Web/Tech

In January of 1993, I was attending the MacWorld expo in San Francisco. At a furious pace I was hustling down a hallway to get in to a ballroom presentation when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a magazine that looked pretty dang cool. It was the WIRED Premiere publication (issue 1.1) and I stopped dead in my tracks and picked one up.

Quickly leafing through it I instantly knew I’d found exactly the right publication for everything I was doing and thinking as it pertained to the future of technology! Ripping out the subscription card I immediately filled it out to subscribe.

I wish I could convey to you what a big deal this magazine was when it appeared, and how profoundly it covered the big ideas and the overall zeitgeist of that era which birthed the commercial internet, companies like Google and Amazon, and tapped in to the explosion of tech and its changes on the world.

The constant (and sometimes jarring) design, colors and layout choices were often disconcerting, but always pushed-the-envelope in keeping with what they were covering: emerging, disruptive and futuristic tech.

Looking back on that first issue now is also a bit amusing — and I wish I could link to a live copy online but cannot find one — but there is one advertisement I found particularly delightful from Apple, proudly touting the ability to fax from the Powerbook 170 which I just so happened to own at that moment:

Click image for a larger view
The third ad from the front of the magazine was this one from Apple.
Note that the “killer app” for use of this Powerbook 170 is “Fax Transmittal”.

For at least 15 years, Wired magazine was my tech-bible. I devoured each issue and learned a lot along the way, and have used the Wired iPad app to download and read each issue. Unfortunately there is so much tech writing online now, the magazine has become less relevant (dare I say “boring”?) and I reluctantly just cancelled my subscription which will expire with the February 2020 issue.

SOME WIRED TIDBITS

Here are some items you may find of interest:

• The Internet Archive has TechNation “internet radio show” (the term ‘podcast’ was not yet invented) and you can listen to Dr. Moria Gunn interview the founders of Wired magazine, Jane Metcalfe and Louis Rosetto, and it is very enlightening (This part of the show starts at 32:18). They discuss how “Wired” is different from its predecessors, addressing the complete societal impact of technology and its latest breakthroughs. Other topics include the phenomenal success of “Wired”’s premier issue and why the BBC is “wired” while National Public Radio is “tired.”

• Wired 1.1: An Archaeology: Good blog post that breaks down what was contained within the premiere issue.

• Revisiting the Original 1992 WIRED Media Kit: This was sent to potential advertisers well before the publication of the premiere issue.

• Lastly, here is the Wired Magazine Promo Reel from the lead-up to the premiere issue that I found at the Internet Archive (which, by the way, I have always found to be THE best resource for anything digitally significant from history):

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

I have to admit that I get irrationally angry when a major internet service provider like Cox does not allow true and complete management of one’s internet service online.

It’s easy to add a Cox service in my account, like I did when our son’s internet use threatened to push us over our 1 terabyte “cap” on our internet use (1 terabyte = 1,024 GBs). So I chose Cox’s “add-on” of 500GBs additional data. Doing so ensured I wouldn’t have to pay their $10 per 50GBs overage cost.

We were on a run-rate to be closer to 1,400 GBs and it was much cheaper to pay the add-on cost of $29.99 for 500 GBs, instead of the $75 it would have cost as an overage for the possible 376 GBs additional data we would likely have used.

But now that our son has moved to Santa Monica for a job, our data use has plummeted and is well under that 1 terabyte ceiling.

So this morning I went online to Cox and discovered — just like Comcast did in the State of Minnesota we left last June — the only way to cancel or remove an add-on or service is … you guessed it … to call a human in their respective billing departments.

Yes, I know this is so they have an opportunity to convince us to keep the service or add-on. To have a chance to upsell us on new services. BUT I AM SICK OF THE GAME and just want to do what I do with my Schwab brokerage accounts, Wells Fargo banking accounts, and the myriad of other services I use that “get it” when it comes to allowing FULL MANAGEMENT OF ONE’S ACCOUNT ONLINE.

So Cox, Comcast and others … quit the bullshit games and pretend like you understand the internet, the web, and how it works. All you do is piss off people like me who see right through your veiled attempts.

Do you use social login? How about for remote access to your home WiFi router when you’re not at home? Unless you have good password practices and multi-factor authentication, I recommend you do NOT enable remote access of any kind, and maybe consider never using social login ever again.

I am very pleased with our Amplifi Mesh Wi-Fi System installation but have one security-related issue: For remotely logging in to the router from my smartphone, the remote-access, social login credentials are only ones from two providers: Google and Facebook.

While implementing social login is far easier for developers than building a custom login solution — and social login is often assumed by them to be the path of least resistance since these big companies can protect user credentials better than a smaller company — that “big company is more secure” assumption has been proven false and highly risky:

• KREBS: Facebook Stored Hundreds of Millions of User Passwords in Plain Text for Years
• WIRED: The Security Risks Of Logging In With Facebook
• MEDIUM: It’s time for brands to reconsider social login
• TOM’S GUIDE: 100 Million Quora Accounts Hacked: What to Do

Use of social login also assumes that the user has excellent password practices and/or uses multi-factor authentication, which is usually not the case. So if the user doesn’t implement those best-practices when it comes to protecting their Google or Facebook logins, then Amplifi’s parent company, Ubiquiti, may feel they are off-the-hook in the event of a breach?

I would argue that a blackhat hacker obtaining a social login email and password is trivial (e.g., I can name twenty-five friends and family that have had social accounts hacked in to).

Unless the user has implemented multi-factor authentication, then those social login credentials could be used to gain access to a home WiFi router that use social logins for remote access.

I’ve added this suggestion on the Amplifi community forum to ask the company to have a Ubiquiti-driven login with multi-factor authentication, and in it asked these questions:

• What is your position on security and privacy where it comes to enabling Google and Facebook to potentially monitor outbound traffic from an IP address?

• As such, do you have a security/privacy white paper that outlines how you use the Google and Facebook social APIs, and specifically what you allow Google and Facebook to monitor? (like router IP address).

While I appreciate that our Amplifi Mesh Wi-Fi System is focused on simplicity first and granular level detail on security and privacy second, I’d like to see a public/private key, encrypted, Ubiquiti-delivered remote access login (where I hold both keys) along with multi-factor authentication … at a minimum.