Encrypted Video Conference Calls With Signal

No intro paragraph needed. Title says it all. Let’s get started:

If a group chat for everyone that needs to be on the conference call doesn’t yet exist, you’ll need to create one and add participants. Once it exists, anyone can join in a conference or bail out at any time. They can do it by text, audio, and/or video as long as the group exists.

You can inform everyone that you’d like to start at a particular date and time and they’ll need to set their own reminders to show up.

To Create a Group

(To JOIN an existing conference call, go to your existing Signal group, then skip ahead to step #8)

  1. Start Signal.
  2. In the lower right, tap the blue icon with the pencil in it to start a new conversation.
  3. You’ll see “New group” at the top.
  4. Type in someone’s name from your contacts. Tap their name in the search results and they’ll be added to the group.
  5. Repeat step 4 for everyone you want to be in the group.
  6. Once done adding participants, in the lower right, tap the right arrow in the blue circle.
  7. Enter a Group Name. This will be visible to all participants. Then hit the blue pill button in the lower right with “create” in it.
    1. The group now exists
  8. Anyone in the group can now text the whole group or join a video or audio call. Tap the camera icon in the upper right hand corner.
  9. You will join an existing video conference OR if you’re the first one, you’ll start one.
  10. While IN the conference call, tap anywhere on the screen where there is NOT a button or other control… for example, tap on someone’s face, and you’ll get 4 icons at the bottom of the screen. To toggle your camera, hit the camera icon. To toggle your microphone, tap the microphone button. Swipe up to switch between views of each member.

Anyone in the group can come and go as they please. Anyone can participate as video+audio or audio only or just send texts.

The group stays forever until someone deletes it.

Enjoy your encrypted conference calls!

What’s the best crypto-wallet for daily use?

Cryptocurrency is different than fiat money, as you probably already know.  But those differences make a HUGE impact on how you choose which wallet software to use.  And it’s all about control… YOUR control over your own money.

Let’s begin…

Rather than telling you which wallet apps are best, I’m going to lay out the features you need to look for in wallets, and the ones you need to DEMAND.  In other words, in the “demand” features, you should remove any wallet from consideration that does NOT have the complete “demand” list.  Other features, that may help, but are not deal breakers will be listed as “nice to haves”.  One of the reasons I’m not listing any wallets is because that would make this article dated eventually.  What I’m presenting here should be relevant for decades to come.

DEMAND

  1. Open Source:  If the software wallet you’re considering is NOT open source, then ditch it immediately!  Why?  Because open source wallets have no secrets.  Their entire source code is freely available for anyone to inspect, to guarantee there are no malicious intentions hidden behind the scenes.  Closed source wallets are a black box and you’re throwing out any chance of verification of honesty and relying SOLELY on the word of the wallet creator.  The whole point of cryptocurrency technology is that you DO NOT TRUST ANYONE ELSE WITH YOUR MONEY!  And that INCLUDES programmers… ESPECIALLY programmers!  And I say that AS A PROGRAMMER, MYSELF!
    1. Addendum:  Just because a wallet CLAIMS to be “open source”, doesn’t mean it IS.  For example, I could publish a closed source wallet and just CLAIM it’s “open source” and people would just believe it and download and use it, while I never publish the source code.  So, if some app CLAIMS it’s open source, DON’T BELIEVE THEM… EVER!  You go and FIND the source code (usually on https://gitlab.com or https://github.com) and verify the source code exists.  A reputable wallet author will also provide you a link to the source along with the binary to download.
    2. In addition to FINDING the source code, make sure you download the app FROM the source code repository’s binaries, NOT from an app store or anywhere else!
    3. If you’re a programmer, just download the source and compile it yourself and use THAT!  If you’re NOT a programmer, do #1.2 above.
  2. Must be an app that runs on your own hardware.  In other words, if it’s a website, then you’ve just completely obliterated the ENTIRE PURPOSE of cryptocurrency.  A website “wallet” is NOT a wallet.  It’s a BANK!  THEY are a centralized authority holding YOUR money.  By definition, if YOU are not in control of it, then it isn’t YOUR money, it’s THEIRS.  They ALLOW you to access it, until they DON’T!  Stay away from online wallets, with the brief exception of online exchanges where you EXCHANGE your cryptocurrency for fiat money or vice/versa.  But as SOON as you acquire crypto from an online exchange, you MOVE IT IMMEDIATELY into your OWN wallet!
    1. This means that you must DOWNLOAD an app (desktop or mobile).  And I recommend staying away from browser plugin wallets.  Browsers are just not a safe enough environment.
  3. Your keys or seed phrases are not transmitted over the internet FOR ANY REASON!  Your keys ARE your money!  Whomever holds they keys, holds and OWNS the money.  This is the very core and soul of cryptocurrency.  It’s its reason for being.  NO ONE other than YOU should EVER know your seed phrase or passwords… EVER!!!

