Time Magazine Online

The 25 Most Popular (and Worst) Passwords of 2011

December 7, 2011

Below is a list of just the first ten. "Password" is the the leading term and I must admit it holds a certain simplicity that can't be beat. Looking over the entire list of 25, though, at this list, there seems to be no particular challenge for hackers. Here's the top ten:

1. password
2. 123456
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. monkey
7. 1234567
8. letmein
9. trustno1
10. dragon

A point that needs to be made here is that a password that will stand up to hacking for even a brief amount of time is going to have to be a non-word that contains either numbers or special characters (or better still, both.)

For tips on making a safer password, here's help from Microsoft, Google, Symantec, Yahoo, and The United States Government Cyber Security Team.

Read the entire 25 most popular passwords article at time.com

Another 'Digital Revolution'

eReadership doubles in six months

August 15, 2011

A brief article on the phenomenal growth in 'eReadership,' that is, the number of users who have tablets and other devices for consuming written materials through digital (versus paper) means:

"The share of adults in the United States who own an e-book reader doubled to 12% in May 2011 from 6% in November 2010. E-readers, such as a Kindle or Nook, are portable devices designed to allow readers to download and read books and periodicals. This is the first time since the Pew Internet Project began measuring e-reader use in April 2009 that ownership of this device has reached double digits among U.S. adults."

Full article at the Pewresearch website.

One encouraging aspect of this not lost on publishing companies: readership has gained (as have profits) for the first time since a year-to-year erosion has been mapped for decades in the world of publishing. So, either there is a recapturing of lost readers occurring, or new readership is being cultivated through these technologicval devices (or, of course, a mix of the two).

Online but not found?

Why your online marketing doesn't work

August 3, 2011

A good (and brief) article by Jane Friedman about online marketing, separating the wheat and chaffe at her web site here.

Online but not found?

Becoming Visible on the Internet

July 21, 2011

There are 180 million web sites (and counting) in the United States area of the World Wide Web (255 estimated for the world). Of that, 152 million are blogs. For a web site owner trying to reach a larger audience (or any audience at all), the challenge of standing out against that avalanche of competition is the big question. Just putting a site online doesn't mean anyone will see it, in fact the odds are no one will. Without a connection from some starting point, a site is essentially invisable, and will stay that way. How to change that?

Tips:

1. Link with other people who have some commonality with your site. If you are a regional business, link with other local businesses. If you're offering a product, link with other sites that are not in direct competition but serve the same customer base.


2. Use Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin to converse with people just like you would in any business/social environment. Just because the person you are talking with isn't a potential customer doesn't mean they're not connected with other people who could be.


3. Content on your site matters: freshen it up, add to it, think about what a reader wants to see and find on your site.


4. Give something away for free.

There are many, many internet sources for free help on improving your web site. These tips are just a bare minimum of ideas: there are hundreds of 'free' ideas on the internet, just a search engine away.

NEWS ITEM:

U.S. may want to create new internet infrastructure to combat cyber-terrorism

July 17, 2011

A Foxnews report describes a suggestion by the former director of the American Central Intelligence Agency Michael Hayden for the creation of a domain name of ".secure" in which users would waive fourth-amendment right protections to allow constant monitoring by government, the idea being a way to limit the pervasive level of cyberspying and foreign nation espionage:

"The idea goes something like this: China and other regimes around the world inherently have an upper hand when it comes to cyber defense because their lack of civil liberty protections lets the government freely monitor online activity. Things like "deep packet inspection" (which gained notoriety during Iranian election protests back in 2009) that let governments monitor citizens traffic also let them monitor for unusual activity.

That activity could be cyber criminals at work, or it could be foreign-backed cyber warriors and cyber spies working to weaken a nation's infrastructure or penetrate sensitive government systems. Regardless, other countries are better protected.

The U.S. Internet, by virtue of its adherence civil liberties, is more like the wild west. Everyone does everything online anonymously, and while that's great for liberties, it's also dangerous when cyber criminals/foreign hackers are roaming the cyber

countryside. The proposed solution: a dot-secure safe zone (basically, a separate Internet) where things like financial institutions, sensitive infrastructure, government contractors, and the government itself can hide behind heavier defenses."

The entire article at Foxnews is here.

NEWS ITEM:

Facebook Fatigue

June 16, 2011

An article ("Facebook fatigue sets in for 100,000 Brits: Users bored with site deactivate accounts amid privacy fears") at the UK Daily Mail by Daniel Bates posits that there may be a 'natural limit' to the super-popular social networking site, and that the drop in users in certain countries is the result of privacy issues and a sense of boredom for some users:

"Worldwide, the rate of growth has slowed for a second month in a row – and as it aims to reach its goal of one billion active users, Facebook is having to rely on developing countries to boost its numbers.

In the U.S, user numbers dropped from 155.2million to 149.4 million throughout May. In Canada there was also a fall, of about 1.5million users, while in Russia and Norway numbers also fell by more than 100,000 users."

Facebook is supposed to "go public" for investment sometime toward the end of this year or early 2012.

NEWS ITEM:

Wall Street Journal: China's Cyberassault on America

June 15, 2011

Richard Clarke at The Wall Street Journal on the internet mayhem that comes from Chinese hackers, and some speculation on Chinese government involvement:

"Senior U.S. officials know well that the government of China is systematically attacking the computer networks of the U.S. government and American corporations. Beijing is successfully stealing research and development, software source code, manufacturing know-how and government plans. In a global competition among knowledge-based economies, Chinese cyberoperations are eroding America's advantage.

