.:Computer Defense:.

The most popular post I've made, has been my mention of Windows XP Black Edition. While nobody was really in favour of my idea, I'm pretty sure it was popular because people were hoping to find a download link... and found me via Google, where I'm currently the #1 result for the search Windows XP Black Edition.

Discussions following that post often lead to statements along the lines of, "I shouldn't have to pay that much, I don't need the software... I want to use it because I'm a hobbyist." Now I've thought long and hard about this and almost posted a comment in the WinXP Black Edition post... instead I felt it would make an interesting topic of conversation.

So let's start with my blanket statement.... My hypothesis if this were scientific in anyway... instead it's just my opinions. "Computer Hobbyists believe that a hobby shouldn't cost them anything."

While looking for links to back that statement up, I found this interesting comment. It's a very similar argument to the statement above. It all comes down to, "Why should we have to spend a bunch of money?!?" I find this mentality rather amusing. There's an interesting blog post although quite old now, on the subject that I also found and one of the comments caught my attention. I've heard this argument made before as well. "Teenagers pirate software and learn it. As adults they now tell their employers to purchase that software because they are already familiar with it." I even had a prof that supported that, he once made the comment, "Obtain the software, feel free to download it... I believe that you should be allowed to pirate software until you graduate" (paraphrased of course).

These are arguments that people make all the time and I dislike them... I think they're sad arguments. They remind me of a cartoon that my fiance's mother sent her.

We're arguing that it's OK for students to pirate software but they can afford to spend money on all these other luxuries. Will I admit that having access to a large amount of software is beneficial... definitely. Yet I don't think piracy is an option. When planning your future, look into what the school offers. I was lucky... my school offered MSDN AA... I know of other schools that did as well. Now I heard the statement, "This makes sense for Microsoft to offer this for such a low price, the students will be familiar with Microsoft products when they graduate". This was very true. A teenager interested in experimenting with various types of software can just ensure that the place where they will pursue "higher education" offers these programs.

Now back to the argument that you shouldn't have to pay ridiculous prices for software because you're a hobbyist. Let's forget the aspect of youth doing this... and let's look at everyone else. Now I have hobbies... I have several hobbies and they all cost me money.

• Computers -- Last week I spent $100 on network cables, a keyboard, usb keypad, etc... toys that I wanted to play with. In our 600sq ft. apartment we have 5 computers, 3 printers, 2 routers, 2 switches, 3 DVD Burners and a crapload of toys and junk... I buy it or barter for it... I don't want into Best Buy and steal a joystick because computers are my hobby and I shouldn't have to pay for my hobby.
• Music -- The fiance just made a mental note to purchase the new Linkin Park CD... I know I'm talking about software piracy here, but this fits. We've spent thousands of dollars on our music interests, including guitars, a piano, drums, a flute, a karaoke machine and at least $500 worth of music books. We didn't walk into the store and pick up the guitar and leave because it was our hobby and we shouldn't have to pay for it.
• Reading -- The ultimate form of relaxation. This month we've spent just under $300 on books... Excessive? Maybe, but I'm almost out of books to read again, so I'll buy more... I could go online and find pirated ebooks but it's not the same as having the real thing. Maybe I should go to Chapters and just pick out the books I want and leave with them.
• Movies -- Another big one for us... We rent $60-70 worth of movies each month and I've been to the theater 4 times this month. We also purchase regularly (I've lost count of the number of titles we have)... This is topped of with multiple DVD players, DVD Recorders, DVRs, VCRs... Guess what... I paid for all of it. Video Games could also go here... over 100 titles, bought and paid for... 5 Different consoles.
• Swords -- My last sword cost me $150. My collection in total has cost me, so far, about $1500.

These are my hobbies... I spend money on any one of them at any given time, if I don't have the money I save up because it's something I want. I've got a shopping list of books and next time I've got extra money, I'll be at Chapters picking up the books on the top of the list. I pay to enjoy my hobbies... If experimenting with software is your hobby you should be willing to pay for it. My friend's hobby is cars... does that give him the right to go out and steal a car? Maybe he should steal your car... because maybe you've stolen his software.

