The 2nd Awakening

Monday, April 10, 2006

Ma Bells Chess Game

Phone Companies Make Moves to Squash Competition

Nicholas McGill 1.24.2006

Over the past year, the large conglomerate phone companies have been coming up with more and more anti competitive strategies to regain profits lost to the information age and Internet Communications. As you may or not know, the phone companies are upgrading all wires from copper to fiber optic. Companies are dropping billions in upgrading their lines.

Why? To extend premium communication services to all of its customers? No! They are attempting to make a move for the VOIP market- to which they are losing an ever increasing amount of money for those smart enough to use its technology. With the new lines in place Ma Bell will be able to filter out VOIP and charge you on your phone bill to enable the service and the subsequent maintenance fees, activation fees, GOVT fees ETC.. CEO's of these companies have very boldly stated that they have to make a profit on consumers using their lines for these services. This cut throat scheme of digitizing all the lines to control what goes through the voice and data channels is aimed at stomping out the competition. Namely, they are aiming to stomp out Vonage, Skype and other VOIP services.

Although this is going to be very clearly an anti-competitive move and thus illegal , the phone companies are going to gamble that the 2-3 years it will probably take in legal pursuits to stop the phone companies from doing this-that the VOIP companies will go out of business-except for the services the phone companies will market (IE SBC VOIP LOOK FOR IT SOON). In other words they will block out the new communication technologies like VOIP until consumers get together and get a class action lawsuit against the companies and good luck going against a billion dollar industry backed by an even more corrupt government. I believe that they won't stop at VOIP and will reach into consumer's pockets further with the digital lines.

Once the lines are all digital they can better manage and record consumer activity and subsequently charge you for being an excessive media user, or rapid downloading fees etc. Policies are already in place with most of the large carriers. Not to mention that the phone companies are lobbying to tier the Internet and deny users fast access to servers and thus stifle traffic but that is another article for another blog!

The savior of this plot they did not account for is the rise of wide range free wireless networks. These next-gen wireless networks will go coast to coast and will circumvent the lines all together. If the phone companies block direct access to super nodes-in other words at the source or main servers of the Internet regardless of whose lines you are using they will be immediately counter sued by hundreds of businesses across the nation. Customers won't stand for it, and appeal to hackers cracking web status, and restraints placed on consumers on the web will begin a renaissance and re-education of the masses to continually adapt and adjust to greedy corporate market moves.

Ma Bell Strikes Back

Phone Companies Make Moves to Squash Competition

Nicholas McGill 1.24.2006

Over the past year, the large conglomerate phone companies have been coming up with more and more anti competitive strategies to regain profits lost to the information age and Internet Communications. As you may or not know, the phone companies are upgrading all wires from copper to fiber optic. Companies are dropping billions in upgrading their lines.

Why? To extend premium communication services to all of its customers? No! They are attempting to make a move for the VOIP market- to which they are losing an ever increasing amount of money for those smart enough to use its technology. With the new lines in place Ma Bell will be able to filter out VOIP and charge you on your phone bill to enable the service and the subsequent maintenance fees, activation fees, GOVT fees ETC.. CEO's of these companies have very boldly stated that they have to make a profit on consumers using their lines for these services. This cut throat scheme of digitizing all the lines to control what goes through the voice and data channels is aimed at stomping out the competition. Namely, they are aiming to stomp out Vonage, Skype and other VOIP services.

Although this is going to be very clearly an anti-competitive move and thus illegal , the phone companies are going to gamble that the 2-3 years it will probably take in legal pursuits to stop the phone companies from doing this-that the VOIP companies will go out of business-except for the services the phone companies will market (IE SBC VOIP LOOK FOR IT SOON). In other words they will block out the new communication technologies like VOIP until consumers get together and get a class action lawsuit against the companies and good luck going against a billion dollar industry backed by an even more corrupt government. I believe that they won't stop at VOIP and will reach into consumer's pockets further with the digital lines.

Once the lines are all digital they can better manage and record consumer activity and subsequently charge you for being an excessive media user, or rapid downloading fees etc. Policies are already in place with most of the large carriers. Not to mention that the phone companies are lobbying to tier the Internet and deny users fast access to servers and thus stifle traffic but that is another article for another blog!

The savior of this plot they did not account for is the rise of wide range free wireless networks. These next-gen wireless networks will go coast to coast and will circumvent the lines all together. If the phone companies block direct access to super nodes-in other words at the source or main servers of the Internet regardless of whose lines you are using they will be immediately counter sued by hundreds of businesses across the nation. Customers won't stand for it, and appeal to hackers cracking web status, and restraints placed on consumers on the web will begin a renaissance and re-education of the masses to continually adapt and adjust to greedy corporate market moves.

Google as a Security Threat


Google is the Largest Threat to Security

Whether it is in your home or at your work; Google software is a security threat that you should be worried about. Every term you ever search for from Google is tied to a user ID that is specific to you unless you effectively manage your cookies. This has been known and has become standard with search engine monsters. All the Gmail is stored forever read and analyzed for statistical use. However the threat from within is lesser known. Google Desktop- a program to help you index and find your files quickly and effectively saves index of all the files on your computer ties them with your cookie and sends them in to Google HQ. An unauthorized installation of this legitimate software at home or at work make this is the most effective security leak ever. Upon installation, users agree to terms of use and give Google permission to get this information. This makes Google on the biggest and most effective intelligence agencies in the world.

Stomping on privacy rights is no new practice for Google. In the name of greed they gave up user information to Chinese Governments who found these individuals searching for democracy and bypassing its censored search engine. Google was fully aware that giving up this information would likely result in the execution or disappearance of these individuals.

Soon you will see a lawsuit against Google for unlawfully obtaining trade secrets, or private information on the grounds that unauthorized personnel installed the software and Google gained from the information it received. Although uninformed, Google is still guilty. Stealing is stealing and Google does not belong on my client’s desktop. The question becomes why hasn’t Google been flagged as spyware? Why does the government do nothing?

The answers are simple. Google collects this information from millions of people. To get this information, the government would normally have to go through a subpoena process, and other special court procedures to spy on individuals and tap into their systems. However, if one entity has all the information desired on millions of people the government need only 1 subpoena and an excuse like to support a bill that defends children from internet porn access.

An example of how the government making use of these statistics is made most apparent in the film “V for Vendetta” where the government uses live real-time statistics based on surveillance and wire taps far more effective than polls or a census to understand how the people are feeling or thinking at any point in time so they can respond accordingly. Make no mistake the government already reads every email ever sent or received. As for the census, it is getting an upgrade as well, switching to handheld broadband phones to deliver instantaneous information. But the government and the law cannot keep up with the changes in technology as recent problems with tracking VOIP have pointed out, as illustrated everyday by corporate greed and the use of legal loopholes, and hackers protesting all the way and inventing new ways to communicate.

As if the software isn’t bad enough, it also must come pre-packaged with every single Dell computer that is shipped across the country. Millions of people did not even approve the Google-desktop license agreement and you can bet that that will have some legal repercussions soon as well.

The Moral of the story is do not use Google Desktop software, use Copernic Desktop instead. Copernic does not send indexes to the company so there is no security leak Find it @ http://www.copernic.com

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Nicholas McGill

An IT Consultant for the past decade