Hacking and Security

§  This is a story that is concerned with a young man (thirteen years old) who attacked the GRC.com website. The website belongs to a giant research corporation. The CEO of that corporation is Steve Gibson. On March 4^th evening of 2001, the GRC website went down. Gibson found out that his corporation was hacked by a little kid so he did the best he could to track him and catch him. At the end, Gibson was finally able to catch him and stop what he did.

§  Windows PC’s were unable to send TC PSYN packets to pot 80 and were only able to flood them with UDD and LCMP packets (Which could be temporarily ignored)  ISP was able to filter their receipt of the malicious packets before they were able to reach their T1 trunks. TCP – based services ( web/ FTP news) offered even under continuing attack.

·         ATTCKS WERE 474.

·         ATTACKED BY 474 Windows PC’S and a machine per piece wich means 474 machines with multiple domains.

·         Hackers referring to various lists of “cable Bots” and saying things like “ Heh, but now many of this Bots are cable?” are a remote control of Zombie.

·         Eight machines used in the attack.

Regarding the statement, I would say that I agree.

·         A better security should be provided.

·         The Internet security intervention should be prevented by putting a law for judging those people and giving them harsh punishments.

Sub 7 Server: Grants the hacker who is controlling the Zombie, the “ Zombie Master”  - absolute control over his victim’s machines.

Sub 7Server Torjan enables is monitoring every keystroke for the purpose of capturing anything online such as, passwords, credit cards, eBanking …etc.

Zoho's winning strategy: open source + cloud

Open source are known to be applications that promote access of materials available for free to the users. The internet is the environment that we find those open source applications. Some examples of those are Google Docs and Zoho.

The term Cloud means or refers to the process of transferring data between different devices through the global internet connection. The significance is shown in the case when a user purchases a program or an application, by using a Cloud, you don’t have to purchase it in order to use it on another device. The idea is that the storage space will be located on the internet instead of saving the files on your computer. In this case, the user will have access to all his/her files as long as there is internet connection.

Zoho is known to be the strongest threat to Google Docs. It is as old as 13 years and it has always been free. Raju Vegesna, evangelist of the company admits the fact that in today's world avoiding open source software is almost impossible. The company is also known as AdventNet and it has around 1.8 million users in its website zoho.com. the growth rate is about 100,000 new users every month, which is great. In 2003, they managers were just deciding whether or not to go open source as Vegesna explains and they were thinking of going SaaS. At the end they opted for both.

To clarify the idea of the article, the following quote seems to be informative: "Open-source software inside with a cloud delivery strategy, and open APIs to give external developers access to that cloud". Zoho is becoming a considerable part of core of some companies’ business because they use it with their operating system, database, application server, and scaling system. The advantage of those businesses is that they can modify those open source application and adapt them to the business environment that they run. Vegesna reported, "Without open source I can't imagine SaaS [software as a service] taking off. The economics simply wouldn't work."

Social Networks Go To Work

Ellen Messmer who is the writer of the article ‘Social Networks Go To Work’ discusses how the new technologies of social networking, instant messaging and peer to peer file sharing has become a major part of our life in terms of business and personal purposes. She supports his claims by providing statistical numbers from a survey done by Market research firm NewDiligence. The survey shows that 60% of the 527 surveyed IT managers and end users use social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube while %85 use media file sharing. It is mentioned that they use those sites during work hours for business and personal purposes.

Another thing that is discussed in the article is security and how safe or dangerous it is to use those sites. It has become a common thing that viruses, spam, malware, and worms spread so easily on these sites because they have very high numbers of users on a daily basis. The information provided by the survey states that half of the respondents access social networking sites at least once a day. The security risks that are spreading were mentioned by Jose Nazario who is a network security researcher at security firm Arbor Networks. "Any social media where you do have a lot of eyeballs is a direct distribution channel for malware," Nazario said.

In order to stay away from those dangers that companies had to face, IT managers started to deploy unified communications plan as corporate policies for network monitoring. This is where enterprises start to play a major role in the business world to stay secure when using instant messaging, Skype, Web conferencing and P2P file sharing.

One example of a company that uses social networking for business purposes is Al Uroush Automotive Trading Company. It is the exclusive BMW Group Importer for Iraq, which is located in Erbil. They have created a fan page on Facebook to keep the people who are interested in BMW in Iraq updated with the latest news they have. They often post pictures of their new arrivals with details about their products. They also make posts about the special offers and the deals that they have in order to attract costumes. The page has 38,389 fans, which means that when they post something, at least half of that number will see it on that same day, which is a great marketing deal.

To see the BMW-Iraq page, click here.

