Cloud Computing is a Commodity, not a Utility

A computing pioneer named John McCarthy (creator of the LISP language) died recently. Some are giving him credit for coming up with the idea of cloud computing in 1961, when he described "time-sharing" (the sharing of a mainframe computer) as becoming a "public utility" like electricity or water. Nothing can be further from the truth. Today's cloud computing is the opposite of the "utility computing" that he imagined. This is as absurd as saying the original Star Trek TV show, with a voice activated computer, somehow invented Siri, Apple's new voice response system for the iPhone.

iPhone 4S for Sprint performance below par

I'm returning my Sprint version of the iPhone 4S. The performance is far below either AT&T or Verizon.

Everyone loves to hate AT&T, but here's the thing: they've invested massively in building our their network to support devices like the iPhone and Kindle. Even in place where AT&T famously struggles (New York City and San Francisco), I can usually get a fair data connection. In my travels, AT&T 3G outperforms Verizon 3G in almost every case.

Sprint hasn't made that investment. At least, not here in Atlanta.
Traveling around the Atlanta area at various times in the day, I find
that Sprint consistently lags AT&T for 3G speeds. Sprint struggles to
reach 1-mbps, while AT&T rarely goes below 3-mbps. At times, Sprint
goes down to dialup speeds. Here are example of back-to-back speed
tests. I have a lot more samples, but these are representative of what
I see.

To be fair, Sprint has invested a lot in a 4G technology (based on WiMax)
that works much better, where 7-mbps is common. But the iPhone
doesn't support 4G technologies like WiMax. In addition, many people
are finding that WiMax falls behind LTE (used by AT&T, Verizon, and
T-Mobile).

Sprint does have one advantage. Currently, it supports "unlimited"
downloads, whereas Verizon offers a plan with up to 12-gigs of
downloads, whereas AT&T offers at most 4-gigs of downloads. In
addition, it's one of the cheaper plans, with unlimited texting and
data for only $80/month.

But in practice, few people use more than 2-gigs per month. I rarely
do. In those cases, AT&T can offer cheaper and faster plans.
I don't know which will be best for you, but for myself, I'm choosing
an AT&T iPhone 4S and returning my Sprint iPhone 4S.

UPDATE:
These are the last ones taken this morning, AT&T with 5.07mbps and Sprint with 0.21-mbps:

Update 2:
I returned The Sprint iPhone today and was told I was the 18th person to do so for the same reason. This makes me sad as I was a big fan of Sprint rolling out the first nextgen speed network.

DefCon speakers guide to #OccupyWallStreet hand signals

Next year, at DefCon (the world's largest hacking conference), speakers are going to be confronted by hand signals (like 'twinkles') that were developed during the #OccupyWallStreet protests. That's because much of the audience will have attended one of the many "Occupy" protests.

So that speakers don't get weirded out by this, I thought I'd write up a brief guide.

Scanning the Internet

As part of a research project we are port scanning the entire internet. The scans will come from 216.75.60.94.

EDIT: Per a comment I realized I left alot of stuff out. Here ya go:
I am scanning everything from 1.0.0.1 to 223.255.255.255.
I am collecting hostname, IP address, OS type, and service version.
As far as how long I have no idea, I am guessing somewhere around 100 days.

I am aware Shodan offers this information now, I need to collect my own data for this project however.

EDIT: This isn't a big deal. Researchers like us frequently scan the IPv4 address space. At any point in time, there are a few "white-hat" researchers doing such scans (we know of one other group currently conducting a scan), and many more "black-hats" doing it. The reason for this post is simply to be on record about it.

How geeky am I

These days, we have both 1080p hidef television, and plotlines with hackers. That means "code" appears frequently on the screen. Of course, if you read the code, it has nothing to do with the plot. The producers just grabbed a fragment off the net and stuck it in there for dramatization.

In the pilot episode of the remake of Charlie's Angels, one of the gals cracks an electronic safe by typing in a fragment of code. Here is a picture from the video:

Independent reporting of #OccupyWallStreet

I was unhappy with the poor journalistic coverage of the #OccupyWallStreet protests, so I went to Wall Street myself to see what’s going on, and report on it.

It’s the quality of the coverage, not the amount that's the problem. It’s been on the nightly news every night for the past week, but there has been little “serious” reporting.

@Anonymous's war against the New York Stock Exchange

The hacker collective known as "Anonymous" (sic) has declared war on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), promising to "erase" it from the Internet this October 10th (in support of #OccupyWallStreet). Should we be afraid of this threat?

No. Hackers who can, do. Those who can't, make threats.

Brookfield Properties responds re: #OccupyWallStreet

(For my complete report on the protest, click here.)


The #OccupyWallStreet protest is in fact occupying Zuccotti Park, a private park owned by Brookfield Office Properties. I couldn't find an official statement from them on the protest, so I sent an e-mail to their Communications department. This is the e-mail I got in response:

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month -- or is it?

Last year, the president declared October to be "Cybersecurity Awareness Month". But, October has already been Breast Cancer Awareness Month for the pat 25 years.

So which is it? Cybersecurity or Breast Cancer?

Protesters wanted to get arrested on Brooklyn Bridge

(For my complete report on the protest, click here.)


In the #OccupyWallStreet protests, there are claims that the police deliberately led protesters onto the roadway, and then arrested them for being on the road blocking traffic.

I don't know, I wasn't there.

But I was at a Starbucks near Zuccoti park listening to two protesters (young white mails with facial hair and pony tails) about an hour before the march. They were talking about how they were going to march to the Brooklyn bridge, and how it was going to disrupt traffic, and how that was going to lead to arrests. They laughed at this, hoping it would happen, because "that'll finally get us on the news".

I didn't get the impression that they were planning to go out on the roadway and disrupt traffic. My impression, though, was they knew it was going to happen, probably because that's what happens when you march a few thousand protesters up to the bridge. Indeed, as the protesters later marched by the Starbucks on the way to the Brooklyn bridge, I noticed occasional people get out onto the roadway, and cops telling them to get back onto the sidewalk.

This is my impression of the protesters. They aren't necessarily lawless or violent, but they do seem interested in pushing the police to their limits. Even though they mostly follow police directions, not a single one (that I talked to) thinks of the police as being equally on their side. Whereas I see the police being tolerant of minor infractions, the protesters complained how the police was constantly harassing them over miner infractions. Their view is that if you aren't with them toting a placard, then you must out to oppress them.

As you can see in this video, the crowd is happy that they are getting arrested.

My point is: the accusation that "it's the police's fault" that protesters were out on the road way is pretty hard to believe.

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Update: This NYTimes article describes the incident. It doesn't claim that the police deliberately guided them onto the roadway, but that protesters were confused about where to go.

But, as I indicate above, at least some protesters knew that going onto the roadway would get them arrested.

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Update: This link is a first hand account of somebody that happened to go for a walk with the protesters and got arrested. Before the march:

As we loitered a young woman handed me a flier that described my legal rights and urged me to write down the number of the National Lawyers Guild on my arm.

“You planning on getting arrested today?” I said.

“You never know,” she said.

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Update: Another eyewitness account

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Looking at photographs, I find core occupiers from the Central Committee among those arrested for being on the roadway. These are the people who should've know what would happen, even if most other protesters didn't.