HowSpamWorks

The carousel of SPAM - or Internet Marketing - is ongoing.  As we become wise consumers of information online, the gauntlet is tossed our way as the Marketeers try to find innovative ways of suckering us in.

I've been caught on this a few times, most recently today on a link that was mixed in with (legitimate) "additional articles" on CNN.  I clicked on an article that sounded interesting and proceeded to read.  At the end of it, I thought to myself "hmm, why do I feel like I'm reading a commercial and not a objective news article".  

Suspicions arose and I went through other articles on this website which appears to be another "new oriented" website with sections like: News, Health & Beauty, Financial, Jobs, etc..  My first inkling was that was no Sports tab.  I know of very few information portals that would have one.  I then proceeded to pick and choose from each tab glancing through the articles and sure enough, the vast majority appeared to be a very subtle commercial.

It's not really all that hard.  If you are reading an article, then just take a moment and ask yourself, does it appear that the article is being objective.  The answer may not tell you right away if it is SPAM or not, but it will give you a sense.

I should add that I really shouldn't be referring to this instance as SPAM, as it's not being pushed to my email address, but the intent is the same as so many email messages that we receive on a daily basis.

I guess that the long and short of it is the maxim that has predated the Information Age - Don't Believe Everything You Read.

GMAIL and Email Addresses

I’ve been using GMAIL much more frequently over the past year or so and so it is with interest that I read an article on the naming convention of GMAIL email addresses that I was not aware of.

In any other email system that I’ve dealt with, the DOT is considered an alphabetic character which can also be used to improve readability of the email address. An email address of DavidOshea@yahoo.com could be setup as David.O.Shea@yahoo.com which would be different from David.Oshea@yahoo.com.

Where GMAIL is different is that it ignores the dot and although you can create an email address such as David.Oshea@gmail.com, any email to David.O.Shea@gmail.com or DavideOshea@gmail.com would also receive these emails.

GMAIL acknowledges this and calls it a feature. However, it is important for those that are setting up their email addresses to be aware of this so that their email addresses are sufficiently unique enough.

PRISM and the Digital Refraction

By their very nature, a prism is a geometric figure that refracts (bends) incoming light and changes the direction of it.

One of the hotter stories in the technology arena the past few weeks is that of the US Government PRISM program and it seems to me that their decision to name the program as such may not have been as deliberate as how I perceive it, but to me, it’s a very appropriate moniker.

PRISM is an electronic surveillance program developed and administered by the National Security Agency in the United States. The intent of this program is to monitor websites, photos, emails, and video and chat sessions in order to protect the country from foreign threats

Last week, an NSA contractor leaked documents which seem to indicate that the scope of the program has far exceeded the original intent and it is alleged that it now has direct access to the servers (and the data contained within) of Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft and other major websites.

The protection of a society is always paramount and many times it’s a delicate balance to afford this, while at the same time preserving the fundamental civil liberties. A program which tramples civil liberties (despite all of its good intentions) is as dangerous as a program where the population is at risk if the government is unaware of plots and aren’t able to intercept them.

What concerns me most is how it appears that the mandate of PRISM can grow, casting a bigger net over democracy. While they may be catching some of the bigger fish, there are too many smaller (and innocent) fish being caught up in the same net.

PRISM is not allowed to specifically target any individual unless there is reason to believe that there is direct evidence of a specific threat or plot.

In addition, there is also a “guilt by association” factor coming into play. If there is a specific “terrorist” where the NSA has significant reason to believe that there is a risk, then part of their online presence will be silently monitored. Further (and for me, this is the scary part), if there are a number of incoming emails to this individual, then the NSA can expand their scope and consider the sender to be a “person of interest” and as such, while they may not specifically monitor that person, at the very least, they could be flagged.

The danger is that with the technological age, the whole concept of “Six Degrees of Separation” has probably become more something like “3 ½ Degrees of Separation”. The number of people that we communicate with has grown exponentially in the digital age with message boards, user communities, social networking and the like.

In my mind, it’s very much like the Phacebook Phriends Phenomena which seems to be that it’s all about the number of “friends” on their profile. I find it hard to imagine that people actually have 500-600 true “friends”. I’m quite happy to keep my Facebook profile very sparse, but I digress.

Much like the prism, the PRISM program seems to be “bending” the data contained within the information superhighway to suit its purposes, assuming malevolence where there is not some.

Whether the large tech companies are permitting NSA full and unfettered access to their data remains to be seen. Even if this scandal turns out to be paranoid hyperbole, I am convinced that government agencies will not be able to resist the electronic breadcrumbs that we lay down.

The Traveling Bug

There are many aspects of technology that I find to be extraordinarily useful in my life but probably one of the biggest is the benefits of doing research on travel.  As I was reading through travel information on Greece this morning, it reminds me that there being to solicit opinion, read reviews and compare prices have made self-booking travel to be feasible.

No longer are we required to visit the travel agent, from start to stop, the whole experience can be investigated, managed and booked without human intervention if desired.   The biggest advantage of this though is that it gives the prospective traveler the opportunity to play "what if" and look at the myriad of options available in terms of costs, itineraries, flights and accommodations and to build the best package for them!

A Break from Technology

During a trip to Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake on this Victoria Day weekend, I'm reminded of the importance of taking breaks from technology.  I find that so often that I am so immersed in technology with text messages, emails and surfing, that I forget the simple joys of going for walks and enjoying nature.

Lying in a park on the grass and watching families playing, it helped to recall that there's much more to connections and families was just a perfect ending to a wonderful weekend away from technology.

Alien Invasions?!?!

Google has announced that there have been 900,000,000 devices that have been activated with Android since 2010!  Wow, that's kind of mind boggling.  That's a whole lot of devices!

Password Security - Lock It Down!

By now, most people are aware of the concept – and the importance – of having strong passwords. Generally a strong password is one that is difficult for an individual to guess or a system to crack. There are too many instances where security has been breached and in the case of a corporate breach in security, this is a big problem as confidential client information can be exposed and obtained.

One of the bigger challenges is how to make passwords stronger without making it more difficult to remember.

Intel has a website[s1] where you can enter a password and it will estimate how long it would take for the password to be cracked given the complexity of it.

In a simple case, take the password Twinkletoes76. Many would think that this is moderately strong as it’s not a dictionary term and the numbers at the end just add to the complexity. The Intel webpage (http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/security/passwordwin.html) estimates that this password would take 0.007 seconds for an automated system to crack.

Please note that the password(s) that you enter are not sent to their servers, or stored online anywhere, the calculations are strictly done via your local browser.  Still, they recommend making slight changes to your password for safety's sake.

The next approach in password generation is to embed special characters in the password and substitute these characters for the alphabetic characters in the password. Using the same base password as above, by simply changing the letter i to the number 1 and changing the l to an exclamation mark, then the new password of Tw1nk!etoes76 all of a sudden becomes much more secure and it would take a week to crack.

Here is where it gets fun.

A special character can be inserted in the password and it will not make it much more difficult to remember but it will significantly improve the strength. By placing a @ between the 1st and the 2nd characters so that the password is now T@w1nk!letoes76, the estimate is that it would take 1 year to guess the password.

Finally, to supersize the strength, just repeat that newly inserted special character and repeat it either one of more times so that the password is now either T@@w1nk!etoes76 or T@@@w1nk!etoes76 (with 2 or 3 @ signs respectively) and the estimates increase to 33 years for the former and 1,076 years for the latter!

In terms of memorization, it’s no harder for a human to remember the very last password than the original. Cognitively, we recognize that it’s still twinkletoes76 with character substitution with the i and the l and with 3 @ added in to the strong.