We Join Less, Get On Technology More

The future holds very little socializing, I think. At least in person. I believe we will be a nation, if not most of the industrialized world, of people looking down, into our phones, mostly, and laptops, secondarily.

First, what we're doing.

Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital

Fewer American Workers Join Labor Unions

The military's real problem: Fewer Americans are joining

Younger Generations Less Likely to Join Boy Scouts

Masons, other service groups fight membership declines

Moose, Elk Joining The Endangered

NASCAR Is In Trouble And Nobody Wants To Talk About It

There are a lot of reasons for the NFL's ratings slide

So long, televised football: Millennials are so over you

Americans becoming less religious, especially young 

U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious | Pew Research Center

And now, for the problems...

People Spend Too Much Time on Smartphones

U.S. Young Adults Admit Too Much Time on Cell Phones

Britons spend more time on tech than asleep, study suggests

Putnam, "The Strange Disappearance of Civic America."

Amount of Time Spent Playing Video Games Influences Kids' Behavior

When Tech Is a Problem Child

How parents fight back against their kids’ obsession with smartphones and social media.

Doesn't seem like it portends good things for us, as a people, as a society, as a nation. A not very united states.

Indicators of where technology is going

And that change--big and fast change--is overtaking some big, powerful companies in the computer industry.

There were these four headlines Friday in The New York Times.

First, this one:

Dell Buys Time to Seek Support for Sale to Its Founder

It seems owner, founder Michael Dell of the formerly huge and important Dell Computer has been trying to buy back and take back over his computer making company, in an effort to save it. With our turn away from desktop computers, world wide, the company has been in serious trouble lately.

Next there's this:

Chip Maker, Posting a Loss, Seeks to Enter Game Market

Same thing here only the company is Advanced Micro Devices but the problems are the same--fewer desktops and laptops being sold.

Weak PC Market Catches Up to Microsoft

What were some of the biggest, most powerful and seemingly forever-formidable companies in the computer business--this time, Microsoft--are simply not immune to the turn to tablets, "devices" and cell phones. It's a huge turn.

Finally, there's this one:

Google Results Show Struggle With Mobile

In this case, it seems big and, again, powerful Google, who knows just how to use information and advertising from desktops and laptops just can't translate that same power into income for itself on the cursed little cell phones.

What's it all mean, besides the obvious, besides the fact that the entire computer industry is very much changing, and rather quickly, to those same, smaller cell phones and tablets?

It seems to mean that not only is there big change on the horizon but that that very same change seems to be coming at us at ever faster rates.  More and more big change at faster and faster rates.

It's tough to keep up with it all.

If you have or get a good idea, you'd better be on it fast, ladies and gentlemen.

It's not just Apple--or GE--not paying taxes

This past week, Apple, Inc. took a beating in Washington and nationally for manipulating very legal tax laws to avoid paying any taxes.

We knew this of GE, General Electric, years ago and we've known other companies also do it but I think it's important to get out there more names of firms who do the same. Herewith, then, is a list of ten of the worst, biggest examples:

It gets worse, too, to an extent. There are companies who game our tax system so totally, WE'RE PAYING THEM TO BE IN BUSINESS, as a nation, you and me (click on picture for easier reading):

It's important to know.

I say again, companies should at least pay a minimum--say a 10% minimum, by law--for access to our markets and so we can keep up our infrastructure, whether they're from here in the US or elsewhere.

Link:  It's Not Just One Bad 'Apple'

What they didn't tell you about using Bing

For anyone who cares and who pays attention to search engines and the progress of the internet, I thought this brief article, today, in The New York Times was interesting.

It seems, if you're going to flip over and use bing for your search, there's something you ought to know. That is:

"Last week, when Microsoft gave a reporter early access to the new version of Bing, a message in the search bar of the product indicated that all the search terms entered on Bing could be shared with friends in a Facebook social network."

Oh, joy.

One more place our information is not only shown to everyone else but collected and--yes--no doubt sold to other companies.

Yeehaw, eh?

