PEDES3ANTECH

Amazon.ca Widgets T he issue on privacy has recently come into the spotlight with the revelation that the NSA has been listening to calls and collecting internet data. This revelation has also implicated all the major tech companies (ie. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, etc.) as providing the NSA "direct" access to their servers for data collection. Although the companies implicated have been unanimous in their denial that they provide "direct" access to their servers. One by one they have issued statements denying the allegations and have even released information to the public about all government related data-requests sent to them.  So, it turns out, these companies do not provide "direct" access to their servers, but will comply with government requests for information- in "certain" situations. If you ask me, it is all a play of words and a convoluted interpretation of the word "direct". But this is not what this post is ab...

Two step authentication is not a stuff of science fiction Two step authentication/ verification is a security method where access to an account is granted only after two or more authentication factors/ information are provided. Our common understanding of securing access to an account is by setting up a Username and Password. Most people consider the username and password as two-factors for authentication and feel it is enough to provide proper security. This kind of understanding is wrong. Both your Username and Password are considered the same kind of authentication factor (Knowledge- something you know). The other two commonly used authentication factors are: i. Possession (something you have): an example of this is a hard token/ secure ID.  ii. Inherence (something the user is): an example of this is a biometric scan like finger-print or retina-scan. Two step authentication/ verification utilizes a combination of two or more of the three authentication factors mentioned ab...

Panic Alert Newsfeed is just a random message board Attention everyone! Facebook is about to implement another major change- they plan to revamp News Feed! Judging from peoples reaction when News feed was implemented, world-wide chaos is almost certain. The world of social media will once again be shaken and people's status updates will once again be filled with stuff like: "FU Facebook! You screwed me over again", "Facebook please leave my news feed alone", "That's it! I am leaving Facebook ". My news feed will be flooded with these comments and there is nothing I can do about it but suffer the deluge of negativity. But I am hoping that one of the things Facebook changes with News Feed this Thursday is my ability to filter these types of comments out. Like many of the people I know on Facebook  I was not happy when "News Feed" was implemented. It was not that I hated the idea of news feed but it was more of a desig...

The days leading up to todays announcement about Facebook’s graph search feature was filled with rumours about the company building a “Facebook phone”. All that excitement was shattered when the announcement came that facebook was not launching a phone but a “search” feature. Now while some people were disappointed that no phone came out, I myself was actually very excited about the new feature. Ever since last year, I have reached a point where I felt that Facebook was slowly becoming irrelevant. I started to spend less time on the website and I started posting less and less “stuff” on it. Most of the updates on my timeline since the last year have been about posts I have been tagged in. I felt like Facebook was slowly becoming less engaging and felt like it was just a big graffiti wall filled with my friends rants about the smallest of things. My news feed became a steady stream of irrelevant “daily quotes”, game invites (I do not want to play Diamond Dash) and narcissistic pho...

An Ominous Question – what is free? If I were to ask this question 10 years ago (even 5 years ago), it would be passed off as a rhetorical question that has no real meaning, however today, it is a question we should all seriously consider. In the advent of all these free web services (social networking/ photosharing/ blogging/ etc) and the rapid growth of companies like  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram  one has to start wondering- how do these companies grow so big in Market Valuation when they are offering a free service? What products are they selling and to who? I am certainly not buying anything from them as 100% of the services I get from them is free. So what is their business model? The product is you (or your personal information shared through these webservices) and their customers are the big Advertising companies (they match the advertising content w/ your personal information). What do you mean I am the product?   I mean everythi...