Shaheen N Abdul Jabbar

Archive for the ‘Between The Lines’ Category

A recent survey by the Canadian Press Harris-Decima poll on the internet traffic management in Canada suggests one in five surveyed supports the idea as long as all users are treated fairly.

From the Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) point of view, they are doing the right thing by reducing clogs during peak-use-time due to peer-to-peer file sharing services. However, I believe that type of service comes with a cost to regular subscribers. In order to execute such monitoring service, ISP will need to know activities of each and every subscriber which breaching their privacy. The Privacy Commissioner of Canada should be involved in the discussions that Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) are currently having ensuring the privacy of Canadians.

With regards to the Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey, I am curious if the survey ever educated the respondents with the details especially about the ramifications to the regular ISP subscriber if the ISP is allowed to shape internet traffic. According to the report by the Canadian Press, 54 per cent of the respondents did not know whether the traffic management affects them personally.

Couple this with two recent bills – the Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act and the Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act – just introduced before the House of Commons that will allow police to collect information about Canadian Internet users without a warrant and to activate tracking devices in their mobile devices and cars; wouldn’t it be a free pass to the privacy of every Canadian internet user?

My home town, Toronto, is going through a strike by city workers. It’s all over the news with CNN interviewing the Mayor and governments issuing travel advisories. There is no garbage collection at most of the town and many services run by the city workers are closed. Parents are forced to look for day care alternatives while some of the parks are now garbage dump sites.

I am not going to political aspects of whether it’s good or bad. However, I would recommend everyone not to throw out your bills and other unwanted documents to such garbage without properly shredding them. Dumpster divers may have access to such sites and could easily get hold of your personal information that includes credit card and other financial account numbers. Your address is more than enough for an identity theft.

Its vacation in North America; so is the case in many other parts of the world. Some are travelling while others take short breaks from work to enjoy the summer treats. In travel, we may be forced to use public internet kiosk or WIFI.

During this time, school goers are spending more time on the internet, movies and TV during this time. It’s that time of the year when we have more visitors at home and may end up using our computers.

So what’s the problem? Well, Fortinet – a threat management vendor issued a report stating that June 2009 marks the highest rate of phishing attack to date. Isn’t that obvious considering this time of the year and the economic conditions? Those who are out of work may adopt jobs for the phishers and spammers; while others are looking for the best deals on the internet.

Most of the Trojans are hosted on gaming sites that many visit more often during this time of the year. Get a personal firewall and anti virus software for computers used for such purpose. Your ISP may provide you these softwares for free. Ensure that they are up to date with signatures. Some browsers have the capability to subscribe to blacklists, which when subscribed blocks access to such websites.

You may get flaky deals by email phishing for your personal information. In this economic downturn, people are desperate to take on any good deals available on the internet – good target for phishers and spammers. Some emails are designed in such a way they are authentic coming from your bank requesting you to update your information. How did strangers get your email in the first place? Remember your honorable posts on the internet with your powerful email address at the end. Turn on your email spam guards to avoid such phishing attacks.

When you are travelling, try to avoid public kiosks and WIFI – they could be hosting such malicious software and could be part of a large botnet. Do not access your financial accounts from such places. If possible always keep a small netbook for such use in travel.

At home, try to have a separate secure computer that you can use for accessing financial accounts. Or it could be the other way around – keep a separate computer for your entertainment and gaming access which will not be used for accessing financial accounts. Not many are fortunate to have multiple computers at home. So, as I mentioned earlier, try to have anti virus and anti malware software with a personal firewall on your computer.

It’s reported 22 percent of the reported activity comes from south of my border – the US; while there is significant proportion of attacks originating from Singapore, Japan and China.

I think the trend is expected to grow until this economic condition gets better.