A lot of people make the argument that software (or movies or music) are already paid for by the time they steal them... so they aren't really costing the company anything. These people are making the assumption that the software has already been paid off... The company invests the money up front to see the software through production... relying on making the money back when the software hits the shelves. If the software is pirated by everyone, the company doesn't make the money back. Everyone else has probably paid for the Author's commission on the books I want to read, so it's the same thing... but I bet the same people that pirate software would tell me that stealing a book from Chapters is wrong. Morals seem to disappear when we enter the electronic world...

I think it would be interesting to see how these pirates that feel stealing software because they are hobbyists or because they feel it's too expensive (and I'm not talking about mass piracy... I'm talking about individual piracy)... I'd be interesting to take these individuals and at the end of the week have their employer not pay them. After all, the employers already got the work out of the employee... Why should they bother paying them?
That would be stupid though... the employee wouldn't come back... Software is the same way... steal the software long enough and the company producing the software won't be back. Sure mass piracy is an issue... but Why? Because individuals buy this software... People always say, "But I'm not the problem, it's the guy that produces 5000 copies and sells them that's the problem." Guess what... That guy is selling them to people just like you... They are paying for what you download yourself for free... both are just as wrong. If nobody bought from the guy that's mass producing the pirated software... he'd have no reason to pirate it... He's doing it for individuals... just as you are are doing it for yourself. Neither of you has any more right to it than the other and neither of you are any less guilty.

If you happen to own a business and take part is software piracy, please leave me a note in the comments with your business name... I'd love to stop by and help myself to some of your products. You don't seem to have a problem when you do it to software companies, so let's see what happens when someone does it to you.

Welcome to a story of delays, frustration and amazing customer service, as I tell you the story of my new phone

So last weekend I went to see 300... It was pretty good... We left and walked a bit and the person I saw the film with caught  a streetcar... I turned the corner to continue walking and there was a Telus Store... Now Telus is my cell phone provider.. has been for just over 2 years (Since December 2004). My old phone was a classic flip phone (Samsung A670) and I had no intention of getting rid of it.

So I stopped by the Telus store with one thing on my mind, changing my phone number to a Toronto number. I've been here 13 months and still had a London, ON (519 area code) number. I figured I'd change my fiance's number at the same time, we'd bought our phones together, so we had  almost consecutive numbers and this time I figured I'd try for consecutive numbers. I was succesful... and without my fiance's presence managed to perform the following:

• Change my phone number (shouldn't have needed her)
• Change her phone number (probably should have needed her)
• Changed our billing addresses (probably should have needed her)
• Changed both phone plans (probably should have needed her)
• Moved her phone over to my account and canceled her account (definitely should have needed her)

Anyways, at the very least, they let me call her (although I could have called anyone, since they didn't call a number associated with the account) and they asked her (or the "her" on the phone) for permission. I waited in the store for about an hour while this was being processed. You see Telus stores are "agents" for Telus... none of them work directly for Telus. So these reps in the store have to call the same customer service number I'd have to call to do this. This number was overwhelmed for a couple of reasons. 1) WNP (Wireless Number Portability) had just launched and 2) Telus had just launched Amp'd Canada (bringing the known American AMP'd brand to Canada).

So I was killing time and decided to check out the Smartphones... I looked at what Telus had to offer... 3 Blackberries and 3 Smartphones (UTStarcom 6700,  Palm Treo 700wx, and the Moto Q). I already knew I didn't want a blackberry and at this point I was just browsing. The clerk and I were making small talk and she asked if I was interested in a PDA phone. I said I was, once my current contract ran out, and indicated an interest in the Palm Treo 700wx based on appearance and what little I knew about them. She pointed me towards the UTStarcom 6700 which has integrated 802.11b/g. It also has a full keyboard that slides out... which I find much nicer, given my larger fingers, to type on. The price tag changed my mind... $549 without a contract. I'd stick with my phone that was two years old and cost me nothing. The clerk said the calls were taking forever to process and suggested I leave (the store had closed 30 minutes earlier) saying she'd call me when the number change was completed. She called roughly 45 minutes later and suggested that she was going to try and get me an early contract renewal with an offer on a PDA phone. I was excited and awaited the response.

