Agents Of Change

Image courtesy of Sukritim.org

In my very recent past I was employed at a hotel, Country Inns & Suites by Carlson, and we had been open a little over a year. The first year started rather slowly and during this slow period, we'd managed to acquire a hand full of loyal customers. One particular group of customers pretty much had the run of the house: They'd basically helped us open the doors to our hotel; there'd been times in the beginning where these guys would be our only guest in-house out of a total of 66 rooms.

Business started picking up and reached a point where our rooms were staying full to capacity a min of 5 nights a week, which meant that we were practically turning people away at the door. Now, what happened was that one group of regulars we had in-house started getting shuffled around in the mix of new customers that we were acquiring and our whole accounting system was being affected. Prices started changing in a dynamic fashion where some people were charged say, $60 in the beginning with a twenty to thirty dollar increase during a course of bi-weekly increments. 

When business was slow we had the payment method set with our regulars to where, everyday during the course a 24-hour period, someone from the group would stop by and pay their room rent for the day. There was no set time that the room had to be paid for just as long as it was paid in a reasonable amount of time. At times, 2 and a half days would go by before someone stopped and paid the bill. Which in the beginning when business was slow....that system worked out just fine.

Needless to say, it reached a point to where someone would say so and so came down from the room and paid for the day, or back paid for 2 days that had to be paid; however, since they were paying with cash....there wasn't a record being showed on the computer, no receipt had been printed at times, or other times it was just little technical errors made by one of the new clerks, or even a veteran clerk who'd gotten busy and forgot to post the payment. However it transpired....things of that nature were happening because normally these guys would stay overnight and had to be at work before check out time, thus they either would send someone in at lunch to pay for the room, they'd call and let us know by lunch whether or not they would stay another night and if so they'd pay when they came in after work. All of this was happening right along with shift changes, new faces, messages past from this to that person, ( some of which never were delivered to the next 2 shifts ). So the solution that we came up with worked like this: Every morning when the housekeepers checked that guest's room, if their property was still in the room while they went to work it was assumed that they'd be staying another night ( or at least coming back for their property ), thus, we were to lock their room and deactivate the key. Therefore, by all circumstances they'd have to come to the front for a key. Whatever shift that occurrence happened to transpire on, it was the staff on duty's job to settle the account then and there before a key to the room was issued.  If for some odds reason the steps didn't not go in that particular order and the guest's account got screwed in the systems, the discrepancies were deducted from whoever messed up these steps.

On face value it would seem that this would be the common way that things with any guest, regular in-house or not, were to unfold by default. However, if you've ever worked in a hotel long enough to see guest actually make this there home away from home side by side with walk-in guest constantly revolving 24 hours a day 7 days a week, I'm quite certain that you're aware that there's just too many unknown variables that arise at whelm for this system to ever be that predictable and simple. Long story short, it took well over 3 weeks for the new way of handling things finally worked smoothly. 

Cyber-Crime In My Life-time

We Are Legion.....Expect Us!

By far the most significant impact of cyber-crime that I have seen in my lifetime is hacktivism. Hactivism, like activism- where civil and human rights groups use all means possible to champion their causes, involves the use of the Internet by hackers to send out serious targeted messages to governments, to individuals and groups that try to gag the Internet, to overall bad leadership and bad policies. Most importantly, hacktivist demand the freedom of the cyberspace.  In today's society technology plays a crucial role and is used as a new cultural vehicle, and even an aggregation element or carrier to express dissent against the policies of government and private companies. In recent years and months our world has seen the abilities of individuals and collective groups to use their skills in computers against authoritarian regimes and greedy and unprincipled corporations. These individuals are known as hacktivist. The term hacktivist was first coined in 1996 by a member of the Cult of the Dead Cow hacker collective named Omega. Per Wikipedia- If hacking as illegally breaking into computers is assumed, then hacktivism could be defined as the nonviolent use of legal and/or illegal digital tools in pursuit of political ends. Groups of hacktivist are considered as uncontrollable variables in the cyber-space capable of surprising us with striking operations worthy of the most skilled cyber army.

What do I expect to change in the next 5 years?

Considering that the Internet world is profoundly changing due to the continuous acts of hacktivism, I think that hacktivist represent one of the major cyber threats. Because the attacks of these groups produce the same effects of those perpetrated by cyber criminals or governments to offend strategic objectives, cyber protests must be taken into serious consideration in cyber strategies for the defense of a nation at whole. Hactivist all over the world are coming together and they understand that the world is now facing unbridled dependence on oil, overpopulation, and climate change. These crucial sign posts are signaling the end of secure first-world capitalism as we have known it ( In my opinion ). It is clear that the established social order is facing a radical, impending, massive, long needed change, and Hacktivist are continuing to learn their systems, control and manipulate their systems, and have been, and continue to be willing to even shut their systems down when they feel there is a need. The most striking and haunting part of it all is that it doesn't matter whether it is ethical or legal, all that matters in the eyes and minds of the hacktivist is that they feel there is a need to carry out assaults on systems. According to a study published by Verizon, Data Breach Investigations Report, hacktivist stole almost twice as many records as ordinary cyber-crime from organizations and government agencies in the last year. ( Here I must add that not anywhere in our textbook's section on cyber-crime did I notice reference being made of hacktivist/hacktivism; however, needless to say: To tamper with, destroy, or otherwise manipulate someones computer system without his/her express consent is considered an illegal act. ) 

What are the steps I take to protect myself?

