End of Summer Musings

  Gen Con 2018 is now a pleasant memory. I enjoyed some great roleplaying sessions and made a TARDIS dice tower and Dalek canvas bag. I would have posted some pics of Gen Con here for you to view but my new Galaxy s8 went schizo two days after I got home. Prior to Gen Con, the keyboard on the phone had kind of a dead zone in its center. Certain letters, like, the t, would be very unresponsive. It would take multiple attempts to get it to respond. I thought it had something to do with the screen protector I had installed. It was an inconvenience, but I could work around it. On Tuesday, things got much worse. I tried to open my Nagbot diabetes app other apps would open. Suddenly, my phones dialing numbers on my contacts list, trying to play music and opening YouTube. When I tried to enter text on the keyboard, 5 keys other than the one I pressed, would activate. It was a mess.

  Several things combined to cause the loss of my pics. First, I couldn't get my phone connected to the hotel's wifi. Second, the Flickr app on my phone wasn't set up to upload my pics automatically. Third, I didn't back up my phone to the computer using Smart Switch. And fourth, I failed to decrypt my SD card before letting the rep at AT&T do a factory reset on it. I thought that since the SD card was still in the device that encrypted it, things would be fine. Turns out I was wrong about that. A memory card expert at Samsung informed me that when the phone was reset, the passcode that could decrypt my SD card was erased and there was no way to retrieve it. Since my phone was still under warranty, they sent me a new phone. I had to mail the defective phone back to them within 10 days in order to avoid being charged for it. The box my new phone came in could also be used to return my old phone post paid which made returning it convenient. They sent word that the phone has been received.

  I'm still waiting for my mahogany Hex Chest and aged mithril dice set to arrive. I haven't received any emails from Elderwood Academy updating the status of my order. The only other order I'm waiting for are the two minis I ordered from Minuteman Miniatures. They make miniatures that have your face by scanning your head to create a 3D computer image. This image can then be attached to a body of your choice and the whole thing is then created using a 3D printer. I ordered a wizard and Dark Ages Viking version of myself. If they add more body types, like Victorian Age or Doctor Who, to their roster, I might order more minis from them. Their website states that they keep the scans so I can order new minis if I want.

The Encryption Debate

  As most of you know by now, an outside party has shown the FBI how to crack Syed Farook's iPhone 5c without Apple's help. The FBI claims that this crack will only work on the iPhone 5c but one has to wonder whether this is true or not. Now just because the FBI has dropped its case against Apple in this instance doesn't mean that the battle over encryption will be ending anytime soon.
  Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein have proposed legislation that would give federal judges clearer authority to order technology companies to help law enforcement crack encrypted data. So far, the White House isn't backing this legislation. There are many reasons why backdoor mandates are a bad idea. A list of some of those reasons can be found here.
  The federal government has tried to create an encryption device with a built in backdoor when it created the Clipper chip. As the Wikipedia article details, the Clipper chip was a massive failure. The Clipper used a key escrow system in which a copy of the cryptographic key would be held by the government. Information about key disclosure law can be found here.
  Given all the information stored on peoples' smartphones, encrypting them should be a no brainer. In fact, all iPhones, iPads and iPods running iOS 8 or greater are encrypted by default. Sadly the same can't be said about Android devices. It's estimated that roughly 10% of the world's 1.4 billion Android phones are encrypted. Compare that to the 95% encryption rate of iPhones. This is a sad state of affairs. The problem stems from the fact that many smartphone manufacturers use Android's source code and tweak it to suit their needs. It's this lack of uniformity that's the biggest of Google's problems when it comes to security. There's way too many companies involved in the process. This article details the problems Google has implementing security updates.
  Both my Android phone and the SD card installed in it are encrypted. The same goes for my Mom's phone. If you own an Android phone, you should seriously consider encrypting it and any memory cards that are in it. I'm ending this blog post with a clip from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver regarding both the FBI vs. Apple showdown and encryption. Enjoy.

Some Updates

  At 4:42pm on Nov. 8th, I officially turned 54 years old. It's was also day one of my week long vacation. I have no major plans. My parents and I went out to eat at Dynasty. I plan on seeing Spectre sometime this week. I'm going to get the One Ring rpg book, The Darkening of Mirkwood, I need in order to have everything currently available for the game. I also want to eat at Red Lobster sometime this week.
  My smartphone downloaded and installed a patch that corrected the Stagefright bug on the morning of Nov. 6th. I'm very happy that my phone is now patched. I try to keep my smartphones, tablets and computers as updated as possible when it comes to security. That means firewalls, antivirus software and Android, iOS and Windows patches and security updates. I've installed a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection on my smartphone, tablet and computer as well in order to provide protection when connecting to public Wifi networks. Given the computer viruses, trojans, malware etc. that's running around, you can't be too careful. Credit and debit cards are being switched over to smart card technology in order to lower the incidence of hackers stealing the information on the card and creating fake ones. What I don't understand is why the U.S. took so long to implement this technology. Other countries have been using this technology for some time now.

Android Security Fuck Ups

  According to a recent article, about 90% of Android devices are susceptible to malware. The main reason for this is that most Android devices never get regular security updates. This is primarily due to the fact that most manufacturers and carriers don't bother to update older model smartphones and tablets. They want you constantly upgrading to the latest high end device. I became aware of this problem when my AVG antivirus app alerted me to the Stagefright exploit. According to this article, some 950 million Android phones, mine included, are vulnerable. You'd think, given the extent of the threat, that the manufacturers and carriers would be concerned but that's not exactly the case. They only give a shit if you have the latest devices and only if it's a high end model. If you own an older device or a low to mid range device, you're shit out of luck. One possible fix would be to install a custom Android ROM on your device. CyanogenMod and the XDA-Developers Forum provide these ROMs for a variety of Android devices. My problem is I have virtually no idea how to install a custom ROM on my phone. Zimperium has made Stagefright patches available but I'm not sure how to install them.