California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

Ransomware

by John Lawrence

The downside of the internet is ransomware as well as social media which has done more harm than good. It seems that each technological advance opens the door for people to exploit and do harm to other people. Most ransomware attacks occur because someone clicked on a link in a phishing email or visited an infected website. The simple solution is not to click on any links in emails or visit untrusted websites. Why is an employee of a pipeline company clicking on links in emails or visiting unauthorized websites? So the first line of defense is to forbid such activities within each company. The second line of defense is to back up the entire system and all the data off line once a day. This means that the entire system disconnects from the internet, does the backup and then the backup is totally isolated from the internet before going back online. Then in the event of a ransomware attack, the entire system can be wiped. In other words memory is totally erased. Then the system is reinstalled as well as all the data. Result: ransomware attack is ineffective.

A second approach would be for the system to intervene before accepting every email into an inbox. The origination of the email would be checked as well as a number of other parameters to make sure the email is legitimate. For a pipeline company only emails related to legitimate business transactions should be accepted. That means no personal emails on the system. Secondly why does an American pipeline company have to be on a worldwide internet - the world wide web? Does an American pipeline company really need to be in contact with Belarus? So the system should be taken off the internet altogether and placed on an intranet, a system which connects only those with a need to know or a need to communicate related to the business transactions of the company in question.

Thirdly, if the US was an integrated, undivided country with unquestioned command and control from the top, a nationwide, system wide system could be implemented to protect all users within the country. Because this is not the case, it is up to each company and each entity to provide their own security. Since it reduces profits for a company to implement robust security protection, many companies forego it. This is unfortunate. If the company is considered an important part of US infrastructure, they should be required by law to implement a secure system.

Then there is bitcoin which provides a convenient way for financial transactions with criminals. That needs to be regulated and the anonymity taken away at least for the US government which needs to tax bitcoin transactions. Right now money is being transferred by bitcoin without being monitored by the US central bank and without the knowledge of the IRS.

Off the Top of My Head

We Have Met the Enemy, Sir, And It Is Us

by John Lawrence, January 8, 2021

Why are we spending a trillion dollars a year on a defense establishment when the biggest threat to the republic is domestic terrorists? The failed coup attempt by inept Trump supporters could have ended a lot worse. Congress persons could be dead. Vice President Pence could be dead. Hundreds of Trump conspiracy theorists could be dead. The Capitol could have gone up in flames. And they will probably give Trump a slap on the wrist. He needs to go to prison. In other countries failed coup attempts end quite differently. The best outcome so far is the suspension of Trump's Twitter and Facebook accounts. It needs to be made permanent. Social media is responsible for spreading Trump's lies and conspiracy theories. They have profited from spreading lies.  Everything connected with Qanon should be taken down and accounts canceled. These white people (were there any blacks or Latinx in  the insurrection) need to be reeducated. I wonder if the Chinese have any room in their reeducation camps for the Uyghurs?

During the Jim Crow era in the South, African Americans by design occupied the lowest rung of the social ladder. The next rung up were people other southerners referred to as "poor white trash." The poor white trash were the most avid racists and white supremacists because their only point of pride was that they were better than African Americans. They did the dirty work for the Ku Klux Klan. Basically, Trump supporters and especially those that broke into the Capitol building are poor white trash. I have called the Republican party the WPP - White People's Party - and it's evident that that is what it really is. It remains to be seen whether they will remain loyal to Trump, but he has certainly exploited their grievances and pandered to their racism, white supremacy and demands that they be given supremacy over blacks, Latinx and immigrants. They are one rung up the ladder from minorities and immigrants, and they have demonstrated that they will go to great lengths to stay there just like the poor white trash of a foregone era.

Social media needs to be reigned in. The internet at this point has done more harm than good when you consider the hacking of government secrets and the harm social media has done in spreading conspiracy theories, falsehoods and lies. In the early days of the internet I taught a course at Palomar college. In our discussion I remember there were several layers of protocol that the internet was supposed to provide. One of them was security. Security then was mostly ignored by commercial software developers because it subtracted from their profits and didn't add to the commercial appeal - the bells and whistles - of the product. They need to go back and redesign the internet from scratch making security the number one concern. As far as social media is concerned, it needs to be tightly regulated by Congress with Federal authority to take down websites and cancel social media accounts. We now have seen a demonstration of what can happen when we let these wahoos run rampant. People exploit other people for profit, and even though that has been the American way, it needs to be stopped. Cults need to be taken down from social media. Free speech needs to have limits. So far this has been ignored, and it has been at our peril. It's a miracle that only one policeman was killed in the insurrection. What if the entire Congress had been taken down. There was practically no police presence and certainly not in the numbers required to withstand the mob that was incited to riot by Trump.

Hopefully, America has been chastened. Hopefully, this near coup has been a wake up call. Some of the people most likely to benefit from Joe Biden's initiatives are Trump supporters whether they know it or not. Of course they will have to occupy the same rungs of the ladder as minorities and immigrants, and this is what this latter day poor white trash of the WPP will hardly consent to do. Federal law makes it a crime to engage “in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof.” Someone who violates this statute faces a fine and up to 10 years in prison. Perhaps while these domestic terrorists are serving their 10 year jail sentences, they can be reeducated. At the very least their social media accounts should be taken down, and Trump should never be allowed to Twitter again.

