People will upload anything to YouTube. From the most mundane (read: boring) daily activities, to artistic and sublime studies of the human condition. But among all the high school students on YouTube posting videos about how much they love American Idol (or whatever), you will also find hardened criminals taunting victims and police.
But more and more, police have been using YouTube as an online tool to round up suspected criminals. Consider the recent case of the two Miami gang members who uploaded a video holding assault rifles and threatening the police.
Florida’s First Coast News is reporting that the malicious video (which has now removed from YouTube) led to the two amateur video makers being arrested by the Metro-Dade gang unit, charged with making threats against police officers and weapons violations.
This is just another example of YouTube and other user-contributed websites being used by law enforcement to apprehend criminals, a trend that is expected to grow as more and more web surfers upload the (sometimes illegal) details of their day-to-day life.
Police have also used YouTube to identify drug dealers and other criminals, based on the content of their uploaded videos, and sometimes they reveal more sinister intentions, such as random acts of public violence.
For example, Norwegian police recently closed a public school and arrested a student who uploaded a video threatening to kill several fellow students and teachers. In this case, the police took the threat very seriously and apprehended the boy within 24 hours of the video being reported.
All of this raises the question of what kind of privacy (if any) the average person can expect when participating in social networking and user-content websites. It appears that these days, anyone who is involved at all online, becomes a public figure, and effectively forfeits their right to privacy.
Of course, no one is forcing individuals to be a part of these online communities, but increasingly, those who do not take part feel “left out,” as the popularity of these sites continues to grow. This can be particularly troublesome to younger users and students during those awkward teenage years when popularity seems the most important thing in the world.
Overall, it’s probably a good thing that police and other officials are taking advantage of YouTube, MySpace, FaceBook and other sites to apprehend criminals. But the lesson of these new sites is clear: don’t upload anything online you would not want everyone (including the police) to see.
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PC World is reporting that a Trojan-type software virus has been discovered that infects Apple iPhones. The Trojan is the first known software virus to target mobile phones, and has raised considerable alarm within the mobile phone industry.
While the iPhone Trojan is not currently considered a major risk, computer security company F-Secure have confirmed that the virus is real, and has the potential to be modified to infect many different makes and models of cell phones, on virtually any GSM mobile network.
The Trojan targets iPhone users that have installed software modifications to their phone to receive third-party software applications. It enters the phone disguised as a utility update, and is usually labeled as “113 prep.”
Once installed on an iPhone, the Trojan does nothing but display a strange text message consisting of only the word “shoes.” It is when the user attempts to uninstall the application (as many certainly would) that it springs into life, proceeding to remove files from the bin directory which render other applications useless.
The iPhone Trojan was originally hosted on a web site, which has now been removed according to F-Secure. While the damage which can be inflicted by the Trojan is considered minimal at this point, its very existence brings into question the security of the iPhone software, and beyond that, the security of all mobile phone software.
Software security experts worry that the iPhone Trojan could be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to mobile phone security problems. And with well over a billion mobile phone users around the world, a serious mobil virus or Trojan could have devastating effects on every continent.
In the early days of the Internet, viruses and Trojans were rampant, but with the development of greater security software and web hosting, they have been controlled to a certain degree, though not completely eliminated.
Some analysts worry that we may be seeing the beginning of the “virus age” when it comes to mobile communications. The same types of viruses and Trojans that have wreaked havoc online can be modified to do similar damage to mobile phones and — more frighteningly — entire mobile phone networks.
And Internet security programs, which are common today on PCs, could soon be ubiquitous on mobile phones. History has shown that whenever a network of any type has security holes, some enterprising hacker (or worse) will gladly create a software program to exploit the weakness.
Experts predict that mobile security will become a far greater issue over the next few years, especially as cell phones continue to expand and become fully equipped media, communication and Internet devices.
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Advertising-sponsored free wireless Internet service is not a new idea, but until recently there haven’t been enough “big players” involved in the concept to make it available throughout any major metropolitan area of the United States. Finally, Google and EarthLink teamed up a few years back for a proposed free WiFi service that would cover the entire San Francisco metropolitan area, though inexplicably, Google backed out of the deal in 2007.
Now a new wireless networking company, Meraki, is planning to take over where Google left off by completing the San Francisco free WiFi project. Meraki will pay for the extensive infrastructure by including advertising in its free wireless service, and the signal strength will depend largely upon “volunteers” who allow wireless repeaters to be placed on the roofs of their homes.
Back when Google and EarthLink first established the idea of citywide free sponsored WiFi throughout San Francisco, it was a fairly radical idea. At that time there were no other major metropolitan areas that were completely covered by WiFi Internet access — much less for free.
But in the two years since the first proposal of the idea things have changed a great deal. Several Asian cities, including Hong Kong, are now 80-90% covered by wireless Internet access. European cities such as Paris, Rotterdam, Oslo and Stockholm have also instigated city-wide WiFi, though most of these services require a modest monthly fee to use.
