This week saw us yearning after some ‘appliance 2.0’ technology including ‘connected’ washers/dryers and a freezer failure sensor kit.
We reviewed a poster printing service which we thought was pretty good.
The Easy iPod Media Sharer‘s name says it all – useful family gadget. We do love our Gmail; their new lab is cool – an Inbox Preview feature.
We feel that President Obama is taking the right approach in creating a Cyber Czar position.
In a move hailed by computer security experts across the country, President Obama outlined today a new top ‘cybersecurity czar’ position that would operate out of the White House and have direct access to the president. This speech included reference to a new comprehensive approach to US computer security.
What we say – thank you Mr President. It’s about time a president recognizes how important and potentially fragile our computer systems and networks are. As a sys admin who understands how easily systems can be hacked, I constantly worry that a truly malicious hacker is going to come along and really stick it to us. And I’m not even a pure security expert; they know of 10x as many vulnerabilities as I do!
I love the fact that his speech included terms like ‘malware, spyware, spoofing’ and more. You can see (or read) the president’s speech on the White House website.
Only last week Obama expressed his desire to hang on to his Blackberry:
“I’m still clinging to my BlackBerry. They’re going to pry it out of my hands,” Obama said in a broadcast last week televised by CNBC. “You are interacting with people who are outside of the White House in a meaningful way.”
The concern with Obama continuing to use a Blackberry centers around the fear of the device being hacked. McAfee has detected only a few attacks against the RIM device which is credited to the unique network controlled by RIM. While US engineers might be able to build a Blackberry that uses higher levels of encryption than RIM and the wireless carriers, without this special version Obama’s message cannot have confidence of privacy.
“If Obama uses a vanilla BlackBerry, he should use it with the assumption that the world will read it,” said Entner, the analyst. “His counterparts in the capitals of several countries will read it.”
Research In Motion (RIM), the manufacturer of the Blackberry, has enjoyed an increase in sales thanks to Obama’s free publicity.
