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  Greg Collier 11:17 am on March 21, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: hate speech ( 14 ), LGBT ( 2 ), YouTube ( 6 )   

  YouTube finds itself fighting controversy on two fronts 

  

  When you have a virtual monopoly on user-generated video content like YouTube does, it’s difficult to please everyone all the time.Recently, YouTube found itself at odds with two groups that are very important to them, content creators and advertisers.

  The first controversy stems from the fact that some major advertisers didn’t like have their ads played before, or displayed next to videos that promote hate speech. While YouTube’s parent company, Google, has promised advertisers greater tools to limit where their ads are displayed, a few major advertisers have already pulled their ad dollars from the video platform.

  In the second controversy, many of YouTube’s LGBTQ content creators found their videos being restricted and filtered out as not being family friendly even though no explicit subjects were being discussed. In a statement YouTube said that it was due to a glitch in a parental control mode that it added to the service in 2010 and promised to do better. However, it seems like the damage had already been done when it appeared that YouTube was targeting such a specific part of its user community.

  While no company is perfect, both of these controversies show that Google still hasn’t ironed out all the bugs in YouTube even after having purchased it over a decade ago. With the cracks in YouTube’s armor that its shown over the years it’s surprising that a large competitor, for example Facebook, hasn’t tried launching its own video service to try to pull away creators from YouTube. Maybe that time is now, or at least soon.

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  Greg Collier 9:58 am on March 20, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Jeff Jones, Uber ( 26 )   

  Is Uber’s facade starting to crack as top executive quits? 

  

  Over the weekend, Uber’s President, Jeff Jones, announced that he was leaving the company only six months after taking the position. His resignation is said to be directly caused by the recent controversies Uber has been embroiled in including the culture of sexual harassment that Uber has been accused of fostering.

  In a statement that Jones himself sent to the media he says that Uber’s practices are in direct conflict with his beliefs and approach to leadership. This comes shortly after Uber CEO Travis Kalanick announced he was searching for a new COO stating that he needed to ‘grow up’ after getting into a shouting match with an Uber driver that went viral.

  Is this the beginning of the end for the ride sharing service that once stood atop the mountain? Not only are competitors like Lyft looking to swoop in on Uber’s claim to the top but other companies such as Waze are also looking to fill the gap left by Uber since so many of its users are deleting the app out of protest. Is there anything Uber can do to pull themselves out of this seemingly downward spiral? As the old business school cliché goes, it can take years to build great customer service, but only a moment to lose it.

   
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  Greg Collier 12:04 pm on March 17, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Alexa ( 4 ), Amazon ( 114 ), Echo ( 3 ), Siri ( 2 )   

  Will iPhone users divorce Siri in favor of Alexa? 

  

  Have you ever wanted to have the full capabilities of an Amazon Echo but couldn’t afford one since you spent all your money on having the latest and greatest iPhone? Well, fret no more as Amazon’s app on iOS now has full Echo capability.

  With its latest update, the iOS Amazon app now allows you to access the Echo functionality from your iPhone. Some are even saying that it’s a much better alternative to Apple’s built-in assistant Siri. While Siri has been around a lot long than the Echo, many Apple users still say that it’s buggy and glitchy to the point of being not very helpful.

  Also with the new Echo app, you don’t have to worry about jokers saying “Alexa, buy me a doll house” around your iPhone. With the Amazon app you actually have to press the microphone button within the app before Alexa will respond.

  While now, it’s only out for iOS devices, Amazon says that it should be available to Android devices shortly.

   
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  Greg Collier 9:52 am on March 16, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: hacking ( 32 ), Russia ( 9 ), yahoo ( 13 )   

  So what exactly did the Russian hackers get from Yahoo? 

  

  As was posted yesterday, the Department of Justice did indict four hackers believed to be involved with the massive data breaches that have plagued Yahoo over the past few years. The alleged hackers have been identified as Dmitry Aleksandrovich Dokuchaev, 33, Igor Anatolyevich Sushchin, 43, Alexsey Alexseyevich Belan, 29, and Karim Baratov, 22. Dokuchaev and Sushchin are said to be Russian intelligence agents while Belan and Baratov were hired by the aforementioned agents. The only one of the four to be arrested was Baratov since he was living in Canada at the time of his arrest. The other three suspects are currently in Russia which does not have an extradition treaty with the United States.

