When our founding fathers set up our government, they purposely chose to make 3 separate branches: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. Even then, they further separated the divisions. For example, they gave us the house and senate.
The reason they did this was to avoid any possibility of corruption leading to a totalitarian state. Assuming somebody managed to corrupt and control the house, they’d still have to worry about the senate and the president. If we ever reelected a corrupt president, he’d still have the house and senate to contend with. The system works, for the most part.
That’s how the current ID system works. Your state manages your drivers license, the social security administration handles your SSN, the Government handles your passport, the state handles your criminal record, and the transportation security administration does something – supposedly. Each piece of your identity has its own department.
A couple of weeks ago I blogged about the problems with RealID and why it’s a bad idea.The goal of RealID is to combine all of these into one magical ID card. One license that will serve as your license, ID, passport, and social security card, as well as storing all kinds of information about you.
Many people are in favor of this simply because it will lighten their wallets and purses – but that’s where the benefits stop.
Earlier today I read an ARS Technica article that applied Metcalfe’s law to the RealID database. If you’re not familiar with it, Metcalfe’s law simply states that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users in the system. You’ve probably seen it applied to cell phone companies, the internet in general, or even websites like MySpace or Facebook. Put simply, it says that the more users you have, the more valuable you are.
In this case though we’re not talking about value in the sense of billion dollar Facebook price tags, we’re talking about value in the sense of what can be done with access to the network.
If you don’t believe me, go read the article and look at the example they give – an example that’s already happened with the old system, that would be much easier under the new one.
Think about it. It only takes 1 bad apple with access to the RealID database to cause a lot of harm. Currently, an attacker or corrupt employee would need to access multiple state and federal agencies to gather all this information about you. When RealID goes into effect, he’ll be able to get it all with one login.
This is a scary thought, especially if you think of all the people who could potentially have access to the network. We’re talking 7-11 clerks who scan your ID every time you buy alcohol and casino security who scan your ID for admittance (not to mention the super secret check for warrants program.. that’s another topic.)
We’re also potentially talking about airport security, border security, police officers, bankers, employers, insurance agents, and even car dealerships who copy your license before a test drive. All of these people would have access to your social security information, criminal record, medical record, financial record, and if you have issues with this and you need financial records, you can ask for a paystub from your employer for this purpose.
Is this what we want? Privacy and Security are NOT a zero sum game. Anybody who continues to take this approach is destined for failure. Remember Franklin’s quote “Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither…” I could fill up many pages about this, but that’s another topic. (If you’re interested though, check out a post I did on the demoxi blog.)
For now, I urge you to contact your state and ask them to reject RealID like Montana and Maine have already done.
For the last 2 days I’ve been trying to make a copy of the DVD the funeral home put together of pictures of my grandfather. My Aunt has a DVR hooked up to her TV that can burn DVDs, but that would have required watching and recording the DVD, then making copies. That seemed like a long process.
Realizing that my new iMac had a superdrive in it, I thought it had to be possible to copy DVDs on the mac. Turns out, it’s very simple.
Forget about all that software out there – It all works, but none of it is required. Here’s how you copy a DVD on Leopard:
Open up the finder and go to your utilities folder (is it a folder or directory on a mac?)
Put the DVD in and wait for it to load. The DVD player will launch, close it and go back to the disk utility screen
Here, you’ll see your hard drive and your DVD drive on the left hand side. Click on the DVD.
Now, up at the top you’ll see a New Image icon. Use that to make a new image
When the options come up, you’ll want to select a name for the DVD. Then, choose DVD/CD Master for the image format, and none for encryption.
Save it somewhere. Make sure you have enough space on whatever drive you’re saving. Some DVDs can get close to 2 gigs in size
After it finishes saving (this will take a while) you’ll see your image appear in the left hand side underneath all your disk drives. It should end in .cdr
Click on your image, then click the Burn icon at the top and put in a blank DVD-R
That’s it! Follow the simple instructions in that dialog box and you’ve created a copy – without paying $99 for Roxio or Toast or Easy DVD Copy.
