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On this episode of Spark:
- Elizabeth Bowie admits her WiFi isn’t secure
- Rob Burbach explains the latest trends in credit card fraud
- Tracey Black explains the next generation of payment systems — the chip card
- Nora mentions CBC.ca’s special feature on cell phones (starts November 19)
- Roger Ball measures Chinese head and face shapes for the SizeChina project (full interview)
- Robert Beggs helps Elizabeth secure her WiFi (full interview)
- Darin Myman on the BigString self-destructing email service (more stories of sender regret)
- Robert Ransick explains his artwork Casa Segura
This episode features Creative Commons music and sound effects:
- “Oslodum 2004” by DJ Dolores
- “Sirens of Amygdala.wav” by ERH
- “power_down.wav” by themfish
- “sicko” by truboi94
- “sonicboom” by buddog20
- “Up All Night” by Lee Rosevere
- “Zen Study” by jaspertine
- “airtone/transmission306/”>transmission306″ by airtone
Download the MP3, or subscribe to the podcast.
There is a common theme in a number of your stories, and that is the need for education on technology.
Probably the most dangerous story was the story about "self-destructing email", one of many such snake-oil vendors. The reality is that an email is information, and it can't self-destruct any more than a paperback novel can read itself out loud. While any technology person will recognize this as science fiction, the vast majority of people do not.
Microsoft has a similar feature in Microsoft Exchange when used with Microsoft Outlook. What it does is send a "please delete" message that follows the offending message. If that message is received by a Microsoft exchange server it will make the offending message unavailable, but if it is received by any other mail server or client it is ignored. And of course this opens up additional security problems for the Microsoft server, and is a feature that most corporations need to disable to comply with various government regulations on "document shredding".
Darin Myman's "service" will have the same fatal flaw — it only works between people who are customers of his service, and you can't take back any email that was sent to what will always be the *VAST* majority of people who are not.
Security isn't a piece of technology that you can buy. It is a way of interacting with other people, and it is the person — not the tool — that matters the most. There are many very technologically secure services that allow people to call up, tell a person their mothers maiden name, and have their password reset.
People intruding on security have called this "social engineering". One form that has been discussed is something called "pretexting" when someone will call up and with a small amount of personal information about you is able to pretend to be you.
Wireless is something that people need to learn about. Securing the connection between your laptop and your wireless router isn't the most important aspect. In my case I have an unsecured wireless connection, but secure all the actual traffic between my computer and the destination computers. That way I can keep secure in environments where I do not have any control over the wireless router I am connected to.
Sure unsecured internet has personal privacy concerns. People could easily monitor your traffic but there are advantages of an unsecured site.
I have heard mention of this idea before but this comic (http://xkcd.org/341/) led me to instructions for some fun.
Check it out: http://www.ex-parrot.com/~pete/upside-down-ternet.html
It is possible to do this and still secure your connection. And who wouldn’t want to? You can just imagine your neighbours scratching their heads.
BigString’s recallable features work between any email system across all platforms unlike Microsoft Exchange which only works within the same network. I hope you signup for a free account at BigString and try our services before making further incorrect comments.
Darin Myman,
If your service actually worked as you claim it does, I don’t need to sign up. All you need to do is send me an email message and then have you try to “self destruct it” after the fact.
If I need to sign up to your service for this feature to work, then you have simply proven my point.
No matter how many people sign up to your “service”, more people will not have signed up. It is that vast majority that have not signed up that is the critical flaw in your system.
I also find it interesting that when I go to your site to learn more about “Self-Destructing Email ” I click on the link on the front page and get:
“Not Found
The requested URL /self-destruct was not found on this server.”
Have you hired adequate technical people for your service to even be aware that it doesn’t work as advertised?
BTW: I am a system administrator that runs my own email servers, and those of some clients. I’m not just a ‘user’ of an email service, but a provider myself.