Playing Electronic Gotcha

Considering what mainstream remote computer surveillance software programs can do, the idea of either interfering with electronic communications or stealing information from electronic communication isn’t much of a stretch. Numerous programs available for under a hundred dollars can record information from a computer in as much detail as individual keystrokes or streamed display recording. (http://www.awarenesstech.com/TestDrive/overview/frame5.html)

If keystrokes and images from a computer screen can be recorded remotely, and not only remotely, but now over wireless connections, even from cell phones, gathering information surreptitiously (stealing?) only becomes a matter of getting the control program onto the target device. We don’t even want to think about how easy that may be, really, but apparently at least it isn’t completely automatic, because this is where scams and viruses come in as a convenient way of convincing people to cooperatively turn over their protected information.




http://www.ripoffreport.com/Employers/Career-Network-Aka-A/career-network-apple-staffing-2bn92.htm

http://www.gradtogreat.com/tips_advice/article-jobboard_scams.php

Stealing personal information, such as passwords or Social Security numbers can be as simple and direct as looking over somebody’s shoulder at an ATM or as technical as hacking into a network database from a remote, wireless location. Sometimes the most sophisticated technical security remains open to the most simple-minded access, such as the British net surfer (more or less) almost accidentally hacking U.S. military intelligence. None of that encourages great confidence in the ultimate security of electronic information, but it also suggests that the obvious mode of operation for stealing information is the path of least resistance. If the U.S. military will give up information conveniently, why go to the trouble of elaborate technical programming, except maybe as an ego trip to prove superior technical capability? Another answer may be in the potential payoff of individual records in the millions, but by and large, attempts to collect protected information concentrate on more direct approaches. Why go to a lot of trouble dealing with complex technology if all you have to do is ask through email?

The variations are many and diverse, stealing for both fun and profit, but most follow the basic patterns of either convincing us to supply a click that a computer program interprets as authorization to perform a restricted operation, like downloading a document with a virus, or convincing us to provide confidential information, and away we go on the familiar carnival ride of unauthorized use and malfunctioning devices. Everybody knows what these cheerful requests for mindless cooperation look like. Please confirm your account information. Follow this link for photos of Lindsay Lohan. Click here to renew your subscription. We’d like you to join our company. In order to protect your personal security, and so forth.

The psychology of this operation is diabolically simple. We want things, and we worry a lot (about identity theft, among other things), so verifying account information to prevent unauthorized access is, like, a high priority, and clicking on an external link or an attachment is so easy (Like the one with a graphic link as a big red disk labeled “Do Not Press This Button”). Worst of all, sometimes we want to believe those lurid claims are true. So how do we avoid entrapment by these inventive hucksters? Most of it, especially on a personal level, depends on those simple concerns. Maybe the first line of defense is simply being alert to our own priorities. The agents, bots, and cookies that collect information for more or less legitimate marketing also provide potential guidance to scammers.

Familiarity with the routine transactions of banking and/or using a variety of credit cards online makes financial information an attractive target and our response potentially careless. Think twice about any unanticipated electronic communication concerning money and financial transactions, especially if it involves submitting passwords, numbers, or other personal information. What could be easier for identity theft than simply asking for the information? Think twice about any unanticipated electronic communication concerning any subject, especially if it involves clicking on anything. Consider the composition of the URL. Paste it in as a browser location address if you really have to check it out, although that can have a downside also. A very undesirable web location may now be permanently recorded in your address list, that can only be removed by either deleting your entire browsing history or by locating and modifying the registry file that keeps the list. Modifying registry files is not necessarily a convenient operation, so avoiding the problem makes sense.

There are other general precautions worth considering. There is no perfect way to insure security in cyberspace, but Leaving a computer on with accounts open or any kind of useful information displayed is potentially problematic as the remote variations of wardriving become more sophisticated and effective. The size and complexity of both video and animation files and the programs to display them are better suited to concealing virus and information control activity, so avoid videos if your security software has deficiencies. Transferring malicious material or controls in text files is very difficult through direct connections on the internet and pretty much impossible without opening the files on an individual unit, even without additional security programs. If files aren’t downloaded and attachments aren’t opened, viruses and information control can’t get connected.

While advisable, security software is notorious for slowing down operating systems, and security programs aren’t necessary for every kind of problem. An example is the disconcerting experience of receiving hundreds of undeliverable messages as a consequence of having email hijacked by a bot to distribute spam. While free security programs like Spybot and AdAware can remove uninvited intruders (although don’t confuse AdAware with the opposite and deliberately similar Adware, which installs rather than removing snoopy gate-crashers), sometimes the situation can be managed simply by changing the email password. Another danger of allowing bots to operate in email accounts is that the email account will eventually be virtually shut down by anti-spam control from recipients of the commercial or malicious messages, which can be excrutiatingly inconvenient for personal email accounts. Even if we have security software on our computers, sometimes we already have the best security installed in our heads. All we have to do is use it.