Whenever somebody talks about a website’s traffic, they always seem to mention page views. A page view is just that, a count of every web page that’s loaded.
For a long time now, many of us in the industry have said that pageviews aren’t really an accurate metric of anything. Let’s look at an example. To send an email on MySpace, I generate 7 pageviews. The home page, the page it takes me to after I login, then my home page, my inbox, the compose mail screen, the are you sure screen, and then thank you screen. The same action on Gmail takes 2 pageviews. Since they’re using AJAX on the back end, the page never really reloads – the content just changes.
Ok, now that everybody understands pageviews, why do they matter? The reason they matter is that ad companies often pay by the impression. An impression is counted every time their ad is loaded. So by designing a process to take 7 pageviews instead of 2, MySpace can show 7 ads as opposed to the 2 ads that Gmail shows. The trend in web2.0 lately seems to be one of adding steps into applications for the sole purpose of creating more ad impressions.
How much more can one stand to profit by doing this? As it turns out, a lot! Drew Curtis of Fark.com just ran a small experiment yesterday in which he set Fark’s homepage to automatically refresh every 10 minutes. The results?
Drew saw his pageviews increase by over 38% That’s a lot more pageviews – over 865,000 to be exact. Even at a very low advertising rate of $.50 CPM (cost per thousand impressions) that’s still an extra $433 daily profit for Drew. Drew now understands why sites like CNN do an auto refresh: Once you turn it on, you can’t really turn it off. How do you explain to executives that you made a change that lowered your earnings by 30%?
Happy Birthday Wikipedia. January 15th, 2001 was when it launched. That’s right, the open source encyclopedia turns 7 today. Can you believe it’s been 7 years already? Man I feel so old.
It’s been 7 years, and we what have we got to show for it?
If you ever look at political ads during a presidential election, you’ll find they give you thousands of reasons NOT to vote for somebody, but no reasons why you should actually vote for somebody.
I know that most people are going to blindly vote by party, or vote based on the nationality of one’s wife, their middle name, religious views, gender, skin color, spelling of the world “flak jacket,” or some other stupid reason that has nothing to do with how well they run the country – that’s why the primary election actually matters a lot more than the final presidential election. With Michigan’s primary rapidly approaching, I wanted to talk about the weaknesses I see in each candidate.
I know, I know, I should concentrate on strengths, but I feel that the weaknesses are what can get us in the most trouble. Elections always remind me of that scene from the 3 stooges where Curly holds out his fingers and tells Moe to “pick 2” – then pokes Moe in the eyes with the 2 fingers that he picked. Picking candidates works along the same lines.
So let’s get started:
John McCain
His political ads make him look good, and I like the fact that he’s all for cutting spending – but that’s all I like. McCain thinks that Bush’s “surge” is working and wants to commit more troops to Iraq. If there’s anything we don’t need, that’s it. McCain also favors social security for illegal immigrants. We’re already worrying about whether or not that money will be there when I’m an old man, allowing more people to apply (who haven’t paid into it) won’t solve that situation.
In addition, McCain’s proposed bills as senator have shown that he lacks even a basic understanding of the internet. Such proposals include a public list of sex offender email addresses and IM handles (I don’t see any possible misuse here) as well as a bill requiring all internet service providers to scan emails and forward anything that could be harmful to children to the government – or face a huge fine. That’s right, McCain favors reading your email.
Rudy Giuliani
I don’t even know how this guy got to be a candidate. Actually, yes I do – America’s obsession with 9/11. It doesn’t matter what this guy says or does, all people seem to do is say “OMG, 9/11” and pledge their support for him. Before 9/11, all of New York hated this guy. Even his own kids hate him. I’m not sure about you, but something doesn’t sound right if his own kids won’t even vote for him for president. That’s all it took to lose my vote. Rudy is also trying to create a national database of illegal immigrants. Given our govt’s proven inability with lists of anything, we don’t need more databases. He also says we need a long term commitment to focus on achieving “victory” in Iraq.
