Cyber Security Awareness

A product recall is not only expensive, it’s embarrassing. You have the build up to the big release, the excitement of launch day… and then you have to sheepishly issue an announcement not to use the product, and here’s everybody’s money back.

No matter how well you test your product, there’s always the chance of that bug or factory defect rendering it useless or even dangerous. We can’t guarantee that a product is safe for release, but we can make product recalls less likely by going the extra step in quality control.

DfM

DfM is a term being thrown around lately, meaning Design for Manufacturability. This means that you need to create a product that is easy to churn out on an assembly line or with a 3D printer. You’re trying to eliminate things like delicate moving parts, finding a more efficient way to build the product.

Verify Your Manufacturers And Suppliers

If you’re looking at a manufacturer that has produced six recalled products in the last two months, look elsewhere. No matter how good your design, no matter how good your product, bad manufacturing is bad manufacturing.

Test The Mass Production Models Personally

Don’t assume that you know what to expect because you took a look at the prototype. Test your mass production models thoroughly before sending them out to store shelves.

Break Your Toys

Don’t just fiddle around in testing and quality control, try to break the product, and see how much effort that takes. If it’s easy, then it’s time to go back to the drawing board.

Have A Plan B

Your plan B will depend on the nature of your product. A device that does not work as advertised might be fixed with something as simple as a firmware update, for instance. You should have a crisis management team of coders and PR professionals to handle the job if something goes wrong.

Keep Your Legal Team In The Loop

Some product recalls take place because of rules and regulations that have changed between design and launch. Keeping your legal team in the loop throughout the entire process of development and production will help to ensure that you’re not wasting a year working on something that’s going to get you sued.

There’s no way to guarantee that you will never have to recall a product, but by taking these steps, you can at least stack the deck in your own favor.

No matter how many resources you’re devoting to cyber security, a website hack is still a very real possibility. An ounce of prevention may be worth a pound of cure, but all the same, you need to have a plan in place for what you’re going to do if your site gets hacked.

Cut The Hackers Off

Before you try to fix the hack, you have to cut the hackers off. Change passwords, take your server offline. Do whatever you have to do to ensure that no more damage is being done.

Put Your Users First

You can fix a website hack. Lost data can be restored. User trust is much more difficult to earn back once it’s been lost. Right away, you need to start doing damage control with your users.

The most important thing here is transparency. Your users have trusted you so far, and you need to reward that trust by being completely honest about what’s going on. If they need to change their passwords, let them know. If some of their data has been compromised, make sure that they are aware of this. It’s not just your website that’s been hacked, it’s the data of everyone who uses the site. Make sure that your users know what’s up so that they can respond accordingly.

Break The News

If it’s a major story, then it’s a story that you need to take control of. In tech reporting, the story that breaks first is usually the version people stick to. If you break the story yourself with a press release to relevant blogs and websites, then you can cut off damaging speculation before it starts.

Take Preventative Measures

The silver lining to a website hack is that it teaches us where our vulnerabilities lie. This is why websites like Google offer bounties to anyone who can crack their security.

This is a basic guideline, but you need to talk to your people, hold a meeting with your tech staff, with your public relations people, and make sure that you have a comprehensive plan in place should somebody crack into your website and steal data from you and your users. No matter how good your security may be, there are no 100% guarantees in tech. Security is always playing catch-up, always figuring out how to combat what hackers have already done in the past. This means that learning as we go is just part of the job.

Building your own PC from scratch is a lot of fun. Clicking all the pieces together like Lego bricks, and then turning it on and watching it hum to life. If you want a serious gaming rig, you’re a lot better off building a PC than you are buying one that’s ready-made. With some gaming computer brands, you’re really paying a lot of money for a mid-tier computer with high-end casing.

If you’re intimidated by the prospect of putting a powerful piece of hardware together yourself, the truth is that all the research you need to do, you can figure it out in a weekend by checking out recommended components and the minimum requirements for recently-released games.

This being said, security is a major concern when it comes to home-built PC’s. A ready-made laptop or desktop usually comes with a free copy of an operating system, as well as free anti-virus software. Building a PC from scratch means that you need to take cyber security into your own hands. Here are some of the common downfalls when it comes to custom-built PC’s and cyber security:

Pirated Software

Since a custom-built PC doesn’t come with a free copy of Windows, you might be tempted to save a little cash by torrenting an OS. The main problem you’re going to run into here: No registration means no auto-updates. This may not seem like such a big deal with all the complaints you’re reading about Windows 10, but this also means no auto-updates to your security software.

You’re On Your Own When Selecting Antivirus Software

With a ready-made PC or laptop, you don’t need to worry about it, you can use whatever antivirus software comes included. If you’re building your own, you’ll need to shop around and find one that you like. Avira, Avast and AVG all offer decent free software packages, while Kaspersky and Norton are leaders in the field if you’re willing to pay an annual subscription fee.