On Monday I had a voicemail letting me know that they were making a renewal offer and I could call for details.. I logged into my phone account and saw the renewal offer online. The UT Starcom 6700 on a new 3 year contract for $229.. I wasn't interested in paying even that much, although it was a huge discount... but I returned the call. She said that must be an error because she was prepared to offer it for $79.99. This I could live with, so I went over right after work and got started on the paper work. Here's where the fun started.

The clerk went to process the phone change and something went wrong... it turned out they couldn't change the phone. After about an hour and a half of calling it turned out that during activation the "backend had crashed" and not only did the change not go through... my phone number was deleted. More bad news... they had to charge me 229.99. I'd already paid the 79.99 and said that was all I was going to pay... They called around for another 45 minutes... got my number restored and the phone for me for 79.99. For my troubles they said to come back when I'd decided on a bluetooth headset that I wanted and they'd give it to me for cost. The customer service, since the troubles weren't on their end, was amazing... I couldn't have asked for more... They went above and beyond on getting me every deal possible and saving me as much money as they could. For those of you in the GTA, I highly recommend NexGen Wireless (the store just says Telus) at King and Bathurst.

As for the phone... I've picked up a 2GB Mini-SD card... and I'd recommend this phone to anyone. The keyboard is great to type on. The camera is quite useful and has some cool features. The video camera records audio and video... I'm quite happy with what it does and what it's capable of. It's been great so far...

A Joke courtesy of Brian Madsen's .Net blog.

The Smiths were unable to conceive children and decided to use a surrogate father to start their family.
On the day the proxy father was to arrive, Mr. Smith kissed his wife good-bye and said, "Well, I'm off now. The man should be here soon."

Half an hour later, just by chance, a door-to-door baby photographer happened to ring the doorbell, hoping to make a sale.

"Good morning, Ma'am", he said, "I've come to..."

"Oh, no need to explain," Mrs. Smith cut in, embarrassed, "I've been expecting you."

"Have you really?" said the photographer. "Well, that's good. Did you know babies are my specialty?"

"Well that's what my husband and I had hoped. Please come in and have a seat" After a moment she asked, blushing, "Well, where do we start?"
"Leave everything to me. I usually try two in the bathtub, one on the couch, and perhaps a couple on the bed. And sometimes the living room floor is fun. You can really spread out there."
"Bathtub, living room floor? No wonder it didn't work out for Harry and me!"

"Well, Ma'am, none of us can guarantee a good one every time. But if we try several different positions and I shoot from six or seven angles, I'm sure you'll be pleased with the results."
"My, that's a lot!" gasped Mrs. Smith.
"Ma'am, in my line of work a man has to take his time. I'd love to be in and out in five minutes, but I'm sure you'd be disappointed with that."
"Don't I know it," said Mrs. Smith quietly.
The photographer opened his briefcase and pulled out a portfolio of his baby pictures. "This was done on the top of a bus," he said.

"Oh my God!" Mrs. Smith exclaimed, grasping at her throat.

"And these twins turned out exceptionally well - when you consider her mother was so difficult to work with."
"She was difficult?" asked Mrs. Smith.
"Yes, I'm afraid so. I finally had to take her to the park to get the job done right. People were crowding around four and five deep to get a good look."
"Four and five deep?" said Mrs. Smith, her eyes wide with amazement.
"Yes", the photographer replied. And for more than three hours, too. The mother was constantly squealing and yelling - I could hardly concentrate, and when darkness approached I had to rush my shots.

Finally, when the squirrels began nibbling on my equipment, I just had to pack it all in."
Mrs. Smith leaned forward. "Do you mean they actually chewed on your, um... equipment?"
"It's true, Ma'am, yes. Well, if you're ready, I'll set-up my tripod and we can get to work right away."
"Tripod?"
"Oh yes, Ma'am. I need to use a tripod to rest my Canon on. It's much too big to be held in the hand very long."
Mrs. Smith fainted.

As I've mentioned, we've been in the process of a move, and now that we're in the new place and getting settled, there's the issue of mail. Everyone knows what a pain it can be when your mail goes to your old address... so we've done the standard, contact companies and apply for a 6 month address change with the post office. However that still missed a few days immediately after the move (essentially this week) so the fiance was checking the mail at the old place each day on her own. She received an interesting letter a few days ago...

