Crazy Like Me!

"The Global Village." Its a term used to describe how interconnected the world is now. I can easily chat with someone in Japan while holding a conversation with a friend traveling in Germany. Technology in our world has brought people together in a way that it has never done so before. Sure you could pick up your phone, dial 1 for long distance, then your country code followed by any regional prefix, then area code, local exchange, and finally their phone number and get a hold of my friend for the low price of $0.90 a minute or more, but that hardly gives people the ability to easily share ideas and find others interested in the same things that they are.

This ability to freely share ideas has been a great boon to many. They can find help with projects they work on or just connect with new friends, but is it possible that it is also a negative thing? Before reading further, keep in mind that this is purely an academic discussion. I don't necessarily have these opinions, its just food for thought.

So how would the free sharing of ideas be a negative thing? Perhaps in the sharing of concepts, thoughts, and interests that are part of a subculture that goes against the status quo. That in and of itself might not be a negative, until you add what group it might be that is connecting. People spreading hate and intolerance (groups like Neo Nazis), people sharing misinformation (conspiracy theorists with outlandish and unlikely scenarios), people with strange fetishes (furries). I am loathe to use this example (if only because of the setting), but anyone who has used the online "game" Second Life has more than likely run into at least one person who ran around dressed as a giant fox to derive sexual pleasure. To contrast, of the people that play Second Life, how many people have been walking down the street and bumped into a man in a fursuit? Willing to bet that number is very, very small. If it were not for technology, these people may never realize that there is another person out there with these same interests or even realize that they themselves had these interests.

Another example. A young boy, 17 or so, starts surfing the Internet and comes across a website dedicated to the eradication of a specific ethnic group. He starts reading their propaganda and agreeing with them. Maybe he feels the same way before or perhaps just reading what is being said sways his opinion, but without the ability to come across a website that was created for little, if not zero, money he may have either not felt any animosity towards these groups or maybe kept it to himself. By finding others that agree with him, he now doesn't feel that he may be wrong and more than likely would be more willing to openly state his feelings.

The question I put before you, is this a positive or negative thing? If negative, then does it outweigh the good that is brought about by the same technology? Does the ability to easily and freely spread hate outweigh the ability to find new friends or share scientific advancements that may save millions of lives?

Personally I feel that while there are many negative outcomes from any technology, there is always good and we shouldn't hinder ourselves due to possibly negative outcomes. Nuclear power plants provide energy to millions of homes in the United States alone, but you can't research the production of clean energy without seeing the possibility of creating a extremely powerful weapon. In much the same way, you can't freely share ideas without some ideas slipping through that others question. In the end someone is always going to question if these ideas should be repressed, its your job as an individual to decide what ideas are or are not valid, don't let someone else make the decision for you.

For the record I am fairly moderate in my views. I don't think its the government's or anyone else's place to tell a person what they can or cannot do in the privacy of their own home. While I might not understand a persons interest, and in some cases find it repulsive, so long as you aren't doing it on my coffee table or front lawn, I don't really care.

Computers Are Hard

When I first decided to start writing this, I thought about a daily or semi-daily post of whatever was going on with technology that I had opinions or news on. As the day passed I had more to say and for some reason I felt that posting more than once a day was silly, but still the thoughts tugged at the back of my mind. I don't want the blog to devolve into a bunch of short posts more fitting for a web forum or into a collection of rants that no one cares about. In the end though, all that really matters is the content, and as long as I can produce that then this isn't a total failure.

So during my lunch break today I took my car in for an oil change and tire rotation. If I had a driveway of my own rather than a parking space I might be tempted to do it myself, but alas, I must rely on spending more money than I should for service that I feel is substandard (I could write a novel on how poorly I was treated during my visit). As I am waiting to pay through the nose, the elderly crone behind the desk screeches to the service manager that she cannot properly process my service entry as her "hard drive has crashed." I take a glance at her monitor and can see an error message up on the screen, but everything else looks to be normal. She tries to click some things on the computer to show the manager that her computer was broken and I can see the error message pop up again, "Unable to contact printer." Apparently she had no idea what to do here or how to respond and thus was unable to proceed.

This made me think, why is it that computers are so difficult for some and easy for others. Many people claim that it has to do with exposure. My generation and the ones following have had computers for as long as we can remember. They have been tied into every facet of our lives since, at the very least, we started in school. Because of this exposure we know how to operate them and what should be done in certain situations. I think this is only part of the puzzle though.

