How smart is your underwear?

So, how are those new underwear that you just purchased fitting you right now? Since you started wearing them, are you getting a tingly feeling in your lower region? Is there a sudden pep in your step, dip in your hip, glide in your stride? Are you feeling a sense of free and wild abandonment, all because of your new underwear?

Or, do you think your losing your mind, because of the newfound exhilaration and excitement that you're experiencing below your waist?

Well fear not! It is not your imagination and you're not going crazy. What's really happening is that you are the proud owner of "SMART UNDERWEAR"! That's right the underwear that you have on are intelligent. This groundbreaking technology was created at the University of California San Diego by Professor Joseph Wang and a team of scientists who specialize in nano technology. Dr. Wang and his team have designed high-tech underwear that may one day save lives.

Now, of course, I was joking in the opening lines of this piece, about your undies giving you a new lease on life, but that perspective is not really far off. You see, the smart underwear that Dr. Wang and his team are responsible for have sensors in the waistband that can monitor a person's blood pressure, heart rate, and other vital signs. It is also anticipated that the underwear will one day have the ability to release drugs into the body that will help relieve pain and treat wounds.

All of this new technology, as wonderful as it seems, is not yet available to the public, but is actively being used by the military. Exactly what the military is using smart underwear for is still a mystery and I would guess top secret. Although the military is actively using the smart underwear, the technological range of applications does and will go far beyond the military.

Dr. Wang is very clear in indicating that one of his visions for smart underwear is rooted in personalized medicine that will move into the area of remote monitoring of the elderly at home, as well as monitoring a wide range of biomedical markers like cardiac markers that will send an alert out for a potential stroke, diabetic changes, and other changes related to a number of other biomedical situations and scenarios.

Wearable smart underwear will also have biosensors, which will be able to provide incredibly valuable information to athletes regarding their physical conditioning, and injuries. Another application of the smart underwear will be to measure blood alcohol levels, without the need for an actual sobriety testing.

Now, if you think that the new technology is only happening in your underwear, don't bet on it. If you're an avid movie goer, but hate it when you're sitting in the theater, intensely watching a movie and then someone's cellphone goes off, fret no more. There is now a cell phone-detecting shirt that is worn by the theater ushers and will detect mobile communications devices that haven't been switched off during the movie. The smart shirt is the brain child of Richard Etter and is part of a new clothing line called, "Aware Fashion."

The shirt looks much like a standard fashionable shirt. However, if a mobile phone gets near the shirt and are on, the shirt will glow unobtrusively at the end of its sleeves, alerting the usher to the fact that there is a cell phone active in the theater.

Don't think that what I just talked about is it in smart wear. There is so much more. What about the question of privacy and whether you will even know that you are buying a piece of smart clothing? Think about that. You could be walking around, right now, wearing smart wear and not even know it. The worst part is that someone, somewhere, could be monitoring your every move, or what's happening in your underwear.

- Andino Ward

Ethics, morals and the information highway

In several past columns, we dealt with the aspect of the ever-changing realm of information technology as it pertains to you, the private citizen and businesses.

There has been an emphasis on how the changes will affect each one’s pocketbook as the technology expands in strength, capabilities and functionality .

Well, this time we are going to take a look at the growing concern with what is felt to be a problem that is and continues to reach beyond the scope of everyone’s ability to correct and navigate through.

Some of the greatest minds of our times are completely baffled and stumped at how to institute a means of providing a sustainable moral and ethical roadmap for the information highway, and the effects of the void are growing increasingly obvious with each passing day.

Consider the recent e-mail intrusion that claimed several high-ranking U.S. senators had died, even though they had not; and to take it even further, the e-mails appeared to come from each of their offices.

This, of course, created a panic and potential security breach throughout the capitol as there was a move to beef up security around the senators in question.

It is obvious that this was a case of hackers breaking into their e-mail accounts and, if you recall, I did recently write a column on this very matter indicating just how ramped e-mail hacking is becoming.

Furthermore, it goes without saying that the government is supposed to have the top cyber security hardware and software in place with protocols that should make it almost impossible to penetrate.

Yet it happens all the time and more than we will ever know or hear about.

One must ask the question, “What kind of ethics and moral understanding did the person or persons have who, without any feelings or conscience, felt it was perfectly acceptable to hack the Senate e-mail accounts? And then falsify obituaries indicating that they had died and send it out to numerous news agencies, both print and TV?”

I remember watching an episode of a TV show called “The Closer” that centered around a young woman who was the daughter of a prominent senator.

The woman had been murdered in a most horrifying and brutal way by a teenage boy, who frequented a particular Web site that specialized in bringing people together who were into what is considered S&M sex.

Now for the clincher! As the investigation progressed, the real situation began to unfold and it was determined that it was not a true murder in the sense of break in and robbery.

Without going into all the gory details, what had really happened was that an ex-boyfriend of the women was angry at the fact that she broke up with him and wanted to get his payback.

