Steve Was Inspired

New technology is created when God needs it to be.  Technology has only enhanced the world's opportunity to receive the gospel; it speeds up the work.  I'm not an Apple fan, but I don't necessarily hate Apple either, but I often surprise people when I say, "I believe that Steve Jobs was inspired."  I believe the time came that God wanted iPads (tablets) on the earth and Steve Jobs was the one chosen to receive the proper inspiration to bring them about.  Were Henry Ford or the Wright brothers not inspired either?  Ironic how hordes of people obsess over their little gadgets,  loving them more than they love God.  What did their little gadgets ever to for them?

"Happy Birthday to Yo....." Oh Wait, That Song is Copyrighted

    An individual lawyer does his best to win a case because:  1)  They'll make more money.  2)  Their reputation will go up which will make them worth more.  3)  They might actually care about the case.  Because of these lawyers' behaviors we have had numerous court cases finish with the bad guys winning.  Over time these types of lawyers have brought about an incapacitated patent system.  They only care about winning their care no matter if it's ethical or not.  Patent laws kill creativity and turn the American dream into a nightmare.  Excessive amounts of time and money are wasted in the many patent related cases instead of being invested into business/family productivity.  The Happy Birthday song is copyrighted, hence you only hear it in big time movies that can afford paying for usage rights.  The "Happy Birthday" song is a huge part of our culture, but at one point some lawyer won a case which allowed that song to be copyrighted despite it being created long before and in turn thrashing that part of our culture in our media.  Have you ever wondered why we don't see more foreign films brought to America?  They simply can't afford our copyright laws.

Piracy Is Wrong! However... (vlog)

Runtime: 1:10 (with outtro appended to end)

Communism vs No BETA Testing

The cycle of software

When you force the people into their occupations productivity declines immensely.  I feel telling a group of testers what they should be looking for in a product is of a similar nature.  The small number of beta testers are bound to come to a consensus far before the masses do.  In fact the masses may never come to a consensus  hence software is in a never ending cycle of being improved.  The communist beta testers disturb this cycle by not only slowing it way down but fixing what's not broken and allowing errors to roam free.  Would you have wanted to be aboard that rocket launched by North Korea last year?  We're in a world now where bad software can mean identity theft.  Basically bad written software can allows villains take your life away.  Personally I prefer software to be more thoroughly tested and therefor lessening the change of my identity being stolen.  So please, no more beta testers.  I don't want to be put on that rocket.

I was hacked...by a woman.

Sandra Bullock playing the part of a world class hacker.

Have you ever pictured the hacker being a woman?  We all know that characters like the one Sandra Bullock played in "The Net" are too good to be true, or are they?  Woman and men are different.  Our minds are different.  Why are a large majority of gay men involved in musical theater?  Why are they gay?  When answers to these types of questions begin to become unreachable things turn political.  So why are there less woman in computer science?  Well, women might just possibly be less interested in the field in general.  But this doesn't answer the question. When a certain sex is a minority in a certain field of study people freak out, for surely discrimination was on the move.  That or women simply prefer other fields of study more.  I do feel that there are less women in computer science because they are less familiar with computers in general.  Men like football more then woman.  Men like computers more than women.  I believe that as computer science becomes part of the k-12 standard curriculum that we'll see more women come into the computer science world but that men will still dominate the field.  However, I don't think the world will ever fully understand, on a scientific level, why men and women are so different.  We should all hail to Paul McCartney's words when he sang, "Let it be.  Let it be.  Let it be, oh let it be."

The Cuckoo's Egg

         90% of the work gets done in the last 10% of the time.  Why is this?  We see time and time again people not thinking about their long-term futures.  "What's important is here and now!"  The famous band The Grass Roots summed it up perfectly in their song Let's Live For Today.  It isn't until a deadline approaches and the reality of, 'I need to do something, and do it quick' do we feel motivated to act.  Nothing good comes from this kind of behavior, yet it must be innate for we witness such behavior in all of us to some extent.
        At the time the events of the book The Cuckoo's Egg occurred computers which were interconnected via long-distance-networks were a new technology.  The three-lettered agencies didn't get involved in the case because they felt like they didn't need to.  There was no incentive.  Little did they know getting involved in the future was inevitable.  I am amazed at how the character Cliff received almost no help from anyone and the help he did get wasn't from any sort of government official, that is until only 10% of the time remained.  Only when things turned completely awry did any government official decide to do anything, for they had no choice.
        Acting this way is completely inefficiency. In an industry that is as fast moving as the tech industry government officials need to always be on their toes to restrain malicious attacks from occurring.
        In the earth's history we have never seen such a dramatic change in society.  The first network capable computers made and sold to companies required such a high esoteric knowledge that no wonder numerous back doors existed.  There were no regulations regarding software being sold, computer security, etc..  The government was clueless, for all the techies were in the private sector making and selling their new toys to anyone who would buy.  It was a free economy and the invisible hand was shoving economy forward faster than the people could handle.

        Cliff did contact certain government officials who understood technology, but they were minorities.  The men upstairs in the government agencies had no idea what damage could be done through malicious hacking because they weren't techies themselves.  This was a time when hackers ruled the world.
        What should people learn from this book?  It reminds me of the Human Genome Project.  The government put a ridiculous amount of money into the project.  A private company decided they'd do the same project by themselves, putting much less money into it, thus a race for the human genome had begun.  The government project failed and the private company succeeded.  Why?  Those in the private sector put their hearts and lives into their work.  They chose such a profession because they wanted to.  They had less overhead.  The government moves slowly and those on the project worked for the government rather than for mankind.  The private sector always wins.  Unfortunately this is where the worlds best hackers stand.  So what do we do?
         Help Cliff.  Investigate, find out who the bad guy is, then support the good guy in their quest.  Cliff worked for man kind.  He followed the hacker so as to put an end to people getting their computers hacked into.  He worked for free.  He won.
        It wasn't easy for him.  The phone traces could have been done with little effort had the government helped.  But Cliff had to overhear a woman speaking in the background over a phone call and then lie to an operator to trace part of the hackers line.  The government inhibited his ability to succeed.  Something is very wrong with this picture.
        Cyber investigations should not be left entirely to government officials.  They shouldn't be a matter of "Who has authority?" and "Who doesn't?", but rather "Who is the best at the task at hand?"  The government should seek out these people through thorough investigation and then help them capture the bad guy.  This would not only be more efficient, but more effective as well.  The private sector always wins.