PEDES3ANTECH

This post is long delayed. I apologize. I will be honest, this book was hard to read but it was rewarding at the end. One of the biggest challenge for me in reading this book was the language used. It was written in old 19th Century English where the sentence construction is totally different from what I am used to. Let me give you an example: He is alive. Greatly changed, it is too probable; almost a wreck, it is possible; though we will hope the best. Still, alive. Your father has been taken to the house of an old servant in Paris, and we are going there: I, to identify him if I can: you, to restore him to life, love, duty, rest, comfort. I found it hard reading these types of sentences, and the book was full of it. What I noticed is that the sentences made it hard for me to get a feel of the ideas flowing. I had to stop a few times and re-read some sentences to fully understand them. Maybe this was intentional to convey a sense of uncertainty as the story unfolded and as the ch...

First Edition Cover - image  source   This book resonated a lot with me. If you follow my blog or my twitter timeline you will see one theme that I am very passionate about - privacy and how the surveillance state is trying to eradicate it.  I became very passionate about this topic when I read about Snowden's revelations. Reading about the NSA's surveillance program and their seeming disregard of individual privacy was shocking to me. It made me want to know more about how our data is being collected and how it is being exposed to surveillance. Reading George Orwell's 1984 felt like it was a critique of our current state. There were three themes in the story that really struck me the most and I will go through each one of them in this post. The mere threat of constant surveillance is enough to kill dissent.  In the book the Party had installed countless Telescreens and listening devices as part of its surveillance infrastructure. The Thought Police could...

My humble book collection.  Almost everyone everywhere every year comes up with their own new years resolution. My wife, my son and I are no different. This year we decided to start a family project - to come up with a list of 100 books to read in our lifetime and start reading them. We got this idea when we were watching The Equalizer by Denzel Washington. In this movie Denzel Washington's character had a list of 100 books he wanted to read in his lifetime - an idea he got from his wife. The movie got us interested in this project and we decided to do it. There are a few immediate benefits to this project: It is very cheap - we both love going to the Public Library so access to these books was fairly easy and cheap. Some people want to go on a trip or buy a cool new gadget but this project costs nothing.  It is very easy to do. Me, my wife and my son can read and that is basically all that is required. It does not require any preparation, special skill or equipm...

Obama during his January 17, 2014 speech. Photo credit thinkprogress.org We are coming up to the 1 year anniversary of President Obama's speech promising the American people reforms on how the NSA works (see transcript of speech here ). Although the speech was an exercise in political babbling it had some promised reforms that would have limited the NSA's capabilities. On January 17, 2014 President Barack Obama promised the following reforms to the American people; Strengthen Executive oversight and review of Intelligence operation.          Obama said: " This guidance will strengthen executive branch oversight of our intelligence activities. It will ensure that we take into account our security requirements, but also our alliances, our trade and investment relationships, including the concerns of American companies, and our commitment to privacy and basic liberties. And we will review decisions about intelligence priorities and se...

The year 2014 was a big year for security and privacy. Big in a sense where people around the world were exposed to the reality that our privacy and security is at risk each and everyday. It was a great year for security and privacy awareness because there has never been a year in my memory when security and privacy took a very central role in our public debate. This is why I want to take a look back at the most important events in 2014 that highlighted the importance of security and privacy protection. Data Breaches in Major Retailers Less than a year after the Target data breach, two major US retailers fell victim to another attack. This time it was Home Depot and Staples. The Home Depot data breach saw the theft of 56 million email address, credit and debit card numbers. The attackers apparently gained access to their network using a vendor username and password - almost similar to how the Target attack began. The Staples data breach was smaller in scope - it exposed just a l...

This is the story of how I turned my iPhone 5 into a fully functional activity and fitness tracker.  This years biggest and most exciting techbuzz has been the rising popularity of wearable technology. Although the term wearable technology has a very broad meaning, recently it has focused mainly on activity tracking and fitness tracking.  Image source: allthatiknow.com Wearable devices like the Nike fuelband, Fitbit Flex, and Jawbone Up are growing in popularity mainly for its ability to track ones activity and monitor fitness. I have long wanted to try one of them out but I had a hard time deciding which one to pick. I read a lot of reviews on all three of them and the reviews are mixed. I researched their specs and features more and found that taken individually, each one seemed to lack something the other was offering. Take for example the ability to track activity and monitor/update calorie in-take and budget.  Say I go for a run and burn a certain amount ...