AmiZed Studios

Facebook Home Not Living Up To Expectations. Zuckerberg Haz A Sad – Tech Tuesday

It was announced a couple weeks ago that Facebook would be releasing a new product called Facebook Home, that would basically turn your Droid phone, into a Facebook device and give you better integration with your apps and and account on Facebook. I’m guessing it’s their first step to see if a truly Facebook phone [...]

Law Enforcement Wants Your Text Messages Logged In Case You Do Something Illegal – Tech Tuesday

Tech Tuesday To Be Be Syndicated At Albany2Cents.com

If you are reading this, and have been reading my stuff right along, and like it, I would like to ask for a favor from you. That is to simply keep reading my stories, and if you feel so inclined, to share them on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, everywhere you can. One goal has been [...]

Does Facebook Have Too Much Power? – Tech Thursday

So earlier today, there was an error at Facebook that affected 3rd party sites that use Facebook’s API for logging into their sites. It redirected legitimate users to an error page, even though there was no error on the 3rd party website. Essentially, no one was able to log into these websites for 10 minutes. [...]

Cyber Intelligence and Sharing Act Is Coming Back for a 2nd Try – Tech Tuesday

The Zombie Apocalypse is happening! But it’s not humans rising from the dead, it’s the thought dead Cyber Intelligence and Sharing Act which has a lot of privacy groups up in arms over this second time around because of all the language that makes it easier for the government to spy on everyday citizens. The [...]

Congress Uses Boston Bombing As Excuse to Curb Your Rights With CISPA – Tech Tuesday

Posted by BIG Rich Lawrence on April 23rd, 2013

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act is back for round two, but this time around it hasn’t gotten the support it had before from big names like Google, Amazon, and others. In fact many of them have endorsed this rehash of the same legislation that would allow these companies to share unanonymized data of users with the government. Civil liberty groups are saying it “undermines the privacy of millions of Internet users.” And representatives in Congress are using the Boston Bombings as an example of why it should pass.

So the bill that is going around now, is the same one that was floating around before, but Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas said something along the lines that they were real bombs that were used in Boston, and wants the legislation to pass, even though it has nothing to do with terrorists or bombs, but cyber attacks and hacking. I think the honorable Representative should hire someone that knows about this stuff and have the situation explained to him in terms a 5th grader could understand. Seriously, a lot of these people in Congress should. Show them a log of the information that is collected with this legislation, about them, and you will see them leave skid marks because they can’t get into the room to give a nay vote fast enough.

The White House has said it will veto the bill, because it lacks safe guards for our privacy and our rights, it’s still moving along in to the Senate where the bill died last time it was brought up, due in part to a blackout of major websites on the internet and a flood of calls and emails from constituents. This more than anything scared the power that be and the whole situation was dropped like a hot rock. But now, using the Boston Bombing as an excuse for this totally unrelated legislation, is just another day at the office for some of these people in Washington.

Facebook Home Not Living Up To Expectations. Zuckerberg Haz A Sad – Tech Tuesday

Posted by BIG Rich Lawrence on April 16th, 2013

It’s only been a couple weeks and reviews on the Google Play store are coming in and they are not good. As of April 15th, the total reviews of Facebook Home on the Google Play store was just over 3,800. Of those, 47 percent gave it 1 star out of 5. Many of the reviews are people talking about how it’s basically taken the Android experience out of the phone. Yeah, that was what it was supposed to do. Change your Android phone to a Facebook phone.

There are also reports it drains the battery faster, and in a mobile world, that is a big no no. So did Facebook screw up again? On top of the it’s general cavalier attitude towards privacy issues? Oh you bet your sweet smartphone it did, and now that is a publicly traded company, who’s IPO went the way of the day old fishes at the Fulton Fish market, these guys are due for a break. Or maybe they just don’t know what they are doing. Either way, if you use Facebook Home, you’re going to have a bad time. And if you use Facebook in general, be wary that they are watching everything you do and sharing it with companies to show you ads.

Facebook wants you to share everything. Their thoughts on privacy are pretty much, it’s over rated and you shouldn’t have any. That’s the attitude that a teacher had and she’s out of a job for it (LINK IS NSFW). Hopefully Zuckerberg will get the message and turn his ship around, before he hits something and sinks. But he’ll have to do it with out my personal info, because most of what is on there is made up. How about you?

Fox Threatens To Stop Broadcasting if Aereo Wins Case – Tech Tuesday

Posted by BIG Rich Lawrence on April 9th, 2013

Last week I talked about how the tech startup Aereo had won their case in court to keep their streaming service alive. Now word is coming out from Fox that if they fail to stop Aereo, they will stop broadcasting over the air and be cable only. Doubtful as contracts with affiliates would be broken, as well as the one million or so non-cable house holds that receive over the air broadcasting for their TV, would be slightly upset. And I’m pretty sure the FCC would look at the legality of this, so they may find themselves under the microscope.

