Four Corvettes

Geo spatial data and its effects on you

2009-03-28T15:23:00.000-07:00

Geospatial information is combining with the internet at a furious pace. Information such as E government, transportation tracking, shipping tracking, weather, crime and traffic are all a few clicks away on the internet. Most of this technology was developed by the government during the Cold War. After the Soviet Union fell this technology was applied for commercial reasons.

E government is the so called stream lining of the paper work process of the government. Rather than having to fill out paper forms and then mail them in you can simply log on to the various government sites and fill in the forms on line and submit them. The government claims this to be a more efficient way to do business. While this may be true we all hear on a regular basis of hackers accessing peoples personal information through computer data bases. Do we really need to allow even more sensitive information to be available to these hackers? Also the government collects data, such as the census, and uses that information to create maps to so trends. This information again is readily available to anyone. Was this the intent of the census when it was first developed?

Air travel and package delivery is another area that is easily tracked on line. Air travel can show you current flights and whether or not those flights are delayed and for how long. This virtually eliminates the days of finding out after you get to the airport that your flight is delayed three hours or worse yet that it has been cancelled. Also if you place an order for something you can receive a tracking number and look up the status of your package telling you where it is and its estimated delivery time. Most of these styles of tracking are not real time for security reasons. If you ask me it's just a matter of time before the industry goes to real time tracking. I'm sure the terrorists of the world will greatly appreciate real time flight plans.

Being that I'm in law enforcement I can see the benefits of crime mapping. This helps identify hot spots for crime and then deploy your resources appropriately to those hot spots to mitigate the crime. While on its face this seems great what happens to the people living in those hot spots. They are labeled as living in bad neighborhoods and are associated with the criminals in that area. This will also keep people from moving into those neighborhoods because of the crime rate. This is a spin off of the Broken Windows Theory.

Sex offenders living in a neighborhood is information that is readily available by law. While I'm in total agreement with the law this does create a lot of problems. For instance if you are looking to move to a certain area in a town and you find out a sex offender resides in that area it would most likely keep you from moving there. Also people who are currently residing in a neighborhood and discover exactly where a sex offender is residing in that neighborhood could lead to violence in trying to force the sex offender out of the neighborhood.

When it comes to locating your residence on sites such as Google Earth again while helpful in some ways it is also hurtful in others. If you are trying to sell your house for instance you can put all of the information on the internet and you can see your house and describe the features to the house. What happens if someone is looking to break into houses? A thief could find out your entire floor plan as well as looking at the GE images to determine how close house are or how busy the street is to aid in letting them target you for a future crime.

One of the better uses of mapping is the weather. We have seen hurricanes, for example, cause thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in damage. The ability for people to see the hurricanes in real time on the internet and to see the modeling of the track that the storm could take may save thousands of lives. The problem with this technology is not everyone can afford a computer or internet access.

As you can see geospatial information seems like it is becoming a necessary evil. What needs to happen is to determine whether or not the benefits out way the negatives. I believe that they do because are lives are made much easier by these new technologies.

Google Earth Images

2009-03-24T09:28:00.000-07:00

Carnival Cruise to Cayman Islands

Weather Feature

Flight From London to O'Hare

Chicago with 3D Buildings

Map of Boston with Layer and points of interest

Map of South Campus

Week 5 Blog Assignment

2009-03-01T15:35:00.000-08:00

Below is a picture of my 1968 Chevy Camaro. I'm a big fan of classic muscle cars and I own several. The Camaro shown was originally a six cylinder engine with an automatic transmission. It has been upgraded to a period correct 327cid. To back the motor it has also been upgraded with a period correct muncie four speed manual transmission. The rear end currently in the vehicle is the factory GM ten bolt. One of the unusual engine upgrades is that the distributor is a period correct dual point design. At the time when this vehicle was new this would have been an upgrade that a hot rodder would have done. You don't see too many dual point distributors anymore because the newer style electronic ignition systems are so much more reliable. That being said, its more of a cool factor to have the dual point system.

The suspension on the car has been lowered and is noticable in the photograph. The front springs were cut and lowered two inches. The rear was lowered approximately five inches using lowering blocks on the leaf springs. While the car has a great stance the rear is too low. The exhaust system runs too close to the rear end and the lower shock mounts are too close to the tires. I will be remedying this by using a Hotchkins rear suspension using leaf springs that will drop the car an inch and a half leaving plenty of clearance for the exhaust and shock mounts. I will also be upgrading the front coil springs with Hotchkis sprngs that will keep the front end at the two inch lowered stage that it is but will give a firmer ride and handling. Also from Hotchkis will be heavy sway bars to also assist in handling.

The cars braking system is currently a four wheel drum set up. I have purchased a 69 Camaro front disc brake system to replace it. This will be a huge improvement for the cars stopping ability. Anyone who has had the pleasure of driving a four wheel drum set up knows of what I speak. The brakes are also have power assist which again is a large improvement over manual drums.

