For the very few of you not in the loop i have moved my Blog to a difrent site. it is now located at www.penguisnglacier.com. I ahve also started writting sermons there and doign a live broadcast and Podcast ( though thanks to some technical issues there is only a few up there) feel free to check things out. I will leave this site up untill the end of Janualry then it is comming down since i have no use for it.
Ever feel abandoned?
Filed under Life
Ever feel abandoned? I feel that way now. Not by my wife or my family but my god. I know Hebrews 15:5a reads “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” But I feel like I have been. Recently I and my wife have started to give our full tithe, and ever since then it has been one thing after another. First both of our cars needed new breaks and routers, my wife’s car needed a new blabbering as well. My wife’s car also needs new tires ( and there not cheap for her modal of car) on top of all this we are trying to get the money together for spring semester for school which will be coming quicker then we like to think. It seems every time we get close to getting some place with our finances we get dragged back down. I know that we need to hold on and have some faith and that while waiting on god is never easy, it is hard to stay positive while we keep struggling. I know that there are people who have things much worse then us, and that we should be happy that we have jobs, and a home, and things like TV’s and computers, but that does not make things any easier. On top of all this stress over money work has been crazy as I am working on a large reprogramming effort/ updating effort that needs to be completed by the end of the 4th quarter, which is taking up every spare second that I used to use to study so I worry about my grades slipping a bit. I am very blessed to have such a wonderful wife that is supportive and a great church body that is always there with kind words, but feeling like God has turned me into JOB right now makes all that feel so far way.
My class paper on china.
Filed under Games
Recently I had to do a brief paper for my computer class based on the data on Open net initiative. here is a copy of the paper
China: My report based on information from OpenNet Initiative.
- Country profile
China has devoted a large amount of resources to the filtering and censorship of information in is country. Even with internet usage growing at over 60% over the past 2 years the Chinese government has kept what they view as harmful contact out of view of there citizens.
- Background
China has a long history of censoring information. March 2008 hundreds of Tibetan monks protested the tight restrictions on there religion as well as for freedom of the Tibetan region. In the same year a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck the Sichuan province and killed aprx 90,000 people. At first it looked like the Chinese government had loosened up it restrictions in reporting of information as it won award for presenting timely and uncensored news with is coverage. But 3 weeks into the disaster coverage and Chinese authorities started to crackdown and sensor the new reports coming from the region, reverting to there old habits.
A month after the Olympic games concluded a scandal surfaced that indicated that Chinese oficals hid reports on tainted milk products that lead to the death of 6 people and made 300,000 ill.
These are just a few of the cases that show just how sever the information censorship is in china.
- Results at a Glance
Looking over the results at a glace section shows that China filters out a large secotion of there internet. All of the catagories ( political, social, conflict/security, and internet tools) are all listed as beign with Substantial filtering or Pervasive filtering
- Key Indicators
While Chinas GNI ( gross nation income) is one of the lowest in the world, it bosts a high life expectancy, and literacy rate. Odly enough even though they have the largest internet user bace in the world at 298 million users, only 22% of its population actually uses the internet.
- Internet in your chosen country
While China Leads the world in total computer users( 298 Million) this figure only accounts for 22% of there total populace, but it is rapidly growing. China has seen a 42% increase of internet users since 2007, with about 1/3rd of there users living in rural areas of the country. This is probably due to there goal of having every village having internet access by 2010
Web site registration is another area of growth I china, with social media sites being the bulk of the growth. 210 million users in china have visited video sharing sites, and 54% of users have blogs (though only about 1/3 of them update at least once every 6 months) and about 1/5th of there user base belongs to social network sites.