NICE TO HAVES

  1. Easy to use user interface.  A lot of people mistakenly think this is a “demand” feature, but you’re better off with a klunky UI that puts you in control of your crypto rather than a sleek and polished wallet that doesn’t meet all the “demand” features.
  2. light vs full node.  What does this mean?  The most secure wallet will be one that’s ALSO a full node on the network for that cryptocurrency.  But to do that, it would need to download the ENTIRE blockchain for that cryptocurrency.  For a popular cryptocurrency, like #BitCoin, that would mean HUNDREDS OF GIGABYTES of data (eventually TERABYTES!) and hours or days of downloading, plus consuming all that space on your hard drive, forever.  It would also mean that your PC would be an actor in the BitCoin network, processing transactions.  That’s actually a GOOD thing for the network, but NOT a good thing for your local resources.  If all you’re looking for is a wallet, a full node is beyond overkill.  It’s like running a whole grocery store just because you need a refrigerator for your Milk.  I’m not discouraging you to NOT be a node.  By all means, PLEASE DO run a full node.  It helps the whole crypto community.  But, it’s not necessary for YOU if all you want is a wallet.  A “light” wallet is JUST a wallet, not a full node.  As such, light wallets are the only kinds of wallets that are available on mobile.  A full node requires a desktop PC, plugged into the electrical outlet.

Other Considerations

There’s another kind of wallet that I’m on the fence for at the moment, because it violates demand #1:  It’s NOT open source.  However, it has some other interesting security features.

The Samsung cryptocurrency wallet

I know I said I’m not going to recommend any specific wallet, and I maintain that.  I AM, however, going to TALK ABOUT one:  The Samsung cryptocurrency wallet meets all the other demand features, but it IS NOT OPEN SOURCE!  However, it has an important security feature no other software based wallets have.  That is, modern Samsung phones and tablets have a hardware based key store.  This is a special, isolated chip that can store encrypted versions of your cryptocurrency keys.  This hardware IS robust and is an important, core feature of the Samsung Knox (now known as “Samsung Secure Folder”) isolated security environment.  It’s the only mobile environment approved by the US Department of Defense for its employees.  Take that however you like.

What is Samsung Knox (or “Secure Folder”)?  You know how you enter a PIN or a password, or a pattern, or a fingerprint, or a face image to unlock your phone?  Well, on Samsung phones, you have all that, PLUS another, completely isolated, secure environment INSIDE of that.  It’s like a smartphone within a smartphone.  Once you set up “secure folder”, you get a SECOND smartphone environment, with another home screen and another set of apps.  Apps installed inside this secure area are NOT accessible to apps outside of it.  I personally install all my financial apps inside of this area.  My games and less sensitive apps and data are stored in the regular phone area.

Side note:  Whether you use the Samsung crypto wallet or not, you SHOULD install the mobile wallet you DO use inside the Samsung Secure Folder area on your phone (if you’re using a Samsung device).

The Samsung Cryptocurrency wallet is a software mobile wallet, and just like all other mobile wallets, it encrypts your seed phrase to your cryptocurrency with your password.  But the difference is that it stores that in the isolated, secure chip.  THAT makes it immensely more secure.  HOWEVER, the app is NOT open source!  Hence my hesitation of recommending this app.  We have no way to know what’s REALLY going on inside the Samsung wallet, because it’s closed source.

My Compromise:

So, here’s my recommendation:  If you DO use the Samsung wallet, never have more in it than you’d ever put in your real, physical wallet.  In other words, in the days when you’d have a wallet in your pocket with cash in it (you remember that right?  That green paper that you’d trade for stuff?), you’d rarely carry more than about $100, because that’s all you’d need for 1 day and it wouldn’t be the end of the world if you lost it or if it were stolen.

