Social Commentary – John's Random Thoughts and Discussions

Supporting Creative People

This is an update of a post that originally appeared on March 28, 2016.

Authors get tired of hearing from the Information Wants To Be Free (IWTBF) crowd who thinks it’s terrible that they charge for their books. Somehow, authors and other creative people are supposed to exist by taking sustenance from the air. There is an interesting discussion of the topic at Should Information Be Free? in which the author says the information should be free from the perspective of everyone getting to use it, but that the people who write and print books should still get paid. Obviously, if I didn’t want to freely share information with others, I wouldn’t have created this blog and not charged for it. The point is, when someone steals Intellectual Property (IP), the person who created it isn’t being supported.

I work really hard to support my readers and so do many other authors. In fact, most creative people are in creative trades because they like to communicate with others using a variety of methods. The simplest goal is to provide something of intangible value to others—be it a painting, sculpture, dance, music, or writing. It’s well known that creative people are often underpaid (hence the cliché, starving artist). Because the starving artist (and most of them truly are starving) makes little money, it’s important that people do support them whenever possible. That’s why the piracy of IP is such a problem. IP theft has become a serious enough problem that we’re beginning to lose many good creative people simply because they no longer have enough money coming in to make a living.

The problem is that many people would support the creative people whose IP they use, but they don’t really understand that they need to pay for this material. For example, there are many sites online now that offer my books free of charge. Just viewing the site doesn’t provide a clue that anyone is stealing anything. These sites have a clean appearance and simply offer IP in the form of downloadable music, books, and so on. In fact, many of these sites are fully searchable. The reasons that someone would do something like this varies, but it pays to employ some critical thinking when you see something free that possibly looks a bit too good to be true. Many people download viruses, spyware, and other sorts of malware along with their free download. In the long run, it’s actually less expensive to buy the IP, than to have a computer compromised by some of the crud that comes with these free downloads.

For the record, my books are never free. You need to pay for your copy of my book in order to support the various things of value that I provide to you as a reader, including this free blog. It isn’t my goal to become rich—if that were my goal, I’d be in some other line of work (believe me when I say authors aren’t paid particularly well), but I do need to make enough to pay my expenses, just as you do. Even though I know many people do download my books free, I still support everyone that I can with good advice on how to get the most from the books I write. To me, coming in each day and working with all of you is one of the benefits of being an author. I truly do want people to use my books to get ahead in life. If you’d like to discuss the effects of piracy on you as a consumer of IP, please write me at [email protected].

Recycling, Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be

I was looking at my shampoo bottle today and noted that it said on the side of the container that the bottle was made from 100% recycled waste. I applaud the vendor, Paul Mitchell, for taking this step. The associated cream rinse also comes in a 100% recycled bottle. These are the only two bottles on any of my shelves that make this claim, which makes me wonder why other vendors aren’t going the same route (or at least telling me about it).

Just where do all of those plastic bottles sent off for recycling go anyway? According to Only about 5% of plastic waste gets recycled in US, new report says, they apparently go into the landfill, which is disappointing. The reason is simple according to Recycling plastic is practically impossible — and the problem is getting worse. It all comes down to money—making new bottles is cheaper. Still, at least one vendor is using recycled bottles, which makes me wonder why it’s possible for them and no one else. At least Recycling in the U.S. Is Broken. How Do We Fix It? is asking the right questions, but now we need answers.

One of the answers that corporations have come up with for the plastic problem is more horrible than the problem itself. According to This “Climate-Friendly” Fuel Comes With an Astronomical Cancer Risk, the EPA recently greenlighted the use of plastics for fuel. The process used to perform this conversion produces so much air pollution that it’s expected that one in four people exposed to it will develop cancer. Pyrolysis (originally meant for biomass conversion, not plastics), the process used to perform the conversion, is at the center of the pollution problem.

There are other, safer, methods than pyrolysis such as hydrothermal upgrading (HTU) available, as described in Purdue innovation affordably turning plastics into fuel. According to Hydrothermal Upgrading Of Waste Plastics: An Environmental Impact Study (see Figure 2), HTU is more environmentally friendly than pyrolysis (both of which are better for the environment than incineration). Still, there has to be a better way of recycling plastics than anything available today (with a nod to HTU being the preferred method).

The bottom line is that plastic represents a major source of pollution and further steps are required to reduce it. Unfortunately, nothing I can find online tells me that there are currently any good solutions and nothing even in the works. I’d love to hear that there is some magic solution that I haven’t found yet because it’s discouraging to think that we’ll soon be wading waist deep in plastic waste.

