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Show of 12-18-2021

Email and Forum Questions

  • Email from Leslie in Fairfax: Dear Tech Talk: I am buying a new printer for my home office. Which is a better option: Laser Printer or Inkjet? Leslie in Fairfax, VA
  • Tech Talk Responds: Inkjet printers have a little nozzle that drops a tiny drop of ink onto a page. Depending on the printer, this might be one color in the case of monochrome printers or up to six with high-end multi-color printers. Laser printers, on the other hand, are slightly more complicated. Instead of ink, they use a powder layered onto the paper and melted together using a heated drum.
  • Inkjet printers are usually better suited to high-quality photo work, and that is primarily due to their use of ink. They can achieve a much broader color profile, especially as they begin to use more color cartridges. One downside to Inkjet printers is that they can sometimes be prone to smudging.
  • Laser printers, on the other hand, are incredibly well suited to printing text. The text itself also tends to be much crisper and clearer compared to inkjet. Laser printers can often print in a smaller font while maintaining clarity, too.
  • While Inkjet printers are cheap to buy upfront compared to laser, their actual cost comes from buying the ink. A monochrome page of text can easily cost you 10 to 12 cents per page on some printers. With color, you are looking at 20 cents or more.
  • Laser printers, on the other hand, cost a lot more to buy upfront, sometimes even double the price in the lower-budget range, but their cartridge yield is several times larger than ink. Monochrome printing can go as low as 3 to 4 cents on average and color printing can go for about 10 to 15 cents per page. Laser printers are generally much faster than inkjet printers are.
  • Email from Mitchell M: Shurtz. I have been an ardent listener to Tech Talk on the FNN for a number of years. I very much enjoy the variety and depth of the content you make available. Inadvertently I have managed to delete the entirety of Clipboard entries on my phone, which is a Galaxy S20+ 5G. Now, I have already spoken with a Samsung Customer Service representative, who, after a lengthy period of checking, told me that effectively, there is no means of recovering these listings. That is likely an absolutely accurate response, but I reckon that if anyone might be able to verify that (or alternately, be aware of some workaround), it would be you!!! Thank you very much, in advance, for any consideration you may give to this message, and please forgive my presumption in contacting you in this fashion. Very respectfully, Mitchell M.
  • Tech Talk Responds: First check you clipboard memory before going deeper.
    • Unlock the phone, and open the app to which you want to save the recovered clipboard item.
    • Inside the app you have chosen, tap on a text field to force the keyboard to show up. If you are using a third-party keyboard app, you may want to switch back to the default one provided by Samsung. To switch the keyboard, pull down the notification panel, and choose Switch Input Method.
    • Long-press the gear icon near the Sym key to open its context menu. Please note that the key may show a different icon, but it is next to the Sym key.
    • Select the Clipboard icon from the context menu.
    • When you select the Clipboard option, the keyboard will be replaced temporarily by the Clipboard section which shows previous clipboard items. These could be text or media files such as pictures, audio files, or even video files.
    • By default, the system may store up to 20 clipboard items, so there is a good chance that you will be able to find the one you need.
    • To transfer the item back to the text field, simply tap on it.
    • When you are done, tap the arrow to dismiss the Clipboard history window and bring back the keyboard. You can store the recovered clipboard item somewhere else for long-term use.
  • If this fails, your only hope to look in the subdirectory where the clipboard stores its data. In the Android system, the clipboard data is stored in the partition reserved for the system files. To access that partition, you will need to root your device and use a root file explorer. Root Explorer has got over a million downloads and 4.7 star rating on Google Play Store. Go to /data/clipboard. You can then open the entries in text viewer to see what they say. If the memory has not been overwritten, you may see something. This is a long shot and I am not hopeful.
  • In the future, I suggest that you past critical data in notes, rather than rely on the elusive clipboard data, even if it is pinned.
  • Email from Susan in Alexandria: Good morning, Dr. Shurtz. Could you please explain the Log4Shell vulnerability (in layman’s terms). Is the typical individual household user at risk?  If so, what, if anything can be done about it? Thanks again, Susan in Alexandria
  • Tech Talk Responds: The ‘Log4Shell’ vulnerability in the Java-based Log4j library, present in the computing infrastructure of millions of companies worldwide, has been dubbed “a design failure of catastrophic proportions” by security researchers as it continues to cause problems for Big Tech and beyond.
  • Log4J is part of a Java-based Apache code library that is present in cloud servers, software, and online services used across all industries and governments. As tools go, it’s about as ubiquitous as it can get. Globally, millions of servers have the logging tool installed. It tracks what activities are taking place in the code, as well as keep tabs on various communications, requests and errors.
  • The flaw was discovered last month by workers at Alibaba, who reported it to the team at the nonprofit Apache Software Foundation, whose volunteers maintain Log4J. It’s a zero-day vulnerability, which means it’s been spotted now but exploited for some time.
  • An attacker could use the flaw to force an affected system to accept commands from a malicious remote server, such as commands to download and install code in vulnerable systems, including cryptocurrency miners or other malicious software.
  • A patch was released earlier this month. The key now is identifying and patching all the systems at risk. Complicating the task is the fact many governments, businesses and consumers probably are unaware if they own products using the code.
  • The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is working to develop a comprehensive list of all the products that include the affected code and encouraging security researchers to share details on any products they believe are infected.
  • So far, the visible impact from the flaw has been modest, but experts do not expect that to stay the case. With the exception of crypto mining, there’s a lull before the storm.
  • Microsoft said it has observed multiple cybercriminal groups seek to establish network access by exploiting the vulnerability in Apache Log4j, with the expected goal of later selling that access to ransomware operators.
  • Make certain to install the latest patches for your computer before surfing the web. The everyday user should be relatively safe.

