SOPA “explained” by Guardian

Opinion Time

I must say that there are pros and cons that go along with SOPA and of course piracy is a problem and the internet of course helps to enable piracy but the answer is not SOPA in it’s current form. In fact according to ChadRocco, Rep. Lamar Smith refuses to take the concerns and complaints seriously.

There are many companies that have voiced opposition to SOPA and the list continues to grow each day. If you wish to see for yourself those who oppose SOPA, the Center for Democracy and Technology has compiled a list that you may want to review to understand the heavyweights who are behind this opposition. Also if you have the time, you will find some very interesting reading with the letters to Congress over SOPA.

So again I believe SOPA is a very bad idea in it’s current stage and like so many other bills surrounding technology that come out of Congress, I fell that Rep. Smith may mean well must one must ask the question is he doing this for the right reasons and does he truly understand the scope of the problem? I think not and in August 2011 another bill at Congress titled Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 sounds good on the surface but this bill also presents problems in my mind.

Summary

Watch the following video and if you pay attention to the people in the background are uses their tablets and mobile phone while someone is reading the language of the proposed law which reinforces my opion that those involved not only do not understand the technology but choose not to listen when it is being spoken to.

In closing, I leave you with the following question. Is Congress equipped to address and enable laws around piracy to a level that will satisfy the supporters of SOPA without killing the Internet as we know it today? In fact, is the author of SOPA a copyright violator himself?

The Gate Keeper

In essence, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is tasked to maintain eighteen months of your network address. Congress even goes on to say that, records should be stored securely to protect customer privacy and prevent data breaches of this data.

Now I can only imagine that an ISP will be entrusted to secure this data and if the recent security breaches from Sony, AT&T, and many others that have fell victim to hackers this year is any indication then my confidence level is not high. In fact, I do not believe that any ISP will do what it takes and why should they? In reality all Congress is doing here is enacting further regulation that will drive up the cost of internet access and I am sure we all agree that we are paying too much now.

The Problem

As well intended as this bill may be the real problem is that maintaining eighteen months of a person’s data and trying to find the person or persons exploiting children is like looking into a black hole. Not to mention the fact that as a law-abiding citizen law enforcement visits an ISP and pulls all this data in the course of an investigation. While most people never perform illegal activities, I must ask is anyone comfortable with any agency looking at the last eighteen months of your personal internet use.

Conclusion

It is clear that child exploitation is a problem and it must be addressed but what disturbs me is the fact that most members of Congress do not fully understand technology. In no way would I ever trust any ISP to properly secure my personal details. How could I when it was just a couple years ago that Veterans Affairs suffered a data break when an employee either lost or had stolen a laptop. The one thing that government is consistent with is not fully understanding the problem and solution. Casting a wide net simply will cause more problems than it solves.

What say you?

References

1. Bill Summary & Status – 112th Congress (2011-2012) – H.R. 1981
2. 2011 Set to Be Worst Year Ever for Security Breaches

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Patterns and Practices

• Developer’s Guide to Microsoft Prism: Prism provides guidance designed to help you more easily design and build rich, flexible, and easy to maintain Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) desktop applications and Silverlight Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) and Windows Phone 7 applications. Using design patterns that embody important architectural design principles, such as separation of concerns and loose coupling, Prism helps you to design and build applications using loosely coupled components that can evolve independently but which can be easily and seamlessly integrated into the overall application. Such applications are often referred to as composite applications.
• Windows Phone 7 Developer Guide: This guide describes a scenario around a fictitious company named Tailspin that has decided to encompass Windows Phone 7 as a client device for their existing cloud-based application. Their Windows Azure-based application named Surveys is described in detail in a previous book in this series, Developing Applications for the Cloud on the Microsoft Windows Azure Platform.
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• A Guide to Claims–based Identity and Access Control: This book gives you enough information to evaluate claims-based identity as a possible option when you’re planning a new application or making changes to an existing one. It is intended for any architect, developer, or information technology (IT) professional who designs, builds, or operates Web applications and services that require identity information about their users.

Performance

• Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability: This guide provides end-to-end guidance for managing performance and scalability throughout your application life cycle to reduce risk and lower total cost of ownership. It provides a framework that organizes performance into a handful of prioritized categories where your choices heavily impact performance and scalability success. The logical units of the framework help integrate performance throughout your application life cycle. Information is segmented by roles, including architects, developers, testers, and administrators, to make it more relevant and actionable. This guide provides processes and actionable steps for modeling performance, measuring, testing, and tuning your applications. Expert guidance is also provided for improving the performance of managed code, ASP.NET, Enterprise Services, Web services, remoting, ADO.NET, XML, and SQL Server.

Security

• Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) – Version 4.1a: As part of its commitment to a more secure and trustworthy computing ecosystem, Microsoft makes its Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) process guidance available to the public. The Microsoft SDL process guidance illustrates the way Microsoft applies the SDL to its products and technologies. The version 4.1a of the SDL Process Guidance includes SDL for Agile Development. IT policy makers and software development organizations can leverage this content to enhance and inform their own software security and privacy assurance programs.
• Building Secure ASP .NET Applications: Guidelines for authentication, authorization and secure communication across the tiers. Topics include ASP.NET, Enterprise Services (COM+), Web Services, Remoting, and data access (including ADO.NET and SQL Server).

MSDN Magazine

• Current Issue
• Past Issues

Code Samples

• Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework: A free, centralized code sample library driven by developers’ needs. Our goal is to provide typical code samples for all Microsoft development technologies, and reduce developers’ efforts in solving typical programming tasks.
• Head First Design Patterns: This project consists of ported code examples from the book Head First Design Patterns by Eric and Elizabeth Freeman into C#. (VB version)

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1. CLR Fundamentals
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The point of view that I take is technology is only as good as those that use it. What am I saying you may ask? All technology has good and bad points and the individual behind the use of the technology makes the difference. For example, just because I have the freedom to publish my thoughts that does not give me the right to do so should it cause harm to another. Using common sense should always be the focal point and as technology rapidly changes it is more important that ever that you understand the services you’re using.

If you’re concerned with you face being tagged then you will want to pay close attention. According to Facebook, for any reason you don’t want your name to be suggested, you will be able to disable suggested tags in your Privacy Settings.  Just click ‘Customize Settings’ and ‘Suggest photos of me to friends.’ Your name will no longer be suggested in photo tags, though friends can still tag you manually.”

Currently, you have the option of untagging photos you’ve been tagged in by friends. To accomplish this just go to the photo and click your name. There is no sure fire way to prevent friends from tagging you in photos, but you can prevent others from seeing the photos via your tagged name.

• From the Account menu in the upper right corner of your profile, chose Privacy Settings.
• Underneath the list of your current privacy settings, click “Customize settings.”
• Scroll down to “Things others share” section.
• Next to “Photos and videos I’m tagged in” click “Edit settings.”
• From the “Edit settings” prompt that appears on your screen, use the drop-down menu to choose “Customize.”
• In the “Custom Privacy” prompt that appears, you will see a drop down menu next to “These people.”
• From the “These people” menu, you have the option of choosing who can see photos via your tagged name. You can set it to “Only me” or you can add specific Facebook friends who are permitted see those photos via your tagged name. Here, you also have the option of preventing specific Facebook friends seeing photos via your tagged name.
• Save this option. As with other Facebook privacy settings, you can change it at any time. You just have to do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kHGsKnf3_I

I personally have seen a great deal of conversation concerning Facebook’s facial recognition technology, but I simply do not understand what all the concern is about. I do agree with Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security vendor Sophos comments that Facebook should make this feature an opt-in rather than and opt-out. If you’re a fan of Google Picasa this technology was implemented back in 2009 with Picasa 3.5 and unless you have been living under a rock more and more of our lives is becoming digital.

Client Interface

Web Interface

My question to you is simple; does Facebook’s facial recognition go too far? What are your main concerns with this type of technology and how the companies we engage with each and every roll out such technology?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iREJiSgIxAk

Is this the future?

SnapFish

Crawler Photos

PictureTrail

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ShutterFly

Zoomonga

Bravenet

Pix.ie

Do you know of a service not listed that you highly recommend?

Military Time Format

DECLARE @d DATETIME = GETDATE()
--ddHHmmMMMyy.toUpper (military format).
--That is two digit day, two digit hour, two digit minute, three letter month, two digit year, and month is uppercase.
SELECT RIGHT('00' + CAST(DATEPART(DAY,@d) AS VARCHAR(2)),2) +
RIGHT('00' + CAST(DATEPART(HOUR,@d) AS VARCHAR(2)),2) +
RIGHT('00' + CAST(DATEPART(MINUTE,@d) AS VARCHAR(2)),2) +
UPPER(LEFT(DATENAME(MONTH,@d),3)) + RIGHT(CAST(DATEPART(YEAR,@d) AS VARCHAR(4)),2)

Retrieve all Primary and Foreign Keys

SELECT t.table_schema AS PrimarySchemaName ,
t.TABLE_NAME AS PrimaryKeyTable,
tc.CONSTRAINT_NAME AS PrimaryKey,
COALESCE(tc2.constraint_schema,'N/A') AS ForeignSchemaName,
COALESCE(rc1.CONSTRAINT_NAME,'N/A') AS ForeignKey ,
COALESCE(tc2.TABLE_NAME,'N/A') AS ForeignKeyTable
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS tc
INNER JOIN INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES t ON tc.TABLE_NAME = t.TABLE_NAME
LEFT JOIN INFORMATION_SCHEMA.REFERENTIAL_CONSTRAINTS rc1 ON tc.CONSTRAINT_NAME =rc1.UNIQUE_CONSTRAINT_NAME
LEFT JOIN INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS tc2 ON tc2.CONSTRAINT_NAME =rc1.CONSTRAINT_NAME
WHERE TC.CONSTRAINT_TYPE ='PRIMARY KEY'
ORDER BY tc.TABLE_NAME,tc.CONSTRAINT_NAME,rc1.CONSTRAINT_NAME

List All Tables That Contain No Triggers

SELECT t.TABLE_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES t
LEFT JOIN(SELECT OBJECT_NAME(o.parent_obj) AS TableName
FROM sysobjects o
WHERE OBJECTPROPERTY(o.[id], 'IsTrigger') = 1
) tr ON t.TABLE_NAME= tr.TableName
WHERE tr.TableName IS NULL
AND TABLE_TYPE ='BASE TABLE'
ORDER BY t.TABLE_NAME

Calculate An Age Based Upon YYYYMMDD

DECLARE @Birthday DATETIME, @DateToCheck DATETIME
SELECT @Birthday = '19680401', @DateToCheck = CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
SELECT DATEDIFF(YEAR, @Birthday, @DateToCheck) -
CASE WHEN DATEPART(mm,@Birthday) > DATEPART(mm,@DateToCheck)
OR (DATEPART(mm,@Birthday) = DATEPART(mm,@DateToCheck)
AND DATEPART(dd,@Birthday) > DATEPART(dd,@DateToCheck))
THEN 1 ELSE 0 END

Formatting Dates

DECLARE @d DATETIME
SELECT @d = GETDATE()
SELECT @d AS OriginalDate,
CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,100) AS ConvertedDate,
100 AS FormatValue,
'mon dd yyyy hh:miAM (or PM)' AS OutputFormat
UNION all
SELECT @d,CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,101),101,'mm/dd/yyyy'
UNION all
SELECT @d,CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,102),102,'yyyy.mm.dd'
UNION all
SELECT @d,CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,103),103,'dd/mm/yyyy'
UNION all
SELECT @d,CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,104),104,'dd.mm.yyyy'
UNION all
SELECT @d,CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,105),105,'dd-mm-yyyy'
UNION all
SELECT @d,CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,106),106,'dd mon yyyy'
UNION all
SELECT @d,CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,107),107,'Mon dd, yyyy'
UNION all
SELECT @d,CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,108),108,'hh:mm:ss'
UNION all
SELECT @d,CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,109),109,'mon dd yyyy hh:mi:ss:mmmAM (or PM)'
UNION all
SELECT @d,CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,110),110,'mm-dd-yyyy'
UNION all
SELECT @d,CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,111),111,'yyyy/mm/dd'
UNION all
SELECT @d,CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,112),112,'yyyymmdd'
UNION all
SELECT @d,CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,113),113,'dd mon yyyy hh:mm:ss:mmm(24h)'
UNION all
SELECT @d,CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,114),114,'hh:mi:ss:mmm(24h)'
UNION all
SELECT @d,CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,120),120,'yyyy-mm-dd hh:mi:ss(24h)'
UNION all
SELECT @d,CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,121),121,'yyyy-mm-dd hh:mi:ss.mmm(24h)'
UNION all
SELECT @d,CONVERT(VARCHAR,@d,126),126,'yyyy-mm-dd Thh:mm:ss:mmm(no spaces)'

Enabling xp_cmdshell in 2005/2008

EXEC master.dbo.sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1
RECONFIGURE
EXEC master.dbo.sp_configure 'xp_cmdshell', 1
RECONFIGURE

Selecting From System Tables in 2005/2008

SELECT * FROM sys.objects  -- new objects table
SELECT * FROM sys.sysobjects -- SQL Server 2000 style objects table
SELECT * FROM sys.all_columns
SELECT * FROM sys.all_objects -- system objects included also with user-defined
SELECT * FROM sys.all_parameters -- stored procedure and function parameters
SELECT * FROM sys.all_sql_modules -- stored procedures, functions, triggers, app views
SELECT * FROM sys.all_views

Converting A String To DatTime

DECLARE
@DateTimeValue varchar(30),
@DateValue char(8),
@TimeValue char(6)

SELECT
@DateValue = '20081023',
@TimeValue = '211920'

SELECT @DateTimeValue =
convert(varchar, convert(datetime, @DateValue), 110)
+ ' ' + substring(@TimeValue, 1, 2)
+ ':' + substring(@TimeValue, 3, 2)
+ ':' + substring(@TimeValue, 5, 2)

SELECT DateInput = @DateValue,
TimeInput = @TimeValue,
DateTimeOutput = @DateTimeValue,
DateTimeFormat = convert(datetime, @DateTimeValue)

List All Tables

SELECT   SchemaName = SCHEMA_NAME(schema_id),
TableName = name
FROM     sys.objects
WHERE    TYPE = 'U'
ORDER BY SchemaName,
TableName
GO

List All Triggers

SELECT   SchemaName = SCHEMA_NAME(schema_id),
TableName = name
FROM     sys.objects
WHERE    TYPE = 'TR'
ORDER BY SchemaName,
TableName
GO

List All Views

SELECT   SchemaName = SCHEMA_NAME(schema_id),
TableName = name
FROM     sys.objects
WHERE    TYPE = 'V'
ORDER BY SchemaName,
TableName
GO

List All Stored Procedures

SELECT   SchemaName = SCHEMA_NAME(schema_id),
TableName = name
FROM     sys.objects
WHERE    TYPE = 'P'
ORDER BY SchemaName,
TableName
GO

Current System Date Conversions

SELECT Now=GETDATE() -- 2016-10-23 18:59:09.483
SELECT CONVERT(datetime, getdate()) -- 2016-10-23 18:59:09.483
SELECT CONVERT(datetime2, getdate()) -- 2016-10-23 18:59:09.4830000
SELECT CONVERT(smalldatetime, getdate()) -- 2016-10-23 18:59:00
SELECT CONVERT(date, getdate()) -- 2016-10-23
SELECT CONVERT(datetime, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP) -- 2016-10-23 18:59:09.483

-- SQL Server current system date functions
SELECT  SYSDATETIME() -- 2016-10-23 19:04:34.28125007
,SYSDATETIMEOFFSET() -- 2016-10-23 19:04:34.2812500 -04:00
,SYSUTCDATETIME() -- 2016-10-23 23:04:34.2812500
,CURRENT_TIMESTAMP -- 2016-10-23 19:04:34.280
,GETDATE() -- 2016-10-23 19:04:34.280
,GETUTCDATE(); -- 2016-10-23 23:04:34.280

-- SQL Server current system date functions with conversions
SELECT CONVERT (datetime, SYSDATETIME()) -- 2016-10-23 19:02:19.547
,CONVERT (datetime, SYSDATETIMEOFFSET()) -- 2016-10-23 19:02:19.547
,CONVERT (datetime, SYSUTCDATETIME())  -- 2016-10-23 23:02:19.547
,CONVERT (datetime, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP) -- 2016-10-23 19:02:19.543
,CONVERT (datetime, GETDATE()) -- 2016-10-23 19:02:19.543
,CONVERT (datetime, GETUTCDATE()); -- 2016-10-23 23:02:19.543

Random Password Generation

DECLARE
@complex tinyint
, @minlen tinyint
, @maxlen tinyint

SET @minlen = 8 --min length of password
SET @maxlen = 12 --max length of password
SET @complex = 4
--  1 all lowercase
--  2 include upper case
--  3 include number
--  4 include punctuation

DECLARE
@password varchar(12)
, @len tinyint
, @type  tinyint
, @type2 tinyint

SET @len = 0
SET @password = ''
WHILE @len NOT BETWEEN @minlen and @maxlen
BEGIN
SET @len = ROUND(1 + (RAND(CHECKSUM(NEWID())) * @maxlen), 0) + 1
END
WHILE @len > 0
BEGIN
DECLARE @newchar CHAR(1)
SET @type = ROUND(1 + (RAND(CHECKSUM(NEWID())) * (@complex - 1)), 0)
IF @type = 1
SET @newchar = CHAR(ROUND(97 + (RAND(CHECKSUM(NEWID())) * 25), 0))
IF @type = 2
SET @newchar = CHAR(ROUND(65 + (RAND(CHECKSUM(NEWID())) * 25), 0))
IF @type = 3
SET @newchar = CHAR(ROUND(48 + (RAND(CHECKSUM(NEWID())) * 9), 0))
IF @type = 4
BEGIN
SET @type2 = ROUND(1 + (RAND(CHECKSUM(NEWID())) * 3), 0)
IF @type2 = 1
SET @newchar = CHAR(ROUND(33 + (RAND(CHECKSUM(NEWID())) * 14), 0))
IF @type2 = 2
SET @newchar = CHAR(ROUND(58 + (RAND(CHECKSUM(NEWID())) * 6), 0))
IF @type2 = 3
SET @newchar = CHAR(ROUND(91 + (RAND(CHECKSUM(NEWID())) * 5), 0))
IF @type2 = 4
SET @newchar = CHAR(ROUND(123 + (RAND(CHECKSUM(NEWID())) * 3), 0))
END
-- remove invalid characters as well as characters easily confused with others
IF @newchar NOT IN ('b', 'l', 'o', 's', 'I', 'O', 'S', '0', '1', '!', '''', '.', ',', '/', '`', '', '|')
BEGIN
SET @password = @password + @newchar
SET @len = @len - 1
END
END
SELECT @password as Password

Copy Data From One Table Into Another

INSERT INTO    [TABLE2]
SELECT *
FROM [TABLE1]

Basic Cursor

declare @email nvarchar(255)
declare CustList cursor for
SELECT email from STE_EMAILS
OPEN CustList
FETCH NEXT FROM CustList
INTO @email
WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN
if (SELECT count(custid) from customer where (current_customer=1) and (notes1 is not null) and (notes1 like '%' + @email + '%')) > 0
SELECT custid from customer where (current_customer=1) and (notes1 is not null) and (notes1 like '%' + @email + '%')
print '%' + @email + '%'
FETCH NEXT FROM CustList INTO @email
END
CLOSE CustList
DEALLOCATE CustList

Do you have a script that you would like to share? Feel free to contact me and I will add it to the list.