Daily Bits

Internet

The CIA and Google Team Up to Predict the Future

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Remember the movie Minority Report? Yeah, that was a pretty cool movie, but we all know that it’s “just” science fiction. There is no way that it can happen in real life, right?

Think again. It seems that the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States and Google are planning on creating something that will make the possibility of predicting events as reality. There’s this company called Recorded Future, and this is what they do (from their web site):

1. Scour the Web
We continually scan thousands of news publications, blogs, niche sources, trade publications, government web sites, financial databases and more.

2. Extract, rank, and organize
We extract information from text including entities, events, and the time that these events occur. We also measure momentum for each item in our index, as well as sentiment.

3. Make it accessible and useful
You can explore the past, present and predicted future of almost anything. Powerful visualization tools allow you to quickly see temporal patterns, or link networks of related information.

In short, the company monitors the information that can be found online – as much of it as they possibly can – using what they call a temporal analytics engine.

How is this different from what Google and other search engines do now? The key is in the linking of information. What the temporal analytics engine does is to find patterns and relationships amongst documents, web sites, files, etc. Related names, entities, and events will be connected via the engine, and people can analyze the data and connections to somehow piece that past together or even predict the future.

Naturally, the project – and the entities involved – has drawn various reactions. There are those that are quite excited about the possibilities, and there are those who are afraid of the potential dangers this kind of technology brings.

Personally, I think that the dangers are definitely there, but that we really can’t stop the CIA from engaging in this kind of activity.  We do need control and transparency, and we can only hope that it will be so. You?

WoW Players Target of New Phishing Scam

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World of Warcraft players, beware! You are now the target of a group (or groups) of cyber criminals. The scam’s premise is nothing new – the cyber criminals send e-mails to WoW gamers, asking them to verify their Battle.net account. In order to do so, the gamer has to enter his password. Of course, the web site to which the gamer is directed to is a fake one, and once the details are inputted – poor gamer!

Discovered and made public by F-Secure, a Finnish antivirus vendor, the scam is only one of the tactics that various cyber criminals are using. Another on going thing is someone sends you a chat message on WoW. This is in relation to the new Cataclysm beta. Spam Fighter shares the details:

Tom Kelchner, Security Researcher at Sunbelt, states that his friend Douglas got one message in a chat session from a person who employed the handle “BlizzalCOL” during the WoW game. He told him about the availability of the beta so the Cataclysm on the World of Warcraft map could expand, as reported by Sunbeltblog on July 13, 2010.

Kelchner further wrote that the message spread via an URL that took to Cataclysmtest.net looking like the login page of WoW.

He added that to determine the destination of the Cataclysmtest.net, he fed an unreal username and password to the site. Surprisingly, they were accepted, implying that the site was possibly stealing login information. Hence, it was a phishing site.

With WoW accounts being in high demand – especially those who have well-established characters – these developments are not surprising at all, are they? Needless to say, WoW players ought to be even more careful about using their login details.

Stay Safe On XP SP 2 After July 13

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If you haven’t already heard, tomorrow is quite an important day for Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 users. After tomorrow, Microsoft will no longer be providing automatic security updates for this version of their operating system. More information about this in my post last month.

If you’re really concerned about this issue, the easiest fix is to ditch XP, right? But it is totally understandable if you do not want to do that just yet. More so, there are ways by which you can continue to enjoy a relative degree of security while continuing to use XP SP2. Here are some tips.

Stick to XP, but upgrade to XP SP3. This version will continue to receive automatic updates till August of 2014 – that’s a long way off. You can either download and install SP3 using Windows Update, download a disc image (for use in more than one machine), or buy the installation CD (only $3.99).

If you really want to continue using XP2, here’s a simple fix that can increase your security: stop using Internet Explorer, if you haven’t already. I know very few people who continue to use this Internet browser for so many practical reasons. If I were you, I’d go with Chrome of Firefox (which has a new beta, by the way).

Here’s a no brainer – make sure your anti-virus software is up-to-date and reliable. This is assuming that you already have one installed. Even the free ones are pretty good, and they usually prompt you for updates anyway.