I recommend the same practice with the Samsung crypto wallet.  Only store about $100(USD) worth of crypto in your Samsung wallet.  If you run across a local place that accepts crypto, you can spend it, but if there’s ever any kind of a breach with Samsung’s OS and/or software, you’re not going to lose too much.

And I’ll give the same $100 limit advice for ALL OTHER mobile wallets too!  Store the remainder of your fortunes in multiple hardware wallets or multiple desktop wallets.

Conclusion

Cryptocurrency was created for the purpose of YOU being in control.  Therefore, it’s pointless to store your cryptocurrency in a place that you DO NOT control.  As always, don’t put all your eggs or cryptos in one basket.  Don’t put your life savings into your mobile wallet.

Addendum

Speaking of not putting all your eggs in one basket:  As you start accumulating more and more wealth in cryptocurrency, either by continuous investing or by the value of it rising, it’s smart to create more digital wallets and spreading your crypto among them.  Don’t store all your passwords and seed phrases in the same place.  Following these practices, if any of your wallets are ever compromised by your own failures to protect them, you won’t lose ALL of your assets.

In the comments below, tell us what wallets YOU use… THAT FIT THE DEMANDS listed here?  Please keep the conversation limited to those that fit the minimal demand list.

Cryptotab browser is a total SCAM!

What IS CryptoTab Browser?

It’s a custom and closed source web browser that has a built in BitCoin miner.  That means it’ll run high intensity calculations on your CPU, burning electricity with the intent of creating new BitCoin.  By closed source, that means they’re not open source.  They do NOT make their source code available for inspection.

What it CLAIMS

It claims to make you money by mining BitCoin on your computer while you browse.  But this is misleading.

What it ACTUALLY does

In reality, when you create your account, likely from having clicked someone’s referral link, you’re software is now a slave to the person who owns the referral link.  While your computer burns through electricity that YOU are paying for, it’s giving a large portion of the tiny amount of BitCoin that your computer generates to the other person, not producing any profit for you at all.  Even if you got to keep all of the BitCoin that you mined, you’d STILL be losing way more money than you make.

It’s IMPOSSIBLE to be profitable mining BitCoin on a PC or a mobile device

A very, very long time ago, the complexity of BitCoin became too powerful for PCs to mine it and be profitable.  For years, the only way to make a profit mining BitCoin is to buy specialized hardware that can’t do anything other than mine BitCoin.  Those hardware devices cast at least $1,300 (USD) on the low end, run very loudly and hot.  And you’ll have to run one for about 6 months before you generate enough BitCoin to break even on the cost of the hardware.  There is NO PATH to mining profitably on a PC (unless you get your electricity for free!)

If you mine on ANYTHING else, you’re GOING TO LOSE MONEY! Why? Because the amount of electricity you burn will cost you MORE than ANY infinitesimal amount of bitcoin you mine. Even if your electricity were free, the amount you can mine on a PC is virtually nothing. It also slows down your PC for everything else.

But wait! There’s MORE!  To make matters even WORSE, when you start mining with this browser, you don’t even get to keep all of the minimal amount of coin you mine. Even if you did, you’d already be at a loss, but it’s worse. Whoever’s link you clicked on to get the browser gets a portion of YOUR earnings! Earnings that are ALREADY in LOSS territory.

A Classic Ponzi Scheme

The ONLY way to “make money” with this is NOT by mining BitCoin, but by having LOTS of people sign up through your referral link.  THEY LOSE money by mining and lose even MORE by giving you the minuscule BitCoin THEY mine.

Stay away from CryptoTab Browser.

Samsung Blockchain Keystore “Couldn’t install app”

If you’re getting the “Couldn’t install app” error when trying to install the Samsung Blockchain Keystore app in your device’s Secure Folder, then read on.  Skip the background if you’re familiar with it and go straight to the Solution section.

Background

In mid-2019, Samsung came out with the Samsung Galaxy S10 phone.  At the same time, they introduced their first cryptocurrency wallet, the “Samsung Blockchain Wallet”.  At first, it only supported Ethereum.  But as of late 2019, it supports a few more cryptocurrencies, most notably, it now supports the most important one, Bitcoin!

But, to use the wallet app, it requires another app; the “Samsung Blockchain Keystore”.  I’m not sure why they separated that out into two apps, but my semi-educated guess is that you can create your keys and manage them in one app and use them in other apps, not JUST the wallet app.

