Large File Transfer Blog

Will Moore’s Law Collapse?

Will Moore’s Law Collapse? Famed theoretical physicist Michio Kaku thinks so.

In case you’re wondering, Moore’s Law is the famous rule that states “The number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years.”. What this has actually meant in practice is that, every 18 months or so (give or take), the speed or computational power of processors has doubled. This has played a huge part in the many advances we’ve seen in Information Technology, including the fact that the telephone I have in my pocket as I type this is thousands of times smaller, and tens of thousands of times more powerful, then the first computers developed.

But back to Michio Kaku!

He points out that “Computer power cannot continue its rapid exponential rise using standard silicone technology” – which makes sense, as silicone will only allow so many transistors to be crammed onto a circuit board of any given size. He says that it is already slowing down and predicts that it will flatten out completely in 10 years.

However, all is not lost – he points to research into 3-dimensional computing, quantum computing, and so forth, that (if realized) may allow us to transcend Moore’s Law completely.

Here is the complete video – well worth a look!

Tags: news, technology

How to Remove Your Information from People Search Sites

People search engines can be useful tools for getting a hold of people you’ve previously lost touch with, but are sadly prone to abuse – not only can they be a favourite tool of stalkers, unscrupulous businesses or people who may seek to damage your reputation, but the owners of the sites themselves often don’t seem to be terribly interested in making sure the information they publish is accurate. If you’ve ever come across personal data online that you’d rather wasn’t there (or would rather was correct) then a new service called Safe Shepherd.

There a plenty of sites out there that pull from social media and assorted (public) databases to gather information about you – and whether the information is incorrect, out-of-date, or more correct than you’d like, Safe Shepherd will actually do all the work of getting your information removed from these sites – the service will make phone calls, send letters, and follow up and make sure the information is taken off of the site. Unlike their competitors they don’t just use SEO tricks to get your information pushed farther down a search results page: they actually contact the site owners and make sure the information is removed.

The company offers a free version of their service, which includes the initial search for your information, alerts you to the results of the search and the removal of the most basic records at no charge definitely a great introduction to their service. If you want to get more done (like remove more difficult records, or to activate continuous privacy monitoring) you can sign up for their premium plan.

Considering how little individual privacy is valued these days, this is an especially valuable service – doubly so since they do the most tedious and time-consuming work for you.

Forbes, Mashable and Business Insider can’t all be wrong. If you’re interested in controlling your online image (and you should be) Safe Shepherd is worth a look!

Tags: security, technology

Browse Securely on Open Wi-Fi Networks

With the increased popularity of Firesheep, surfing the Internet via an open wireless connection (like those found at coffee shops) has become an increasingly risky proposition. What is Firesheep, you ask? It’s a free browser extension that allows the user to look at what other users at their Wi-Fi hotspots are doing and start browsing a site (including supposedly secure sites like Facebook, Amazon, etc.) with literally the click of a button.

Firesheep is only one of many ways that using an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot opens you and your online accounts (and, thus, personal information) to unauthorized access. But what can you do about it?

Turns out…plenty.

One option is to set up your own Virtual Private Network…but this is a complicated and difficult option. A much easier alternative is to use Cloak – it’s an app that sees whenever you’re connected to an open Wi-Fi network and connects you to it’s own VPN service for private, secure browsing. It really is that simple! Just sign up for an account with Cloak, then download and install the app (currently only available for iOS & Mac). If you’re using it on your iPhone or iPad, the app adds a switch labelled “VPN” to your device’s settings. Just go into settings and flip the switch for secure browsing on an open network. The service is free for up to 2 hours or 1GB per month (whichever comes first) but there are paid accounts available for those of us who spend a lot of time in coffee shops.

Another weapon in your “how to stay safe on the Internet” arsenal is a free browser extension called HTTPS Everywhere. The extension simply sits in your browser’s address bar and, if it detects that a site can be accessed through HTTPS, will automatically switch you to that encrypted connection. We highly recommend it because of it’s potent combination of effectiveness and ease of use.

