No new Vistas for us to view?

No new Vistas for us to view?

After Microsoft Bob and Windows ME, Vista would have to be the least-loved Windows operating system. It arrived in 2007 on Jan 30, and on April 11 will no longer be a supported OS. That means no more security updates, no hotfixes and no support options, paid or otherwise. Readers will not be surprised to learn that Microsoft is recommending that any remaining Vista users upgrade to Windows 10. You may be thinking that if you are a really large organisation and are willing to pay, Microsoft will provide support just like they still do for some XP customers. But the word on the street is they won't for Vista.

In related news, Microsoft is ready to roll out a new version of Windows 10, developed for the Chinese market. It contains a bunch of new security features, as demanded by the Chinese government, reportedly triggered by the revelations of Edwards Snowden. Originally, China wanted to see the code for everyone's products so they could verify they didn't have any hidden features such as reporting back to Redmond. Microsoft, Intel and IBM all said no. Instead, Microsoft worked with state-owned China Electronics Technology Group and IBM with Dalian Wanda to get their products ready for Chinese acceptance. That China has also created its own version of Ubuntu, called Kylin, as a Microsoft competitor had some impact on encouraging Microsoft to play ball to gain access to the potentially huge market.

According to German postdoctoral researcher Dominik Herrmann, domain-name lookups can reveal what pages you visited and not just the sites. The process involves recursive name-server tracking and a lot of watching of an IP address, but apparently it can be done. Dominik also claims that, based on a person's regular internet usage, even if they change their IP address, they can still be identified nearly 90% of the time.

So why do we care? Let's say you're someone who regularly checks out websites concerning stress. A health provider could use the approach to determine you're at higher risk than others and bump your premiums, all based on "distinctive DNS retrieval pattern(s)". If like me you use a script blocker, you will see 20 or more separate requests. These form one DNS-resolution fingerprint, and there are others. Bottom line: authorities could be gathering more information than you or even the so-called experts think possible. The solution here is to have your ISP refresh and assign a new IP address more often. Once an hour, for example, drops the ability to identify someone to below 50%.

Apple lovers everywhere will be awaiting the new iPad. There is no special name or number for this one, so like the new Doom game, the latest version is just the one word. It has a 9.7-inch screen at 2048×1536 and weighs in at under 500g. With an 8MP front camera and 1.2 back it does seem a bit light for photos, and it comes in either 32Gb or 128GB versions. The CPU is an upgrade from an A8 to an A9, and there has been a small price drop. With no other changes since the 2014 version, it begs the question: Why the new model? The new iPad mini will come only in the 128GB version, and is more expensive than the new iPad 32GB. Again, why bother? To ramp up excitement, the new iPhone 7 comes in red.

Nokia recently tested a trans-Atlantic fibre cable and demonstrated 200 and 250Gbps speeds per fibre. They also claim that they will boost this to 32Tbps per fibre sometime in the future. This means that people in Europe could stream high-def movies from the US all the faster in the future. It's all based on something called probabilistic constellation shaping (PCS) from Bell Labs.

Amazon has a device called the Echo that links to your phone via the Alexa app to provide hands-free audio and other services, such as answering questions like Apple's Siri and others. As you might expect, it also allows you to place Amazon orders using simple voice commands, as one family of a young child found out when a large doll house unexpectedly arrived at their door. Amazon was a little red-faced when the news story on the event triggered multiple orders of the doll house, as it outlined the process in some detail, enough for Alexa to place the same kind of order.

The US is once again looking at face-recognition technology. To date, it is still likely to give a false positive, is largely unregulated and is easily hackable. For it to work well, you need a database that has everyone's face recorded, and even then you may get a match that is wrong, even with the correct one available, as occurs about one in every seven times with the FBI, according to one report.


James Hein is an IT professional of over 30 years' standing. You can contact him at jclhein@gmail.com.

James Hein

IT professional

An IT professional of over 30 years’ standing. He has a column in Bangkok Post tech pages and has been writing without skipping a beat every week all these years.

Email : jclhein@gmail.com

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