Many people may not even be much aware if they are using WiFi or not. If you get the Internet at home, but don’t plug in using a cable, then you most likely have WiFi. Even among people who know that much, most probably don’t know how to set up the wireless network, and probably don’t know if their network is password-protected.

Do you use WiFi? Is your network password protected?

If you do use WiFi but don’t have a password, you probably want to change that. The reason: if you don’t password-protect your network, others close by can use it. One thing that computer users often do is to check the WiFi signals close-by, and if one is unlocked, they use it. Voilà–free Internet! They can save ¥4000 a month, or more.

Some people even go out and hunt for free WiFi, driving their cars around neighborhoods until they find an unlocked network. Then they park and use the Internet. This is called “wardriving.”

What’s more, it is not likely that you will know they are using the network; most computers have no way of seeing who is using the WiFi signal.

You might think, “No big deal. It won’t hurt me, and it is nice for the neighbors.” Most times, when someone shares the network, one user’s speed is not noticeably slower. Also, Internet speeds may be so high that you never use a big percentage of the network speed anyway.

However, there is one issue that most people don’t consider: what if the invisible guest user does something illegal over your Internet connection?

A man in Buffalo, New York, discovered this the hard way. He actually had tried to password-protect his WiFi router, but had technical problems, and so he left it open. A while later, police raided his house, arresting him for downloading child pornography. Computers, iPads and iPhones owned by him and his wife were taken by the police; the man was accused of being a pedophile (someone who has sex with children), and for three days was insulted and mistreated by the police.

Later, it was discovered that a 25-year-old neighbor had found the unprotected network and had used it to download the illegal content.

Although such cases are fairly rare, hundreds of thousands of Americans find themselves open to other legal trouble because of open Wi-Fi networks. For the past several years, music and movie companies have been suing people who download their products. Just recently, producers of the movie The Expendables have sued 23,322 people for downloading the film.

While very few of these lawsuits actually finish up in court, they are expensive for the accused. People accused of downloading a movie usually must hire a lawyer to defend themselves, spending thousands of dollars. This is why the companies sue so many people: they offer a “settlement,” in which they accept $2000 or $3000 from the people they accuse and then drop the case. Although this sounds like extortion (forcing people to pay money by threatening them), it is usually cheaper than hiring a lawyer, so many people do it.

Many Hollywood producers are now taking this action because it can add millions of dollars to their profits.

However, many of these people who are forced to pay thousands of dollars never downloaded the movie or music–the only thing they did was to forget to password-protect their Wi-Fi.

In Japan, lawsuits are much less common, so this is not a big problem. However, some ISPs are changing their policies so that if they see movies or music being downloaded, they will send a warning letter to the user, and may disconnect your Internet service.

So, the best advice is to make sure your WiFi network is protected. If you are not sure and cannot ask an otaku friend to help you, just call your ISP, and they will probably tell you how to fix the problem.

If you are really worried about this issue, then make sure you are using the most secure WiFi network protection. There are two basic types widely used–WEP and WPA (or WPA2). WEP is considered insecure, and a hacker could break the security and steal your connection. If you are more worried about security, then make sure you are using a WPA2 password. Again, call your ISP for support.

Thanks for enrolling in CPS100, Introduction to Computers. In this class, you will learn about Computers–their history, the hardware, the software, and the operating systems. You’ll learn how to make a web site, and how to use popular Office software. You’ll also research one aspect of computers in more depth for your research project.

By the end of the class, I hope that you will have a better sense of what computers are, how they work, and why they are very important to you.

I hope you enjoy the class!

First, I hope everyone is feeling well; that you have found and perhaps reunited with all family and friends. That everyone is coping and safe and warm.

Please make sure that you keep watching the LCJ Blog (another important announcement coming later today) for news and updates on the school situation.

However, at this time, I would make a point about computers and the Internet. Especially, how they have been used in Japan since the emergency began.

Think about this kind of thing happening back in 1990. Phone lines down. TV and radio can get news to you, but there was no way, other than telephones, to get news out.

When the earthquake hit last Friday, the Internet did not go out. Phones have gone out, electricity sometimes has gone out… but the Internet has been “on” 24/7.

As a result, people have used email, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and more to communicate with others. 15 years ago, it would have taken a long time to re-establish clear communications. With the Internet, it has never stopped.

Every time there is an earthquake, I can visit web sites that give me detailed information within seconds. If I am worried about radiation, there are sites that constantly monitor radiation levels around Japan. This one shows live radiation readings from Hino, for example.

Web sites have information on train lines, electricity grids, and of course, all kinds of news. Sometimes, that is not so great–foreign news media are panicking more than anyone in Japan, and spreading incorrect information. For example, one Spanish news headline read, “La gente está huyendo de Tokio, no hay comida ni agua,” which translates to, “People are fleeing from Tokyo, there is food nor no water.”

However, the Internet has proven its weight in gold (how much does the Internet weigh?) and more. I am blogging and on Facebook and Twitter. I have regular communication with the school and family members using Skype.

The Internet is not just a new media source. It is a completely new, and much better, communication system.

Here’s a combination malware and scam event: in April 2010, many Windows users who downloaded files illegally using BitTorrent started receiving threats from the music and movie industries. The official-looking notices informed the users that their BitTorrent activity had been detected on their computers, and listed specific files that the users had indeed been downloading. The message demanded that they pay $400 or more, or face lawsuits and possible criminal prosecution.

