How To Download Your Facebook Data Easily

My last blog for 2010! Have a Happy New Year Everyone!

Facebook in October of 2010 made it very easy to download the majority of your messages, photo's. videos and other content data that you input in to it.

1. Go to Account and choose Account Settings.

 

2. From the Download Your Information Section Choose "Learn More"

 

3. A dialog box will appear with a link for you to download your information. Click Download Now.

4. After clicking on Download Now the Request My Download will appear. Click Download.

 

5. After this step is complete you will need to wait for Facebook to send you an email with a link to a zip file containing all your personal data is ready for download. See below.

Facebook to me

You recently requested a download of your information on Facebook.

Your download has been generated and is now ready. Please follow the link below to download it. Remember that this file contains sensitive information. Because this download contains your profile information, you should keep it secure and take precautions when storing, sending or uploading it to any other services.

https://register.facebook.com/download/?h=XXXXXX8d2454667XXXXXb9180

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

6. After you click on the link Facebook send to you a download dialog box will appear. Save to a folder on your computer.

7. Once the download is complete extract the files. You will find the following file structure created, which is pretty cool, because this will allow you to view your content using a web browser like you would on Facebook, but directly being read from your computer.

That's it! Pretty simple. Now please safegaurd your Facebook data because once you download it you are 100% responsible for securing the content and making sure its backed up.

Enjoy,

Julius

Using VoIP with a Credit Card Processing Terminal is Risky Business

Processing Credit Card Payments Using Credit Card Terminals with VoIP / Digital Phone Lines Is Not PCI Complaint

Millions of people running small businesses; especially home based businesses, also have VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) / Digital Phone Line services from their Internet Service Provider (ISP) in their homes and businesses. Many also use Point-of-Sale Terminals made initally for old fashion phone lines; not Digital Lines. If you are a merchant and use a card processing terminal which connects via VoIP or Digital Phone Lines to transmit and process credit card payments, then you are not PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliant; you are at risk of losing your credit card processing privileges or can be sued by your customers whose data is stolen. Credit Card data that is processed over VoIP services are transmitted in the clear over Public Networks (The Internet) and their is no way to encrypt the data.

Excellent article on this topic can be found at The Merchant Account Blog:

• VoIP + Credit Card Terminal = Bad Idea

Note: Most VoIP providers do not utilize encryption

• Visa's Statement on VoIP
• MasterCard's Guidance on Point-of-Sale Credit Card Terminals
  
• PCI Standards

When these terminals are connected to a true analog phone line the merchant is operating within PCI Compliance. This is so because it is very unlikely that data can be stolen over an old fashion telephone line while processing credit card payments. An attacker would have to tap into your home or business phone line to steal credit card data and that is highly unlikely to happen so this is rated as very low risk.

VoIP is very susceptible to Man-in-the-middle attacks, where an attacker can eavesdrop or alter the originating message by anyone on the internet; in this case capturing your customers sensitive credit card information. Most credit card phone line processing terminals won't work over VoIP services because of dropped packets, but even failed attempts to try and process credit cards over VoIP could lead to an attacker stealing customer credit card data. See diagram below.

Man In The Middle Attack

Work Around To Be PCI Compliant

Many of these credit card terminals also have an Ethernet Port (RS232) and can easily process customer credit card payments via an encrypted connection over the internet. You may need to contact your credit card processing provider to help you get it setup; usually at no additional cost! See picture below.

Another work around is to switch to a Wireless Credit Card Terminal. Note, these terminals incurre higher business expenses as compared to a dial-up phone line terminal. These terminals use GPRS/ Cell phone technology just like moble phones do to securely connect and encrypt the credit card transaction, which is PCI compliant. A wireless credit card processing terminal is great for businesses who sell goods or services on the road. See Wireless Credit Card Terminal below.

More Secure and Convenient Credit Card Processing Method

Wireless Credit Card Processing Terminal

19 Year Old Demonstrates VoIP Hacking - Scary Stuff!

Be careful out there!

Julius, MBA, CISSP, CISA

WikiLeaks Discloses over 400,000+ War Reports From Iraq - WSJ.com

WikiLeaks Discloses Reports From Iraq - WSJ.com

Largest U.S. Military Breach in History!

Hip Hop Can Influence Kids To Pursue STEM Careers

Dr. Dre who is one of the best music producers in Hip Hop history is making his mark these days as an Engineering and Technology innovator. Dr. Dre has the hottest selling brand of High-Tech headphones on the market, and everyone from the B-Boy to the corporate executive wants a pair. 

