TECH TALK: The Internet – At War with Itself

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ERIC’S TECH TALK

by Eric Austin
Computer Technical Advisor

There’s a war going on, although you might not be aware of it. It’s a war between the almighty dollar and the information superhighway.

I began my career in the early ‘90s, just as the internet-fueled tech boom was taking off. I’ve watched the internet grow from a tiny seed in the mind of Al Gore (ha ha) to the social and economic juggernaut that it is today.

But even from its very inception there were two competing ideas fighting to shape its future. One was an outgrowth of a cultural groupthink: the “hippie” movement of the internet, if you will. It’s an apt comparison, as the philosophy it inspired hearkens back to that optimistic era of peace and love.

This group believed the internet was a chance for humans to reinvent themselves. To escape the shackles of corporatism and Gordon Gekko-greed that had defined the previous decade of the 1980s.

The phrase “information wants to be free” defined this school of thought.

The “open-source” software movement, based on the idea of collaborative genius — that a group of unfettered minds could create something greater than any of its individual parts — gave birth to the Linux operating system, Firefox browser, VLC Media Player, GIMP and many other software programs. Each of us benefits from this movement whenever we download free software distributed under the GNU General Public Software License. And while it’s still only a sliver of the desktop market in comparison to Microsoft Windows, Linux dominates on mobile devices (56 percent) and powers more than 40 percent of the world’s web servers.

You can see the influence of this collaborative philosophy everywhere on the internet, and the world wide web is a better place because of it.

But there is another entity on the internet. A menacing, dark presence that wants to swallow up the hope and optimism of the free information movement. This force seeks to monetize and control the avenues of free access which the internet currently fosters. Rather than bettering society through collaborative social effort, this capitalist creature wants to conquer in the name of cold hard cash. It wants to turn the internet superhighway into a toll road.

This shadow over the internet is cast by ISPs, digital distribution giants and communication companies seeking to cement their dominance over their respective consumer markets.

The debate over Net Neutrality is the most recent battle to be waged in the war of $$ vs WWW. It promises to provide greater stability, consistency and service, but takes away freedom, ingenuity and the unexpected.

I’m here to tell you this is a war we need. It’s one of the good wars. This struggle is what keeps corporate greed on its toes. It leaves room for small start-ups to make an unexpected splash, and keeps established familiars from becoming complacent – yet provides the structure and efficiency that stimulates growth.

Without one we wouldn’t have great services like Netflix and Amazon. But without the other, great services like Netflix and Amazon never would have gotten the chance.

Net Neutrality must be retained because it levels the playing field. It doesn’t prevent bullies on the playground, but it makes sure everyone has a fighting chance.

Support Net Neutrality, not because it’s the right thing to do — even though it is. Support it because without the conflict it creates we wouldn’t have the dynamic technical environment that we’ve enjoyed for the last 20 years.

This is one time when conflict is good. Besides, it frustrates the corporate overlords.

Good. Keep them frustrated.

Get involved! Visit goFCCyourself.com and join almost 11 million other Americans who have left comments with the FCC in support of Net Neutrality.

Further reading:

TECH TALK: Why you can’t afford to be neutral on Net Neutrality

TECH TALK: Net Neutrality goes nuclear

TECH TALK: Welcome to Reality 2.0

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ERIC’S TECH TALK

by Eric Austin
Computer Technical Advisor

Let me take you back a few decades to the 1980s. I was 12 years old and cruising around the neighborhood on my ten-speed mountain bike. On this particular day, I was exploring the garage sales along Lakeview Drive that are so prevalent this time of year.

At one of them, I found an old video game console for 75 cents and eagerly trundled it atop my bike for the trip home. It was one of those all-in-one units with the games built into it, and two controllers, then called “paddles,” with only a simple knob like a control switch for a dimmable light.

The first videogame: Pong.

All the games included were variations on Pong, in which each player controls a short, vertical line on opposite sides of the screen, moved up or down by the control knob on the game paddle. The objective of the game is to “bounce” a little white dot from one side of the screen to the other in order to score points against your opponent.

Nobody looking at a screenshot of this game would mistake it for an actual game of tennis.

Skip forward to the present day. Steam, the largest digital distribution platform on the web, has their Summer Sale and I pick up the game Grand Theft Auto 5 for 20 bucks.

GTA5 is one of the biggest videogame releases in recent years, with over 11 million copies sold within 24-hours of its debut. Basically, it’s a crime story told in a simulated world based on the Southern California city of Los Angeles and the surrounding countryside.

Consider just a few mind-blowing facts about the world of GTA5: The game world encompasses more than 100 square miles! You can fly a plane, ride a motorcycle, or go scuba-diving off the coast of California. If you stop your car in the middle of traffic, drivers around you will beep their horns and flip you the bird until you get moving again. If you make your character act crazy in the game, passers-by will pull out their phones and film you — just like real life!