It was a letter from her bank, stating that she had recently used her card at a business suspected of copying debit cards and PINs. As a result they had lowered her daily maximum limits and were monitoring her account. This is impressive, since her and I use our debit cards interchangeably and anywhere she's used her debit card, I've most likely used mine... yet I haven't received any such letter from my bank. This is where her banks courtesy stopped though.

Yesterday she went into pick up her new bank card and set it up... She also had to change her address since we had *JUST* moved... the process took her about 30 minutes (not bad all things considered). During the 30 minutes she asked which business she'd used her debit card at that was suspected of card copying. The bank refused to tell her because the company was under investigation. Now I can see two reasons for them doing this:

1. They value the privacy of the company more than they do the privacy of my fiance.
2. They don't want to ruin the investigation.

Now #2 would require that the criminals have some intelligence (copying your own bank card would be a great way to see who was on to you) and that seems unlikely since they're in the process of being investigated before having a chance to use the card. The first reason seems more likely, I'm guessing they don't want to tarnish the company's name in case they end up being innocent.

This is what bothers me... We tend to be creatures of habit... we reguarly frequent the same stores and restaurants. In the last couple months, I can't think of anywhere we've used the debit card that would be out of the ordinary for us... So there's a good chance we'll revisit the place and use the bank card again and if we do that, my fiance will have to under go this process again and once again risk losing money.

I realize this could be damaging to the business but as far as I'm concerned the customer is the number one priority and in this case they should be made aware of the business that is under investigation. Now you don't need to go out with press releases and news conferences regarding the name of the business but you should, at the very least, inform the people that have been affected by this. When you don't you are saying you value the privacy of the business above the privacy of the individual and that's just wrong.

In the past I've heard mention of "bump keys" or "lock bumping". I never really looked into this and often thought to myself, "Big Deal... I've got three different locks to get into my apartment... not all three will be vulnerable to it." I also doubted that it was as big a deal as it is, I'd heard of the young girl who'd done it at DEFCON (read about it here, with video and background information on "lock bumping") but I still wasn't convinced of the risk.

I had since forgotten about this issue, until a link to an article in the Columbus Dispatch popped up today. I did some looking around and found this video on YouTube which shows how to make a bump key and then demonstrates it's operating. The video actually created some controversial discussion on whether or not demoing the process to create a bump key was a good idea. I think people need to realize that the information is out there for the malicious people to find if they really want to... Putting the information on somewhere like YouTube just makes it easier for the masses to get to. The Engadget article, linked above, has a picture of a bump key and the theory behind it... that's more than enough to create the key off of. There are plenty of other places as well.

Anyways, this concept had me quite intrigued, so of course, being the kind of person I am, I had to try it out.. I grabbed an old key that was laying around and an extra deadbolt that I have for playing around. It took me about 15-20 minutes to file down the 5 valleys on the key (and I was using a bulky old file)... Being that the deadbolt is assembled but not mounted made it interesting.. I had to apply pressure to the key, hold the deadbolt and "bump" it with a screwdriver all at once... In the end I managed to do it three times in a row in a period of about three minutes. Since I don't know the legality of such items in Canada, I figured my best bet after testing it for myself was to destroy the key... you'd be amazed at how fast a file cuts right through one. If anyone has any further information on the legality of such "tools/toys" in Canada, please let me know... I may actually contact a lawyer to investigate this further.
This is rather scary and has me seriously considering keypad locks.

Disclaimer: This isn't tech related but after all, it's my blog

Something I have a big problem with is the "Theory" of Global Warming... There's no evidence to support Global Warming... just as there is no evidence to support the effects of nuclear winter, the existence of aliens or that second hand smoke is dangerous (To understand my choices, read a lecture given by Michael Crichton at the California Institute of Technology entitled "Aliens Cause Global Warming".) A section of his lecture covers "consensus science" and while many people try to say that consensus science is used to prove Global Warming and for that reason it must not be true, I don't agree. However, I do think that consensus science is partially responsible. As Crichton says, "Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future?"