Legal and Regulatory Frameworks:
Despite china’s constitution formally granting its people freedom of expression, and publication, citizens are prohibited from spreading approximately 10 different categories of content. Doing so can trigger fines or land the citizen in jail. Crackdowns on “illegal web sites” is not an uncommon event in china, especially during times around political events such as congressional meetings. Any news group that reports about politics, economic, or other public issues must abide by the 2005 Provisions on the Administration of Internet News Information Services ( basically theses regulations result in news only being published that originates from state-supervised news outlets)
Unlike here in the US, Chinese websites that have user generated contact are directly responsible for that content and are required to monitor there site and report violations to the state authorities. Failure to do so can result in steep fines, take down of the site, and or prison time.
In 2009 the government told online providers that they should edit or remove videos that contain distortions of Chinese culture and history, poor deceptions of Chinese revolution leaders, any video that depicts torture, excessively frightening images and sounds effects, and any video that can lead to sexual thoughts. The notice also ordered the video content providers to hire people to monitor review and filter there content.
Despite the strict government controls on the internet by Chinese government officials, there has been several cases where the internet has been used to gain “justice” for victims of the Chinese legal system. One such case involved Wang Shuai who blogged about how officials in his home town had misappropriated funds for the fighting of drought conditions by actually performing actions that encouraged droughts in order to drive land prices down in the area. He was detained by province officials for 8 days and only was released after he singed a contract agreeing to chop down the fruit trees on his land to lower the value of it. The story was repotted by the national china youth daily newspaper and sparked online public debate about the case that lead to party officials to issue and apology and compensated Shuai for his time in jail, as well as firing the party secretary and discipling 3 other officials.
While privacy rights have been a frequent issue in china in 2008 a lawsuit was filed by Wang Fei after his wife committed suicide after learning about his
- ONI Testing Results
While China uses typical blocking techniques such as filtering by DNS and IP address, it employs one rather unique way of filtering called TCP reset filtering. TCP reset filtering is based on inspecting the contact of data packets for keywords that would then trigger a block on the contact, no matter where it is located.
Even though the Chinese stated there would be no restrictions on journalists in reporting the Olympic games, on July 2008 a Wall street journal reporter showed the media director of the Beijing Olympic Committee his laptop which was showed the filtering of certain websites. 3 days later the IOC admitted to making a deal with the Chinese government to block non Olympic Games related websites. ONI confirmed that internet filtering was present during the Olympic Games even for member of foreign news groups by there TCP filtering method.
- Conclusion
The Chinese government has maintained a strict approach to internet censorship, and despite a few instances where the internet has been used to inform the public of situations that might have other wise remained hidden from view, there is no sign of the strict controls being loosened any time soon.
Cyber Warfare: It is more real then you think.
Filed under Games
Recently It world ( Part of IDG news group) posted an article about suspected ties of the “youhave” virus and a possible terrorist cell/ hacker calling it/him self Iraq Resistance. (1) while the FBI is looking into this (2) there has yet to be conclusive evidence of a Terrorist link to this virus. That being said, there is a new round of virus spreading that are designed to attack infrastructure networks such as a factory, refinery, or nuclear power plant. “The cyber worm, called Stuxnet, has been the object of intense study since its detection in June. As more has become known about it, alarm about its capabilities and purpose have grown. Some top cyber security experts now say Stuxnet’s arrival heralds something blindingly new: a cyber weapon created to cross from the digital realm to the physical world – to destroy something. “(3)
One security expert believes that the virus has already hit its intended target, and that it was Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, the same power Plant that a large portion of the world has been condemning as a nuclear weapons threat. But this is not the only known attack.