There are simple things that every person can do to reduce plastic pollution:

Asking for paper bags when going to the store unless the bags will be used for other purposes.
Buying milk and other dairy in glass jars that are then brought back to the store for reuse.
Using reusable containers for drinks and not asking for plastic straws also helps.
Relying on metal or other containers that are more easily recycled at a higher rate that plastic.
Looking for ways of separating plastics for recycling when possible (which makes it easier for recycling companies to reuse it).
Cleaning your plastics before recycling them.
Ensuring recyclables end up in the appropriate recycle bin, rather than in the trash.

In fact, it doesn’t take much thought at all to greatly reduce the amount of plastic used in the average home and the benefits are obvious when you consider a one in four cancer rate for some of the alternatives. Let me know your thoughts about plastic recycling at [email protected].

Considering the Four Levels of Intelligence Management

One of the reasons that Luca and I wrote Artificial Intelligence for Dummies, 2nd Edition was to dispel some of the myths and hype surrounding machine-based intelligence. If anything, the amount of ill-conceived and blatantly false information surrounding AI has only increased since then. So now we have articles like Microsoft’s Bing wants to unleash ‘destruction’ on the internet out there that espouse ideas that can’t work at all because AIs feel nothing. Of course, there is the other end of the spectrum in articles like David Guetta says the future of music is in AI, which also can’t work because computers aren’t creative. A third kind of article starts to bring some reality back into the picture, such as Are you a robot? Sci-fi magazine stops accepting submissions after it found more than 500 stories received from contributors were AI-generated. All of this is interesting for me to read about because I want to see how people react to a technology that I know is simply a technology and nothing more. Anthropomorphizing computers is a truly horrible idea because it leads to the thoughts described in The Risk of a New AI Winter. Another AI winter would be a loss for everyone because AI really is a great tool.

As part Python for Data Science for Dummies and Machine Learning for Dummies, 2nd Edition Luca and I considered issues like the seven kinds of intelligence and how an AI can only partially express most of them. We even talked about how the five mistruths in data can cause issues such as skewed or even false results in machine learning output. In Machine Learning Security Principles I point out the manifest ways in which humans can use superior intelligence to easily thwart an AI. Still, people seem to refuse to believe that an AI is the product of clever human programmers, a whole lot of data, and methods of managing algorithms. Yes, it’s all about the math.

This post goes to the next step. During my readings of various texts, especially those of a psychological and medical variety, I’ve come to understand that humans embrace four levels of intelligence management. We don’t actually learn in a single step as might be thought by many people, we learn in four steps with each step providing new insights and capabilities. Consider these learning management steps:

Knowledge: A person learns about a new kind of intelligence. That intelligence can affect them physically, emotionally, mentally, or some combination of the three. However, simply knowing about something doesn’t make it useful. An AI can accommodate this level (and even excel at it) because it has a dataset that is simply packed with knowledge. However, the AI only sees numbers, bits, values, and nothing more. There is no comprehension as is the case with humans. Think of knowledge as the what of intelligence.
Skill: After working with new knowledge for some period of time, a human will build a skill in using that knowledge to perform tasks. In fact, very often this is the highest level that a human will achieve with a given bit of knowledge, which I think is the source of confusion for some people with regard to AIs. Training an AI model, that is, assigning weights to a neural network created of algorithms, gives an AI an appearance of skill. However, the AI isn’t actually skilled, it can’t accommodate variations as a human will. What the AI is doing is following the parameters of the algorithm used to create its model. This is the highest step that any AI can achieve. Think of skill as the how of intelligence.
Understanding: As a human develops a skill and uses the skill to perform tasks regularly, new insights develop and the person begins to understand the intelligence at a deeper level, making it possible for a person to use the intelligence in new ways to perform new tasks. A computer is unable to understand anything because it lacks self-awareness, which is a requirement for understanding anything at all. Think of understanding as the why of intelligence.
Wisdom: Simply understanding an intelligence is often not enough to ensure the use of that intelligence in a correct manner. When a person makes enough mistakes in using an intelligence, wisdom in its use begins to take shape. Computers have no moral or ethical ability—they lack any sort of common sense. This is why you keep seeing articles about AIs that are seemingly running amok, the AI has no concept whatsoever of what it is doing or why. All that the AI is doing is crunching numbers. Think of wisdom as the when of intelligence.

