Creepy, yet interesting

Here is an excerpt (a particularly disturbing one) from Bill Joy's, "Why the future doesn't need us." article written for WIRED in 2000. Enjoy!!

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html

Why the future doesn't need us.

Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species.

By Bill Joy

THE NEW LUDDITE CHALLENGE

First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better than human beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines might be permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or else human control over the machines might be retained.

If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can't make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave. We only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines' decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won't be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.

On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite - just as it is today, but with two differences. Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the elite consists of soft-hearted liberals, they may decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest of the human race. They will see to it that everyone's physical needs are satisfied, that all children are raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become dissatisfied undergoes "treatment" to cure his "problem." Of course, life will be so purposeless that people will have to be biologically or psychologically engineered either to remove their need for the power process or make them "sublimate" their drive for power into some harmless hobby. These engineered human beings may be happy in such a society, but they will most certainly not be free. They will have been reduced to the status of domestic animals.

In the book, you don't discover until you turn the page that the author of this passage is Theodore Kaczynski - the Unabomber. I am no apologist for Kaczynski. His bombs killed three people during a 17-year terror campaign and wounded many others. One of his bombs gravely injured my friend David Gelernter, one of the most brilliant and visionary computer scientists of our time. Like many of my colleagues, I felt that I could easily have been the Unabomber's next target.Kaczynski's dystopian vision describes unintended consequences, a well-known problem with the design and use of technology, and one that is clearly related to Murphy's law - "Anything that can go wrong, will." (Actually, this is Finagle's law, which in itself shows that Finagle was right.) Our overuse of antibiotics has led to what may be the biggest such problem so far: the emergence of antibiotic-resistant and much more dangerous bacteria. Similar things happened when attempts to eliminate malarial mosquitoes using DDT caused them to acquire DDT resistance; malarial parasites likewise acquired multi-drug-resistant genes.


Check out the rest of the Article. It's very interesting.

Et tu, Mario? (Then fall ...Luigi?)

"Murder, looting, pizza theft, and other hazards of cooperative video-gaming"

Here is an excerpt from an article I read on slate.com today. Check out the full article here!

"Multiplayer video games operate along two dimensions. There are fighting games like the Tekken and Street Fighter franchises that give players a single option: defeat each other in glorious battle or turn off the console and bake cookies together. On the other end are games like the popular Facebook application FarmVille in which players must help each other by fertilizing one another's crops and exchanging gifts... Most cooperative games lie in a vast middle ground, however, a no man's land between altruism and gaming Darwinism that offers up a host of ways to misbehave."

It's a fairly funny article and it also brings back some great memories of growing up. My first system was an Atari 2600 that I purchased at a church garage sale...Without my parents knowledge... My mother wanted to throw it in the trash, but my father, a kid at heart, was as excited, if not more, than I was. We hooked it up to our glorious, 14ish", wood-paperedTV, and started out playing Moonraker. Other games we had were Pitfall, Joust, some space game and a myriad of others. So, the reason this brings back memories?? I can't exactly put a finger on which one, but ONE of my sisters absolutely loved playing Joust with me and spending all of her time finding some way to get me killed.

After moving away from Colorado and settling in Jacksonville, FL, my dad purchased us a Playstation...the original fat greyish box. One of my favorite games was Tekken 2. Anna, Jo, and I played it all the time. Jo had a favorite cheap move with Heihachi Mishima that we dubbed the 'Noogie' and Anna had her favorite character 'Nina' with which I'm sure she had some cheap move as well. I admit, I had a favorite character too, and after memorizing all of his moves, I found the cheapest and most affective. Marshall Law, I assume who's based loosely on Bruce Lee, had this famous spinning backflip kick thing that was a sure hit just about anytime I mashed those special buttons. We eventually purchased Tekken3 and Tekken Tag for Ps2 and wore those characters out as well. Now, I own a PS3 (I'm very, very loyal) and I'm playing games like CoD Modern Warfare 2, Uncharted 2, and various other games. I haven't experienced too much unfair or down-right dirty multiplay online yet, but I'm sure it will hit soon enough. However, I do play the Lego games (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Batman) with my girlfriend, and I can't even count the hours we've spent simply running around chasing one another with a lightsaber or thermodetonator trying to kill eachother. She has gotten quite good at it and usually can destroy my character pretty quick.

Well, check out the article! I'm sure that if you've played games at all, it will give you a laugh. Oh, while I was in STL, Renee, Ellen's mom, showed us a tv show about people who simply hoard stuff... It was very gross! I do wonder though, is there a person out there who simply hoards video games?? If so, I'd love to see what their house looks like. I don't even think I'd be disgusted by that!

The Speed of Life

Life has once again picked up the pace. Between Lifecycle of my stores, switch replacements, vacation to STL and finals, I [once again] have pushed off posting on blogger. Well, I'm back! So, for my first post back, take a look at this video.<-click the word 'video.' It's not directly Technology specific, but hey, the world is changing and this is interesting and important. Enjoy!

A Phish Full of Dollars

"CARLISLE, Pa., Oct. 14 (UPI) --
Authorities say computer hackers drained more than $479,000 from a Pennsylvania county redevelopment agency's bank account.
Cumberland County officials told reporters Wednesday that the intruders transferred funds from the agency's account to their own accounts at 11 different financial institutions last month.
"We were all shocked when we heard this," said Cumberland County Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Chris Gulotta.
The Carlise (Penn.) Sentinel said that less than $110,000 has been recovered thus far and the county is negotiating with two other institutions.
The hackers apparently gained access to the redevelopment authority account through a virus that records keystrokes and was able to swipe a pass code. The virus was contained in a phony Web page that said the bank's real site was down for maintenance."


