Passwords For Security

Image by Zebra Pares via Flickr

New York Times: A Strong Password Isn’t the Strongest Security: MAKE your password strong, with a unique jumble of letters, numbers and punctuation marks. But memorize it — never write it down. And, oh yes, change it every few months. These instructions are supposed to protect us. But they don’t....... Keylogging software, which is deposited on a PC by a virus, records all keystrokes — including the strongest passwords you can concoct — and then sends it surreptitiously to a remote location. ..... antivirus software could detect and block many kinds of keyloggers, but “there’s no guarantee that it gets everything.” ..... sites that allowed relatively weak passwords were busy commercial destinations, including PayPal, Amazon.com and Fidelity Investments. The sites that insisted on very complex passwords were mostly government and university sites. ..... “If an account is locked for 24 hours after three unsuccessful attempts,” they write, “a six-digit PIN can withstand 100 years of sustained attack.” .....“Eat your broccoli; a strong password is good for security.”

What are your options? You can still go for a strong password. You can still change them periodically. You can still get anti virus software. You can hope it is illegal for someone to try and get your password, but this is a big world. The nation state is an ant to the cyber criminals who mostly work remotely.

What is your prayer then? That you are personally too insignificant to be snooped upon? That there are too many people like you out there?

Password theft is like identity theft. Can you imagine the inconvenience of someone having stolen your password and then changed it? Your contacts are not going to think your password got stolen. They are going to think you are being rude in not responding to their emails.

Maybe you can inform your 10 or 20 key contacts. But it would not be possible to inform them all.

For the short term, my bet is on good anti virus software. Keep it renewed. Most people do. And I am glad. Bill Gates once promised to incorporate anti virus software right into Windows. And he went ahead and retired.

It is a relentless fight between good and evil. But common sense is a good armor for the most part. And, yes, there are too many people like you out there. It is a numbers game. It is statistical. You are for the most part safe. Just keep to common sense. Keep a strong password. And keep your anti virus software renewed.

Safety online is kind of like safety offline. There are some common sense ground rules to follow. Even so you might fall a victim. It is a numbers game. If you do, know what to do.

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Are You Social?

Do you eat alone often? Are you checking emails while eating? How often do you eat with loved ones?

Do you turn the phone off at meetings? Or are you clandestinely checking email while others are talking?

Do you tell people off because you are too busy with Twitter and Facebook?

When you walk down the street, are you taking the street in? Or are you glued instead to your small screen?

When you ride the subway, are you enjoying the crowd? Do you sometimes say hello to complete strangers?

How often do you actually hang out with friends in person? Or has Facebook made that less necessary?

How many friends do you have? People you really know, people you will go out with for a drink, perhaps a lunch? When was the last time you made a new friend?

Do you have non tech friends? Perhaps people who are not on Twitter.

Can you hold conversations? Or do you find yourself longing for your small screen two minutes into one?

Do you spend at least one day a week when you don't touch a device? No computer, no phone.

Do you exercise? Do you eat well? Do you sleep well?

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Howard Lindzon's The Web Is Dead Series

Fred Wilson (Is The Web Dead?)
Brad Feld
Chris Dixon

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Data Threesomes

Image via CrunchBase

Chris Dixon: Web Services Should Be Both Federated And Extensible: The next step in this evolution is to create web services that are both federated (APIs) and extensible (Apps)..... The combination of Facebook’s data (social graph and check-ins) and SimpleGeo data/algorithms would create much more advanced feature possibilities than either service acting alone...... a “data threesome” ..... Allowing websites to be federated and extensible will open up a whole new wave of innovation

Two memes have been making the rounds: the web is dead, women in tech.

Chris Dixon, in this post, is referring to mash ups, high level mash ups. He is talking of "data threesomes" and how that would lead to "a new wave of innovation."

Some people have commented saying it is already being done. If it is, it is not mainstream yet.
People have been building APIs upon APIs. There is much data sharing going on, but not entirely enough.

What really matters is the end product, that final interface that the end user interacts with. A simple interface sitting on top of rich data interactions is what you want to shoot for.

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NY Tech Scene Heating Up

Image via CrunchBase

Wall Street Journal: New York's Tech Start-Up Scene Comes Of Age: over the last decade, New York has been building a real tech center, where software, media, and ad-related startups are thriving, a venture capital community is growing and serial entrepreneurs are as commonplace as they are in Silicon Valley. ...... a general feeling here, a buzz, that there is momentum here ...... "As one of the most successful financial exits from the dot-com era, DoubleClick made people in Silicon Valley realize that there may still be some fire coming out of New York" ...... "Back then it was a gold rush mentality," he said of the late 1990s. "Now it's building a business." ...... the New York region ranks number four in total venture capital investment, after Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Boston. ...... in terms of funding for software companies, New York ranked only second to Silicon Valley for venture capital funding in the second quarter ..... One New York startup that is well-known in Silicon Valley is Foursquare ..... "New York is a challenging city to build location-based services for because of its density, so once they built a product that could work well in New York City, they figured it would work well in other, smaller cities as well." ..... Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures is now seen as a veteran among New York venture capitalists ..... there are now more angel investors and startup incubators in New York. Venture capitalists are also now more willing to provide seed funding than they had in the past. .... No one calls New York "Silicon Alley" anymore. "Now we just call it New York," Ms. Halper said. "The industry in New York has finally come of age."

I am waiting for two things. I am waiting for the Great Recession to get completely over and done with. And you will know that has happened when Facebook goes IPO. Facebook is waiting for the recession to completely end before it will file. And I am waiting for a tech company in town to go IPO. I think that company right now is looking like FourSquare. But I need to be hush hush about it because I am superstitious. An IPO is such a big deal. And it is not a given.

A few IPOs and New York City will have finally arrived on the tech scene in a way I would like. The DoubleClick exit was grand, but it was no IPO. I have a feeling once we see our first IPO, we will see a string of them.

And I am fervently hoping a tech revival in this city is not just about dot coms and software. I hope this city makes strides also in other emerging tech sectors like clean tech and bio tech and nano.

A lot of smart people who go to top colleges in this country end up in this city. It is that allure of New York City. It is that magic. So far this city has not made the best use of all that talent. This city has needed a painful recession to shake off the Wall Street suction pump and to release talent into more meaningful sectors like emerging tech.

Slowly but surely it is happening though. This city is going bonkers.

New York City has a huge advantage over Silicon Valley. That is that Silicon Valley by now is like this big, old, mature company. New York City - the city - is a startup. That cultural advantage is priceless.

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