Facebook Security and Privacy

Today's guest lecturer is Er Chiang Kai - Prof. Ben's classmate back in MIT, Software Engineering - Senior Manager. IBM Singapore Software Laboratory.

This lecture tells us a lot about how vulnerable data can be. There are so many ways that our privacy can be compromised,  e.g. SQL Injection, Social Engineering, Cross Site Scripting, Directory Traversal (i've actually tried it on ~joshuatj on eusoff personal website, ha, it doesn't work, woohoo!)

Security only as good as weakest point.

I like the analogy of the home where it has the most sophisticated security system but one window is left open. GG.

Basic Security Objectives

1. Confidentiality
   • Protect from eavesdropping
2. Integrity
   • Protect from modification
3. Availability
   • Protect from denial of service

"script kiddie" is an interesting concept, it's can literally mean kids who use scripts/programs to hack.  OR according to Wikipedia, it is

"derogatory term used to describe those who use scripts or programs developed by others to attack computer systems and networks. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Script_kiddie]"

Singapore has no Privacy LAW! Woohoo... the big boss can do anything to us, woohoo!

All in all, the PPT is gonna go into joshuatj-gold-archive, it'll be really useful in the near future.

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Dialogue with *REAL* Entrepreneurs

the spirit of cockroaches - they do not die!

If you were to ask me to summarize the whole session, I'll say "money". Apparently other than Tong Yee who's really out there to try to change the education system, the rest are entrepreneurs whose sole purpose of creating a business is to EARN MONEY! Ash says that "Sales solves Everything". Hoong An says "Money solves everything". Les is thinking how to monetize the many eye balls that he's having now. Now I know that money is really important, but I think that there's more to just money. Currently I'm reading Muhammad Yunus' "Creating a World without Poverty", I think Social Business is really something...

Why you should not be an entrepreneur -

HungryGoWhere Chief Evangelist Officer

----- some of the highlights

You hang around people just like you
- no soccer team wins with ten strikers or ten goal keepers on the field at the same time

Hoong An mention that he'd rather hire someone who is very good at doing what he does best rather than someone who he can get along pretty well. First of all, of course the best scenario is to have someone whom you can get along pretty well and he's has very good technical skills. But taking this hypothetical situation, Hong Anh's decision is to hire the more talented one. In this I have to disagree. For what it's worth, if I really have to choose between the two, I'd rather work with people who I can get along well. I truly believe in the synergy effect. So does my father. The time and effort trying to convince a talented person who doesn't believe in your vision might be better spend at tackling the business hurdles that's ahead.

But maybe this principle of mine doesn't really apply for a profit-maximizing business. But Social Business? It takes a passionate person to want to do social business.

You cannot make decisions
- a wrong decision is better than a no decision

couldn't agree more

You have no faith and do not believe in God

Hoong An's reasoning is that having a faith or believing in God can really pull you through the toughest time. I think God aside, it's important to always believe in something bigger than ourselves. I think it's an acquired-skill for a person to think that the world doesn't revolve around him. Thanks to human arrogance.

Oh ya, I happen to be the official videographer for the night. The videos are in progress hang on... Most likely it'll be uploaded to the CS3216 Facebook Group once it's done.

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Integrating my blog into Facebook

Aha.. thanks to the WPBook plugin, now my blog and my Facebook share the same comments. Comments that was entered in Facebook will appear in my joshuatj.com blog and vice-versa. Most importantly, every new updates (like this one) will be automatically stream.publish into my Facebook Wall. Subsequently appearing in all my friends' feed as well.

Ya, I know Facebook Notes is able to "Import a Blog" through RSS. But it's actually a duplicate copy of the same blog post back @ joshuatj.com . Thus, it's not elegant. Now the next step is to spice up my Facebook i.am. mirrored-blog.

Interestingly how WPbook does all these is through some magic using Facebook Connect + Facebook Application. Thank God I've had some experience meddling with Facebook Connect + Application. CS3216 is really empowering me lar!

If you're interested, check out the WPBook plugins page http://www.openparenthesis.org/code/wp "Bring your WP blog to Facebook"!

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Mid-Term Survey + Prof. Ben’s Responses

I think this is really cool and useful. It will be very good to have other modules do something similar, especially Engineering Science Modules. Check out what Prof. Ben has to say in regards to our survey

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~bleong/teaching/cs3216s10-midterm.htm

Being a Prof isn't easy indeed. Even in a small class of 41 people, the responses cover a whole range of sentiments, good, bad and neutral. It reminds me of EusoffWorks, where we have to ensure 130+ people are happy and they're learning, with so many different fields, photo, video, design, IT, Digital Media Management. resonates... resonates... wooong wooong .....

Personally, I think the Wave assignment is really exciting and loads of opportunities when you immerse in the bleeding edge!

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Google Wave Assignment Review

Pamela Fox from Google Sydney reviewed our Google Wave assignments.

Make it Wave-y -

1. it should be playable by one user as well as many users.

2. command line type user interface is a NO-NO..

3. user interface should be kept small

4. clear instructions on how to use the app. Legends to show what is what.

The LIVE video conference is quite laggy and honestly it's quite a turn off. But problem = opportunity, I guess that means opportunity in this field!

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