Protecting Your Computer with Malwarebytes
Malwarebytes has been around for a long time and I've usually had the free version installed. Recently, though, I decided to pay the relatively small fee to license the paid version of both the Antimalware program (version 2) and a newer application called Anti-Exploit (still at version 1.0). These applications aren't intended to replace your antivirus program but to run alongside them.
The prices are reasonable. Anti-Malware is available for free or for $25 per year to cover 3 computers. Both free and paid versions include anti-malware and anti-spyware, anti-rootkit, and advanced malware removal. The paid version adds malicious website blocking, real-time protection, a faster scanning mode, automatic database updates, and a "chameleon driver" that prevents malware from tampering with the protective applications.
The story is similar for Anti-Exploit. Both free and paid versions shield all common browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera) and guard against Java exploits. The paid version (also $25 per year for 3 computers) adds protection for PDF documents, media players, and the ability to add and manage custom protection.
In version 1 of the Anti-Malware product, Anti-Rootkit was offered separately. Rootkit scanning is turned off by default, though, because it extends the time needed to run a scan. I recommend turning it on. Malwarebytes uses several methods to identify rootkits and remove them as well as attempting to repair damage that malware may have inflicted on your computer.
That, in fact, has always been one of the most attractive features of Malwarebytes products.
Anti-Exploit is intended to provide protection against the changing threats such as zero-day exploits. The term simply means that it's a new threat with no "signature" that a standard anti-virus program would be able to identify.
It's a small application, but you may find yourself wondering if it's working. Anti-Exploit Premium creates what Malwarebytes calls multiple "protective layers" and it tries to identify attempts to bypass security features that are built in to the operating system, monitor activity in the system's memory (particularly any attempt to run code from memory), and block attacks on the protective application itself. You may wonder if it's working because these kinds of attacks are rare, but for $25 per year for 3 computers, purchasing the premium version seems like a bet worth taking.
Malwarebytes does provide an application you can download for testing. You can run it in two modes, safe and rogue. Run in safe mode, it's ignored by Anti-Exploit; but when you run the version that attempts to replicate malware in action, Anti-Exploit steps in and kills the process instantly.
Malwarebytes provides impressive protection at a low price.
For $50 per year for 3 computers, in addition to whatever you pay for your antivirus application, the two Malwarebytes applications seem to be a good investment. Anti-Exploit Premium is quiet most of the time, doesn't interfere with system operations, and offers impressive protections. Besides, there's the Malwarebytes website, which has been the best source for a long time for anyone who's seeking advice about how to avoid or remove malware.
Additional details are available on the Malwarebytes website.
Net Neutrality, Rural Electrification, and Competition
President Obama has finally added his voice to the millions of others who have written to the Federal Communications Commission in support of Net Neutrality on the Internet. Today there's a lot that's wrong with the Internet and creating a "fast lane" would simply make things worse. This isn't a political issue, though, and it's sad that it's being made a political issue.
I say that it's needlessly being made a political issue because most people, whether they know a lot about Net neutrality or not, are in favor of it.
The University of Delaware conducted a poll (results shown at the right) that asked whether people favored the proposal by FCC Commissioner Tom Wheeler to allow companies to pay more to obtain better Internet speeds for their services. This is generally known as the "fast lane" approach.
Even those who have never heard of the proposal think it's a bad idea. 81% of the respondents said they opposed or strongly opposed the scheme.
Those who have heard a lot about the proposal were even more overwhelmingly against it -- 86% either opposed or strongly opposed.
So my point that it shouldn't be politicized rests on this simple fact: When more than 4 out of 5 Americans are one one side of an issue, that issue clearly cuts across party lines. And there's this: The poll, which has a margin of error of 3 percentage points, also asked about political affiliation and the results showed that opposition to the plan was about the same among Republicans and Democrats. So if you hear someone trying to make this an argument about Republicans versus Democrats, follow the money.
And wonder who's trying to con you.
Where We Are Now
Residents who live in many European and Asian countries currently have Internet service that's faster -- sometimes by an order of magnitude -- than what most people in the United States have and they pay considerably less for that access. A "fast lane" would provide more income for a few companies, but at a higher cost to all Internet users.
At a time when nations are competing for intelligent people and when Internet access is a condition that businesses consider when selecting locations, we should be doing everything possible to expand the reach of the Internet and lower the cost.
You may note that some of the big players in this Net neutrality discussion aren't saying much. Google and Facebook are two of the largest and they aren't pushing for Net neutrality. They might even not particularly want Net neutrality. You may wonder why and the answer is a simple one.
Let's go back to 1998. AltaVista was the largest, most successful, and most powerful search engine on the planet. Then a small upstart called Google appeared. The founders didn't have much money, but they had some good ideas. After existing in name only as a part of Yahoo, even the AltaVista name is gone now. Type "altavista.com" into your browser's address bar and you'll find yourself at Yahoo.
Had Net neutrality not existed in 1998, AltaVista could have held on to its near monopoly. If, in the future, Net neutrality is not assured, it's likely that small companies with big new ideas will be thwarted. The next big Google or Facebook might never happen.