Now, as anyone with any knowledge of cryptocurrencies knows, you have to be EXTRA careful with your keys for cryptocurrency.  YOU are 100% in control of your cryptocurrency.  If you’re careless, and it gets stolen, you have NO RECOURSE!  Unlike a traditional bank with FDIC insurance of up to $100,000 protection per account, there’s NOTHING for cryptocurrency.  That’s not a bug, that’s a feature!  With freedom, comes responsibility.  But that’s a speech for another day.  The point is, that if you’re going to do this on mobile, you want it to be a secure as possible, and on a Samsung phone, that means putting it in the ultra secure section called “Secure Folder”.  Now, let’s get back to the “Couldn’t install app” error.

Solution

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there is no solution at the time of this writing (2020-01-04).  I spent an hour on chat support with Samsung, who then sent me to a phone tech support that’s a specialist on the Secure folder.  Both the chat tech and the Secure Folder tech were unaware of the problem and both confirmed that it is, indeed, a problem that they’re going to have to fix.

Here are the problems you’ll experience:

  1. When trying to install the Samsung Blockchain Keystore into the Samsung Secure Folder:
    1. It will not find it in the installed apps from the apps installed outside of the Secure Folder.
    2. It will not find it in the Play Store (to their surprise, it’s not in the Play Store at all.  You can search for it with a desktop browser.  It’s just not there).
    3. It WILL not find it in the Samsung Galaxy Store… at least, not directly.  First, you have to search for the Samsung Blockchain Wallet app, select it, scroll down for similar apps, and you’ll find the Samsung Blockchain Keystore down there.  Try to install it, and you’ll get the error:
    4. Installing the KeyStore app OUTSIDE of Secure Folder will NOT make it available to the wallet app INSIDE the secure folder.
    5. Even when installed outside of secure folder, it does not show up in the app drawer.  You cannot add its icon to the home screen.
    6. The ONLY way to launch it is to find it in the Galaxy Store and tap the “Open” button there.

So, the conclusion is that it’s not possible to use the Samsung Wallet app in the Secure Folder area.  And if you can’t use it in there, it’s not worth using.  You NEED the extra protection of the Secure Folder for your cryptocurrency.  DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE IT OUTSIDE OF SECURE FOLDER!!!

Speaking of Decentralized Monetization,

If you like my work, you can contribute directly to me with the following cryptocurrencies (but, apparently, not with the Samsung Blockchain Wallet app in Secure Folder yet!)

BitCoin:

bc1qx6egntacpaqzvy95n90hgsu9ch68zx8wl0ydqg
bc1qx6egntacpaqzvy95n90hgsu9ch68zx8wl0ydqg

LiteCoin:

LXgiodbvY5jJCxc6o2hmkRF131npBUqq1r
LXgiodbvY5jJCxc6o2hmkRF131npBUqq1r

Encrypting the Non-Encrypted Cloud Drive Services

EncryptedCloudDrive

In this article in my series of “Encrypt All The Things!”, I’ll show how to fully encrypt your files on popular cloud drive services that do not support zero knowledge encryption.  Such services that do NOT support zero knowledge encryption are:

  • Google Drive
  • Microsoft OneDrive
  • DropBox
  • Box.Net
  • Amazon Cloud Drive

That is obviously not a comprehensive list.  Some that DO support zero knowledge encryption:

  • Mega
  • Spider Oak

That is also not a comprehensive list.  The problem with Mega is that it’s closed source, so you can’t confirm that everything’s on the up and up.  In fact, Kim Dot Com, the creator of Mega, was/is wanted by the United States government for hosting pirated material.  That’s why he created Mega, so he’d have zero ability to decrypt the data, which was a great big middle finger to the U.S. government.  He’s since left the company and now claims it can’t be trusted, but we don’t know if that’s just sour grapes from him, or if there’s a legitimate reason for him to say that.  At any rate, it’s closed source, so there’s no way to confirm.

Spider Oak is also closed source AND it costs money.  It’s not a free service.

But, there are plenty of free cloud drive services (listed above at the top of this article), but none of them support zero knowledge encryption.  But, there’s now a fairly easy way to encrypt those.

Download and install the free, open source software called Cryptomator.  You can get it here:

https://cryptomator.org/

As of this writing, they only have a Linux, Windows, and Mac version, but they are actively working on Android and iOS versions.