Off the Top of My Head

How the World Could Change When the Current Crisis is Over

by John Lawrence, April 26, 2020

Perhaps we will rethink what is essential and what is inessential. Here's my list of what is essential: 1) Health care; 2) Food; 3) Water; 4) Sanitation (Waste water and trash collection); 5) Education; 6) Transportation; 7) Electricity; 8) The Internet; 9) Grocery stores. 10) Elder care.11) Police, Fire and Paramedic services. Here are some things that are considered inessential now: 1) Spectator sports; 2) Spectator music events; 3) Parades; 4) Conventions; 5) Bars; 6) Restaurants; 7) Barber and beauty parlors; 8) Tattoo parlors; 9) Political campaign events; 10) Large parties like wedding receptions.

Everyone can come up with their own list of what they consider to be essential and what they consider to be inessential. In my opinion the least essential of inessential services are tattoo artists. There are a lot of products and services in our mass consumer culture which are also frivolous and have nothing to do with what is essential or beneficial to human well being.. It seems that the most essential workers are the least paid while the least essential are well paid indeed. Is advertising really essential? You can look up everything you might want or need online using google or amazon. Why do you have to have some irrelevant product or service pounded into you by TV advertising? It's a historical relic. I record most programs so that I can fast forward through the commercials. If I watch a live program, I put it on pause while I do something else for awhile, and then I fast forward through the commercials. In my opinion everything advertised on TV, especially pharmaceuticals, is inessential. They should be prescribed by a doctor. It's the doctor's business to know which pharmaceuticals you need, not yours.

Are hedge funds essential? Is jewelry essential? Are the products of the wedding-industrial complex essential? Many people are having weddings during the pandemic without paying the tens of thousands of dollars that current weddings fashioned by the wedding-industrial complex demand. There are many frivolous consumer items which advertising insists that people need that they don't really need, that are completely inessential. Some are nice to have, but inessential, and some are downright destructive to peoples' health and welfare.

The most essential activity at this time in history is saving the planet from global warming. Production of renewable energy alternatives is absolutely essential. The provision of green infrastructure is absolutely essential. Fossil fuels need to be left in the ground. Getting rid of plastics which pollute the oceans and other waste products that aren't biodegradable is absolutely essential. Rethinking payscales for essential workers like agricultural workers and grocery store workers is essential. If these are the most essential workers, they should be paid more. The same goes for doctors, nurses, certified nursing assistants, the CNAs who do most of the caregiving at nursing homes. CNAs make little more than minimum wage and yet they are exposed to the coronavirus. What this means is that so much that is really essential now is either being ignored or very little money is being allocated to it while huge amounts of money are being allocated to fruitless and frivolous activities.

The most fruitless activity is war and the provoking of war. The trillion dollar annual budget of the military-industrial complex has been shown to be fruitless and meaningless when the real war is against a virus. Unhealthy conditions in poverty stricken areas of the world including refugee camps can breed disease which affects the whole world including "privileged" people in the more advanced nations. Poverty and disease need to be eradicated in all parts of the world. The military cannot do that. Oh, they can be repurposed a little bit to help out with a pandemic, but they can not really do the job that needs to be done. In particular they are vulnerable to the pandemic themselves and all of the weapons of war cannot protect them. The real war needs to be against poverty and disease which are the breeders of war and pandemics. The real war needs to be against global warming. The real essential workers are construction workers who need to be constructing advanced green infrastructure.

What is clear is that real essential workers need to be paid more which argues for a lessening of economic inequality. So much of the wealth is held by people who are absolutely inessential to the health, welfare and betterment of people all around the world. A Green New Deal needs to be prioritized. Wealth needs to be taxed to pay for it. New York state needs to tax Wall Street to make up for its budget deficit. Priorities, priorities. The helping professionals and care workers need to be given more respect and money. Taxing inessential workers like hedge fund managers is what needs to pay for it.

Off the Top of My Head

Using Artificial Intelligence to Eliminate Bad Content From Web

by John Lawrence, April 9, 2020

Facebook is trying to eliminate content that is hate speech, pornography or demeaning to minorities. It has a bunch of content reviewers that take down posts that are deemed to violate "community standards." This is an admirable attempt to eliminate illicit or objectionable content from Facebook if not from the whole web. These standards are quite a bit tighter than the First Amendment guarantee of free speech, but that is necessary. Hate speech or speech that is demeaning to any group should be eliminated even if it does not violate the First Amendment which, like many aspects of the US Constitution, is out of date and anachronistic. CEO Zuckerberg said that Facebook will be using Artificial Intelligence in "five to ten years" to help with this process. This is undoubtedly the way to go, but Facebook lags way behind China in this capability.

China already has the capability using AI to surveil every individual in China. While China's capabilities and practices go too far for most Americans, it is still clear that America needs to step up its community standards as far as speech on the internet is concerned. Haters, terrorists, pornographers, people that advocate violence towards others need to be taken down and not given a voice whether or not they think they have free speech according to the US Constitution. So maybe Zuckerberg and Facebook are in the lead here as far as adopting these standards that eventually may apply to the whole world wide web.

USA Today reported:

Facebook is for the first time publishing its secret rules and guidelines for deciding what its 2.2 billion users can post on the social network, including hate speech, pornography, even cannibalism. It's also introducing an appeals process for Facebook users who believe their posts were removed in error.

Until now, Facebook had not publicly disclosed the lengthy rules given to its content reviewers to guide their decisions on whether to remove Facebook posts flagged for violating the Silicon Valley company's policies. And Facebook users, whose content was removed, had little recourse if they believed content reviewers made the wrong call.

