Hackers and fridges... internet security!

Hello Everyone,

I don't know if you heard recently, but investigators found that among the devices used by hackers in a  recent attack there was... a fridge. Yes that's right. Here is an article (see the link below for the original) about what happened.

Warning: the topic is very interesting, but the article is very advanced and has incredible quantities of vocabulary...

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/feb/28/internet-things-hacked-security

Hacked by your Fridge? When the Internet of Things bites back

In the rush to embrace the Internet of Things and weave connectivity into every aspect of our everyday lives, security must not be forgotten argues Stephen Bonner

To hack: to cut into something with a heavy weapon like an axe. In internet vocabulary to access without permission a website or network, by breaking their security barriers.

Internet of things: a recent concept which means that "things" (computers, kitchen appliances or climate control systems) use the internet to "talk" to each other, without interaction with humans.

To bite back: to defend yourself by biting, like a dog, when you have been bitten first.
Rush: impuse to do things quickly, often with the risk of making mistakes.

to weave: the traditional way to make some kinds of clothing or carpets, by inserting different threads or yarn, forming patterns. See here.

To argue: to defend an idea by giving arguments to support it. 

Security first: are we forgetting the risks in a rush to embrace the Internet of Things? Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian

The common kitchen fridge has always been a potential source of trepidation. Most people will admit that, at some point in their lives, they have opened the fridge door fearful of finding food well past its 'best before' date, leading to the scuppering of well-made dinner plans, or worse infecting the household with unfortunate viruses.

Trepidation: being nervous or worried about something.
Fearful of: feeling fear that something will happen or appear.
well past its "best before" date: the best before date is the recommended date to consume some products. If it is "well past" it is probably dangerous to consume that product.
scupper: to ruin

As technology advances, so too it seems does our fear of fridges. Only last month there were reports of web-enabled domestic devices (including fridges) being hacked and used to generate spam email messages.

Only last month: "Only" here is used as "just" to reinforce how recent this happened.
Web-enabled: Devices that can connect to the web.

It led to wonderful headlines such as "Help! My fridge is full of spam!", but the humour belies a simple truth. We live in a world where ever more devices are becoming network enabled. Just a few days ago, for example, a heating ventilation contractor was alleged to be under investigation as the possible source of intrusion into a major retailer's electronic point of sale terminals. Remote monitoring of store temperature and energy consumption is commonplace in the retail sector and might have provided a possible route in.

It led to: to lead/led/led. To give directions, guide or give someone example. also to introduce the consequences of some action. Here the funny headlines are a consequence of the hacker attack. Also, a person who leads is a leader.
to belie: to contradict and invalidate. e.g. What the police found out belies what the criminal declared in court.
Ever more: constantly increasing quantities
heating ventilation contractor: a contractor is a supplier that provides you some services, like building or maintenance. And you have a contract with them.
Alleged: not necessarily true or false but people think so. The alleged thief (we don't know if he was the thief or not).
Point of sale terminals. A point of sale is a place were things are effectively (* check second meaning) sold, usually with machines that can manage money or credit cards. Those machines are called terminals nowadays because they are connected to a central computer.

In the labs, we have already seen attacks against Insulin Pumps and Pacemakers; with the Food and Drug Administration in the US issuing guidance on the cyber security of medical devices. At home, it might be the Internet connection on your television or games console, the smart meter talking to your domestic devices over a home area network, or your car providing remote diagnostics and maintenance information back to its manufacturer.

labs: places where scientists work making experiments.
insulin pumps: devices that supply insulin to patients, usually fixed inside their bodies.
pacemakers: devices that help the heart regulate its rhythm in patients who have a history of cardiac arrest.
smart meter: devices that measure your utility consumption (e.g. water, electricity, natural gas) and send the information wirelessly to the supplier. Therefore they don't need to send anyone to read the meter regularly.
home area network: the area and electronic devices connected to a local area network (LAN) in a house. 
remote diagnostics: using electronic devices to diagnose medical conditions without going to a hospital.

In our commercial environments we see intelligent printers and photocopiers, sophisticated building management systems, and now, the advent of Bring Your Own Device – at this stage 'only' a phone, but who knows what employees will wish to connect to the corporate network longer term.

Bring your own device (BYOD): Option some companies and schools choose, where they let workers or students use their own hardware (laptops, tablets...) for work or to attend classes. 

