Blackhacker

Coming off a disaterious IPO, Vonage must now defend itself in a Patent suit from Verizon.

This seems to jive with what Bobby X, has talked about in is latest column, where he feels that the whole Net neutrality debate, at least from the Telecoms POV is all about VOIP. I would tend to agree, that for the moment, the Telecoms, appose Net Neutrality because they they want to protect their businesses from these VOIP upstarts, and the success of VOIP really depends on the amount and quality of consistent bandwidth. I also believe that if not stopped hear the Telecoms won’t stop. The next logical service to hijack would be VOD.

PS:
That Bobby X link also has his thoughts on Bill Gates stepping down from duties at Microsoft. A good read for anyone who wishes to understand the inner working of Microsoft.

Netcraft: PayPal Security Flaw allows Identity Theft
A security flaw in the PayPal web site is being actively exploited by fraudsters to steal credit card numbers and other personal information belonging to PayPal users. The issue was reported to Netcraft today via our anti-phishing toolbar.

The scam works quite convincingly, by tricking users into accessing a URL hosted on the genuine PayPal web site. The URL uses SSL to encrypt information transmitted to and from the site, and a valid 256-bit SSL certificate is presented to confirm that the site does indeed belong to PayPal; however, some of the content on the page has been modified by the fraudsters via a cross-site scripting technique (XSS).

Paypal has fixed the flaw that allowed the exploit. This type of exploit is called a Cross-Site Scripting(XSS) attack. The link will lead you to a very technical page which just means that, a web application is taking user information without validating and URL decoding the input. If it is not properly validated and decoded it could be malicious. The app then uses the potentially malicious data to build another web page. A fraudster would then find someway to trick you into accessing this new page. Usually using a technique called phishing, sending a fraudulent email made to appear that it is coming from a site that you normally do business with, like Paypal, or a bank. The fraudster could could then trick your web browser to redirecting you to his own site(if you are no paying attention), usually designed to look like the site you wanted to access. Where you would enter user name, password, or any other personal info he can trick you into entering.

Its my Birthday again. Mid-Life Crisis is in Full effect. My wife got me the Brain Age game. It says my brain age is 56 !!!

I think its time to by a Corvette.

Update: Apparently Brain Age is right. I had to correct this post 3 time for stupid typos.

What? They are Back
When? 6/27.
Who?

Dap: Lynn D Johnson

This weeks pulpit Bob Cringely, thinks that he’s solved the technical & fiscal challenges of IPTV. His idea is for each of the local PBS stations get a server at one of their local broadband ISPs and deliver content from there:

PBS | I, Cringely . June 8, 2006 - Local Heroes
Though you might not always know it from reading this column, PBS is a television network. And as a TV network, PBS is facing the same sort of technical challenges as its more commercial competitors. At this moment, that includes deciding how to play in the emerging world of digital downloads and IPTV. But there is an aspect of this that most people don’t think about, and that’s the difference between national and local strategies, between how the network might want to run IPTV versus how local station managers see the opportunity. Up until now, IPTV has seemed to appeal more to the network than to its affiliates, but that’s just because people aren’t thinking clearly. IPTV might, in fact, lead to a renaissance in local television.

Like the title of the post says, their is only one problem. The same technical model will work without the PBS affiliates. Assuming broadband companies can get the servers to the local data centers, they could approach content providers directly to get the content on the local servers. PBS would be relegated to another content provider. Or if you are cable company pirate content that that TV producers have to send you anyway.

I am sure that the IPS have already thought of this, which is why they want to kill any government enforced net neutrality, they wish to be the center of the content distrobution universe. I would even agree as long as communication between any two nodes on a subnet, not just content providers who rent boxes in the data center, are given the benefit of greater bandwidth that exist within the ISP intranet. But of course we all no that is not what they want to do, but I digress.

I think the BEST solution would be an enhanced bittorrent solution where the clients can prioritize its peers based on what network they are on. The TV producers would simply put a server, on each segment of each the ISPs network voila instant TV distribution. ISP’s could rent the boxes. TV producers sell ads, and we the public watch for FREE, or at least for a LOT less that what we pay for cable and satellite these days. unfortunately this leaves PBS stations out in the cold just like all of the local affiliates, not totally. They would not have to run entire stations, just produce content a to be delivered to the various ISPs.