The FBI has already begun alerting the Energy sector here in the US of attacks on Power Company’s that they suspect to be coming from hackers in China and Russia after 3 previously unknown cyber attacks on US Oil company’s have come to light. These attacks not only show how week our security is in our infrastructure networks, but also the gullibility of the people who work in them as well since these attacks where first spread by fake e-mails, designed to get the user to click on a link and get the user to download specially crafted spyware that targeted the Bid data that was stolen. By the time it was noticed that the e-mails where fake the damage was already done and the network was compromised. (4)
But is a full scale Cyberwar possible? Could the internet be used as a weapon? Well it already has been. In august of 2008 Russia used the internet to attack the Republic of Georgia taking down/ bogging up government websites just before it launched its physical attack. The Denial of service attacks (DoS) targeted government, media, banking and transportation sites crippling them due to the overselling traffic they received. Given that basically every sector of our country is linked to the internet (Banking, transportation, communication, media ECT.) an attack of the same nature could cripple the US economy practically over night. And given that our current defense agents viruses and Cyber security threats is all reactive, it could take weeks to clean up the mess, and then only if the damage is not too severe that a complete wipe of the systems is needed (and who knows how long a complete reboot would take of a major system/network) And imagine the terror that would ensue if say a Million cars stopped working because of an update they received while hooked up to the computers at there local garage ( yes a lot of the major chains computerized car equipment is hooked into hackable networks), or if hackers managed to take down a large city’s power grid like say New York’s?
This is no laughing matter. The threats to our country right now are very real and are not the same threats we grew up worrying about. No longer does an enemy state need to send wave after wave of troops to destroy us. One well crafted attack could very well turn us into a third world country by crippling our economy. Terror is the new weapon of war and Cyber space is fatly becoming the best place to wield it.
So how do we prevent this? Well even though most of us do not work in the major infrastructure sectors here in the US we can still be used to gain access to them. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link and if a power company’s vendor has access to any part of there network (say to monitor equipment for service issues) and they’re breached it could spell disaster for that whole company. Some of the things we do every day put us and the companies we deal with at risk for cyber attacks. First off most DoS attacks are generated from computers that are infected from Viruses not from a bunch of people sitting around the computer eating Pizza as some people think. I have seen first hand the damage a computer can do when the user does not know they have an infection on there system, and how often they never know until some one finds the security whole it leaves, normally well after the damage is done. Imagine finding out you’re the one who infected your whole company with a virus that stole the bank account information for all of its employees, or had all of its trade secrets stolen and went under because a competitor used them to gain an edge against you. By adopting safe common sense security practices such as never opening links sent to us via e-mail, and using trusted antivirus products we can help make sure that breaches like the ones that effected the 3 oil companies last year do not happen again, or at least not with out real inside help.
1)
http://mobile.itworld.com/device/article.php?CALL_URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.itworld.com%2Fsecurity%2F121745%2Ffbi-investigating-here-you-have-worm%3Fsource%3Ditw_rss
(2)
http://mobile.itworld.com/device/article.php?CALL_URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.itworld.com%2Fsecurity%2F120388%2Fanti-us-hacker-takes-credit-here-you-have-worm%3Fsource%3Ditw_rss
(3)
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0921/Stuxnet-malware-is-weapon-out-to-destroy-Iran-s-Bushehr-nuclear-plant
(4)
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0125/US-oil-industry-hit-by-cyberattacks-Was-China-involved
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Do you really Trust God?
Filed under Games
The other day I was faced with a question. Do I as a Christians truly trust in the Lord like I claim to? the bible tells us
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” Prov 3:5.
And:
He who trusts in himself is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom is kept safe Prov 28:26.
Yet how often do we as really follow these words of wisdoms, or are they simply something we tell people when they are feeling down and we do not have the time/will to help them? I was put to the test the other day when after me and my wife committed to give our full tithe (up until this point we did not give the Full 10%), the storms came. We fell short on Rent, both of our cars need new breaks, we had to fix her cars front end, and my computer needs new parts. All of these problems came at the same time we realized that we fell short of rent and had to dip into our emergency fund because we fell off the budget bandwagon and over spent our funds. If you know me you know how stressed this made me as on top of all the medical bills we just got due to my surgery we are also trying to pay for my school as well. I was not a happy camper. I went to bed early one night because I was so down and stressed, and while in bed me and my wife had a talk. She reminded me that god promised that he would provide what we needed.The following passages where also a helpful reminder about how God is always there for us.
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. – 2 Peter 1:3
31So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. – Matthew 6:31-32
If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! – Matthew 7:11
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. – 2 Corinthians 9:8
And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus – Philippians 4:19
These verses (and I am sure I missed some) help remind us that God des provide what we need. I woke up the next day telling my self before I get down about what we are lacking; I need to focus on what God has provided us with. He blessed us with the cars bumper being fixable and only costing 50 dollars, instead of needing to be replaced. He blessed us with having the extra money to dip into to make our rent payment instead of being short. He blessed us with having plenty of food in our House. He blessed us with the knowledge on how to fix my GPU so I do not have to get anew one. He blessed us with having the doctor who did my wife’s tooth have his partner fix it for free instead of telling us to take a hike. He blessed us with not needing an oral surgeon to do it. While both are cars need breaks he blessed us with not needing them right away so we have to get the money together. And he has blessed us with a few side jobs coming up this month for some extra money to help get us back on track. It is easy to see the down side to things, to think that god has failed us. But let us not forget the above passages and remember that God has our backs.I challenge you the next time you start to feel like god has forsaken you list 10 things that are good in your life at that very moment. Do not worry about what might happen tomorrow or next week, just list the things you have going for you at that point in time. Then thank God for them. I doubt that you will still think god abandoned you any more.
Thoughts on the web and Ethics
Filed under Games
Recently I had to post about my thoughts on an article about the legal and ethical issues regarding the web and its uses. the article focused on web publications and the issues surrounding them. I wrote my post responding to the article focusing on the legal issues the author brought up and the use and application of the CDA ( communication defamation act) the original article can be found at http://www.collegemediainnovation.org/blog/2007/11/legal-and-ethical-issues-in-the-online-world/
Here is my post:
I think the author raised some good questions about how the web is used to report and allow the readers to interact with news stories. I however want to focus on the first part of the article “Freedom of the Press for All” This section brought up 3 very interesting but different cases and I would like to talk about each one as they are good examples of how we tend to view the internet as a totally new world instead of a new tool to perform old jobs.
Anthony DiMeo, III v. Tucker Max433 F. Supp. 2d 523 (E. D. Pa., May 26, 2006), aff’d., No. 06-3171 (3rd Cir., September 19, 2007).
This case to me is a prime example of how the technology in our world today is treated differently then in the past. The original suit failed my Mr. DiMeo alleged that Mr. Tucker was responsible for the content on his site because Mr. Tucker edited, selected and or removed posts from his site he acted as publisher and there for was not covered by the CDA, the court did not agree and the case was dismissed. I do not agree with the ruling because the idea of a message board is for free and open thoughts to be exchanged among its members. Mr. Tucker did not allow this because he would regularly edit them, only allow certain ones to be posted, or just deleted them all together. By doing this he has impeded the idea of open and free thoughts to be posted on his site and also has moved from just being the provider to filling in the Role of editor. When posts are being edited by the provider of the service or a member (paid or otherwise) of the service then to me the service moves to the same realm as a newspaper which performs the same functions for its editorial section. If Mr. Tucker limited him self to only removing “offensive” posts then I feel he would have been in the right, but the idea that just because he uses the internet to provide the content rather then a news paper or magazine should not matter because his edits moved him from the category of service provider to content provider (such as a news paper) and there for should not have been protected under the CDA.
Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley, et al. v. Roommates.com LLC489 F.3d 921, CV-03-09386-PA (9th Cir., May 15, 2007) aff’d en banc 2008 WL 879293 (9th Cir., April 3, 2008).
This case was a good example of how the CDA was used as a shield, and wrongfully so, in my opinion and how again we tend to view the internet as a completely different world instead of a tool to interact with it. The lawsuit was filed by the Fair housing council claiming that Roomates.com violated the fair housing act by publishing information it gathered from its members by answer a set of predefined questions created by Roomates.com and not the individual members it self, so it was not granted protection as a service provider under the CDA. While the suit it self was filed based upon other laws and not as a direct violation of the CDA, this case is another example of how we tend to view new technology as different instead of a new tool to do the same job. If you posted in the paper that you where looking for only while female roommates between the ages of 21-27 the paper could have been sued for violations of the Fair housing act. Roomates.com felt that because they where an online “service provider” they did not have to worry about such laws. But again this view was, in my opinion, take from the fact that they where based online and not “published” on paper. This is another example of how most people tend to view the internet as a completely different realm as apposed to a new tool. Had Roomates.com published there members information on a block of wood instead of online would the same debate have occurred?