Link: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/going-social-but-not-creepy-in-the-new-bing/

The GPS "avoid crime neighborhoods" app

Just as I wrote here a few days ago, this article came out last evening: Microsoft's 'avoid ghetto' app: 'Racist'? A new technology designed to help pedestrians avoid bad neighborhoods has plenty of smartphone users up in arms A new Microsoft technology that may help users avoid "unsafe neighborhoods" is generating controversy and eliciting claims of "racist undertones." Here, a brief guide to what's been dubbed the "avoid ghetto" app..." To the programmers---and white people it might appeal to--I'm sure they'd say no, absolutely not. Link: http://news.yahoo.com/microsofts-avoid-ghetto-app-racist-114300129.html

The paranoid will love this

Check this out--I found it late last evening: Microsoft Patents GPS with Crime-Stats And sure, that's one thing but look what they say it can do for you: "Microsoft has been awarded a patent for a new GPS feature that helps the user avoid dangerous neighborhoods." The article goes on to say: "There is a chance that some residents may object to Microsoft labeling their neighborhoods as dangerous or unsafe." Gee, you think? Can you imagine how groups and organizations and whole neighborhoods are going to react to this? Let the cynical, sarcastic and racist jokes begin. Link: http://news.yahoo.com/microsoft-patents-gps-with-crime-stats.html

The next step in international cyber-warfare?

There is a really interesting article out right now about the possibility of a water processing plant's computers having been hacked and shutting down the plant last week: U.S. probes cyber attack on water system (Reuters) - "Federal investigators are looking into a report that hackers managed to remotely shut down a utility's water pump in central Illinois last week, in what could be the first known foreign cyber attack on a U.S. industrial system." If true, this is some pretty fascinating, international infighting and leaves to many, many questions. The first being who would have done it. Would it have been the Chinese? Soviet Union? Someone else? A random hacker somewhere in the world? And then is whoever did it just "fishing", so to speak, to see if they could get away with this, in possible preparation for a far larger strike? Is the system the water treatment plant on Microsoft? If so, should all plants automatically get off it if they haven't already? How vulnerable are we all, around the world, let alone the US? It seems that all the nations in the world should get together, maybe through the UN, and declare that we won't do this to one another except it looks like the "Stuxnet" virus makes that moot. These are fascinating times we live in. I hope it doesn't get too "fascinating." Link: http://news.yahoo.com/u-investigates-cyber-attack-water-system-201719205.html

Two very common computer things that shouldn't exist

The first is spam.

I mean, really.  People are sitting around, running machines so they can send out this crap and somehow, remarkably, they make money doing it.

Who responds to this nonsense anyway?

Yet somehow, somewhere, someone does.  And again, someone else then makes money.  Further proof, yet again, as if we needed it, that "There's a sucker born every minute."

The other thing that shouldn't exist is hacking and hackers.

At lest, the hackers that just do it for hacking sake.

I'm not talking about the international espionage hacking of one country vs. another or the hacking into a bank, for example, in an effort to steal millions--or billions of dollars.  At least you can say they've got a goal and a reason and purpose, albeit wildly illegal.

I'm talking about the computer hacking that is just so the hacker can see if they can do it.  Apparently these guys have nothing better to do than just hack for hacking's sake.

Now, if those same hackers could use their time, instead, to create some beautiful, elegant, simple, truly effective security program that would work on even just Microslop, I mean Microsoft computers, they'd be trillionaires.

Facebook's continued weird evolution

Facebook is getting spookier and spookier. 

I typed in an note to a friend about John Turturro, the actor/director, earlier today and immediately a note came up for a John Turturro "like" page.

And then "The Big Lebowski".

Immediately.

Then, upon doing a Google search for Facebook, up comes this today:

Facebook Red-Faced as Clumsy Google Smear Campaign Is Discovered


Facebook execs must be red-faced with embarrassment.

The social-networking giant Facebook has been caught red-handed in a secret smear campaign against industry rival Google, FoxNews.com has confirmed.

According to a report from The Daily Beast Wednesday night, Facebook hired leading public-relations firm Burson-Marsteller to “pitch anti-Google stories to newspapers, urging them to investigate claims that Google was invading people’s privacy.” 

USA Today described the scandal as an undercover “whisper campaign” against the search giant, one leaving Silicon Valley insiders wondering who was playing dirty. Initial fingers pointed at perennial competitors and long-time industry behemoths Microsoft and Apple. Turns out it was the new kid on block instead -- Facebook.

