Fortunately, as a result of learning the hardway, we as a [...]]]> Iceland’s volcanos are alive and well. If you haven’t read the news, just ask any number of stranded passengers in many major airports in Europe.Travelers from all over the world have been impacted by cancellations due to the volcanic cloud drifting over Europe.

Fortunately, as a result of learning the hardway, we as a species now know that flying through a volcanic cloud is a bad thing. It really screws-up airplanes. Doing so has nearly cost the lives of passengers and crew on several flights in recent history. Here’s hoping the lessons learned are not soon forgotten.

Vermomt Yankee, after drilling a monitoring well, found tritium in the soil and ground water. Tritium is a low-level radioactive by-product of nuclear plants. Fortunately, none [...]]]> Apparently, the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant has fixed it’s leak. [OMG! They leak?] There have been more than 20 leaks at nuclear power plants around the country.

Vermomt Yankee, after drilling a monitoring well, found tritium in the soil and ground water. Tritium is a low-level radioactive by-product of nuclear plants. Fortunately, none of the material was found in drinking water supplies or the nearby Connecticut River.

They say the leak has caused a credibility concern for Entergy, the company that owns the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. [Ya think?] Approximately 150 cubic feet of soil and material will be removed and contaminated gound water is being pump into above gound containers for use in the plant itself.

The leak began in two pipes inside a concrete tunnel. A clogged drain was also found in the tunnel, which allowed the water to seap through an unsealed joint in the tunnel wall.

This is a case where a failure to properly maintain the technology we’ve created nearly caused a disaster. It’s highly unlikely monitoring is something a large corporation would do without regulatory motivation. It appears the government may have done something right by requiring such monitoring. This would be a bite we collectively avoided. But, with 20 other leaks and surely more to follow, it’s only a matter of time before we have a “Three Mile Island” type incident.

Google, recently bitten by a zero-day exploit in China, has been very vocal about this exploit and is threatening to pull out of China. This, in turn, has the U.S. government requesting a response from China on cyber security. Can’t [...]]]> Technology has been chewing-on businesses and governments alike over the past month or so.

Google, recently bitten by a zero-day exploit in China, has been very vocal about this exploit and is threatening to pull out of China. This, in turn, has the U.S. government requesting a response from China on cyber security. Can’t blame the U.S. government for making a case, as IP’s from China have been traced as the source of several attacks over the past year or so. Needless-to-say, China is not happy about the bad press. In fact, they’ve been quite vocal in their denials and have basically told the U.S. “Don’t mess with our business”.

China is akin to a spoiled child. The country believes it’s right on most topics and seems to enjoy “flying in the face” of the world. So long as the world allows China to behave like a spoiled brat, it will continue to do so. If they were just a little less paranoid about information that might topple their power and concentrate on improving the lives of their citizens, they’d be better off. None-the-less, China does not seem happy about the technology bite it’s received.

Microsoft can’t be any happier these days. Internet Explore contained the flaw that, in the end, allowed the perpetrators to gain access to Google’s system. It’s also something Microsoft new about in September of 2009 and didn’t plan to release a fix until February 2010. A 5 month window, from the time they were advised of the flaw to a planned fix, seems a bit long to me. Perhaps to Microsoft now too. It certainly doesn’t look good for the company when something like this happens.

Will future Technology Bites come in triads? Microsoft/Google/China all bitten at once. Very cool! Unless you’ve one of the individuals China was trying to censor.

Hackers tend to attack the most popular products to achieve maximum impact. That usually makes Microsoft the primary target for [...]]]> Having a propular product can mean boon or bust for a software company. According to security firm McAfee (see report), Adobe will become the top target for hackers in 2010, surpassing Microsof Office products.

Hackers tend to attack the most popular products to achieve maximum impact. That usually makes Microsoft the primary target for exploit. But, Microsoft’s dominance in some areas is dwindling. As other products reach levels that compare or surpass Microsoft’s, they become exploit tools for hackers.

Adobe has acknowledged their products have seen an increase in attacks and have begun to respond by decreasing report-to-patch times. The products primarily used for exploits include Flash and Adobe Reader.