Get Your Groceries From Amazon

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If you live in the United States, you’re probably thinking: “What the heck is she talking about?” Yes, indeed, Amazon has already been selling groceries and other food and drink items on their site for a while. What started out as an online bookstore has branched out a lot in the past years.

In the United Kingdom, however, the idea of Amazon selling groceries is quite a novel one. As a matter of fact, the online store just launched their groceries section in the UK this week. Watch out Asda, Sainsbury, and Tesco! Amazon seems to have been successful in most of their ventures, so there’s no saying what might happen to the grocery market in the UK with this launch.

The selection that Amazon is offering is quite impressive. They are carrying labels such as Ariel, Dolmio, Kraft, Carte Noir, Oreo, Purina One, and more. They also have an international section, as well as kosher, organic, and vegan items. It looks like they just might give the competition a run for their money – if not right now, in the near future.

Regarding deliveries, consumers may opt for the regular delivery options or pay ?49 for an annual membership. Paying for this membership gives unlimited one-day delivery.

This kind of service is definitely going to be more popular in the near future, and it is just another indication of how technology is becoming a staple part of our lives. I wouldn’t mind doing my grocery and book shopping in one go, would you?

3 Internet Pet Peeves and Their Fixes

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Considering the time that you probably spend online, you would know that there are a lot of things that can happen out there that get your goat. We all have our pet peeves; some of them we can find fixes for, some we just can’t do anything. And, speaking of these Internet problems and fixes, I read a very interesting and useful list at PC World.

There are too many too mention here, but let me give you the three that are my pet peeves.

Facebook game and apps overload

I love Facebook games – a couple of them, at least; but I know how irritating it can be to see all those feeds when you are NOT interested in them. Hence, I try to limit the things that I publish. If you have friends who can’t help but flood your feed with their Facebook games and apps, though, PC World suggests Facebook Purity, which is part of Firefox’s GreaseMonkey add-on.

Useless search bars in web sites

What use is a search bar embedded in a web site if you can’t get relevant results? This has happened to me countless of times that I have simply stopped using them most of the time. What I have been doing is what PC World suggests: go to your usual search engine and key in site:nameofsite.com “what you’re looking for” instead.

Flash ads automatically blaring out some audio

Imagine browsing the net while at Starbucks or some other place when suddenly, this loud audio emanates from your speakers. Forget that – imagine working late into the night, you’re alone at home, and the same thing happens. I have jumped out of my skin so many times because of this! Here’s the fix from PC World: use FlashMute, which blocks Flash access to your audio. They do have a disclaimer: your anti-virus software might see it as an attack when you download the software. Ignore it.

For the complete list, visit PC World.

Security Tips When Using Public Wi-Fi

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It’s a dream coming true, isn’t it? Most places you go nowadays, you can access the Internet via Wi-Fi. Most cafes are following the trend – even Starbucks, which has been resistant for quite some time. In some cities, the coverage is especially wide.

While this is pretty convenient for all of us, we should realize that using public Wi-Fi isn’t exactly the safest thing to do. Still, as long as you don’t access and transmit sensitive information, right? You might be wrong there – you cannot deny that there are many ways by which you can be prone to security issues when using Wi-Fi. With a little vigilance, though, you can make your access a little more secure.

Always use SSL, if possible.

That is, use HTTPS instead of HTTP. For example, when accessing Google, key in https://www.google.com/ instead of http://www.google.com/. The good news is that this is where Google is headed anyway. If you take a closer look, Gmail already uses HTTPS as a default. To make it even easier, check out HTTPS Everywhere, an add-on for Firefox.

Make sure your sharing settings are secure.

In other words, turn off all sharing! If you’re like me, you have certain files and folders that are shared for use at home. When you go out and use public Wi-Fi, however, it is better of you turn sharing off. How to do this? Go to Network and Internet -> Network and Sharing Center, then click Choose Homegroup and Sharing Options -> Change Advanced Sharing Settings.

Double check your firewall.

Sometimes, for one reason or another, I turn off my firewall at home. I don’t exactly remember the reasons, but I am pretty sure they were convincing at that time. Don’t take it for granted – operating systems come with basic firewall setups, but they can be your very first line of defense.