Considering what appears to be a proliferation of hackers and other online privacy threats, it’s good to know that there are tools out there – free and otherwise – that can help us stay safe on the World Wide Web. Do you have any favorites that weren’t mentioned here? If so, let us know in the comments!

Tags: file sharing, how to, news, secure file transfer, technology

A New Review!

That’s right, folks – we’re garnering even more attention!

FilesDIRECT has been added to a list of safe sites by Webutation – a site that rates sites for their safety in terms of fraud and malware.

The site seems to use an automated system to try to assess how safe a site is, checking for links from various social media (Google+, Facebook and Twitter) and Wikipedia, as well as checking both Google Pagerank and a site’s Alexa rating.

Sadly, several of their assessment systems seem to be broken (neither our Pagerank or Alexa ratings are displayed, for instance), but it’s a good concept for a site…there is a lot of fraud and malware out there, so it’s important to be careful.

So, thank you for including us in your list of safe sites, Webutation! It’s nice to be trusted. :)

Tags: news, reviews

New Startup Could Change the Software Industry

Business Insider magazine recently ran a story discussing the “unveiling” of a new startup firm who is developing cloud technologies that could revolutionize the entire software industry.

Numecent is developing enterprise technology that it calls “cloud paging” – a “successor technology to application streaming and virtualization”. Basically, the technology instantly “cloudifies” any software (including operating systems like Windows), allowing any software to be delivered over the cloud and run as fast (or faster!) than if you were running it on your own desktop! Now what is especially interesting is that this will still work even if your device (be it your PC or even your smartphone) gets disconnected from the Internet! And it’s efficient – Numecent claims that their “cloud paging” technology will reduce your software’s delivery time drastically…from 20 to 100 times.

The technology seems to allow very fine-grained control, allowing “cloudification” of 100% of Windows applications – and still cloudify and deliver plug-ins separately from their base applications. Their server architecture can be deployed on MS Windows platforms, Linux and even Android, so if you’ve ever wanted to turn your smartphone into a portable server, now you can.

They are already experiencing such success that they have created a spin-off company called Approxy, which is entirely focused on applying Numecent’s innovations to the gaming industry, allowing gamers to play games without ever downloading the software onto their own machines – similar to listening to music online, but without the latency – creating installation-free, instant gaming!

It all sounds pretty exciting and truthfully, I probably should have asked one of our developers to write this post, as they would have a much more solid grasp of the technologies involved and the broader implications for IT and other industries. But if they’re calling their new tech the “death of the download”, I think it’s going to be big.

Tags: Cloud, news, technology

Understanding Encryption

Encryption is “the process of transforming information…to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge.” Encryption is used to protect both data “at rest” (i.e.: files stored on a computer or on a memory stick) and data in transit (such as sending large files via a system like FilesDIRECT).

Used by governments and businesses, data encryption has become a common practice in today’s Internet-connected world as an important method for securing personal communications and information.

Now, encryption itself is a complicated set of mathematical processes involving modular arithmetic, prime factors, etc. but the following video explains the process simply, using mixing paint as a metaphor. Basically, the gist of it is that it’s easy to combine 2 (or more) items (like numbers, or colors) but it can be very difficult to reverse the process.

Encryption is a key part of security online, and is essential if you want to keep private data safe from prying eyes. FilesDIRECT uses 128-bit AES encryption to protect our client’s file transfers – the same level of encryption used by e-commerce giant Amazon and by many banks – because it provides excellent security without unduly compromising upload or download speeds.

How secure are your file transfers?

Tags: encrypted file transfer, encryption, secure file transfer, SSL encrypted file transfer

App Review – Files 2 Folder

Files 2 Folder is a handy Windows right-click shell extension that lets Windows users imitate a popular Mac OS feature: highlighting a group of files, right-clicking, and then creating a new folder that is automatically filled with the selected files.

This free extension smoothly fits into your workflow and even lets you name the new folder while you’re creating it. The download site says that Files 2 Folder works on 32-bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, though a reviewer found it worked just fine on a 64-bit version of Windows 7.

Sounds like a handy little tool, and best of all, it’s free!

