Category: Observations Page 73 of 90

Mysteries Within

On May 8, 2012

Upgrade. Buy something new. There’s a better one. There’s a newer one. There’s something slightly better out there that you could own.

Stop using Last Year’s Model. Line up for the new model!

Read the Self Repair Manifesto and get one of your own.

The Manifesto

Stop throwing away something perfectly good with a small problem. Stop giving up on something that can be easily repaired. Stop buying something completely new because of a small issue.

Reading Stephen Hackett’s turning screws resonated with me. He writes,

But there’s something about having a screwdriver in hand that I just can’t get over.
I don’t think I ever will.

Repair work is stressful. There’s no doubt. Every time I unscrew a case and crack it open there is a mystery waiting inside.

The stories accompanying the mysteries are usually as good as the mysteries itself. Mysteries like I found in Bartending: Memoirs of an Apple Genius which chronicled Mr. Hackett’s experiences working as a pre-iPhone Apple Genius. My favorite story ended with,

I guess the moral of his story is that you should always check whether you’re peeing in a bathroom or on an open MacBook.

Whether it be a laptop, desktop, gaming console or mp3 player there is mystery hidden beneath its plastic and metal shell.

I have no idea what I am going to find when I get inside of it. Whether I am repairing something at work for a customer, or repairing a device I own the mystery is always there.

I enjoy repairing things. I enjoy getting inside something and figuring out why it doesn’t work. I like to repair technology and nurse it back to health. I like to take old discarded things and make them new and useful again.

I enjoy the mystery and the accompanying stories.

Justin Bieber Wants to Be Friends With You: Stranger Danger in the 21st Century

By Carl

On May 2, 2012

In Observations

As I was reading Ars Technica this morning, I came across two stories that disturbed me. How pedophiles use Craigslist and sextortion over Facebook and it scares me. I don’t mean to single these two sites out. Nor are they the only places where danger can lurk on the internet. There is danger online as well as off. Just as children of the 80’s were taught about stranger danger, children of the 00’s need to be educated about online danger.

Telephones for the 21st Century

The internet is first and foremost a communications medium. We use it to talk to our friends. We use it to plan events. We use it to buy goods and services. We use it to find our way from point A to point B. We use it to get messages, check our bank accounts and get the news.

The internet has become as much as part of life as the television or the radio. This is why it scares me because so many people are ignorant to it and its dangers.

Before I go any further, I am not trying to say there is stranger danger lurking behind every corner. There are not pedophiles and rapists behind every sign post and in every dark alley.

But they do exist. Can you go through your entire life without being mugged or assaulted? Absolutely, you can. But all it takes is one bad decision to lead you to other bad decisions to end up somewhere you don’t want to be.

Bad choices come in sets

For instance, let’s take the guy extorting pictures of young girls through Facebook. The choice was made to talk to him. This is not a bad choice at the beginning. If we never talked to new people, we’d never make any new friends.

The bad choices started when the girls started messaging, which again, can be innocent enough. Sexuality and curiosity are a part of everyone’s lives. Asking questions and talking, again, is not in itself harmful.

Should they have talked to a stranger over the internet about it? Maybe, maybe not? The decision-making process could have gotten started for any number of reasons.

Once the conversations were in the hands of the extortionist, then the bad choices began. The girls wanted to keep their dignity and not be humiliated and not get in trouble.

Misery loves company

To avoid this, they made bad choices. They took photos of themselves (bad choice but if kept private or immediately deleted not damaging), they sent the photos (even worse choice because once something is out in the digital world, it never truly goes away) and they sent naked photos (of course, this is the worst choice).

Now, there are naked photos outside the control of those who sent them. They are out in the world. Maybe only on the hard drive or email account/messaging account of the recipient. Maybe he sent them to friends or posted them elsewhere. Once those photos left their phones, they are out of their control.

Once it’s out there, you can’t take it back

What you say online, stays online. There is no taking it back. Once something is created and sent out into the world, it can be duplicated countless times. It never really disappears.

Google is caching millions of pages and files per day for searching. The Wayback Machine is a living digital archive of the internet. The Library of Congress is going to archive every tweet sent using Twitter. These are just a few examples of archiving efforts going on in various forms to capture and store the billions of messages and files created everyday.

Ignorance is no longer bliss

My fear in all of this is because of my job I work with people and technology every day. I work with people who don’t get computers or don’t use the internet. This isn’t something they feel the need to know anything about or be able to use beyond the scope of their job.

