Occupy Central Hong Kong is now underway. The Chinese government, in control of Hong Kong since 1997, stripped Hong Kong’s right to free elections last month. Over this past weekend of Sept. 27-28, 2014, tens of thousands took to the streets and shut the city down in protest. This is where social media comes in, or maybe not.
Instagram was blocked in China, according to Hong Kong journalists. It’s funny how Instagram was blocked when people were posting pictures of Chinese police officers using tear gas and pepper spray on demonstrators. And now that the site are blocked, protestors can’t use Instagram to let the world know the police brutality that’s going on over there. Then there’s FireChat, the new app in town. You can get it with your Apple and/or Android device. It’s a chat room, a huge one at that, where people from all over the world can communicate over WiFi, cellular, Bluetooth, even Apple’s Multipeer Connectivity Framework. So FireChat? can survive anything, even an ahem…sudden…network shutdown. So one activist leader named Joshua Wong started using FireChat to talk about his experiences with Occupy Central. Others followed. At one point, over 33,000 people from Occupy Central were in the same chat room at once. Most of the chats I found were in Chinese. But I found one quote in English saying, “MTR has boom tears 3 times”.? I’m not sure what that means, but I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant. And add that to the pictures we’re seeing.
So thank goodness for Fire Chat. Eventually, someone is going to translate to what’s really going on. At least those who’re in the midst of the battle can communicate with each other. And of course, it’s all over mainstream media. My takeaway is, no matter how much a government tries to block or censors things, social media is going to expose it. Remember Iran 2009?
Not everything we blog about here at Computer Geeks has to do with that nasty virus on your computer. We have feelings, and know when we’ve seen something great, and real, that we may never see in our lifetime again. Derek Jeter isn’t just a New York Yankee or a ?Major League Baseball player, he is what the MLB wants to be. Derek Jeter is what MLB should be, and lets be honest, Derek Jeter is who we should all strive to be in our life’s endeavors.
Last night I sat down in my office/gaming man cave (set up by Computer Geeks), turned on my iPad and put on my Beat’s Headphones so I could drown out planet earth for 3-4 hours and take a ride much greater than I could have expected. I just wanted to see my hero one last time at Yankee Stadium, because after 22 years, Derek Jeter was playing his last game at the house that HE BUILT. It didn’t start off great, as the visiting Baltimore Orioles blasted 2 home runs and took a 2-0 in the top of the first inning. Including a HR during Jeter’s last roll call, so disaster was in the air. But fret not, Captain Jeter showed he had a little bit of magic left on this day, blasting a run scoring double off of the wall, and later tying the game later that inning by scoring. GAME ON!
The middle of the game was relatively uneventful, until Jeter stepped to the plate in the 7th inning with the bases loaded. He hit a slow roller and made it tough for the SS who threw it into right field, scoring 2 runs, eventually leading to a 5-2 Yankee lead. This looked to be Jeter’s last at bat, as their Closer David Robertson, is as solid as they come, But not on this night. They gave up 3 runs tying the game at 5, and honestly I had never been more excited. I would get to see my hero, 1 more time, and know THIS IS IT.
Derek Jeter’s Final At Bat
The first batter gets a hit, then Brett Gardner bunts him over to 2nd, setting it all up. Derek Jeter, the Yankee Captain, my hero, and the man of the night was stepping to the plate. You could see it on his face, fighting back tears, not everyone gets this opportunity, this was his moment and he would not disappoint. I woke my 4 year old son out of bed, put him in my lap and told him “watch this Alex, this is what magic really is.” With tears in my eyes I watched in awe, as Derek Jeter slapped a base hit into right field, scoring the winning run for the Yankees 1 more time. It was AWESOME, I have watched the clip around 50 times already, I can’t tear myself away from it. I just witnessed magic, greatness and real joy from a man that has brought so much of it into my home.
After the game Derek Jeter announced that he would be playing his final weekend in Boston at Fenway Park, which I will be attending, but he wont be playing SS. He wants to leave that memory there, and what a memory it was…RE2PECT
Back on September 8, Home Depot confirmed over 56 million credit/debit cards may have been compromised between April and September 2014. Home Depot franchises throughout the US and Canada are affected.? According to a Home Depot spokesperson, hackers used homemade software to cover their tracks. Home Depot has been cyber attacked before, and the culprits didn’t want to use the same malware again to evade accountability. But the thing that got me was Home Depot had warnings. After last year’s hacks, the company’s security agents warned the company to strengthen it’s cyber defense. All they had to do was use a certain security software feature that would have added protection to cashier aisles when customers’ cards were swiped. And this is in their own documents.? During the Sept. 8 confirmation, they revealed after the mass hacking, consumers’ information was put on the cyber black market for sale. While the malware that caused this was found and taken out, Home Depot is looking at a $62 million dollar bill to recover this mess.
