News, Thoughts and IP Addresses

[tecnobabble-blog]

Choosing the right mobile product for your firm

There are several mobile device service carriers out in the market place: Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile. While looking at wireless carriers you have to take into consideration the costs associated with joining those carriers and also the length of the service contracts you are going to be locked into. However, an IT Manager needs not only to look at cost of a service provider, but look at the innovation that the provider has. In the past 2 years, one service provider has innovated the industry to the point where other carriers are stealing  using the same ideas that this company has done. This company is T-Mobile. 

Looking at the technical aspect first; T-Mobile has modernized and in my opinion blown away the other carriers with their new LTE (and soon LTEA) towers. The speed in the LTE covered areas I have been getting with my IPhone 5s are in the 28mbps range. I have not dropped calls in over a year with Tmobile, and I am always connected. Also, the big thing is how I am not locked in to a life sucking contract or money murdering bills with hidden stuff in your bill. T-Mobile is taking the "no-bs" approach and it is working for them. Also, they are one step in front of the competition with their technology roll out, especially now they have iphones and ipads in their product lines.

 The best thing to happen to T-Mobile was the change at the CEO position. They have added John Legere as their CEO. He is an innovator, genius, and just very out spoken. Any company can benefit from a CEO like John and it seems T-Mobile is doing just that.

The bottom line here is, instead of being trapped with AT&T or Verizon, or looking at a dying company like Sprint, I would recommend with moving or adding devices from T-Mobile. Their costs, their plans, and everything the company does is top notch. T-Mobile is shaking waters in the Cellular Phone arena, and in a few years they could be number 1. 

[tecnobabble-blog]

Trial Technology and Trial Presentation

As technology has changed, so has ways people executed their jobs. For example, the way that attorneys have presented their cases including their exhibits have changed. Now, we see court rooms either equipped with monitors, sound systems, etc, or that the judges allow the counsel to bring in their own equipment. Using technology during trial is a more efficient way to prove your case and to disprove the opposing counsel's case. I would like to discuss some technologies used before and during the trial. 

During Voir Dire; Jury Selection, I use two apps on my trusty, good for all occasions Ipad. These apps are called JuryPad and IJuror. These apps have two purposes. First to help map and select a jury, and to also help monitor and take notes of the jury during trial as well. 

Now the setup that I use includes the following (what I use is specific to the needs of the specific trial and its exhibits). However, I have boxes of VGA cables of all sizes, 2x 60" television sets, 4x 19" monitors, 1x 23" inch monitor, a few video switch boxes, an ELMO (document projector/camera), a 3d projector, a small and a large projection screen, sound system and a smart pad and smart board.  For most trials I just set up the following: 1 video splitter at the Defense table (We are a Defense firm) that is connected to every screen except the large tv, the reason I will get to in a minute. At the Defense and Plaintiff tables I have one 19" monitor, I also have a 19" monitor at the judge's bench. I also have a "kill switch," which is another video switch box. I have the box connected to the main switch box, and to the 60" television in which I use for the jury. There is an on and off switch on the box. The judge makes the decision if the jury can see the presented piece of evidence. On the witness stand I use a 23" monitor so the witness can see the evidence as well. 

For trial presentation I use Trial Director. Trial Director is an extensive and feature rich application that will allow me to manipulate pictures, depositions and even video depositions. I can use clips of video depositions or even if something is objected and stricken I can, on the fly easily edit it out. With deposition transcripts I can even call out lines to make them bigger, etc. You can do a lot with Trial Director. 

Finally another thing you need to keep is an "oh sh*t list." What this is a list of things that can go wrong with the technology and a quick resolution for the issue at hand. Also, keep backups, just incase things do go awry. There are other ways to present your trial too. I am currently looking into going wireless and using wireless monitors, tv, etc for tidiness. I will keep everyone posted on changes in my technology presentation.

[tecnobabble-blog]

Secure your data - Mobile Devices - Part 1

Mobile devices are everywhere. If you travel a lot you will have a mobile phone and a laptop. If you are like me you store everything on your laptop, have a direct connection to the office, and basically live on your devices. My wife yells at me because I am always connected and working. However, being a IT Manager for a small law firm that is always working, I have to always work as well. 

The biggest threat to data security, is unprotected or misconfigured devices. 

Your smart phone has your entire life on it: your client list, emails, calendars, etc. What would happen if your phone was stolen? Would they get your data? 