Profiles in IT: Devin Finzer

  • Devin Finzer is a computer scientist who is best known as co-founder and CEO of OpenSea, is an online marketplace for buying and selling crypto collectables.
  • Devin Finzer was born in 1990 and attended Brown University, receiving a BS in Computer Science and Mathematics in 2013.
  • In 2011, his junior year, he was a member of the Brown University team that placed first in the LinkedIn Hackday 2011. His team created Rocks: a real-time, 3d, multiplayer, in-browser game similar to capture the flag, which used WebGL and hardware acceleration.
  • On Halloween of his junior year, he released Coursekick to the rest of Brown University’s student body. Coursekick was a social class registration system that made it easy to pick your own classes and see what your friends were signing up for.
  • Within a few days, CourseKick had 500 users; a few days later it hit 1,000. Little more than a week later and 20% of Brown’s student body was on the platform.
  • That same year, he was selected for the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Fellowship Program, which offers top U.S. college and graduate students a chance to work inside innovative Silicon Valley startups.
  • He held three summer internships while attending college
    • Analytics Intern, Wikimedia Foundation in 2010, where he conducted a statistical analysis of a pilot editing environment’s impact on Wikipedia.
    • Software Engineer Intern, Google Cloud Platform in 2011, where he designed and implemented two first tier features for the Google developer console.
    • Software Engineer Intern, Flipboard in 2012, where he pitched, designed, and implemented end-to-end full-page magazine-style layouts for the Flipboard iPad app.
  • In 2013, he accepted a job as Software Engineer for Pinterest in San Francisco. Led the growth team’s “virality” initiative—optimizing outbound communication from Pinterest users to their networks: sending, sharing, inviting, etc. He designed and implemented the inviter on mobile and web, resulting in a 3x increase in signups from invites.
  • In 2015, he co-founded, Iris Labs in San Francisco. He built a suite of mobile apps (Eye Chart Pro) for vision testing that have been installed over 1.2 million times and are in wide use in the medical community.
  • In 2015, he co-founded Claimdog in San Francisco. Claimdog helped you find if a business owes you money. Claimdogy was sold to Credit Karma in 2016
  • In 2016, he was hired as Engineering Manager, Credit Karma in San Francisco. Joined Credit Karma as part of the Claimdog acquisition to scale and launch our product as Credit Karma Unclaimed Money.
  • It was while working at Credit Karma that Finzer became fascinated by the blockchain and the new economic system to which it was giving rise.
  • By the fall of that year, he’d decided he wanted to build a business in the space, teaming up with another young software developer, Alex Atallah, a CS graduate from Stanford.
  • In September of that year, Finzer and Atallah presented WifiCoin at Techcrunch’s Hackathon.
  • Wificoin provided an exchange for sharing access to a WiFi router. Users could earn coins, that could, in turn, be used to buy WiFi access from others in the company’s network.
  • The pair was accepted to Y Combinator to take Digicoin further. That same year CryptoKitties hit the market. Before they launched Digicoin, Finzer and Atallah pivoted to the NFT market, in an effort to expand CryptoKitties reach.
  • In December 2017 , they launched OpenSea, headquartered in NYC.
  • OpenSea is an online marketplace for buying and selling cryptocollectables. It is a peer-to-peer marketplace where goods such as gaming items, digital art, and other goods backed by a blockchain can be bought and sold.
  • Users can create their own customizable marketplace using the OpenSea software and set their own fees for their sales. The projects must be ERC-721 compliant to be sold in the marketplace.
  • The market place is built on the Ethereum blockchain. Sales are conducted through smart contracts and users can keep their commission after paying a fee to OpenSea.
  • OpenSea is an online marketplace akin to eBay, but instead of used bikes, Ikea couches, and blenders, the platform lets users buy and sell Non-Fungible Tokens.
  • In January 2018, OpenSea participated in the YC W18 cohort of Y Combinator raising $120K pre-Seed from Y Combinator
  • The company’s NFT sales went from $2.8 million in December 2020, peaking at $3.4 billion in August. In October, the figure was $2.6 billion. It takes 2.5% on all transactions.
  • In May 2018, OpenSea raises a $2,000,000 seed round from 1confirmation, Andrew Vigneault, Blockchain Capital, Brad Flora, Coinbase Ventures, Foundation Capital, Founders Fund, The Chernin Group and The Stable Fund.
  • In March, 2021, OpenSea raises a $23M series A round from Andreessen Horowitz, Justin Kan, Kevin Hartz, Linda Xie, Mark Cuban, Metapurse, Naval Ravikant, Pascal Capital, Regan Bozman, Standard Crypto and Tim Ferriss.
  • In July, 2021, OpenSea raises $100M in a Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Michael Ovitz, Kevin Durant and Ashton Kutcher. Valuation: $1.5B.
  • In October 2021, OpenSea has received investment offers that value the company at $10 billion. The startup did not initiate the funding process.

