Random thoughts from the Pacific Rim
Hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost their homes and everything they own. The water in New Orleans is still rising, and it is already clear that this is one of the worst natural disasters ever to hit a major metropolitan area in the US.
This is New Orleans the day after the Hurricane:
This is President Bush the day after the Hurricane:
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It is astonishing to see what one can find on Google, the Delphic Oracle of the modern times. Millions of people all over the world have their PCs connected to the Internet without any kind of precautions and also many web servers are poorly secured, which leads to accidental exposure of private and often sensitive information via search engines.
Here is a site – johnny.ihackstuff.com – that can be a veritable eye-opener for all of us with a web presence. This site lists more than a thousand Google searches that will reveal server passwords, resumes, exam papers and results, hidden interfaces of web cams, collections of private snapshots and any other information about people’s lifes that can be imagined.
These searches are addictive and at the same time shocking. Search engines have become so powerful and so many careless users have joined the online community without as much as a second thought for the security of their personal data, that it is far too easy to get a comprehensive overview over somebody else’s life.
And while it is already too late for most of us (thanks to Google Cache and Archive.org), it is definitely worth to double check your Firewall settings and your Shared Folders before you do anything else online.
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Memo:
Tell the President to stop smiling when he mentions the war in his speeches. It creeps the rest of us out.
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Well… I have been a bit blog-lazy lately – sorry if you’ve been waiting for updates… Here in San Francisco the summer has begun, which comes with strong wind from the ocean that pushes dense fog through the city in the evenings. Tourists are always surprised how cold San Francisco can be in summer.
Here are two pictures I took a few days ago with the Kodak Retinette:
San Franisco’s Sutter Streed and Nob Hill
Grace Cathedral in the Fog
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