High-end Navigon 8100T GPS features panorama 3D view

11/10/08
This article that I found on CNET says that there is a new type of GPS out now. This new GPS shows a 3-D image of the terrain and etc, instead of a 2-D view now. Since it is now 3-D, it will help people find places better. The GPS uses NASA's terrain data and it provides digital elevation too. This GPS also accepts entering addresses by voice and the customer get's free real-time traffic news for life too.

I think that this is a new improvement into technology because we've moved from the 2-D GPS, into the 3-D GPS. This is a big step because people can now see the elevation that they are now on, and even get real time traffic news so they can avoid traffic, and find a differnt route home, or let the GPS find the new route home for the customer.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13557_7-10085941-31.html

Nearly Half Of U.S. Tech Companies Outsource Offshore

3/3/2008

This article lists a whole bunch of statistical data about companies having their business done offshore or outsourced offshore. One statistic said that 79% of their business operations are done out of the United States. Another statistic is that 64% of tech companies in Silicon Valley said they source services or production of products outside the U.S. Of U.S. technology , 74% are offshoring manufacturing, 51% are offshoring programming and IT services, including internal services and those offered to external customers, 49% are offshoring research and development, 45% are offshoring distribution, and 35% have outsourced call centers outside the U.S.. Another statistic that the article said was that the number one place that U.S. tech places offshore is to India (60%), and the list continues to South Asia(50%), China (46%), West Europe (21%), and then Latin America, which is (19%).


I think that with companies begining to outsource everything out of the country, it's going to be harder for fresh graduate students to find jobs and opportunities because we are now competing with the world. Before all the outsourcing began, we were only competing within our own country, but now we're competing against the world. Also another though is that the other countries are willing to work for less too.


http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/outsourcing/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206901364

10/21/2008

Cyber criminals move focus to web

This article talks about how hackers and online criminals are starting to target their attacks more on the web than in the previous years, e-mail. They use the web to attack their victims by putting harmful trojan horses on the web pages. Since a lot of users at work surf the net during their sparing time or watch streaming videos online, they can accidently fall onto one of these harmful pages with trojan viruses getting ready to be loaded on their corporate work computer. If the corporate work computer is loaded with a trojan, hackers/cyber criminals can use that trojan to give them information to access the corporate network. Also a new statistic in 2006 said that trojan horses outnumber windows viruses and worms 4 to 1.

I think that users should usually surf on safe websites only and they should be aware of bad websites that would have malicious viruses on there. It is sometimes obvious if a website is okay to surf on or not. Also, with new technology, google and yahoo usualy picks up if a website is bad to surf on or not.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6290413.stm

10/6/2008

Watch out for cyber-criminals
10/2/2008

This article talks about the National Cyber-Safety Alliance saying that hackers are creating "Bots" that are installed onto a person's computer. The bot records personal information and sends it to a hosted computer, where it is recorded for the hackers to use and sell their information. The bots are also becomming a bigger and new threat to the personal computer and personal information.

I think that with hackers creating more problems, such as bots, there will always be security there to protect our personal information. Another thing is that we need to be more aware if there is malicious software installed onto our computer. Some of these ways of figureing out if there is malicious software on our computer is if it is running slower than usual.
http://www.crime-research.org/news/02.10.2008/3604/

Improper Web links can shock viewers

8/4/08
In this article, it says that yahoo had goofed up on one of their articles by linking the phrase "underage girls" to their photo partner flickr. When this happened, you could surf flickr for images of "underage girls". By clicking the link, you would see x-rated stuff to just children stuff. This error happened because of a bad code on the web page highlighting the wrong word to link to flickr. After yahoo discovered the mess-up, they removed the link and put "under-age" on a banned list for automated links, and some of the photos were also removed from the website flickr.