Kenneth M. Zeran v. America Online, Inc.; U.S. District Court, E.D. Virginia, 958 F.Supp. (1997); U.S Court of Appeals, 4th Circuit, CA-96-1564-A, 129 F.2d 327 (1997); U.S. Supreme Court, Cert. Pet. 97-1488, denied.
This is the only case where I see the CDA applied our used correctly, but again shows how we view the internet and its use.The suit was field by Ken Zeran was defamed by an unknown AOL member via posted the member put up advertising that Zeran was selling tasteless t-shirts regarding the Oklahoma city bombing then posted the number he ran his home based business from. AOL removed the posting and then canceled the account of the unknown member. Zeran still filed suit saying that AOL was responsible for the damage and harassment he was subjected to by the poster because they provided the means the poster used to spread the damaging and defaming posts.I see this as a good example of the intention of the CDA because ALO did not edit the posts in question, and they also removed the posts upon request. We tend to think that just because some one provides a tool that the maker is responsible for the damages it creates. We would never think about suing Ford for the damages we received from some drunk driver hitting us just because they made the car. The internet is the same way, yet we tend to view the technology as a new world instead of a new tool. AOL did provide the means for the publication but was no more responsible for the use of it then a paper maker is for how there paper is used or a printer make is for what there printers produce.
I feel that the law needs to change the way the internet is view and treat it as a tool the same way a hammer or car is, That the individual users of it should be held accountable for there actions and not the provider for it.
Viruses and E-mail: How to avoid getting infected.
Filed under Games
Recently I one of my family members on Facebook posted about a nasty little virus going around that will turn your computer into a zombie host for a botnet attack. ( basically your computer will send nasty grams to people and large amounts of traffic to web sites with out your knowledge or permission.) It still amazes me that years after these attacks started people still fall for the same old tricks time after time. So I am writing this article in hopes that some of my readers will take the advice and be a little more protected.
Tips:
1) never click a Link inside an e-mail, be it from your best friend/boss, or some other “trusted source”
The reason for this is that there are tricks to mask the actual e-mail link. Take This for example. There is no website you can find but just typing in “This” in your browser. The link above is actually a link to Google.com. the trick can also work for other tricks such as https://online.citibank.com/US/JPS/portal/Index.do. The text says it goes to Citti banks log in screen, but if you click on the link it actually goes to Facebook’s website. This trick is not hard to due and only requires a e-mail client or word document writer to create. Any one with even the slightest bit oh computer knowledge could do this trick. And it can lead people to go to sites that they think are real sites but actually are spoofs of the real thing meant to get you to input your personal information or log in credentials. But if you copy the link and paste it into your browsers address bar then you will actually go to the address that you see, not the one they want you to go.
2) Never open up e-mail attachments from any one until you speak to them
Another big trick hackers use is to send infected files to people’s e-mail addresses they for from infected computers/ comprised social network accounts (like Facebook). Most often this is done by a virus accessing the infected computers address book and sending out e-mails to every one on the list telling them they need to check out this video or see this picture. When you open up the attachment BAM! Your PC is infected. Some times you will know it right away, other times the file might contain a stupid video or picture and get you to think it was just a dumb idea they sent it so you forget about it. Either way odds are your now either sending the hackers personal info about you ( such as web sites you use and the password) or helping to “share” the virus to every one on your contact list.