Apple has implemented nice safegards against theft. The first recommendation is to install find my iphone and connect it to your icloud account. So, if someone does steal your phone, you can locate it and even erase the data on it. I also like the finger print scanner on the Iphone 5s. I just picked one up and I urge everyone to go ahead and use it. If you have an older iphone, I suggest you secure it using a pin code. 

[tecnobabble-blog]

Traveling? Don't use a public wifi.

When traveling for work or for play it might be convenient to have an internet connection in the hotel or even airplane available to you especially on long flights and hotel stays, but these services are not safe.

If you travel a lot I recommend getting a personal cellular data hotspot also known as a MiFi. Using a MiFi is the most secure way to connect to the internet when not at your office network. Why is this true? Simple, these public networks are just that public and there is little to no security on them. Basically anyone in that hotel can do anything they want on the network, in which will affect your internet performance, and could possibly do bad, unthinkable things to your computer, if it is not secure. This poses a huge problem if you are a lawyer or other person that constantly opens sensitive information like medical records, etc.

Getting a personal hotspot is indeed worth the money. Ask yourself, what would happen if someone intercepted medical records that you were trying to open or if you are a systems administrator (and you should always have a mifi and NEVER connect to unsecured or public networks) they work handy. When I travel to my Philadelphia site, I connect my mifi on the train and work. 

Let's say you are on a plane and need to work what happens then? Since you cannot connect to a cellular network on an airplane (not sure why, that is a discussion for another time) to access the internet you will need to connect to the airplane's wifi network (usually GoGo or something similar) and again that is an open network and isn't secure either. My recommendation is to open a VPN tunnel to your network and access everything from there, or better yet sit back and enjoy the flight. Those emails can wait while you rest.   

[tecnobabble-blog]

Ah football is back and there goes the bandwidth.

I am excited for Week 1 of the NFL Season. For me it starts tonight as my team, the EAGLES look to defeat Washington (I find their nickname offensive so I won't use it) in DC. However, I did not change the theme of this blog to sports, I am going to discuss the impact of college and pro football on your network.

Sports is a big time sucker of bandwidth and productivity, especially on Mondays and Tuesdays. Why? This is due to fantasy football. People are checking their results and setting their lineups for the next week. Also, people are watching highlights from the previous night's game. There is a real productivity issue here, and also bandwidth. Sure, I have a 50mb line and 20 people at one site, but I also have a IPSEC VPN and several remote users. Not to mention everyone's ipad, android and iphones attacking, er connecting to my email server. So what do I do to control bandwidth and raise productivity during the day.

On my firewall I have a tight web filter. It is blocking sports, news, social media, etc. All day except for 1 hour. That is the lunch hour between 12 and 1. This is because if people want to connect to these sites on their lunch break they can. I also block streaming media as it will kill bandwidth.

However, as much as I can control the bandwidth, I can not control what people do on their cellular phones. I like background music as I am doing various administration type tasks during my 12+ hour day so I have pandora and my playlists going all the time. Yes, I have tmobile so I have unlimited 4g lte bandwidth. This is a nice feature. I use 30 minutes of my unlimited voice, 87 million texts and 100gb of data through the month (exaggeration obviously). However, unless I use a device to block all cellular signal, I cannot control people who do not abide by the policy. I am curious how other admins regulate cellular usage when their mobiles aren't connected to the local wifi.

[tecnobabble-blog]

Visit Original Link

Background:

I received a call from this phone number: 713.370.3814. The person claimed he was with the FBI and his name was Officer Julian Marsh. He said that I owed a pay day loan and that if I don't pay it back that I can get federal charges pressed against me and I can go to debtor's prison. Also, that they are monitoring my social security number, driver's license, email address, etc. I did not return his call and I will not return his call. After listening to the message you will know why.

Thoughts:

First there is no way his name is Julian Marsh and there is also no way he is an FBI agent. He has a very heavy Indian accent. Next a quick Google Search shows that there are people using several names calling from this number. It is also a roll over number, so the calls could come from several phone numbers.

Avoid being scammed:

The best way in not being scammed is to give out any of your personal information. Also, another good way in not being scammed is to use your common sense. First ask yourself, do you have a pay day loan out that you didn't pay for? No?! Well that is your first clue. Also, if you had a warrant out for your arrest by any legal agency, do you honestly think that they would call you and tell you that you have a warrant out? Do your due diligence. Doing a quick internet search found this scam. You should do your own research.