Time Magazine - The Beats by Dre Headphones are state of the art because they incorporate High-Tech Noise Canceling circuitry.

though they have some noise-canceling tech built in to them — the Beats are designed to enhance the listener's enjoyment of music rather than drown out the snores of your seatmate. Dre, who for three years collaborated with Jimmy Iovine, chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M Records, and audio "connectivity" company Monster® to create the Beats, says his goal was to give people a way to "hear what the artists hear and listen to the music the way they should — the way I do."

In other words Beats™ by Dr. Dre™ headphones produce the same sounds that studio engineers listen to on full size speakers. Additionally, a high end pair can range from $199 to $450 bucks.

The audio company Bose™ is the standard leader in premium priced headphones, and from many of the reviews I have read, Beats™ by Dr. Dre™ headphones are equal or far superior than Bose™ branded premium headphones--I bet they are not sleeping well at Bose these days, because they would of expected competition from a electronic giant like Sony™ not from a hardcore Hip Hop artist; you have got to love it!

Noise Canceling Diagram

As you can see from the figure above, there is some intricate expertise that needs to be known to design the Beats™ by Dr. Dre™ headphones. The cool thing is that anyone can learn to design electronic circuits at any two year community college with an Electronic Engineering or Technology program. Hip Hop has the star power to influence million s of kids; particularly minorities, to pursue STEM careers. A movement can be started if the right people work together and clearly paint a picture of superior opportunities for kids either as working professionals or as entrepreneurs like Dr. Dre; and even Snoop Dogg.

Technology makes magic happen and can turn your wildest ideas and fantasies in to fruition. Hip Hop has a fierce and powerful youthful force that has ears listening from neighborhood streets to Wall street. I feel that STEM education when fused with Hip Hop can ignite a sleeping giant in our country that will keep America innovating unbelievable new products and services, which will keep the U.S. as the number one economy in the world.

In closing, I have to leave you with this bad futuristic Hewlett Packard™ (HP) commercial showcasing a HP laptop integrated with Beats™ by Dr. Dre™ technology and Rapper NAS's video to the youth "I Can". Hip Hop Makes STEM Careers too cool!

NAS - I Can

Enjoy!

Julius

Google opens URL-shortener Goo.gl to public - CNN.com

Google opens URL-shortener Goo.gl to public - CNN.com

Congress Passes NASA Bill: New Heavy-Lift Rocket, More Commercial Spaceflight, and a Mandate for Mars | Popular Science

Congress Passes NASA Bill: New Heavy-Lift Rocket, More Commercial Spaceflight, and a Mandate for Mars | Popular Science

25 Jobs That Pay Women Over $1,000 Per Week

Blackcareers.com, a division of CareerBuilder.com, published an article titled: 25 Best-Paying Jobs for Women. As usual these jobs require advanced degrees, and as usual many of these jobs are in the Computer Science and Engineering arena.

With the loss of manufacturing jobs in America, our economy is steadily switching to a "College Economy"; which means that by 2010 most jobs will require at a minimum a two year college degree.

The article discussed the diparity in pay that still exists between men and women, but that gap is getting smaller.

Below you will find the top 12 best paying jobs from the article earning a nice $1,000 per week. The list is sorted in descending order by highest to lowest pay pay.

Pharmacists

• Women - Median weekly earnings: $1,647
• Men - Median weekly earnings: $1,914    
• Women's earnings as percent of men's in same occupation: 86.1%

Chief executives  

• Women - Median weekly earnings: $1,603
• Men - Median weekly earnings: $1,999    
• Women's earnings as percent of men's in same occupation:  80.2%

Lawyers    

• Women - Median weekly earnings: $1,509
• Men - Median weekly earnings: $1,875    
• Women's earnings as percent of men's in same occupation:  80.5%

Computer software engineers 

• Women - Median weekly earnings: $1,351
• Men - Median weekly earnings: $1,555    
• Women's earnings as percent of men's in same occupation:  86.9%

Computer and information systems managers      

• Women - Median weekly earnings: $1,260
• Men - Median weekly earnings: $1,641    
• Women's earnings as percent of men's in same occupation:  76.8%

Physicians and surgeons

• Women - Median weekly earnings: $1,230
• Men - Median weekly earnings: $1,911    
• Women's earnings as percent of men's in same occupation:  64.4%

Management analysts   

• Women - Median weekly earnings: $1,139
• Men - Median weekly earnings: $1,391    
• Women's earnings as percent of men's in same occupation:  81.9%

Human resources managers   

• Women - Median weekly earnings: $1,137
• Men - Median weekly earnings: $1,433    
• Women's earnings as percent of men's in same occupation:  79.3%

Speech-language pathologists

• Women - Median weekly earnings: $1,124
• Men - Median weekly earnings: *  
• Women's earnings as percent of men's in same occupation:  **