Mitt Romney
Romney is a businessman. He’s actually proposing incentives to companies so that they can drill in the arctic national wildlife refuge for oil. Like most republicans, Romney has drank the “surge is working” Kool Aid. Romney also wants to mandate health insurance, and wants to implement biometric identification and employment verification for immigrants. (Papers please?)
Ron Paul
Ron Paul is a free market advocate. He’s against any government involvement in healthcare, or energy, or anything else. He’s also against the war in Iraq, and in favor of stronger border protections (without biometric ids or databases.. simply more people working the border) If you’re a card carrying republican, you’re supposed to not like this stuff – read the back of your card.
I’m only looking at major players (and Ron Paul so that I don’t get all those what about Ron Paul comments from the botnet) so I’m sorry that I can’t profile Huckabee, Hunter, or Thompson. Let’s face it, they’re not going to win the nomination.
Ok, Democrats:
Hilary Clinton
We’ve all seen the email saying that if Hilary can run the country then Brett Favre’s wife can play quarterback. It may be funny, but it’s totally untrue. Gender and athleticism matter in the NFL, but in politics all you need is a mind, and money.
Hilary wants to eliminate tax breaks for oil companies and ban drilling in the arctic wildlife refuge. If you’re an oil man, this is why you hate Hilary. She also proposes universal healthcare by the end of her 2nd term (optimistic?) She’s in favor of putting a fence along the border (I say, why a fence? Why not an 800 mile walmart? It’ll create tons of jobs for immigrants and a tourist attraction as well). As far as the war is concerned, Hilary supports the war but wants a firm pull-out date. She’s also, OMG, a woman! That’s right. Hilary is a girl. That’s enough for many Americans to automatically jump on the anti Hilary bandwagon.
Barack Obama
The major drawbacks for Barack are that he’s black, and his name sounds like Osama. I’d love to pretend that racism doesn’t exist in America, but let’s face it, it does. In fact, I’m sure that even a few of my readers will stop right there – having all the information they need not to vote for him. It’s quite sad. Not me though. I’m voting against him for other reasons.
For those of you that care, here they are:
Obama wants to spend $250mil / year on helping new businesses, and $1bil on career help for low income workers. He’s in favor of national healthcare, but only for people who don’t get it from work and won’t buy their own. He’s in favor of more border security and a clear path to citizenship for immigrants. He wants to pull troops out of Iraq, but move them into other areas to help fight terrorism.
John Edwards
Edwards is pro union, and is in favor of making it easier for workers to organize. Since I’m anti union, this is my biggest drawback here. He wants to look into high gas prices, and favors alternative energy (but then, which candidate doesn’t favor alternative energy?) He plans on making healthcare mandatory by eliminating Bush’s tax cuts. Under his plan, not having healthcare would be a crime. He has the same border views as Obama – more security, path to citizenship. Like all the democrats, he’s also calling for a pull out of Iraq.
Again, sorry to the Gravel and Kucinich supporters but my bookie isn’t even giving odds on them, so I’m already counting them out.
So there you have it. Lots of reasons why we’re going to spend the next 4-8 years bitching about the same things we’ve spent the last 8 years bitching about. So make sure you register as a Democrat or Republican before your primary (you can always change it later) and get out there and vote – just remember to wear some eye protection.
Ever since September 11th, the federal government has been pushing their realID act to try to establish national ID cards. Recently, it looks like it’s taken another step forward.
If you ask me, national ID cards will only create more problems. Anytime you store more information about people in one central place, you’re just making yourself a target for identity theft or hackers. Given our government’s past record with data, this can’t end well. It seems like we’re hearing about laptops full of social security numbers disappearing every week now – and we still haven’t been given an answer as to why our social security numbers seem to be installed standard on government laptops.