SEED, an education development program, has published an article on global climate change, which includes an image based on the Vostok Ice Core data published by the NOAA. The image is rather interesting. It shows that we're in a repeating cycle and we're actually right on track with past data. Yes this is proxy data but it's really all we have to go on. Even this data is for a considerably small period of timing consider the age of the Earth is accepted to be somewhere around 4.5 billion years. The period represented by the image covers 425,000 years. That's ~0.0094444% of the history of our climate... A very small portion, however, large compared to those who support Global Warming... Let's take NASA, for example, who uses a ~50 year baseline... or ~0.0000011111% of the history of our climate... How are they supposed to make a valid prediction about the stability of our climate and any changes that it's undergoing. Now we also have to remember that these are the same people who said in 1997, " The most recent glaciation, 20,000 years ago, is called the Laurentide, and Earth is still recovering from it."

So what does this tell us... That 10 years ago we were still recovering from an ice age... that would mean that our temperatures were continuing to increase... That's pretty accurate when you consider the small scale of data that NASA presents, and it holds true when you look at the larger picture using the NOAA data. It also tells us that we're not experiencing the "Terror of Global Warming" but rather a natural and unavoidable climate change cycle. In 2002 there were published studies that Antarctica was getting colder and the ice was getting thicker... again this doesn't sound like Global Warming.

Now I'm not a scientist... nor do I claim to be one... but common sense can be great when you're trying to dissect information. Here's what my common sense is telling me... but first.. the knowns:

• Climate patterns cycle (as Ice Core data has shown us)...
• Meteorologists have a hard time accurately predicting the 7-day forecast
• Scientists supporting Global Warming are working, in part, off NASA's numbers which are not representative of the big picture.
• The Antarctica is actually getting colder.

So what is my common sense telling me? It's simple... we're in a continual climate change cycle... this is natural... We're coming up on the warmest point in the cycle's natural progression... Now it is time to start cooling... And what were we told in school, when the ice age came the ice came down from the poles (I guess it would be up from the south pole)... We're seeing evidence of this already with the poles getting colder and thickening. The poles have long since been an indicator of change... We fear them melting from Global Warming and that would have catastrophic results... Now they are indicating change yet again and this time the change in in line with what history shows us... My prediction: The poles will get colder... They'll thicken and start to extend.. we'll have our hot years and then gradually cool as well, allowing the poles to precede forward even further. This is the natural cycle of things...

One last thing to take into account... The Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, The War on Terror... The US Government has always been able to instill fear in it's people using war and nuclear threats... That ability is starting to run out and suddenly Global Warming is back in the picture... The Doomsday Clock, which used to measure only the threat of Nuclear war, now suddenly measures the threat from Global Warming. It seems to be that consensus science is working again, and everyone is buying into the "Theory" of Global Warming, when all of the evidence points to a natural change in climate.

It turns out that Network World published a list last week of the Top 10 Network (or Computer) Movies... Mitchell Ashley had some issues with this list and decided to create his own.

Since I have issues with both of these lists I've decided to create my own which contains movies from both of them, as well as a few of my own. There are really in no specific order

• WarGames (alright... there's a little order... this is #1)
• Pirates of Silicon Valley
• Antitrust
• Takedown
• Freedom Downtime
• Tron
• The Matrix Reloaded (Simply for the use of nmap)
• Firewall
• Hackers (This is a classic)
• Office Space (Because somedays we all feel like we work at Initech)

So that's it... I moved more to the computer side in some cases but I figure that's acceptable..

So I found a link to the Business Opportunities Weblog today and the "How Much is Your Blog Worth" calculator. It's an amusing page which returned the following results:

I'd have to say that while I'm really attached to my blog... if anyone wants to buy it for 15 grand... I'd be willing to sell.

SpamMailBag.com returned a much lower value:

What does this mean??? Not a whole heck of a lot, but it's interesting to play with...

That being said... the nCircle blog (Which recently underwent major reformatting) is valued at 34K:

Just something amusing to play with.

So a while ago a flash game was on digg called tower defense. It's based on many Tower Defense type of games but it had a few bugs and was fairly basic... A newer, nicer looking, and more advanced version has been released..

I definitely recommend sitting down and playing with it for a bit... The game is quite interesting.

Play Now!

This is pretty cool.... 4,079,381 dominos.