Rural Electrification Occurred Long Before the Internet
I see a parallel to what happened in the 1930s and 1940s. The Rural Electrification Act provided federal loans for the installation of electrical distribution systems to serve rural areas of the United States.
At that time, electricity was available only in cities. REA construction crews strung wires and REA electricians added wiring to houses and barns. The standard service, still found in many older homes today provides 60-amp, 230-volt service to a fuse panel, a 60-amp circuit for a stove, a 20-amp circuit for the rest of the kitchen, and 2 or 3 15-amp circuits for lighting throughout the house.
There were technological problems to solve, not the least of which was that the high-voltage distribution system in cities didn't work well in rural areas. In cities, distribution used 2300-volt lines, but after about 4 miles, the voltage drop became unacceptable. REA cooperatives elected to use 6900-volt distribution lines. Although this required more expensive transformers to drop the voltage down to household levels, it also allowed runs of 40 miles instead of 4.
Today a similar digital divide affects the Internet. In cities, high-speed service (at least by US standards) is commonly available, but in rural areas the only option is often a dial-up connection or expensive Wi-Fi that isn't very fast.
There's been talk of using frequencies freed up by moving UHF broadcast television signals to a different part of the spectrum. Additionally Google and Microsoft have conducted some experiments with what's called "Super Wi-Fi" that, even though it's not "Wi-Fi" could bring over-the-air speeds of 20- to 100-Mbps to rural areas. We need the equivalent of the REA to bring ubiquitous Internet service to rural areas and to all parts of town.
Leveling the Playing Field within the US
President Obama is late to the Net Neutrality party, but it's good to see that he's here. Saying that the Internet has unlocked possibilities we could just barely imagine a generation ago, Obama noted that until now most Internet providers have treated Internet traffic equally. That equality makes for a robust Internet, he says, that allows new business ideas to be launched and flourish.
In Obama's words, "That is why I am asking the Federal Communications Commission to answer the call of almost 4 million public comments, and implement the strongest possible rules to protect net neutrality."
Because the FCC is an independent agency, the president's opinion carries no more weight than yours or mine. Noting the rising use of mobile devices, Obama called on the FCC to make its these rules fully applicable to mobile broadband "while recognizing the special challenges that come with managing wireless networks."
The Federal Communications Commission was originally constituted to bring order to broadcast radio. In the early days, a radio station could broadcast on any frequency it wanted with whatever power it had available. Stations moved often to get away from interference or to interfere with a competing station. The FCC's rules eliminated that nonsense and eventually provided regulatory services for many types of communication.
The FCC mandated telephone neutrality many decades ago so that the customer of one phone company could place a call to someone who used a different phone company. Just imagine the chaos that would exist now if those regulations had not been instituted.
How Did We Get Here, Anyway?
People such as Vint Cerf (a program manager for the United States Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency funding various groups to develop TCP/IP technology) and Bob Kahn (instrumental in the invention of the Transmission Control Protocol and the Internet Protocol, the fundamental communication protocols at the heart of the Internet) essentially invented the Internet. Yes, there were a lot of other people who worked on a lot of other parts and pieces, but Cert and Kahn say that one government official stands out when it comes to making the Internet available to the general public.
The government official who Cerf and Kahn credit with this feat is none other than Al Gore. And yes, in a poorly worded reply to Wolf Blitzer on CNN in 1999, he said that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet." But never did Gore claim credit for inventing the Internet. I've been reading Walter Isaacson's The Innovators and on the day when Barack Obama announced his support for Net Neutrality, serendipity led me to read Isaacson's account of Gore's contribution to the Internet as we know it.
"In 1986 Gore launched a congressional study that looked at a variety of topics, including creating supercomputer centers, interconnecting the various research networks, increasing their bandwidth, and opening them up to more users. It was chaired by the ARPANET pioneer Len Kleinrock. Gore followed up with detailed hearings that led to the High Performance Computing Act of 1991, known as the Gore Act, and the Scientific and Advanced Technology Act of 1992. These allowed commercial networks, such as AOL, to connect with the research network run by the National Science Foundation, and hence to the Internet itself. After he was elected vice president in 1992, Gore pushed the National Information Infrastructure Act of 1993, which made the Internet widely available to the general public and moved it into the commercial sphere so that its growth could be funded by private as well as government investment."
So Gore didn't "invent the Internet" and never really claimed that he did. During the political controversy that erupted after the CNN interview, even Newt Gingrich came to Gore's defense: "It's something Gore had worked on a long time.... Gore is not the Father of the Internet, but in all fairness, Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet."
[Newt Gingrich quoted in Walter Isaacson's The Innovators]
So without invoking any political hysteria, could we all agree that Al Gore didn't invent the Internet but that he was instrumental in expanding the scope of the Internet so that people like you and I could have access to it?
As one of the early adopters of the public Internet, I was around when services such as Archie and Veronica, Gopher and Jughead, were the Google before Google was invented. Before graphical user interfaces. Text was just text -- 80 characters wide and 25 lines tall. Or sometimes 120 characters wide and about 40 lines tall. When telnet was king. When usenet was used for extended discussions and irc was used for quick messages. And e-mail, of course. It's been there since the beginning.