Here's Thinking for You
Iffy

Sarah Writes

Judging by the reactions to Sarah’s book, what she seems to have accomplished is mostly to prove she can’t remember phone conversations any better than email, or that she even knows the difference (what might be a legitimate point for someone who thinks a photograph for a running magazine wouldn’t turn up anywhere else). Apparently, to her it’s all just words. I can’t argue with that.

But moving on to important stuff, it’s not the shorts in the photo. It’s the classic “I am sex object on display” pose that’s sort of offensive. I’ve seen some dramatic photos of Palin running along a rocky beach somewhere in front of a glacier that seem to say more about an effective personality than standing with your hands and one leg hitched up in a beauty-contest, fashion-mag celebrity pose, although even with the glacier, she is alone. She may be a highly intelligent and savvy politician, but she’s channeling it into a fool’s image. How are we supposed to respect that? She has to get beyond Wasilla-league popularity to be a serious political factor.

"I'm going to have my official portrait painted on the nose of an F-22."





And by the way, isn’t it a desecration of The Flag to throw it over a chair and plant your elbow on it like a placemat? I thought there was a specific way to fold and store an American Flag when it isn’t on proper display? What do the swift boat veterans for patriotic BS have to say about that?

No doubt Newsweek chose the photo because it seems to reflect badly on Palin’s ideology and would generate controversy, but that isn’t even the issue. Yeah, unless you’re Bill O’Reilly or Hannity, and sexual harassment is your cup of tea, so to speak, this is a demeaning photo, whether it’s Newsweek, Runners World, Hustler, or the Catholic Review. What makes her think she can get away with it? I’ve seen photos of presidents running and playing golf or tennis, but unless they were just being goofy I’ve never seen presidents dressed for exercise and standing around in a Mr. Universe flex pose with American Flags wadded up under their arms.

If you have some, trot them out.

Here’s Thinking for You.
Iffy

Government Transparency

The only thing Republicans hate worse than opaque government is transparent government. The Bush Administration had a firm grip on understanding that ignorance can only complain about lack of information. Knowledge opens up all kinds of potential issues. Look at the Whithouse guest lists. Under Bush, the only complaint was that nobody knew who had access to the President. Under Obama, knowing that George Clooney has access to the President makes Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney feel inadequate again. Poor Rush. Poor Dick.

And speaking of Rush and Dick, we’re on to another week of the inexperienced and immature Obama thing. Uh, did I miss something, or was not extension of the “war” in Afghanistan a Bush administration policy? Afghanistan was never going to be easy, and how we are going to get out was never clear, but none of that makes the previous administration less responsible for anything except having any idea of how to get out before going in. Once the military solution was achieved (except for failing to neutralize Bin Laden, which correct me if I’m wrong was why we went in. No? Oh, my bad.) , how do you democratically maintain a government that you put in place but the inhabitants seem less than enthusiastic about, without leaving it to be lynched if you leave, like the Russians?

Oh, I know. We can move Karzai over here and give him Canada. The Canadians are moving to Florida anyway. In fact, we can just cut out the dealer and give Karzai Florida up front. Florida gave the election to Dubya, it’s only fair that we should have Karzai for King. We’re done with Crist anyway. He’s going to have to switch parties after the Obama hug thing. Don’t forget, Charlie, Sara Palin’s out there somewhere, very far out there.

Maybe my wife is right. The Republicans don’t want to take stimulus money, because the more people without work, the more people default on their mortgages, and the more cheap houses go to those bright enterprising Christian conservatives to share with their less fortunate brethren, at a fair rent that defaults to 27.99%, of course. The work ethic rules.

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Iffy

Snarling and Mauling

Oh Mr. Dik, you rascal you. Are we dithering in Afghanistan again? Well, we shouldn’t be surprised. You only had eight years to mess it up. A couple of more years and maybe you could have done a thorough enough job that nobody could do anything about it ever. That must be a big disappointment. No wonder you make so much noise.

Yeah, we’re letting those naughty little Talibanistas walk all over us, like they had any business running a country in the first place. And what’s with this taking opinions from other countries into account? The US of A don’t take no sqwak off nobody. We are the pit bulls of politicals. We know only snarling and mauling. With us or agin us.

Now why isn’t it that we invaded Saudi Arabia? Oh yeah, we only invade undemocratic despotisms where distribution of wealth is way inequitable.

So why don’t we just invade us?

Here’s Thinking for You.
Iffy

NObamable

You might think from the title that this would be a complaint about the award to President Obama, but actually, no. That's just a little wordplay to get the opposition all excited.