I have also purchased for the car a period correct 68 Camaro 12 bolt rear end. Though the stock 10 bolt is plenty strong enough for the current motor the 12 bolt will allow for a bigger engine upgrade in the future and will handle a lot more horsepower. The rear end was rebuilt with 3:42 gears with an Eaton positractiion as well as upgraded axles.

To upgrade the looks of the car I have purchased a cowl induction hood, a Z28 style front and rear spoiler. This will make the car look dramatically different from the way it looks now. As for the paint scheme I will retain the original burgundy color and probably some kind of stripe kit be SS or Z28 style. I have also tossed the idea of two toning the car. Until the mechanical upgrades are done I don't have to worry about the paint scheme just yet.

My other cars are a 1968 Pontiac LeMans, two 1970 Corvettes, a 1965 Shelby Cobra kit designed by Factory Five Racing, a1 1977 Mustang Cobra II, a 1978 Mustang King Cobra, a 2001 Z06 Corvette and finally a 2004 Corvette Z06. Now you know where I decided on the name fourvettes.

Search Engines

2009-02-15T11:31:00.000-08:00

Search engines have become a necessity in using the internet. People on a daily basis log on to them to search through a vast array of information to find exactly what they are looking for. People become accustomed to certain search engines and they use the same one over and over. The big problem with the search engines is that they more they are used the more money they create.

As you have seen search engines like Yahoo, Microsoft and Google have become the three leading search engines. Even amongst these three giants battles for supremacy are waged. The end result of this war I feel will be even more of a monopoly in regards to these search engines. Eventually you will see Yahoo either absorbed by Microsoft or Google and Yahoo will no longer exist. You have already seen the attempt by Microsoft to buy Yahoo. It is just a matter of time before Microsoft or Google buy out Yahool. Then the final war will be Google vs Microsoft and only one will be left standing.

You are seeing this in your everyday life. The majority of people I know and I'm sure the majority of people you know, use Google to search the internet. The reason for Google's sucess is that it is such a powerful search engine it give you the best results on your searches. This leads to advertisers to want their products to come up in the first ten items of the Google search. This influx of finances of Google allows its research and development to help keep it on top as the premier search engine.

The popularity of Google was really displayed when former President Bush said "I use the Google". Google sets the bar for other search engines. But like monopolies in the past such as AT&T Google will just keep buying up its competition because of its vast power and money and will eventually be the only significant search engine left standing.

In order for Google to remain on its throne as the number one search engine it has to stay ahead of all other engines in its development. It has to keep people wanting to come back to Google. Google's most recent venture into the future is the Android Project. The Android Project is the most up to data programming system used for mobile communications. It is the next step beyond the popular Apple I Phone. Googles Android Powered G Phone will be the first in a large step to communication dominance by the company. This will allow virtually full computer access to the World Wide Web via your cell phone. With this move everyone in America regardless of whether you have a computer or not will have web access.

Google will also win big with this technology. If the Android Project catches on as is predicted it will by the software system used by many of the large phone companies and thus will drive up Google's value. Right now T Mobile was the first to use the G phone and its Android Project technology but I believe you will see this phone's and its technology spread rapidly through other major companies such as Verizon.

Another company on the rise is Deep Web Technologies. This company is changing the face of search engines in order to gather the available information that most engines do not see. When you use Google for example you get the hits based on how Google has prioritized them. Most of the times money is being spent for companies to have their web sites show up in the top ten items in a search. There is bilions of sites you never even know exist that are in the deep web. Especially scientific information. The thought of DWT is to creat the better search engine and to tap into the unused deep web information.

One of the greatest problems with the ease of information on the web is how to deal with intellectual properties. Is this a Constitutional issue of Free Speech even though it is someone else's speech? Should the authors of such speech be compensated in some way for their intellectual property? I feel eventually as time goes on laws will be written to control the internet. There will probably be a set of international laws agreed upon to regulate the Web. This is no difference from how all countries are tied into a global economy and laws that have been made to assist in that regard.

Right now the Web is not governed by a lot of restrictions , but we can see that slowly, especially in other countries, this is becoming more of an issue. Countries like China place controls on what their countrymen can view on the internet. Filters in other countries are being placed on the Web as well. Government control is inevitable, the question is how much control to keep the internet safe. But like many things it will all revolve around money. There are very few things you buy on internet and pay taxes on but I feel this will be the first plan for government involement in the U.S., especially in these tough financial times we find our country in.

My personnal opinion is allow the government to create laws for protecting us on the internet such as fraud, child pornography etc, but leave the rest of the freedoms that we have alone on the internet. The problem is our government thinks they know what's best for us and they think we are not capable of doing anything without rules to tell us what we should do.

Cyber-Warfare

2009-02-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

Week 2 blog: As time goes on our dependency on computers and the internet grows by leaps and bounds. These "progresses" have supposedly made our lives much easier. I do sort of miss the good old days. How much of a panic do you have when your computer crashes or your internet services goes down? How many of us actually leave the house to go shopping?

Though there are great advantages to these technologies what are the costs of more vulnerabilities. This is especially true when it comes to the newest type of International Warfare known as "Cyber-Warfare". Much like countries that are trying to obtain nuclear weapons so are they trying to achieve weapons through cyberspace. The United States has had numerous attacks on its military and government entities through Cyber-Warfare.

