David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
I was shocked to read today that Google went out and plunked down $12.5 billion for Motorola. I’m sure that other Android phone makers aren’t exactly happy about it–it means Google is going to be competing with them, unless Google just bought Motorola for patents–but I don’t really see how Google had much choice.
Google risks alienating its partners, but…. More on that in a minute.
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Over at Rabbit-Hole, a commenter posted that my low-tier VPN is unnecessary if you’re using SSL. He’s wrong.
Perhaps I should have titled this “When SSL isn’t foolproof security,” but it’s too late now. Oh well.
When you’re sitting on a strange network (not your home or work network), SSL is vulnerable to a classic man-in-the-middle attack. If you’re paying attention, you should know if your session is being hijacked. But who’s paying attention?
I’ve resisted the pull to AMD64, for a variety of reasons. I’ve had other priorities, like lowering debt, fixing up a house, kids in diapers… But eventually the limitations of living with 2003-era technology caught up with me. Last week I broke down and bought an AMD Phenom II 560 and an Asus M4N68T-M v2 motherboard. Entry-level stuff by today’s standards. But wow.
If you can get one, an AMD Phenom II x4 840 is a better choice, but those are getting hard to find. And if you can’t afford a $100 CPU there are bargains at the very low end too: A Sempron 145 costs less than $45, and a dual-core Athlon II x2 250 costs $60. The second core is worth the money.
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In honor of the IBM PC turning 30, I thought I’d tell some stories about my experiences with the operating system introduced with it, PC DOS (aka MS-DOS).
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The IBM PC 5150 turns 30 today.
IBM didn’t invent the personal computer, but if your computer has an Intel or AMD CPU in it, it’s the direct descendant of the beige box IBM unleashed on the world on August 12, 1981. Without a huge amount of effort, it’s even possible to run most of that old software on your shiny new PC. You probably wouldn’t want to, except out of curiosity, but you can do it.
I wasn’t one of the people who rushed out and got one. At the time, I was still watching Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers. I had my first experience with a computer–a Radio Shack TRS-80–in 1982, and the first computer my family bought was a Commodore 64 in 1984. Even in 1984, there were still plenty of people who questioned why anyone needed a computer in their home. My introduction to the IBM PC and PC-DOS didn’t happen until 1987.
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From the big bag o’ Google search queries: Is someone trying to hack Facebook?
Possibly. An announcement came out this week that Anonymous and Lulzsec, the groups behind some of the more notorious hacks this year, plan to try to take down Facebook on November 5. There’s some debate whether they can do it, even within the groups, it seems. Some even believe the announcement was a hoax. But these are the same groups that hacked virtually every cell phone at the hacker conventions in Las Vegas last week, so it has to be perceived as a threat.
What should you do?
Not surprisingly, they find the answer is yes. Specifically, that a PC equipped with an SSD gets about a 30% across-the-board performance increase.
I don’t agree with everything Tom’s Hardware say in the conclusion, namely, that it’s pointless to put an SSD in a netbook. Indeed, when you put an SSD in a netbook, you get several benefits: improved latency, improved battery life, and much faster boot/resume times, all of which are useful.
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I’m not hearing as much rumbling in the hallways about pulling out of stocks, but I’m hearing a lot of rumbling about waiting until the market bottoms out before putting anything in.
Here’s the problem: What if it bottomed out today? I’m not saying it did. But it’s possible. Nobody knows.
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In October, LG and its startup partner Millenniata plan to release a new type of DVD, which they claim will last forever. The Navy doesn’t come right out and say it lasts forever, but it does say in its tests that these discs, called M-Discs, do last considerably longer than the traditional DVD-R and DVD+R discs on the market today.
I hope this catches on, but it’s possible it won’t. Why? Cost.
There’s some bad behavior going on with DNS right now. In Washington and at local ISPs.