1. Limit the amount of personal information that I give out to anyone on the web
2. Use a unique and strong password mixing alphabets, numbers and symbols ( not using the same password across multiple sites )
3. Change my passwords online regularly
4. Keep updated security software and system updates
5. Don't click on unknown URL's nor open attachments in anonymous or suspicious emails

On a larger scale, I'm personally one of those who believes in the freedom of the Internet but on a somewhat different level than a hacktivist. I feel that people should have the freedom to carry on and conduct their activities in cyber-space safe and secure from attacks of all sorts and therefore I've made ethical hacking/penetration testing my career path. I'm one of the guys who believe people should make it a mandatory obligation to test their computer systems with fire and ice, hell and snow....before the bad guys do.

Convergence

Image courtesy of  Outr.Net, Inc

Convergence

This just so happened to be another one of those that I had to think long and hard upon. What device would I choose, if I could have just one device that would be sufficient enough to marry and manage all the activities that I engage in on a daily basis? My personal use involving any of the devices we've discussed thus far in this class can be epitomized by activities involving learning to write code, learning to build web pages, learning to use security tools via running them against vulnerable and not so vulnerable virtual machines, researching vulnerabilities and exploits, pursuing an education, networking via social networking sites, making and promoting music via the internet. Granted, these are in no respective order. 

Now. When tablet pc's hit the market after the smartest freaking phones were already developed, I must admit that I didn't get them then and I don't get them now ( convergence wise ). I think that they are excellent gadgets but....that's as far as it goes. My reasoning behind this lies in the fact that on the one hand there's my laptop and on the other there's my smart phone. The smart phone alone can practically do 50% of everything that the tablet pc brought to the market. As for the other 50% that the smartphone can't do that the tablet pc can, my laptop handles with ease and then some....leaving the tablet pc lagging behind while my smartphone my laptop and I ease on down the yellow brick road, so to speak.

I see no need for another device that kinda just sits in the middle taking up space and not to mention, more of my money and bandwidth, mind you. Neither of which I have a lot of to spare these days.

So...if I could choose only one I would definitely beyond a shadow of a doubt choose my laptop.

My Computer System...Well...one of them!

My desktop

The computer that I'm currently using, the one that I spend a great majority of my time on, is a Dell Latitude D610. The operating system that's running on this computer is Ubuntu, which is a version of Linux. More precisely, the version of Ubuntu that I'm running is Backtrack 5R2. Backtrack is a penetration testing distribution. If you're not familiar with Backtrack you can read more about what it is and does here at this link. http://www.backtrack-linux.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Of the things that my computer/OS does well, that is of primary and utmost importance to me, is supply me with an abundance of security tools to be at my disposal with the click of a button or the issuance of a command. This allows me to spend my time more productively while alleviating me from the tedious task of having to STFW ( Search The Freaking Web ) all day for a specific tool to download to cover a particular area of study in order to complete the task at hand. However....

There are challenges that come with having such a convenience.  One of my greatest challenges to date has been trying to find ways to compensate not having the Microsoft Office Suite nor the ability to access the schools V.D.I.- two things that are somewhat necessities to complete a lot of the course work that we're assigned. Sure there are open-source alternatives to the MS Office Suite like Open Office, which would be a sufficient alternative in a work environment but in a class environment where the instructor explicitly states to use MS, or an assignment that requires one to do an assignment over MS Word or MS Excel, it in turn renders Open Office insufficient. As stated previously, in such cases where one normally has the option to access the schools V.D.I., this also becomes a problem because Backtrack doesn't support the exact virtual client needed for the job. In short, in the functionality and support are very limited in cases like the above scenario. This also becomes the case when I try using this computer for recreational task. Due to the nature of the operating system's purpose, recreation just wasn't something the designers had in mind when they built it. 