Image courtesy Lifehacker

Tags: apps, files, tech

Better Passwords

A recent article from Gizmodo goes into the finer details of password creation, and tells it to us straight: our passwords are probably not secure enough. Why, you ask? Because they’re probably spread over too many sites, is too personal and too short.

This is not a minor issue.

Image courtesy http://www.xkcd.com

The article points out that the biggest threat to your online security isn’t some dude trying to guess your password – hackers use a variety of software applications that make thousands of attempts to crack your password per minute.

There are several “tricks” commonly used by people that password-cracking applications already account for: “Leetspeak” (substituting numbers for letters) won’t work because these cracking apps will try “Leet” versions of words before they try the correct English spelling. Using dates (like your birthday) are right out too, since these programs know that if there is a string of 4 numbers in a password, chances are it starts in “19″.

Using one password across several different accounts is also a big no-no, since if your password is cracked on one site, it will be tried on others…

So what can you do? The author offers a few suggestions:

1. Make your password long – really long. Experts suggest that all passwords be at least 12 characters in length (apparently, adding even one more character to your password makes it exponentially harder to crack).

2. Use pass phrases: a useful trick to help you remember all those characters! Use something personal, because that makes it easier to remember. One suggestion is to start with a line from one of your favorite songs, then pull the first letter from each word in the line and stick them together in one big jumbled-up word – it’ll be easy for you to remember, but difficult to crack.

3. Use every character possible: letters (captialized and otherwise), numbers, parentheses, all the weird symbols you find scattered around your keyboard.

“And how am I supposed to keep track of all these long, difficult passwords?” An excellent question! Gizmodo has a handy list of password management services (we like KeePass, mostly because it’s free).

The writer of the article wrote the post to let people know about Change Your Password Day (which is today, actually) and to help people take greater control of (and strengthen) their online security.

You can find the full article here – don’t forget to comment below!

Tags: encrypted file transfer, passwords, secure file transfer, SSL encrypted file transfer

Megaupload Shut Down

In what the U.S. Justice Department is calling “one of the largest criminal copyright cases ever”, internationally renown file-sharing site Megaupload (according to the Department of Justice, they had more than 50 million daily visitors and accounted for 4% of total Internet traffic worldwide) were shut down in a series of raids coordinated by the Fedral Bureau of Investigation on January 19, 2012. The raids (executed as part of more than 20 search warrants worldwide) have led to the arrest of 4 people (including Megaupload’s founder, Kim Dotcom) and the seizure of more than $50 million worth of assets, including servers and domain names.

Long accused by media companies and trade groups of assisting in copyright infringement around the world, the U.S. grand jury indictment (which you can view here) accuses Megaupload of causing $500 million in damages to copyright owners and of making $175 million (via the sale of ads and subscriptions). The sting is the result of an investigation that began 2 years ago and relies extensively on private correspondence between the accused, showing that the operators of the sites knew that their services were being used to share illicit content, despite advertising their sites as a way to transfer large files.

The hacker group Anonymous responded by shutting down a number of prominent websites, including the Justice Department itself, the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, and others.

Interestingly, the raids took place the day after widespread online protests against proposed “antipiracy” bills SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (the Protect I.P. Act). Whether or not the timing is coincidental, it adds an interesting element to the debate around these proposed laws: the U.S. Department of Justice was able to shut down the major player in the file sharing industry (and accused violator of intellectual property rights) with currently existing laws. Neither SOPA nor PIPA (with their broad powers of censorship and ability to shut down domestic and foreign sites without due process) was needed to shut these sites down or prosecute their owners and employees.

Additionally, FileSonic and Uploaded.to, two of Megaupload’s competitors, have reacted to the site’s shutdown in different ways: FileSonic has disabled all sharing features and Uploaded.to appears to have stopped offering it’s services to American consumers. While these might be viewed as overreactions to the situation, these events may force other companies in the large file transfer industry to re-examine the situation and their own service offerings. As of this writing, FilesDIRECT has no intention of reducing its service offerings – either in terms of transferring files or in for clients in the United States.

You can read more about these events at the New York Times website and at Digital Trends.

Tags: file sharing, Megaupload, news, online storage, secure file transfer