A lot has changed in the years since 1985 when the Internet -- developed by a 30-year project that involved government, business, and universities -- began to be made public. In the intervening almost 30 years, we've seen the demise of Archie, Veronica, Gopher, and Jughead. We've seen the rise and fall of Netscape. We've seen the first gigantic search engine, AltaVista, be replaced by Google. We've seen online shopping, seemingly hundreds of thousands of mobile apps that rely on the Internet, and the kind of connectedness that perhaps a few dreamers saw in the distant future back then.
Most of this has been the result of open Internet policies, policies that are currently in danger.
Short Circuits
Pandora: 4 Hours, No Questions
If you listen to music using Pandora, you may occasionally see a message that asks if you're still listening. The service says that the message is displayed when you haven't interacted with the player for "a while". I'm not sure what "a while" is, but often it seems to be around 30 minutes or so. Pandora does this to avoid streaming music into empty rooms because the service pays royalties based on the number of selections played and the number of people who heard them.
If you start playing Pandora at work and leave it running when you go home for the day, the music will stop and the message will be displayed. "Since we pay full royalties on every song we play," Pandora says on its website, "having a timeout interval will enable us to stop from streaming endlessly to unattended devices."
If you're using the free service, you just need to click somewhere on the Pandora music player and the message won't be displayed. Or if you upgrade to the paid service, the time-out period increases but isn't eliminated. The paid service also eliminates ads that listeners to the free service occasionally hear.
Another option for creating a longer listening period involves interacting with an advertisement. This usually takes a minute or two and eliminates reminders for the following four hours. Ads are still played for those who use the free service, but you won't be bugged for half a workday.
If you find the reminders just too annoying to deal with, you'll find add-ons for most browsers so that you can have the browser emulate the occasional click on the Pandora interface.
Yahoo Buys a System that Serves Video Ads
Yahoo has acquired BrightRoll, a system that delivers video advertising. The cost of the acquisition, $640 million. Last year, Yahoo spent a little over $1 billion to acquire Tumblr. The money comes from the initial public offering by Alibaba, but CEO Marissa Mayer says that her intent is to pay out most of the money to shareholders.
The term "a little" might be slightly misleading. By "a little over $1 billion", I meant $1 billion 100 million. The $100 million constitutes the "a little" part.
Yahoo still owns a chunk of Alibaba and Mayer says the company is exploring ways to sell off the rest of its shares of Alibaba, but to do so in a way that will dodge as much of the tax burden as possible.
The purchase of BrightRoll is intended to give marketers an easy way to purchase video ads on a vast array of websites and to do so essentially in real time.
Yahoo will stream one live music performance per day on the new service as part of a deal with Live Nation, which was spun off from Clear Channel in 2005.
BrightRoll expects net revenues this year in excess of $100 million. It delivers video ads programmatically in an effort to place the right video in front of computer and mobile users. The technique targets ads by age, geographic area, and other information; and political parties used the company's services in this month's election in an effort to direct ads specifically to voters. This is a technology that's expected to grow significantly over the next several years.
Alibaba and 11/11 in China
Speaking of Alibaba, the online company had a big day on November 11, which is a big sale day in China. The numbers of the date are all ones (11/11) and its essentially a celebration of the individual -- Singles Day. Marketers promote it as the day on which consumers should buy something nice for themselves.
Apparently it works. Sales were something like $9 billion, which is more than is spent in the US on "Black Friday" (also known as the con game after Thanksgiving) and "Cyber Monday" (also known as steal time from your employer to do your holiday shopping) combined. The event in China, in fact, turned out to be the biggest Internet shopping day ever.
China's online commerce spending is higher than what's spent in the United States, in large part because the population of China is around 1 billion 357 million people and that of the United States is about 316 million. By 2020, with increasing prosperity in China, its economy is expected to be larger than the combined economies of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Japan.
The Future of Microsoft as Seen by Satya Nadella
The new CEO of Microsoft seems to be trying to figure out how best to position the company. The company offers operating systems, applications, hardware (phones and tablets), game consoles, corporate software, and online computing.
An account by Nick Wingfield in the New York Times describes a recent meeting that Nadella held with a small group of journalists.
Wingfield writes that Nadella use the phrase "getting stuff done" at least 7 times in 15 minutes.
The article discusses where Microsoft will go in the future. "[Nadella] is seeking to define the company’s identity more clearly to both employees and the outside world, explaining how its sprawling technology assets are not a disjointed jumble but rather reinforce each other. With the exception of Xbox, which he has praised but admits is outside the company’s core mission, Mr. Nadella believes Microsoft's focus on productivity is what distinguishes it from competitors."
Nadella sees Apple's position clearly as a company that sells devices and Google as a company that's all about data and advertising. Microsoft's identity, Wingfield writes, is about making products that empower others in their work and personal lives. In Nadella's words, "we want to be the tools provider, the platform provider. That's the core identity."