Once again, big media is finding itself in a changing world and unwilling to change. This is how the music industry is finding itself too, with no direction, no plan and customers who are tired of waiting for them to catch up. Broadcasters are competing with the likes of cable only channels, Netflix, Hulu and binge watching of shows, where viewers will watch an entire season of a show in a week. And with original shows now making their way online, like Netflix’s House of Cards, and the return and modernization of past shows like soap opera One Life to Live, traditional TV needs to adapt.

Lets not also forget how a lot of these broadcasters will push channels on cable companies that they must carry if they want to carry the broadcast channel. That is why your cable bill is high. I mean seriously, who is watching some of these channels. I mean, when was the last time history channel actually showed a program about a historical event? And Top Gear U.S.? Give me a break, it’s horrible! For the record, the U.K. version is much better.

There is no word from other broadcasters, like ABC, CBS or NBC on what they will do, but if they decide to go the same route as Fox is saying they will go, we can expect an even bigger shake up. But to me, this sounds like a bluff, and nothing more. Would they really risk all the money they are making now? When it comes to money, it’s pretty safe to say they won’t risk it.

New York City Start Up Aereo, Wins Copyright Case – Tech Tuesday

Posted by BIG Rich Lawrence on April 2nd, 2013

Last year, a start up company called Aereo ad created a business for people to rent an individual antenna at their data center and be able to receive over the air TV broadcast signals, and then have them stream to your phone, tablet or computer. Broadcast TV said no, that isn’t right, because they are not paying for the rights to do that. I wrote about this case, and I sided with Aereo, and I still do. The broadcasters were saying they would lose money if Aereo was allowed to stream the video to users who rent the antennas for $8 a month. The court saw other wise, as it was a kin to the viewer having their own set of “rabbit ears” and converting the stream themselves which is pretty easy to do if you do a little research. Seriously, if anyone wants to know how, let me know, and I tell you. Some may be thinking how is this not different from what the cable company is doing? It lies in the fact that the antenna is rented by an individual. Thousands of them each with one user. So what can’t able companies do the same thing? I wish I knew that answer to that one.

What I do know is, that Aereo is doing something that the broadcasters don’t like and found a way around the jumbled mess of copyright laws that are written to favor the big media companies and not the individual creator like the original premise was to be, back when Benjamin Franklin helped to craft the concept. Copyright was meant to be a short term monopoly which in turn would become a public grant. The owner would have the ability to license their creation for a certain amount of time and then it would be released to the public domain. But changes to the law over the years have extended the ownership of those properties to the point that it could be owned forever, and the public never really gaining anything.

So will cable companies now try and take on Aereo because broadcasters failed to stop them? I don’t think so, because secretly, they want to be like Aereo and keep all the money for themselves. Maybe this will start to break the big media companies from making cable companies carry TV channels no one wants. Seriously, when was the last time there was a history documentary on the History channel?

Saudi Arabia May Ban Skype. Good Luck With That! – Tech Tuesday

Posted by BIG Rich Lawrence on March 26th, 2013

It’s spring time and the living is good, unless you live in Saudi Arabia, in which case you may be getting cut off from friends and family if the kingdom decides to ban the use of the video and instant messaging service, Skype, unless it can monitor communications on the service. I know it’s another culture and country, but I gotta say, “Uncool Saudi Arabia”.

Skype right now, is probably the most popular video and messaging app on the Internet, and allows many families, spread throughout the world, to be able to communicate and stay in touch with each other for little to no money. But because they can’t monitor those communications, they would cut off families. In a BBC news article, a Saudi woman said, “she would feel uncomfortable talking to her relative on Skype without her hijab (headscarf) if she believed someone might be monitoring her”. Way to put down oppressed women, Saudi Arabia, you meanies!

It should also be noted that Saudi Arabia is one of the countries that pushed for a treaty that would move control of the Internet from the United States, to the U.N. where other more repressive countries would have control. Basically shutting down more options for people in those countries to share their stories about what really happens, and not what the state run media wants you to see. The U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom, not only decided to not sign the treaty, they walked out! Exit! Stage left even!

The Internet is so engrained in everyday life now, that if it were to just simply vanish, we would all recover, but the short term damage would be astounding! Bank transactions, prescription refills, civilian infrastructure would all come to a near stand still. We rely on the internet for a lot of things. Using Skype to just keep in touch with family is just one little part of a bigger picture. I use it to keep in touch with my sister who lives in New Zealand, and I only get to see during video chat.

But the point here is, that if they do shut down Skype in Saudi Arabia, you’ll see a work around in matter of days to weeks. If the Internet has proven anything, it’s that it has a group consciousness, and it will find a way around anything you throw at it. My favorite example of course is, The Pirate Bay. I seriously believe, that it will never get shutdown. So, Saudi Arabia, you think you have what it takes to take on the whole Internet? Come at us “Bro”!

