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The Wall Street Journal has yet another article today telling us how terrible it is that we’re all still using passwords:
“Passwords are awful and need to be shot,” says Jeremy Grant, head of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, a task force created by President Barack Obama in 2011 to bolster online security.
Despite all their flaws, passwords are so ubiquitous, cheap to use and entrenched in the architecture of websites and the rhythm of human behavior that efforts to supplant them have barely budged. “It’s the only piece of technology from 50 years ago we’re still using today,” says Brett McDowell, a senior Internet security adviser at eBay’s PayPal unit.
First things first: McDowell is wrong. We still use keyboards. We use monitors. We use hard drives. We use integrated circuits. Now, you might argue that we use way better versions of those things (except for keyboards, which inexplicably keep getting worse), whereas passwords are mostly just as primitive as they were in 1964. But that’s as far as you can plausibly go.
Anyway. Why do we still use passwords? Answer: for the same reason front doors still use simple locks. They may provide weak security, but they do provide some security, and they’re the only solution that’s both cheap and universal. So if you think it’s scandalous that we’re still using passwords 50 years after they were invented, then prepare to be even more scandalized by front-door locks. That technology is centuries old!
And then prepare to be even more scandalized, because none of the proposed replacements for passwords (fingerprint scanners, gesture identification, face detection, etc.) are either cheap or ubiquitous, and they’re not going to be anytime soon. No matter what your preferred solution is, it needs to become a standard and then get rolled out on every computer in existence. Please note: Not every PC. Every computer. Not every American computer. Every computer in the world.
So quit moaning about all this ancient technology. Passwords are going to be around for a while, no matter what the security gods of Silicon Valley would prefer. In the meantime, if you’re a user, use strong passwords. If you’re a corporation, encrypt your hash databases. If you’re a technology guru, put away the retinal scanners and alpha wave detectors and figure out a clever way to make passwords more secure. Passwords may be here to stay for a while, but they don’t have to be the Achilles’ heel of the entire internet.
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From an anonymous FCC official:
There is a wide feeling on the eighth floor that this is a debacle and I think people would like to see a change of course. We may not agree on the course, but we agree the road we’re on is to disaster.
The debacle in question is the proposal by FCC chair Tom Wheeler that would gut net neutrality by allowing big companies to pay ISPs for faster internet service. Wheeler’s proposal has provoked a massive backlash, and he’s now promising revisions:
The new language by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to be circulated as early as Monday is an attempt to address criticism of his proposal….In the new draft, Mr. Wheeler is sticking to the same basic approach but will include language that would make clear that the FCC will scrutinize the deals to make sure that the broadband providers don’t unfairly put nonpaying companies’ content at a disadvantage, according to an agency official.
….An agency official said the draft would also seek comment on whether such agreements, called “paid prioritization,” should be banned outright, and look to prohibit the big broadband companies, such as Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc., from doing deals with some content companies on terms that they aren’t offering to others.
Mr. Wheeler’s language will also invite comments on whether broadband Internet service should be considered a public utility, which would subject it to greater regulation. The FCC has so far not reclassified broadband as a utility, and providers have fiercely opposed such a move, saying it would cause innovation and investment to collapse.
Color me unimpressed. A promise that the FCC will “scrutinize” deals is basically worthless, and inviting comments on reclassifying broadband internet service will lead nowhere if Wheeler himself doesn’t support it—which he doesn’t. This looks mostly like smoke and mirrors to me.
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Quote of the Day: FCC Chair Pretends to Change Course on Net Neutrality
Green In All The Wrong Places in All the Wrong Places: The Scam That is the Hybrid
I am as planetarily conscious as the next guy, but I’m also practical. Apparently those two things go together like oil and water. Today’s catch phrase of “going green” seems to be less about actually fixing anything and more to do with making money. Prime example? Hybrids.
Now, before you get your dreadlocks in a tangle, let me point out that I clearly stated in the first sentence that I am practical. Therefore, all of the “environmental” self-rehearsed head speak that is about to fall out of your mouth is useless. I’m about to shed some light on the myth that is the hybrid car, and its actual effect on the environment: there is only one real way to save the planet from vehicular air pollution, and that is to slide those Birkenstocks on and walk. Short of that, we have to drive and that will always remain somewhat of an issue for us and the environs.
If you want to argue the environmental aspect of hybrids, keep in mind that the technology exists right now for zero emission vehicles that use a renewable power source that’s availability could eliminate our reliance of fossil fuels. Not reduce: eliminate. Hybrid cars are the environmental equivalent of a pacifier.