I’m only 40 (okay forty-two!), but I’ve watched as our ability to simulate real life has gone from Pong, a rudimentary effort to simulate the game of tennis, to Grand Theft Auto 5, an incredibly detailed simulation of an entire city, down to building interiors, wildlife in the countryside, and artificial intelligence-driven people that react to your actions on the fly.

Grand Theft Auto 5: An entire simulated city.

Considering this kind of advancement just in my short life, what kind of worlds will we be able to simulate in another 50 years? If the past is anything to go by, computer simulations of the future will be so real that they will be indistinguishable from actual reality. Already it is difficult to watch a movie today and know which parts of it are real and which are computer generated. Combine this graphics realism with advances in computing power and artificial intelligence and it is not difficult to imagine what videogames of the future might be like.

This kind of thinking has led a number of brilliant minds, as diverse as entrepreneur Elon Musk and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, to ask: Are we already living in a simulated world? Would we be able to tell if we were?

The argument goes something like this:

We can assume that, in the future, it will be possible to simulate reality to the extent that it is impossible to distinguish it from the real thing. Further, it is an obvious assumption that there will be a greater number of simulated worlds than actual worlds. One can then also assume that some of those simulated worlds would be simulations of the past, such as earth in the year 2017. And since there is only one actual Earth 2017, but many possible simulations of Earth 2017, it therefore is more likely we are living in a simulation than not. For example, if there are a billion simulated versions of Earth 2017, but only one actual Earth 2017, the odds that we are living in the real world and not a simulated one would be a billion to one against.

Consider something even weirder. In a video game-simulated world, your computer only renders the part of the virtual world you are currently experiencing. So, when you are looking in a specific direction in the game world, your computer renders the graphics for the part of the world you are seeing, but not for anything that is currently off-screen. It does this to save processing power.

Well, the “real” world eerily works in a very similar way. According to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, “physical systems generally do not have definite properties prior to being measured” (Wiki, 2017). In other words, quantum particles do not exist in a specific place and time until they are interacted with – something termed in physics as the “(probability) wave function collapse,” in which all possible values (of location, of momentum, etc…) collapse to a single value at the moment of interaction. It is almost as if the universe is a quantum computer which saves processing power by not calculating exact values for reality until it becomes necessary by interaction with an observer. Weird, huh?

Is it possible that we are unwitting inhabitants of an enormous simulation powered by a quantum computer existing sometime in the future?

Are your neighbors simply advanced A.I. personalities designed to give this simulation a veneer of realism? Could we all simply be self-aware A.I. placed into a simulation of earth in the year 2017 and programmed to believe this is not a simulation?

Of course, would I be able to ask these questions if we were?

Do you know someone living in their own simulation of reality? Come share your experience on townline.org or send an email to me at ericwaustin@gmail.com!

TECH TALK: The importance of backing up your computer

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ERIC’S TECH TALK

by Eric Austin
Computer Technical Advisor

This past weekend I was the unfortunate victim of a hard drive crash. I have multiple drives installed in my computer, and this was my main Windows system drive. Even more infuriatingly, the drive was less than a year old.

It took me two days to diagnose the problem, pull out the bad drive and install a new one. And it got me thinking about how important backing up your data can be! Here are a few best practices to keep in mind.

pc computer hard drive crash

Don’t let this happen to you!

Consider using a separate drive for your data.

You’ll want to install your operating system (OS) to the fastest drive attached to your computer, which is typically your internal hard drive, so use this drive to install programs or games. But since this is also the drive that is used most often, writing and reading as your system runs, it’s therefore the drive most likely to fail.

So use another physical drive to store your personal data (e.g. pictures, documents, etc…). The simplest solution for this is to invest in a flash drive that can be plugged into a spare USB port. A 64 GB flash drive is currently available on Amazon for only $15.99. The advantage to this is how easy it is to unplug the drive and take your data with you as the need arises.

Luckily, I followed this advice myself and didn’t lose any significant data when my system drive crashed.

You might also consider cloud solutions to back up your data. Most cloud storage solutions like Dropbox, Apple’s iCloud or Microsoft’s OneDrive, allow you to set up automatic syncing so that certain folders on your hard-drive are always synced with a copy of your data stored in the cloud. Although all of these cloud solutions have free options, you’ll likely need to pay a subscription if you want to store a large amount of data.

There are a number of good automated back-up systems available, including Apple’s excellent Time Machine utility that comes packaged in OS X, or Windows Backup and Restore tool. Most of these solutions require an external drive dedicated to backing up (and can’t be used for anything else). But with the cheap availability of hard drives, especially flash drives, this is certainly an option you should look into if you don’t want to mess with manually copying the data yourself.