China is not taking any chances with terrorism or any other antisocial activity. This leads to a more restrictive society for sure so where do you draw the line? That's what Zuckerberg and others have to figure out. I'd certainly be willing to surveil the whole web for terroristic activities and speech or anyone else who is posting threatening content even if it's some guy threatening to kill a family member. Call the police! AI would just pass over any content on the web that is harmless so how does this affect anyone's freedom? At the same time people can feel more secure from criminal activity. The ubiquitous security cameras already functioning have led to identification of criminals if they haven't actually prevented crime. At least they're a deterrent.

AI can monitor criminal activity on cell phones as well. For most law abiding citizens they will be oblivious of being monitored. The criminals, however, will have a less easy time of it. This includes drug deals and human trafficking as well. China isn't taking any chances with its population. There won't be any uprisings there. The US should not be as restrictive as China. It's just a question of where you draw the line between freedom and security. China has the capability to monitor everyone in terms of their risk for the coronavirus. Those who are safe are given a green symbol on their cell phones. They show their cell phones to inspectors before they are al;owed to get on planes or trains, to travel in general. This is how they are gradually opening up their society again after the pandemic. They have a handle on who is safe and good to go and who isn't. Those with red on their phones have to go right into isolation. This facility is allowing China to go back to normal more safely.

Ralph Nader: Advertising Is Destroying the Internet

From truthdig, October 5, 2018

Consumer rights activist and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader. (Patrick Dodson / Common Dreams)

In all the mounting media coverage of problems with the Internet, such as invasion of privacy, vulnerability to hacking, political manipulation, and user addiction, there is one constant: online advertising. Online advertising is the lifeblood of Google, Facebook, and many other Internet enterprises that profit by providing personal data to various vendors. Moreover, the move of tens of billions of dollars from conventional print and broadcast media continues, with devastating impacts, especially on print newspapers and magazines.

But does online advertising work for consumers? The Internet was once considered a less commercial medium. But today consumers are inundated with targeted ads, reviews, comments, friends’ reactions, and other digital data.  Unfortunately for advertisers, consumers are not intentionally clicking on online ads in big numbers.

Google’s search ads tackle people when they search for a product or service. A controlled study by eBay research labs in 2014 concluded that Google was greatly exaggerating the effectiveness of such ads—at least those bought by eBay. eBay’s researchers concluded that “More frequent users whose purchasing behavior is not influenced by ads account for most of the advertising expenses, resulting in average returns that are negative.” This is the “I-was-gonna-buy-it-anyway problem,” says an article in the Atlantic.

The Atlantic notes:

Whether all advertising—online and off—is losing its persuasive punch…Think about how much you can learn about products today before seeing an ad. Comments, user reviews, friends’ opinions, price-comparison tools…they’re much more powerful than advertising because we consider them information rather than marketing. The difference is enormous: We seek information, so we’re more likely to trust it; marketing seeks us, so we’re more likely to distrust it.

Some companies like Coca-Cola have cooled on using online advertising. But advertising revenues keep growing for Google, Facebook, and the other giants of the Internet. These companies are racing to innovate, connecting ads to more tailored audiences, which tantalize and keeps hope springing eternal for the advertisers. The Internet ad sellers also provide detailed data to advertise themselves to the advertisers staying one step ahead of growing skepticism. This is especially a problem when there is inadequate government regulation of deceptive advertising. It is the Wild West! Online advertising revenues are the Achilles’ heel of these big Internet companies. Any decline will deflate them immensely; more than public and Congressional criticism of their intrusiveness, their massive allowed fakeries, their broken promises to reform, and their openings to unsavory political and commercial users. If they lose advertising revenue, a major revenue bubble will burst and there goes their business model, along with their funding for ventures from video hosting to global mapping.

After reviewing the many major negatives attributed to the Internet, the New York Times’ Farhad Manjoo writes, “So who is the central villain in this story, the driving force behind much of the chaos and disrepute online?… It’s the advertising business, stupid.” He adds, perhaps optimistically, “If you want to fix much of what ails the internet right now, the ad business would be the perfect perp to handcuff and restrain.”

Randall Rothenberg, who heads a trade association of companies in the digital ad business, urges advertisers “to take civic responsibility for our effect on the world.” Then he shows his frustration by saying that, “Technology has largely been outpacing the ability of individual companies to understand what is actually going on.”  All of this even before artificial intelligence (AI) takes root. Meanwhile, Facebook, Google, and Twitter keep announcing new tools to make their ads “safe and civil” (Facebook), open and protective of privacy. At the same time matters keep getting worse for consumers. The backers and abusers keep getting more skilled too (see Youtube Kids ).

In a recent report titled “Digital Deceit,” authors Dipayan Ghosh and Ben Scott wrote:

The Central problem of disinformation corrupting American political culture is not Russian spies or a particular media platform. The central problem is that the entire industry is built to leverage sophisticated technology to aggregate user attention and sell advertising.

If so, why isn’t more public attention being paid to this root cause? Not by the mass media which is obviously too compromised by the Congress, by academia, or by more of US before “We the People” become the conditioned responders that Ivan Pavlov warned about so many years ago.

Off the Top of My Head

The Internet Has Opened the Door for a Whole New Generation of Scam Artists

by John Lawrence, April 4, 2018

Recently, I put an item on ebay for sale. Immediately, I got a message from someone who wanted to purchase the item. He texted me right away and wanted to know the price. I texted back and the whole transaction took place outside of ebay. He agreed to the price and said he'd send me a check for the amount I was asking plus shipping. Since the item was rather bulky, I didn't know about the shipping or have any idea how much it would cost. He said that, when the check cleared, then I could ship the item. I figured the sale was legitimate because, after the check cleared, the money would be in my account, right?