It’s critical that society begin to see AIs for what they are, exceptionally useful tools that can be used to perform certain tasks that require only knowledge and a modicum of skill and to augment a human when some level of intelligence management above these levels is required. Otherwise, we’ll eventually get engulfed in another AI winter that thwarts development of further AI capabilities that could help people do things like go to Mars, mine minerals in an environmentally friendly way in space, cure diseases, and create new thoughts that have never seen the light of day before. What are your thoughts on intelligence management? Let me know at [email protected].

Electric Car Range Anxiety

A friend recently sent me an article entitled Couple has ‘range anxiety’ as electric vehicle requires 12 charging stops. I’ve written a number of blog posts now on how electric cars fail to really provide the green result that vendors claim, but I hadn’t thought about other aspects of actually driving an electric car until I read this article.

If you’re on a road trip and your main concern is finding some place to charge your vehicle, while you drive it without the heat on in the winter no less, then how much of a good experience can the Electric Vehicle (EV) really provide? Anxiety of any sort presents a health risk. So, not only is the EV a poor citizen from the green perspective, but it also presents a health risk to those who drive one. The article How Far Can an EV Go On One Charge? shows graphically that EV ranges have a long way to go to catch up with gas cars. Theoretically, in perfect conditions with a full charge and no extra usage (such as heat for the humans in the car), it’s actually unlikely that you’ll actually run out of power according to Electric America, yet the anxiety remains.

Articles like What is EV range anxiety and how can we overcome it? and Electric car range and 5 reasons why your range anxiety is unwarranted seek to reduce the anxiety. They point out that there are now plenty of charging stations and that the distances between charging stations is less than the distance that a EV can drive between charges. They also point out that the batteries have a longer life expectancy than most people think. However, the articles just don’t seem to be getting through to people who fear change and drive these vehicles in actual conditions where the mantra of what should work doesn’t actually match what is.

The best possible assumption is that your EV will run out of power on a road trip and to know what to do about it. Articles like What Happens if your Electric Car Runs Out of Battery? provide helpful information on what the ramifications are of running out of power and what you should do about them. It turns out that what you really need is a tow truck, which is the same thing that a gas powered car driver needs when running out of gas. Unlike a gas powered car, it’s also theoretically possible to turn an EV off and then restart it to get another mile or two out of the battery before it dies completely, which may be all you need to get to a charging station.

Even though I don’t see EVs as a way to reduce pollution effectively because they really are harmful to the environment in ways that gas powered cars aren’t, I must admit after doing research for this blog post that anxiety felt about running out of power is probably unwarranted. In this regard, even though the EV range is less than a gas powered car, they’re really both on equal footing. Let me know your thoughts about EVs at [email protected].

Technology and Child Safety

This is an update of a post that originally appeared on January 20, 2016.

I wrote a little over seven years ago that I had read an article in ComputerWorld, Children mine cobalt used in smartphones, other electronics, that had me thinking yet again about how people in rich countries tend to ignore the needs of those in poor countries. I had sincerely hoped at the time that things would be different, better, in seven years. Well, they’re worse! We’ve increased our use of cobalt dramatically in order to create supposedly green cars. The picture at the beginning of the ComputerWorld article says it all, but the details will have you wondering whether a smartphone or an electric car really is worth some child’s life. That’s right, any smartphone or electric car you buy may be killing someone and in a truly horrid manner. Children as young as 7 years old are mining the cobalt needed for the batteries (and other components) in the smartphones and electric cars that people seem to feel are so necessary for life (they aren’t you know; food, water, clothing, shelter, sleep, air, and reproduction are necessities, everything else is a luxury).

The problem doesn’t stop when someone gets rid the smartphone, electric car, or other technology. Other children end up dismantling the devices sent for recycling. That’s right, a rich country’s efforts to keep electronics out of their landfills is also killing children because countries like India put these children to work taking them apart in unsafe conditions. Recycled wastes go from rich countries to poor countries because the poor countries need the money for necessities, like food. Often, these children are incapable of working by the time they reach 35 or 40 due to health issues induced by their forced labor. In short, the quality of their lives is made horribly low so that it’s possible for people in rich countries to enjoy something that truly isn’t necessary for life. To make matters worse, the vendors of these products build in obsolescence (making them unrepairable) so they can sell more products and make more money, increasing the devastation visited on children.