Remember Croatia and Serbia? Does anybody remember Croatia and Serbia? There was, like, this war with guns and violence and killing and atrocities, and it was getting genocidal and threatening to be regional, and Silly Bill sent over the U.S. Airforce, and they bombed the hoorah out of Serb military installations and production facilities, until the Serbs ran out of stuff to blow stuff up, and they made a separate country for Croatia, and now they don’t necessarily like each other or even get along, but at least they don’t kill each other so much? Remember that?

The problem was, obviously, that we were just too clinical about the whole thing. We sent in aircraft to cut off the means of waging war, and it worked. The number of Americans who died as a direct consequence of combat was what? Under a hundred? What kind of intervention is that? You can’t have a war without killing people. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s contrary to the whole concept of war.

And so, what kind of political capital do you accumulate by ending wars without adding bloodshed? Answer: not much. The Army wasn’t happy about it. Veterans weren’t happy about it. Patriotic political organizations weren’t happy about it. Conservative politicians weren’t happy about it. They didn’t want it to work, and the absolute worst thing about it was that it worked. Well, so they didn’t waste any time whacking Clinton down to size. They had trouble making the Bosnian strategic success into a bad thing, but Silly Bill cut his own throat, so to speak, for them by the mistake of participating in a questionable personal relationship, and even worse, thinking it might not be that big of a deal. Politically, you may be able to survive not killing people, but you sure aren’t going to get away with any personal indiscretions. That, my friends, would be grounds for impeachment.

Thus the foundation was built for the advent of George Bush, who in the aftermath of 9/11 quickly demonstrated that he could have only one hope of ever achieving anything like presidential stature, and that was to take responsibility for the decision to sacrifice American lives in the execution of a Great Cause. What the Great Cause would be remains somewhat unclear, but we escalated the killing straightaway, and the place of George Bush in history was thereby assured.

Why we betrayed the rebels and accepted Hussein’s repression of the Shiia after the Gulf War in the first place remains another mystery. Apparently the simple expedient of neutralizing his helicopters and tanks would have been sufficient to achieve regime change, but maybe the question of internal instability somehow initially justified the need to intervene only in a direct and comprehensive way. For reasons that remain mostly incomprehensible, however, Hussein was allowed to continue his repressive policies, which somehow eventually became part of the justification for the Heroic invasion by George Bush. Five thousand American casualties later, the coalition of token participation has achieved little assured result other than unresolvable conflict and international skepticism accompanied by an economic collapse aggravated by the continual diversion of attention elsewhere, and Bush slipped away into history to write his memoirs, his war predictably unconcluded, a presidential stature of mythic proportions undoubtedly under construction. That is, if anybody remembers he was ever president, or wants to. It was Bush that was President, right? Not Karl Rove?

This is the preposterous situation, going back at least to the first Gulf War, into which Barack Obama enters as successor to George Bush. My concern for Obama has always been taking over a no-win situation that the conservatives were only too happy to relinquish, so they could blame it on someone else. Just as obviously, they wasted no time jumping on that bandwagon. Witness Hannity and Beck. If anything, their real consternation, once again, is the all too apparent danger that Obama might at least move toward some kind of international consensus. Even the mere prospect of achieving progress in the global resolution of conflict is just too much for his opponents.

And you are still clueless enough to wonder why the man deserves a Nobel Peace Prize? You should work for Fox News.

Here's thinking for you.

Iffy

In John We Trust

I now have the disappointing distinction of supporting two prominent liars in the course of my life, George Bush and John Edwards. By comparison, Bill Clinton’s response to the investigation of his relationship with Monica Lewinski doesn’t even rate with Reagan’s bad memory. When Bush claimed that Iraq represented a threat to the progress of international peace by WMD development and imminent deployment, I believed that the President of the United States had more at stake than some kind of schoolyard attitude. I was wrong. Perhaps my outrage at the failure of my judgment in that case led me to an excessive desire for retaliation that made me blind to the apparent character (or lack thereof) on the part of John Edwards. Or maybe at that point I just really didn’t care that much. When controversy usually seems to mean increasing the divide between rich and poor, and the military cheerfully obeys illegal orders just to keep the funds flowing, you tend to develop a kind of cynical attitude toward the prospects for performance of government and politicians, despite the necessity for both.

The excessively sordid saga of John Edwards' infidelity, however, has an additional ironic, poignant resonance in the UCF composition program, where one of the textbooks on argument included an essay by Edwards discussing the essential nature of trust and credibility. HOO Rah. There’s a laugh, you would think. The only redemption for Edwards in that discourse may be Hank Lewis’ distinction between morality and ethics, the idea that perhaps you can be professionally ethical without being entirely moral on a personal level. A philandering doctor or real estate agent or convenience store clerk can still perform the functions of the job, maybe even exceptionally well. Why should their behavior off the clock impact professional expectations?