So he hacked into her computer, created an online profile relative to her being into S&M and then, from her own e-mail account, he posted it on a Web site requesting an S&M sexual encounter, which was false, as the woman was never involved in that practice, and as a result of what he did she lost her life.

This an extreme case, but it is something that is very possible as there are individuals and groups who operate in the dark and evil recesses that are void of ethics and morality in our society.

Consider that ethics and morality, relative to the information highway, have been studied and continue to be under intense scrutiny for the last 30 years and yet, to date, there is still an overwhelming amount of unanswered questions and the list grows ever longer with each passing day.

As the power and reach of the technology increases, it has a residual effect that comes with it of those who are going to be unethical and immoral having a greater playground on which to exact their sinister plans and desires without being seen, as well as being able to more effectively and easily link up with those of like mind on a global scale.

So how do we survey our society in an attempt to find out just how we, human beings, view and perceive ethics and morals on the information highway?

We will look at the groups that are studied on this issue and what has been determined about their viewpoints as a result of the information obtained from the studies.

Do you have an opinion or negative experience relative to ethics and morality on the World Wide Web or the Wild Wild West? Whichever you prefer!

- Andino Ward

Can data traffic clogging be resolved?

We now know that the cellular companies are in dire straits due to the proliferation of data traffic and the fact that they were not prepared for the overwhelming amount of use by cell phone users all over the world, to the degree that their systems just cannot handle the overload.

So what did AT&T Wireless do to combat the huge data demand from devices such as the iPhone and iPad?

Instead of trying to make things more efficient, they decided to take away unlimited data or Internet packages.

AT&T believes that devices like the iPhone are more computers with phone capability rather than phones with Internet capability and now they have changed their pricing model in order to capitalize and make more profit.

This change came mere days before the launch of the new iPhone 4 and the iPad.

Why is unlimited data so important?

Imagine you have a 600-minute cell phone plan and you go over your minutes. Unless you have something similar to AT&T’s Rollover minutes, you are probably going to get hit with some outrageous per-minute fee, like 3 to 10 cents per minute for each minute over the 600 minutes during “peak” time.

Let’s apply this idea to data plans. For people who get a lot of e-mail and attachments, or who listen to the radio on their cell phone, or are using a data card to get online — they can very easily go over the limit and get charged 6 to 10 cents per kilobyte over their limit.

Just to put this in perspective, a gigabyte is 1,000 megabytes and a megabyte is 1,000 kilobytes. The average digital picture size is 5 megabytes and the average e-mail size is 5 kilobytes.

AT&T claims that most data users do not need an unlimited package and use less than 400 megabytes every month, and this is why they decided to discontinue the unlimited package and lower the cost of a “limited” data package in order to make things more affordable for customers.

Why didn’t they simply leave the unlimited data package alone and come up with a lesser expensive limited data package for customers that do not need unlimited?

Why do customers now need to watch their cell phone Internet usage like their cell phone minutes?

There are many cases where customers were slammed with multiple thousands of dollars in data usage from cell phone companies — upwards of $10,000. I know this is an extreme case; however, there has to be a red flag at some point and it looks like the customer in the end will get hurt.

Well, I am not an AT&T subscriber, so what does this have to do with me, you ask?

Verizon Wireless has already hinted that they are going to follow suit in cutting their unlimited data package. Verizon has yet to pull the trigger, as they don’t want to cut the cord as abruptly as AT&T has; however, at some point in the not so distance future it will happen.

If the top two carriers in the country press the red button to kill the unlimited data plan, the question then becomes, will the other carriers follow behind them?

There is no clear answer to that question. Maybe other carriers like Sprint, T-Mobile and lower-tier carriers like MetroPCS, Cricket, Boost Mobile, and so on, may find it a selling feature to bring subscribers over to their side.

The only problem is that the cell coverage areas for high-speed data, from the lower-tier carriers, does not compare to the top two carriers.

The bottom line is that you need to seriously pay attention to what is going on and babysit your cell phones or else you could end up with an outrageous cell phone bill one day.

I am sure at some point you have either gone over your minutes or your text messages. Well, now be ready to go over your data package.

This is yet another mechanism for the cell phone companies to generate profit, as cell phones are becoming less phone and more multimedia devices.

Be aware and you won’t despair.

- George Bardissi

Is this the end for unlimited wireless data plans?

Have we seen the end of unlimited data plans for wireless carriers?

Did you know that cellular companies are barely making money on voice plans?

Apparently the big operators like Verizon and AT&T are making fractions of a penny per minute in actual profit.

I am sure when you are the conveyer of billions of cellular minutes each month that are being used up by an ever-growing and hungry consumer base, you will see a nice high number in profits — or so one would think.

However, let’s set the record straight and identify the fact that as of five years ago, cellular companies were making exponentially more than they are today and they are not happy with the loss in revenue.