Another option is to invest in a Blu-ray drive that lets you back-up to a Blu-ray disc which can hold up to 47 gigabytes. This is a good option if you want a portable back-up that can be stored off-site.

Whichever solution you choose, build in some redundancy. This means that if you back up your data every month to one external drive, then back it up every six months to a different drive, so that when your first back-up fails (and it will), you won’t be completely SOL. Even better, take that second back-up and store it in a separate location from the first, like a safety deposit box or a friend’s house. This is so that if your house burns down or is burgled (God forbid!) you’ll have another back-up to (pardon the pun) fall back on.

Ransomeware screenshot (image source: The New York Times)

A hard drive crash or natural disaster isn’t the only reason to make sure you always have a recent back-up of your data. WannaCry is a computer virus that hit the entire planet earlier this year. It’s a particular kind of virus called “Ransomware” that invades your computer, encrypts all of your data (making it inaccessible to you), and then shows you a screen demanding a wire transfer of $2,000 or it will delete your data.

A lot of people paid that ransom because they didn’t have a recent back-up of their data.

Don’t wait till it happens to you. Start backing up your data today!

Have a question or idea for a column? Send me an email at ericwaustin@gmail.com or leave a comment on townline.org!

TECH TALK: Human or A.I.? The Thin Blurred Line

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ERIC’S TECH TALK

by Eric Austin
Computer Technical Advisor

The land line rang at 5:29 p.m. Suspicious. I picked up the hand-set. “Hello?”

“Hello! Do you have a few minutes to talk this evening?”

It was a vivacious young lady. But something was off. I couldn’t put my finger on it. “What is this about?” I asked rudely. Vivacious or not, I was a repeat victim of dinner-time telemarketers.

“We’ve just started a new fund-raising campaign for breast cancer research and, um —”

It was the ‘um’ that did it. It didn’t sound natural. It sounded like someone had written ‘um’ into their script in order to trick me into thinking I was speaking to a real person.

“Are you a recording?” I said abruptly, in the middle of her spiel.

The lady’s voice broke off in mid-word. “Yes.” The answer came back immediately.

I hung up the phone with a little chill that traveled up my spine and prickled the hairs on the back of my neck. There is something slightly disturbing about thinking you are speaking to a living, breathing human being only to find out it was a computer instead.

And it got me thinking. Is there any law on the books requiring an Artificial Intelligence to tell you it is an artificial intelligence? After a bit of research, I found an article Time magazine published in 2013 detailing their encounter with a “robot telemarketer” named Samantha West that had refused to admit she wasn’t real.

That was in 2013. There have been major advances since then. Apple just had its World Wide Developers Conference where they announced a new voice technology for their computer assistant Siri. It leverages new advances in machine learning to create a computer-generated voice that is indistinguishable from the real thing. This isn’t a computer awkwardly parsing together pre-recorded words of a real human being. This is a voice generated on the fly by a computer that sounds as natural as yours or mine.

In fact, several companies, including Google, are using machine learning and advanced algorithmic programming to develop technologies that allow them to simulate real voices using as little as 60 seconds of data. In other words, feed in 60 seconds of dialog from George Clooney’s latest movie, and you’ll be able to make ole Georgie say anything else you like.

This means that soon you won’t be buying an audiobook read by the actress Meryl Streep. Instead Ms. Streep will simply license her voice and you’ll be listening to a simulation of Meryl Streep reading the book. And you won’t have famous actors doing voice-overs for the latest animated Pixar flick, rather you’ll be watching a movie with characters voiced by a computer simulating famous actors.

But don’t worry, you probably won’t even know the difference! That’s how good the technology has become. The upside is that actors will be able to lend their voices long after they are dead and buried. The downside is not knowing if that is creepy or cool?

But combine this new voice synthesis technology with recent developments in artificial intelligence and you start to have a combination that sounds ripe for abuse.

Think telemarketers are bad now? What happens when companies no longer need to hire real humans to make the calls?

In fact, it’s likely that you have already had a conversation with an artificial intelligence and not even known it. If you’ve ever gone online to “chat” with technical support, there is a good chance you were speaking with a chatbot and not a real person.

Chatbots are artificial intelligence-driven conversation generators that simulate real human interaction. There are online chatbots designed to be your girlfriend (Julie), your psychiatrist (ELIZA), your doctor (Dr. A.I.), technical support assistants and many other things. Since 1991, there is even an annual award, the Loebner Prize, given out to the best chatbot.

Siri and Google Assistant are both based on research into chatbots. The technology to create an artificial intelligence that can carry on human-like conversations has long been in development, but it’s only recently started to be used in mainstream electronics like Amazon’s Echo or Apple’s just announced Homepod.

Personally, the idea of speaking to a computer doesn’t bother me. But a computer that uses “um” in an effort to make me think it’s human? That’s disconcerting.