If Meraki can prove that advertising sponsored citywide WiFi is profitable in the Bay area, it is likely that other cities will begin to employ the same business model, including the European cities already enjoying city-wide WiFi access for a fee.
In the long run, companies can benefit much more from selling advertising on free WiFi networks than by charging monthly subscription fees. And as many city centers already have some type of free WiFi service available, it becomes more and more difficult to justify charging a fee for a service users could potentially get for free.
The goal of Meraki, and other advertising sponsored WiFi networks, is a WiFi connected world, where free WiFi service is available in any metropolitan or rural area. This would be the equivalent of the way over-the-air television networks broadcast today, so there is already a reliable business model to imitate in providing free WiFi access.
Meraki hopes to have the city-wide San Francisco free WiFi service available by the end of 2008. Over the next few years is likely that more American cities will follow in Meraki’s footsteps, and by 2012, analysts predict that 80% of all American metropolitan areas will be covered by an advertising sponsored wireless Internet network.
While this sounds like a dream come true for many computer geeks, it also ensures that Americans are going to be inundated with commercials for a long time to come. Now if someone could just invent some kind of TiVo for the Internet…
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Although it sometimes seems that Google has a complete monopoly when it comes to online search, with Yahoo trailing a distant second, there are in fact other viable search engines to compete with the “big boys” online. Microsoft’s Live Search and Ask.com are but two examples of “alternative search engines.”
But this week Wikia Search will officially go online as an alternative to the big players. CRN.com is reporting that the new Wikia Search engine will be online by January 7, 2008. Wikia chairman Jimmy Wales admits that the new search engine is not an immediate threat to either Google or Yahoo, while hoping that “the community construction of the search engine will bring increased transparency.”
Like Wikipedia, Wikia Search will be entirely built and maintained by users. Search enthusiasts can filter and rank search results with the help of Wikia Search’s open-source online software. Wikia’s concept is to create the first community-based Search engine which allows users to transparently view how search results are compiled.
Wikia Search has an ambitious goal of indexing 50 to 100 million web sites by the January 7 launch date. Wales is optimistic about Wikia Search’s chance to provide a transparent user-driven search engine to a global Web audience, and he admits that the goal of the new search engine is nothing less than to “change how the industry works.”
In an apparent slap toward Google, Wales insists that allowing search results to come from a “magic” and unknown algorithm — like Google does — does not contribute to the concept of an open Internet, with a democratic and transparent nature.
Google has long been criticized for failing to reveal the methods the company uses to rank web sites online, and the specific algorithm that is used to determine their search results changes several times a year.
Although Web experts admit that Wikia Search is an interesting concept, and may well find a market in the online world, most also agree that Google and Yahoo will continue to dominate the Internet search market into the foreseeable future, regardless of the success or failure of Wikia’s new search engine.
But others feel that Wikia may actually have Google a bit nervous about the future. With the success of other Wikia online channels, such as Wikipedia, the organization definitely has a good track record online. With a little luck, Wikia Search may just find itself taking over a sizable share of the online search market, even if that does leave it a distant third in the running behind “the big two:” Google and Yahoo.
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Remember back in the day, in the early to mid-90s when the Internet was this strange and exotic thing that most people were either afraid of and/or had never used? Back then THE web browser of choice was Netscape. Even today, in remote corners of the globe there are Netscape Web browser users, though they are dwindling in numbers with every day that passes.
And just as the Internet and the world in general has evolved since those days, so have computers, operating systems and, yes, even Web browsers. On February 1st of 2008, the Netscape web browser will officially be no more. Netscape’s new owners, AOL Time Warner, have announced that the company will cease development of the Internet’s first real Web browser this coming February.
According to a story on Wired.com, AOL is recommending that current Netscape browser users switch over to Mozilla Firefox. Officially, AOL is claiming that their current business model does not leave enough time or resources to develop the Netscape browser to compete in today’s marketplace — so they’re dumping it.
The Netscape Navigator browser first appeared in 1994 in the “wild west” days of the Internet, and managed to compete well through the late 1990s. Eventually though, competition from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and the development of third-party web browsers such as Mozilla, Opera and others left Netscape with an ever dwindling segment of the market.
In fact, in some ways it is surprising that the Netscape browser managed to hang around as long as it did. 13 years is an awfully long time in the online world, and for any software to remain viable more than a decade is a near-miraculous feat these days. So even though Netscape will be officially discontinued in a few months, you have to give credit where it’s due — it managed to hang in there a long time.
Many online security analysts agree with AOL’s decision to drop Netscape once and for all. Experts point out that the latest version of Netscape lacks sophisticated security features available on Firefox, Internet Explorer or Apple’s Safari web browser. These “holes” in the Netscape browser’s security could leave users vulnerable to a wide variety of attacks, including trojans, viruses and other malware.
For many people, the demise of the Netscape browser officially marks the end of the Web 1.0 Internet days. But for web users who feel nostalgic for the good old days of the early net, there is a Netscape theme extension for Firefox, which should provide at least some of the feeling of surfing the web circa 1994. Rest in peace, Netscape.
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