Officer Marsh:

I know who you are and what you are doing. I did what any American should do; I reported your actions to the FTC and hopefully you will end up in prison for real.

[tecnobabble-blog]

Getting pounded by some spam this weekend.

This is coming to me as odd, or it did until I did some research. Check out this link for information on this Joe-Job malvertising spam. This is targeted against malekal.com (french blog that targets spam and malware). It seems like it is coming from a botnet somewhere. I checked our network and nothing is being sent on our behalf, and I have no open relays. It also seems like there is a bot digging email

Looking at the headers (I am not posting them) they are coming from Thailand. I submitted it to barracuda (my spam filter) and they are going to block in. In the mean while I suggest to block by subject in your spam filter.

Subject: Email SPAM for malekal.com

Theses emails SPAM are sent from a botnet (check the mails headers), im not responsible of theses spam emails. Someone is probably trying to get the site blacklisted or to get bad reputation (called this "a Joe Job" - see : http://blog.dynamoo.com/2013/08/malekalcom-joe-job.html ) The responsible is " Reveton Guy ", try to get revenge after a mass shutdown of their malvertising : http://www.malekal.com/2013/07/30/en-juicyads-reveton-malvertising/ http://www.malekal.com/2013/07/28/en-plugrush-reveton-malvertising/ http://www.malekal.com/2013/07/26/en-reveton-adxpansion-com-malvertising/ The August 11, they tried to get my website blacklisted using hacked website : http://www.malekal.com/2013/08/12/en-reveton-go-now-by-hacked-website/

[tecnobabble-blog]

Network Security Issues in the Law Firm - Part 2

Part 2 - How a security appliance can mitigate outside threats as well as inside threats.

The first step in protecting your data is limiting who gets in to your network and most importantly what gets out of your network. Firewalls used to be devices that just kept bad people from doing bad things to your network. Now they are called Network Security Appliances. Why? Because they do more than just keep hackers out of your network.

The biggest issue with these security appliances are they can be cost prohibitive. However, I have found a real good product that I use at my sites, and it is Fortigate. The fortigate appliances have built in Intrusion Prevention, email scan, web filtering, etc. I am going to talk about a few features that I have implemented while using the fortigate appliances.

Data Leak Prevention: This is the first step into protecting your data from being leaked out. As I discussed in a previous post, that most data leaks come from the inside. The easiest way to get data out of the network is to email it. However, when data leak prevention is implemented, this service can check all outgoing packets for strings and will decline to send them if a string is positive. Example, it would be against HIPAA rules to email out client medical records. So therefore, you would place a string in the appliance that did not allow any medical records, xrays, etc.

Intrusion Prevention / Intrusion Detection: This service monitors the incoming and outgoing packets for services that can open your network up to data leaks and even holes that allow others in. For example IPDS can stop internal clients from using bittorrent clients. This is good as it can allow virus laden files in, but it can open your firm to be sued if copyrighted files are illegally downloaded. It also can block bandwidth intensive applications like itunes, netflix and the like as well.

Network Protection: The bottom line in implementing a security appliance is the fact, once configured correctly, can and will protect your network from internal and external threats. It is also imperative that your staff, technical or not, is trained in your policy.

[tecnobabble-blog]

Network Security Issues in the Law Firm - Part 1

Part 1: The biggest threat to your network is from the inside.

One of the biggest network security related topics in the news is about a former technical NSA contractor who leaked information to a UK Newspaper and the newspaper ran some articles on the Government spying programs that were reported. How does this exactly affect not only the small law firms, but also affect the larger ones as well? 

When I think about data security I always ask: "How much is your data worth to you?" It doesn't matter whether your firm is 1 client for 1000 clients large, what would happen if your client list was leaked to the internet or to your competitors? It can open your firm up to law suits, criminal charges and it could shut down your entire operation.

Many companies and even some IT people think that the biggest threat is from the outside. While, in some cases this could be true, in most cases the biggest threat is from the inside.

The first threat is the unsuspecting user. This is a user who is "technologically challenged." What exactly does "technologically challenged" mean? This has a few meanings, first this user could be someone who refuses to learn about technology and it could also mean that this person was not trained properly. The most common way of obtaining information from an unsuspecting user is that someone calls up pretending to be from the company's IT department asking to verify user names and passwords. Then believing the caller they give up the requested information. 