Eric W. Austin is a real, live human being. Or is he? To find out, email him at ericwaustin@gmail.com or leave a comment on this article at townline.org.

Click here for a HUGE list of chatbots!

TECH TALK: How to get your news from the internet

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ERIC’S TECH TALK

by Eric Austin
Technical Advisor

Image Credit: Vanessa Otero, Facebook

Ah, information. The internet has so much of it! In this climate of political chaos, news breaks faster than most of us can keep up. Fortunately, the internet is here to fill our heads with all kinds of wrong information!

While the convenience of the internet is undeniable, information no longer comes with the guaranteed editorial oversight of a print newspaper or magazine. That means more of the responsibility is on us, as consumers, to discern good information from bad. This is particularly true of current news, as it is often reported before all the facts are in.

In this week’s column, I’d like to convey a few tips I rely on to sift through all the information on the internet and figure out what’s really going on!

AllSides.com

Know Your Bias. Everyone has a bias, and every source has one as well. It’s inescapable and unavoidable, but as they used to say on Saturday morning cartoons when I was a kid: Knowing is half the battle. Be aware of how your own bias might color your perspective and dictate which sources of information you gravitate to. Purposely expose yourself to the other side — if for no other reason than so you can understand what information other people are using to reach their own conclusions.

There are a number of resources online that examine bias in the media. AllSides.com is a multi-partisan, crowd-sourced website that examines bias in the media and tries to present multiple perspectives of controversial issues. Journalism.org, a site sponsored by the Pew Research Center, is another good resource.

Use Multiple Sources. The great thing about the internet is how easy it is to check multiple sources for a broader perspective. Once you’ve identified which way your preferred news outlet leans, take a look at a respected source that leans in the other direction!

But don’t just stop there! Check out some of the English-language news outlets from around the world, like BBC News and the Middle-Eastern Al Jazeera. It can be enlightening to hear what journalists and pundits outside America have to say about us and the conflicts in which we’re embroiled.

YouTube is a great resource for checking out a variety of sources, as most of the major networks have channels on Google’s video site. Everything is uploaded as three to five minute clips of a particular news item, so it’s easy to add news clips from multiple sources to your “Watch Later” playlist for back-to-back viewing.

Independent, internet-only news stations have also blossomed, especially if you’re interested in what the younger generation is talking about and listening to. The Young Turks and Democracy Now! are two of the most popular and each have channels on YouTube.

Image Credit: journalism.org, Pew Research Center, “Trust levels of News Sources”

Don’t just get your news from Facebook! According to a recent article in Slate magazine, 44 percent of Americans primarily receive their news from the giant social media site. However, it’s easy to miss the source of an article when reading it on Facebook, and knowing the source of a particular bit of information is your greatest asset in determining if it is valid.

Facebook also tends to emphasize headlines and minimize context. This encourages us to have gut reactions to news rather than contemplating it thoughtfully, and encourages news sources to present the most salacious headline in an effort to capture more clicks.

And your Facebook feed is designed to give you more of what you ‘like.’ Facebook has a vested interest in showing you things in which you’re interested and will cater to your existing views. Every time you ‘like’ a news item someone shares, that preference factors back into Facebook’s algorithms in order to more finely tailor your feed. This subtly warps your views based on the news Facebook assumes you most want to see.

Bookmark some fact-checking sites. If you follow my advice, you might be dismayed to find a lot of conflicting reports, based on where you go for your information. Enter fact-checking sites. PolitiFact.com is a website maintained by the Tampa Bay Times in which reporters and editors evaluate statements made by politicians, pundits and media outlets. They were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2009, and have a great format that allows you to fact check by politician, news channel (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox), or political pundit. But prepare to be shocked when you learn how often your favorite talking head makes inaccurate or outright false statements!

Like in everything else, checking multiple sources is your best bet in evaluating truth, so also visit FactCheck.org, The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker,” and Snopes.com which looks at the veracity of rumors and urban legends circulating the internet.

Finally, know the difference between news and opinion. Good sources will make it clear which stories are straight news and which are opinion pieces. Know which is which before you start reading!

In this day and age, separating true information from false can be challenging. But if you follow these tips, you’re more likely to have an informed and balanced view of the world around you! Good luck!

Have a comment on something you read? Know of a resource I failed to mention? Let your voice be heard on townline.org or email me directly at ericwaustin@gmail.com!

TECH TALK: “13 Reasons Why” you should talk to your kids

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ERIC’S TECH TALK

by Eric Austin
Technical Advisor

So, there’s this thing called Netflix. It used to be you rented DVDs from them. They came in these little red envelopes. Now it’s out with the DVDs and in with the streaming video.

One of the new ways kids have found to stay inside during beautiful summer days in Maine, is with a new activity called “binge-watching.” Essen­tially, binge-watching is the practice of watching multiple episodes of a single TV show in one sitting.

