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February 25, 2008
A Bad Day at Pakistan Telecom
Sometimes I think I should have been a network engineer. I love all that "belly of the internet beast" stuff—giant high-speed routers, huge data pipes, and all things close to the backbone of the Internet. But then I remember my grades from my engineering classes, and why I dropped engineering, and switched my major to English. Perhaps the engineer who broke both YouTube and the Pakistani Internet yesterday should have switched his major, too, before it was too late. I mean, I wouldn't want to be that guy right now. Would you want to be the guy who kept Pervez Musharraf from getting to his MySpace page?
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Posted by Kevin Carlson at 11:02 AM Permalink
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February 21, 2008
Here We Go Again: The "Good Worm" Debate
A new paper by Milan Vojnovic, Varun Gupta, Thomas Karagiannis and Christos Gkantsidis from Microsoft Research examining the best ways of propagating information across a network has resurrected the oft-discredited idea of "good" viruses spreading peace, harmony and security patches across computer networks.
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Posted by Kevin Carlson at 02:56 PM Permalink
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February 12, 2008
ID Fraud Declines
Last fall, we learned that identity fraud is more of a low-tech than a high-tech crime. Now, there's some new evidence that ID fraud is on the decline overall. A new report suggests that financial losses from identity theft dropped 12% in 2007 to $45 billion, down from $51 billion in 2006.
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Posted by Kevin Carlson at 12:55 PM Permalink
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January 29, 2008
Should Your IP Address Be Private?
The European Union has just ruled that Spain's Telefonica SA doesn't have to hand over the identities of file sharers on its networks. At least, not simply because the allegedly aggrieved party asks for such information.
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Posted by Kevin Carlson at 02:09 PM Permalink
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November 27, 2007
GDrive: Is Trust Enough?
So the rumors over Google's online storage ambitions continue to swirl, stirred this time by a report in the Wall Street Journal that cites its sources as "people familiar with the matter." You sort of get the impression that WSJ reporters had to meet their shadowy sources in a darkened Silicon Valley parking garage in order to glean this bit of news.
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Posted by Kevin Carlson at 12:04 PM Permalink
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November 20, 2007
Firefox Beta Bets on Security
Given that much of the recent growth in the Firefox user base has come at the expense of Microsoft due to security problems with Internet Explorer, I don't find it surprising at all that Mozilla continues to bet on security enhancements as a big selling point for Firefox. The long-anticipated beta of Firefox 3 is now out, and the Firefox developers have kept the security momentum going.
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Posted by Kevin Carlson at 10:52 AM Permalink
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October 25, 2007
What is Comcast Doing?
So with the recent kerfuffle over Comcast's network management policies, it seems prudent right now to ask just what the heck are they actually doing, and why?
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Posted by Kevin Carlson at 12:45 PM Permalink
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October 23, 2007
ID Fraud More Low-tech Than You Might Think
I suppose that being immersed in the tech world can lead to seeing things as technological problems, when in fact, they are simply sociological problems. Maybe that's why I was among those who associated the crime of identity theft primarily with computers. In my mind, I think I pictured identity thieves as hackers.
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Posted by Kevin Carlson at 01:13 PM Permalink
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October 18, 2007
Just Because You're Paranoid Doesn't Mean You Aren't Being Tracked
Oh, the things that show up in my inbox. Apparently, it's easier than ever before to be a stalker. If you want to keep track of someone's whereabouts every second of every day, well, you're in luck. There's an affordable product designed just for you: the Trackstick.
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Posted by Kevin Carlson at 01:02 PM Permalink
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October 08, 2007
Blu-ray Copy Protection: Punishing the Honest Customer
I absolutely sympathize with legitimate businesses when they lose money to piracy. In my book, it's wrong to steal movies. But it's equally wrong to put the whole burden of preventing piracy on the shoulders of honest customers. Not just wrong, but blindingly stupid as a business decision.
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Posted by Kevin Carlson at 12:30 PM Permalink
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