  So while the hacks exposed hundreds of millions of Yahoo accounts, only a minority of those accounts turned out to be valuable to the hackers. Among those accounts were those of Russian journalists and cybersecurity experts. Considering Russia’s track record of allegedly targeting and suppressing opposition against the regime this should come as no surprise. Outside of Russia, targets included a Nevada gaming official, a high-ranking executive in a US airline and the CTO of a French transportation company.

  For the average Yahoo Mail user this means that you probably weren’t targeted by the Russians and your Aunt Betty’s recipe for peach cobbler is probably safe, however, it is recommended that you update your password if you haven’t done so in a while or consider moving to a more secure platform that hasn’t been hacked to the tune of 500 million users.

  On the geopolitical scale these hacks could be seen as the start of a new type of cold war where the battlefield is through cyberspace rather than blocs of puppet governments. While the battle may be contained to a confined virtual space that doesn’t make the possible outcomes any less concerning.

   
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  Greg Collier 9:51 am on March 15, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: DOJ ( 3 ), hacking ( 32 ), Russia ( 9 ), yahoo ( 13 )   

  DOJ to charge four in Yahoo hacks 

  

  It seems that the Yahoo hacks have been in the news forever. For the past few months we’ve been hearing about hack after hack after hack that exposed hundreds of millions of accounts to the masses. The data breaches were so bad not only did it cause Verizon to ask for a $350 million dollar discount in their purchase of Yahoo, but it also basically cost Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer her job. Now a new chapter in the Yahoo hack saga has developed.

  Bloomberg is reporting that the Department of Justice has discovered the identity of four hackers they believe are at least partly responsible for the Yahoo data breaches. According to sources close to the situation, the DOJ believes one of the hackers to be in Canada and four to be in Russia.

  While the Canadian hacker might be easy to extradite, the problem may be with the three Russian hackers. Despite what you feel about alleged relationships between the current administration and Russia, the DOJ seems to believe that the Russian hackers are state-sponsored. Even if there are friendly relations between the two administrations will Russia be willing to extradite these alleged hackers to the US? That remains to be seen and could be the most interesting chapter in this saga.

  So what exactly did the Russian hackers get from Yahoo? | Greg's Corner is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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  Greg Collier 9:58 am on March 14, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Marissa Mayer ( 2 ), Thomas McInerney, yahoo ( 13 )   

  Marissa Mayer to step down as Yahoo CEO. New CEO to make twice as much 

  

  As was expected, it was announced yesterday that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer would be stepping down from her position as Verizon is set to take over the company. Mayer was put in the unenviable position of trying to turn around an already failing company. While she made many bold moves, such as buying popular micro-blogging site Tumblr, fortune did not favor her in this endeavor due to the many security breaches Yahoo had under her watch. As was posted before, Mayer will be receiving a $23 million golden parachute with her departure.

  In the new infrastructure, Mayer will be replaced by Thomas McInerney, the former chief executive of IAC. What’s making headlines about McInerney’s new position is that he’ll be reportedly making twice as much as Mayer did for half the amount of trouble. After the Verizon takeover is complete, McInerney’s responsibilities will more than likely be half that of Mayer since Verizon’s already existing corporate infrastructure will handle the brunt of Yahoo’s previous problems.

  Is this some hyperbolic form of the gender wage gap in America? Is Verizon reinforcing the stereotypical tradition of the old boys network? Only time will tell.

   
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  Greg Collier 12:07 pm on March 13, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: austin ( 4 ), lyft ( 15 ), sxsw, Uber ( 26 )   

  Did Austin miss Uber and Lyft during SXSW? 

  

  This past weekend the infamous tech and entertainment festival known as South by Southwest (SXSW) took place in the Southwest’s capital of cool, Austin, Texas. During the festival on Saturday night, the skies opened up, and rain descended upon ATX. Many of the revelers wanted to get a ride back to their hotels, but their requests for ride shares went unheeded.

  In a lot of hip cities like Austin, you can get a ride from ride sharing apps Uber or Lyft. Last May, both of those services left Austin due to new regulations the city imposed on ride sharing services. The city wanted Uber and Lyft to do fingerprint background checks on their drivers much to the protests of the two leading ride sharing companies. Rather than fingerprint their drivers, Uber and Lyft preferred to leave town leaving Austin with no ride sharing services.