Law Enforcement Wants Your Text Messages Logged In Case You Do Something Illegal – Tech Tuesday

Posted by BIG Rich Lawrence on March 19th, 2013

A law that was developed back in 1986, called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, helped pave the way for securing our privacy for electronic devices. Some smart people saw that in the future that technology could be used in ways that many people wouldn’t like to infringe on their rights. Only being a kid at the time I do still remember conversations about Orwell’s book, 1984, and if we have come closer to a society like the one in the book. Now, law enforcement wants the telecoms to log your text messages, in case they need access to them, just in case you do something illegal.

Congress is looking at updating the law to bring it in step with current technology. But Law enforcement had stated previously, that should the law be updated, that required this information be kept around, because valuable evidence would be lost if it wasn’t. But if this is added to the current legislation that is being discussed now, support for the whole thing could essentially vanish. Richard Littlehale from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, released his prepared remarks for Congress in a PDF in which he says,

“Billions of texts are sent every day, and some surely contain key evidence about criminal activity. In some cases, this means that critical evidence is lost. Text messaging often plays a big role in investigations related to domestic violence, stalking, menacing, drug trafficking, and weapons trafficking.”

OK, I can see why you would want to do this. to catch the bad guys. But I still have to ask, what about everyone else’s privacy? Well let’s look at it like this, then, data retention is not a new concept for law enforcement. They have been asking for it for some time and have gotten it in some cases, so they could go and get the information they need to build a case. But the fact that they ask to have access to it without a search warrant, really makes me think these guys are 1 step below some secret police force you hear about in come not so friendly countries. Really? In the United States you really want to ask for blanket access to read text messages without a warrant?

It looks like it because that is what Littlehale is going to say to Congress. Naturally, the ACLU, EFF and a host of others are not happy. I can’t understand why? They only have our best interests at heart. They want us to be safe and secure and catch the bad guys and make life easy for Ward, June, Wally and The Beaver. OK, I’ll wait here while you go get some paper towels and clean up the coffee that came out of your nose because that last one made you laugh. Still, I have to wonder, why these people that swore to protect the Constitution, are so quick t throw it away or side step it. Read more over at Cnet about this and decide for yourself where these people really stand.

Tech Tuesday To Be Be Syndicated At Albany2Cents.com

Posted by BIG Rich Lawrence on March 13th, 2013

Starting this Thursday, March 14th, my Tech Tuesday posts will be syndicated to Albany2cents.com, and will be available for you to read and enjoy every Thursday. But from time to time, I will be doing a one off just for A2C. Also, my regular Thursday posts will still be exclusive to this website. I have been doing these stories now for about three years, and it’s become such a habit, that when I was let go from the radio station because of budget cuts, I couldn’t help but keep going. And that regular routine that I have been keeping up with, to keep myself sane, seems to be getting me noticed. OK, no problem then, I’ll just keep on going. But I did want to say that I am very thankful for this opportunity. And I’m hoping that this can be another springboard into helping me take my broadcasting/new media career even farther.

Thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say and I hope I can keep giving you something you enjoy. And as always, I would love to hear from you the readers about what you like, and don’t like. Thank you. You can follow Tech In Exile on Twitter, Facebook and through my Google+ page.

Councilman Proposes Bad Idea. Email Tax to Pay for Post Office – Tech Tuesday

Posted by BIG Rich Lawrence on March 12th, 2013

From the “I Didn’t Really Think This Through, But I’ll Still Propose It” department, or the Berkeleyside Independent News website, a city councilman in Berkeley, California, proposed a “bit tax” on emails, to help raise money to pay for the post office that is being shutdown in his town. While I am a full supporter of the U.S. Postal service, a tax on email is not a good idea. Actually, let me change that, it stupid and here’s why.

City Councilman Gordon Wozniak, no relation to THE Woz as far as we know, is aware that the federal government, back in 1998 passed the Internet Tax Freedom Act, which protects the Internet from this kind of thing, yet still allows for sales taxes to be gathered, which is why you still pay sales tax on that computer you bought online from Best Buy, because they have a physical store in your state. Maybe he’s holding out hope that Congress will come to it’s senses and reverse that law? Yes, I snickered there too. But he’s definitely not aware that the actual work involved in getting something like this setup, would be a big cost upfront, that ISPs would most likely have to pony up. Unless they plan on doing a flat tax and not based on individual emails. But then we run into other problems.