So, how did the cellular companies adjust to regain and recoup the lost profit?

The answer is add-on products like text messaging, picture message and data plans. It is clear that cell phones are more than just phones for more than 50 percent of cellular subscribers in the U.S. alone.

Processing text messages costs the cell phone companies almost nothing, yet they charge quite a bit for people to be able to send one.

According to multiple sources, about 72 percent of all cell phone customers in the U.S. have a texting plan, which is about 207 million Americans.

More text messages are sent daily than phone calls are made.

On average, a person sends 357 text messages versus 204 phone calls per month.

For something that costs virtually nothing for the cellular companies to provide, they definitely have found a money maker and are milking it without question.

Even more than text messaging, the cellular or wireless industry has been inundated with Internet or data traffic.

It has more than consumed the airwaves that we rely on for cellular technology and has been growing far beyond the capacity the cellular providers were ready for due to devices like smart phones, data cards, tablet PCs, etc.

The airwaves are so clogged up now that the FCC is looking to take some satellite spectrum or frequencies and auction them off to the cell phone companies because there just isn’t enough space to handle the growth.

Well, the obvious question is, “What are the cellular providers going to do about the problem and what effect will their solution have on you and me?”

We’ll take an up close and personal look at the answer to this question next week.

- George Bardissi

Fed control of the Internet: Good or bad?

We ended last week’s discussion with the fact that a proposed bill has now been introduced and is at the congressional level, which would give the president the power to not only seize control of the Internet, but lso shut it down should it pose a threat to national security.

Furthermore, we asked several important questions, which as promised we will now answer.

Because of the intense nature of the proposed bill and the unlimited power that it would give our president, there has been an attempt to put a means in place that would try to impose limits and restraints on the extent to which the president could go in carrying out the power given him in the proposed bill.

This has been done by way of the creation of a new paragraph that has been included in the bill and that seeks to create what would be termed a National Center for Cyber Security and Communications (NCCC).

This agency would have incredible oversight capability, but would be restricted from having the ability to order any entity to conduct surveillance of Americans unless it’s legally authorized to do so.

Don’t forget that thanks to the Patriot Act the government could claim they have authority to seize the Internet or spy on anyone and then get a warrant after the fact.

Now, when you put all of that and this new bill together, in my opinion it is a disaster waiting to happen.

I am a movie buff and I know that “Enemy of the State: starring Will Smith may have seemed like a far reach, but when you look at the pending bill that is now on the table, it is very clear and overwhelmingly obvious that if passed, the bill will put the Internet totally at the mercy and control of the federal government, thus making it very possible to enact what we saw happen in the movie.

I think we all can understand the government’s concern for cyber warfare.

Just recently the military created, appointed and opened the doors to a Cyber Security division aimed at protecting the military networks from an outside attack.

It is very clear that the Internet is open to attacks, especially when other countries do not have as much control set up to shut down piracy and hacking.

If the U.S. government wants to try and put up the brick wall before something happens, I call that being prepared.

However, if being prepared also comes with the fact that the control of the private Internet would basically be handed over to the federal government with no questions asked, I don’t know about you, but I call that a real big “deal breaker.”

Whatever happens and whatever your view is on the subject, we would love to hear your feelings and opinions.

Do you feel like you’re being watched, like right now while you’re on the Internet?

- George Bardissi

Feds not ignoring the internet anymore

Several months back we wrote an article about how the government seemed to be quite far behind in terms of the Internet and the laws that we are governed by in today’s digital age.

It seems like the federal government may have read our article or, more likely, is finally starting to understand the legitimate threats that are possible through the Internet.

A proposed bill is now at the congressional level that is being sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman, who is an independent senator out of Connecticut.

Let’s take a look at the main points of this proposed legislation to see how it will affect the everyday American citizen and business.

The mainstay of the bill is surrounded by giving the president the emergency power to basically seize control or even shut down all or parts of the Internet in the United States.

This is not a small request nor should it be taken lightly. If this bill were to pass, private companies, which the government will name at a later time, such as Internet providers, search engines, or even private software companies, would have to comply with the federal government’s request to shut down, suspend or release control immediately, at the order of the president.

According to this proposed bill, the reason the federal government is claiming they should have this power and control is “to preserve those networks and assets that our country depends on for financial matters, security, power, transportation and so on. These are all areas of extreme importance in protecting the citizens and our country,” according to Lieberman.

As is the case with any law, there could be adverse affects that can be created by a legislation of this kind and could directly affect the private-sector companies.

Could there be unauthorized government access to private systems? What if the government shuts down a company or Internet provider by accident?

What happens to private server access that runs over the Internet?

These are all very important and pressing questions, but does the government have answers for them?

Apparently, in a recently added, revised bill there has been an additional paragraph added that in many ways is directed at dealing with the previous questions asked and we will both outline that bill and discuss its implications next week.

- George Bardissi