I think that yahoo did the right things to remove this link and to bann the words that created the big uproar. They can not monitor everything that users put up because it's all done by the public and there would be too much to monitor, but i think they did the right thing. Also, everybody makes mistakes and coding is never 100% finish, there are always going to be kinks within the code.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/biztech/08/04/obscene.linking.ap/index.html

Federal Court Once Again Upholds Ban On Unconstitutional Internet Censorship Law

7/22/08
In this article, it talks about how COPA got thrown out of the US Courts again for violating the 1st and 5th amendment. The article says that for years that the government has been trying to censor the internet but it has no right too. Since the US courts shot COPA down, it goes back to the district courts to decide where it goes again. Other website owners say that COPA is overbroad and vague, and that there are other alterntatives to solving children monitoring.

I think that this is good that COPA got shot down and that it is a violation of the 1st and 5th amendment. I also believe that there are other approaches to this problem of child monitoring on the web besides COPA.


http://www.aclu.org/freespeech/internet/36071prs20080722.html

CSC 210 Week 4

Heads Up: Chrome's Omnibox May Record What You Type
9/8/08

This article talks about Google's new web browser "Chrome" having a feature that records everything you search in the address bar or search box. The new feature that records all these logs are called the Omnibox. The Omnibox can also record informatin that you typed into the address or search box even if the enter key is not stroked. Also when the Omnibox logs your searches, it logs your ip address along with the search. Google's defence to this privacy issue was that only 2% of your logs would be kept and that you can also turn off the Chrome feature.

I think that this is an invasion of privacy but people could probably care less about their searches being logged along with their IP. I think as long as the user is happy with the results he/she gets, they'll continue using the web browser.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/64387.html

CSC 210 Week 3

YouTube ordered to reveal its viewers
7/3/08

This article talks about a federal judge granting permission for Viacomm Inc and other copyright holders to see youtube video logs on users. Viacomm and the other copyright holders want to know if youtube users are viewing more of their copyrighted material or viewing more of the amateur videos. Viacomm and the other copyright holders say that they would not release the data and that only the "users real name and e-mail address" would be identified. Google, who owns youtube says that it has over 12 terabytes of data it would have to publish to them and it would match roughtly 12 million books, also that it would be a time consuming and invasion of privacy to users. The information that youtube has on the users is how many times they played a video, their IP address and the screen name. Viacom is also seeking 1 billion dollars from youtube because of it's losses from people sharing their copyrighted material on the net. The after math of this case was that youtube had to submit a sample piece of web addresses in it's search indexes, not the actual search terms requested.

I think that this is an invasion of privacy and that Viacomm should not have the rights to see what other youtuber's are looking at. Viacomm should take a different approach at this by just telling youtube to bann all of their videos that are posted or to have investigators look for their videos and submit a request form to youtube to remove a video due to violations.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/biztech/07/03/youtubelawsuit.ap/index.html

CSC 210 Week 2

Researcher Wants To Charge Nokia, Sun For Phone Vulnerability
Published 8/12/2008

In this research article, Adam Gowdiak says he's descovered 14 vulnerabilty issues with the J2ME software application that is used to program the Nokia phones. Adam is willing to point out the flaws in the software application, but it's going to cost Nokia and Java big money. So why is this important? Hackers have now found out a way to attack these Nokia phones with simply just finding a phone number that belongs to these Nokia phones. The hackers put malicious Java applications onto the mobile device that allows the hackers to make calls from that phone, record conversations, and access the SIMS card.

The privacy issues that are dealt with this article are hackers getting your information and then destroying your phone. I think that if the hackers could record your conversation then that already is a big violation of privacy. The hackers could then post your conversation onto the web if they think it could get them big hits on their websites or make them popular. Also, another possible problem that I think would be the hacker having access to your SIMS card. The hacker could replicate that SIMS card and use it on their own phone, then have the owner of the phone billed for extra charges. Also if the hacker could make calls from the owners phone with out the owners knowledge, it could ring up the owners bill dramatically. Last but not least, when your phone bill comes in and it's over the roof expensively high, you will probably call your phone service provider and tell them that it was not you making all of those extra charges, but then you would not have any proof that it was not you doing it because the hackers were using your phone to do all of those things. I think this is a big invasion of privacy and almost like identity theft.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/vulnerabilities/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210002897