How it works

Once you install CryptoMator on your PC, you configure it to access each of your cloud drive services.  At the time of this writing, Cryptomator supports 4 of the popular cloud drive services.

  • Google Drive
  • Microsoft OneDrive
  • DropBox
  • (I can’t find information on the 4th one)

But, it should work with any cloud drive as long as you have a synced folder on your PC to that cloud drive service.  It doesn’t have to directly support your cloud drive service AS LONG AS your cloud drive software provides a local sync folder that other apps on your PC can access.

Below, I give general instructions.  The exact steps are clearly outlined in the CryptoMator documentation.  This will give you the basic idea of what you’re trying to accomplish…

Once installed, you add a “vault” to Cryptomator, create a password, and point CryptoMator to your local sync folder.  It will then create a virtual drive (using an unused drive letter) and store some encrypted files in your local sync folder.

Now, with your new drive letter, just put any files you want encrypted into there and NOT directly in your local sync folder.  If you put anything directly in your local sync folder IT WILL NOT BE ENCRYPTED!!!!  If you put files in your virtual drive that CrytpMator created for you and gave it a drive they, those files will appear as unencrypted to you as long as you have the “vault” unlocked with CryptoMator.  The actual encrypted bytes of the files are stored in the local sync folder associated with your cloud drive service.  If you open the sync folder, you’ll see meaningless file names and meaningless folder names with encrypted files in them.  That’s the encrypted data.  To have an unencrypted window into that encrypted data, simply open the new drive letter that CryptoMator created for you when you unlocked the vault with your password.

Since the encrypted bits are stored in your sync folder, they get synchronized with your cloud server and it’s those encrypted bits that are stored on the cloud drive servers.

Once you get that working, it’s a good idea to drag and drop all your previously existing NON ENCRYPTED files and folders from your local sync folder into your vault virtual drive.  Once you’ve confirmed they’re in the vault, BACK UP YOUR FILES, then you can safely delete them from your sync folder, which will delete the unencrypted files from your remote cloud drive, leaving only the encrypted bits.  Cryptomator will automatically encrypt them and store the encrypted bits back into your local sync folder, which your cloud drive software will then upload to your cloud drive service.

Caveats

  • Errors with large folders: I have about 64GB in my Microsoft One Drive.  When I tried moving my camera roll folder into my Cryptomator virtual drive associated with OneDrive, it kept failing.  I presume it wasn’t designed for folders with that many files or that many bytes.  After many days of effort, I finally did get it working.  I do not know if it was a OneDrive problem or a Cryptomator problem.  I had no issues encrypting my Google Drive nor my DropBox, but neither of them had as much data.
  • No Mobile (yet): Right now, there’s no mobile access to your encrypted data.  They’re actively working on both Android and iOS apps, so that may change by the time you see this.
  • No browser access: Since the web interfaces of these cloud services simply show you the files as they are on their services, after you encrypt your files and folders, when viewing them with a web browser on those services, you’ll only see the encrypted data.  This makes sense because the cloud drive services are unaware of the encryption switch-aroo you’ve done.  Don’t expect this to change.
  • Your Key: With zero knowledge encryption, you keep your key locally, but Cryptomator stores your key ON your remote cloud drive.  Don’t fret too much though.  It’s encrypted with your password that you made when you created your vault.  Technically, your password is your key.  In my judgment, it’s fairly safe.  Though, I wouldn’t be storing my archives of my classified State Department e-mail on any of these public cloud drives, even with Cryptomator. Winking smile
  • Meta data: The contents of your files are encrypted as well as the file and folder names, but the timestamps are NOT encrypted and neither are the number of files, the number of folders, nor the sizes of the files.  The timestamps are left as is in order for your cloud drive software (OneDrive, Google Drive, DropBox, etc…) to know when things have changed so it can sync properly.  The file sizes are a result of how many bytes you’re encrypting.  The number of encrypted files will be roughly equal to the number of files as they were before they were encrypted (but the contents will be fully encrypted).  This too is a side effect of how the syncing works.
  • Mobile still unencrypted: You should probably turn off or uninstall the cloud drive software on your mobile devices because you won’t be able to see anything but encrypted data.  Also, any files you have locally on your mobile device that you have set to sync will be uploaded UNENCRYPTED.  Then you’ll have a mix of both encrypted and unencrypted files on your cloud drive.  Remember, CryptoMator is actively working on Android and iOS apps.  When they’re available, you can install those and follow Cryptomator’s recommendations on what to do with your cloud drive provider software.