Now, they’re talking about a security project that will enhance major encryption in US and Canadian stores. Too bad for Canadian stores that they won’t have this encryption until early 2015. I’m glad something is being done now, but for 56 million accounts, it’s too little too late. What makes this more frustrating is that Home Depot had a chance to make their cyber security systems stronger, but didn’t. Would it have totally prevented this crime? That’s debatable. But some security experts say it would have eliminated 95% of the threat. But the point is, I’d rather have them implement extra security measures and have nothing happen than fail to heed the warnings and have this happen. Shouldn’t the powers that be at Home Depot be ashamed of themselves?
The cyber criminals never stop, do they? From hacking to sextortion, it seems like everywhere you turn, some boogeyman is trying to disrupt our lives with a keyboard’s button and/or mouse’s click, or in this case, one swipe of the card.
The case I’m talking about is skimming. Skimming is a scam in which thieves can steal your information with one credit/debit card swipe using a device that can’t be read or detected. The devices these scam artists use today can easily fit in palm of a hand. They can even put in ATM’s and gas pumps. I saw footage this morning on ABC’s Good Morning America of a McDonald’s clerk using skimming to rip off a drive-thru customer. He ran a customer’s card twice: once through the fast food system and then through his own system. But thankfully, law enforcement is fighting back. In one case, a couple panicked because their rip-off device wasn’t in the gas pump. Yes, Instead, it was sting surveillance camera, and the couple were arrested. There has been thousands of arrest of these skimmers in recent years.
Yes, there are some things you can do. Check your debit/credit card statements and check them often. When in public, watch your clerk like a hawk! If the clerk is using two devices to process one payment, that should be a red flag. Plus, it never hurts to use good old fashioned cash. It was good enough for our ancestors. I’m not trying to scare anybody by reporting this. I just feel we have a responsibility to warn people when a dangerous trend is brought to my attention. It’s better to talk about it and never have it happened than ignore it and come home to an unpleasant surprise. So I want to hear your suggestions? What can we do to protest ourselves from skimming?
It’s probably the biggest hot-buttoned news story of 2014: the rise of terrorist group ISIS, or Islamic State. Hardly a day goes by when we don’t hear about an evil deed done by these extremist thugs. It seems that no one is immune, not even technology or social media.
On one of ISIS’s Twitter accounts, they’re calling for the assassinations of Twitter employees in the United States and Europe. Their tweets have called for sleeper cells and ‘lone wolves’ to kill employees and bring war to them. These same vile, vicious tweets told San Fransisco Twitter employees to watch their back. There is a suspect in question: Twitter account @Dawlamoon, an account operated to be loyal to ISIS, is at the center of this story. It isn’t confirmed if Dawlamoon is a true social media mouthpiece of ISIS, just one of their cheerleaders, or if it’s just blowing smoke to make headlines. But it is rumored, just that, rumored, to be an ISIS forum. But after the threatening Tweets were posted on back on Monday Sept 8th, the account was suspended. Lately, Twitter has been working around the clock to shut down all pro ISIS based accounts. Unfortunately, the terrorist organization is using techniques to counter such suspensions.
We’re living in a time that was unthinkable just 10 years ago. ISIS and other terrorist groups are using social media to push the propaganda offensive and the charm/charisma offensive to win people over to their twisted, sadistic cause. They even have You Tube videos of themselves giving ice cream to children. We in the technology community must do all we can to counter these lies before more people get duped. Twitter trying to suspend their accounts is a great start. Now I believe in free speech as much as anybody, but not when you’re threatening people’s lives. Let’s use our voices, vlogs, blogs, social media pages, smartphones, desktops, laptops and other devices to expose these thugs for who they really are. What else can we do to combat this threat?
From here on out, when a purchase is made through an iPhone via debit or credit card, they get a cut from the banks and credit card makers. That way, they get their cut for the ever increasing market of smartphone purchasing. The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will feature Apple Pay. That mean iPhone 6 users can pay with the swipe of their fingers. This can be done because major banks like Bank of America, Citigroup and JP Morgan are merging their cards into their system. I should note these terms aren’t official or public yet, but but this deal alone can give Apple a huge chunk? of the $40 billion a year made in mobile phone purchases. By 2017, that number is expected to balloon to $90 million. Apple Pay insists shoppers or merchants won’t be charged for this service. Although I do find it ironic neither Apple, Citigroup, Bank of America or JP Morgan refuse to talk about Apple Pay.
Why does this Apple Pay strike me so much? The way this industry is going today, paying with a smartphone is going be a more common aspect of daily life. I witnessed this myself when paying for cab fare, the driver hooked up his credit card reader to his iPhone and emailed the receipt to my phone. I could go on and on about the Apple Watch and the minimum $349 price, but stay tuned for that one. Do you think this potential Apple Pay system will make the new iPhones more or less attractive?