The problem: the messages were fake, the result of a malware file on their computer. The malware would scan the infected computer for BitTorrent programs and files, and would collect the titles of music and movies downloaded. It would then “send” the fake message, which looked like this:

Since the information was very specific, it fooled a great many people, who went to the payment site and sent the money. More than 500 people paid the scammers a total of $283,000.

Yusuke Oki had 2000 books in his small Tokyo apartment. Too many! When the iPad came out, he had an idea: scan all his books. He did that, and got rid of the paper copies–they’re all on his iPad now. But he didn’t stop: he’s now a director of Bookscan, a company that does book scans for the public.

The price: 100 yen per book. Add another 100 yen if you want the text to be selectable.

It’s not just for the iPad, either–it’ll work for the iPhone, iPod Touch, Galaxy, or HTC Desire.

Right now, Egypt is in turmoil. The people are rioting, and the government fears a revolution.

Many people think that guns are necessary for a revolution, but that is not really true; the most essential element for such protests is communication. In China, there is a great deal of Internet censorship, with many web sites blocked by the government. In Iran, after recent elections that many believe were stolen, many protests were held; when the Iranian government started censoring parts of the Internet, the people switched to Twitter, using it for communications, and for getting news out to the rest of the world. Similar moves were made in Moldova in 2009, where Twitter was again used to organize.

Now that the people in Egypt are threatening revolution, the Egyptian government shut down access to Twitter–but even that was not enough. So the government took a more extreme measure: it shut down the Internet in the country.

The Internet is much more than just a playground. It is a source of business, information, and communications. Since it is so diverse and de-centralized, it is difficult to control it. In Egypt, it seems like they simply got ISPs to stop the flow of traffic.

The fact that the Egyptian government shut down such a valuable resource, however, speaks to the power of the Internet as an agent of change. Governments can control TV, newspapers, radio stations, and other sources of media–but they cannot control the Internet, not very well at least. I remember when I was visiting Shanghai, I tried to visit my usual web sites at an Internet cafe–but the sites were blocked. Some Chinese citizens around me happily helped me–they showed me that if I used a program called “Real Player,” I could use it as a kind of browser and I could get most of the web sites that were blocked. Interestingly, China now blocks the use of the word “Egypt” on Internet communications inside its borders.

The Internet is actually a very important new media. Before the Internet, people could not spread a message very far by themselves. You could talk to friends and co-workers, maybe even stand on a box in the park and speak to anyone who would listen. But you could not get a message out to more than a few dozen people, maybe a few hundred if you were lucky. The only way to speak to a larger audience was to use media: books, magazines, newspaper, radio, and television. All of these, however, were privately owned–and to use them you would have to pay a lot of money, or else get the permission of the owners–who would only allow you to speak if your words could earn them money.

Imagine roads being controlled in the same way. Imagine that you could only travel a few kilometers by yourself, and that the main roads were all privately controlled–and you could only use them if a few rich people decided that your travel could make them some money.

Then came the Internet. Suddenly, anyone could speak to the entire world. You did not have to pay a publisher or convince an editor. You could go to a library and use a computer for free; you could sign on to a free blog service; and then your words could be seen by anyone, anywhere. Nobody telling you what you may or may not say, nobody telling you to pay or go away.

This is new in human history.

And it seems that many governments are afraid of it.

Gail Davis, a woman in Orpington, England, answered her telephone yesterday. A voice over the phone started to tell her that she had won a prize. Davis cut the caller off, saying, “Thank you very much; I’m not interested,” and hung up.

This is normal. Marketers and advertisers frequently call people–annoyingly, usually during dinner time, because it is the time most people are home. They use the “you have won a prize” message as a way of making people listen to the advertising. Most people know, by now, that there is no “prize,” that it’s a trick.

Most people hate these calls. Usually, they are not even human, but instead are recorded messages, which are designed to fool people into thinking they are real people. Sometimes, the “robo-calls” begin by asking a simple question with a predictable answer, waiting a few moments as if listening, and then continuing to speak; this makes it seem like a real person is there.

Because of this trickery, some people even get angry. Most just hang up, thinking it’s a machine. So, if anything, Davis was being polite when she said “thank you” and then hung up.

After the call, her daughters asked her who it was on the phone. When she told them it was some call saying they had won a $10,000 prize, her daughters got upset. That morning, they were downloading apps from the Apple iTunes Store, because they knew that the person who would download the 10,000,000,000th app would get a prize–of $10,000.

Davis tried to call Apple back, but the operator was not able to help her. She and her daughters started to get worried that they missed the prize–but after a few hours, Apple called back and they received the prize.

The world of computer malware has gone beyond your own PC at home. Now, governments seem to be using malware as a form of warfare, to attack other nations in a specific, targeted way.

It would appear that the United States and/or Israel have used a computer worm named Stuxnet to damage Iran’s nuclear development. The worm, transferred with infected USB memory sticks, made Iran’s nuclear equipment damage itself while hiding the damage from the equipment operators. As a result, Iran’s nuclear program has been delayed by several months at least.

The question is, how will this type of warfare develop? Will it be used against Japan, America, or any other country? Will it target only military or nuclear programs, or will it also be aimed against civilian computer systems? Will malware be used for terrorism? Will airplanes be crashed, power grids taken down, or telephone networks be disabled? As our society becomes more and more dependent on computers, how are governments preparing for this new era of warfare?

The worm, by the way, infects only computers using the Windows operating system. Seems like maybe Iran should have used Macs.

How well do you know the world? This is a great game which is fun and teaches you where many places in the world are. It’s a challenge!