Computer and mathematical occupations   

• Women - Median weekly earnings: $1,088
• Men - Median weekly earnings: $1,320    
• Women's earnings as percent of men's in same occupation:  82.4%

Computer scientists and systems analysts  

• Women - Median weekly earnings: $1,082
• Men - Median weekly earnings: $1,240    
• Women's earnings as percent of men's in same occupation:  87.3%

Physician assistants     

• Women - Median weekly earnings: $1,077
• Men - Median weekly earnings: ** 
• Women's earnings as percent of men's in same occupation:  **

The complete list can be found here: http://www.blackcareers.com/ViewArticle.aspx?articleid=123

Enjoy,

Julius

Governments Who Request or Remove Data About Its Citizens

The Google Transparency Tool

Site:
http://www.google.com/transparencyreport

Per Google:

Transparency is a core value at Google. As a company we feel it is our responsibility to ensure that we maximize transparency around the flow of information related to our tools and services. We believe that more information means more choice, more freedom and ultimately more power for the individual.
We’ve created an interactive map of Government Requests that shows the number of government inquiries for information about users and requests for Google to take down or censor content. We hope this step toward greater transparency will help in ongoing discussions about the appropriate scope and authority of government requests.
Our interactive Traffic graphs provide information about traffic to Google services around the world. Each graph shows historic traffic patterns for a given country/region and service. By illustrating outages, this tool visualizes disruptions in the free flow of information, whether it's a government blocking information or a cable being cut. We hope this raw data will help facilitate studies about service outages and disruptions.

Transparency Report: Government Requests

I used this tool to conduct some quick research and compared the first six months of 2010 data, to all of 2009 requests by governments to either collect information from Google on citizen posted data or to request data to be removed.

Should we be scared? Google's Transparency Tool makes it real and demonstrates that countries keep tabs on what their citizens are doing on the Internet.

The United States leads the list with over 4287 data requests from Google between January 2010 - June 2010.

Google Transparency Report For Government Data Requests on Their Citizens: For the First Six Months of 2010 Compared To All of 2009

The first 6 months of 2010 for 4 of the 5 top governments who request data on their citizens has already exceeded the total number requests they made for the entire year of 2009. See below.

Country	2010 Government Data Requests	2009 Government Data Requests	Change
United States	4287	3580	707
Brazil	2435	3663	-1228
India	1430	1061	136
United Kingdom	1343	1166	177
France	1017	846	171

Google Transparency Report For Government Data Removal Requests of Their Citizens Data: For the First Six Months of 2010 Compared To All of 2009

The number of requests to Google by governments to remove data is also increasing sharply. The United States is due to double the number of requests to remove information by the end of 2009

Country	2009 Data Removal Requests	2010 Data Removal Requests	Change
Brazil	291	398	107
Libya		149	149
United States	123	128	5
Germany	188	124	124
Italy	57	69	12
United Kingdom	123	48	-75

Complete list of government who request data from Google or Request that Google remove data.

Country	Data	Removal
China	?
United States	4287	128
Brazil	2435	398
India	1430	30
United Kingdom	1343	48
France	1017	25
Germany	668	124
Italy	651	69
Spain	372	16
Australia	200	14
South Korea	170	38
Argentina	134	12
Taiwan	130	11
Chile	115
Singapore	106
Portugal	73	<10
Belgium	71	<10
Japan	56	7
Turkey	51	5
Hong Kong	50	<10
Switzerland	35	5
Israel	30	4
Austria		2
Canada		<10
Cyprus		<10
Greece		<10
Kazakhstan		<10
Libya		149
Macedonia [FYROM]		<10
Malta		<10
Mexico		<10
Netherlands		<10
New Zealand		<10
Norway		<10
Puerto Rico		<10
Russia		<10
Solomon Islands		<10
Sweden		<10

I applaud Google for providing this tool for transparency purposes. It makes you wonder about the information being gathered or censored. Hmmm.

Enjoy,

Julius

Country	Data	Removal
China	?
United States	4287	128
Brazil	2435	398
India	1430	30
United Kingdom	1343	48
France	1017	25
Germany	668	124
Italy	651	69
Spain	372	16
Australia	200	14
South Korea	170	38
Argentina	134	12
Taiwan	130	11
Chile	115
Singapore	106
Portugal	73	<10
Belgium	71	<10
Japan	56	7
Turkey	51	5
Hong Kong	50	<10
Switzerland	35	5
Israel	30	4
Austria		2
Canada		<10
Cyprus		<10
Greece		<10
Kazakhstan		<10
Libya		149
Macedonia [FYROM]		<10
Malta		<10
Mexico		<10
Netherlands		<10
New Zealand		<10
Norway		<10
Puerto Rico		<10
Russia		<10
Solomon Islands		<10
Sweden		<10