The real point of this conversation is the clean green wool that has been pulled over people’s eyes in an attempt to sell a car. The Hybrid comes at us as some sort of salvation from the dreaded and dangerous gas pump simply by playing on the notion that less gas is less money spent and that’s somehow better for the planet. Simple concepts applied to even simpler logic makes people ignore things like the fact that a Prius is actually less cost effective and has little, if any, environmental impact.
A Simple example
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On Friday, Bloomberg’s Michael Riley reported that the NSA was aware of the Heartbleed bug from nearly the day it was introduced:
The U.S. National Security Agency knew for at least two years about a flaw in the way that many websites send sensitive information, now dubbed the Heartbleed bug, and regularly used it to gather critical intelligence, two people familiar with the matter said….Putting the Heartbleed bug in its arsenal, the NSA was able to obtain passwords and other basic data that are the building blocks of the sophisticated hacking operations at the core of its mission, but at a cost. Millions of ordinary users were left vulnerable to attack from other nations’ intelligence arms and criminal hackers.
Henry Farrell explains just how bad this is here. But later in the day, the NSA denied everything:
“NSA was not aware of the recently identified vulnerability in OpenSSL, the so-called Heartbleed vulnerability, until it was made public in a private-sector cybersecurity report,” NSA spokesperson Vanee Vines told The Post. “Reports that say otherwise are wrong.”
The White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence echoed that statement Friday, saying neither the NSA nor any other part of the U.S. government knew about Heartbleed before April 2014….The denials are unusually forceful for an agency that has historically deployed evasive language when referring to its intelligence programs.
You know, I’m honestly not sure which would be worse. That the NSA knew about this massive bug that threatened havoc for millions of Americans and did nothing about it for two years. Or that the NSA’s vaunted—and lavishly funded—cybersecurity team was completely in the dark about a gaping and highly-exploitable hole in the operational security of the internet for two years. It’s frankly hard to see any way the NSA comes out of this episode looking good.
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The United Nations climate folks think global investment in renewable energy needs to hit $1 trillion a year by 2030 to keep global warming to an acceptable level. So it might seem disconcerting that in 2013, investment dropped for the second year in a row, down 14 percent from 2012 to $214 billion, according to new data released by Bloomberg New Energy Finance at its annual confab in New York this week.
As investment fell, so too did the total amount of renewable energy being installed worldwide. That’s down nearly 7 percent from 2012 to 2013.
But don’t worry—at least not too much. Even though fewer renewable power systems (excluding large hydroelectric projects, which BNEF doesn’t count in this analysis) were installed last year, we were using more of it: Renewables accounted for 8.5 percent of all the power generated worldwide in 2013, up from 7.8 percent in 2012. BNEF estimated that renewables saved 1.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, equal to keeping 252.6 million cars off the road.
There are two forces at work behind the dropping investment figures, one a good news story and the other not so much. The good news is that 80 percent of the investment decline came thanks to the falling cost of renewable energy technology, primarily solar panels, according to BNEF Advisory Board Chairman Michael Liebreich. The cost of a rooftop solar system in California, for example, which is a good barometer of national trends, has fallen by a third just since 2010. The remaining 20 percent was due to a drop in actual construction activity, thanks to the uncertain fate of government subsidies and general economic sluggishness, especially in Europe.
Still, Liebreich told the clean energy CEOs and investors gathered here this morning that Bloomberg’s proprietary data about future investments suggest annual clean tech installations worldwide are likely to jump 37 percent to 112 gigawatts—a record level—by 2015. Even last year, renewables accounted for more than 40 percent of all the new power installations (including coal plants, nuke plants, etc.) built in 2013. In other words, any time a new power system gets built, it’s increasingly likely to be renewable and not something dirtier.
“This is about a future that’s structured differently than the past,” Liebreich said.
The global trends weren’t spread evenly across countries. Even though China’s overall investment dropped, it still managed to surpass, for the first time ever, the sum spent by all of Europe, where a stagnant economy led countries like Spain and Bulgaria to cut spending on clean energy subsidies. China is the world’s top renewables investor, spending $56 billion on it in 2013 (the US is at $35.8 billion).
In the US, the dip in investment hid a couple other important milestones: Last month California, the nation’s biggest solar market, broke its all-time solar power production record twice on two consecutive days. And in January, the US got an all-time record 4.8 percent of its power from wind turbines, according to BNEF.
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Last week, the online dating site OkCupid switched up its homepage for Mozilla Firefox users. Upon opening the site, a message appeared encouraging members to curb their use of Firefox because the company’s new CEO, Brendan Eich, allegedly opposes equality for gay couples—specifically, he donated $1000 to the campaign for the anti-gay Proposition 8 in 2008. “We’ve devoted the last ten years to bringing people—all people—together,” the message read. “If individuals like Mr. Eich had their way, then roughly 8% of the relationships we’ve worked so hard to bring about would be illegal.” The company’s action went viral, and within a few days, Eich had resigned as CEO of Mozilla only weeks after taking up the post. On Thursday, OkCupid released a statement saying “We are pleased that OkCupid’s boycott has brought tremendous awareness to the critical matter of equal rights for all individuals and partnerships.”
