagogues and self-dealing scoundrels. Their votes are likely to contribute to the weakening of the social order- maybe even its destruction. To vote because we were shamed into it is exceedingly irresponsible.

Think for yourself. Don’t vote, or form your political philosophy, based on statements by celebrities. Avoid being swayed by ‘social proof’, the consensus of Facebook or Twitter mobs. Don’t fall for candidates merely because they seem hip, attractive, trendy, or ‘cool’. This is how we got saddled with… eh, never mind. I’m not mentioning any names here.

Preparation

Inform yourself. Vote only if you understand the candidates and the issues thoroughly. This means knowing more than what candidates say about a prepared list of topics. It means knowing their backgrounds, and knowing a fair amount about history, economics, and literature. Avoid multiculturalist or conspiratorial takes on these subjects. If your sources are Howard Zinn, Paul Krugman, Michael Savage, Noam Chomsky, Alex Jones, or- heaven help us– Amy Schumer or Samantha Bee, then you need better sources.

Nobody should enter a polling place undecided. A vote should never be determined by a coin toss. Anyone who hasn’t made up his/her mind before election day hasn’t weighed the issues properly. Impulsiveness and civic responsibility don’t mix. Activity is productive only when directed by reason, and random activity is usually useless at best, if not downright destructive. When we don’t know what we’re doing, it’s often best to do nothing.

This is especially true in the political arena.

(For the best internet connection, talk to us. We can help.)

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THE DAY THE INTERNET DIED

Is It Impossible?

The event had long been predicted. Most of us scoffed at the alarms, though, thinking they were merely the paranoid mutterings of conspiracy theorists, or cynical self-promotion by merchants hoping to profit from mass hysteria.

The internet couldn’t possibly fail. A few websites might be vulnerable to hacking and malware, but the backbone of the internet was decentralized, robust, and thoroughly secure. We could always count on it. The dreaded day of Electronic Apocalypse would never arrive.

The Fateful Day Arrives

On Friday, October 21, 2016, the alarmists were proven right. The first wave of attacks began early in the day: about 7:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. This was in the midst of “rush hour” for internet use in America, with tens of millions casually reading the news, tweeting, and reviewing their Facebook pages. Some of the most heavily trafficked web sites and internet services in the world were knocked offline, including Netflix, Reddit, Etsy, Twitter, Spotify, AirBnB, the New York Times, Sound Cloud, PayPal, and the PlayStation Network. By about 9:00 a.m. EST, the affected services were operating again. They had apparently succeeded in repelling the attacks.

The day was not over, though, and the hackers were not finished. A second wave of attacks began just before noon EST. Yet a third wave began just after 3:00 pm.

The internet outages were especially severe and prolonged on the U.S. East Coast, where most of the affected servers were located. Widespread severe outages also afflicted California, the Desert Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, some Gulf Coast states, and parts of Europe. Asia, Africa, and Latin America saw very few outages.

What Caused the Outages?

Friday’s attacks on the internet were distributed denial of service (DDoS) assaults of Dyn, an internet performance management firm that provides Domain Name System (DNS) services. Dyn described the raids as “a very sophisticated and complex attack”.

A DNS service is, in essence, an address book for the internet. Reading the web addresses we see on our browser tabs, the DNS service finds, and connects us with, the corresponding servers so we can receive the content we request.

A DDoS attack overloads a server with fake service requests, consuming its memory and bandwidth, so it has little to none left for legitimate requests. To the web surfer, it appears that requested pages are busy. The hackers prolong the outage with automatic repetition of their requests. Even innocent surfers can aggravate it by refreshing their requests from unresponsive pages.

The source of Friday’s attacks was a botnet (artificial intelligence application) called Mirai. The botnet army took control of, and then launched its attacks from, a host of lightly secured webcams, fitness monitors, location devices, DVRs, routers, and even baby monitors. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a critical point of vulnerability.

Could it Happen Again?

In the wake of Friday’s attack, many web analysts have said that we might see similar attacks disrupting the upcoming election. An Election Day internet failure, though, is unlikely to affect the presidential race much. Control of polling places and balloting is too decentralized. Internet failure could affect down-ballot races, though.

The threat of further internet outages won’t fade away soon. It could persist for months or years, even if the culprits in Friday’s attacks are caught and punished quickly. The source code for the Mirai botnet has been released to the public.

What Can You Do?

First, make sure you have a strongly-encrypted internet service, such as HughesNet. Change your passwords often for all connected devices, including webcams, DVRs, and fitness monitors. Be careful about sharing passwords or electronic devices. Every day, be careful when logging into your computer.

If you’re unsure, ask your internet service provider what it’s doing to thwart similar attacks. If there’s any good news in this episode, it’s that the FCC says providers have it in their power to prevent DDoS failures. They just need a few system upgrades. And now, of course, ISPs are aware of the need for tighter security. Friday’s outages were a loud wake-up call.

With vigilance, we can prevent the next great day of internet failure. It will require effort and close attention, but we can do it.

The enclosed map is by Level 3. It provides equipment and services for internet carriers.

For the best online security, you need a reliable connection. This is where we come in. Talk to us. We can help.

Tag: HughesNet