April 2009 Archives

From Wikipedia:

"The UK MoD reported that some of its major systems and desktops were infected. The worm has spread across administrative offices, NavyStar/N* desktops aboard various Royal Navy warships and Royal Navy submarines..."

I have to ask myself, WHY?!?!?!?!?!

Imagine you are a weapons operator on board one of her majesties finest submarines, the alarm comes over the general announcement circuit followed by "man battle stations torpedo", and at launch time there is a problem because the launch console cannot resolve the DNS query for the weapons launch console -- all because of Conficker!

This may sound like an unrealistic scenario, but I'm not so sure that it is. As a matter of fact, I think it's a very realistic scenario. Why, because you cannot stop oblivious people from clicking on things in MSN like, "Hey dude, how's tricks? Check out these pills! They helped me get lucky this weekend, ROFL LULZ!!!1!!!11!!11. Click here to check them out."

You cannot stop the same oblivious people from saving something on a USB stick from the same now infected computer and bringing that down to the boat no matter how hard you try. Why? Because these guys are gonna bring down pics of their naked girlfriends (or boyfriends) and letters from mum and anything else whathaveya.

In turn, you cannot stop the same people from finding SOME WAY to get those files on to the network. Yes, it may be a long shot that it ends up on the same VLAN or air-gapped network for weapons systems, but it only takes one nub to do it and then someone is gonna look stupid -- as if they don't already.

This follows the disturbing news from last year of the Royal Navy to up and use M$ Windows Battle Star Galactica Edition on warships (including submarines). I don't know what committee of half baked morons decided to approve something like this, but obviously there is a whole chain of people that were sleeping while this decision was made, or their input was simply ignored. Most likely it was the former.

Submarines require the utmost in quality. Some things, like people's lives and national security, require more attention than other things. I wouldn't step foot on any submarine that relies on code probably written by a bunch of .NET software developers that have not the first clue how an operating system assigns memory or how those processes are scheduled -- not to mention a base operating system from a company with wreckless security and quality nighmare of a record.

"Emergency blow!"

"Shit Captain, the BCP just blue screened!"

Godspeed to you sailors. 

 

Choosing a broadband company is not a choice to be taken lightly. Consider that for the next several years, you will most likely not change it. Why? Simple, it's cheap, unobtrusive and something you come to take for granite. However, your choice of Internet service provider is one of the most important choices you have in utilities. When it comes to gas, electric, water, etc., you have very little choice. But, there are a plethora of options when it comes to the Internet.

Every day you surf the web, talk to friends and family, purchase things you want, pay bills and send emails perhaps for business or intimate personal details. But, interestingly enough, is your privacy being kept? Does your service provider care enough about you, the customer, to balk at intrusive governments (the UK ranking at the top) or the fortune seekers looking to profit off your every day life?

Unbeknown to most users, the amount of personal information the average person generates online is of considerable value to governments and revenue seekers. For something that costs so little, the social impacts are the most of any other comparable choice, and this is perhaps even more true than any other generation that has lived before. I only say this because in the UK, the largest service providers are turning to a company that has its roots in the lowest of the low human fortune-seeking dwellers.

This is only compounded by the fact the UK has brought forth and passed legislation that enforce various social networking sites and other Internet service providers to keep your personal data for some specific amount of time. Right now that happens to be 12 months. But, where does it end? For providers like BT and Virgin Media (the UKs largest providers by far), they have decided to partner with a company known as Phorm.

Phorm has its roots in the bottom feeding world of spyware. It was formerly known as 121media, but has tried to transform itself into a legitimate company, promising millions in ad-generating revenue to ISPs worldwide. If you are a subscriber to Virgin Media, Talk Talk or BT Internet, I have one phrase for you -- switch now!

These companies are actively using Phorm technology to eavsdrop on your every day web traffic and make that information available to targeted web advertisers among other things. They attempt to gloss over these privacy-invasive acts by saying it protects you from phishing and other malicious activity on the Internet. But, this is very laughable coming from a company that invented itself on activities considered outright shocking at best. A case was even brought forth to the US FTC against 121media.

I'll save the details and let you do some reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorm

The excuse "I have nothing to hide" is frivolous and lazy at best. While it is very easy for one to use this excuse, it is a violation of your responsibility as an honest citizen of this planet to condemn and protest activities of major organizations that infringe on basic human rights. The UK government is already well underway -- indeed a primary backer of EU initiatives in this realm -- to take away your privacy and force ISPs to log all data, including emails.

Just one other thing to put this in persepective -- the Russian Federation -- one of the more "European" countries to take a giant eye roll on human rights, hasn't even gone so far as to enforce legislation of this type. And, ISPs do not engage in this behaviour, either.

The last point I have to make is with customer service. As an American, I expect the utmost in customer service. When I have a £ to spend, someone better deserve it. Someone (or company) better make me feel special. They need to make me feel like they deserve my £. I can say that most large providers I have come into contact with -- the largest offender being BT -- that they don't give one single shit about your business.

In fact, companies like BT are in a situation where they simply don't have to care about you. Case in point, in a city like London, I made an appointment for a house move two weeks in advance. On the day of the appointment, I called and asked where they were. The lady told me they had knocked on the door and no one answered. Now, I know that was complete bullshit, but they refused to do anything about it. But, what can you do? BT Opengroup owns it all. Monopoly lock, stock and two smoking barrels -- but I digress.

After I finally got my BT line in place, I called BE Unlimited, my ISP, to do the house move. They told me it would be done in five business days (because of BT Opengroup union laziness). On the fourth business day, they emailed me to let me know the local exchange work had been done -- quite the surprise, actually, when dealing with BT extended lunch engineers. But, when I got home, alas there was no Internet. I called Be, and they told me it would actually be done the next business day.

But, since I had a DSL light on my router, I knew they could do better. So, I "challenged" them to get my DSL working. After two minutes, the engineer came back on the line and told me to go ahead and switch to dynamic IP and it would work for now. Voila, excellent customer service. That's what I call bending over backward to make me feel special.

But, to my first point, Be has made it clear that they have no intentions of working with companies like Phorm. As a matter of fact, when I have asked them about it, instead of getting the usual "I don't know", I get a very affirmative, "we have no plans to work with companies like Phorm or any kind of targeted advertising."

That's very reassuring. Personally, I think Be takes their broadband seriously. I have had the best in customer service, and I always get someone that knows what they are talking about. It simply works, but they give in to the more technically advanced of us out there. I know this sounds like a paid advert for Be, but to be honest with you, I'm just a user that takes my customer service and privacy seriously.

One last note, Be told me that what I should have done in retrospect is call and ask for a SIM code when I did the BT line move. In turn, you would then call and provide them this information, and you wouldn't have to wait an extra week for your broadband. Class.