The convenience of video streaming options like Netflix have made it easy to watch episode after episode until you’ve watched a show’s entire season over a single weekend. It’s like the Frito Lays of TV.

In the past, to binge-watch a television show, you had to wait for the season to be available on DVD so you could buy or rent it.

But in recent years, Netflix has cut out the middleman by producing original content themselves, starting with the critically acclaimed “House of Cards” starring Kevin Spacey in 2013. As of 2016, they had over 120 original series or films available.

Netflix must be keenly aware of the addictive attraction of binge-watching as they have, since their first original series, released all episodes of a show simultaneously.

Their latest offering is the 13 episode series, “13 Reasons Why,” based on a bestselling young adult novel by Jay Asher. The series has earned positive reviews from critics and been insanely popular on Netflix, especially with younger, teenage viewers.

It’s an interesting show that deals with some weighty subjects like rape and suicide. The young cast does a stellar job and the acting never feels artificial or contrived.

Perhaps the most contrived aspect of the production is the central plot device. We learn in the first episode that a young teenage girl has committed suicide. The girl’s best friend is delivered a box, which turns out to contain 13 cassette tapes dictated by her before her death — the eponymous 13 reasons why.

Each episode deals with a single cassette tape, which involves a revelation about how one of her fellow classmates has wronged her, leading to her ultimate decision to kill herself.

Much of the time is also spent on the various relationships between the characters and how they each handle their classmate’s death. (I give it a seven on the teen-angst meter.)

Netflix rates the series TV-MA (mature) for some heavy petting, a few shots of naked male derriere, and a fair amount of crude language. More concerning are the emotionally graphic scenes of two rapes (one explicit, one implied), and the depiction of the central suicide in the last episode of the show.

Everything portrayed in this series — bullying, underage drinking, fitting in, and yes even rape and suicide — are issues that a lot of teens encounter in real life or are exposed to on the web. Some reviewers have criticized the central plot device for sending the wrong message to teens — that is, a teenage girl who puts enormous effort into recording messages blaming her classmates for what was ultimately her decision: to end her own life.

While I agree with this sentiment, it’s not a central theme in the story and serves primarily as the literary structure from which the events unfold.

The series does bring up some interesting questions such as, what does it mean to give sexual consent? Are people responsible for their actions when they’re drunk? Is suicide ever the answer?

These are important questions and ones that teens are bound to ask. Parents should create a safe and fertile environment for such discussion.

“13 Reasons Why” is not a perfect TV show, but I enjoyed my time with it and appreciate the opportunity to understand a bit of the many social issues modern teens deal with.

The show has seen such success that Netflix has already announced it will return with season two next year.

Have a comment or an idea for a column? Visit townline.org or email me directly at ericwaustin@gmail.com!

TECH TALK: Why you can’t afford to be neutral on Net Neutrality

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ERIC’S TECH TALK

by Eric Austin
Technical Advisor

Net Neutrality is — arguably — the most important legislative issue in the world of technology right now. And it’s an issue that will affect the lives of every single person reading this column.

Today, the Internet is like a super highway where every destination is the same distance from you. You decide where you want to go based on the content you are interested in, not the time it takes to get there. In Internet terms, this means that no particular website is given bandwidth preference (distance) over another. They are all equally accessible to you as the consumer.

You decide which websites to visit. You decide which video services you subscribe to.

But some people want to allow Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to restrict those choices. They want to allow your ISP to determine which services on the Internet you have access to. So, if you get your Internet from Time-Warner, you might only be allowed to stream video through Hulu. But if your service provider is Comcast, you might be required to use Netflix instead. This would become true of many of the services you use on the web. No longer would it be your choice. Instead it would be dictated by your service provider.

That doesn’t sound like much fun, does it? Why would anyone want an Internet that works this way?

As Internet-based companies grow larger, they seek new ways to capture even more of their market share. One way of doing this is by paying (bribing) Internet Service Providers to give their content bandwidth preference.

If opponents of Net Neutrality get their way, big companies like Amazon, Hulu, Netflix and others would be able to pay (bribe) ISPs to give preferential treatment to their web platform over their competitors, similar to how a restaurant today will offer Pepsi or Coke — but not both.

Do we want that to become the norm on the Internet? So that picking an Internet Service Provider also means restricting our Internet content options to the ones that have paid the most to our ISP for exclusivity? It’s starting to sound more like picking a cable package than accessing the Internet.

In the early days of the Internet, the web was widely touted as a “level playing field” where small companies like Google and Amazon could compete equally with huge, established corporations like Microsoft and Blockbuster.

Although, that time has come and passed, the barrier to a successful web business is still much lower than it is to open a traditional brick-and-mortar store. But suppose that, aside from needing to build a website and supply it with original content, you also had to pay Internet Service Providers to “allow” traffic to come to it? How would you compete against the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Facebook?

