General – Page 8 – The Wacky World of Chris Knight

2010/01/28

Google: Approaching the Singularity of Evil

There is an application of Einstein’s theory of relativity that says it is virtually impossible to fall into a black hole. Sure, you can get caught in the gravity distortion, and never be able to escape, but as you get closer to the event horizon time slows down. The closer you get the slower time moves. Theoretically, you never actually reach the event horizon; even though to the outside world it sure looks like you were sucked in.

I think the same thing happens with a person’s, or company’s, perception of their own ranking of evil. With each step towards being evil the self evaluation of ‘Am I Evil?’ continues to be ‘no’. For their point of view there is still an infinite amount of distance between themselves and Evil. To the outside world, though, they’ve gone to the Dark Side.

I don’t know that Google has given up their “Don’t be evil” mentality; but from my perspective it looks like they are getting close.

A few weeks back I wrote about the dangers of Google’s new ‘Free DNS Resolution Service‘. Just to re-cap, so you don’t have to read the original post, if you use Google’s free DNS service then Google will be able to track everything you do on-line. Not just your searches, or the web sites you view, but right down to the 300+ computers your computer connected to while downloading the latest episode of “24”. I think that is bad, but if people want to opt into that kind of tracking then I say it is their choice. Giving people a choice is not evil.

Taking away that choice is evil. Taking away that choice is exactly what Google is trying to do by pushing for an ‘extension‘ to DNS so that your computer’s IP address is forwarded along with your DNS request. If Google’s proposed extension is adopted, when your computer requests DNS resolution from your ISP’s DNS servers, you ISP will include your information in the DNS request that it makes on your behalf. This is an unprecedented level of tracking. It scares the crap out of me, and I don’t even have to worry about it because I run my own DNS servers and I’ll never run a version of BIND that won’t let me disable this extension.

Just getting this extension adopted will not directly give Google the ability to track your DNS queries without your consent. There is another piece of the puzzle that is still missing. So, here is my prediction: Google is going to roll out a free DNS hosting service. They’ll tout it as free, fast, and unlimited. They’ll try to get you to move your DNS from UltraDNS, GoDaddy, Network Solutions, etc to their servers. Once they are the authoritative DNS servers for millions of domains, and this extension has been adopted, they won’t need to get you to use their DNS Resolution Service to be able to track your every lookup. They’ll have you by the server instead of the nodes.

That will be downright evil.

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2010/01/052019/12/24

Over Thinking Doctor Who

Anyone who has been watching Doctor Who for the past four years knows that Russell T Davies has a knack for maintaining plot thread consistency. He also has a Whedonesque knack for planting a seed a season or two in advance, and then plucking the fruit and feeding it to you exactly when it is ripe.

Well, I believe I spotted several seeds sown into the last two episodes. Let me run you through my logic, and you can tell me if I have found the makings of a great tree or crabgrass.

The Time Lords are trapped in a Time Lock, and nothing can get out that was not already there:
1. The ‘drumbeat’ heard by The Master is used as a link because he was receiving it before the Time Lords were trapped in the Time Lock.
2. Wilfred Mott is visited repeatedly by an elderly woman who later turns out to be a Time Lord. She is able to communicate with him, establishing that they have some sort of link, or bond, that pre-dates the Time War.
Uncorrupted Time Lords avoid interference:
1. As far back as the second Doctor, the Time Lords considered it a crime to interfere with lesser races in any way.
2. Wilfred Mott is an ‘old soldier’ who didn’t really fight in the war. He had no impact on the outcome.
Uncorrupted Time Lords avoid violence:
1. The Doctor has almost always avoided violence. (Jon Pertwee had an extended sword fight with The Master, which should count as violence)
2. Wilfred Mott had a gun in his possession, but did not use it against The Master when he had the opportunity.
The Doctor manipulates others into committing violent acts.
1. This was the central theme of the 2008 series finale. The Doctor shapes other people into weapons so that he does not directly interfere.
2. Wilfred Mott tries to get the Doctor to take the gun in order to fight the Master.
Who are the two Time Lords who voted against The Final Sanction?
1. We discover that the woman who has been visiting Wilfred Mott is one of the two women who voted against destroying the universe. She makes eye contact with The Doctor and he suddenly is filled with inspiration about what he needs to do. The Doctor never identifies her, even when asked, and seems pained by the thought. I am going to speculate that she was The Doctor’s mother, and that he regrets that he was forced to trap her in the Time Lock with the rest of the Time Lords in order to save the Universe.
2. Who is the second woman? This is pure speculation, unsupported by the chain of facts I am trying to build. But, I need something to flesh out this two-point entry. I think the second woman is The Master’s mother. She would not vote to end the Universe, thereby killing her only son; but she also couldn’t raise her head and make eye contact with her evil spawn.
Strange connection:
1. Wilfred Mott keeps showing up at critical points in the Doctor’s life.
2. It took Captain Jack Harkness hundreds of years to find The Doctor, and it took Wilfred Mott two hours.
Mutual Respect:
1. Wilfred Mott says he would be proud to have The Doctor as his son.
2. The Doctor says he would be proud to have Wilfred Mott as his father.
Time Lords can hide out as human beings.
1. The Doctor hid out as a human in the past.
2. The Master hid out as a human in the furthest possible future.
3. … Wait for it… Wilfred Mott did it too

