China: A Capable Cyber Opponent

The world can be a scary place in today's age where threats of attack not only exist physically but also digitally. Cyberattacks have become a low risk, high reward way to get a hold of sensitive data. It is not only individual criminals carrying out these attacks but even nation states. For a long time the U.S. government has complained about China's hacking and cyberattacks. I decided to learn a bit more about the ongoing cyberwar between the two countries.

Net Neutrality Dealt Another Blow

Earlier in the beginning of the year the U.S. court of appeals overthrew the FCC's regulations  on the Internet (often referred to as net neutrality laws). This came as a blow to advocates of a free internet policy where anyone or any entity has the same rights and treatments when it comes to Internet usage. With no actual rules dictating internet policy many people felt that no good could come from the courts decision.

Cracking CAPTCHA

Are you familiar with the “completely automated public turing test to tell computers and humans apart”? More than likely you are, you’ve just heard of its’ acronym before:  CAPTCHA. CAPTCHA is a program that protects websites against nonhuman users such as bots. The term was coined back in 2000 by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and IBM. The program by definition requires little to no human intervention to maintain and thus is one of the most widely used forms of authorization and security on the internet because of its reliability and low cost. Since its’ inception CAPTCHA has been applauded by some as innovative and criticized by others as a tedious, often impossible task to achieve.

Coding Like An Astronaut

On April 10 NASA made over 1,000 codes available to the general public in a new online software catalog. Now, programmers can analyze and play with code integral to NASA's space programs.

We've Been Exposed: Heartbleed

For the past two years a security flaw has gone unnoticed in the technology community and has exposed countless user's personal information to attackers. The bug, named Heartbleed, was discovered and disclosed earlier this week. This bug affects OpenSSL, the Internet's most commonly used crytographic library that is suppose to keep your data secure. With a name like Heartbleed you can expect a powerful bug.

TED Talk: Bionics

TED, or Technology, Entertainment, Design, is a global set of conferences under the motto "ideas worth spreading". I recently watched a TED presentation on bionics that I believe is worth sharing.

Virtual Reality Becoming A Reality

The way users interact with technology is ever finding new innovative outlets and experiences. The Oculus Rift is one of the newer ideas the technology community has fostered. Started in 2012, Oculus Rift is a low costing virtual reality head mounted display.

Did You Know? Image Searching

I decided to review what I believe is a helpful and little known feature search engines like Google and Bing incorporate in their services. Searches can be performed not on text only, but also on images of all kinds. I stumbled on this feature not even a year ago and have quickly learned its usefulness. What surprised me even more was that the amount of people that also knew about the feature and used it were little to none.

Image Searching was introduced by Google in 2011. Simply drag an image or cut and paste an image URL into the search box and the powerhouse search engine will recognize the image and send the user relevant results. Once accustomed to this feature it can be both useful and insightful. Searching an old photo could reveal information of its origins, from the date and time it was taken to any supplementary articles that used it. Apart from relevant info gained from searching an image it also helps in finding different versions (smaller, larger, clearer, etc.) of the picture or even related images. Searching this way can lead to sources of information or leisurely enjoyment not found with searching by text.

Bing has just recently updated their image searching software by finally supporting image matches in searches. This feature works the way Google's does by matching an image you found with other similar images of varying sizes and resolutions. I tested the feature with several different images and found that it worked well. Some images didn't offer the option to image match but for the most part it is a good addition to Microsoft's search engine. I still myself prefer Google's version to Bing but both are definitely done well in both approach and results yield.

The Changing Face Of Television

Television may irrevocably change in the coming years as a push for digital pay-TV services could become a reality. The Supreme Court has decided to take up a dispute between small start up company Aereo and giant broadcasting corporations. Aereo recently has marketed a device that broadcasts live television through its small device. The $8 a month service enables users to watch said television online.

Verizon's Future Of The Internet

Verizon's CEO, Lowell McAdam, believes that in the near future the internet will change conceptually. That is, in his and his companies beliefs, those that use a lot of Internet bandwidth should pay more to transport content and the "intelligent" Internet should prioritize the delivery of certain traffic over other traffic.

Keurig: Telling You What to Drink

A growing craze in America over the past few years has been the single serve coffee cup. Companies like Keurig, Tassimo, and Nespresso have created a new market for in home coffee brewing. Simply use a small amount of grinded coffee beans, in the form of a "pod", and in under thirty seconds a piping hot coffee is ready. With the popularity of such coffee makers continually growing, companies that make the Keurig brand products are looking for ways to hold onto their dominance in the market.

The U.K.'s Extensive Photo Album Brought To Light

There has been another startling revelation against U.K.'s surveillance agency GCHQ. in corroboration with the United States N.S.A., GCHQ has gathered millions of images from Yahoo's video chat services.

Apple Users: Time To Upgrade

Apple has recently discovered and shared with the public that there is a critical bug in both its IOS and OS systems. The flaw makes their users susceptible to attackers which could intercept sensitive info sent on public WIFI networks.

Too Big For Our Data Britches

On February 20, 2014 The University of Maryland announced it was "victim of a sophisticated computer security attack." Over 300,000 faculty, staff, and students who were issued an ID at their college had there personal information stolen. Information included names and social security numbers, dating all the way back to 1998. The university is offering a year of credit monitoring as compensation but for many it is already too late.

The Growing Problem of Cybercrime

Everyday, more and more tales and news stories about cybercrime and its' victims surface. As companies take more and more initiative to secure their servers and their clients it seems clear that enough still hasn't been done.

Internet Fights Back Against Mass-Surveillance

February 11, 2014 was suppose to go down in history as a victory for internet freedom... but was it?

Websites such as Reddit, Mozilla, and Tumblr, among 6,000 others, participated in an online protest event known as "The Day We Fight Back".

Comcast Poised to Buy Time Warner

Today Comcast confirmed they will be buying Time Warner. The buyout is valued to cost around $45 billion and will merge the nation's number one and two cable system providers together.