From a business perspective, it means that smaller, newer businesses could be discriminated against in favor of bigger, wealthier and more established corporations. Good news for Big Business. Bad news for promising young entrepreneurs.

From a consumer perspective, it means fewer choices for Internet content.

In 2015, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) decided to reclassify Internet providers as “common carriers” under Title II of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. This classification is reserved for “necessary” utility services like telephone, electricity, gas and water. These types of services are subject to greater regulation and oversight to prevent discrimination and price gouging of vulnerable consumers.

This was a huge victory for Net Neutrality, and recognition that the Internet has become an essential part of many people’s lives. It also meant that ISPs could not restrict or throttle bandwidths based on content, but had to make all (legal) content equally accessible to everyone. Simply put, this meant that Amazon, Hulu, Netflix – and your next-door neighbor Dave’s 24-hr livecast of his boring life – all have an equal right to the Internet’s bandwidth.

But the fight is far from over. With a new administration comes new policies, and the recently appointed chairman of the FCC (and former attorney for Verizon), Mr. Ajit Pai, only last Wednesday announced his plans to reverse this classification and rollback current regulations protecting Internet neutrality.

If you have any doubts about which side of the debate you, as an average consumer, should be on, simply consider those that are fighting for and against this issue.

On the pro-Net Neutrality side, we have numerous consumer advocacy and human rights groups such as Article 19, Free Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the ACLU, to name just a few. Even web companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google have come out in favor of Net Neutrality. And it’s advocated by people like the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak; inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Timothy Berners-Lee; and President Barack Obama.

On the other side, you have the lobbyists of large communications companies like AT&T, Qualcomm, and Verizon, as well as (according to Wikipedia) certain noted “technologists” (whatever those are) and “economists.” And, really, when was the last time “economists” were on the side of the little guy?

Have you ever gone to a restaurant and ordered Coke only to be told that all they serve is Pepsi?

Well, if you don’t want to be stuck drinking Internet Pepsi when you really prefer Coke (or vice versa), call your Senator and Representative in Washington today and tell them you want an open and free Internet, where access to content is decided by you, the consumer, rather than big communication companies!

For more information about Net Neutrality or to get involved, visit www.savetheinternet.com.

Eric W. Austin is a marketing and technology expert, and an advocate for a free and open Internet. As long as email remains free, he can be reached at ericwaustin@gmail.com.

Further reading:

TECH TALK: The Internet – At War with Itself

TECH TALK: Net Neutrality goes nuclear

TECH TALK: Firewalls and VPNs, Oh my!

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ERIC’S TECH TALK

by Eric Austin
Computer Technical Advisor

This week I’ll talk about two networking related topics that every modern computer user should know about.

You’ve likely heard the term “firewall” thrown around in the dialog of movies or television shows during a computer hacking scene — as in, “They’re breaching the firewall, Jack!”

What exactly are they talking about? Simply put, a firewall is a set of computer programs that work together to monitor and control network connections coming and going on your PC. Typically, this is the Internet traffic that happens as you browse, send emails and watch videos online.

Certain other applications will also transfer data between the Internet and your computer, like games being played online, programs downloading updates, or certain programs that have specific network functions such as FTP programs for updating websites, or P2P (Peer-to-Peer) file-sharing applications for downloading large files.

All these different activities are happening constantly as you use your computer. A firewall program sits and watches this traffic to make sure it’s all legit.

Malicious hackers, or malware your computer could be infected with, might also attempt to communicate across your network and you want to stop that from happening.

A computer without a firewall is like a border crossing without an armed checkpoint.

Fortunately, beginning with XP, Windows comes with a built-in Firewall app included and turned on by default. So, most likely you are already protected!

Apple has also built a firewall into Mac OSX with version 10.6 (Snow Leopard) onwards.

There are a number of 3rd party security suites on the market if you feel you need something more robust, but the firewall protections already built into modern operating systems should be sufficient for most users.

However, you should never turn off your firewall! If you experience problems allowing certain network traffic because of a Windows/Mac firewall, it’s worth learning how to set incoming and outgoing “rules” correctly rather than turning it off completely. Email me if you’re having problems and I can direct you to some web pages that show how to do this.

So, let’s move on to our second topic today: VPNs. “VPN” stands for Virtual Private Network. As the name implies, it refers to a virtual network within another network, and the word “private” should tip you off that security has something to do with it.

The term, Virtual Private Network, in the technical world, can apply to a number of different networking situations, but for us, we will think of it in its most typical usage. That is, a method of obscuring the source of network traffic by funneling that traffic through another “virtual” server.

If that sounds confusing, its because you lack a little background. Stay with me and I’ll fill you in!

