Pizza Ordering Technology At its Finest

In Dubai, a pizza company has come up with an even faster way to order pizza. The device is a fridge magnet button that connects via Bluetooth to a smartphone. When the button is pressed, it sends a message to the pizza company and your preset  pizza, that the user set up online, will be delivered. Although this is only in Dubai right now, it seems like this device will become popular in other parts of the world, especially in North America where fast food is a large market.

Although this device does have its conveniences, in my opinion, it is promoting an unhealthy life style and at the same time, an even larger disconnect with society. We no longer have to speak to a human to order a pizza, and we do not even have to leave our house to get it.  Pizza delivery has been around as long as I can remember, but being able to order your food online is more recent. Now we have a device that we don't even have to go online to order pizza, we can order at the press of a button.

Although pizza is considered a vegetable in the United States (source), and one of my favorite foods, in my opinion it is still junk food. With health problems concerning weight on the rise, we should not be making this type of food more accessible using the Internet. Pizza at the press of a button is not beneficial to anyone. I feel this device would be ten times better if it delivered a bag of apples or a mixed bag of fruits.

Lastly, something that bugged me about this button is that it says "Press for hunger". Press for hunger? Why would I order a pizza to become hungry? Simple mistake that I found a bit annoying.

Article: http://www.slashgear.com/pizza-ordering-bluetooth-fridge-magnet-offers-one-click-snackage-27220173/

Microsoft Blocking Links to Pirate Bay in Windows Live Messenger

I read an article today about how Microsoft has filtered links to the Pirate Bay website when ever someone enters it into a Windows Live Messenger chat session. They have not given reason for this, and also all other torrent sites offering the same material that Pirate Bay offers are unaffected. It seems that Microsoft is actively monitoring our chat sessions and this has possibly carried over to Skype as well, since it is also a Microsoft product.

My question is, if Microsoft is against piracy, then why have they only blocked one specific site? Why did they choose Pirate Bay over, say, Isohunt? Why not block all torrent related sites if they are so keen on preventing people from sharing links? Sure Microsoft has the right to do anything they want with their software, but Windows Live Messenger is something that we should be able to use to communicate with our friends freely. They have no right to prevent us access to Web pages.

There are many alternatives to sharing these blocked links. For example, if they are only monitoring for exact phrase, then a user can simple type "pirate bay.com" with a message telling their friend to remove the space, instead of "priatebay.com". This takes very little effort, and if Microsoft is the least bit up to date in how their software is used, then they should know this. With many alternatives, why even block it at all?

To me, this is very unethical and I feel that if they want to make a statement about piracy, then they shouldn't be using means as this to do so. They should at least give reason as to why they chose to block only one site, rather than all of them, since they host the same material. I'm a big fan of Microsoft and Bill Gates, and for them to do things like this is really detrimental to their image.


Article: http://torrentfreak.com/microsoft-censors-pirate-bay-links-in-windows-live-messenger-120324/

Bill C-30 Requirement: Paying For Your Own Surveillance

Browsing through some articles on the latest news on Bill C-30, I came across one that describes the options to fund the added surveillance to our cell phones and internet usage. The three that were proposed to the government are:

• the telecom companies and Internet providers could pass along the costs in the form of a "public safety tariff" that would apply on monthly consumer bills
• the government could provide tax credits to telecom companies and Internet providers
• the government could establish a federal funding pool to cover the costs

The government rejected all three, but didn't propose how they would come up with the funding. Given that the government really has few other option than to gather funding from taxes, it seems inevitable that that is what will be funding our surveillance. 

This is something that is sure to stir up some commotion if the bill passes and in my opinion the pay offs for the added surveillance is less than the fact that everyone has to suffer with the added fees. Phone and Internet bills are not cheap, and to add the funding for our own privacy invasion is basically salting the wounds. Obviously the money has to come from somewhere, but the people who are against this bill should not be forced to pay for it.

I think that there should be something that separates the for and against and the people that are for the bill should have the majority of the weight for the funding, since this is something they would like happen. If the added funds to the people that are for the bill is too much, it will show that people are not willing to pay money for something they do not support and the government should respect that since this is a democracy.  

The information for these topics should be widely public since many people will end up paying for something that is actually detrimental to their own privacy.

Articles:
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6379/125/
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1136406--bill-c-30-opens-canada-to-big-brother-inc-business-geist

Anonymous Takes Down Vatican Website

We discussed in lecture last week about how groups use DOS (denial of service) attacks on websites to take them down, basically by overloading their servers with activity. We discussed how Anonymous attempted this once before, but was unsuccessful. Well, this week they tried again and succeeded. Although they didn't do much damages, as the site wasn't down for very long, it shows how any site is vulnerable if enough people are involved.

Anonymous is an technologically advanced activist, or a "hacktivist", group that uses the power of the internet to get their point across. Although these attacks on websites are illegal, I don't really disagree with what they are doing. They attack corporations that tend to damage society, and more recently, websites that abuse children.

For the police to step in and do what this group does legally would be very difficult, and obviously they couldn't be as damaging as Anonymous. This group, although deemed negative, is really only negative in a sense they carry out their protests illegally, in my opinion. They are sort of like the online Robin Hood by taking down web pages of those who abuse children because realistically, the government would never attempt to take down the Vatican web page, even though there are many cases, known and unknown, of child abuse in the Roman Catholic society.

