Pay for Privacy

I read an article today about how a man's entire digital life was ruined in the space of an hour. He was hacked by some so called 'ethical' hackers who were making a point about different companies lax security procedures, namely apple and amazon. After reading it I went to my most important and connected online accounts and went direct to their security pages. There I was looking for security and privacy options that I could turn on.

First I enabled two-step verification for my email account. This means when I log on to a computer I have not used before I must type in a 6 digit code that is sent to my mobile before I can log in. The same procedure is also used when I forget my password. Extra hassle, yes. Peace of mind, more so.

However, certain companies only offered the best privacy and security settings for premium members.

Why should I have to pay for security? Surely it is in the companies' best interest to offer me their most secure of security features and their most powerful privacy tools for free? The paid extras should be things like more space, or the ability to upload lager files. I should not have to pay to stop hackers from accessing my files.

On Box.com, for example, if I wish to have encrypted storage I need to pay for an enterprise account. Why? Why should I have to pay for my files which I upload to their servers to be encrypted? Why should I have to pay for them to be encrypted if I transfer them to another person?

I just received an email from Prezi - a service I haven't used in years. It was advertising their premium account. Their biggest feature was the ability to make Prezis private. I should have that feature for free. I should not have to pay for it.

Sure, companies have more at stake if you are paying for their services, so perhaps they feel the security of paying customers is more important. Bull-shit!

I wouldn't expect NatWest to say to me, "Good afternoon, sir. Did you know for only £20 a month NatWest won't put a poster up with your bank account details? For an extra £5 a week you also have the option of having a PIN. Even better if you pay us just £2 a day we will let you have a strong password on your online banking account."

It just wouldn't happen. But, a service I use to store backups of my school work and writing wants me to pay for security. I know that a hacker isn't going to personally target my school work, but that doesn't mean I won't be collateral damage to one of these 'ethical' hackers. What if I needed the backup of my work, but Box was targeted by LulzSec (I think they have disbanded, though) or Anonymous? What if my account was chosen at random to be the the account they decided to showcase the security holes with? Am I expected to sit back and think, 'if only I'd paid premium prices'?

It is utter stupidity that companies would even consider charging for security. In a world that is ever more online it is damn time that company execs got their heads out of the clouds and into cloud security ... for free.

Are you sure?

Warning this post contains strong language.

So you're here to read another rant by me. Are you sure? Yes. Ah good. Shall we continue? Are you sure? OK, let's go. There is strong language, do you wish to continue? Yes. Are you sure?

One thing that irks me above all other stupid things that technology does is when it asks me if I'm sure.

For instance, I've played a game on the computer and now I want to get off it. So, I save my game. Then I quit to the menu. Are you sure you want to quit to the menu? Well, yes, I did just click on that button. Then on the menu I click Quit Game. Are you sure you want to quit the game? Yes, yes I do - why else would I have clicked the quit button?

OK, so it is making sure I didn't accidentally click on the button. However, to quit to the menu required me to:

1. Stop playing
2. Navigate my mouse to the menu button
3. Click the menu button
4. Navigate the mouse to the save button
5. Save my game
6. Navigate to the quit to menu button
7. click the quit to menu button

Now, I would say that I'm pretty damn determined that I want to quit to the menu. Otherwise I may not have done step 1. It's not like the game has its buttons really close. They are nicely spread out so that any imbecile could click on the button they wish without missing and hitting the wrong one.

Then once I've quit I am faced with a full screen menu that contains 4 buttons on it. One button in the top right corner is the settings button. It's pretty far from the other buttons. The two in the middle are New Game and Load Game. The exit button is right at the bottom. Far, far away from any other button. So why do you insist on asking if I am really sure I want to do what I'm pretty obviously sure I want to do?

Ghost in the Wires

Hi,

I recently finished Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick.

Ghost in the Wires cover

The book is an autobiographical account of Mitnick's 'adventures as the world's most wanted hacker'. He starts out by explaining his love for magic and deception as a young child, including a description of how he managed to get free bus rides around town.

Mitnick then describes his rise to notoriety in a thrilling, and suspenseful, tone that leads to numerous close shaves and hair-raising near encounters with the FBI.

Throughout the book Mitnick (and co-author, William Simon) uses an engaging writing style that never fails to keep you on the edge of your seat. I'm not normally a reader of any form of biography, but this is most definitely the exception. I mean, it has a helicopter chase in it. How many autobiographies have helicopter chases in?

I got this book for Christmas and started reading it, but a load of stuff happened that prevented me from being able to read it and it found its way to the bottom of the pile. After I found it again, I managed to finish reading it in less than 2 weeks (and I'm not the fastest reader).

The book contains details of many of the people he met in his hacking career (and all of their aliases) and how he worked with them, against them or how he was betrayed by them. Along with these people, he also showed how a strong family was vital for him. His mum and gram proved to be his backbone - his constant throughout his adventures.

As a computer geek myself, I thoroughly enjoyed the sections where the technical aspects of his exploits were explained and some of the codes shown. This really added a sense of wonder to his abilities and made the section about Novell NetWare even more enjoyable. This section was of extra interest as it is the system my college uses.

The book starts drawing to an end with his arrest and the Free Kevin protests that kept him going whilst inside. The end isn't quite as engaging as the middle, but that is to be expected with any book. The final chapter briefly details his change from the world's most wanted hacker to the world's best hacker with his own (legal) security firm, Mitnick Security.

Overall, it is the best non-fiction book I have ever read, and pretty close to my favourite book of all time.

Below is an interview (50 minutes) with Kevin Mitnick from Authors@Google:

Microsoft

Warning this post contains some strong language.

One thing that really irks me is when people say things like 'that's Windows for you.' If anyone says that to you they are one of the following: 1. A liar 2. A mac user 3. A Linux/ubuntu user 4. Really bad with computers 5. All/Combination of the above I use Windows 7, I used to use Vista and still use XP at school. The majority of issues I encounter are my own (or the school's) fault. For example I had a blue-screen last year. Now, I look online for solutions to this problem and encounter post after post of window-hating, mac-loving idiots. Every single one of them said that I should by a Mac, or windows is for losers. Piss off! In the end I realised that sometimes shit happens. And sometimes it is me who did the shit (could be worded better). I had opened too many application and was doing too much at a time. I was downloading a large file of the internet, watching a HD video on YouTube, rendering a film and burning it to DVD and installing 2 applications. I had iTunes playing music and Tweet deck overloaded with tweets about the riots. It was not Microsoft's sole fault that my computer blue-screened. It was my fault for not considering what my machine could handle. Another issue people have is with networking Windows machines. I can do it with little hassle. Why? Because I know how and took the time to learn. Sometimes the moment something goes wrong they look for someone to blame rather than a solution. Why? Because they're idiots. Don't try and connect an XP machine to a windows 7 machine with a home-group and then blame Microsoft for not allowing compatibility. If every new feature had to be compatible with every other old feature nothing new would ever be made. Stop being a dick and accept you've got an out-dated OS and if you want to use modern features you need to upgrade. Then there are those people who claim Apple makes the best hardware, the best software and sun shines out of its bloody backside. They are wrong. Case in point: iTunes. When I run iTunes, almost 60% of my processing power is used and I am limited to browsing the web or typing stuff. I claimed at the start of this rant that people shouldn't blame companies for every fault, but I am aware that sometimes the blame does lie in shoddy coding. Apple prioritised Apple customers (as you would expect, nothing wrong there) and allowed Windows users to suffer. I don't blame them, they are right with there priorities, but they aren't Gods. They don't get everything right.