Normally, network traffic originates from your home PC, identified by your computer’s IP Address (Internet Protocol #). Whenever you do anything online, you’re sending information tagged with your identity (your IP#) through your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and out to the wider Internet. Everything you do is associated with that IP Address and can be linked directly back to you!

Sometimes this is not what you want.

A VPN service accepts your network communications, and then sends them back out to the Internet using its own IP Address in place of yours. In this way, none of your activities can be linked back to your personal computer. Instead, they would link back no further than your VPN server, which millions of other people also use.

Another reason to use a VPN is to by-pass geographical blocking. Some websites will block access based on the geographical location of the user. If you are trying to access the Japanese version of Hulu, for example, you could connect to a VPN server in Japan and trick Hulu into thinking you are actually Japanese!

Also, in countries that heavily restrict Internet content, like China or Saudi Arabia, VPNs help people to get around these restrictions to communicate with the wider world.

In the movies, when the heroes are tracking the hacker and they show the “link” hopping across a map of the world, this is an example of VPNs in action. Each of the points on the map is a different virtual server the hacker has used to mask his own identity. You’ll only need a single VPN yourself, but experienced hackers layer VPN upon VPN in order to further obscure the real source of the intrusion. (Although it’s never as easy to trace such a person as they make it seem on TV!)

You won’t be doing anything so nefarious, so for our purposes it’s much simpler. To use a personal VPN, all you’ll need is a subscription with an appropriate vendor, who will give you a small software program to run on your computer. This program redirects all your Internet traffic through the vendor’s servers and substitutes your IP Address for theirs. Simple as that!

Choosing a VPN can be difficult because services vary wildly, as do prices which range from $40 a year to $40 a month, depending on several factors, including: number of available servers, allowed simultaneous connections, P2P support, and guaranteed download speeds, among other bells and whistles most people won’t care about.

Personally, I can only recommend a service called Private Internet Access (https://www.privateinternetaccess.com), since it’s the one that I use. It costs $39.95/year and although bare bones, is very reliable and easy to use.

Most importantly, whichever VPN service you choose, you want to make sure they do not log network traffic. By default, servers will log any connections they receive, but since the objective of a VPN is to stay anonymous, recording your connection to it would defeat the purpose! Because of this, most VPN services purge their logs on a regular basis, but it’s worth checking before you sign up.

As they say in those after-school programs, abstinence is the best policy. But if you’re going to be a bad boy (or girl) on the Internet, make sure to use protection: always keep your firewall turned on and install a VPN for those times when you want full anonymity!

Eric W. Austin is a technical and marketing consultant specializing in helping small businesses succeed. When not writing for The Town Line, he exchanges advice for money and can be reached at ericwaustin@gmail.com.

TECH TALK: 7 killer Ways to Get the Most Out of Our website

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ERIC’S TECH TALK

by Eric W. Austin
Computer Technical Advisor

*** THIS ARTICLE IS UP TO DATE AS OF APRIL 6, 2017. It may not reflect site changes after that date! ***

The Town Line launched its website back in 2016 and it’s been a huge success.

But for those of you who still haven’t made the digital leap, I’d like to point out a few reasons you should log on and give it a gander.

1. Get it first! The website is usually updated before the print edition is available. Generally, townline.org publishes the new edition by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, whereas you’ll have to wait until Thursday morning for the paper version!

2. Join the Conversation! Got a grievous grumble caught in your gullet? Unlike the paper, the website allows you to post your comments on every story! Just remember that we at The Town Line follow the BNBR (Be Nice, Be Respectful) policy, and any comments that breach this will not be approved!

3. Clickable links! Every link you see in the paper — including on the Our Town’s Report and Calendar pages! — is clickable on the website. No more squinting at the paper while typing a link into your browser. Just locate the article on townline.org and click the link to have it open in a new page!

4. Browse past issues! Did you miss last week’s issue? No problem! While our Homepage will always display the current edition of The Town Line, we’ve made it easy to find a past issue. Just hover your mouse over the first menu item at the top of the page that begins “Week of…”. A menu will pop open with a list of previous issues. It’s like traveling back in time, only without the math. Eat your heart out Einstein!

5. Save yourself a stamp! Have some local news to share, or want to send a Letter to the Editor? Do it straight from our website! Hover your mouse over the “About Us” menu item at the top of the page for an option to “Contact Us.” Just fill out the contact form (even attach a photo if you want) and click submit! There, you saved 49 cents! You’re welcome!

6. Share the Love! On townline.org, we’ve made it easy to share articles with your friends. At the bottom of every article, you’ll find share buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other popular social media sites. Simply click the appropriate button, type some witty commentary and share it with the world!

7. Support your local businesses! All of the ads you see on townline.org are local businesses. The Town Line has always been a locally-supported newspaper. Clicking on one of our ads will take you to that business’ website. If you use an ad-blocker extension in your browser, consider turning it off when visiting townline.org. Our ads are not obtrusive and without their support we would not be able to provide you with free community news and information!