Observations from the Faculty Lounge

  • The motivation that drives innovation.
  • Claude Shannon did not look for inspiration; he looked for irritation. Shannon believed an idea might come from a good conversation, tinkering in the workshop, or the kind of aimless play he indulged in for much of his life — but above all, it came from doing, not waiting. Shannon’s was always seeking a slight irritation when things do not look quite right, or a “constructive dissatisfaction.
  • That irritation inspired him to rethink analog communication and computation. It inspired him to explore digital processing.
  • Alexandr Wang realized that data was the big bottleneck for people building meaningful AI. It took a lot of time to add intelligence to data, to make it usable for machine learning.
  • There were no standardized tools or infrastructure to solve this problem. This irritation prompted him to create Scale AI, a data curation platform.
  • Devin Finzer realized that there was not convenient infrastructure for trading digital assets, like CryptoKitties. So he pivoted to the NFT market and created OpenSea.
  • In all three cases, an irritation provided the motivation to create something new and innovative.

Secretly Tracking with Apple AirTags is More Difficult

  • Apple has released a new Android app allowing users to detect whether there is an unfamiliar AirTag following them.
  • It’s a useful safety tool for any non-iPhone users concerned they may be a victim of high-tech stalking.
  • Tracker Detect looks for item trackers that are separated from their owner and that are compatible with Apple’s Find My network.
  • These item trackers include AirTag and compatible devices from other companies. If you think someone is using AirTag or another device to track your location, you can scan to try to find it.”
  • Apple indicated it was aware of this stalking issue, and implemented a few features to help prevent AirTag abuse. This included automatic detection of any unknown AirTags following you, the ability to deactivate said AirTags, and having AirTags emit a noise if they’re separated from their paired iPhone for three days. The audio alert was later updated in June to activate at a random time between 8 and 24 hours.
  • However, aside from the AirTags’ sound, these features were only available for iPhone users. Now, Apple’s Tracker Detect app will finally allow Android users to check whether they’re being shadowed by any maliciously-intended AirTags, hopefully catching them early.
  • Though Tracker Detect appears to be a handy safety tool, it isn’t without flaws. Users have criticized Apple’s app for requiring manual activation of its scan.