Bring Your Own Device

Analysts suggest that this explosion of multi-connected devices, known as 'the Internet of Things', will grow to over 26 billion connected devices by 2020, a thirty fold increase on today's figures, and a market valued at over a trillion dollars.

thirty fold: Thirty times: if you multiply something by a factor of thirty, you make it thirty fold.
a trillion dollars: the number ONE followed by twelve zeros. A spanish billion. Compare:

1,000,000 = a million
1,000,000,000 = a billion (USA); a thousand million (Spain)
1,000,000,000,000 = a trillion (USA); a billion (Spain)

Yet, before we become too excited about the prospects offered by new connectivity, it is worth pausing to think about security.

Excited: anticipating or feeling something intensely. (sexual excitement is called arousal and the verb is to arouse/to be aroused).

On many occasions we have seen functionality fielded first, with security following as an afterthought. For example, we are now seeing industrial control system security rise to the top of the list of concerns, even though the first SCADA systems were fielded in the mid 1960s, albeit with very much more restricted network connectivity.

to field: to deal with something, usually a problem or some work. (= to address a problem)
afterthought: something added, casually, after something has been said and finished.
e.g. He signed the contract and as an afterthought he said: Maybe I should have read the contract more carefully, but what's done is done.
albeit: however

In my experience, attackers, whether they are Nation-State driven or organised crime, can be surprisingly innovative in their choice of attack technique. An unprotected device can provide the first toe-hold for an attacker, allowing them to establish a presence in your company or home network, before moving on to their final, more lucrative, target.

nation-state: a state where all citizens are supposed to have a feeling of belonging to the same nationality. e.g. France
to drive: to lead, to make something or someone move in a specific direction. In this case crime motivated by the government of a country.
toe-hold: a very minimal contact or support point. This expression takes its meaning from the sport of climbing, where you use your feet - and your toes, if you are barefoot - and you hold to the mountain wall with your hands and your feet. Usually foothold is the word used. In contrast toe-hold means that the position is very weak and unstable. 
Note: toes are the fingers in your feet. In your hands in contrast, we have eight fingers and two thumbs (the big, thick opposable fingers).

While we will never conceive of the whole range of attacks when we first design a device, it does make sense to spend a little time thinking about the dependencies it introduces, how it might fail, and what might be done to counter the more obvious attacks including some basic design changes.

to counter: to compensate for something, for example by defending yourself from an attack.

At the risk of complicating how our devices work, some basic use of encryption to protect communications against tampering would help, along with authentication to ensure that only authorised users can interact with or manipulate devices.

to tamper: to manipulate something in an inappropriate manner, by someone who doesn't know how to do it or to make it stop working properly.
to ensure: to make sure. (contrast: to insure: to sign a contract with an insurance company to protect people or goods; to assure: to make someone feel sure about something with words or evidence.

We may also need more flexible approaches to how we protect our networks. For instance, our home computer may be well protected behind a firewall and running malware detection, but possibly segregated from guest networks which host less well protected devices such as our fridge and games consoles. Corporate networks often now make use of Network Access Control, which ensures that only devices which are patched and running anti-virus are allowed to connect to the network. We could see these approaches extended to home networks.

Firewall: a protective system in computer networks. Also a wall in a building which will prevent the spread of a fire.
To run: to operate, to make something work. Often used with computer sofware.
Malware: a kind of computer software whih is designed to attack or damage computers an/or networks.
To host: a term used when talking about computer servers, to speak about the information or software that is stored in it. The collocation "host server" is common.
to host also means: to let someone stay in your house or to organize an event, such as a party, in your own house. People attending a party are the guests. A TV host is a TV presenter. 
To patch: to fix a hole by using a piece of material that is applied on the hole to cover it. Traditionally in clothes.

Perhaps we should also be a bit more picky about which traffic leaves our networks. Many security professionals have been surprised at just how many different internet sites our devices choose to talk back to, even when we think they are idle or even switched off.

Surprised at: surprised in a "negative way".
idle: not working, but ready to do so, like the engine of a car at a traffic lights
switched off: completely disconnected.
grammar point: it is quite common to find prepositions at the end of a sentence in English. Usually there is some kind of complement that is before in the sentence. For example here the object of "talk back to" is "how many different internet sites".

So, in short, the innovative new business model you are adopting around the latest smart device may not just benefit you or your organisation. Expect organised crime to exploit the opportunities they offer as well. It means you have to think like an attacker. You'll be surprised what comes out of the process and it'll certainly give you a different perspective on your fridge.

Stephen Bonner is partner for Information Protection & Business Resilience at KPMG

in short: an expression to introduce a summary of ideas previously expressed.

Grammar point: in contrast with Spanish, in English complements to a noun go before it in most ocasions. Moreover, those complements introduced in Spanish by "de" are also moved to the front, and they do not need any preposition: a noun in English can be modified by another noun. Here we have a noun "model" modified by a combination of a noun and two adjectives which modify it.

PRONUNCIATION BASICS

If you would like some theory first, start here... if you would like some advice, start at "rule #1". IF you just want to get to the practical things, start below rule #4 (a pity, because I think my advice is quite good hehehe).

A long time ago, when students asked me about pronunciation I would go automatically on a rant about many things, that boggled their minds and probably discouraged them from trying to do anything about it. I hope I have changed. In today's post I will try to offer a foothold for those who feel lost and don't know where to start.

Think of languages as flats in a building: they all have the same function: languages are self-contained communication ecosystems. This is one flat, this is another. The owners of the flats can modify and adapt the internal distribution in the way they think is best. That is why languages are sometimes similar and sometimes they are different. 

To follow the same metaphor, imagine your flat, the layout, the rooms, the furniture... and now think that as you visit your neighbour's flat, you find out that he's got a different number of rooms, or he built an extra bathroom, has a shower instead of a bathtub. Still, it is a flat and the family live there. 

Languages are diverse and their pronunciation too. Therefore, it is very important to learn to manage that difference. 

Rule #1 Different is good. It is refreshing, it can be funny. All right, it can also be frustrating and confusing. Be a good tourist, enjoy the view.

Rule #2 Awareness of its importance. Pronunciation is not only needed for speaking better but it will improve your listening skills. The bigger the difference between what you expect to hear and what you actually hear, the worse your listening skills will be. If you know what you can expect to hear, then you will recognize the word.

Rule #3 Make an investment. Investing your time and effort (and perhaps some of your money) in learning pronunciation for a language (English here) will get you good returns. All languages have things in common and you can recycle what you learn. Once you learn to go from your native system to a new one, you can reproduce that movement to other languages. Once you learnt to adjust the movements in your mouth for new sounds, you are not just learning those sounds, but how to try new experiences, like an exotic ice-cream flavour.

Rule #4 Know your strengths and weaknesses. Identify your challenges. With the help of a good teacher, a good book and/or good online resources you can find out what your standing point is by learning the basics about pronouncing your native tongue. 

You will be very surprised to realize the complex adjustments you make constantly in your mouth. The bonus of learning to pronounce new sounds is that they are very likely to appear in other languages that you may want to learn. The more vowels you can pronounce, your ability to assimilate new ones will improve. It's cumulative learning.

OK, you feel you are past the motivational speech stage and you want to get down to work. You should start by gathering your tools. My recommendation is to start here:

This is an excellent app by the British Council that consists of an interactive chart of the phonemic symbols that represent the sounds pronounced in English. You can click as many times as you want on each symbol to hear the sound it represents.

Why do you want to do this? Because if you go to your dictionary (paper or online) you can find these symbols after the word you are looking up. That means you can figure out how a word is pronounced, without actually hearing it. At least its standard pronunciation.

But there is more. If you click your mouse on the little blue tabs on the top right corner of each symbol, you will find examples of each sound in context. 

This is a good tool to get you started. My advice here: build on those examples and make your own list of words that include each of the sounds that you find problematic.

This is very similar to what Macmillan, the book publishers, have on their website:

http://www.macmillaneducationapps.com/

However the Macmillan app is more complete, as you will be able to see. First of all, there are two version: a limited version for free (the one I am using for this demonstration) and the full version.

Once you start the app you will find a menu with several options. We wil go through the first three of them. The "more option" is only interesting because it includes the instructions!

The chart os the part which reminds us of the British council app. You have the buttons, you can hear the sounds if you tap on the symbols. If you tap and hold you can hear one example.

Let's go now to the practice section. This section is limited in the free version of the app. You can judge for yourself once you download it. The full version is worth the money though. Here you have three options: read, write and listen. In the read section you will be given a phonetic transcription (oh those funny symbols!) and you have to figure out which word it is. In the write section, you are given a word and you have to write it with phonetic symbols. Finally in the listen section, you will hear a word and you will have to write it! Here you have some screenshots for you to get an idea.

Good I did it!

Will I get this one right? Let's check!

Oh this one was pretty easy!

The listening part is probably the most difficult... and sometimes you get surprised. Listen well! There is actually no "b" in "lamb"!

Well, I hope you can all benefit from these tools. I believe they will empower you, whatever your level, to improve your listening and speaking skills. And provided you have a tablet or smartphone, you can use in anywhere (yes, even there). Enjoy!

Google pays for the ride

Here's another post for my students. Today, about how authorities and corporations can collaborate to benefit the community.

And, this is the link to the original article, from a great newspaper, the New York Times (NYT for short!)

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/27/google-pays-for-the-ride/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Google, which has been at the center of a controversy in San Francisco over tech company shuttles using public infrastructure, is giving $6.8 million to fund a city transit program.

Shuttle :a transport service between two points. Usually a bus (although spaceships that go to the orbital station are also called shuttles!)

To fund: to provide (give) money for some activity or project.

The program, whose city funding runs out in June, provides monthly bus and streetcar passes to 31,000 low-income San Francisco youths ages 5 to 17. It began last year after the San Francisco school system reduced the use of buses transporting students to and from school. The program gets youths to school, after-school programs and jobs.

To run out: to use completely some resource or supply. "We will run out of petrol, we need to go to a petrol station soon.
Streetcar: a vehicle , between train and bus, that runs on electricity from a cable, usually on rails, on the streets. They are an iconic image of San Francisco.
Low-income: it applies to people whose salaries are low.
Youths: young people.

Mayor Ed Lee’s office called the gift “one of the largest private contributions towards direct City services in San Francisco history.” Google will fund the program for two years.

Towards: in a specific direction. 

Protests against Google began with anti-eviction activists, angered by the increasing gentrification of San Francisco, blocking its commuter shuttles that run down to the valley. The private shuttles use city bus stops to load and unload their passengers, which prompted lots of ire among less privileged residents. A resolution worked out with the city means Google and other tech companies will pay $1 per stop.

Eviction: to make someone leave their house or office because they can't pay it.

To anger: to make someone angry

Gentrification: a process by which an area's population changes and only richer people live in it. (From gentry=aristocracy and/or rich people)

To load: to put something in a place, usually a vehicle or something that moves like an elevator or machine. You can load a truck (BrE: Lorry), a car, a computer. Other connected words are unload (the opposite) and download/upload used to talk about files and the internet.

To prompt : to motivate, to make something happen, to cause something to start. A teleprompter is a machine used on TV by presenters which will show them the text they need to say. 

Ire: extreme anger. 

On Feb. 15, members of Heart of the City interrupted the Wisdom 2.0 conference. As three Google speakers introduced a presentation on “Three Steps to Build Corporate Mindfulness the Google Way,” demonstrators rushed the stage with an “Eviction-Free San Francisco” banner.

Demonstrators: people who walk on the streets to protest against something. This action is called a demonstration.

To rush the stage: to occupy the stage quickly.

Banner: A (usually big) piece of cloth or plastic with a message written on it. Also a very common form of advertising on websites.

“San Francisco residents are rightly frustrated that we don’t pay more to use city bus stops,” said Meghan Casserly, a Google spokeswoman. “So we’ll continue to work with the city on these fees, and in the meantime will fund Muni passes for low-income students for the next two years.”

Rightly (frustrated): you have a solid reason to feel frustrated (or any other feeling).

Fees: amount of money paid for a service.

In the meantime: the period that happens between to points in time, two events. Synonym for "while".

Passes: A card or similar document that allows you to use a service by paying only once a month or once a year. Common for means of transport. 

San Francisco Muni (Municipal) passes. (Photo credits: About.com)

Lyric video: "Happy" by Pharrel Williams

Hello everyone,

This year's Oscar Awards have been, ehrrm... awarded and one of the candidates for best song was Pharrell Wiliams' "Happy" for the film "Despicable me 2". I found it interesting as an excuse to talk about several things:

1) The love of double meanings by English speakers, in this case songwriters.
2) The importance of stopping (or rather, slowing down) at the right places and how it changes meaning.
3) Using "like", that slippery dangerous word.
4) And other stuff, but that will be after you watch the video.

Honestly, I did not look at the song credits, so I don't know if Mr. Williams himself or other people wrote this song, but it is very clever. It is constantly playing with the word like, or more specifically with the expression "feel like" in contrast with feel... like "x".

The first expression as in:

"I feel like going to the cinema today."

Here "feel like" means "I would enjoy/love doing that."

The second expression as in:

"I feel like a rat in a trap."

Here "feel like something" is a comparison. You are not that something but you feel in a similar or equivalent way.

So sentences in the song can be understood as either about what someone wishes for, or the description of their feelings.

"... if you feel like a room without a a roof." (so either you are wishing you had one or your feelings can be compared to a room without a roof).

Going to my second point, we can look at this:

"... if you feel like happiness is the truth." which can be read as:

[if you feel like happiness][is the truth] (meaning: the truth is you feel like happiness, you would like to feel happy, that's what you want.)

Or:

[if you feel] [like happiness is the truth] (meaning: your feeling is equivalent or similar to thinking that happiness is the (only, most important) truth.

The most important thing about these lyrics is how all meanings are perfectly combined in a way that the message is absolutely positive and optimistic, every and any way you look at it.

Ok, so here's the video, finally. An after that, there's more to comment!

What I'm 'bout to say. Recently I was explaining my students how in words like about, the initial sound is the neutral vowel known as "schwa". Thanks Pharrell for helping me by showing how weak that vowel can be, to the point of disappearing in some varieties of colloquial English.

Sunshine she's here. He's playing with us again. Sunshine is a word used in the same way as dear, honey or other endearing terms. So it could be Sunshine! she's here! or a double-subject, nonstandard way of saying "She's here and she is like sunshine for me." 

Like I don't care. colloquial way of saying "as if I don't care".

Clap along. A phrasal verb. What does it mean? If you are familiar with go along, that means to go in parallell with something, as opposed to following someone. So the meaning here is to go along someone or something, and at the same time, clapping your hands. So walk and clap! (Which I think he does at some point in the original music video). Also, when you are doing a music performance, like a concert, if the public claps following the music, they are clapping along!

Give me all you got, don't hold it back. Make an effort, use all your strength. Show me all those bad news, I am not afraid! (Because I am happy...). Don't hold it back, don't keep any bad news for yourself.

Can't nothing bring me down: he is a rap singer! Using inversion for emphasis! (=Nothing can't bring me down).

And finally I leave you with two more versions of the song. Enjoy!

Practical English Usage: The book and the App.

Probably if you are reading this, you are already familiar with Practical English Usage as a book, and know how practical it is. There are many other interesting, well-known books, like Quirk and Greenbaum's A Student's grammar of the English Language which I used in college. There are plenty of books on grammar geared specifically either to students or to their teachers. 

Other grammar books include exercises. I have already spoken in one of my old posts about the classic English Grammar in Use which continues to be an excellent reference book for students and teachers, either in its original form or in its manifold reincarnations. 

But this one is just there to help you solve doubts. It is clear, easy to use and to the point. And now there is an app and for which I gladly paid a little over 20€. The opening screen looks definitely familiar.

The look and feel inside is equally practical and nifty. Since it is an app, the in-built instructions on how to navigate it are welcome:

The app offers you several "views" or approaches to the information. Watch out for the icon (flower? cabbage?) which appears on the front of the book and to the right of the word index in the following screenshot. (To the right of the word "index"):

Here the same icon appears next to "contents overview",  but transformed, because it is a different view.

Yet another view, the topic index search. Again, the icon tells you which environment you are in.

Do you remember that grammar point you searched a while ago? The app remembers it for you.

And if you want to keep tabs of the grammar points you like, you can create favourites. Remember your old book full of bookmarks and highlighted sections?

Although I wonder what this is doing in a grammar book, I think it is very welcome anyway in a reference book.

All in all, it is as complete as the book on which it is based, the interface is simple and practical and it allows to manage the information in useful ways. The creators seem to have had in mind what people use the book for, and so the result is really functional. Because I am a sentimental, sometimes I go back to my old paper version, but I can carry this around with me, even in my phone!