CSC 210 Week 1

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/18/gps.tracking/index.html

Is GPS a high-tech crime-fighting tool or Big Brother?
Published and updated 8/18/08

This article that was found on the CNN website talks about law enforcement using a GPS to track criminals. What law enforcement officers can do is place a GPS device benief of a suspected criminal's vehicle to monitor their movements in real time. When the suspected criminal finally does a wrong act, the officers are allowed to arrest the criminal. There are a lot of ethical issues that are involved within this new technology movement. One of them is not telling the suspect about having a warrant that they're being tracked. Another one would be tagging an innocent person and then catching them doing a wrongful act. I can see the benefits of this technology being used this way and I can also see the cons. In the article it states that officers used the GPS technology to track a previously convicted rapist's van and his whereabouts. After monitoring his actions, police arrested him and the crimes began to stop. The technology had been used for a great cause to stop a rapist, but then some of his rights were taken away when they began to monitor him, such as privacy. I think that law enforcement should have the rights to place a GPS device on an old convicted criminal to narrow the choices down. Then after the convicted criminals should be the suspected person, then after the suspected person, should be chosen innocent people who seems to have a connection to the crimes. I also think that the GPS should only be used for serious crimes that deals with life and death situations. I can see that the purpose of this new technology is for good purposes too, so I believe it would be appropriate to use it.

Chapter 7: Orwell Did Not Guess the Worse Half of It

This CrossCurrent is basically talking Orwell's book, guessing what would happen in the future. It talks about the invasion of privacy in other lives. Orwell came up with a fictional theory that the government would be able to monitor everyone and everywhere. It kind of came true because just about everywhere we go, we are monitored. When we go to the mall there's camera's watching us, search engines keep track of what we look up, stores keep our data of what we shop for and use it to their advantage, and cell phones keep track of our phone calls and minutes used. It's sad to say but it's come to where almost all of our actions are being monitored or being recorded some how with out any privacy.

1)Do you agree with the statement, "People who have done nothing wrong should not worry about surveilance because they have nothing to hide." Explain.
I do not agree with that statement because people who have done nothing wrong are lying. There comes a point once in everybody's lives where someone has to do something wrong, and it has to come up to the person to find a way to fix their wrong. People are prone to make mistakes, otherwise we'd just be robots. Even if we have not done anything wrong, we should still not be surveilanced, because taking a shower is nothing wrong, but i don't want people surveling me while i'm dong that. That's my privacy :)

2)Do you agree with Scott Bradner that individuals should be more worried about threats to privacy from the private sector than from governments? Why or why not?
Yes i agree with Scott Bradner about that idea. We should be more aware of our privacy because people are using us beneif of our nose. They study our private lives and use it to manipulate their products so they can make more cash from it. Wal-Mart is all about this. They collect their register receipts and see what customers bought and which items are more correlated together. Then they use it as a marketing strategy to bait you into buying their items. For example, if sausage and eggs were highly correlated with the customers buying them together, then they would make a special on sausages and eggs together and put them beside each other. Customers are lazy too, so they'll probly put the most expensive sausages and eggs together, and sell them that way. I think it's important that we learn about our privacy and how to avoid being a target.

Chapter4: Vendors Are Keeping Too Many Rights

I thought that this cross current was interesting about how large corporations try to stay dominant by keeping other competitors out and having the user buy only their software. I can reflect back to this issue as Microsoft Word and Works fail to save documents with a format that both can read besides rtf format. Saving in Rich Text Format will usually lose some important data/features required for the document. Most computers around campus are installed with Microsoft Word and will only read files that are compatible with it. This is a major problem for freshmen who only have works around exam time because they don't know how to print their papers! On the other side, for programming launguages like java or html, it is universal and can be read through any program that understands the tag that the file is being saved as. This cross current also talks about how you have restrictions on the what you buy. For example it is illegal to make copies of software that you've purchased for back up, but we should retain the right to have a back up copy of it! Also this cross current talks about open-source software and proprietary software. Open source software is freeing your choices and options while properietary software limits you.