Use this information about the caveats

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Why it’s proper to assume the worst

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When you’re securing your devices, network, and data, you do so as if you’re expecting the worst.  This, of course, doesn’t mean the worst is going to happen, but if you can protect against it, you should, and if you don’t, and you get hit, it’s your own fault.

“Are you Paranoid???”

It’s inevitable that when you discuss standard security practices online, you’re going to run into some uneducated yahoo that loves to scream “paranoia!”.  If we used their “logic”, then we’d have no blinds on our windows, no bathroom doors, no bedroom doors, no locks on our homes or cars, no health insurance, no auto insurance, no life insurance, no home owners or renters insurance, no smoke detectors, and no fire extinguishers.  Just because you’re taking obvious and appropriate precautions, does not a paranoid schizophrenic make.

Reduce Your Attack Surface

A basic security principle is to reduce your attack surface.  That means that you simply turn off or disable avenues of outside attack, except for the few that you definitely need to use and protect those as best you can when they’re open, and close them when you’re done using them.

Capture

The fact is there’s plenty of money to be made and is being made by malicious users around the world, whether it’s phishing scams, viruses, trojan horses, worms, stolen databases, direct hacking attempts, webcam hijacking, bots, ransomware, or any number of other attacks, if it’s online, it’s definitely being scanned by malicious users and poked and proded for exploits.

Your current software and operating systems and devices are not secure

Today, in the second half of the second decade of the 21st century, if you put a fresh install of Windows 95 on a computer and hook it to the internet, it’s estimated that within 45 seconds, it will be compromised.  I’m not trying to scare you away from Windows 95.  By now, you’re certainly on a newer operating system.  That’s just an example of what kind of attacks are constantly running and scanning everything hooked up to the internet.  Newer operating systems are much less vulnerable.  Let me clarify that.  Newer operating systems are no longer vulnerable to those old, known attacks, but they are still vulnerable.  Every week, Microsoft releases security patches to Windows.  They’ve been doing this for at least 15 years.  And next Tuesday (no matter when you’re reading this), there will be another round of security patches to close up some of the security holes your up-to-date copy of Windows has right this moment.  But, it will not fix the security holes that are still in it.  The following Tuesday, even more holes will be closed.  And the cycle will continue ad-infinitum.  Even as Microsoft continues close up more security holes, they’re always making other modifications to Windows to add new features or fix bugs, that ultimately open new security holes.

Capture2

Conclusion

It doesn’t matter how much you try to protect yourself, there will always be holes open for attackers, but you should, of course, close up the holes you know about, keep your software up to date, encrypt your data, don’t re-use passwords, use long passwords, preferably computer generated, use a password manager, and even cover up your webcam on your laptop with a piece of tape.  You’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you, and believe me and all the others in the security industry… They Are!  However, they’re most likely not out to get specifically you, just anyone or anything that they find that’s not protected, and that’s YOU, me, and everyone else on the internet.  Just as you lock your front door, close your bedroom blinds, and buy insurance, protecting your digital content is no different.  You’re not expecting anyone to rob you tonight, but you’re going to lock your door anyway.  You don’t expect to die today, but you have life insurance anyway.  However, unlike your front door on your home, your home network is constantly being probed.

Now, go an encrypt your data.

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How to deal with Trolls Online

Years ago, back when Google+ was still in the invite phase, I wrote the following article on Google+ Netiquette:

Google+ Netiquette

Years have gone by and the pleasant days of invite only are gone and now we deal with trolls on a daily basis.  If you’ve spent any time online, you’ve dealth with trolls.  But what IS a troll?

Troll Defined

According to Google, it’s someone that “make(s) a deliberately offensive or provocative online posting with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them.”

image

According to the Urban Dictionary, it’s “Being a prick on the internet because you can. Typically unleashing one or more cynical or sarcastic remarks on an innocent by-stander, because it’s the internet and, hey, you can.”

image

Let’s look at some real life examples of trolling, shall we?