I think that the real thing you get from all that exposure is a lack of fear. People are afraid of technology and so when they are prompted with a question they are afraid of clicking the wrong thing. Having said that, I think there is one more component that adds to people's reactions with computers, disinterest. Maybe it is a product of the fear people have of computers and technology, maybe it replaces it entirely, but it is another major factor. I am sure that if you have ever done any IT work or computer repair, then you will have to run into clients that you can classify as either disinterested or afraid of their computer. There are the users who don't care what the problem is, don't want to know anything about it, they just want you to fix it. Then you have the users who get a message on their screen stating exactly what the issue is but call you for help anyways because they feel that they can't understand the problem.

I think people need to understand that they aren't going to break the computer by picking the wrong answer. I don't necessarily want them to go in and delete their Windows folder, but if something comes up and says "Windows would like to apply an update" they can click ok without worrying that they are going to cause all their work to be deleted. Don't be afraid to explore your computer! Open up folders you don't normally use, run applications you have never seen, but temper that with some basic judgment. If something comes up and warns you that changing a value might be bad, read that warning, don't just run away. Think of it like working on your car. You can pop the hood and look around, even crawl under and look at all the workings of it down there without causing an issue. If you are really worried about breaking something, start slow. Check out the options in Microsoft Word or Internet Explorer. If you run into a problem, sit down and think about it, maybe look for a solution on Google, don't fret over it.

Here are a couple of true stories that could have easily been handled by the user had they sat back and thought about the problem or read the error message. Some are probably boring and others you wonder how that could be right, but I assure you each one actually happened.

1. A relative of mine wanted me to look at their computer. Nothing was acting up, but the machine had asked several times in the past if it was ok to apply some Windows Updates. Because they were unsure of what to do, they just closed the notice and left it be. Now you shouldn't just click ok to everything, but Windows Updates should be fine. Microsoft isn't going to release something that breaks their software (insert Vista joke), so installing a few updates shouldn't cause a major issue.
2. A client called in one day stating they had a USB flash drive that wasn't working and wanted to know why. Our engineer (not myself but a coworker) works with them over the phone and connects to their computer with a remote control tool we use (basically a VNC session to their machine). Initially they felt that the drive had picked a drive letter that was in use by a network share and it just needed to be renamed, a common enough issue. As they worked they found that the system didn't appear to recognize that a USB drive was connected. They finally suggest unplugging the USB drive and plugging it back in, in the hopes that Windows would see when it is connected. The user then responds "ok, one minute. I need to get something to open the package with." Turns out that the user had bought the drive, but not taken it out of the package, yet still wondered why it didn't work. I think the user on this one just didn't think much about what they were doing. I mean you don't buy food and leave it in the box on your table and wonder why you are still hungry. You don't buy batteries and put them in your glove box then wonder why your flashlight doesn't shine.
3. Just a few days later I received a call from a general practice doctor that had a wireless broadband card, like the ones you get from Sprint, AT&T, etc. They were working with it and couldn't figure out why they couldn't get on the Internet. The software that you use just sat there stating that it couldn't find the device when it had worked perfectly in the past. After troubleshooting I find what looks like the card in the Device Manager, but not the right type of card. I ask them to slide the PC card out of their laptop and back in, much like my coworker did with the USB drive, and for the same reasons. They tell me that the card is still in the laptop bag, which they don't have with them currently. I thought that perhaps I had misunderstood what they were looking for and asked if they could get it because we would need it to troubleshoot, to which I was asked "You need that to be plugged in to get on the Internet?" Turns out that was the entire problem and oddly enough he just had this issue after using it for 6 months, which means for 6 months the card was in the laptop, then one day they decide to take it out and can't figure out why it didn't work anymore.
4. We had a call one day indicating that a user couldn't get to the Internet or the server. After a bit of troubleshooting we found that it was more than just that one user, but the entire office. We kept working on the issue for a few more minutes before we decided to contact the primary contact for the company and make sure the server wasn't down or anything. The primary contact informed us that the power was out across pretty much the entire building and that the lights were completely out through out the entire building. I am not sure how the end user was able to still use their computer, but the primary contact informed us that everyone in the company was aware of the power outage so they were surprised that someone would call in. I ended up calling the user back and explaining that the computer issues have to do with the power being out, to which they were fairly surprised but understood the connection.

My intent with these stories isn't to belittle the people that faced this issues, but to show that a lot of problems can be addressed by just giving them a little thought. Next time you run into a problem (computer related or not) just take a step back and think about the problem, look at what you are being told, and see if you can find a solution before you give up.