I think that groups that help a cause that many people push under the rug deserve some credit, and possibly more support. Although they have done negative things, they also do positive things and it has opened my eyes to what really happens on the web, and how society really doesn't do much to filter these things out, not as much as Anonymous does anyway.

Articles:
- http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2012-03-07/anonymous-vatican-hacked/53399832/1?csp=34news
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8846577/Anonymous-hacktivists-target-child-abuse-websites.html
- More information on the group: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology

"Irish SOPA" Signed in Ireland

Last week the Irish version of SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) was signed and passed in Ireland. This is a huge failure in protecting ourselves from censorship on the internet. Although roughly 80,000 citizens were against the signing of the bill, the Irish government still went through with it. In a democratic view, this is a huge contradiction. 80,000 people is a large group and completely ignoring their opinion is ridiculous.

The Irish Recorded Music Association supported this bill, which is not very surprising, which likely influenced the decision dramatically. People have a choice in a democracy and we should also be allowed to choose which bills pass, not just large corporations whose problem is much more than piracy. The way music industry is modeled is another discussion, but I feel like if the music industry doesn't change its opinion on piracy, the industry will collapse.

I feel like this could be a foreshadowing of what is to come with other countries. It is more likely that countries will follow in signing the bill if things don't go horribly wrong in Ireland after the pass of the bill. As citizens, we have limited power in the final decision of our government when it comes to something like this and if the government can blatantly ignore our efforts in deciding whether or not the bill should pass is anything but democratic.

The debates of SOPA and other piracy stopping bills will be an unstable topic for as long as the music industry, and other industries affected by piracy, refuse to rethink their business models. In my opinion, piracy isn't completely harming the music industry, but it's the music industry harming the musicians. Musicians are more often releasing their music for free online, which shows they understand that having their music "stolen" isn't the problem.

Conclusively, the government should only be influenced in signing SOPA by the citizens and not by corporations because their opinions are to maximize profits while the citizens are looking to maximize freedoms, where, in my opinion, far outweighs money. 

Articles:
https://torrentfreak.com/sopa-ireland-signed-into-law-120229/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/01/irish-sopa-legislation-passed?newsfeed=true

Facebook Spying on Text Messages

Reading this article has changed my thoughts about how major internet companies are collecting personal data without the knowledge of the clients. Although it may say exactly what they are doing in their privacy policy, the amount of people who are willing to read through the entire document, or the people who are willing to boycott the service because of these breaches of privacy are few, thus there are still millions of people being spied on.

Facebook has over half a billion users, and even though they can monitor all of the activity that occurs over their servers, they still admit to tracking text messages of the client's that have downloaded their Facebook application. What really surprised me is the fact the YouTube can remotely access user's smartphone cameras taking pictures or videos at any time.

With the popularity of these two companies it seems like they are pushing the limits of the data that they really need in order to maintain a popular and enjoyable experience using their product. Logically I cannot see a reason that a video hosting website would need to take arbitrary images and videos. Posting a video on YouTube and having a video randomly snapped without your knowledge are two totally different things.

I feel that these companies really need to make it clear to users what they are doing and what the purpose of it is. By make it clear, I mean explaining this outside of their privacy policy where in the article it claims 70% of users do not read, which means 70% of users do not know about these invasions.

Monitoring data with a 70% secrecy rate seems outrageous, and in my opinion this quickly needs to change. Privacy isn't a luxury, it is a right, and these companies need to understand this.


Article link again:

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/facebook-spies-on-phone-users-text-messages-report-says/story-e6frfku0-1226282017490

Catholic Schools in Toronto Look to Ban WiFi in Classrooms

A group of teachers that are members of  The Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association are looking to ban WiFi in schools because of the potential health risks. The author of the article that I read about has a very strong opinion about this debate, which I agree with. In the article it states that "Radiation exposure from WiFi is about 100,000 times less than waves emitted from a microwave". He makes the argument that if we remove wireless routers, why not remove the microwaves as well since they also pose a risk. I agree fully because it is contradictory to allow the removal of a very useful and efficient technology, wireless internet, while on the other hand allow the convenience of a microwave oven while both present the same health concern. 

Wireless internet is wildly used around the world and some cities are even implementing municipal wireless networks, which turns the whole city into a large wireless access zone. Clearly if WiFi posed such danger, this would not even be considered in such a large scale as an entire city. Wireless internet, in my opinion, is a great asset as it allows students to access information, or allows teachers to present information in a variety of ways. 

As a personal example, when I was in grade 7, all we did during every history class was copy page after page on an overhead slide and none of it was ever really presented or explained. We did have internet, but wireless internet wasn't implemented into school. If we had some multimedia presentation I think my view of history class would be quite different, since all I really didn't benefit from being in that class. 

Conclusively, wireless internet in elementary schools seems more beneficial to education than detrimental to health, and I agree with the author that there should be no problem in having it in the schools.

Article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-health/andre-picard/a-catholic-teachers-association-

looks-to-ban-wifi-whats-next-coffee/article2343964/