The check appeared in my mailbox overnight. We texted back and forth because he wanted to know when the check arrived etc. He gave me some instructions, which I didn't need about depositing the check. Evidently, he didn't want me to take it into the bank and deposit it with a teller. The first red flag was the size of the check - $1500. - more than the amount I was asking which was $400. So the check was for $1900. I asked why the huge difference, and he replied it was for shipping.

My daughter was a little skeptical. She had heard about cases where the amount deposited in a checking account was reversed later even after a check had cleared. I said I thought that once the check cleared that was it. The money was in your account and it was yours. I took the check into my bank and asked one of the bankers about it. She immediately noticed some discrepancies in the check. She even brought up a check from the same educational institution and pointed them out. For instance, the phone number had been eliminated. She said it was a bad check and not to deposit it. She said it was a pretty good copy job though. She said that, even if the check cleared, the bank could come back months later and take the money back out of my account. Also the bank would probably close my account at that point.

I texted my erstwhile buyer and said "deal off. My banker said it was a bad check." He didn't give up though. He kept texting me, insisting the check was good and to go ahead and deposit it. I didn't text back any more after I had said "deal off." I figured, if the check was legit, he could stop payment.

So, you might ask, how did this guy know the check would "clear" and what is the meaning of a check "clearing" if the money was not in your account once and for all at that point. I googled the meaning of "a check clearing." The way the clearing process works is that the bank where you deposit the check sends the check to the bank on which it was drawn. That bank then looks to see if the amount of the check is in the account corresponding to the account number as indicated on the check. There are three possibilities. First there may be no such account, and the check is returned and your bank informs you that the check has bounced. So the check does not clear. The second possibility is that the account on which the check was drawn is a valid account, but there is not enough money in the account to cover the check. So the check is returned, and your bank informs you that it did not clear.

The third possibility is that there is sufficient money to cover the check so the bank sends the money to your bank. It goes into your account, and the check has cleared. It's a done deal, right? Wrong! If the check was forged, in other words the check was not written by the account holder but some third party who had copied or stolen a check, the money could be taken out of your account months later when the legitimate account holder realized and proved that he did not write that check. The check was a forgery.

The third possibility was probably the case in terms of my buyer from ebay. Once the check cleared, it might take months before the accountant at the educational institution on which the check was drawn discovered the discrepancy. The money would have been taken out of my account at that point even though the check had "cleared." I would have shipped the goods after the check cleared, but my money would evaporate from my account some time later - all $1900. of it.

So how does the scam artist profit from this? He's gotten some free goods, yes, but I'm sure he wasn't interested in the goods I would have been shipping. It has to do with the $1500. difference between my asking price and the check he sent. The shipping would probably only have cost a couple hundred dollars. Then he would ask me to send him a check for the difference, in this example that would amount to $1300. He would cash my check and be $1300. richer. Some time later the amount of his check for $1900 would be taken out of my account.

There are other ebay related scams. One is a transaction for an expensive item like a computer laptop. The buyer pays for it inside ebay using paypal and then picks up the item in person. Deal done, right? The money's in the seller's paypal account, right? Wrong! The buyer comes back to ebay and says he never got the merchandise. Since there is no receipt or proof the item was delivered to the buyer, ebay's "Buyer Protection Program" kicks in. ebay sides with the buyer, and takes the money back from the seller's paypal account and gives it back the the buyer. Lesson? Always get a receipt showing the item was picked up in person. Have the buyer sign when he picks up the item. Most unsophisticated sellers won't do that.

Don't you love the internet, the way it has opened the door for all kinds of hackers and scam artists who have demanded and received ransoms from hospitals, screwed old lades out of their savings and generally screwed up all kinds of transactions including voting? Now with the internet of things, any hacker can get into your house since there's no security in the devices connected to your home. It's a free for all; it's the wild west. There are all kinds of opportunities to make a living or a killing. None of them are legitmate, of course, but with a little thought put in to how to cover their trails, the scam artists can get away scott free. In my case my buyer could have cashed my check, having opened an account with false ID, and then closed the account as soon as he had the money.

Off the Top of My Head

Russian Fake News Ads on Facebook and Twitter

by John Lawrence, March 22, 2018

I can't read these ads without laughing. As if ads saying nasty things about Hillary Clinton were only the province of Russian hackers. The Presidential candidate, Donald Trump himself, said far worse things like "Lock Her Up." As if the American right wing conservatives were relying on Russian hackers to say bad things about Hillary to get Trump elected? Really? As if Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones and a whole host of ultra conservative trolls and hackers hadn't supplied enough of that kind of material? Is this whole thing about Russians influencing our election a cruel joke?

Have you seen some of the stuff floating around the internet about Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and any other politician who dares to call himself or herself a Democrat? I'm telling you that conservative commentators and fake news trolls don't need any help from the Russians. So what if the Russians joined in. Are the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world going to go after all the fake news supplied by American alt-right and conservative interests? Or are they protected by the First Amendment but Russians are not?

They need to go after a lot of the stuff on the internet, not just be concerned about Russian hackers. Stuff like how to make bombs, how to modify a semi-automatic rifle to make it full automatic, other racist, or obnoxious material spewing hatred. There's enough objectionable material supplied by Americans that Russian hackers parroting some of the same are not a major threat to our country in my opinion.The outrage over Russian hackers saying the same stuff as American conservatives is risible.