One area of my computer that needs to be upgraded is my CD ROM drive. At this point it is entirely impossible for me to play CD/DVD's of any type in my computer. I'm not quite sure what's going on technically with the drive. What I am sure about is that the drive worked perfectly fine before I wiped my Windows XP installation completely and did the full install of Backtrack. After the Backtrack installation, practically everything else worked but the CD ROM drive. Actually, if anyone has suggestions or the technical know how to fix this problem I'd be honored to put this advice into execution mode. :)

Nanotechnology: My cell phone

Image is courtesy of mobile88.com

An item in my current life that could be made new with nanotechnology is my cell phone. The aspect of my cell phone that I'd certainly love to see innovated on more are the wireless capabilities that nanotechnology could extend upon. With nanotechnology cell phones and transceiver signals could be improved, given today's conventional frequencies, potentially allowing phones to work where they aren't able to today at much higher frequencies. 

Improvements upon this technology could potentially put an end to the problems we face with roaming or just flat out not being able to find a signal.

Of course this would be possible through the implementation of graphene integrated circuits replacing the normal circuitry within our phones.

My Favorite Computer Program

( Image courtesy of kasunc.blogspot.com )

Curiosity has its own reason
for existing...It is enough if
one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery everyday.                                 

" Albert Einstein "

I have a couple of computers within my reach and each of them have different, as well as multiple operating systems. My personal favorite, a notebook/laptop that I do the majority of my work and studying on is a Dell Latitude D610. My operating system is BT Linux 3.2.6/Ubuntu Release 10.04 (Lucid). 

My favorite program that I have on my computer is VMware Player. When I first started tinkering around with different operating systems, I had a very bad habit of messing up systems by way of bricking hard drives ( basically wiping my computers clean of their operating systems ). Finally after what seemed like never-ending headaches and frustration, I started experimenting with trying out new software on virtual machines. 

I've used and also have Virtual Box installed on my laptop but my favorite program to use when running virtual machines is VMware Player. I find that with VMware, whenever a new release of an operating system comes out that I want to test drive, I just install the release onto my virtual machine and run it in a live environment. This way, I don't have to worry about screwing up anything on my main operating system. Here are some of the features VMware Player provides:

• It can run on Windows XP, Windows 7, Ubuntu 9.10+ and RHEL 5 at the same time. Or even at the same time in separate windows!
• It is user-friendly and easy to install. It also makes the process of installing Windows and Linux OS's easier than if you were to install these OS's directly onto your hard drive.
• One can test new operating systems and safely try new software in an isolated environment on your PC.

Two things that I'd like this program to improve on is the ability to effortlessly network wireless and the ability to share and save files between one's actual operating system and the virtual machine. That's one aspect of the VMware Player that I feel needs to be a bit more user-friendlier.

My Browser

The browser that works best for me is Firefox by Mozilla. http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/ I choose Firefox as my choice of browser mainly because I find it to be more user-friendlier than some of the other browsers that I periodically surf the web on. However, I think it boils down to what exactly it is that one is trying to get accomplished when it comes to choosing a browser.

For instance, Firefox is more user-friendlier to me because when I'd first started blogging and learning HTML I was introduced to a Firefox plug-in called Web Developer-which allows one to, in my own words, place all of the elements of a web page under the microscope and examine the code the page was written in. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/web-developer/.  ( Not to say that there isn't other ways of doing this nor other browsers that have the same functionality included. ) As a result of learning and blogging, all the while with Firefox being the browser that I was using at this time, naturally I learned my way around the browser more until familiarity with it kind of just made it my comfortable home. Once I'd discovered the capability to sync my browsing experience across multiple computers that pretty much sealed the deal. I was able to take my browser experience with me in a way. However.... 

I learned rather quickly that there was no such thing as one browser fits all. Or put in another way; there was no such thing as one browser being fitting for all the things that I needed to get done while on the Internet. Just to cite a few examples: I quickly found out that a lot of bank and government owned websites will not allow one to access the content on their sites while using Firefox. Firefox being a product of an open-source project has the downside of not holding up too well to security standards in many places around the Internet. Especially inside of  businesses and governments work environments. Thus, even if I was indeed able to access the site,  some of the site's full functionality could not be supported with the Firefox browser.

Of the top 3 browsers most commonly known to the average web surfer- Chrome, Firefox, and IE- within the past year or so researches have ranked Chrome to be the most secure browser to use while surfing the web. ( Granted, a lot of this research doesn't include the Safari browser. ) So if being secure is your utmost concern when choosing a browser then Chrome may be your choice. I have an add-on called NO SCRIPT for Firefox which up to this point has kept me secure thus far in my browsing experiences. In short, here's what No Script offers the user : The NoScript Firefox extension provides extra protection for Firefox, Seamonkey and other mozilla-based browsers: this free, open source add-on allows JavaScriptJavaScriptJavaScriptJavaScript , FlashFlashFlashFlash and other plugins to be executed only by trusted web sites of your choice (e.g. your online bank).