The majority of these attacks seem to be coming from China and Russia (Titan Rain and Moonlight Maze), however I'm sure you will see Iran and North Korea becoming more prominent players. These countries are engaged in computer espionage. The days of James Bond like individuals who infiltrate governments to photograph or copy sensitive files are almost over. Now instead you have computer geeks who hack into government computer networks to steal this information. This can be done with a lot less risk to the players and the country who is engaged in these activities. It also gives these said countries deniability of involvement as we have seen when China has gotten caught with its hands in the proverbial cookie jar.

Not only are are military and government secrets at risk but so is our critical infrastructure. Everything we rely on today such as water, sewer, power, and fuel are all controlled by vulnerable computer systems. Thinks of the ramifications if a foreign country gained access to our power system to shut it down. We New Englanders have recently seen how bad things can get when we lose power for 12 days because of a winter ice storm. Just that power outage caused several deaths, so imagine what would happen on a nation wide scale.

Think of the nuclear power plants and how we worry about a plane flying into them or if they are over taken by terrorists. What happens if a foreign power seizes control of the computers systems in those plants and shuts down the cooling systems and causes a nuclear disaster.

We feel safe because we have so many satellites in space that we can probably see what every country is doing at any time so we can respond in advance to a military attack. What will happen if we lose control of those satellites and we become blinded? What would happen if those same satellites were taken over and turned against us?

Its not just countries we have to worry about but large organized groups. Terrorist groups such as Al Queda or organized crime such as the Russian Mafia. These groups use cyber-warfare to make political statements or steal millions of dollars to help support their causes. Al Queda picked the WTC to attack not just because of the physical damage they hoped that if would cause a large financial crisis crippling the US. How much easier would it be to cause a financial crisis via cyber-warfare?

Another huge risk is that most of the products we use are being built overseas. Specifically China is the country we rely on most because its slave labor that equals to extremely low production costs. What's to stop China from building some type of codes into the hard drives of computer parts they build allowing them easier access to our sensitive military and strategic information?

Our government must spend billions of dollars in cyber counter intelligence to protect our classified files as well as I'm sure to commit our own form of espionage. If we falter even one step in these endeavors we surely will become even more exposed then we currently find ourselves.

Howard Dean's campaign financing

2009-02-01T14:46:00.000-08:00

During elections prior to 2004 presidential candidates usually got their campaign funding from wealthy supporters. In the 2004 presidential elections Howard Dean changed that. The majority of Dean's funding came from small internet donations. The average donation size was a little less than $80. This proved to be a brilliant strategy because of the cost savings benefits of the internet as opposed to telemarketing or mailings as had been used in years prior. Also Dean was able to reach virtually any person with a computer and internet access. Another advantage was that because the average donation were well under the $2000 cap Dean was able to ask the same people for more donations during the campaign. Dean's website also used fun graphics to encourage people to donate to his campaign. This new style of campaign fund raising was even utilized by the recent Obama campaign and will probably become the standard in future elections.

Barrack Obama was a relative unknown when he began his campaign. Hillary Clinton seemed to be the most well known and most likely democratic nominee at the beginning of the presidential campaign. Barrack Obama through the use of an Internet campaign was able to turn the tides on Hillary Clinton and his popularity with the democrats soared. In a FOX news report Neil Cavuto interviewed Eric Schimdt, the CEO of Google to get his take on this new phenomena.
Eric Schmidt talks about how over time candidates have always used the newest forms of media to get their points across. First was printed media like newspapers, then radio was used followed by television. Why should the Internet be any different. It is the latest and greatest form of media.

Neil Cavuto asked Eric Schmidt if he thought that Google was so powerful that it could use its influence to push its own political agenda. Cavuto also made the comment that the Internet and Google is in his opinion used more often by democratic voters than republican. Schmidt said that Google has no political affiliations or agendas. He said that John McCain also used the internet and Google during his campaign. He stated that all candidates helped get their messages out through video on You Tube. Cavuto also thought the Internet was used by a much younger group of people and wanted to know if Schmidt felt as though that were true. Schmidt said he believed that is a common misconception and that all ages and walks of life are currently using the Internet.

It becomes obvious as stated in the Cauto-Schmidt conversation that in fact the Internet is just the newest wave of media as when the television first appeared. The majority of Americans have home computers or at least have access, for instance at work, and that it becomes a matter of convenience. The Internet is putting newspapers and the post office slowly out of business because of its speed and convenience. Candidates see this trend and exploit it to their advantages. The paradox is that it can also be used to stifle a candidates campaign. A good example of this is when we saw Howard Dean's campaign in 2004 use the Internet to increase his popularity and television along with the You Tube destroyed his campaign with a non stop barage of him screaming like an idiot during a speech.

This is just the beginning for the internet and politics and it will continue to grow with each election cycle until something better comes along. I think we will even see a time when voting will be done via internet.

What's the point?

2009-01-26T15:29:00.000-08:00

Why do people blog? Doesn't everyone have something better to do? For that matter, why am I blogging?