I’ve written other blog posts about the issues of technology pollution. However, the emphasis of these previous articles has been on the pollution itself. Taking personal responsibility for the pollution you create is important, but we really need to do more. Robotic (autonomous) mining is one way to keep children out of the mines and projects such as UX-1 show that it’s entirely possible to use robots in place of people today. The weird thing is that autonomous mining would save up to 80% of the mining costs of today, so you have to wonder why manufacturers aren’t rushing to employ this solution.

In addition, off world mining would keep the pollution in space, rather than on planet earth. Of course, off world mining also requires a heavy investment in robots, but it promises to provide a huge financial payback in addition to keeping earth a bit cleaner. The point is that there are alternatives that we’re not using. Robotics presents an opportunity to make things right with technology and I’m excited to be part of that answer in writing books such as Machine Learning Security Principles, Artificial Intelligence for Dummies, 2nd Edition, Algorithms for Dummies, 2nd Edition, Python for Data Science for Dummies, and Machine Learning for Dummies, 2nd Edition.

Unfortunately, companies like Apple, Samsung, and many others simply thumb their noses at laws that are in place to protect the children in these countries because they know you’ll buy their products. Yes, they make official statements, but read their statements in that first article and you’ll quickly figure out that they’re excuses and poorly made excuses at that. They don’t have to care because no one is holding them to account. People in rich countries don’t care because their own backyards aren’t sullied and their own children remain safe. It’s not that I have a problem with technology, quite the contrary, I have a problem with the manner in which technology is currently being made and supported. We need to do better. So, the next time you think about buying electronics, consider the real price for that product. Let me know what you think about polluting other countries to keep your country clean at [email protected].

Apathy, Sympathy, and Empathy in Books

This is an update of a post that originally appeared on May 23, 2016.

I’ve written more than a few times about the role that emotion plays in books, even technical books. Technical books such as Accessibility for Everybody: Understanding the Section 508 Accessibility Requirements and Machine Learning Security Principles are tough to write because they’re packed with emotion. The author not only must convey emotion and evoke emotions in the reader, but explore the emotion behind the writing. In this case, the author’s emotions may actually cause problems with the book content. The writing is tiring because the author experiences emotions in the creation of the text. The roller-coaster of emotions tends to take a toll. Three common emotions that authors experience in the writing of a book and that authors convey to the reader as part of communicating the content are apathy, sympathy, and empathy. These three emotions can play a significant role in the suitability of the book’s content in helping readers discover something new about the people they support, themselves, and even the author.

It’s a mistake to feel apathy toward any technical topic. Writers need to consider the ramifications of the content and how it affects both the reader and the people that the reader serve. For example, during the writing of Artificial Intelligence for Dummies, 2nd Edition, Python for Data Science for Dummies, and Machine Learning for Dummies, 2nd Edition Luca and I discussed the potential issues that automation creates for the people who use it and those who are replaced by it in the job market. Considering how to approach automation in an ethical manner is essential to creating a positive view of the technology that helps people use it for good. Even though apathy is often associated with no emotion at all, people are emotional creatures and apathy often results in an arrogant or narcissistic attitude. Not caring about a topic isn’t an option.

I once worked with an amazing technical editor who told me more than a few times that people don’t want my sympathy. When you look at sympathy in the dictionary, the result of having sympathy toward someone would seem positive, but after more than a few exercises to demonstrate the effects of sympathy on stakeholders with disabilities, I concluded that the technical editor was correct—no one wanted my sympathy. The reason is simple when you think about it. The connotation of sympathy is that you’re on the outside looking in and feel pity for the person struggling to complete a task. Sympathy makes the person who engages in it feel better, but does nothing for the intended recipient except make them feel worse. However, sympathy is still better than apathy because at least you have focused your attention on the person who benefits from the result of your writing efforts.

Empathy is often introduced as a synonym of sympathy, but the connotation and effects of empathy are far different from sympathy. When you feel empathy and convey that emotion in your writing, you are on the inside, with the person you’re writing for, looking out. Putting yourself in the position of the people you want to help is potentially the hardest thing you can do and certainly the most tiring. However, it also does the most good.

Empathy helps you understand that someone who loses a job to automation isn’t looking for a new career, the old one worked just fine. The future doesn’t look bright at all to them. Likewise, some with disabilities isn’t looking for a handout and they don’t want you to perform the task for them. They may, in fact, not feel as if they have a disability at all. It was the realization that using technology to create a level playing field so that the people I wanted to help could help themselves and feel empowered by their actions that opened new vistas for me. The experience has colored every book I’ve written since the first time I came to realize that empathy is the correct emotion to convey and my books all try to convey emotion in a manner that empowers, rather than saps, the strength the my reader and the people my reader serves.

