Security In An Insecure World

As the Holiday season approaches, people begin to prepare to buy numerous things they would not normally purchase. They will make these purchases in malls, department stores, walmarts, kmarts, targets, and more and more frequently the Internet. As billions of extra transactions are beginning to take place, how do the credit card companies track for fraudulent activity. It is easy to say that most people would notice an item on a bank or credit card statement that did not fit their spending habits at all. But during the holiday season, people often shop at places that they would not regularly shop at, and spend more money then they would normally spend. In attempts to secure ourselves we have bought shredders to shred that annoying junk mail and even paid Lifelock to watch for our identities to pop up where they shouldn't. Even with taking these measures, are we really secure? How many times have you handed a waiter your credit card while they went and swiped it out of your view? It does not take much to have something which we think is secure, turned into something completely insecure. After we see that someone has made a fraudulent charge on our credit card, we politely call our bank or credit card company and have the charges removed. But all that money has to get accounted for, and not all of the thieves are caught, much less have goods returned or fully replaced. There is an inherent cost to all of these things. The question is, can we really make things as secure as we seem to think they are?

The Computer In Your Pants

Its no secret that most of us walk around with a smartphone in our pockets. This advanced computing device has become the lifeblood of most of the world. No smartphone often means no business, or at least very limited business. My friend lost his phone over the weekend and was instantly lost as to what to do. This coveted phone was set up to watch all the SEC football games on Saturday, listen to the Falcons on Sunday and some minor things in between. Such as making phone calls and texting friends. With no phone, he was forced to contact friends through Facebook on a laptop. Facebook has an inherent delay, and most people cant flip open there laptop to check things no matter what their location. These computers (smartphones) also give us directions and allow us to keep our lives organized with any number of apps. 10 years ago, RIM's blackberry was a pager with a couple of lines to view text. Now they tell you who else is online, where they are, and what the weather is in whatever city they may be. Of course I expect smartphone technology to continue to increase for the foreseeable future, but what about the eventual literal computer in your pants. As technology advances I suspect smart threads in our clothes will being to provide information to us on a whole different scale. E-textiles or smart fibers, which are made of semiconducting materials are already being made at universities such as Virginia Tech. I wonder how smart our clothes will become in the next twenty or thirty years.

Computers and Cars

Over the weekend I experienced some techinical difficulties with my car. The simple answer was the alternator was bad, but the car cut off because the car's computer did not get enough power to keep telling the engine how to idle at a stop light. The computer in the car not only counts the mileage and calculates miles per gallon with some extremely weird algorithm, it reads all the sensors on the car and adjust things such as the radiator fan being on, how high to idle the car as it sits and detection of wheelspin and turning on brakes. Some people say the cars computers do too much, when it comes to actually applying brakes to certain wheels to prevent wheelspin or lockup. Modern cars are a far cry from forty years ago when most everything was done mechanically. This advance in technology has made mechanics more of a diagnostic reader then pure mechanic of years past. Cars will tell any problems or errors that are going on with it sensors and help take out the guess work when a car doesnt want to start up. This morning I had to get a $150 key made because the transponder in the key tells the cars computer that it is ok to start up. Finger print technology used to open cars is already out, what will be the next? Perhaps using advanced biometrics to program cars to their owners. No need for a key if the car recognizes the driver by some combination of scans. I wonder what will be done 40 years from now.

Business Computing

Today, the computer is at the heart of almost all business. At one time, when cash was the only thing accepted this was not the case, but with the heavy use of credit and debit cards to make purchases, computers are at the end of every transaction made. It is no surprise that as the internet was comming together to be a truly world wide network, companies like American Express and Visa wanted a faster and more convenient way to lend consumers money and collect interest on those purchases. Billions of transactions are made each day and moving that money around accurately, or sometimes inaccurately, is all done with computers across the internet. Of course, computers are at the heart of many businesses in other ways. Most companies can not function without the use of a laptop, desktop, and a smartphone. Computers are used for emailing other employees as well as customers. Many companies now have websites that host a wealth of information about the company and what it offers and why you should choose that company. Aside from communication, which is a major part of every comapny, computers are used to do accounting as well as produce actual products to be sold. The computer is truly intertwined into modern business practices. Without effective computer use, most companies can not expect to keep up with the competition. Can you imagine trying to start a new business today without using a computer?

Innovation

It is very rare to see the huge gaps that are sometimes made in technology. The simple idea of using a transistor or completed circuit instead of a glass tube is amazing to think of. Obviously there are those who have these outlandish ideas which become great innovations. Take Babbage for example. There is somewhat of a logical progression of how he came to see the need for a mechanical thing to help in the aid of calculating complex problems, to making the difference engine, to then coming to realize the need for the analytical engine. Yet, it is still a large jump to go from making calculations for astronomical tables to a programmable machine that can perform unimaginable calculations for his time. Innovation is in itself an amazing thing that can not be predicted or planned for. The mere idea of not only thinking of something new to solve problems, but then to manufacture that idea out of items that do not even exist is mind boggling. Innovation is often born out of necessity, but honestly what did Babbage need. He was extremely wealthy, and had no need to even impress anyone after his father passed away. Even so, he pressed onward. Even after years of failure and frustration he came up with the analytical engine which he would never truly bring to fruition in his lifetime. Innovation is a great thing, and I can't wait to see what will be next.

Computer Networks and the Evolution of Security

The idea that a computer should be able to communicate with another computer is something that we completely take for granted in this day and age. When the first few modern computers were made that would perform very complex calculations, they took up entire floors of large office buildings. As companies most likely wanted to transfer this information to other offices with computers an idea was born. This evolution really came about as top universities found more and more uses of computers to solve their increasingly complex math problems. Arpanet was born through institutions of higher education, but security was still not the main focus. The main focus first was to just send information that could be correctly viewed and or read on another computer or terminal. Security became an issue as the value of having a computer network was realized by people who were interested in security itself. Primarily this was the military that knew that a venue to communicate would be great only if it could be done securely. Today, security and computer networking go together in business and personal use. People all understand the importance of passwords even if they do not want to use them. Where will the next step in computer networking take us?

Computers...Why They Are The Best and Worst at the SAME Time

Information security is always evolving, yet it has the same elements from its beginings. Its fairly straight forward in that I have something that I need to have access to, but I dont want anyone else to have access to it, unless I say it is ok. When all things were hand written into journals or ledgers, safes were a common way to keep information safe. As we come to today, the majority of information is kept on computers or stored in a digital format. This means the document can be easily copied an infinite number of times, and with the internet it can be distributed just as easily. From an information security standpoint, the difficulty of protecting information has and will continue to get more complex. Computers do allow individuals and businesses to be more productive, which in itself is a great thing; but keeping things we would like secret continuously becomes a challange.