The real ID aims to turn drivers licenses into national ID cards – which doesn’t make any sense to me. What makes sense to me is only having to show a drivers license if you want to drive a car, and only having to give a social security number if you want to collect social security. One card, one purpose, no possibilities for identity theft.
Of course, if you’re over 44 none of this applies to you. The real ID act for some reason, only applies to Americans born after 1964. I guess there aren’t any terrorists over 45.
Way back in June, I wrote a blog post about magsforless ripping me off. Of course, as that post mentions, It had been 17 months since then that I ordered. That means my original order was in January of 2005.
After waiting those 17 months and various emails, I did the blog post. They responded and made promises, but no refund.
So, in September 2007, I did another blog post about it. That time, they promised me a refund.
Well, I can proudly say that on December 20th, 2007 – 3 months after they promised a refund – it mysteriously showed up in my Paypal account!
That’s right! It took them 23 months, but I finally got my refund!
I know this post is a few days late, but my family life has been crazy this holiday season. The cancer is finally catching up to Grandpa and we’ve had family in from everywhere for the past week or 2.
Anyway, it’s a new year – and time for new resolutions. I know I won’t make many of these, but at least I can try.
1.) Lose weight. I’d love to lose about 20lbs. I think I can do this by cutting down my drinking, choosing the right protein powder, and exercising three to four times a week.
2.) Learn to play the guitar. I just picked up a fender acoustic guitar and a chord chart. I already know how to read music, so I’m hoping this won’t be hard.
3.) Get laser eye surgery. I’ve been talking about this for years. I finally have some extra money, so now would be a great time to finally do this.
4.) Launch some new websites. I’ve been pretty stale in this lately, and it’s time I find my motivation to code in my free time again.
That’s all I can think of right now. Pretty boring, I know.
Over the past few months many people have been using a popular site called MySpaceGrab to download songs from bands profiles. The site simply asked for the band’s MySpace URL and then presented you with a link to download each song. Today, somebody asked me if it’s possible and I told them “yes, these guys have been doing it for a while.” That’s when he noticed that the site simply has a message saying “This Site Has Been Stopped. Please Click Here
And Fill Out Your Details In Order To Support Us.”
I’d have given you a link, but the “click here” is a sleezy link to a debt professional website.
The way the site worked was pretty simple. The MySpace flash music player is simply calling another file on the server. You can’t see the link to the file on the page, nor can you get it from the page source. Instead, you have to monitor the requests your web browser makes. The easiest way is to look at the URL in the bottom status bar as it’s loading (easy in safari) or you can get some fancy firefox extensions.
I’m not 100% sure if MySpace or the RIAA were responsible for shutting down the site. If I were in this position, I’d make sure that a copy of my code somehow got posted on all the free php scripts websites. This way, it would force MySpace to actually fix the way they play music. I think we all agree that the code base of that site should probably be completely re-written.
It’s also an interesting legal issue here as well. Simply obfuscating filenames is NOT a secure way of doing anything. Security by obscurity is not security. It’s the online equivalent to hiding something in the woods and hoping nobody finds it.
While I don’t condone using a site like this, I also don’t condone getting legal protection to step in because you can’t figure out how to solve your own problems in code. It’s very similar to the whole ticketmaster captcha problem.
I also want to point out that I don’t condone illegally downloading music in any way (file sharing, ripping cds for friends, from myspace, etc) As somebody who writes software for a living, I wouldn’t want you to steal my stuff so I don’t steal yours. (in fact, you’ll find the CDs for all 5,000 songs on my ipod collecting dust in my spare bedroom.)
In the case of MySpace simply putting the files online with obfuscated names so that anybody who stumbles onto the name can download it though, it’s hard to blame those who take it. I mean if somebody left a $20 bill on my porch, I’d probably take it.