What we expect of professionals is to do the best job they can, regardless of their personal prejudices. Morality is a kind of personal responsibility, a personal prejudice in a sense. However, excusing bad behavior as irrelevant to professional performance assumes a distinction between personal and professional that may not exist. Showing up late and falling asleep, or stealing to finance multiple relationships are common ways that the complexity of the personal can directly affect the professional. At that point, at least, we generally agree and acknowledge by policy and law that the limits of the personal and professional have been exceeded, but what if the relationship is less obvious? Lawyers, for instance, are supposed to be committed to excluding individual morality from performance anyway. Lawyers are supposed to choose the best argument regardless. Why should infidelity and public deception be anything other than what you would expect? A good lawyer being a good lawyer?

The reason is the same reason we don’t allow doctors and fighter pilots to kill runaway children on the weekends as part of the compensation for their value to society. A doctor for whom destruction is personal entertainment would neutralize the value of professional performance to society. Likewise, anyone for whom destruction is personal entertainment neutralizes their value to society, and so we discourage destructive personal behavior regardless. Murder for entertainment on weekends wouldn’t prevent a doctor from treating the flu, but the value of treating the flu pales by comparison, so to speak. We don’t even tolerate a doctor who goes out on weekends and knocks over convenience stores for fun, in spite of how valuable the medical skill may be. There are degrees of destruction, both personal and public, but when the destruction has been sufficient to be acknowledged by everyone involved, then the value of the profession has been neutralized. Call that morality of a sort.

If I didn’t know about Edwards’ infidelity, maybe it wouldn’t matter, but on the other hand, if I don’t know about a crime, does that mean it didn’t happen or it isn’t important? Everybody takes up some space on the planet. That’s the space we agree to allow each other by virtue of the planned or unplanned fact of existence. Connections of family and the routine affairs of subsistence are personal. Services rendered on an impersonal basis are professional, but where personal affairs, personal space, becomes destructive in a comprehensive and acknowledged way, the social value of the professional has been neutralized. John Edwards’ infidelity may not be entirely illegal, but it was destructive on both personal and public levels. As far as I’m concerned, Edwards’ value as an attorney and as a politician has been neutralized, or should have been.

Here’s thinking for you.
Iffy

The Shrill Sillies of Righteousness

Jesus was a socialist. In his outrage at the exploitation of class distinctions, however paternally condescending such outrage may be, there was a fundamental insistence on mutual consideration. Jesus may not want you for a doormat, but he certainly doesn’t want you for a military elitist reactionary. As much as you might like to think Christianity is parochial, colonial, and safe from universal concerns, Jesus had other ideas. The unfortunate down side of Christianity for supremacist interpretations is the Christian part, and there is, by the way, one sin that will not be forgiven regardless of all the love in the heart of Jesus, righteousness. Judgement is God's turf, and God don't take kindly to squatters. So much for theology.

The heart of socialism, shared with humanism before Darwin got hold of it and ripped it out, is the idea that people are fundamentally equal and valuable. Seem familiar? Individual expression is also valuable, but distribution of resources depends on the determination to find places for everybody that fit their individual capacities, not on the mighty power of randomly individual supremacy and survival of the most contentious. Hysterical objections to socialism are based, not on the reality of an economy and society that has already demonstrated the essential nature of interdependence, but on perceptions of a failed communist experiment that established a new aristocracy of party affiliations unequal to confrontation with the established aristocracy of capitalism. In spite of technical expertise formidable enough to at least put a good scare in the capitalist technocracy, the Soviet Union failed to compete toe-to-toe as an industrial capitalist initiative, much as any under-funded and badly organized business venture fails to compete with other established competitors in the market. Soviet communism was only socialist in the sense that it confined the majority of the population to subordinate positions, creating a façade of equality that, like capitalist class distinctions, does not even allow participation in public discussion, much less socialist ideology, Marxist base and superstructure. Therefore, unable to continue support of a non-productive aristocracy and competitively outclassed, Soviet Communism collapsed under its own weight, an outcome previously predicted by a few shrewd analysts, and since Soviet Communism was neither socialist nor competitive, we need to get over fear of Soviet Communism as justification to oppose the suggestions of the President.

The underlying premise of socialism produces such cooperative consequences as public roads, health standards, educational opportunities, legal recourse, and free speech. The ancient and excessive fear of an aggressive and totalitarian aristocracy disguised as communism now justifies opposition to initiatives that are both socially and religiously imperative, and the inference of irrational volume and intensity suggested by characterizations of shrill and silly resistance are about right. If the objection to health care reform depends on resistance to government and the threat of socialism, then my response would be to get your sorry hypocritical parasite butt off the public streets produced by socialist consensus, and find a privately constituted route home, and good luck with that.

Here's thinking for you.
Iffy