But there’s a hitch: OkCupid’s co-founder and CEO Sam Yagan once donated to an anti-gay candidate. (Yagan is also CEO of Match.com.) Specifically, Yagan donated $500 to Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) in 2004, reports Uncrunched. During his time as congressman from 1997 to 2009, Cannon voted for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, against a ban on sexual-orientation based job discrimination, and for prohibition of gay adoptions.
He’s also voted for numerous anti-choice measures, earning a 0 percent rating from NARAL Pro Choice America. Among other measures, Cannon voted for laws prohibiting government from denying funds to medical facilities that withhold abortion information, stopping minors from crossing state lines to obtain an abortion, and banning family planning funding in US aid abroad. Cannon also earned a 7 percent rating from the ACLU for his poor civil rights voting record: He voted to amend FISA to allow warrant-less electronic surveillance, to allow NSA intelligence gathering without civil oversight, and to reauthorize the PATRIOT act.
Of course, it’s been a decade since Yagan’s donation to Cannon, and a decade or more since many of Cannon’s votes on gay rights. It’s possible that Cannon’s opinions have shifted, or maybe his votes were more politics than ideology; a tactic by the Mormon Rep. to satisfy his Utah constituency. It’s also quite possible that Yagan’s politics have changed since 2004: He donated to Barack Obama’s campaign in 2007 and 2008. Perhaps even Firefox’s Eich has rethought LGBT equality since his 2008 donation. But OkCupid didn’t include any such nuance in its take-down of Firefox. Combine that with the fact that the company helped force out one tech CEO for something its own CEO also did, and its action last week starts to look more like a PR stunt than an impassioned act of protest. (Mother Jones reached out to OkCupid for comment: We’ll update this post if we receive a response.)
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ComputerWorks store manager John Kwalick helps turn old computers into something new.
When customers walk into the ComputerWorks store inside Goodwill of Southwestern Pennsylvania’s Lawrenceville location, they often ask for Johnny.
“The people just love him,” says Dennis Abbott, computer and electronics recycling manager. “He’s able to communicate with customers, no matter what age or ethnic group.”
Fan-favorite Johnny is John Kwalick, the ComputerWorks manager. In that role, he’s responsible for all the activities in the store, including pricing, customer complaints, refurbishing computers, and programming better systems for tracking work orders and handling other operational efficiencies.
Since coming to the store in 2009, he’s been popular with almost everyone who walks through the door. “He’s just so knowledgeable and has such great communication skills,” says Abbott, who manages Kwalick.
As it turns out, the feeling is mutual. “I love dealing with the customers’ issues and computer problems,” he says. “It’s something new every day; it’s never the same. I like the changing factor of it.”
Unlike other computer stores, which often have the goal to push out as many new units as possible, ComputerWorks focuses on refurbishing older computers whenever practical. “Other places just want to sell you a new computer,” Abbott says. “We’ll take the time to explain whether it’s viable to upgrade or not.”
Adds Kwalick: “Most of these older computers are still good and can do the same thing as a newer computer can for basic work.”
When upgrading isn’t possible, they recycle the parts through a partnership with Dell Reconnect, a computer-recycling program that’s kept more than 324 million pounds of e-waste out of landfills since 2004.
As a result, green jobs are created for people, with Kwalick’s position being just one example. “We think about recycling every day here,” he says. “It’s just part of the way we operate.”
The program also creates jobs for people with disabilities, who take apart the machines and categorize what’s inside so that recyclers don’t have to do disassembly down the line. In fact, donating one working computer to Dell Reconnect equates to 6.8 hours of job training for a Goodwill employee.
Next page: A Win-Win
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Green Job Spotlight: Store Manager Provides Like-New Computers at Likable Prices
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On Thursday, the Turkish government blocked the country’s access to YouTube, after banning Twitter earlier this month, in an effort to quell anti-government sentiment prior to local elections on March 30. Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says that social networks are facilitating the spread of wiretapped recordings that have been politically damaging. The YouTube block reportedly came about after a video surfaced of government officials discussing the possibility of going to war with Syria. The government officially banned Twitter after the network refused to take down an account accusing a former minister of corruption. Twitter is challenging the ban and a Turkish court overturned it on Wednesday, but it’s not yet clear how an appeal might play out.