This scares me because these are the people with children at home relying on them to help navigate the digital landscape. There are real dangers online just as there are in the physical world.

Just as a child can be taken from a shopping mall, they can be lured to a meeting with a friend online. Parents owe it to themselves to be able to teach their children how to spot danger and what to do about it.

If you don’t know how or where to start, ask your computer guy or gal. Turn to the person you go to for advice on what to buy or how to fix something. They may not be well-versed in the dangers of the online world but they can offer a few tips and send you in the right direction which is what I hope to do.

How to start

It is not enough to ban children from the internet. The internet is at home, on mobile phones and digital devices. It’s at friend’s houses and at school. It’s in community centers and public libraries.

It is not enough to ban or block usage, children will find a way around blocks or bans. Remember, they are most likely far more savvy than you are. They need to be educated about the dangers online.

Protect Kids is a great starting point. There is tons of information about internet dangers, safety rules and tools, social networking tips and reporting cyber crime. It’s a good starting point if you need to educate yourself or know someone who needs to educate their kids.

Enough is another fantastic resource for education about dangers online. I recommend everyone to take the short three question quiz. I got 3/3 correct but the answers may surprise you.

At the end of the quiz there is a pledge to sign recognizing that:

Kids have free and easy access to pornography, either intentionally or accidentally;
Predators and cyberbullies have easy and anonymous access to vulnerable kids;
Kids are engaging in risky behavior via computers, cell phones, gaming systems and social networks; and
Adults are often uninformed, ill-equipped and overwhelmed about how to deal with Internet dangers.

How well did you do?

Take some time to explore the site and think about the quiz and the pledge. Talk to your children about the dangers online and have them take the youth pledge.

Most importantly, make sure they know they can always come to you for anything. I know kids don’t always turn to their parents, even when they should. I sure didn’t all the time growing up.

But make sure your kids know they can come to you with things and they won’t get in trouble.

If the girls in the sextortion story had come to their parents, all of this could have been avoided. Did their parents do a great job raising them? Yes, they most likely did. Education can only take you so far. The rest is in the hands of your children to make those good decisions.

Kids are going to make mistakes. I did growing up. So did my parents and their parents and I know my kids will when I have them one day. Everyone makes mistakes, especially growing up. Help educate your children so they’re mistakes stay small and don’t turn into dangerous mistakes.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me and I will do my best to help or point you in the right direction.

Photo courtesy of Capture Queen.

The Amazon eBook Cycle

By Carl

On March 28, 2012

In Observations

It starts out innocently enough. I am reading a story about the boom in dystopian fiction for young readers. The story focuses mainly on the Hunger Games trilogy but also touches on a handful of other books and series.

Many of the books mentioned I have read but I am interested in some of the others so I take the logical progression of search the name, find the Amazon link and add it to my book wish list.

This is where Amazon gets you.

Most of the time, the book is $5 or $10 so I add it to the list for later. I figure when I am on the hunt for something new I’ll pick it up.

Only, today when I found The Knife of Never Letting Go I found the book was $1. Normally, it is $10 but today, it was a single dollar. I don’t know for how long or why but it was.

So I bought it.

This is how Amazon gets you. Ever since the Kindle and their iOS apps reignited my love of reading, I’ve added to my list of books to read. Sometimes I look for sales, other times I use the wonderful book-lending service Lende which I reviewed.

My list of books to read is growing out of control and every week I am adding more and more. I love to read and I love Amazon’s enabling of my reading but they need to stop the madness. I have too many books and there is no sign of stopping.

Is there such a thing as reader’s guilt?

Thank you, Writers

By Carl

On March 24, 2012

In Observations

Thank you.

Thank you to all the writers who have written books, short stories, poems, novellas, and stories online and off.

Thank you to reaching into your souls and tearing out the words and ideas screaming, whispering, begging to be let out. Thank you for sharing your stories with me. Thank you for making me feel a little less alone.

Thank you for allowing me to take the fantastic voyage you’ve led me on. Thank you allowing me to tag along on the amazing stories and worlds you’ve created.

Growing up in a small town, my entertainment was books. I read voraciously and each week I was in some new far away place. I wandered through the world of tomorrow and yesterday. I sailed across oceans and traveled the stars. I lived in the shoes of the young and the old. I lived with humans and animals and being of all sorts.

