Editorials

The Consumer Electronics world is a very interesting one (it is also very entertaining). There is a ton of money and effort put into conveying a message for this or that product and service by people that, often, do not even know the technology they are talking about. On top of that there is a media presence that is made up of everything from the entry level user to the ubergeeks. You have blogs, news sites, review sites, company review sites, Amazon reviews, New Egg Blogs and customer reviews and more. It is almost impossible to get any real information out of what is broadcast on the internet these days. This is even more true when you have all of these sites rushing to get their article out first. This environment has created a situation where information is partially researched, based solely on synthetic tests or (even worse) is more opinion than fact.

There is a rumor going around (from “sources wishing to remain anonymous”) that claims that US Law Enforcement and the NSA have been asking internet companies for user passwords. The article originally posted by cNet has made the rounds this morning across a few sites; all of them pointing back at the single cNet source. Now on top of everything else that is going on many people are ready to jump on board with this and further denounce the NSA, the FBI, DHS, IRS, and anyone else in the US government with initials. But outside of the claims from a single blogger at cNet are there any other indications that this is a common practice?

Data security (and privacy) has been in the news a lot lately as if it is a new and troubling issue. In fact this has been a major topic of discussion going back to the mid-1980s when the first consumer available modems hit the market. This started the practice of war dialing where phone phreaks would dial random numbers to see if any would answer to their computers. One of the more famous phone phreaks is none other than Steve Wozniak, Co-Founder of Apple Computers. These are the guys that pioneered the hacking scene (and in some cases the piracy scene as well). Back then security was primitive and usually consisted nothing more than a login and a password. Fast forward more than 30 years and the security of some places is little better than what it was back in the war dialing days.

Yesterday there was a vote on one of the more important pieces of legislation to go through Congress this year. Despite its importance there was very little media coverage outside the internet and the few sites that are still determined to fight for people’s right to privacy. The bill was named HR 2397 and was introduced by Representative Justin Amash (R MI) and was intended to deny funding to the NSA for any program that allows for broad (warrantless) spying on US Citizens.