However, the right of free speech needs to be rethunk. They always give as a limitation thereof that you can't yell "Fire" in a crowded theater. What about directions for building a bomb? Is that covered by free speech? And derogatory political statements about other candidates. Oh I guess that's covered no matter how patently false they are. They shouldn't be. Any ad on the internet or statement in a chat room or whatever on Facebook or Twitter needs to be examined in the light of whether or not it is true or fake news. This in and of itself brings a challenge to the First Amendment, the right of free speech. False and misleading ads and statements should not be covered under that blanket regardless of whether or not they were supplied by Russians or Americans.

But we Americans don't want censorship like these other lesser countries participate in. So I guess we'll just have to put up with fake news or reexamine the First Amendment. Wouldn't be a bad idea to take a look at the Second Amendment too at the same time.

Off the Top of My Head

WannaCry Cryptoworm Ransomware Cost US Victims Billions

by John Lawrence

The internet is far from benign. Who needs nuclear weapons when you can shut down a whole country with a computer virus? In May 0f 2017 the WannaCry virus was unleashed on an unsuspecting public. Calls to Superman were of no avail. What was needed now was Superhackerman. The virus encrypted computer files in hospitals, schools and other places of business like Wall Street. America ground to a halt, and it was just a dry run!

In December 2017, US intelligence services concluded that North Korea was behind the attack. So while American politicians are getting all excited about "little Rocket man" and his missiles and weapons, it turns out that he has a more sophisticated and potent weapon up his sleeve - the internet! Isn't it wonderful that now we are all globally connected?

Payments were demanded in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. That way the money could not be traced. The funny thing is that the NSA already knew about the possibility of this kind of worm being developed, but rather than report it to Microsoft who could fix it, they went on the attack themselves developing their own offensive capabilities. But it seems that Kim Il Jong got there first. Now any two bit, tinhorn dictator can bring the United States to its knees, thanks to the internet. What an amazing invention!

The WannaCry virus propagated through EternalBlue, an exploit in older Windows systems released by The Shadow Brokers a few months prior to the attack. While Microsoft had released patches previously to close the exploit, much of WannaCry's spread was from organizations that had not applied these, or were using older Windows systems that were past their end-of-life. WannaCry also took advantage of installing backdoors onto infected systems. Boo hoo for them. They didn't keep up to date with the latest technology as recommended by Microsoft so were sitting ducks for the Shadow Brokers. I hope they've learned their lesson.

This computer worm automatically spreads itself. It includes a "transport" mechanism which scans for vulnerable systems, then uses the EternalBlue exploit to gain access, and the DoublePulsar tool to install and execute a copy of itself. There is a whole bag of previously developed tools so that present day hackers don't have to go back and reinvent the wheel, so to speak. As with other modern ransomware, the payload displays a message informing the user that files have been encrypted, and demands a payment of around $300 in bitcoin within three days, or $600 within seven days. Three hardcoded bitcoin addresses, or "wallets", are used to receive the payments of victims. As with all such wallets, their transactions and balances are publicly accessible even though the cryptocurrency wallet owners remain unknown.

Oh, what fools these mortals be. And what tangled webs we weave. Something that was supposed to make us one big happy interconnected global family is used for evil purposes and to exploit victims. People will do anything for money. No need for actual war any more. The internet provides the tools to end civilization as we know it.

Off the Top of My Head

Google Needs to Ban All Terrorist Related Material

by John Lawrence

Did you know you can google "how to make a bomb" and get an instruction manual on how to do so? ISIS propaganda videos are available on YouTube. Why is the internet a convenient place to learn how to carry out a terrorist attack? This stuff has to go even if Google has to eat into some of its profits.

This is from the Guardian:

[British Prime Minister] Theresa May is to urge internet companies to take down extremist content being shared by terrorist groups within two hours, during a summit with the French president and the Italian prime minister.

May is meeting senior executives from Google, Facebook and Microsoft on the sidelines of the UN in New York on Wednesday alongside her French and Italian counterparts, Emmanuel Macron and Paul Gentiloni.

The meeting comes amid growing concerns that groups such as Islamic State are able to produce and distribute videos and online magazines too readily.

Home Office analysis shows that Isis shared 27,000 links to extremist content in the first five months of the 2017 and, once shared, the material remained available online for an average of 36 hours.

The government would like that reduced to two hours, and ultimately they are urging companies to develop technology to spot material early and prevent it being shared in the first place.

The prime minister will tell Wednesday’s event that Isis material is still available on the internet for “too long” after being posted. This can include links to videos glorifying terrorism and material encouraging converts to commit acts of the kind that were carried out in Westminster and Barcelona earlier this year, involving vehicles or knives.

May will say: “Terrorist groups are aware that links to their propaganda are being removed more quickly, and are placing a greater emphasis on disseminating content at speed in order to stay ahead.

“Industry needs to go further and faster in automating the detection and removal of terrorist content online, and developing technological solutions that prevent it being uploaded in the first place.”

The Big 3 Web corporations need to eliminate material glorifying gun violence and right wing terrorism as well. Nazi propaganda needs to be removed. They are not under any compunction as pertains to "free speech." Only the US government supposedly cannot limit free speech. A private corporation can do whatever it wants in that regard. It can limit free speech all it wants. For instance, you cannot distribute literature in a shopping mall. That is private property and the owners of the mall won't allow it. It is not a public town square.

In addition to removing links to terrorist material,  ISPs should ban terrorist websites in the first place. I would like to see them banning sites which glorify guns as well. They do not have to adhere to the Second Amendment. They are not the US government. Again guns can be banned on private property. The internet is private property. They can ban whatever they want. Why do they cater to terrorist material or gun related material? If they are moral and ethical actors, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and YouTube should do more to monitor the kind of material that they purvey and get rid of any and all offensive material. The internet should not be a place where anybody can advocate or purvey anything.