1)Microsoft operating systems and office applications dominate the PC software market. what are some advantages and some disadvantages associated with most everyone running the same operating system and applications programs?

The advantages of everyone running the same software programs that everyone else is running is the compatability you have transfering your files onto another computer. It makes it so much easier because you don't have to worry about data being lost whenever you format it to a correct format that another program can read. Also the ability to get technical support from your friends and people who use the program. Also if everyone is using it, it must be a very computer friendly program and easy to use. The disavantage of this would be the compeitition! Letting someone have a monopoly over something is not good because they can controll how much you pay and how often you have to buy it again. It's kind of like saying you have the only marker in the world and it's worth a million bucks but it cost 5 cents to produce. It cost so much because you have the ability to price it at whatever price, because it's the only one and people need it to write on boards. It goes the same way with programs/software. We need programs to run our computers but they can price it as high as they want because they are the only ones who have it.

2)If you were running a large IT operation, which would be more important to you: getting a large discount on the price of the software you were licensing, or having the flexibility to manipulate the same data files with a differnt vendor's software?

I personally would think that having software that has flexibility to manipulate the same data files with differnt vendor's software is more important than buying a cheaper license. Why? because the world is all about communication and if you can't communicate with other(s) well then you might be discontinued from others. Having a cheaper license program is only a good temporary fix, but if you can get a flexible software that manipulates the same data files with differnt vendor's software will save you more money in the long run.

Chapter 3: The Diskless PC Revolution

Chapter 3: The Diskless PC Revolution

This Cross Currents article is talking about using flash drives for all of your storage in the neat future. Flash drives usually carry all of our personal information, such as software, documents, pictures, and college work. This article also talks about how we could just walk into cafe's and plug our flash drives into a USB port loaded with our information on it. It also talks about how dealing away with hard drives on laptops to help with the power usage and weight issue on laptops. It also talks about how your PC's would not crash because of browser cache. Also you would always have all your information with you because it's in your pocket. You would have to deal with less stress when your laptop is stolen because you have all your information in your pocket.

1)It's already possible to purchase low-cost flash memory devices capable of storing gigabytes of data. what are the pros and cons of carrying personal data on a flash memory device and using a public computer lab at your school, versus carrying personal data on a laptop PC?

The pro's to carrying your very own flash drive memory stick would be that you have your information everywhere you go. And if you needed to pull up some information that you have on your drive, then you could do it by a near by computer. Another pro for having a disk drive is that you can transfer files more easily than burning them onto a cd or uploading them online and having to find it again online. The cons of having a flash drive would be if you lost it. There are a lot of information on that flash drive and if you lost it, it would be really depressing. I once lost my flash drive and it had all my java programming homework on it. That was one of the most scariest moments of my college time because I needed to submit those homework to maintain a good grade. The only problem with carrying personal data on a laptop would be the weight. If you have a laptop, then you really could pull up your information anytime you wanted too with no wait for an open computer to come up. I would consider it more safe too because you would have to enter a password into your laptop to access any of the files.

2)Would your personal data be more secure or less secure if you kept it with you on a flash memory device, rather than on a network-connected file server?

Your data would be more secure if you kept it with you because if a network connected file server went down, you would have no access to your files. Also if there are no encryptions on your files on the network then people can freely view your files with out your permission. I think it would be safer for your data to be kept with you in a flash drive device.

Computer Knowledge/Computer exp.

1) The last computer course that I have taken is CSC120 and CSC 134. The courses were also a semester long. The concepts learned in CSC134 is learning how to program Java using Text Pad. The concepts learned in CSC120 were algorithms and computer terms.
2)I have a good amount of knowledge in Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Access. I completed Computer Apps I and II in high school which dealt with all of those programs. The least comfortable program I would say to me is Access because I don't remember it so well.
3)I have access to these programs at home on my laptop.