This is why you always know what your banking site looks like. If it says that it's down for maintenance, call your local branch to make sure that it really is! Who knows, it could save you your entire life savings. Other Tips for avoiding Phishing are:

1) Check for a lot of misspelled words. This is a common indicator that the site is a phishing site because they are usually hastily made.
2) Look at the URL (the http://...... part). If it looks different from what you usually type in, it may be a sign of a phishing attempt.
3) If you usually see the little "lock" symbol to the left of HTTP://, or your site uses HTTPS://, make sure it's there.
4) Finally, just plain avoid those sites that make you sign up to win something or receive a free gift. On the Internet, if it looks to good to be true, it usually is. In a study done, 90% of people gave up their userID or Password for a free item, usually something small like a pen or a calculator. 70% of people gave both away for a larger prize like a DVD.

Techsmith

Techsmith offers a lot of unique and high quality software for people to use in everyday life, whether it's for work or play. Some of the software packages they offer are:

1) Snagit- Capture anything you see on the screen. Edit and combine those captures. Share them via your favorite applications. Organize and find them again later. Don't waste time cropping your captures. Snag exactly what you need with just a click.

Find a free trial Here

Snagit is simple and user friendly and it also offers a lot of unique tools to help make your screen captures look beautiful. Give the trial a shot and see if you like it! You'll be surprised at what you can use it for.

2) Camtasia Studio- People don’t want a long, drawn-out explanation. They want to see what you’re talking about. With Camtasia Studio, you can record your PC screen and create professional-looking videos that clearly demonstrate a process, a product, or an idea. Some call Camtasia Studio the world's smartest screen recording software. Why? Because it adapts to your workflow, not the other way around. Here's how it works:
-Record whatever you want, right now, at any size. Decide how to use it later
-Edit and Enhance to clarify and amplify your message
-Share your creation anywhere, in multiple formats
Find a free trial download Here

I use Camtasia at work to create training videos. It records the screen beautifully and let's you record sound during video capture or place it into the file afterwards. It also has a smart zoom feature that will zoom in on a location in the video if you are typing something...this can be turned off and edited to fit your needs. A great little program and I definitely recommend the 30 day trial.

Todays Threat Level

Today's Internet Threat Level: GREEN

Handler on Duty: David Goldsmith




Top Three Ports Reported:
Port 1433 : MS-SQL-Server : Reports 18989
Port 445 : MS-DS : Reports 18424
Port 51413 : BitTorrent Upload Port : Reports 7025

Today

I spent all of today on the road for work and now I have to do my school work. Unfortunately this means that I don't have much time to post, so here are some good Geek photos for you to copy and save to your computer!! If they are hard to read, just click them or right click and open in new window. Enjoy!!

The Wonderful World of ATF-Cleaner

ATF-Cleaner is a wonderful little temp file cleaner created by Atribune, located here. This is a fairly straight forward application and once you've downloaded it, it can be run quickly and efficiently. I use ATF Cleaner all the time, at home and at work, and it's never messed up my computer. However, it is shareware, so use it at your own risk! Here is a brief tutorial on how to use it:

1) Right click the link and go to "open link in a new window" and wait for the page to load

2) Locate the red letters that read, "ATF Cleaner", which are about halfway down the page. This is the link to the download.


3) Click the red letters and save it to your computer. I would suggest your 'My Documents' folder, but feel free to save it anywhere that you'll remember where it's at.

4) After the program downloads, browse to it's saved location and double click on the icon. The icon is a blue garbage can.


5) After locating the icon, double click it. Microsoft will most likely pop-up a warning like the following:


6) Click Run and the following window will open:


7) For the first time running this, click the 'Select All' option and then deselect the 'All User Temp' item:


8) Next, click the 'Empty Selected' button and let it sit. This is a lot faster cleaner than the Windows Disk Cleanup, but it will still take a bit of time...especially if you don't delete your cookies and temp files very often. I clean mine every other day, so it goes pretty quick. However, the first time I ran it, it took a while, but it cleaned over 2Gbs of data. It may look like it's frozen, but it will eventually pop up a screen like the following:


9) Click OK on the box and then run ATF again, but this time check the 'Select All' item and leave everything selected. The reason why we didn't do this first is because it has a tendency to take hours to clean if you select everything. I'm not sure why, but it does.

10) click OK again and close ATF Cleaner. You should restart your computer after this, but you don't have to do it right away. I would recommend restarting it sometime within the next day though.

If you have questions, please feel free to post them!

Today's Threat Level

Today's Internet Threat Level: GREEN

Handler on Duty: Mark Hofman




Top Three Ports Reported:
Port 445 : MS-DS : Reports 939015
Port 1433 : MS-SQL-Server : Reports 694904
Port 135 : DCE endpoint : Reports 323584

Today's Threat Level

Today's Internet Threat Level: GREEN

Handler on Duty: Scott Fendley







Top Three Ports Reported:

Port 445 : MS-DS : Reports 939015
Port 1433 : MS-SQL-Server : Reports 694904
Port 135 : DCE endpoint : Reports 323584