Green Eggs and Spam

Though I am just now starting a blog, I think that a part of me has wanted to for a long time. Blogs, and the Internet in general, can be a fickle thing. Who wants to hear you talk about your opinions on things that may or may not matter? Its hard to say if your opinion on a topic is interesting or just more of the same white noise that already permeates much of the Internet. I suppose the only way to find out is to try.

My over-arcing idea for this blog is to focus on the new and strange things in technology, as well as random musings about anything in between, though I promise to keep the tangents to a minimum.

As a opening I figure I should share a bit about what I do to show I am not just some kook that thinks he knows about computers. In my job I serve as the IT department for a wide range of companies. These companies themselves either cannot afford their own internal IT department, or would rather not deal with it themselves so they come to us. In this role I deal with a wide range of issues, dealing from "I just deleted the Internet, help!" to "the mail server just crashed." Out of all these issues, there is one that seems to eat up more of my time than anything; SPAM. Blocking spam, removing clients from spam lists, explaining to users why they get spam ("Yes ma'am, I realize you don't need a larger penis, but...").

For the last few days I have been working on this for a new client. We took over their network and picked up everything that their previous IT manager had put in place and are expected to keep it running or make it better. They had a few things set up to deal with Spam on their network, the first of which is an application called JEP(S) by Proxmea (don't ask me what JEP(S) stands for). This application does "graylisting" which is a concept that seems ok in theory, but bad in practice.

Their administration document describes the function of the device as such:

The theory of Greylisting
The basics of greylisting works by collecting what is called a triplet made out of the sending mail servers IP address, the senders email address and the recipient email address.

An example triplet could look like this: 62.122.56.27,alice@companyxyz.com,bob@yourdomain.com

This information is saved in a database together with a time stamp of when this combination was first and last seen. Before an email session is accepted the triplet is compared to what is saved in the database and depending on if it’s a new entry or if this triplet has been seen before, it will be blocked or passed.

For example; the first time the above triplet is seen the session will be blocked as it has not been seen before. If the mail is resent immediately (seconds after the first one), the triplet will be compared to what is in the database and then the server will see that it’s only seconds old. This session will then also be blocked.
When the mail is transmitted next time (let’s say 10 minutes after the initial session) then it will once more be compared to the database and now it will be passed.

So in my case, I have just started doing work with this client. I send them an email and JEP(S) grabs my mail server's address, my email address, and the recipient's address. It then blocks all mail that matches these 3 things for 10 minutes because I might be a spammer. The probable assumption of the company making this application is that someone sending spam would randomly generate a new email address every time it attempts to make a connection to the mail server. Since it there would be a new sending address every time, it would block their message every time. This causes two problems that I see.

1. For legitimate messages, everything has to wait for this 10 minute limit before it can go through. Granted all mail servers should retry up to at least 3 days, depending on how this JEP(S) application responds, the sending server might think it was denied and not retry (unlikely, but still a possibility). Best case you have to wait 10 minutes for your first message to go through, lets hope this isn't a time sensitive message!
   
2. On the other side you might not even block most spam. Who is to say the sender is going to use a random email address on each connection or that they won't retry their message again in 10 minutes?

The concept seems good on the surface, but when you probe deeper it just looks like a great hassle for your end users, and that appears to be exactly what is going on. Their users are calling in claimed mail is being blocked, but after doing testing they state that it just came in. Other messages are blocked and their sender gets a message back stating that their message was blocked due to an unknown reason, while at the same time they are complaining about getting spam. Though the end users are getting most of their email, it takes longer to receive and does little to stop the spam, so then what is the point?

Spam is a complicated foe. If you are too strict with it you run the risk of blocking legit email, but if you are too lenient you let too much mail through. Of the various methods of blocking I have used in the past, two have stood out. Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services (Frontbridge) and Barracuda Networks Spam Firewall. Both are very good at what they do, and are suited to different groups. Frontbridge lets you be almost completely hands off. They handle all the work and about once a day (depending on the amount of spam you get) you will receive a message listing any blocked messages, allowing you to deliver any legit messages and whitelist their senders. My personal pick is the Barracuda as it gives the network administrator more control and customizability over how email is sorted. You can choose to just mark messages as spam but deliver and let the user decide how to handle it (set up filtering rules in Outlook or another mail client) or quarantine just like Frontbridge, or you can do both. This is in addition to blocking messages on blacklists, that send messages in bulk, or based on key words and content in the message. The system will even learn as it goes and can be trained to be more effective.

I could probably go on more about these devices and what makes them good, but that's really a different topic as this post is quite long enough. Given my familiarity with these and the frequency that I deal with these issues, don't be surprised if you see this topic come up again.