“Is It A Virus Or Did I Install Something Wrong?”

It can be hard to tell an infection apart from a hardware problem, and it’s easy to assume that you just “messed something up” when in fact you’ve contracted some malware, or vice versa. The more how-to videos you watch, the more double-checking you do with your diagrams, the easier it will be to know whether you’re dealing with malware, or a misplaced component.

Don’t let these concerns deter you. Building a PC from scratch is one of the most rewarding things you can do with a spare afternoon.

Remember when they first started building the Large Hadron Collider? So many people expressed concern that the experiment would create a rift in the space time continuum, or result in a black hole that swallows up the entire planet, or create an atomic explosion large enough to blast a hemisphere off the face of the Earth or any number of far-fetched sci-fi fantasies.

And then it turned out that all the machine really does is bang atoms together really fast… and we were kind of disappointed, weren’t we?

In truth, ultra-high-energy cosmic rays actually strike the planet at a much higher energy than the LHC is capable of producing. All the LHC does is take natural phenomena (that hasn’t killed any of us yet) and put it in a controlled environment where we can measure the results.

By the time the LHC project was attacked by hackers in 2008, the world had already stopped paying attention. The facility was hacked by a group calling themselves “GST: Greek Security Team,” with the signoff “We are 2600 – dont mess with us.”

Although the hack amounted to little more than a prank, the team at CERN reported that this was nevertheless worrying, as the hackers were “one step away” from the control system for one of the machine’s detectors, a 12,500 ton magnet, and the program’s website went offline following the attack.

Of course, the real concern isn’t so much that the hackers could have used the machine as some kind of doomsday device, just that the project cost close to six billion dollars to put together, and if they had done any serious damage to it, then that could have resulted in some very costly repairs.

Built to investigate the possible existence of the Higgs boson particle, the LHC was found to produce several Higgs bosons per minute, finally confirming something that had long been just a theory. The implications for physicists was tremendous… not that the general public really cared all that much.

The LHC is currently planned to see some upgrades, including a “high luminosity” feature, though this won’t come to pass until sometime after 2022.

So if you’ve ever wondered what’s the worst that could happen if someone hacked the Large Hadron Collider, now you know: It might set the project back a few million dollars. Some doomsday device, it couldn’t even blow up a continent, let alone the entire planet.

Something that some long-time gamers don’t even know: The original Street Fighter II combo system happened by accident. It was an exploit that experienced players could use to strike their opponent two or more times before their opponent had time to recover. It wasn’t a hack, it was just an “exploit.” The next time you think an opponent has hacked an online game in order to gain an unfair advantage against you, check this list and make sure they’re not just really, really good at bending the game to their will:

Overwatch Players Giving Each Other The Boot

Overwatch is a class-based multiplayer shooter, like Team Fortress 2. One of the character classes, Ana, the sniper, has the ability to actually kick players right out of the game. Here’s how: With multiple snipers targeting the same player with tranquilizer rounds, a team can keep another player asleep and inactive for so long that the game registers them as idle and boots them out of the game. The bug has since been patched, but you can imagine the number of players who thought they’d been hit with a DDOS attack when they got ganged up on like this.

World Of Warcraft: The Reckoning

Way back when World of Warcraft was still relatively new, a player using the Paladin class could get some incredible mileage out of the “Reckoning” ability. This would allow you to save up bonus attacks every time you were struck with a critical hit, and then unleash them all at once. A Paladin player unleashed a barrage of all 2,000 bonus attacks he’d been saving, crushing the 40-man raid boss Lord Kazzak in seconds and effectively shutting the game down for the day.

Left 4 Dead Car-Blocking

When the original Left 4 Dead was released, it was riddled with the kind of bugs and glitches that could only really be discovered by turning the game loose on the world and letting players discover them. A popular exploit in Versus mode allowed the person playing as the musclebound Tank zombie to knock cars around, blocking vital paths for the people playing as the human survivors. Nowhere was this more of a game-ender than the sewers in the No Mercy campaign, where the only exit is a tiny manhole that, if blocked with a car, creates a complete and total dead-end, allowing the respawning zombie players to feast on the humans who are unable to proceed. The glitch didn’t take long to patch, but it caused plenty of people to pull the disc out of the Xbox and snap it in two before it got fixed.

Long story short: Not every cheat is a hack. Exploits exist in everything from video games to phone apps, and that’s why we have the beta release process, because you can’t always find them without the help of user feedback.