Here’s a typical one I encountered recently.  During an innocent conversation about someone that got a chip on their Gorilla Glass screen on their Samsung Galaxy S7 phone, which, has a premium build glass and metal body (that’s important to follow the trolliness here)…

image

So, this troll jumped into an ongoing, pleasant conversation instantly stating lies (or he’s just 2 generations behind on his knowledge of what Samsung phones are made of), then he jumps to drastically wrong assumptions, repeats his misinformation, jumps to massive conclusions, attacks the entire Android platform, then expands his insults to all Android users across the entire planet, then accused me of being the troll when I called him out on his trolliness.  This thread went on further with more of the same.

image

Good Luck Lifestyle Theme Trolls 5″ – Ballerina by Play Along

This is just the latest troll I’ve dealt with and is a typical example of the trolls I deal with almost daily.  No doubt, in true troll form, if this troll ever sees this post, he’ll make a new thread claiming this post is all about him.  Reminds me of the old Carly Simon song, “You’re So Vain” … you probably think this song is about you.  Would be the same with any troll that I used as an example here.  This is just the most recent one at the time of this posting.

Of course, you see this behavior on any subject where people have opinions… politics, religion, science, favorite devices, etc…

But, how do you DEAL with these trolls?

There are 2 schools of thought on this and they’re both equally valid:

  1. Ignore them and the’ll go away.  Also known as “Don’t feed the trolls”.
  2. Take them on.

The conventional wisdom is “don’t feed the trolls”.  The theory goes that they only post to get people riled up and if you ignore them, they’ll go away.

While that’s true for some trolls, and in my opinion, a very small minority of them, it’s not true for all trolls and it’s my experience that it’s not true for most of them.  Ditto for the claim that they just want to rile people up.  My experience in dealing with them going all the way back to 1988 is that most of them are just people with strong opinions, poor social skills, and an extraordinarily sensitive ego.  Their purpose is not to rile people, but to make themselves feel better by belittling others.  When uncontested, they feel vendicated and that is a reward to them to do more of the same.

image

So, step 1, Don’t be a Troll!

See these Google+ Netiquette tips

Step 2:  Understand that you’re not necessarily dealing with this one troll, but combating a larger problem of trolls everywhere.

Step 3:  Determine what kind of troll this person is.  Are they just confused and if you provide corrected information, will it fix them?  Or, are they a repeat troller or trolling in a known trolling topic (such as iOS vs. Android or Republican vs. Democrat)?

Step 4:  Always try to first resolve issues politely and respectfully, even when the other party isn’t being respectful… IF you’re not sure they’re a repeat offender or trolling on a repeat troll topic.

Step 5:  Establish yourself as a polite, honest, reasonable person.  Politely try to resolve the problem.  Don’t give them an opportunity to label you as a troll.  They’ll do this anyway, but when you’re being more than polite, it only makes them look more ridiculous.  This is a big hit to their ego.

Step 6:  Re-confirm that you’re goal is to get to the truth, not to argue, and that you’d appreciate being treated with respect and that you’ll provide him (or her) with respect too.  Killing them with kindness makes their heads explode.  On a few occassions, they realize what they’ve done and apologize.  Sometimes they just leave, licking their wounds, usually blocking you on the way out.

There are, however, times when a troll needs a true smackdown.  I caution against this unless you can hold your own and are an expert in the topic being discussed.  Don’t be rude for the sake of being rude (that’s trolling), but feel free to mirror their insults.  Copying and pasting their own text against them is a great way to mirror their bad behavior that they can’t tag you on, because they’re actually the ones that wrote it.  Make absolutely certain that your facts are correct, because if you make any factual mistakes, YOU will be called out.  Keep reminding them that you tried to be civil, rational, and respectful, but they chose this path and you’re simply reciprocating the style of discussion that they chose… that it appears to be the only style they’ll pay attention to.  Also, trolls hate it when you use complex sentences and multisyllabic words or sound educated in any way.

Conclusion

When a troll has an unpleasant experience trolling (when their ego is hurt), they’ll think twice before trolling again, especially against you.

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Hangouts: “photo sharing is not available because of your administrator settings”

If you get the error “photo sharing is not available because of your administrator settings” in Google Hangouts (iPhone, Android, or any other platform) when you’re trying to send a picture (either by taking a photo within hangouts or just selecting an existing picture on your device), here’s what’s up with that and how to fix it…

Why you’re getting this:

You’re probably using an e-mail address that’s NOT @gmail.com.  You’re using Google custom domains (or whoever assigned you your account is using it) or Google domains for business or education.  Your account does NOT have “Google Photos” enabled.