That’s right. I am suggesting that Wilfred Mott is in fact The Doctor’s Father! I am suggesting that at some point in the past he morphed himself into a human and chose to live out his life on planet Earth. This is why The Doctor’s mother comes to him telling him what he must do to save The Doctor. Maybe this is even why The Doctor has such a fondness for humans.

What do you think?

2010/01/02

Blizzard: Easy on cops, hard on you!

I have to admit, I get a very ironic laugh out of this. A couple of weeks ago I had my iPhone replaced by Apple, which invalidated my iPhone based Blizzard Authenticator. In order to restore my account I had to email to Blizzard my driver’s license, as well as a disturbing amount of other supporting documentation. Blizzard doesn’t seem to support gpg/pgp encryption, even though they encrypt the WoW client traffic, so I had to send my informatuion ‘in the clear’. To fix a problem with a ‘virtual world’ account, I had to send an unknown monkey at the other end of an unencrypted email connection enough information to forge my identity… And since I didn’t have to provide Blizzard with any of this information to open the account, they had nothing to verify against; making the entire exercise useless at proving my identity while exposing myself to further risk of identity theft. After all the hassle I had to go through, here is a case of Blizzard bending over backwards to respond to an out-of-jurisdiction subpoena and handing over every bit of information they had on one of their users.

Indeed, World of Warcraft is among the most popular online pastimes today, boasting more than 14 million players in dozens of countries — including Canada. But this is the Internet, and Blizzard is in California. Roberson’s subpoena was nothing more than a politely worded request, considering the limits of his law enforcement jurisdiction and the ambiguity of the online world.

“They don’t have to respond to us, and I was under the assumption that they wouldn’t,” said Roberson. “It had been three or four months since I had sent the subpoena. I just put it in the back of my mind and went on to do other things. Then I finally got a response from them. They sent me a package of information. They were very cooperative. It was nice that they were that willing to provide information.”

Blizzard did more than cooperate. It gave Roberson everything he needed to track down Hightower, including his IP address, his account information and history, his billing address, and even his online screen name and preferred server. From there it was a simple matter to zero in on the suspect’s location.

via Long arm of law reaches into World of Warcraft.

According to the news article, Mr Roberson was already working with US Marshals, so it would not have been a problem for him to obtain a jurisdictionally valid warrant. Blizzard was well withing their rights to refuse this subpoena and insist on one with binding jurisdiction. Hell, it was their responsibility to their customer for them to demand a valid subpoena! Rather than adhere to the tenants of the structure of our government, Blizzard chose the more expedient route of just handing over everything they had, when the only legal and moral course would have been to demand a legally binding subpoena.

Blizzard has once again thumbed their noses at their customers, and at the entire concept of customer privacy. Blizzard makes big statements claiming to care about and support the gamer community, but their actions indicate quite the opposite.

Blizzard frequently says “Fuck you, gamers!” and today I say “Fuck you, Blizzard!”.

I will never again purchase a Blizzard product. I will not buy Starcraft II, thought to be honest I had decided that when they pulled LAN support from the game. I will never renew my WoW account. (Damn shame, since I just activated my Collector’s Edition Lich King; but such is life.) I will not buy Diablo III. My love of games doesn’t come close to my hatred of companies who sacrifice their customers on the altar of corporate sleaziness.

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