  Much like nature, commerce abhors a vacuum, and it didn’t take long for new services to take the place of Uber and Lyft that were willing to play ball with the city. Those services are Ride Austin and Fasten. The problem with these new services is they didn’t seem to have the capabilities of scale that their predecessors had when the rains started to fall.

  Due to the massive traffic to the respective apps, the apps crashed hard and left both riders and drivers stranded. Both companies were said to have server issues and claim that the issues were resolved by Sunday.

  Both tourists and locals lamented the absence of both Lyft and Uber, but will that situation ever be resolved? Is the city being too protective of the city’s taxi services, or are Uber and Lyft being unreasonable by not fingerprinting their drivers?

   
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  Greg Collier 10:56 am on March 10, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: greyball ( 3 ), Uber ( 26 )   

  Uber to stop using Greyball, sort of 

  

  After it was revealed that ride sharing app Uber was using a program called Greyball, to fluster anti-Uber investigators, Uber now claims that they will stop using Greyball, to an extent.

  Uber says that they will stop using Greyball to deceive authorities but will keep the program in effect to test new features, use in marketing promotions, prevent fraud, and to protect their drivers.

  Can Uber actually be trusted to keep their word though? Uber has been embroiled in scandal after scandal after scandal, from something innocuous as defying a taxi protest in New York to unsettling claims of sexual harassment among executives. Uber has not really made a good faith gesture toward its users or employees to try to garner any positive PR. Uber has not appeared to acted genuine in any way, shape or form, since these controversies have started and have even admitted that their drivers are working in areas where they’ve been banned by law. Yet there has yet to be any major consumer backlash against this company that appears to be engaging in bad business practices.

  What will it take for Uber to either ingratiate themselves back in the good graces of the tech world or for them to fall from atop their industry dominance?

   
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  Greg Collier 10:58 am on March 9, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: filters, International Women's Day, Snapchat ( 13 )   

  Snapchat sparks controversy with International Women’s Day filters 

  

  After its successful IPO, photo sharing app Snapchat finds itself in the news again, but not for the same reasons. Since yesterday was International Women’s Day, Snapchat decided to release new filters in honor of the day. With the filters you could make yourself look like either scientist Marie Curie, artist Frida Kahlo, or civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

  A controversy started when some things were noticed about two of the filters. With the Marie Curie filter, not only did it thin out your face but it also gave you full eye make up for some reason. Many considered this to be wildly historically inaccurate. With the Frida Kahlo filter, it seemed to lighten the skin tone while trying to make the user look like the Mexican artist. A number of Snapchat users took to social media to decry this as an instance of ‘whitewashing’.

  Surprisingly, the filter that didn’t cause too much of a kerfuffle was the Rosa Parks filter. With the Rosa Parks filter, it didn’t change the skin tone of the user even though Ms. Parks was African-American. This could be that Snapchat learned from a previous controversy when they released a filter for reggae artist Bob Marley’s birthday which many users said was nothing more than applying ‘blackface’ to the user.

  Even with Snapchat’s faux pas there is something good that can be taken from their attempt to highlight these historical women with their whimsical filters. Snapchats userbase tends to skew young and some of these young people may not have yet learned about these three iconic women from history, and these filters may have sparked an interest into researching them. And nothing is wrong with a little bit more knowledge.

   
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  Greg Collier 11:47 am on March 8, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: CIA ( 2 ), Vault 7, wikileaks   

  Wikileaks shares massive CIA hacking tricks. Does it affect you? 

  

  Yesterday, whistle blowing website Wikileaks released a treasure trove of supposedly leaked information from the CIA dubbed Vault 7. Within the information are alleged plans the CIA uses to hack into virtually any internet connected device and use it as a monitoring device. Purportedly, the CIA can use malware to circumvent any operating system from Windows to MacOS to Linux and mobile OSes Android and iOS. iOs seems to be a favorite target of the CIA due to the number of high-ranking and powerful people who use iPhones.

  The good news is, if any good news can be taken from this, is that the CIA’s actions do not appear to be targeting every device held by everyday citizens. Instead, the CIA appears to be using their malware to target specific individuals rather than entire swaths of the population. So the average American citizen probably has nothing to worry about. However, with this supposed CIA code now in the open it potentially could be used by black hat hackers to compromise just about any device they may see fit.

  That’s not to say that there isn’t any protection against this malware. Usual defense tactics can go a long way in keeping you protected such as keeping your devices operating system up to date and patched, and not clicking on unknown attachments or downloading shady programs and apps.