When questioned early Thursday morning about these stunning allegations, Burson-Marsteller quickly backpedaled emphasizing that these kinds of campaigns go against its corporate code.

It seems the more we see of Mark Zuckerberg and his and his company's tactics, the more it looks as though his detractors may be correct in their disparaging descriptions of what he's capable of.

If it isn't true, he needs to start making it clear otherwise.

I'm so old...

--I remember when you could copy ANYTHING--and I mean anything--from a website and repost it.

--I remember when the "close" little "x" was ALWAYS--and I mean always--in the upper right hand corner of whatever opened.

--I remember when NO You Tube videos had commercials on them first.  NONE.  EVER.  THAT old.

The latest, best "educated guess" on the Stuxnet malware

As I said, the latest, best "educated guess" is out this morning on the Stuxnet malware program that seems to have been created to attack Iran's nuclear infrastructure: Computer attacks linked to wealthy group or nation WASHINGTON – A powerful computer code attacking industrial facilities around the world, but mainly in Iran, probably was created by experts working for a country or a well-funded private group, according to an analysis by a leading computer security company. The malicious code, called Stuxnet, was designed to go after several "high-value targets," said Liam O Murchu, manager of security response operations at Symantec Corp. But both O Murchu and U.S. government experts say there's no proof it was developed to target nuclear plants in Iran, despite recent speculation from some researchers. Creating the malicious code required a team of as many as five to 10 highly educated and well-funded hackers. Government experts and outside analysts say they haven't been able to determine who developed it or why. More: U.S. officials said last month that the Stuxnet was the first malicious computer code specifically created to take over systems that control the inner workings of industrial plants. The Energy Department has warned that a successful attack against critical control systems "may result in catastrophic physical or property damage and loss." Symantec's analysis of the code, O Murchu said, shows that nearly 60 percent of the computers infected with Stuxnet are in Iran. An additional 18 percent are in Indonesia. Less than 2 percent are in the U.S. "This would not be easy for a normal group to put together," said O Murchu. He said "it was either a well-funded private entity" or it "was a government agency or state sponsored project" created by people familiar with industrial control systems. A number of governments with sophisticated computer skills would have the ability to create such a code. They include China, Russia, Israel, Britain, Germany and the United States. But O Murchu said no clues have been found within the code to point to a country of origin. What would be fascinating to know throughout all this is what's going on behind the scenes, in the intelligence agencies of countries around the world--here in the US, in Europe, in Russia, China, everywhere. Additionally, it would be fascinating to know if all the "Western" or "free" countries are cooperating on this or if each is attacking the situation for knowledge about Stuxnet purely individually and secretly, away from the other countries. Naturally, they would, possibly, be able to learn more, quicker if cooperating but since this has so much to do with both internal national security for each country and because this Stuxnet problem has been described as a "missile" fired into the networks of computers worldwide, as it turns out. Finally, it will also be fascinating to find out, one day soon, hopefully, just what this malware has done, if anything, to computers and programs in Iran, specifically as it relates to their new nuclear reactor and/or other infrastructure. It would be great to know if it's done it's job already or not and, if it has, how effective and maybe devastating the program has been on the reactor. And for the Siemens company, it raises the question of if you get off Microsoft's software, I should think, if it's an option, since that lead to the weakness that could be exploited. I guarantee you, a whole lot of people worldwide have been spending a great deal of hours, around the clock, working on this and paying attention to what happened or what possibly happened. It will be a great story to keep an eye out for more details--real international computer espionage. Maybe the next movie out of Hollywood, if they can keep up with the story. Link to original post: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100927/ap_on_hi_te/us_computer_attacks;_ylt=AoEm_H4JUDDdS24Iv5GEm58k5I94;_ylu=X3oDMTNvaGMwbnA2BGFzc2V0Ay9zL2FwLzIwMTAwOTI3L2FwX29uX2hpX3RlL3VzX2NvbXB1dGVyX2F0dGFja3MEY2NvZGUDbXBfZWNfOF8xMARjcG9zAzEwBHBvcwMxMARzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA2NvbXB1dGVyYXR0YQ--