Thank you for all you have written. Thank you for all you will write. Thank you for your words. Thank you for your tears. Thank you for your smiles and triumphs. Thank you for the sadness and misery. Thank you for all that you’ve shared with me. Thank you for taking me to places I could never visit on my own.

Thank you.

How much privacy is your pay check worth?

By Carl

On March 21, 2012

In Observations

I’ve been seeing more and more stories about job seekers getting asked for Facebook passwords

and I thought it might have only been a poor choice by a single company. But judging by this story, it has been commonplace to ask interviewees for their Facebook credentials in job interviews. This is purportedly to check for gang affiliations, illegal activity or anything that could “damage the image of the employer” during the process of vetting the applicant.

I think this is a dirty trick against desperate people in a bad economy.

Vetting Candidates

I understand where the companies are coming from. Interviewing is difficult. The process of whittling down hundreds or thousands of applicants to a manageable number to phone screen is maddening. To further get a list of people to interview in person is even more difficult. Even after multiple interviews, the employer is still hiring an unknown person and hoping for the best. This is also why probationary periods exist for new hires.
There is no guarantee the person will be a good fit, is trustworthy and is worth the time and energy invested to hire them. Vetting candidates is hard, time-consuming work. However, it needs to be done legally and ethically. If you play games to hire people, you won’t always get the best employee but you will get the best game player.

Expectations of Privacy

There is no expectation of privacy on corporate networks. This should not extend into personal lives.

When you’re at work, you are on company time and company equipment. Don’t expect anything you do to be private. This is not to say that anyone in IT is watching your browsing habits or reading your email. They have far better things to do and are way too busy to be randomly poking around mailboxes and file servers.

Some employers employ monitoring software in addition to the nannyware to block access to social networks, video game sites and pornography. These are the things you’ve seen. Though, behind the scenes there can be software tracking the amount of time you’re spending on various sites or places you’re visiting on the web.

There is a huge difference between monitoring the activity of employees while at work and prying into the personal lives of potential employees. I can understand the desire of an employer to see what they’re getting when they hire. But what they’re asking is for akin to asking for a copy of your house key, car key and bank PIN.

Think of all the things sitting in your email account. How many accounts are tied to that email? Where are your password reset emails sent? Where are your bank statements sent? How many passwords to other systems are sitting inside your email at this very moment.

Now give your email password to a stranger. This is the same as providing your Facebook password to a stranger on the street.

It doesn’t stop there

Access to a Facebook account doesn’t stop with the personal messages, pictures, notes and information within Facebook. Having access to your Facebook account also grants this unknown person access to any site you’ve used Facebook to login to.

Login to your Facebook account and go to Account Settings, then Apps, or use this link to see the applications connected to your account. If your account is anything like mine, that’s a pretty long list. By granting access to Facebook, you’ve also potentially granted access to all of these applications as well.

Optional

Employers are calling the request for passwords optional. They are not requiring applicants to turn over their passwords. However, if a Facebook password stands between feeding your family and your privacy, you’re going to feed your family.

There is a long list of things which can’t legally be asked in interviews including what religion do you practice, what social organizations do you belong to, how old are you, are you married, do you have kids, what do your parents do for a living, do you smoke or drink, do you use illegal drugs, how much do you weigh, how far is your commute, and have you ever been arrested?

There are a lot of areas off limits to interviewers and a lot of ways to bend those rules to get the information desired.

Social networks are not covered in the list because they are relatively new inventions. There are two states looking to make it illegal to discriminate against job applications who refuse to turn over passwords to their social media account. Maryland and Illinois have both introduced bills to do so.

Even though it may be legal for an employer to ask for passwords in order to vet the applicant, handing over those credentials is not.

Illegal

In addition to it being a violation of the terms of use for any social media web site to provide credentials to another person.

The Department of Justice regards it as a federal crime to enter a social networking site in violation of the terms of service, but during recent congressional testimony, the agency said such violations would not be prosecuted.

So while it remains a violation of the terms of the web site, and a federal crime, the Department of Justice has agreed to look the other way on employers asking for your personal passwords. This should be all I need to say about the practice.

Economic times are hard for everyone. Companies need good people and people need to put food on their table, keep a roof over their heads and support themselves and their families.

It is wrong for companies to rely on immoral and illegal means to filter out applicants. While this practice is in use for now, it leads down a dangerous road. How far is too far? How much privacy is a pay check worth?