And in the coming weeks we’ll be adding a new “Local Business Directory” to make it easier for you to find services and support your local merchants!

If you’re a business and would like to advertise on townline.org or want to be included in our new Local Business Directory, send us an email through the contact form on the website or call our resident ad-lady, Kathy Duhnoski, at 691-2332 or kduhnoski@myfairpoint.net.

Next time we’ll return to our topic of online privacy with a look at two essential technologies that you really can’t afford to live without!

Eric W. Austin is a marketing and technology consultant specializing in small business. He can be reached by email at ericwaustin@gmail.com.

TECH TALK: One account to rule them all

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ERIC’S TECH TALK

by Eric W. Austin
Computer Technical Advisor

This week, in our continuing series on finding anonymity online, we’re going to address one of the most important ways to ensure your life online is a safe, secure and happy one.

Passwords.

Remember when the most you had to remember was your ATM pin? Those days are gone, and now pretty much every website wants you to log in with a username and password. If you are like many people, you might use the same combination for multiple sites (except for those sites where somebody already took my username! Arrgghhh!).

You also probably know just how insecure this practice is – hack that one password and a hacker will have access to all your other accounts!

So, it’s utterly important to use unique passwords for every site you visit — or at the least any site that has sensitive or important personal information about you, such as online banking, or places you use a credit card and with your address like Amazon or Target.com.

Before we go any further, let’s review what makes a good password. Stay away from using personal information for your password, like a birthday or pet’s name, even though it would be easier to remember. Try to use numbers as well as letters and include a special character or two (@!#$% etc…). Make it at least eight characters long, the longer the better. According to Google, using numbers and special characters makes an eight character password 30,000 times more difficult to guess than one of lowercase letters alone!

But how do you remember all these passwords? There are a number of ways to go about this, and they each have their own pluses and minuses. Many people (including myself) use a password manager, which usually is an extension for your browser that automatically saves passwords for you.

There are a number of good ones available. Personally, I use LastPass, which is available for all platforms. My only quibble with it is that it is only free for the desktop version. The app for IOS or Android will cost you.

But any similar password manager will do. Just ensure it’s a company that has been in business for a while (you don’t want them going belly-up and taking all your passwords with them). And read through their policy FAQ to make sure they take security seriously. The benefit of a password manager is that many will also generate passwords for you, and being random, they are highly secure.

Of course, no one can remember dozens of completely random passwords, so if you lose access to your password manager you often lose access to your passwords as well.

If you don’t want to use a password manager service, you’ll likely have to write them down somewhere. I recommend that you don’t keep a password file online for obvious reasons, and if you use Word or Excel to store passwords locally, secure the file with a password so that it is encrypted and cannot be digitally scanned if you get hit with a virus.

Also, don’t name the file “passwords.doc”!

Surprisingly, the most secure way to store your passwords may be the old-fashioned way: with paper and pen. Keep a notebook next to your computer and write each one down. Just don’t leave your notebook somewhere carelessly like an airport or restaurant!

Assuming you’ve decided on the best way to st
ore your passwords, and you do not want them to be randomly generated for you, how does one come up with so many secure, unique passwords?

While completely random passwords are the most secure, second best is a password that at least appears random. This is a tip a friend of mine suggested years ago and I have used it ever since.
Create a password “formula” that will look random to anyone else, and allows you to make it unique by tweaking only a single element of your formula. Let me show you what I mean.

For example: Let’s say my password for Amazon.com is “P48:bates!@AM” (without the quotes). It’s obviously not a completely random password, but because none of the elements directly relate to me it’s very difficult to guess. My formula for this password is simple: favorite bible verse [Philippians 4:8] + name of favorite movie villain [Norman Bates] + “!” + “@” + first two letters of the website name capitalized [AM].

Using this formula my password for Target.com would be “P48:bates!@TA”. Although the password looks complex, it’s made up of parts I can easily remember. This way we achieve a complex, unique password that is made up of numbers, symbols and lower and upper case letters, but is still easily generated and easily recalled.

Is it as secure as a completely randomized password? No. Is it better than using the same password on every site? Absolutely! How ever you define your password formula, use elements that are unique but unrelated to you and never — never ever — use any personal information like your name and address or birthday as part of that formula.

As a final piece of advice, and tying back to my headline, let me emphasize that not all accounts are created equal. If you have a Google or Microsoft account which ties all your other accounts together (the one where a password support request from other websites will be sent), give special care to the password you use for that account, and change it at lease every six months.

I hope this has been helpful, and please tune in next time when I’ll dig deeper into VPNs, proxies and firewalls, oh my!

Have a question or idea for a column? Eric W. Austin is a marketing and technical specialist and can be reached by email at ericwaustin@gmail.com.