Adobe is not alone, other products experienced an increase in hacker exploit activity in 2009. Namely, Firefox and Apple’s Quicktime.

2010 looks like it will be a busy year for anti-virus/security firms. A good New Year’s Resolution would be to purchase good quality anti-virus/anti-spam/anti-malware tool (or tools) and schedule daily updates of your definition file(s). It may not be a “total” answer, but it might reduce a “bite” to a “nibble”.

Whether or not you agree with the above comment isn’t the point. It’s [...]]]>

While the inane spats of YouTube commencers may not be representative, the internet has certainly sharpened the tone of debate. The most raucous sections of the blogworld seem incapable of accepting sincerely held differences of opinion; all opponents must have “agendas”.

Whether or not you agree with the above comment isn’t the point. It’s how we express ourselves while on the Internet that displays our humanity, or rather our in-humanity. We see this well displayed in recent commercials targeted at our children. Ya know the cyber-bullying commercials. “If you wouldn’t say it in person…”. I think we can all agree that if we have commercials on this topic, a problem must exist.

10 years ago, when the Internet was still young, many of us joked that WWW didn’t stand for “World-Wide Web”, it stood for “Wild, Wild West”. Anonymity seems to bring-out the worst in people. Back then, being “flamed” by another user was insulting, but common. The fear of reprisal was non-existent. Many people “shot from the hip”.

Like so many things in life, we learned to adapt and even tolerate. Adaptation and tolerance was fine until our children started getting on-line. History now shows that such behavior has led to depression and suicide. It’s remarkable how rudeness can have such a major impact on some individuals. Hence, the “Cyber-bullying” commercials. Somewhere along the line, at least while on-line, we seem to have forgotten socially acceptable things like “please” and “thank you”, not to mention respect for others on most levels. No more “Golden Rule”!

Direct impact aside, we’re now seeing a new set of social blunders take place on the Internet. Here’s an example;

John and Jane get engaged. John tweets about it and posts a note on his Facebook page. Marget, Jane’s mother, reads John’s Facebook page shortly after his posting, before Jane has had a chance to call her mother and share the good news. Marget goes ballistic because she wasn’t told “in-person”. Jane feels bad and scolds John for not waiting to post the news. John feels no remorse at all because he was just sharing the good news with his friends. Needless to say John and Jane had a big fight!

In hindsight, it seems a relatively simple thing to avoid. Tell the people closest to you first, before posting. Yet, social sites perpetuate questions we’ve never been asked before, never had to ask ourselves before and couldn’t possibly foresee as a problem. As such, social blunders will occur.

“Ubuntu” is a word of African origin (and a great Linux distribution too!) that roughly means “Humanity to others.” If we use Ubuntu as a starting point, put the “Golden Rule” back in-place and learn from our blunders, I think we can all move forward and keep the Internet a safe place for our kids and a place where we can all learn and grow.

IMHO: The “Cyber-bullying” commercials are a necessary response to an on-line social problem. At the same time I’m appalled that we need ‘em.

Air France said the A330 plane sent an automatic message at 0214 GMT indicating an electrical circuit failure. There were no [...]]]> Yesterday was a sad day for the Aeronautics industry and at least 228 people. An Air-France A330 Airbus was lost over the Atlantic Ocean somewhere between Rio de Janeiro and Paris last night.

Air France said the A330 plane sent an automatic message at 0214 GMT indicating an electrical circuit failure. There were no other official details on the possible cause of the crash.

Lightning strikes are fairly common but planes built out of metal like the A330 are designed to be able to shake them off.

The massive current passes along the metal fuselage and is allowed to arc towards earth without causing harm.

The idea is based on a principle known as a Faraday Cage, which protects passengers inside a mesh of conducting material.

It appears Faraday’s Cage might not always work. In the worst previously recorded incident blamed on lightning, 113 people were killed in 1962 on a Boeing 707, coincidently also operated by Air France.

My heart goes out to the family and friends of the lost loved ones. In the end I hope technology is not to blame on this incident. Unfortunately, it seems pretty obvious technology bites again.