If you keep up with pop-science at all, then you’ve probably encountered the whole “string theory” hypothesis, or the notion that we’re living in a hologram or inside the database of a giant computer, like in The Matrix. It’s one of those theories that doesn’t actually make much of a difference in our daily lives if we can’t prove it. We might as well just go on with our lives as usual, right? But, that doesn’t mean it’s not a lot of fun to think about. If someone could prove that we’re all living in a game of The Sims, what would the implications be?

Crime and punishment is one area where things might change considerably. If we could prove that we were all living in a simulation, would crime really be that big a deal? Stealing a car would be about as serious a crime as cheating in a game of Overwatch. Likewise, sending someone to prison wouldn’t be that big of a deal, either.

Online video games like Titanfall punish cheaters in a fairly clever way, by sending them to play in servers populated entirely with other cheaters. If we were living in a simulation, we could just send criminals to another server where every time they steal a car, it gets stolen from them the minute they park it. We’ll play The Sims, let them have their Grand Theft Auto.

Medical science is a field hindered by the mysteries of the human body. Almost any bug or virus or damaged part in a computer system can be repaired by an experienced technician. Too often, in medical science, there’s simply no fixing something. Doctors have yet to perform a successful head transplant, but anyone with a screwdriver and a phone to read Wikihow can replace a hard drive in their computer. Imagine if you could cure cancer or repair a broken bone with a keyboard and a little javascript knowledge.

The simulation hypothesis dates back at least as far as “Maya,” an Indian concept through which one might look at life as a series of illusions that might as well be concrete and real. In any event, while movies like The Matrix might see a digital landscape as a prison, you have to admit, it would take a lot of the pressure off of our daily affairs at work and at home, wouldn’t it?

We’ve all met our share of conspiracy theorists, right? People who insist that everything is part of a sinister plan to keep you ignorant of alien visitors or something. Some of these people come off as total loons, others… make a little more sense than we’d like to admit.

The so-called Theory of Electronic Conspiracy may or may not be a real threat, but it’s an interesting concept, all the same. Here’s how this scheme works:

The Basic Premise

The foundation of this theory is the belief that a New World Order-like secret society has been planning for centuries to achieve global domination, whether through uncontested control, or even global destruction. The plan goes back to well before modern technology existed even in theory, starting with…

1. Paper Currency

   According to the theory, this began in the Renaissance, when the use of precious metal coins was phased out for paper money. This was just setting us up for…

2. Virtual Currency

   This means credit cards. Money is no longer tangible and no longer tied to any metal standard, it’s an abstract number based entirely in magnetic strips.

3. The Internet and eCommerce

   The market goes completely virtual in this phase. When you buy something, no money changes hands, nobody even meets face to face. You punch some passwords into the computer, and your new printer or a DVD of Point Break is delivered to your door a few days later.

4. Consolidation of Banking Power

   This takes place through international banking fusions, putting a majority of the world’s money into only a few hands.

5. The eID

   Electronic Identification Cards are the next step, replacing driver’s licenses, state-ID cards and so on with a global standard of credit-card-like ID’s.

6. THE GREAT WORLDWIDE BLACKOUT!

   This is the big finish line for this group. A blackout on a planetary scale, like at the end of Escape from L.A. This will erase the data from every electronic account on the planet, resulting in chaos and poverty and a return to primitivism and slavery. Blackouts in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia following the September 11, 2001 attacks were mere test runs for the Big Show.

The trick with conspiracy theories like these is that you look at the first four steps and think “Holy cow, those all happened!” Of course, it’s a lot less impressive when you remember that this conspiracy theory didn’t come about until all four steps had already been achieved. Everyone’s Nostradamus when they only have to predict stuff that already happened.

If you live in a milder climate like, say, the more comfortable parts of California or Washington, or a colder region like the Midwest, then you have perhaps never given this any consideration, but in states like Nevada, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, then you know how the Summertime heat can affect your electronic equipment. On a particularly warm day, your laptop might become too hot to even rest your hands on for typing. This isn’t only a nuisance, it can cause serious long-term damage.

Identifying Overheating

If your operating system doesn’t allow you to monitor internal CPU temperature, then you can download a program like Real Temp to keep an eye on it. Beyond this, there are some obvious signs of overheating:

• Choppy, “glitchy” graphics. This is most obvious if you’re playing games on a PC or a gaming console. When the framerate slows down and starts looking like an Ray Harryhausen stop-motion monster movie, you’re probably dealing with overheating.
• Your device shuts itself off. A lot of operating systems will automatically shut the computer or device down when the CPU temp gets too high.
• Intense slowdown. When it takes a few seconds to move your mouse cursor across the screen, overheating is a likely culprit.