Nearly 20 State AGs to Sue FCC for Putting 'Corporate Profits Over Consumers'

Published on Friday, December 15, 2017 by Common Dreams

FCC's vote to rip apart net neutrality challenged as blow to consumers and "everyone who cares about a free and open internet"

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

6 Comments

Demonstrators rally outside the Federal Communication Commission building to protest against the end of net neutrality rules December 14, 2017 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Adding to the growing backlash among the public and members of Congress against the FCC's party-line vote on Thursday to repeal net neutrality protections, nearly 20 state attorneys general have lined up to sue the FCC, calling the Republican-controlled agency's move a violation of the law and a serious "threat to the free exchange of ideas."

"The agency has completely failed to justify this decision and we will be suing to stand up for the free exchange of ideas and to keep the American people in control of internet access."
—Maura Healey, Massachusetts Attorney General

"The FCC's vote to rip apart net neutrality is a blow to New York consumers, and to everyone who cares about a free and open internet," New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman—who is also investigating the flood of fake comments that "corrupted" the agency's policymaking process—said in a statement announcing his intent to sue. "The FCC just gave Big Telecom an early Christmas present, by giving internet service providers yet another way to put corporate profits over consumers."

Soon after Schneiderman's announcement on Thursday, more than a dozen other state AGs followed suit, with both red and blue states joining the public repudiation of FCC chair Ajit Pai's plan. The list of states planning to taking legal action against the FCC—which includes Mississippi, Hawaii, Maine, Vermont, and Illinois—continued to grow almost by the hour late Thursday and into Friday.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, one of the first to join Schneiderman's planned multi-state suit, said in a statement that "Americans will pay more for the internet and will have fewer options" as a result of the FCC's move.

"The agency has completely failed to justify this decision and we will be suing to stand up for the free exchange of ideas and to keep the American people in control of internet access," Healey concluded.

In addition to legal challenges, states indicated they also plan to move quickly by enacting policy changes to override the FCC's attack on the open internet.

State lawmakers focused particularly on the FCC's attempt to not only kill net neutrality at the federal level, but also to prevent individual states and localities from enacting their own protections to preserve the open internet. Ahead of Thursday's vote, Republican FCC commissioner Michael O'Rielly vowed to be "vigilant in identifying and pursuing" states that attempt to uphold net neutrality.

California and Washington lawmakers have vowed to move ahead with legislation anyway. And, as Wired reports, "legal experts think there's a good chance that the FCC's rules barring states from making their own rules won't hold up in court."

"We don't think that the FCC has the power to stop states from enacting our own rules. In fact, the FCC has lost that argument in court before, so we're going to move forward," concluded California state Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat, in an interview on Thursday. "I think we’re going to have a lot of momentum."

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Off the Top of My Head

The Futility of the Internet of Things - The Hacker's Paradise

A School Security Camera Lets Hackers Steal Childrens' Social Security Numbers

by John Lawrence

You'd think by now the folks that bring you computer and internet related products would have learned their lesson. Anything connected up to the internet can be hacked. So some hackers used a school's security cameras to hack into the school's computer system and steal students' social security numbers. How dumb can the schools be. They should have know this was possible.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Education warned that hackers were targeting schools with weak cyber security and known vulnerabilities, threatening to release sensitive student information unless a ransom is paid.

"In some cases, this has included threats of violence, shaming, or bullying the children unless payment is received," the warning said.

Steve Bradshaw, school superintendent in Columbia Falls, Montana, a quiet town nestled at the foot of Glacier National Park, said he received messages in September from an anonymous person who mentioned "splattering blood all over the hallways."

Bradshaw turned over the alarming messages to local law enforcement.

"The threats were mostly about killing children -- and graphic ways that they were going to kill the children," Columbia Falls Police Chief Clint Peters told NBC News.

When it was evident that the person or group sending the messages was after a ransom in exchange for not releasing student social security numbers, phone numbers and addresses, law enforcement officials began trying to negotiate with the cyber criminals over their demands.

Particularly alarming was the discovery that the group had hacked the school's security cameras and could watch their every move.

The FBI has asked school systems to make cyber security a priority. You think? Now that the cat is out of the bag? It should have been a priority from day 1 when Bill Gates was eating pizza, drinking Jolt cola, working 18 hour days and sleeping under his desk, but no one thought of it then. How could the lovely human race take such a wonderful invention and use it for nefarious purposes?

The Internet of Things now compounds the problem. Every Tom, Dick and Harry who fancies himself or herself an entrepreneur in inventing things that are hooked up to the internet. In the case of the school system, all they needed was an intranet, that is a system that was disconnected from the internet.

How about these wonderful additions to human progress: 1) a smart toilet paper dispenser that can sense when you’re running low and will notify you via an app; 2) a smart hairbrush that uses a gyroscope, an accelerometer, and a microphone to listen to your hair to see if you’re brushing it all wrong; 3) an egg tray for your fridge to tell you how many eggs you have left and even how fresh the eggs are, massively superseding the old technology of “looking at the date on the box”.

Garageio lets you open your garage door with your smartphone, rather than with the traditional remote that represents antiquated technology. There is even a $100 Bluetooth toaster that can send you a notification when your toast is done to your desired level of crispness.

As Gizmodo says, "What I’ve learned from this is: man, capitalism creates some truly stupid, useless shit." People would have done more socially useful work if, instead of inventing crap like the above mentioned members of the Internet of Things (the Hacker's Paradise), they would have been picking up garbage along the freeway. That at least would have been beautifying the planet instead of contributing to its trash.