NoScript also provides the most powerful anti-XSSanti-XSSanti-XSSanti-XSS and anti-Clickjackinganti-Clickjackinganti-Clickjackinganti-Clickjacking protection ever available in a browser. Source : http://noscript.net/ ( Note: I stated that No Script has kept me secure; The No Script add-on doesn't actually hold an impeccable reputation as far as security is concerned overall. These are my personal choices. ) For my privacy needs I've installed an add-on called Proxy Tool which comes in handy when one wants to surf the web anonymously without installing an entire proxy browser like TOR for example.

I'm not all the way locked into a monogamous relationship with Firefox. On my laptop I have Chrome installed right alongside Firefox. When I'm in the need for speed I log into my surfing sessions with Chrome. On my desktop I have Chrome and Internet Explorer installed alongside Firefox. Even though I've noticed that some people are just more comfortable behind one browser than the other, I'd never until recently thought about why this is so. People who weren't using Firefox until I introduced them to it stated that they didn't know it existed; only to resort back to IE after trying Firefox. They all said that they'd rather stick to what they're already familiar with. In other words, taking a if it's not broke don't try to fix it stance. Who can argue with that?

The Pace Of Technological Change

In My Lifetime: The pace of technological change

In my lifetime I have been fortunate enough to observe and experience the unsurpassed evolution of information technology. Among all of the other disciplines that I''ve had the glory to see evolve in my lifetime, not a single one of them has managed to capture my attention and imagination to the point of motivating me to choose the subject of information technology to study in my academic career, and also  be the field in which I've chosen to commit my working life to.

I'll start with video games. Video games were probably the earliest link to info tech that fascinated and sparked my interest in the field. When I was still in grade school, somewhere between the grades 1-2, one of my cousins owned a video game system called ColecoVision. http://pspslimhacks.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/colecovision-psp.jpg The characters who replicated humans in those games were stick figures. Automobiles were represented as rectangular blocks with little circles attached for the wheels and tires. A simple tennis match was represented by nothing more than two lines that raced to strike a single dot back and forth on a makeshift court. Then....along came the Atari system. http://legacyfuture.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/atari2600.jpg Then the Nintendo system was born. Now by the time Nintendo was introduced technology had become so advance that one could actually take their video game system along with them practically anywhere they went and still be able to play their games on the spot by way of a mobile gaming console called the Gameboy. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/Nintendo_Gameboy.jpg/175px-Nintendo_Gameboy.jpg Next came the Sega system, the Playstation, and the now all so infamous X-Box. What's striking to me throughout the introduction of these new developments is not only the mobility aspect that has been implemented within the gaming culture but also the ability for one to play these games " live ". All of this coupled with the pace in which these developments have been implemented. One can now actually sit in the comfort of their living room or bedroom in the United States and play multiple opponents who sit in different parts of the world. In real time!!! I think it would also be worthy to note at this point that these video gaming systems and devices also implemented into their technology the communication factor. Thus, not only are we able to play games with one another, we also have the option to socialize all at the same time. Be it through voice communication or instant text messaging. A mighty long way from the stick figures that we encountered in the ColecoVision era. http://www.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,2029221,00.html

Communication? Growing up in my household I've seen the telephone go from a huge machine where one would stick their fingers into circles  that had to be turned one at a time to get a number dialed. Then came the push button phone, the cordless, the car phone, and now the all so infamous smart phone. And just like the advancements in video game technology, the advancements in the phone realm of technology has introduced the ability to talk, message, play games, video conference, and interact with the Internet network all from the palm of your hand. 

In my lifetime....

I've experienced the days when in order to buy music and listen to music one would have to play that music in a stereo cassette player of some sort. Stop. Pause. Play. Fast-Forward. Rewind. ( If you were one of the lucky ones you also had the ability to Record. ) And that was it. That was the world of music. Next there was the CD. And then.....there was Napster! Here I use Napster as the epitome to represent all that has become of how we obtain and listen to our music since the Napster Revolution was born. It wouldn't hurt to mention while we're on the advancement of technology in music that today it is now possible, probable, and very economical for musical artist to download applications/programs onto their phones/desktops/laptops and easily produce their own quality recordings. In some cases making themselves " one man bands ". ( These advancements are equally impressive in the area of  movies/cinema. May the participants be movie watchers, directors, actors, or screen writer's ). 

Now. In keeping with the pace at which technology has evolved, I have to point out that I'm speaking from a timeline of 35 years. So giving the question of where do I see technology in the next one year from our current state, I'm inclined to answer that I can definitely see us as a society having the option at our disposal to get all of our grocery shopping done online with the potential of having them delivered directly to our doorstep; as opposed to having them wheeled out to the our cars in the parking lot in an actual physical cart. (Note: I'm aware that this is already possible in some places; I'm visioning it being a more common place option in our everyday lives for everyone.) The next 5 years? Given that the self-driven cars are well under way to being developed, I can definitely see busy students and professionals with children and not a lot of time on their hands having the option to program their self driven cars to pick their kids up from school while they themselves tend to other demanding duties.