Page 18 - Hunstanton Town & Around - May 2015

18 Hunstanton Town & Around May 2015 Tel: 01485 533422 email: editor@townandaround.net
Are we about to enter a ‘Digital Dark Age’? been lost due to changing technology with file
formats being superseded and lost forever?
Mark Kacary, The Norfolk Deli
Security News
Over the last year I have written a number of incredibly difficult to switch from one device to
articles highlighting areas of technology, which another without losing all your data? Do you use Windows? – If so you should be
I hopped would be of interest. Last month I In an interview given at the start of this year aware that researchers have identified a new
wrote about the launch of the iWatch (Apple’s Vint Cerf a leading pioneer of the internet and attack technique that can enable the theft of user
entry in the smartwatch market). Technology currently a vice president of Google expressed credentials from PCs, tablets & servers running
has developed in such a way that it is clear that a worry that all the images and documents we any version of Windows. This was discovered
many of us (especially the younger ones of us) have been saving on computers will eventually on 11th April 2015. The information stolen is
couldn’t image life without it. For example how be lost. As hardware and software becomes the victim’s username, domain and hashed
often do you use your smartphone to take a obsolete what is the incentive for our leading password. A password which is hashed should
picture before uploading it immediately to technology companies to ensure that hide this information from the attacker, but with
something like Facebook or Instagram? photographs, documents etc saved in a format encryption for many of the programs in use
The digitisation of photography has resulted relevant for today will be readable by the being designed in 1998 and now even a
in some mind boggling numbers. For example formats, which will become standards of the password eight characters long, with a mixture
it’s estimated that since photography was first future. There is a distinct possibility that future of uppercase and lowercase letters combined
invented approximately 3.5 trillion photographs generations will have little or no record of the with numbers should only take about nine and
have been taken. 21st Century as we enter what he described a a half hours to crack. A security update is
There are now more pictures taken every two ‘digital Dark Age’. awaited. Given that this attack can exploit a
minutes than were taken throughout the whole “Our life, our memories, our most cherished number of applications running in the
of the 1800s. It’s estimated that 10% of all family photographs increasingly exist as bits of background connecting to an insecure wireless
photos ever taken were taken in the last 12 information - on our hard drives or in "the network is not advised.
months. Finally for those who then deposit their cloud". But as technology moves on, they risk Update the following
pictures on Facebook it is thought that your being lost in the wake of an accelerating digital If you use Apple products make sure you update
picture is just one of approximately 140 billion revolution.” your operating system. Approximately 80
photos which have been uploaded there. The only answer to this as suggested by Mr vulnerabilities are being fixed in OS X, and 53
All it takes is a short walk along the prom and Cerf is for a company to preserve every piece vulnerabilities in the latest version of IOS 8.3
it wont take long before you see somebody, of software and hardware so that it never (iPhone/iPad users please note).
somewhere holding up their mobile device becomes obsolete, just as happens in a museum, Also update your version of Pinterest or
taking a picture Almost invariably these will be but in a digital form. It would mean that a copy Yammer as it has been found that these
uploaded onto some form of social media site of every operating system, every file format applications are prone to a Man-in-the-middle
and rarely if ever will any of the billions of would need to be stored. attack (see previous articles). The new versions
photographs taken become what the older However, what would happen to all of this patch this.
generation will consider to be a photograph. data and information should human nature do
What has any of this got to do with the what it often does best and destroy things on a Next Month
‘digital dark age’? I hear you ask. Let me ask political or religious whim? All one needs to do With the launch of a new website for
you a question first in return. How many mobile is look towards Iran & Iraq and see the Hunstanton called www.mylocal.guide I will be
phones have you owned with a built in camera? destruction of ancient cities and artefacts by looking at how website technology is changing.
More than one I would guess. And have you ISIS to see that everything could be lost if The new algorithms being used by Google
managed to save all of the pictures you’ve ever somebody or something were hell bent on which means that websites can be more
taken on all of your phones? What would cutting off the power needed to maintain digital conversational and still be found by search
happen to all of your memories, pictures etc. if data. engines and the growing importance and
you were only given 24 hours notice that Just imagine for a second… if the human race benefits of ‘Digital Marketing for small
Facebook were to shut down its servers and no had mobile phones just over 2000 years ago businesses. And what small businesses in
longer exist? would we have pictures showing us the miracles Hunstanton should be doing to benefit from
Furthermore have you ever found it written about in the Bible? Or would they have this.