Obviously, a good author has more than three emotions. In fact, the toolbox of emotions that an author carries are nearly limitless and its wise to employ them all as needed. However, these three emotions have a particular role to play and are often misunderstood by authors. Let me know your thoughts on these three emotions or about emotions in general at [email protected].

Thinking About the Cost of Freedom (Updated)

A number of people contacted me about this post and wondered whether I still feel the same way about Memorial Day. The fact of the matter is that I feel even more strongly that the need to recognize the ultimate sacrifice made by fellow Americans to assure our freedom should take precedence on this day. As I read about the overwhelming odds faced by veterans in the newspaper, magazines, online, and in various veteran’s sources, I become even more aware of the lifelong commitment that anyone who has spent time in the military makes. Some things simply can’t be fixed—the commitment, the sacrifice, and the awful truth of the outcome of decisions made to help our country are permanent. Those who made the ultimate sacrifice paid the highest price of all to ensure that everyone else can enjoy the freedom this country has to offer.

For many people, Memorial Day, which is also known as Decoration Day, is simply another day to spend time with friends and family. Of course, every veteran would agree that the reason for the sacrifice is so that people could spend time with friends and family. Everyone loves a good picnic or barbecue and being free to gather as we wish is important. The freedom to do what you want, when you want to do it, is an important right. Memorial Day is all about remembering, at least for a moment, the cost of that freedom.

I’m writing this post on Friday. Like many people, I won’t be in my office today. In fact, I’m making it a true day off—I’m not even bringing my computers up. About now, I’ve spent some time thinking about the guys I served with in the Navy and said a prayer for their well being. I’ve also thought about all those people who came before me and have served since my time—people who gave of themselves. However, I have to wonder just how many people have thought of those who died (or even the veterans who managed to live through it all).

In preparing for the post today, I wanted to find something interesting—something I haven’t discussed in years past. It was a bit surprising that Google returned all sorts of unexpected results. The first entry was from Wikipedia, which is quite nice, but hardly noteworthy. However, the next several entries were about the things that could (and should) surround Memorial Day, but didn’t discuss the main event at all. There were entries about the weather, finding the food you need for your picnic, the potential for wet conditions ruining the Memorial Day celebration, and an ad for Travelocity. At least I didn’t go ten straight entries without finding something worthwhile. The next entry was a CNN presentation of the difference between Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day. I then went another 14 entries before I found something that was actually related to Memorial Day. So, out of the top 20 hits on Google, 18 of them talked about the weather, picnics, travel, television shows, and all sorts of things that really don’t have anything to do with Memorial Day.

Fortunately, you don’t have to follow the crowd. You can choose to celebrate the true meaning of Memorial Day, which is to remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure you have the freedom to live as you wish to live. Take time this Memorial Day to provide a moment of silence at your picnic or other festivity. No one is asking you to be somber for the rest of the day, just to take a quick time out in remembrance. After all, all those fellows in Arlington (and other cemeteries worldwide) thought your freedom was worth far more than a moment of silence, they gave their lives to attain it.

Is Your Car Green, Really?

It seems like I receive yet another brochure about the huge advances various government entities, enterprises, vendors, or energy companies making in protecting the planet every month. Everyone seems to think that their technology is going to be the next green thing, when the facts simply don’t bear them out. The previous post I wrote on this topic, More People Noticing that Green Technology Really Isn’t, discussed the issue that some informed people are discovering that all that green technology out there is really just designed to sell more products-not help the earth in any significant way. The problem is one of complexity, which is the case with the green car.

Driving an electric car might seem like the right way to reduce emissions. However, recent studies show that your electric car might actually be worse for the environment. I say might here because it all depends on how the electricity is generated. In some cases, your electric car actually is better than gas at the first level. That is, the manner in which the electricity is generated produces fewer pollutants than driving a car with a gas engine would be. For example, sunlight and wind are both plentiful in Nevada, so driving an electric car could make sense there. However, as I’ve noted in previous posts, solar and wind power both rely heavily on special materials, the mining of which actually produces a serious amount of pollution. The studies available right now also assume that the manufacturing processes for the supposedly green cars are actually no worse than the older technology they replace.