Generation Next

The discussion is generally concerned with how the new generation, specifically between the ages of 18 to 24, in the United States became more open minded about different issues in life. Internet and technology in general lead to change the lifestyle of the new generation into a different one. They are more strongly attached to each other when it comes to friendships and relationships because of technology, which made it easy for everyone to be in touch with each other through cell phones, social networking sites, email, and instant messaging. It is the same when it comes to political ideas where we find out that they are aware of everything that goes around the world just by sharing what they know with each other or looking it up on the internet.

I would claim that the similarity between the new generation in the United States and the new generations in Iraq is bigger than the difference. The internet and technology has become a major part of the Iraqi youth, which seems to be promising to make everyone more aware of what is going on out there rather than being isolated. Text messaging, social networking, instant messaging and many other new technologies are becoming very common and basic among the young Iraqi people.

Some differences one would point out is that how each of them is concerned with politics. It is mentioned in the podcast that the American youth are politically active and more concerned with economic issues in the political atmosphere of their country. On the other hand, the young people in Iraq are more concerned with political issues that relate to solving the countries problems.

Another thing one would point out as a difference is the issues of race, discrimination, and the ways they think about the diversity of ethnicities. The civil war has become a part of history for them now. Problems relating to diversity of races and things like that still exist in the Iraqi generations like problems between Kurds and Arabs or Yazidies and so on.

The products and services that are targeted to this demographic are most likely the technological products and the new technology related services like iChat as it is mentioned in the Generation Next podcast. Furthermore, today’s suppliers in the world, regardless of the country, tend to target the young people. 

"Future Intelligence" Response

It is known that one of the dominant fields of knowledge in our age is the knowledge of highly developed technology. The movie was about how developed technology is in our age and how influential it can be on our lives. It showed how technology can replace lots of human powers and how it can replace human themselves in the near future. "In 25 years, robots will have superior cognitive ability to humans." I believe that this illustrates that technology is amazingly advanced and being more developed by MIT level experts. Scientists predict that one day there will be a society of robots similar to humans. In my opinion, this idea has more disadvantages than advantages. It might help to make life much easier for us, yet robots might also be more superior for the powers they have.

My impression about the Gina was that I was stunned by how amazingly developed its technology was. Having a flexible body, this car can create a revolution in the car industry. As an avid fan of German cars, especially BMW, I think that a whole new world can be brought to existence by producing such a car. I have seen the Gina before seeing the movie in class. One of my dreams in life is to see that fabric-skinned shape-shifting sports car which is located in the BMW museum in Munich, Germany.

Developing Countries and the Flat World

We have already seen that Friedman mentioned ten flatteners. In this section of the book, The World is Flat, he believes that the nations that have intentions to develop themselves must think about introspection while thinking about the flat world. It is not about going through all the steps, yet it is about knowing their position regarding the flatteners.  Other than committing to a competitive market, those countries must also develop infrastructure, right governance, and proper education.

Friedman provides Ireland as an example of a business-friendly country. It is one of the richest countries in the European Union because of addressing infrastructure, education, and governance.  It is not correct to say that cheap work is wanted everywhere. In fact, the capital seeks the most productive labor at the cheapest price.

Another thing that Friedman mentions in the text is that it is necessary to understand the culture in order to understand the economic performance of a country. He argues that the open cultures have the best chance to succeed because of their ability and willing to adapt to global practices. He also mentions the importance of giving woman the opportunity to express themselves because keeping them away from the workforce eliminate half of the talent pool. Friedman calls the missing element “the intangible things.” Friedman boils the intangibles down to two basic elements: a willing society and leaders with vision. His example for this case is the success of China, unlike Mexico.

Digital Story Telling Podcast

The advantages are the female speaker claims that the ability to tell a story through a podcast makes an "exponential" difference e that through a podcast you can reach a much wider audience.

One important thing to know is that digital tools improve digital literacy, as users have to know how to use the verbal and visual aids to put their stories together. This obviously helps users improve their communications skills, and allows them to become more comfortable with a whole range of digital tools, which are becoming more important through time. Furthermore, users learn how to use the web for their stories, editing software, as well as greatly improving their task and project management skills. Digital storytelling allows kids to explore and explain their individual stories in their own way, using many different skills to put a great story together.

The most obvious disadvantages associated with digital storytelling seem to be that it takes a lot of time to prepare. Obviously it will take up a lot of time for both parties involved (Student and teacher), but there are ways to counter this as well, by getting the students to better use their time outside of class in getting everything ready.

To be honest, I only understood digital storytelling after listening to the podcast. I guess it is a chance for me to improve my skills regarding basic editing on moviemaking software, and that by the end of this project, I will be more comfortable using the software.