Techno babel, decoded.

The single biggest reason computers, phones, an other devices get "Hacked" aka exploited by malware is that people don't do their updates. It doesn't matter if you are windows, linux, mac, android, ios, windows mobile, blackberry, or something else.   If you aren't on the latest version of your device or OS software/firmware, you are VULNERABLE to KNOWN exploits. So do your updates.   What are you waiting for? Reason #2, email. Be skeptical of email.  Make sure the language used matches the person.  You can usually spot fake email by typos, something sounding off, or perhaps just unusual.  Learn to spot the warnings. Reason #3: Pop-ups. Holy smokes these are insidious!  They are a webpage designed to get you to install something you don't want or need. Everyone is the 10,000 user.  Everyone gets a chance to "spin the wheel". Your computer hasn't been infected, that isn't an actual malware scanner it is a web page trying to fake y

These are two vulnerabilities that affect how the kernel memory is handled and processed in a computer and the operating system.  Because of these vulnerabilities, Hackers could gain access to almost anything in your computer because of the types of information available in memory that should be isolated.  For example passwords, credit card information you are typing into a website, etc.  So you NEED to do these patches ASAP.  Seriously!  Like, stop reading, do your windows/apple/ios/android etc... UPDATES RIGHT NOW!.  Go on... I'll be here when you get back... You are doing your updates right now.. RIGHT?  Now that you have done your updates expect every device to take a performance hit.  This can be SIGNIFICANT and noticeable.  This could be as little as 1-2 percent on some devices or as much as 30% on Windows OS devices affected by both vulnerabilities.  Because they had to fundamentally change how virtual memory is handled to make it safer and work around the phy

TLDR: Big brother is watching everything you do online and using it to sell you stuff. Okay, so it probably isn't quite as Orwellian as I made it sound above, but it isn't that far off.   Big data is the process of gathering information about people and applying statistical analysis to determine correlation and causation. Well, okay it's really just referring to processing such large data sets that traditional computers can't handle it but what people are doing with Big Data is more what this post is about. When I say large data sets I'm not talking about 100's of gigs or even terabytes of data.  I'm talking about 10's or 100's of terabytes of data.   Literally meaning it takes a combination of super computers and storage arrays to actually process the data.   So what is this data and where does it come from? Lets start with the easy examples, our phones.   I use an android phone.  So Google is tracking my location even when the GPS i

Let me give you the short and simple breakdown. UPDATED at 8:35est 1-3-18: This vulnerability affects AMD and many mobile chipsets as well. This means that basically every modern chipsets and OS is affected by this security vulnerability.  Update:This should say INTEL, AMD and ARM instead of just INTEL. Original: INTEL has a bug in the way hardware addresses virtual memory in the chip.   This could allow hackers to access a lot of information that they shouldn't be able to and make it easier for them to take over your computer.  This will affect EVERY INTEL chip regardless of the Operating System.   All the Operating System vendors are releasing patches very soon to address this issue so it is CRITICAL that you DO YOUR PATCHES! On windows systems you are going to take a performance hit.  Your system will be slower after the patch, up to 30% slower.  Mac OS has been patched since 10.3.2 (if you aren't on this version upgrade ASAP.) and Linux should be getting a patch

Welcome to 2018 everyone. I hope you had a Happy and Safe New Year however you choose to celebrate. I'd like to thank you for reading this blog.  I'd like to remind you that the internet is a dangerous place and this year it is going to start getting UGLY. With the Net Neutrality repeal, the internet in the US is going to take a rapid turn toward big corporations and small independent blogs, vlogs are going to get tossed aside.   This is not an IF.  This is a when . Large companies like Netflix, Facebook, and others can now pay for preferential treatment through your service provider.  I don't think Google will participate, but if it's legal and profitable, a company will use any advantage they can gain.   What am I talking about... YouTube, Blogger, and basically any other Alphabet/Google Company.   Someone could in theory now pay for a preferred status on Google so that their blog/vlog etc stream faster and easier than someone else's. Okay, is it really

I have heard that after the IT companies are going to shut down and it will be automated. Is that true? This was the original question I responded to on Quora? Your question is a bit vague. One of the goals of IT professionals is to automate more heavily in order to make things more efficient and reduce our workload. There are some aspects of IT that can be automated, but for certain things it still takes a human being. We script repetitive tasks. We automate backups so we don’t have to do them manual. We automate updates and maintenance as much as possible. But for some things, there is no substitute for a human being. Especially when you get more complicated problems in the IT infrastructure. Problems with the underlying code of the software or how that code interacts with the network can not be solved by the systems who are required to operate within the code. For example, say your software edits pictures, but each time the software hits a certain combinatio