Only Two iPhones Per Person

iPhone news: http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/10/want_to_pay_cas.html

Apple has taken another step in combating the hackers. Now Apple sells only two iPhones to each person. Apple can restrict the distribution of its cell phones any way it wants as long as it follows the law.

Many people complain that Apple's actions are unfair. What is fair? Do people think fair means getting what they want? If a person doesn't like Apple's new policy, they should stop buying Apple's products: money speaks louder than words. But iPhone sales are doing well. The people have spoken: they like the iPhone more than they hate Apple's policies and methods of distribution.

Women in Computer Science

Women should be treated equally in the field of computer science, they should be encouraged to be mothers, and they should be encouraged to pursue a career in computer science if they so desire.

As long as women have the same opportunity as men to enter the field and be successful, nothing more should be done. Discrimination against women solely based on their gender is not just. But one must be careful in completely eliminating gender-based discrimination without careful consideration. Forcing equality between men and women can lead to problems worse than unjust discrimination. During the time the Equal Rights Amendment was publicly debated, good reasons were given against passing the Amendment. Although most of the reasons are unrelated to equality in the field of computer science, they hint that some undiscovered reasons may exist that we are unaware of.

Third-Party iPhone Application Development

Apple chose wisely to allow others to develop software for the iPhone. Not only can others profit from the popularity of the iPhone, fewer people will try to hack the iPhone to develop on it, thus making it more secure as the malicious hackers can no longer rely on the efforts of others to hack into the phone. But this decision will not make the iPhone completely secure: there will always be ways to break into it. Information on any electronic device will be completely secure only when the device is melted into an unusable mass.

Article on iPhone Development: http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202403919&subSection=Macintosh+Platform

Computer Security

Hackers vs. IT Security

A strange war rages between information technology security guards and hackers. IT security guards do everything to keep hackers out, but hackers continue finding ways to cause damage. The war is like a sword fight with one guy spending the fight dodging the other guy's sword without using his own sword to strike back and stop his opponent. This epitome of a defensive strategy fails to stop the attack. There are some IT security guards in the world that pursue the hackers, but the chase can waste money. The guards could spend an incredible amount of time and money chasing the hackers, or they could spend less money on improving systems to keep hackers out.

For the number of hackers to be reduced, they must be pursued. The security guards should implement systems that can identify the hackers enough to prosecute them. The automation of the task will reduce the cost of the pursuit. The FBI should implement a nationwide monitoring system with the ability to trace a hacker the instant the FBI is notified of an attack. As soon as the hacker is traced, the FBI should find the hacker's home address, find out who in the home is the attacker, and arrest the culprit. To increase the effectiveness of prosecuting hackers, more states have more laws against hacking. The number of hackers will diminish as the threat of getting caught increases. Hackers would think twice before trying to get into a system without authorization if they believe they might be caught.

One of the difficulties of catching hackers is realizing they are attacking. They continue to find ways to circumvent the systems put in place to identify attacks. If a hacker is just stealing information, he can easily seem like a normal person. A hacker could break into someone's account and view all the files that person has access to. More security measures should be implemented to recognize such attacks.

Responsibility

Measures must be taken to save money, and preserve privacy and reputations by preventing hackers from penetrating computers. In IT security, the responsibility to secure systems lies with many people: the users, the programmers, the hardware designers, management, and the system administrators.

Users have a responsibility to secure their accounts. The impenetrable walls of a castle are useless if the gate is left open to invaders. They must not share their passwords with anyone, nor should they store them anywhere. Potential hackers are not limited to external people. Someone in the organization could also be a hacker. Internal hackers could easily search through unsecured documents for passwords. External hackers that penetrate the system could find passwords stored on computers and use them to avoid detection. Users must also choose passwords that are difficult to guess, excluding birthdays and names of relatives and pets.

Programmers have a responsibility to do their best to make the software they build secure. Programmers should do their best to secure the systems and programs they build. If a programmer carelessly develops software that can be penetrated, and his carelessness causes security problems for the system the software runs on, the programmer should be held responsible for his negligence.

Hardware designers have the same responsibility as programmers. They contribute to the construction of the impenetrable wall.

Management has the responsibility of assuring that clear security policies are developed and followed. Managers need to make sure that the wall is impenetrable and the gate is closed and locked.

System administrators have the responsibility of aiding management by verifying that the security policies are followed by all. They are also responsible for detecting intruders and updating software and hardware as information about security problems arise.

The responsibility for securing a computer system does not lie with one person alone: it lies with all those who use or manage the system. Everyone must do their best to keep the system secure.

Technology and Family History

Technology has had a very strong impact on family history. It has made family history easier and more efficient. The strongest asset technology has brought to family history is the ability to instantly communicate with people from all over the world and share information. The next strongest asset technology has brought is the ability to store vast amounts of information efficiently, and the ability to efficiently retrieve and search that data.

The utilization of technology can be improved. Deciphering the handwriting of other people can be difficult at times, not to mention tedious. Improvements in character recognition software can eliminate the difficulty and tedium. Users of PAF are encouraged to use multiple files to store their ancestral information, which requires switching between files and splitting files makes it difficult to link information between the files. It would be much more convenient to store all the data in one file. It can also be tedious to search through all the different databases and gather all the information on one's ancestors. In some databases, such work is inevitable. In other databases, the data is already organized into pedigrees. Increased convenience can be achieved if all the ancestors of a particular person can be downloaded into PAF with the click of a button.

Unlocked iPhones: Round 2

Find updated information about unlocked iPhones at InfoWorld: http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/09/27/New-update-breaks-hacked-iPhones_1.html

Apple is not guilty of any wrong-doing. Apple can do as it pleases if it doesn't violate its part of the service agreement. If you maintain the functionality of your iPhone by disabling automatic updates, you won't get the security fixes and your iPhone will be vulnerable to attack. Unlocked iPhones are ineligible for repair or replacement under warranty because the phone was modified to alter functionality.

It's worthless to unlock an iPhone. Unlocked iPhone owners can expect a long period of conflict with service outages as Apple and the hackers continue to battle with each other. It's worthless to suffer through the outages for slightly better customer service and a phone with a nifty interface.

In other news, LG has released a phone with a large touchscreen that works exclusively with Verizon. I would buy LG's phone, but I'm happy paying less than twenty dollars a month for a reliable pager.

News on LG's phone: http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/8405.html
Hackers fight back: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/03/iphone_update_response/