However, in reality, it is crucial to remember that there is always an element of chemical risk at each stage of production of a car regardless of whether the resulting vehicle is gas or electric powered. It is no secret that the manufacturing processes involved in producing engines, plastics, and various other elements of a car require the use of hazardous chemicals such as adhesives, acids, bases, and cleaning chemicals. Furthermore, the majority of these products are corrosives or irritants and most of these chemicals are handled in laboratories.

Put simply, whether a car is powered by gas or electric, there is thus a constant risk of projection and chemical spill during the manufacturing process. With all of this in mind, it is vital that car manufacturers make use of chemical storage solutions to prevent chemical spillages or leaks. To address this issue, most car manufacturers use bunded storage. Essentially, a bund is a secondary containment area in a tank or a drum that can collect any spilled liquid if the initial storage container is inadequate. Due to the diversity of chemicals used throughout the manufacturing industry, there are several unique bunded storage containment options available for industrial users. You can discover the benefits of these bunded storage and containment solutions by taking a look at this useful guide on the Storemasta website.

Consequently, even though it might appear that your electric car is a win, it may not be right now. There are many defectives that both non-green and green cars have in common. For instance, you may find that a green or electric car might not hold the same charge capacity. There are a few cars that have been reported to develop defects that may not appear in a brand new car, so if you decide to get an electric second hand, you may find you are dealing with a lemon. Luckily, if you find yourself in that situation, you can always make a lemon claim for a used car.

A problem with all the entities making the promises and telling you just how good they are at fulfilling them is that they lie. Sometimes they even get caught. For example, the EPA finally caught VW in the act of lying about its emission test results. The only problem is that those cars are still out there producing millions of tons of lung killing smog. In fact, it’s hard to tell whether any of those green technologies actually do anything at all, except make you pay a lot more when buying the vehicle, and to run and maintain it later. Add to this the fact that some people are now saying that the solar industry is dying (and would already be dead were it not for government subsidies) and you have to wonder just how long these green cars will even maintain the appearance of being green.

Some people are saying that we should simply get rid of cars, which is obviously not going to happen. Systems like adas are only growing as people have more and more need of a car in their life. If people really wanted to use mass transit, it would have happened already. In addition, there isn’t any evidence that mass transit actually reduces pollution either. The vehicles are often poorly maintained and spew a horrid amount of pollution out of their exhaust (as evidenced by the stench when you drive behind a bus). In addition, mass transit only works when you live in or around a major city, which won’t work for those of us who live in the country.

The best way to create a green car is not to drive it any more than necessary. I’ve taken to planning out my trips so that I drive the fewest possible miles. Because I’m self-employed, I don’t even start my car five days a week (getting everything done in just two days). Not only does my strategy save time, but I’ve reduced by gas bill by half in the last two years. Green often equates to not using a resource such as gas. Using the resource will inevitably produce some sort of pollution. Through careful planning, you can significantly reduce the number of miles you drive and you can drive more of them at once (a warm engine normally works more efficiently and produces fewer emissions). You also want to reduce gas waste by starting up slowly, stopping over a longer distance, and keeping your engine from idling. In fact, there are a wealth of tips you can find online for making your car more efficient (such as removing all that junk from the trunk).

You can make the world a cleaner place and still keep your car. All it really takes is planning and careful maintenance. This can be done better using websites like https://www.czokbrand.com to give guidance on proper car maintenance. Unfortunately, there is no magic that will just make the problems with pollution go away. Driving that electric car or paying more for a vehicle with dubious emissions extras isn’t going to do much. What it really takes is a bit of self control. Let me know your thoughts about green cars at [email protected].

Old Laws, User Privacy, and Vendors Caught in the Middle

I’ve talked a number of times about researchers creating security busting software just because they can. The software often gets out into the wild where people who wouldn’t normally have a clue as to how to overcome security features can now use it to break the latest security in some product or application. Now the government is trying to force Apple (and probably other vendors) to write such software in pursuit of information hidden by encryption based on the mandates of a 227 year old law written at a time when no one had any idea that modern digital devices would even exist. The decree issued by the judge in charge of the case seems quite reasonable until you consider the fact that once Apple writes the software, it could end up in the wild, where hackers will almost certainly find ways to use it to overcome the security of legitimate users—making it impossible to ensure private information, such as credit card data, really does remain private.