What about the fact that Facebook has free messaging. And AOL has an instant messenger program, along with Yahoo. What about Twitter and Skype? Would they tax those as well? Not unless they want all of Silicon Valley knocking on their office door one fine sunny day. And I would be willing to say, they wouldn’t be happy. I’m sure they would also be surprised at how many people stay up late at night coming up with ways around these kind of things. I can say with one hundred percent certainty, that someone will try and succeed in getting around it, and then we’ll have a whole new “Pirate Bay” issue. How is that working out for the MPAA and RIAA? Not very well, as the Pirate Bay is still chugging along.

The moral of the story is, it’s not a good idea, and it won’t work, and if you do manage to get Congress to change it’s mind on the law, people will find a way around it. And we’ll spend more money on trying to enforce something that was a stupid idea to begin with, and be lucky if we break even. Here’s a much better idea, let’s just lobby Congress to rescind that stupid mandate that the Post office needs to fund 75 years worth of pension, and allow them to move into other areas to make revenue, like say an email marketing service or email news letter service, or even an email service like Google’s and offer some other extras for a small fee? I’m sure there a number of other ways to let the post office to make money, yet there seems to be those that want it to fail. That should be something someone in the media should be working on.

White House Agrees That Cell Phones Should Be Unlocked – Tech Tuesday

Posted by BIG Rich Lawrence on March 5th, 2013

After the Library of Congress allowed their cellphone unlocking exemption of the DMCA to lapse, a man by the name of Sina Khanifar started a petition to make it legal to unlock your cell phone, and submitted that petition to the White House’s We the People website and lobbied for the 100,000 signatures needed to get a response. Well he got them, and got a response and it’s a good one.

The White House has backed the idea of being able to unlock your cellphone after you have fulfilled your 2 year contract with the carrier. In a previous article I talked about how the expiration of the exemption threatened to force people to break the law if they wanted to unlock their cell phone. The White House has even called on the FCC and FTC to back them up on this, and they have. They all agree that unlocking your cell phone, out of contract, shouldn’t be illegal and you should be able to choose which carrier you can use with that cell phone.

So what happens from here? Well, I wouldn’t expect too much of a fight from carriers, as the main excuse for their not allowing it is pretty much full of holes since they have been letting customers unlock their phones while the exemptions were in place. They could try and throw out there that they lost money doing it, but I’m thinking someone has already done the math and determined that, that statement wouldn’t be too truthful.

The real battle will be to getting the law passed. This kind of thing will be a lobbyist’s dream to charge overtime for trying to fight a battle they can’t ultimately win. But the carriers will still throw a bunch of money at the politicians to get them to not let it go through, but I think they have more important things to worry about then keeping cell phone unlocking illegal. Then again, this is United States Congress were talking about here. Still, I am looking forward to being able to unlock my phone and not have to worry about “The Man” coming down on me. If you want to check out Sina’s website for info on how to unlock your cellphone, you can find it right here. But remember, under the current circumstances, it’s still illegal to unlock your phone, and some tech support for the phone makers and carriers will not help you if you goof it up, so proceed at your own risk.

Six Strike Plan Starts This Week, Yet There Is Something Fishy – Tech Tueday

Posted by BIG Rich Lawrence on February 26th, 2013

So the so called “Six Strike” plan to help combat piracy, pushed by the copyright industry and implemented by the big ISPs, is set to start this week. The plan has been largely held up by many to be just a waste of time. I’m thinking it’s a stepping stone to something more restrictive. But I have seen an irony in the whole plan.

Now if you want to get up to speed on the plan you can check out a previous article where I laid some things out about it. New information that has come out says that if you go through all the strikes and are still pirating, then they give up. They give up, really? I doubt that. For an industry that says they are losing money left and right, for them to just give up? There is something going on with that. And Torrentfreak may have some insight about it.

They posted an article about the plan and discusses the effects of being accused of pirating on one of these ISPs, which are AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cablevision and Time Warner. The effects would range from slowing your connection down, to losing access to most websites on the internet till you complete a copyright class on the evils of pirating. But something that was mentioned was in passing in the article kind of had a chilling effect on me. They would monitor your connection, and could see what you are doing. Now here is something that may really freak you out. CISPA is making a comeback, with all the hacking going on, there has been a call from companies to do something, and CISPA has been thrown out there to fix it.

So if ISPs are monitoring where you are going, and CISPA is brought back, can we say Net Neutrality is pretty much dead? Many of the ISPs don’t want Net Neutrality, as they have come up with a means of making more money for a product that is slow and over priced, compared to many other services through out the world. We’re 90% slower than Japan and pay 12 times as much!

OK, yes this is all starting to sound like a conspiracy and I assure you it’s not, but it is a good example of the Butterfly Effect. Yet if we wanted to change service and go with someone else for a better price, we can’t because here in Albany and in many other parts of the country, we’re limited on choices. The FCC pretty much dropped the ball there.

So what do we do? I plan on seeding torrents with the name of Hollywood movies but are actually Linux distros. Let’s see if they yell at me for sharing The Hurt Locker version of Ubuntu Wheezy.