Warning: squirrels.

Call me Ishmael

So, in between playing Crackdown and waiting for the beta of Halo 3 to be released, I've been updating my resume.  Should I put the following Crackdown achievement under "Awards and Honors" or "Hobbies"?  :P

A little technology/security rant

Imagine for a moment that you accidentally invited Osama bin Laden into your bedroom and that, once safely ensconced in your boudoir, bin Laden immediately opened your bedroom window and let dozens of other terrorists into your house.  Clearly this would be both a frightening and newsworthy event.  But how, exactly, would the news media cover this?

One way would be to focus on the new “threat vector.”  To my knowledge, there has never been a case where terrorists have broken into American homes through the bedroom window.  So, clearly, the 24-hour news channels would have a field day with this story, spending days warning you about the potential danger lurking in your bedroom and inviting pundits from Pella and Andersen windows to talk about what anti-terrorist protections are built into current bedroom window technologies.

The less sexy approach – and the approach that I favor – is to simply ignore the “your bedroom window may be a conduit for terrorists” story and instead focus on the real issue: YOU SHOULDN’T LET OSAMA BIN LADEN INTO YOUR BEDROOM IN THE FIRST PLACE!  The fact that he opened your bedroom window for other terrorists to enter is IRRELEVANT.

What does this have to do with technology?  Well, last week the media reported that a virus/Trojan horse was targeting Windows Update, giving the false impression that Windows Update [your “bedroom window” in my convoluted analogy] is no longer safe.  That’s complete and utter hogwash.  If you read the media reports closely you’ll discover that

1. Some idiots double-clicked on a Trojan-infected email attachment and infected their computers with a virus [“invited bin Laden into their bedrooms”].  If these idiots had had up-to-date antivirus programs, or if they had practiced “safe surf” and not clicked on unsolicited email attachments in the first place, their computers would have been fine and there wouldn’t have been a story.  But they’re idots.

2. The newly-installed Trojan horse connected to the Internet and downloaded more bad stuff onto the idiots’ computers [“opened the bedroom windows to let in more terrorists”].  This sounds scary but is actually quite commonplace – once an idiot’s computer is infected with a virus or Trojan horse, it is not uncommon for that virus or Trojan horse to try to download and install more malware onto that idot’s computer.

What is abnormal about this particular Trojan horse, however, is how the Trojan connected to the Internet to download and install its extra payload.  Instead of using the idiot’s front door [the web browser or email program], the Trojan opened the bedroom window [the Background Intelligent Transfer Service].  The “scary” part – and note that the word “scary” is in quotes – is that the Background Intelligent Transfer Service is also used by Microsoft Windows Update.

OH NOES!  IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD!

Or not.  Look, just as your bedroom window can be used for both good [letting in air and light] and bad [letting in bin Laden’s buddies], so can the Background Intelligent Transfer Service.  It can be used by Microsoft to connect to Microsoft’s servers to download critical updates, or it can be used by a Trojan horse to connect to some criminal’s server and let in all sorts of nastyware.  But – and this is the key point – as long as your computer isn’t infected by a Trojan horse in the first place, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.  Just as you don’t have to fear your bedroom window, you don’t have to fear Windows Update or the Background Intelligent Transfer Service it uses.  No Trojan, no worries.

And, unfortunately for the tech media, no story either.  Windows Update is still safe.

As for your bedroom window, well …

New postal pricing

There is nothing more exciting than postal rate changes [well, other than changes in the IRS phase-out of the Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit].  Effective today [May 14], the United States Postal Service has a new rate structure.  First class letters now cost $0.41 for the first ounce, $0.17 for each additional ounce.  Oh, happy day.

You can find out more information about the new pricing structure on the USPS website.

The Post Office is also selling a new "Forever" stamp.  For 41 cents, you get a stamp that is guaranteed to be accepted forever, even if there are future rate increases.  So stock up!

Oooomaaaaziiiiinggaaaaace

This is at once hysterical, touching, and sad.  Well, it's more hysterical than touching or sad.  Oh, and it gets really good at 2:08 and keeps going through the BIG finish.

Who'd have thought it was possible to sing an entire hymn without a single consonant?

 

10 Coolest Apollo apps

Back on March 30th I told you about Adobe Apollo, a "cross-platform system runtime that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, Ajax) to build and deploy desktop rich internet applications."  Well, Stan Schroeder has come up with a list of what he considers to be the 10 coolest Apollo apps.  Included on that list are a Twitter app [think of Twitter as an automated, web-based, away message], a mini Digg, and even an app that shows you what a web page looks like if it were viewed inside of a clothes dryer.

And you laughed when I said that Apollo would be the start of the second great internet revolution.  :P

Watch Frontline episodes online

For the past 23 years, Frontline has been the flagship public affairs series on America's public television network. Frontline presents long-form public affairs documentaries that "fully explore and illuminate the critical issues of our times." In fact,

FRONTLINE remains the only regularly scheduled long-form public- affairs documentary series on American television, producing more hours of documentary programming than all the commercial networks combined.

Now for the cool part. If you head over to the Frontline web site you can watch nearly three dozen Frontline episodes in their entirety, online, free of charge. No, really.

Each Frontline episode is divided into 12 minute chunks, and both high (DLS/Cable) and low (dial-up) versions are available. While you can't actually save the video chunks to your computer without using special stream recording software [which I am NOT going to talk about], the 12 minute chunks are available in both streaming RealPlayer and Windows Media Player formats. Just click on the episode you want to watch, click on the clip you want to play, choose your bandwidth, and you're off to the races.

A few of Frontline's episodes also have links to analyses, interviews, chronologies, discussions, and even teachers guides. Look for the links somewhere on the episodes' homepages.

It's patch Tuesday!

Run Windows Update, y'all [in Internet Explorer go to Tools > Windows Update].  Today is "patch Tuesday" and Microsoft just released 19 patches.  You can read more about these patches at Brian Krebs' Security Fix blog at the Washington Post.

German accordion music! [Part 2]

German accordion music!

Okay, this guy has mad skillz [or however the kids are spelling "skills" these days].  At first I doubted that this was real -- I thought someone was offscreen playing an out of tune organ -- but then I realized that an old button accordion is just a miniature bellows organ with funky keys.  So, yeah ... this is real.

I'll post the fugue on Monday.

The REAL reason all the honeybees are disappearing

Quote of the day [courtesy of Fark.com]:

Applying Occam’s Razor to the puzzling mystery of why America’s honeybees are mysteriously disappearing from their hives leads to the obvious and inevitable conclusion: Bee rapture