The Chinese government indignantly denies these charges, claiming that the attackers are nongovernmental Chinese hackers, or other governments pretending to be China, or that the attacks are fictions generated by anti-Chinese elements in the United States. Experts in the U.S. and allied governments find these denials hard to believe. "

Recommendation for protection on your personal equipment: I have been using Avast Anti-virus on both my Apple Mac and Windows PC machines here at my office with good success.

NEWS ITEM:

Malware rise seen coming for Macs everywhere

May 6, 2011

Ed Bott at ZDnet has an examination of how the three-year climb in the number of Apple computer users means they are getting the attention of more and more hackers who see a financial bonanza by going through browsers and especially social networking web sites like Facebook.

"...the argument goes, Windows users are victimized by drive-by downloads, and Macs are immune from those!

Sorry, but that’s not true either. Like any modern operating system, OS X contains flaws that can be attacked fairly easily. That is why Apple updates it so regularly. Let’s take just one recent example…

In Apple’s security bulletin for the April 22, 2011 release of OS X 10.6.7, I counted 23 separate fixes for vulnerabilities that allow “arbitrary code execution” in the current shipping version of OS X. At least three of those vulnerabilities are new in Snow Leopard and did not exist in previous versions of OS X.

For those who aren’t familiar with security terminology, “arbitrary code execution” means “no user interaction required.” It is the nightmare scenario of online security: The attacker sets up a web page containing hostile code or creates an ordinary looking document, image, or movie file. When you visit that web page or open that document or look at that picture or play that video clip—or even if you just download a file—the attacker’s code runs, potentially giving him complete control over your machine."

Recommendation: I have been using Avast Anti-virus on both my Apple Mac and Windows PC machines here at my office.

NEWS ITEM:

Google shakes up its search engine method; some sites penalized, others gain page-rank

March 9, 2011

A major shakeup in the online world occurred last week for web site owners and SEO specialists. Google has changed an estimated 12% of their "secret formula" (a mathematical algorithm) for producing what they believe are the best search engine results.

Many sites have seen their traffic from search engine results drop significantly, while other sites have had a boost.

Google has done this to apparently weed out web sites specializing in "content accumulation" by amassing often-times nearly incoherent written info which was nonetheless punctuated with keywords and phrases that did well in Google indexing.

Wall Street Journal story by Amir Efrati summarizes the shake-up:

"Google Inc. is creating a new set of winners and losers on the Web following its move to punish sites that it believed offered little useful information yet still ranked high in its search results."

"Websites affected by the change are retooling themselves to try to adapt to Google's new standards. At the same time, several companies that benefited from the change—such as Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc.—have praised Google and are predicting increased revenue."

NEWS ITEM:

Flood of custom domain name suffixes coming

February 7, 2011

Washington Post story by Ian Shapira on the coming avalanche of custom domain naming suffixes coming, and the expected rush to grab the most lucrative naming.

"The pillar of the basic Web address - the trusty .com domain - is about to face vast new competition that will dramatically transform the Web as we know it. New Web sites, with more subject-specific, sometimes controversial suffixes, will soon populate the online galaxy, such as .eco, .love, .god, .sport, .gay or .kurd.

This massive expansion to the Internet's domain name system will either make the Web more intuitive or create more cluttered, maddening experiences. No one knows yet... "

"...These online territories are hardly free. The price tag to apply is $185,000, a cost that ensures only well-financed organizations operate the domains and cuts out many smaller grass-roots organizations, developing countries or dreamers, according to critics. (Rejectees get some of the application fee returned.) That's on top of the $25,000 annual fee domain operators have to pay ICANN.

Lauren Weinstein, co-founder of People for Internet Responsibility, a grass-roots firm in Los Angeles, alleges that the new domains are designed purely to make money for ICANN and the companies that control the domains... "

It looks like final decisions are due in March or April 2011, but a date for street implementation still unknown.

NEWS ITEM:

Twitter Vs. Facebook

February 4, 2011

A nice chart showing the difference in usage levels between Facebook and Twitter is at gigaom.com:

Some of the key information is:

• 88 percent of people are aware of Facebook, while 87 percent are aware of Twitter
• 12 percent of Facebook users update their status every day vs. 52 percent for Twitter
• males make up 46 percent of Facebook users, and 48 percent of Twitter
• 30 percent access Facebook via mobile vs. 37 percent for Twitter
• 40 percent follow a brand on Facebook vs. 25 percent on Twitter
• 70 percent of Facebook users are outside the U.S. vs. 60 percent for Twitter

Both are "big voices" that a person can use for professional internet promotion. Facebook seems to network better across a variety of demographics, whereas Twitter seems to create a more cohesive group based upon a shared profession, project, or simple common interest.

NEWS ITEM:

Super Computer attacking Child Porn Uploaders

January 11, 2011

In what will be a huge boost to one of the more underfunded activities of law enforcement, the "Jaquar" super computer targets child sex abuse predators by monitoring uploads at torrent and other web sites around the world:

"Consumers of child pornography break the law when they download photos and videos from file-sharing networks. But police are more concerned with the porn producers uploading the files. Every new posting means a child is in harm's way. To accelerate the acquisition of information needed to arrest child predators, law enforcement officers have teamed with data analytics experts at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for a project that will use Jaguar, one of the world's fastest supercomputers, to speedily analyze the activities on file-sharing networks that pinpoint porn producers. . "

Story at the Eureka Alert/U.S. Department of Energy