Samsung Galaxy Phones on Amazon.com
Samsung Galaxy Phones on Amazon.com

How to fix it:

If you’re NOT the administrator for the domain, then contact your domain administrator (the person that set up your account) and have them follow the following instructions:

If you ARE an administrator…

  1. Log into your domain control panel and click on “User”.image
  2. Click on the appropriate user account.
  3. Click on “Google Apps enabled”image
  4. Scroll down to “Show more” and click it.
  5. Then click “Additional Google services enabled”
  6. Scroll down and click on “Google Photos”.  It’s probably “off”.  Turn it on.
  7. image

Now the user should immediately be able to send images from within hangouts.

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Slow Motion Galaxy S7 Video Tests

I bought a Samsung Galaxy S7 on March 11, 2016 (well, actually TWO of them) and have been testing the features.  Now, this slow motion video is not a new feature.  In fact, I’ve had it on my prior phone, a Samsung Galaxy S4 for almost 3 years, but I’ve had Cyanogenmod installed on it for the the last 2 and a half years, so I’ve been missing this feature.

Details of Slo-Mo

The Galaxy S line of phones since the S4 have had a camera feature where the camera can record video at 240 fps (frames per second) at 1280×720 resolution.

Enough already, let’s see some slo-mo video!

Fine!  Here you go!  This first one is a water bottle connected to a SodaStream, being carbonated.

Next is video of spraying water on the headlight of my car.   I have this uploaded to YouTube, but because of the extreme detail of the thousands of water droplets, YouTube’s video compression really destroys it, so I’m providing it as a downloadable MP4 file instead (46MB).

image

If you want to see the butchered YouTube version, here it is:

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Fitbit is a Major Privacy Peeping Tom

I ran the setup for my new fitbit Surge watch and during the Windows 10 fitbit app setup, it showed me this list of fitbit owners from MY PRIVATE CONTACTS!FitBit Contacts cleaned

In this list of fitbit owners:

  • Dude from High School I barely knew
  • Ex girlfriend from Jr. High.
  • Several people I don’t recognize.
  • Bunch of girls I knew from 1-12 grades.
  • A good friend’s cheating ex.
  • Little sister’s friend.
  • Brother in law.
  • Wife of brother in-law’s good friend (dont’ know why she’s in my contacts… probably through a facebook sync from years ago).

Also, everyone else in my contacts that do not have a fitbit account.

Some of these names are NOT in my contacts on my PC, which means they came from my phone.  And for the Windows 10 app to know that these 16 people have fitbits, my contacts had to have been uploaded to the fitbit servers so it could compare them to its database.  At no time was I asked permission to upload my private contacts (from either my phone nor my PC).  And I’m guessing these people didn’t explicitly grant it permission to let me know they have fitbits and they will likely be notified that I have one, even though I’ve given no such explicit permission to notify them nor any explicit permission to hijack my entire contacts list.

Fitbit spying

In addition to this, 100% of all health data that a fitbit collects is uploaded to the fitbit servers, viewable by fitbit employees… all done without notifying you and certainly without asking for explicit permission.  Turns out, the only way to use a fitbit without uploading all your private data is to not use the PC app or the mobile app, but, of course, the fitbit is mostly useless without them.  There’s no technical reason for uploading our data to the fitbit servers.  The PC and mobile software could easily have communicated with the watch without the involvement of the fitbit servers.

While on technical support today trying to resolve why my fitbit won’t charge, I discovered that they have access to all my health information collected by this watch, even though the employee I spoke with said it “only” uploads… then rattled off every thing the watch does… “for the purpose of knowing your fitbit is working”.  In addition to that, they know when we charge them, when we reboot them, and what devices we charge them from.  All this without permission from us.  Sure, some of this is somewhat inacuous data, but I did not give it permission and collected together, all this information can be used against you.  This is your HEALTH information.

Just about any kind of personal information online can be used against you and your _*personal health*_ information is especially vulnerable.  In this article, I list ways that seemingly innocent information can hurt you:

So, HOW do you stop it?

  1. Don’t run the mobile fitbit app.
  2. Don’t run the desktop fitbit software.

Of course, without the apps, the fitbit is pretty much useless.  Your only real option here is to stop using your fitbit.  There should be other smartwatches that can do similar or better things that DO NOT send all (or any) of your private data to remote servers.

[Update] I sent my fitbit back and got my money back and bought an Android Wear watch that does everything the fitbit does, and more, but without uploading everything to its owners servers.

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