George Michas

Stories By George Michas

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  Cybersecurity

  Cybersecurity By George Michas

  Internet security in a post-safety age

  The internet is a powerful thing. It can spawn ideas, create movements, influence elections, and create communities. The internet can be used for great things. There is no doubt that the way we communicate and receive information has been shaped by this network of networks. We rely so much on the Internet that we take it for granted. We have the internet on devices that were not envisioned with the internet on our phones, on our games consoles, on our TVs. We have devices that were designed specifically to access the internet, our iPads and Chromebooks. We have devices that have had the internet tastelessly tacked on. Our fridges, our light switches, our doorbells have all become part of the internet. But there is a different side of this. We opted-in to those choices, nobody is making you get a smart fridge (...yet). However, in today's world there is another side of the internet revolution. The revolution of devices that are networked against our will. Our Blu-ray players are networked in the name of DRM, our game consoles need an update to work, our games need an update to play offline. Recently a security blog known as Krebs on Security was attacked by a Botnet composed primarily of DVRs, routers, and IP cameras. These pieces of equipment are notable for their lack of user control. Can you upgrade your DVR's firmware? No, that's your cable providers job. I cannot even update my router; Verizon has blocked me from forcing it to check for updates from Verizon. These missteps may have been "security" features in the past. To make it harder to install a custom firmware on your router, or prevent you from getting free cable. Now they are being abused to censor a security blog. This is a problem that will take time to solve. I think the best question to ask yourself when buying connected devices is: If this was the only thing between my house and a criminal, would I trust it? Because with the Internet of Things it often is. So before order that cheap Wi-Fi light switch, remember that someone else could easily be switching your lights for you. That someone could also be using that light switch to censor a foe. All for the ease of not having to get out of bed to turn off your lights. This is the world we love to live in. So keep it safe, for everyone sake. --- Hey there! If you enjoy what I write please feel free to follow me on Twitter. I don't bite.

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  Cybersecurity

  Cybersecurity By George Michas

  The Pirate's Obituary

  Piracy is dying. With modern platforms like Spotify and Netflix it was inevitable, but with it goes a community. It is this community of uploaders and downloaders, of seeders and leechers, and the technology they created in the hopes of free information and creative expression. There will be outrage, with the mainstream once again being in control, yet somehow losing control, of information. And sure, there will be stragglers, those people unable to give control back to corporations. Those people who I once identified with, this group of people somehow vilified by the same organizations that created them. Those people who did not aim to profit off the work of others, but simply to distribute it without boundaries, without limitations, without restriction. Isn't that the purest form of art? One that is free for the world to appreciate, no matter their location or financial bracket. Those people, the underdogs of information, the ones that didn't do it for the lulz. The ones that did it because they felt it was the right thing to do. The true pirates, the ones that look back to Usenet, to the days where the community—not the content—ruled on a dial-up modem and kilobytes of RAM, and wonder where that community has gone. The ones that know that it was their own collective actions that simultaneously brought the end of that and their community, and the beginning of a new one. Sure pirates can be brash, laughing off copyright notices like they're the antivirus warning of a WAREZ file you know is legit. Sure there's some I'd prefer to remain distant, ones that used the community for profit, the ones that manipulated the community for personal gain. Still, you get those in every community, that one guy at a party who just came to get drunk. I will not name names, those people know who they are and have already accepted it as fact. Those are the people however that cause nice things to go away. I will miss the connection I've made, those whose name still makes me chuckle, the humor in these communities is palatable. The recognition that the work they are doing is serious, but that's no reason not to appreciate it in the most human of ways. The people who started for the freedom and stayed for the community, those I will miss. The organizations who say people wouldn't steal a car if everybody got a free car in the process. I pity your thinking. To the people who gave these organizations ammo: selling pirated movies on eBay or Amazon, I pity your soul. You are why this community is viewed as scum. You are the reason why copying is equal to, if not worse than, theft. The world will not be better or worse without the people of piracy, the world will be different however. It will force the scum of the community even closer to the surface. That is already happening. Some pirates will hide, but some will speak. With fond memories of a time without restrictions, where they got to be a part of something greater than one person. It is best to reflect on the good of any community while not being blind to the bad. Everything is black, everything is white, everything is gray, everything is color, ultraviolet, and infrared. If we do not listen and view the entire spectrum, are we any better than the MP3s and MKVs we put out? We need to be the FLACs of the world. A spectrum matching the medium in which it was created. Piracy is dying, let's pray a world beyond it can match it.

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