Off the Top of My Head

Is High Tech Getting Too High?

Are They Just Pushing More Useless Gadgets Down Consumers' Throats?

by John Lawrence

Apple's iphone 8 will use facial recognition to unlock your phone. I wonder what could go wrong with that? What if you are staring at it from the wrong angle? Do you have to hold in a certain way, not too low, not too high. What if you have a bad case of poison ivy and your face has swollen up? What if you have cuts or bruises on your face? Will it open if you're squinting? What about when you're driving? Do you have to give it your full attention, taking your eyes off the road?

It seems that a new model of every high tech gadget has to come out every year or so. Sometimes the new model is worse than the old. Take, for instance, those high tech rest room faucets. It was too much effort, evidently, to reach over and turn a handle so they invented a faucet where all you had to do was swipe your hand in front of it and it turned on. Except when it didn't. The last time I washed my hands in one of these high tech rest rooms I had to go down the line swiping my hand in front of every faucet until I found one that actually worked. There was never a malfunction of this sort when all you had to do was turn a handle and the faucet worked mechanically.

This relentless pursuit of higher and higher and sometimes useless tech is dictated by Wall Street. Instead of just churning out phones or other gadgets and selling the same model year after year with whatever improvements actually contributed to the functioning or made sense, Wall Street says you have to come up with a Wow Factor of a new model in order to get your stock price up. You can't just turn out a well functioning model. Shoe makers used to just have to be good at repairing shoes in order to make a living year in and year out. That's not good enough for the stock centric corporations.

That's why the Internet of Things has come about. Not content with just manufacturing the same good product year after year, corporations have to come up with the Next Big Thing whether we need it or not. Consumers have to be forced to consume. Much of the Internet of Things, which corporations have adopted as their goal, is useless and worthless, but corporations' stock prices would fall unless they came up with something.

Gizmodo reports:

Unfortunately, a lot of it [the internet of things] is total garbage. When it comes to Silicon Valley, there’s nothing like an expensive, overwrought solution to a problem that barely exists.

Take this recently announced toilet paper tracker, for instance. Are you always getting caught out on the shitter with no toilet paper? Never fear: A YouTuber (oh, goodie) has invented a smart toilet paper dispenser that can sense when you’re running low and will notify you via an app. Might we suggest a couple of non-electronic hacks, like... keep the toilet paper in the bathroom? Maybe just one or two spare rolls? Carry some tissues in your pocket? Christ, there are plenty of options that aren’t connecting your toilet paper dispenser to the internet. ...

We couldn’t forget to mention an IoT device that is connected in perhaps the least useful way possible. This pair of flip-flops with a chip and accompanying app doesn’t provide anything conceivably useful like fitness tracking data, but instead sends wearers information about discounts. Sign me up!

What I’ve learned from this is: man, capitalism creates some truly stupid, useless shit. Also, parody is dead, and we’re about six months from a real-life SmartPipe.

Russian hackers will now be able to shut down the whole US electrical grid by gaining entry through somebody's flip flops. Is this looney tunes or what?

Google, Trump, and the Arrogance of Power

by Robert Reich

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Google’s search engine runs two-thirds of all searches in the United States and 90 percent in Europe.

“Platform monopolies” like this can squelch innovation. Google might favor its own services, such as Google Maps and Google Product Search, for example. This is one reason why the European Commission hit Google with a record 2.42 billion-euro fine in June.

Why hasn’t Google run into similar problems with antitrust authorities in the United States?

It almost did in 2012. The Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition recommended that the Commission sue Google for conduct that “has resulted — and will result — in real harm to … innovation.”

But the commissioners decided not to pursue the case, which was unusual. They didn’t explain their decision, but it may have had to do with Google’s political clout. 

Google is among the largest corporate lobbyists in the United States, and a major campaign donor.

Google also has enough financial power to stifle criticism coming from independent researchers.

Last week the New York Times reported that the New America Foundation, an influential center-left think tank, fired Barry Lynn, a sharp critic of platform monopolies. Lynn had posted a congratulatory note to European officials on their Google decision, and called for American antitrust officials to follow suit.

Since its founding in 1999, the New America Foundation has received more than $21 million from Google (and its parent company, Alphabet) and from the family foundation of Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Alphabet who previously served as chairman of New America’s board.

According to the Times, Schmidt didn’t like Lynn’s comments, and communicated his displeasure to the president of the New America Foundation. She then accused Lynn of “imperiling the institution as a whole,” and fired him and his staff.

Few powerful institutions or people like criticism. But it’s never smart to use power to try to stop it.

The Internet of Things has a Dirty Little Secret

From The Internet of Shit:

A year ago when the Internet of Shit account was spawned, it started as a personal joke: I was hearing a lot about internet-connected smart devices, but they all sounded like terrible ideas.

In recent times, however, we’ve seen a new slew of devices pouring onto the market with no real specific purpose, as far as anyone can tell. At first I was just making jokes about these things, but the situation is worse than I initially thought.

I’m talking about devices like this bullshit $700 WiFi connected juicer, a smart egg-minder, a cat-tracking water fountain or this bizarre Bluetooth umbrella.

Many IoT devices will claim to improve your life, but really, there’s only one aim: monetize the monotonous that was never even interesting to any at-scale business.

Ten years ago, if you had told people they could make millions off a specific coffee machine that would only take one type of pods, made by the creator of the machine, they might have laughed at you — but then Nespresso came along and ate the world of drink-at-home coffee.