Dealing With Overheating

Here are some of the easiest ways to manage overheating on hot days:

• Double check your fans. Open up the case and let the computer run. If your fans aren’t spinning, it could be a loose wire or a fan that needs replacing. You can use a desk fan to keep your computer cool until you can replace the internal fans.
• Keep the room’s temperature cool. If you live in a warmer state, then during the Summer, you probably shouldn’t be running a PC or even a gaming console in a room without any temperature control.
• Keep a can of air on hand. The dust that collects inside a device is like a warm, cozy blanket that traps heat within the components.
• Task manager, end process, end process, end process, end process… Ending and uninstalling unnecessary background processes can put less of a workload on your computer, preventing it from overheating. If you’re not sure which processes are safe to end and which programs are safe to uninstall, Google them.
• Become a night owl. This is more realistic of an option for some than it is for others, but if you like working at night, Summertime is the time to do it.

We spend so much time chasing bugs and viruses that we sometimes forget that computers are physical machines, and sometimes it’s not a worm or malware, it’s just running a bit of a fever.

It’s getting to the point where science-fiction is having a hard time keeping up with science-fact. If you put a sci-fi movie into production right now, the fancy gadgets you have on display might be found in the clearance section of your nearest Wal-Mart by the time the movie is actually released. Here are some devices, gadgets and gimmicks shown in movies that real-life developers have already figured out, or are at least very close to cracking:

Predator’s Stealth Camo

The story goes that when Predator was screened for an audience of top-brass military professionals, a high-ranking general pointed to the Predator’s invisibility cloak technology and said “Make that for me.” We’re not quite there yet, but we’re getting closer all the time. It’s a little impractical for combat operations right now, but a group of researchers in Japan have developed a material that can be used to see right through the wearer. It requires a computer and a projector as of now, but the effect is nevertheless stunning.

Lightsabers

The challenge with a real life lightsaber is not actually creating a devastating beam of light, but telling that beam of light when to stop. If you want a superpowerful lasersword that will burn holes in your drywall if you’re too careless with it, you can actually put one together with a handful of parts from the hardware store and eBay. Similar projects have been built to launch a “blade” of flaming propane, but let’s be honest: If it’s not a laser, it doesn’t really count.

Artificial Organs

Repo Men featured Jude Law as an agent who retrieves artificial organs from patients who can’t afford to make the payments. They got one major detail completely wrong: In the future, artificial 3D bio-printed organs are not going to be expensive enough to justify paying Jude Law a commission to go get them back. As of now, an artificial heart costs around $125,000 and an annual maintenance fee of $18,000. However, as 3D printing becomes the norm, the cost is going to be driven way, way down, and bio-printing is no exception.

James Bond Villain Doomsday Devices

The Navy is currently using a laser, known as the LaWS, Laser Weapons System, powerful enough to destroy boats and drones. And it’s operated with a video game controller.

There have actually been stories of filmmakers and science fiction writers being contracted to help develop new technology for the military and other organizations. There’s a fun documentary available on Youtube showing how everything from the modern cell phone to voice recognition technology and even cyborg implants were inspired by their developers’ Star Trek fandom. Today’s wild idea is tomorrow’s DIY project you can throw together in your garage.

The Internet of Things is one of the most exciting things happening in technology today. How can you not like the idea of an air conditioner that checks in with a weather site, and automatically turns itself up just before a heat wave hits, or an HDTV that tracks your favorite shows and makes appropriate recommendations? That said, there are some devices that are just fine the way they are, for instance…

Vending Machines

If vending machines are going to be brought into the IoT, here’s the only feature we want: the ability to tell the supplier when the machine is down to nothing but a few bags of raisiny trail mix and some stale peanut butter crackers. Here’s what we absolutely do not want: For the vending machine to communicate with our Fitbit and refuse to give us the Snickers bar we asked for. If we wanted a smarter way to indulge in junk food, we wouldn’t be eating junk food.

Electric Razors

We’d simply rather there not be a database somewhere collecting information on which body parts we’re shaving. The moles on a man’s back are his business and his alone.

Fax Machines

There’s nothing wrong with a smart fax machine, per se. The issue is simply that most of us wish fax machines would just disappear forever already, and keeping them up to date with modern technology would be a roadblock on the way to phasing them out forever so that we never again are forced to scour the city for a library with a fax machine so that we can send something that we could have just emailed.

Recording Equipment

Microphones, tape recorders, video cameras, yes, we have these all attached to our phones, but there are plenty of obvious reasons why we would want to keep some of these devices offline. In the debate on personal privacy and user consent regarding IoT-connected devices, it stands to reason that there’s some content we would rather not go public until we decide that we want it to go public. The cloud is not inherently less-safe than local storage, but all the same, the double edged-sword of the IoT is that, all too frequently, we trade privacy for convenience.

This list is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but even so, we’re still adapting to the Internet of Things, and sometimes we let our excitement over new technology get the better of us.