The biggest threat to network security from the inside is bring your own device and removable media. An monitored and unprotected network is the easiest way to gain information. If the network is unmonitored then someone can copy whatever data they want, then they can walk out the door with it and do what they wish with the data.

There are very inexpensive or free software that can monitor and protect your network. I will discuss this on a later post. If you have any questions please comment.

[tecnobabble-blog]

"Network Marketing" is it legal?

Most people use Face Book and it is a good tool to connect and to have a platform for honestly everything you could imagine. However, I am seeing a trend on Face Book where people are using "Network Marketing" or Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) to make money and in some cases a lot of money. However, if you want to try your hand at a "quick" and easy way to make money then read on before you try, or if you are a part of a MLM team please continue because I am going to discuss a few points and possible legal issues and even some repercussions.

Overview: In the current state of the economy people want to make money anyway they can since jobs are not paying what they used to and jobs are scarce. However, MLM and network marketing are not new things, they have been around for a very long time. Before the advent and popularity of Face Book, there have been infomercials that showcased these programs.

Money, Money, Money: It is all about the money. One thing to look at is if there is any up front costs or if you have to purchase a start-up package. If there is a start up fee or a fee for a "start up package" then it is very much possible that you are subjecting yourself to having your money stolen or joining a Ponzi Scheme.

Sit back and let the income come to you: A lot of these MLM "businesses" promise you things like "Make money while you sleep," or "You don't have to do anything and you will make a lot of money." This is simply not true. If someone promises this then this is a scam. Just like everything else in this world you need to work hard and invest time and sweat to make your business grow.

What are you selling: This is a great question. Are you selling a physical product? Also, what does this product promise? The most popular products in MLM markets now are vitamin supplements that promise muscles with very little workouts. Most of these contain epinephrine which the FDA is considering to make illegal due to its ill effects on the body.

Legal issues: The old adage is "If it seems to good to be true, then it is." You cannot make money by doing nothing, you have to work hard at what ever you are doing. There are a lot of issues with MLM businesses. The first issue is that you are making 100% commissions and sharing your commissions with everyone who is above you in the pyramid. Since this is income coming into you, then you are required by Federal and State Law to claim and pay taxes on the income that you receive. Most MLM companies do not make their "employees" to fill out tax forms and therefore no taxes are being taken out, and they are depended on sending the Federal and State government their correct amount of taxes. Therefore, there could be legal issues.

MLM is not illegal, yet, federally, however in some states it is as they consider MLM as a Ponzi or Pyramid Scheme even though legal products are being sold. If you are caught in those states you can be charged with a class 2 or 3 misdemeanor and spend some time in jail. 

Bottom Line: Simple. Stay away from joining these "companies" and if you want to be your own boss and run your own company, I suggest to do it the correct way.

[tecnobabble-blog]

E-Discovery

I am about to embark in a new area of technology called e-discovery. Basically I am going to roll out a new server, possibly Symantec Clearwell and it will help and benefit our firm. If I can get this approved that is. Stay tuned.

[tecnobabble-blog]

IOS 7

I am part of the Apple Developer program, so I am not going to post screen shots of my iphone 5 running this but I am going to give a few first impressions.

Usability: The interface is nice, however there will need to be training because everything is different in IOS 7, this is a major revision, and I recommend IT professionals to test and recommend users not to upgrade when it comes out in the fall without proper training. I have seen in beta 2 vs. Beta 1 better battery life, however with the additions of added multitasking features it will draw on the battery. One feature I like that will be beneficial in supporting these devices is automatic updates of apps from the app store.

Stability: Come on now, it is a beta after all. There has been some weird issues, but it is expected in beta testing. However, I see in IOS 7 beta 2 that it is going to be a solid OS with no issues when it is fully released to the general public.

Final Thoughts: I would recommend that IT Admins and the like start testing it now, pony up the 99 bucks and join the developer program. That last thing anyone in IT wants is to be cornered in the Fall when all their users update their devices to the shiny new os and they don't know where everything is and what to do.

[tecnobabble-blog]

Hello All

Welcome to my new blog. I have had many blogs through the years, but I am going to be starting this one. I am going to be speaking about technology and how it pertains to the legal field, and even how-to's and other things that those in the law profession can use.