Turkey is hardly the first country to crack down on social unrest by going after social networks. There are at least six other countries currently blocking Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter in some capacity (see map below), and many more have instituted temporary blocks over the last couple years. Here’s everything you need to know:
China: China blocked Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in 2009. The Twitter and Facebook bans took place after a peaceful protest by Uighurs, China’s Muslim ethnic minority, broke into deadly riots in Xinjiang. In September 2013, the government decided to stop censoring foreign websites in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, a 17-square mile area in mainland China, but these social networks are still largely blocked nationwide.
Iran: Iran has blocked Facebook, Twitter and YouTube on and off (usually off) since they were banned in 2009 following Iran’s contentious presidential election.
Vietnam: Over the last couple years, there have been widespread reports of Facebook being blocked in Vietnam. The block is fairly easy to bypass, and many Vietnamese citizens use the social network. However, in September 2013, Vietnam passed a law prohibiting citizens from posting anti-government content on the social network. Facebook did not comment on access in Vietnam.
Pakistan: In September 2012, Pakistan blocked YouTube after the site reportedly refused to take down an anti-Islam video that sparked protests in the country. The block has continued through March 2014, according to Google.
North Korea: Internet access is highly restricted in North Korea.
Eritrea: According to Reporters Without Borders, in 2011, two of the country’s major internet service providers blocked YouTube. Freedom House, a US watchdog that conducts research on political freedom, said the site was blocked in its 2013 report and notes, “The government requires all internet service providers to use state-controlled internet infrastructure.” Eritrea is routinely listed as one of the most censored countries in the world. Google does not include Eritrea on its list of countries in its transparency report that currently block YouTube, but notes that their list “is not comprehensive” and may not include partial blocks.
This data was compiled with help from Google’s transparency report, Twitter, and the OpenNet Initiative, a partnership between the University of Toronto, Harvard University, and the SecDev Group in Ottawa. It doesn’t take into account countries where only certain pages or videos may be censored. The United Arab Emirates, for example, jailed an American citizen last year for posting a comedic video to YouTube—but it doesn’t block the entire network, so it’s not on the map. Additionally, Google and Twitter don’t list their services as being blocked in Cuba, but social networks there are difficult to access, in part due to cost barriers.
Outside of these current blocks, many governments have banned social media networks in the past, during periods of unrest. Here’s a brief history of notable incidents:
Since 2009, Google has counted 16 disruptions to YouTube in 11 regions, often in the wake of protests. In March 2009, Bangladesh blocked YouTube for four days after someone posted a video of a meeting between army officers and the Prime Minister that revealed unrest in the military. Bangladesh blocked the network again for an extended period between 2012 and 2013 over an anti-Islam video. Libya blocked YouTube (and other social networks) for 574 days between 2010 and 2011, after the site hosted videos depicting families of prisoners killed in Abu Salim prison demonstrating in Benghazi, according to Human Rights Watch. Syria blocked YouTube (as well as Facebook) for about three years, lifting the ban in February 2011. Tajikistan has blocked YouTube more than once, most recently in 2013, over a video of the president dancing. Afghanistan blocked YouTube for 113 days between September 2012 and January 2013, after fears that an anti-Islam film on the site would spark further riots. Here’s how Google depicts the Afghanistan ban:
Twitter, which was used as a tool to organize protests during the Arab Spring, was shut down partially or completely by several governments in the region in 2011, including Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Cameroon, and Malawi, according to the OpenNet Initiative. Belarus has also blocked major social networks, including Twitter, in 2011 to quell anti-government protests. That same year, when a series of riots swept the United Kingdom, Prime Minister David Cameron threatened to ban people from using social networking sites, including Twitter and Facebook, although he didn’t go through with it. Targeting specific users or pages is more common than complete bans on Twitter—South Korea, for example, blocked access to North Korea’s official Twitter account in 2010 on the basis that it contained “illegal information.” When it’s clear that a certain Tweet or user is only being blocked in a select country, Twitter flags it as “Country Withheld Content.”
Facebook was also temporarily blocked by several countries during the Arab Spring. In 2010, Pakistan temporarily blocked Facebook after it hosted a competition called, ” Everybody Draw Mohammad Day,” which collected about 200 entries. Myanmar has sporadically blocked Facebook; China claims the ban was lifted there in 2013. There have also been instances where governments have blocked fake individual pages pretending to belong to world leaders. In 2008, Morocco went so far as to arrest a man for creating a profile posing as Prince Moulay Rachid. So far, Turkey has not yet chosen to censor Facebook, but that might simply be because it’s not on the Prime Minister’s radar. “What is this thing called Twitter, anyway?” Erdogan said Tuesday on NTV, a privately owned Turkish news channel. “It is a company, involved in communication, social media, et cetera.”
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MAP: Here Are the Countries That Block Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube
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