Now the same is happening with your every day gadgets, but in a slightly more sinister, under the surface way. Companies want to internet-connect your entire house in order to collect more data on you.

The opportunities are delicious for bloated internet companies: now a software company could know how warm your home is, what times of day are noisy, whether you have a pet, when you turn on your lights or if you listen to music while having sex.

Smart devices are sold as a way to improve your life — and in many ways, they do to an extent — but it also means those gadgets are incredible troves of data that could eventually turn into Software-as-a-Service money makers, just like Nespresso did to coffee.

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How the TeleCom Industry Plans to Take Over the Internet in Four Easy Steps

Published on Friday, July 2, 2010 by Huffington Post

by Timothy Karr

Have you heard about the battle over the Internet?

It's a power grab that involves lawyers, lobbyists, unscrupulous legislators, phony front groups and the most powerful telecommunications companies in the world.

They've aligned themselves against the rest of us -- the millions of Americans who use the Internet every day, in increasingly inventive ways.

They've opened their wallets to Washington. It's an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars and it's being made right now by AT&T, Comcast and Verizon -- the companies that provide broadband access to the vast majority of Americans.

These companies are chasing the ultimate payout: control, not just of the Internet wires that snake into our homes, but over the information that flows across those wires..

While this fight has been brewing for years, it's come to a head at a time when more and more broadband users are taking to YouTube, Twitter, Mashable and other innovations.

Right now, the FCC and Congress are weighing a series of decisions that could determine whether this decade-long explosion of Internet creativity was a short-lived experiment in people-powered media, or the beginning of an era of more decentralized, participatory and democratic communications.

20th-century media colossi prefer a return to the old ways, where a handful of gatekeeper firms operated the turn-on valve to all popular information. It was a profitable model that worked well for one-way communications like newspapers, radio, and television. If only it can be applied in age of flash mobs and FourSquare, too.

These media giants are spending a fortune to convince lawmakers and regulators to dismantle consumer protections on the Internet and give industry absolute power over the most important communications medium of our time.

Here's how they plan to do it, in four easy steps:

ONE: Buy Congress

The New York Times reported yesterday that AT&T, Comcast and Verizon executives and political action committees are among the top campaign contributors to lawmakers responsible for communications policy on the Hill.

"Political contributions from AT&T in the current election cycle reached $2.6 million by May 16, on the way to exceeding the total in each of the last three elections," according to the Times. AT&T has been especially generous to the campaigns of every Republican (most notably, John McCain), and all but three Democrats on the subcommittee that deals with the Internet in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. From 1998 through 2009, AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner Cable contributed more than $96 million to candidates for federal office, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics (and compiled here). In 2010 they're set to break all records for annual spending.

TWO: Mobilize an Army of Lobbyists

The phone and cable industry controls Internet access for more than 96 percent of Americans. Now, with the help of an army of lobbyists, they're planning to expand that control even further. In 2009, they spent more than $70 million on nearly 500 "K" Street lobbyists.

These agents for hire swarmed the FCC and Capitol Hill in a push to consolidate industry control over the Internet and kill Net Neutrality, the principle that preserves the free and open Internet, before the public (and public interest advocates like Free Press) gets a seat at the table.

Paul Blumenthal of the Sunlight Foundation recently revealed that cable and phone companies hired 276 former government officials to lobby for them in the first quarter of 2010. Included in this figure are 18 former members of Congress and 48 former staffers of current members of Congress on committees with jurisdiction over the Internet.

THREE: Spread Astroturf

Astroturf (or fake grassroots) groups surface wherever and whenever public policies threaten the corporate status quo. In Washington, they've spread like kudzu to envelope civic discourse over global warming, health care and financial reform in a tangle of corporate talking points.

The phone and cable lobby has been busily seeding Astroturf to kill Internet consumer protections. Notably they've funded FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity and Arts + Labs to paint Net Neutrality as a "government takeover of the Internet" and to dismiss as "extremists" the nearly 2 million people who have called on Washington to enact lasting Net Neutrality protections.

Their dirty little secret? Most of these fake grassroots groups routinely fail to disclose that their operations are fully funded by corporate special interests.

FOUR: Demonize the Public Interest

Behind every corporate lobbying juggernaut lies a smear campaign targeting public interest advocates.

For these smear-mongers, Net Neutrality is better known as "Internet socialism," "the Fairness Doctrine for the Internet," or simply the cornerstone of the Obama administration's frightening "vision of government ownership and control" over all communications and aspects of our lives. Net Neutrality supporters occupy the radical "fringe" of society, they say.

For Glenn Beck, Net Neutrality is a slowly creeping Maoism designed so that the FCC can "turn the Internet into a public utility, which means they have the power to control and regulate every bit of it."

If the uptick in scorn for an open Internet from the shill and talk radio echo chamber seems a little suspicious, look no further than the companies that still advertise with and support these merchants of disdain. You'll find many familiar names.

Everyone has a stake in the outcome of this fight, whether you're a YouTube "celebrity" or a chili pepper salesman, or someone in between. If you want to control your own Internet experience, you'll need to burst the industry spin, learn the facts about Net Neutrality, and get involved in the fight for open communications.

Now is one of those times that Washington needs to be reminded whom they really work for. And it's not AT&T and Glenn Beck.

© 2010 Huffington Post

As the Campaign Director for Free Press and SavetheInternet.com, Karr oversees campaigns on public broadcasting and noncommercial media, fake news and propaganda, journalism in crisis, and the future of the Internet. Before joining Free Press, Tim served as executive director of MediaChannel.org and vice president of Globalvision New Media and the Globalvision News Network.