If you do get an e-mail with an attachment on it, ask the sender before you open it if they sent it, and what it is ( where they got it is often a good question as well cause then you can just go to the site itself and if it is safe) if you do find out the file was sent to you by them then do not just run the file directly. First download the file to your PC and then scan the file for viruses before you run it. ( I will talk about virus scanners later, until then if you need help just ask any computer geek you know or message me and I will point you in the right direction)
3) Have more the one e-mail:
Another great way to avoid getting bogus e-mail and spam is to have more then one e-mail account. Use one for web site sign ups and the other for personal interactions. ( 3 would be the best the third as use it for any junk mail sites you sign up for like online coupons. ) If you ever get an e-mail from one of your “friends” in the site e-mail bin, or one of your sites contacts you via the personal e-mail bin then you know it is junk and can happily delete it.
Next Time I will talk about what not to do when web surfing.
Computer security on the rise
Filed under Games
A resent article posted by the Washington Post has put cyber security jobs as one of the biggest fields in the years to come.
”According to the Department of Labor, demand for computer security specialists will grow as businesses and government invest more heavily in cyber security, in order to protect vital computer networks and electronic infrastructures from attack. “The information security field is expected to generate many new system administrator jobs over the next decade as firms across all industries place a high priority on safeguarding their data and systems,” according to the DOL’s Occupational Outlook Handbook for 2008-09.”
It also mentions that the National Cyber Security Alliance has established October as National Cyber Security Awareness Month.
People do not realize just how dangerous the net can be. So over the next few months I plan to post up some articles with tips and tricks on how to protect your self and get the most out of your internet experience.
Is God mad at you?
Filed under Games
So yesterday as I was waiting for the new student orientation to start for collage I was starting to feel out of place. Being surrounded by 18/19 year olds fresh out of HS is a sober reminder on just how much I messed up the first part of my life. It also got me a bit upset because I was looking around and noticing how most of the kids there was with a parent and it made me start to worry about how I was going to pay for this since I just had surgery and have a ton of bills from that let alone paying my normal bills. I decided to ask god for some guidance, and closed my eyes and flipped through my bible app on my Blackberry. I asked God to reveal a verse that I need to read to help understand his will for me right now. Well his hand led me to Micah 6. Of course I was to busy at the moment worrying and stressing to really understand what I was reading, just glazing over the text did not help either I am sure. So when I got home and was talking with my wife I told her about the verse that God had me read and we talked about it. As she read the verse again aloud it started to make sense what God was trying to tell me, he was not happy with me as of late, to say the least.
Over the last few months I have been under increasing stress worrying about paying for school, and my medical bills from the ( upcoming at the time now past ) surgery. All the while I kept asking God for help but instead of picking up his book and reading what he had to say to me I just asked for guidance and then went off to play a game, or just sit and worry about our finances. This of course pissed god off and he wanted me to know it, so when I finally bothered to read his word he took the opportunity to let me know just how he felt, and I can not blame him for it.
As me and Tasha read the verse it became apparent what God was upset about.
“My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me. – Micah 6: 3
As I read the above passage I thought back on my life and all that I had been though, and how God has been helped me each step of the way, how even now all my needs are met and yet I am stressing out as if they are not. All God wants from me is for me to lead a righteous life, and follow him,.
“He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” – Micah 6:8
Yet here I was, despite all of Gods blessings and provisions I am stressing about problems I do not even have. I say this who passage gives me a new outlook on how I have been stressing over nothing as of late, and reminds me on how I need to let go of my worries cause either way God has my back.
Going Mac Crazy
Filed under Games
So today I decided to that my phone needed a new look to it, so i went digging around the themes sections in App world, and found a rather nice I phone want a be theme. I tried it out and found that i liked the way it was set up so i got it. then i got home and was about do do some coding and decided that my computer needed a new look. So i went out and grabbed a MAC OS theme for my PC. So here is my new desktop in all its new shinny glory. If your your wondering how i got all the areas fenced off like that, well that is a program called Fences by Stardock. it is free. as well as the vista MAC OS theme that is running the doc on the bottom. 