The iPhone comes with some interesting security features that make it a relatively secure device. For example, tampering with certain device hardware will brick the device, which is the sort of security feature more devices should have. Modifying the security hardware should cause the device to lock down in order to protect the data it contains. The encryption that Apple offers with the iPhone is also first rate. No one but the user has the key used to unlock the encryption, which means that only the user can create a security problem by handing the key out to others.

The government is trying to change this scenario to make it easier to learn about anything it can about the data on Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone (one of the two San Bernardino shooters). On the surface, it seems like a good idea, if for no other reason than to potentially prevent other shootings. However, the manner in which the government has pursued the information opens the door to all sorts of abuse and then there is the matter of that software getting out into the wild. The issue here is that the law hasn’t kept up with technology, which is a recurrent problem. The government doesn’t have a law to cover the need to break encryption in a reasonable way, so it resorts to a 227 year old law that was never intended to address this need. The fact that the government is using the same law to try to force Apple to breach iPhone security in at least twelve other cases means that the argument that this is a one-off requirement doesn’t hold any water. Once Apple cooperates even once, it sets a precedent that will allow the government to force additional cooperation, even when such cooperation decidedly damages the privacy of innocent parties.

Tim Cook has rightly refused to cooperate with the government. There really is too much at stake in this case and even the government should be able to figure it out. What needs to happen is that our government needs to catch up with technology and write laws that everyone can live with to deal with the need to preserve the privacy engendered by encryption, yet make it possible for the government to obtain information needed to solve a case.

The question here is more complicated than simply managing information properly. It’s also one of keeping good technology (such as that found in Security for Web Developers) working properly and ensuring that government entities don’t abuse their positions. What is your take on the San Bernardino shooting and the information needed to pursue it? How do you feel about keeping your private data truly private? Let me know at [email protected].

A Fuller Understanding of the Internet of Things

You can find the Internet of Things (IoT) discussed just about everywhere today because the Internet has become pervasive. IoT is part of most business applications today as discussed in Security for Web Developers and part of any PC you build as discussed in Build Your Own PC on a Budget. It appears as part of smart TVs and Blue-ray players. In fact, you find IoT employed in a lot of places you might not have thought possible even a year ago. The point is that IoT is here to stay, especially when there are some great xfinity internet packages available, and we need to consider some of the ramifications of it on every day life.

One of the issues that hasn’t surprised me too much is the issue of security. Both my smart TV and smart Blue-ray player require me to enter a password to access the Internet through my wireless router (mostly because the router is configured to require one, whether I’m using 2.4ghz vs 5ghz range on it). So these devices do employ security to some extent. However, they remain logged on at all times, so the router is also configured to disconnect devices after a certain time. Each time I turn the devices on, I must reenter the password. It’s a level of security, but not necessarily the best security. Some devices, such as Apple Watch, lack any form of security. (In the case of Apple Watch, the device authenticates through an iPhone, so it still has some level of security, but not security that is part of the device itself.) Some industry pundits are saying that these devices will eventually kill the password, which means that some other form of primary authentication is needed.

The problem is increased by the proliferation of headless devices (products that lack any sort of display, such as a door lock, security system, or robots). In these cases, you can’t enter a password. No one is really sure how to secure these devices, but a solution really is needed and soon. Unless we find a solution, the issues surrounding intentional hacking will increase. A recent InfoWorld article, Welcome to the smart home … of horror!, emphasizes some of the sorts of things that could happen due to a lack of security.

Security and configuration problems aren’t just limited to outsiders gaining access to your home, office, business, or other location due to holes in IoT security. It also turns out that smart devices aren’t particularly smart, so sometimes you lose access to your network and its connected devices due to a combination of security and configuration issues when a failure occurs. In the ComputerWorld article, The Internet of Things: Your worst nightmare, you can hear about one person’s attempt to recover from a simple router failure. It turns out that simply replacing the router wasn’t enough-everything connected to the router needed reconfiguration and sometimes the task was less than easy to perform, though understanding your 192.168.100.1 Address can at least help with this quite often.

The world is in a age of transformation. The ride will be bumpy and the problems severe. When you consider the immensity of the things that are changing, the future looks incredibly different from anything that has gone on in the past. Not only is there IoT to consider, but the whole issue of robots and other technologies that are coming to fore. As these new technologies become part of everyday life, we have to ensure we can use them safely and that ability of someone to hurt us through them is curtailed. Let me know your thoughts about IoT security and configuration at [email protected].