The article “How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking” was really impactful.  It’s amazing how easy it was for this guy to get targeted and hacked.  The sad thing is that he’s lucky that it was just a couple teenagers trying to wake people up.  In a way he should be thankful to them.  Their whole purpose was to make people aware of electronic security risks and hackers.  Had they not targeted him, he may have just gone about his life for a while and then been hacked by somebody whose purpose was to steel his financial and/or medical information.  Had the hackers been theives they could have completely ruined his life in a way that could take decades to recover from, if at all.

And P.S., never save your credit card number in a website that’s not your bank.  I don’t care how often you shop there.  Just don’t do it.

I liked that this article detailed exactly how it was done.  It made it hit home a lot more for me.  Calling Amazon to add a new credit card was genious.  I never would have thought of that.  I’m definitely going to start rethinking my own accounts now.

My dad works in the computer security world, so I like to think that my accounts are a little more secure than this guy’s.  I certainly avoid linking any accounts I have at all costs.  Also, I’m pretty sure that my emails that are linked to my bank accounts are different from and unlinked to the emails that are linked to my social and miscellaneous accounts.  Nontheless, after reading this article I think it’s important that I go back and double check all that.  I think I’ll actually start a new email account that is only for use with secure accounts, and is never linked to random websites.

One last note; a lot of people seem to think that apple products are safe from cyber threats.  This is soooo far from true.  When I used to write computer security articles for VeriSign, any recent viruses or security flaws with Apple products were so common that they weren’t even worth pitching as story ideas, even when they effected hundreds of thousands of people.  Apple computers didn’t used to get a lot of viruses back when it seemed like nobody important used Mac’s.  But times have changed.  Now everybody uses some kind of Apple product, which means it’s worth the energy now to write viruses for them and hack them.  The company pushes out products so quickly that they don’t have time to make them really secure before they hit the market.  And for goodness sake don’t link your accounts.  The only people it benefits are hackers and marketers.  The marketers tell you that it benefits you, but the truth is it doesn’t, so just don’t do it.

I am judging Wikipedia’s entry for the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Nutrition_Policy_and_Promotion) based on its quality and transparency.

All of the hundreds of contributors to this page were listed with their contributions.  I found that I could email many of them if I wanted to.  For those who had profiles, I could read about who they were and what other articles they worked on.  I could even compair any two different versions of the page.  The page has been around since 2005, so it has had a very long reveiw process and has been heavily edited.  It was last updated on April 12, 2012, meaning that its content is most likely up to date.  Government websites and pdf documents cited in the article were available at the bottom of the page, and links within the article are all functional.  I feel comfortable that I know where the information on this page came from.

I thought that the Jon Udell video was pretty interesting. I like how he recorded his voice and used screen shots instead of traditional video. I thought it make it cleaner and easier to understand. Using the screen shots also meant that he was constantly citing primary sources for his information, which greatly increased his credibility.

I thought that the content of Udell’s message was interesting too. I was very impressed by how quickly the graffiti was cleaned up. It’s reassuring to know that the articles are checked and edited constantly. On the flip side, how do any of us know that the information on the page wasn’t just someone’s best guess instead of actual research?

Is the American-government-endoursed definition of a healthy/balanced diet based more heavily on science or on commercial merketing campaigns?

Much of our understanding of nutrition comes from marketing and a need to boost consumption of certain commertial products. Nutrition is also a very new science. So what are the facts? Do we really need bacon and eggs and pancakes and fruit and milk and orange juice every morning to be healthy, or would an apple and a piece of toast have been enough? Are the government-set nutrition standards even acheivable without supplements if shopping at a traditional grocery store?

I would like to research this topic because I personally strive to eat healthy on a daily basis. Over the past year or so I have begun to question my own ideas about nutrition and the government’s ideas about nutrition just as I challenge ideas in other aspects of my life. Since the FDA has approved small amounts of formaldehyde and sodium cayanide for human consumption (it’s an ingredient in Mountain Dew) I feel like maybe my idea of “good to eat” might be different from the government’s.

I thought that this week’s readings had a lot of good points. I think of myself as a traditionalist, and I used to do some research and writing for a computer security company, so both these things make me very wary of the transition from physical libraries into digitized ones. I certainly understand and appreciate the benefits of being able to share a nearly infinite amount of information with a nearly infinite number of people, but it certainly comes with a lot of costs. I believe that there should be some sort of middle ground.

I think that an effort should be made to produce text-scannable image files of all historical works, also I know this would take a long time and be very expensive. I would do so by scanning images of all the pages of the original work, then typing up all of the text, and then having the computer automatically align the typed text with the written text in the image file, and then make the typed text invisible to the reader. This way the reader could still ask the computer to search for certain words or phrases, but at the same time they could see the original handwriting and other sublte information about the document that is lost if the digital copy is text only. I understand that the monetary cost, the time needed to convert documents into such a format, and the load time are currently very great, but I think it would be worth it. The monetary cost could be offset with sponsors, and quite frankly when you want something badly enough you can usually find a way to make it happen (eg. our multi-trillion dollar war that we also can’t afford). As far as how long the project would take, I think taking a long time to do it right is better than taking a short time to do it wrong. Plus, it would go faster if more people were working on it, and goodness knows people in this country need more jobs. As far as load time, in five years I guarentee you that technology will have advanced enough that that’s no longer a problem.

My First Shot at HTML

Things I Learned

Stuff:

• I learned how to make paragraph breaks using codes
• I also learned how to make things bold and italic .

I can also make numbered lists

1. Like this one right here
2. See how cool it is?

Here’s a link to google that is also an image: