Some Ways Anonymous Could Disrupt the Internet if SOPA is passed

This is a piece of science fiction. I wrote while reading Isaac Assimov’s advice to writers in GOLD, while on a beach in Anjuna.

1) Identify senators, lobbyists, senior executives of companies advocating for SOPA. Go for selective targeting of these people than massive Denial of Service Attacks.

This could also include election fund raising websites in the United States.

2) Create hacking tools with simple interfaces to probe commonly known software errors, to enable wider audience including the Occupy Movement students to participate in hacking. thus making hacking more democratic. What are the top 25 errors as per  http://cwe.mitre.org/cwss/

http://www.decisionstats.com/top-25-most-dangerous-software-errors/ ?

 

Easy interface tools to check vulnerabilities would be the next generation to flooding tools like HOIC, LOIC – Massive DDOS atttacks make good press coverage but not so good technically

3) Disrupt digital payment mechanisms for selected targets (in step1) using tools developed in Step 2, and introduce random noise errors in payment transfers.

4) Help create a better secure internet by embedding Tor within Chromium with all tools for anonymity embedded for easy usage – a more secure peer to peer browser (like a mashup of Opera , tor and chromium).

or maybe embed bit torrents within a browser.

5) Disrupt media companies and cloud computing based companies like iTunes, Spotify or Google Music, just like virus, ant i viruses disrupted the desktop model of computing. After that offer solutions to the problems like companies of anti virus software did for decades.

6) Hacking websites is fine fun, but hacking internet databases and massively parallel data scrapers can help disrupt some of the status quo.

This applies to databases that offer data for sale, like credit bureaus etc. Making this kind of data public will eliminate data middlemen.

7) Use cross border, cross country regulatory arbitrage for better risk control of hacker attacks.

8) recruiting among universities using easy to use hacking tools to expand the pool of dedicated hacker armies.

9) using operations like those targeting child pornography to increase political acceptability of the hacker sub culture. Refrain from overtly negative and unimaginative bad Press Relations

10) If you cant convince  them to pass SOPA, confuse them 😉 Use bots for random clicks on ads to confuse internet commerce.

 

Chrome

If you are new to using Chrome, there are many delightful features just beneath the surface.

If you are an Internet Explorer or Firefox or Safari or Arora or Opera or Sea Monkey browser user- this is one more reason to test, just test Chrome.

Ok so who Made chrome- (note the link i.e about:credits is what you type in chrome to see features)

about:credits

Credits

David M. Gay’s floating point routines
dynamic annotations
Netscape Portable Runtime (NSPR)
Network Security Services (NSS)
purify headers
google-glog’s symbolization library
valgrind
xdg-mime
xdg-user-dirs
google-jstemplateshow licensehomepage
Launchpad Translationsshow licensehomepage
Mozilla Personal Security Managershow licensehomepage
Google Toolbox for Macshow licensehomepage
ActiveX Scripting SDKshow licensehomepage
Almost Native Graphics Layer Engineshow licensehomepage
Apple sample codeshow licensehomepage
Google Cache Invalidation APIshow licensehomepage
Compact Language Detectionshow licensehomepage
OpenGL ES 2.0 Programming Guideshow licensehomepage
OpenGL ES 2.0 Conformance Testsshow licensehomepage
hunspell dictionariesshow licensehomepage
IAccessible2 COM interfaces for accessibilityshow licensehomepage
Chinese and Japanese Word Listshow licensehomepage
ISimpleDOM COM interfaces for accessibilityshow licensehomepage
modp base64 decodershow licensehomepage
NSBezierPath additions from Sean Patrick O’Brienshow licensehomepage
Cocoa extension code from Caminoshow licensehomepage
OTS (OpenType Sanitizer)show licensehomepage
Google Safe Browsingshow licensehomepage
XUL Runner SDKshow licensehomepage
and of course
so thats who made chrome.
  • Will Google be able to monetize Chrome the way it has monetized Android (Atleast by locking in both search,computing and browsing platforms)? I like the Adblock extension- and I would be happy to see more paid extensions. or even two versions one free and other freer (in choice) browsers for ads /security etc. maybe even a premium paid browser which has tor embedded in it , adblock enabled in it, and encrypted chat (like Waste Again) as an extension…. Hmm Hmm Hmm There is a SOCIAL version of Chromium called Rockmelt used ironically by Google Social Nemesis -Facebook (see http://blogs.ft.com/fttechhub/2011/06/facebook-partners-with-rockmelt-on-building-a-social-web-browser/)
  • Will Google share more revenue with open source contributors and thus create a new path in open source revenue generation just like it did with online advertising as an industry? Hmm Hmm Hmm. or Will Facebook continue to lead the way with extensions and applications (which did predate the mobile app place- so thats one innovation u gotta give to Zuk’s boys 😉
Back to Chrome-
To change settings- chrome://settings/browser
but to check what Autofill Data is stored within chrome (thats your credit card and your web form information)
chrome://settings/autofill and chrome://settings/content has all your content settings
Well Chrome is very very secure, or as secure as a browser can be in 2011.
You can set up Google Sync to keep all your data in the cloud, and it has an application specific password as well.
So hopefully you will have much more fun enjoying hacking Chromium 😉
See these

Rockmelt: A chromium based browser with a social layer

I kind of liked the latest browser on the block: Rockmelt.

It is based on Chromium open source project, that is primarily lead by Google. In case Facebook wants to buy a browser it can use Rockmelt–provided the mutual powers and angels agree.

I really liked the idea of a social layer- though I am not sure how the analytics embedded within a browser/report should be used.

Basically it re-designs the interface to put your social networks to the margin, thus quite a boon in you have active social media presence on multiple sites or a power reader/surfer. Timely alerts ping you to status/new messages without cluttering your screen and internet experience. Worth atleast a try or first look for the innovator kind of internet customer.

I still prefer the speed of Chrome– because Rockwell interface is still not easy to transition to – it almost adds in 3 dimensions in terms of where your eyeball should be while surfing (to left/right/margin).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and thats despite the funny fine print in Chrome’s user agreement of “continuing innovation”

type about:terms in your chrome bar to see-

4.3 As part of this continuing innovation, you acknowledge and agree that Google may stop (permanently or temporarily) providing the Services (or any features within the Services) to you or to users generally at Google’s sole discretion, without prior notice to you. You may stop using the Services at any time. You do not need to specifically inform Google when you stop using the Services.

LibreOffice News and Google Musings

Tux, the Linux penguin
Image via Wikipedia

Official Bloggers on LibreOffice- http://planet.documentfoundation.org/

Note- for some strange reason I continue to be on top ranked LibreOffice blogs- maybe because I write more on the software itself than on Oracle politics or coffee spillovers.

LibreOffice Beta 2  is ready and I just installed it on Windows 7 – works nice- and I somehow think open Office and Google needs an  example to stop being so scary on cautioning—— hey,hey it’s a  beta – (do you see Oracle saying this release is a beta or Windows saying hey this Windows Vista is a beta for Windows 7- No right?)-

see screenshot of solver in  LibreOffice spreadsheet -works just fine.

We cant wait for Chromium OS and LibreOffice integration (or Google Docs-LibreOffice integration)  so Google starts thinking on those lines (of course

Google also needs to ramp up Google Storage and Google Predict API– but dude are you sure you wanna take on Amazon, Oracle and MS and Yahoo and Apple at the same time. Dear Herr Schmidt- Last German Guy who did that ,  ended up in a bunker in Berlin. (Ever since I had to pay 50 euros as Airline Transit fee -yes Indian passport holders have to do that in Germany- I am kind of non objective on that issue)

Google Management is busy nowadays thinking of trying to beat Facebook -hint -hint-

-buy out the biggest app makers of Facebook apps and create an api for Facebook info download and upload into Orkut –maybe invest like an angel in that startup called Diaspora http://www.joindiaspora.com/) see-

Back to the topic (and there are enough people blogging on Google should or shouldnt do)

-LibreOffice aesthetically rocks! It has a cool feel.

More news- The Wiki is up and awaits you at http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation

And there is a general pow-wow scheduled at http://www.oookwv.de/ for the Open Office Congress (Kongress)

As you can see I used the Chrome Extension for Google Translate for an instant translation from German into English (though it still needs some work,  Herr Translator)

Back to actually working on LibreOffice- if Word and Powerpoint is all you do- save some money for Christmas and download it today from

Using VM Player and Chromium OS on a PC

Here is a short presentation tutorial including screenshots I made of using VM Player and playing with Chromium OS. Note- Its like a Machine (light weight linux) with a Chrome Browser. The real computing is when you use Chrome Extensions and/if you have a underpowered legacy PC.

or you can see the file here if the above does not work 15 Clicks to a Cloud OS

Towards better analytical software

Here are some thoughts on using existing statistical software for better analytics and/or business intelligence (reporting)-

1) User Interface Design Matters- Most stats software have a legacy approach to user interface design. While the Graphical User Interfaces need to more business friendly and user friendly- example you can call a button T Test or You can call it Compare > Means of Samples (with a highlight called T Test). You can call a button Chi Square Test or Call it Compare> Counts Data. Also excessive reliance on drop down ignores the next generation advances in OS- namely touchscreen instead of mouse click and point.

Given the fact that base statistical procedures are the same across softwares, a more thoughtfully designed user interface (or revamped interface) can give softwares an edge over legacy designs.

2) Branding of Software Matters- One notable whine against SAS Institite products is a premier price. But really that software is actually inexpensive if you see other reporting software. What separates a Cognos from a Crystal Reports to a SAS BI is often branding (and user interface design). This plays a role in branding events – social media is often the least expensive branding and marketing channel. Same for WPS and Revolution Analytics.

3) Alliances matter- The alliances of parent companies are reflected in the sales of bundled software. For a complete solution , you need a database plus reporting plus analytical software. If you are not making all three of the above, you need to partner and cross sell. Technically this means that software (either DB, or Reporting or Analytics) needs to talk to as many different kinds of other softwares and formats. This is why ODBC in R is important, and alliances for small companies like Revolution Analytics, WPS and Netezza are just as important as bigger companies like IBM SPSS, SAS Institute or SAP. Also tie-ins with Hadoop (like R and Netezza appliance)  or  Teradata and SAS help create better usage.

4) Cloud Computing Interfaces could be the edge- Maybe cloud computing is all hot air. Prudent business planing demands that any software maker in analytics or business intelligence have an extremely easy to load interface ( whether it is a dedicated on demand website) or an Amazon EC2 image. Easier interfaces win and with the cloud still in early stages can help create an early lead. For R software makers this is critical since R is bad in PC usage for larger sets of data in comparison to counterparts. On the cloud that disadvantage vanishes. An easy to understand cloud interface framework is here ( its 2 years old but still should be okay) http://knol.google.com/k/data-mining-through-cloud-computing#

5) Platforms matter- Softwares should either natively embrace all possible platforms or bundle in middle ware themselves.

Here is a case study SAS stopped supporting Apple OS after Base SAS 7. Today Apple OS is strong  ( 3.47 million Macs during the most recent quarter ) and the only way to use SAS on a Mac is to do either

http://goo.gl/QAs2

or do a install of Ubuntu on the Mac ( https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook ) and do this

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1494027

Why does this matter? Well SAS is free to academics and students  from this year, but Mac is a preferred computer there. Well WPS can be run straight away on the Mac (though they are curiously not been able to provide academics or discounted student copies 😉 ) as per

http://goo.gl/aVKu

Does this give a disadvantage based on platform. Yes. However JMP continues to be supported on Mac. This is also noteworthy given the upcoming Chromium OS by Google, Windows Azure platform for cloud computing.

Google stuck on Gears

Google has launched support for Droid the mobile operating system but forgot to include support for their own browser- Chromium. Atleast if you can support Windows Explorer and Firefox for Gears, surely you can add support for Gears for Chromium.Maybe with an Ad or two 😉 .Since Al Gore invented the internet and he sits as a consultant for the California boys, maybe he can advise them as well on the anti trust investigations with Apple (cough).

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