Listen to this. Apparently people over 40 can’t hear this, do to a naturally occurring hearing loss. Somebody put that into a ring tone. So kids can sneak around with cell phones in school with out get caught. Check this at the NYTimes (registration required).

BetaNews | Court Rules Net Wiretapping Legal
A U.S. appeals court upheld the government’s authority to force ISPs to give access to their networks for surveillance purposes, rejecting on Friday a petition to overturn a decision that mandated their compliance with federal wiretapping laws.

Important but insignificant unless they have a way to beat asymmetric encryption. If you are a VOIP user, checkout ZFONE.

From the AP
Stepping into a research area marked by controversy and fraud, Harvard University scientists said Tuesday they are trying to clone human embryos to create stem cells they hope can be used one day to help conquer a host of diseases.

“We are convinced that work with embryonic stem cells holds enormous promise,” said Harvard provost Dr. Steven Hyman.

If you’ve been reading me for a while you might have gleaned that my politics is pretty Blue State. This is one of those issues where they become more Red State. Let’s understand what is happening. An embryo, is produced for the sole purpose of harvesting stem cells, a process that destroys it. Before you resign me to the wingnut corner yet. I don’t believe that an embryo is a person, any more than an acorn is an oak tree, but it could be. Or I should say that it will be if allowed to be. And exactly when an acorn becomes a tree is just as fuzzy as the point in time when an embryo becomes a person. So fuzzy that I choose to ere on the side of caution.

And don’t forget that improving cloning of this type also advances the science of Reproductive Cloning, which is universally thought to be a bad idea. In fact once an embryo is produced what is left to do accept to put it in a womb? And if you don’t think that once the procedure has perfected that some Crack Pot won’t try put one in a woman I got a bridge to sell you. Lets face it we are not just standing on a cliff here, we are on the event horizon of a black hole, once we step forward there will be no turning back. Human kind does NOT have the will to not exploit this technology to produce life.

In ‘98 there was a show on the SciFi Channel called “Welcome to Paradox.” It only aired for one season but it was great show. It was an anthology of SciFi stories that all took place in the futuristic city of Betaville. Anyway one episode called “The Extra” envisioned a world where people could have clones of themselves for slave labor, and donors of body parts. As long as you had “extras” you could live forever. That reality is far removed from what we are talking about today, but not out of the realm possibility. Not even out of the realm of probability. After all, anything we can imagine we will do. Or at least try. That is just the way we are. And Then what? What will do once we have created life?

The link of above points you to Genesis 11:6. But verses 1-9 are all really worth considering. It tells the story of the Tower of Babel. Here Man had decided to build a Tower to reach in to the Heavens. And they would spread across the Earth to “Make A Name for themselves.” Man was not just creating a tower. They were starting an empire. The men building this Tower wished to control the world. God looking down asked himself, “what next? These guys are liable to do ANYTHING.” SO he put a stop to it.

Before we continue this action, we need to ask ourselves, “what next?” We need to be honest with ourselves. IS the progress of Science and Medicine worth it if it brings civilization one step closer to Betaville?

Google Browser Sync
This is a tool that I have wanted since I FIRST started surfing the World Wide Web. Had I been a better PC hacker I probably would have built it myself. Why this feature has slipped by browser makers for SOOOOOO many years is beyond me.

UPDATE
I spoke to soon on this one. The syncing takes TOOO long. I have never completed a syncing successfully. Just hit the cancel button. Google does warn you about this. Most Google betas are good enough for most people to use. This one is not.

House rejects Net neutrality rules | Tech News on ZDNet
By a 269-152 vote that fell largely along party lines, the House Republican leadership mustered enough votes to reject a Democrat-backed amendment that would have enshrined stiff Net neutrality regulations into federal law and prevented broadband providers from treating some Internet sites differently from others.

The Bill in question is Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006(CORE) it must now go to the Senate. I assume that it will first be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee And from there to the floor. Contact the members of the committee, especially if you are one of their constituents. Let them know you want fairness preserved and protected on the Internet.

Also Check here to see your Congressmen voted.