Stories by Mark Gibbs

H.R. 1981, the jaws of law will eat your Internet rights

You remember in "Jaws" where a girl is swimming in the ocean and the music starts playing ("dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun ...")? You know what's going to happen ... at the last moment she sees the shark's dorsal fin slicing through the water and, "eeeekkkkkkkkk!" ... too late! CHOMP!

Written by Mark Gibbs13 Feb. 12 16:22

Goodbye e-books, hello apps

"It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore ... Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year."

Written by Mark Gibbs03 Feb. 12 09:33

Smart hat monitors brain waves to watch fatigue levels

I just read <a href="http://m.gizmag.com/article/21271/">an interesting article</a> in <a href="http://m.gizmag.com/">Gizmag</a>, an online technology newsletter, about an unreleased product called the <a href="http://www.smartcap.com.au/">SmartCap</a> from Australian company EdanSafe. The SmartCap is worn as a cap and analyzes brainwaves to ascertain fatigue levels, one obvious use case being to monitor commercial drivers to reduce road accidents.

Written by Mark Gibbs02 Feb. 12 02:25

The real reasons why SOPA and PIPA are real bad

Following <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2012/012012-backspin.html">last week's Backspin</a>, reader Alex Gonzales (Sweetwater, Texas) wrote to me: "Just read your SOPA article and I guess I'm just not seeing the big picture. If the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) could put an end to online piracy and stop a lot of those damn viruses, maybe even stop hackers -- what's bad about that? You say bad for business, bad for Internet -- but how? How is stopping/policing the bad stuff on the Internet bad? Give me some real reasons as to why [SOPA/PIPA] is bad. And don't tell me to go read the SOPA/PIPA bills in their entirety."

Written by Mark Gibbs28 Jan. 12 02:20

No blackout for SOPA/PIPA? We know who you are.

Given the week that just was there's really only one topic I can write about: The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).

Written by Mark Gibbs21 Jan. 12 02:27

Your identity up for grabs

Security was a big issue in 2011 with more sophisticated and a wider range of threats than ever before wasting even more of everyone's time at a cost of billions of dollars.

Written by Mark Gibbs14 Jan. 12 04:35

A tablet for under a Benjamin?

Product names are tricky, there's no doubt about it. If you're not going to use a meaningless string of characters such as "X77-P73" then you've got your work cut out for you because it's hard to find a good name that isn't already taken by some other company. Even internal project names have to be researched, checked that they are OK to use and vetted by lawyers for liability.

Written by Mark Gibbs14 Jan. 12 02:36

2012 Outlook: The end of everything?

Welcome to 2012, the year the world ends. Yes, in case you haven't been following the eschatologists out there (and most of them are definitely "out there"), 2012 will be "it" for humanity. The "last hurrah". Fini. Au revoir.

Written by Mark Gibbs09 Jan. 12 16:30

Goodbye 2011 ... What a year!

Well, as we are just a hop, skip and an eggnog away from putting on silly hats, drinking champagne, and kissing random people as we bid goodbye to the year, it behooves me to look into the digital rearview mirror and ponder what we can see rushing away from us.

Written by Mark Gibbs19 Dec. 11 17:27

Gmail Backup, a recipe for happiness

Before I get to this week's main topic I must give a big thumbs-up to a book that all of you who like to cook will thoroughly enjoy: "Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food" by Jeff Potter (pub. O'Reilly).

Written by Mark Gibbs16 Dec. 11 12:27

How stupid can cell carriers be? Really Stupid.

The recent revelation that most of us are carrying around smartphones with embedded rootkits is both surprising and not so surprising. It's surprising because it makes you wonder, "How stupid can the carriers be?" It's not surprising in that we know the answer to that.

Written by Mark Gibbs05 Dec. 11 16:39

Cracking MD5 ... with Google?!

Here's a piece of news that will worry anyone interested in <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/topics/security.html">security</a> (which should be pretty much everyone who reads Network World): A programmer by the name of Juuso Salonen has created a Ruby script called <a href="https://github.com/juuso/BozoCrack">BozoCrack</a> that cracks MD5 hashed passwords with remarkable success and with very little effort.

Written by Mark Gibbs02 Dec. 11 10:36

Finding yourself ... more iOS maps

A while ago I got over-excited about <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2011/081011-gearhead.html">maps on the iPad</a> and promised more of the same in the future and now, the future has arrived.

Written by Mark Gibbs23 Nov. 11 08:31
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