Golden Week, a.k.a. the only time the Japanese go on vacation, begins with Green Day on 29 April, a holiday sadly wasted on a Saturday this year. Luckily Green Day is followed by Constitution Memorial Day (3 May), National Holiday (4 May) and Children’s Day (5 May), making for a nice five day weekend.

(Note: This week’s “Hi, Tech” is brought to you by Arita JET Sergio Pena, whose well-timed article on computer security saved me from having to dream up something to write about this week. Also, there will be no “Hi, Tech” next week because of the Golden Week holidays. If a “Hi, Tech” is written and no one is around to read it, is it really written? — Nicholas)

Computer security. These two words echo throughout the internet, but do you really know what they mean? Sure, you might have heard about viruses, spam, identity theft and the like, but do you know how to protect yourself and your beloved computer from the cesspool that is the internet? In this article, I hope to establish a baseline definition of certain terms and to enlighten you on this very important — but often overlooked — aspect of technology.

Let’s start off with the basics, shall we?

The basics

Following definitions taken from Wikipedia.

• Computer Security. Computer security is a field of computer science concerned with the control of risks related to computer use.
• Computer Virus. In computer security technology, a virus is a self-replicating/self-reproducing-automation program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents. A computer virus behaves in a way similar to a biological virus, which spreads by inserting itself into living cells. Extending the analogy, the insertion of a virus into the program is termed as an “infection”, and the infected file (or executable code that is not part of a file) is called a “host.” Viruses are one of the several types of malicious software, or malware.
• Computer Worm. A computer worm is a self-replicating computer program, similar to a computer virus. A virus attaches itself to, and becomes part of, another executable program; however, a worm is self-contained and does not need to be part of another program to propagate itself. They are often designed to exploit the file transmission capabilities found on many computers. The main difference between a computer virus and a worm is that a virus cannot propagate by itself whereas worms can. A worm uses a network to send copies of itself to other systems, and it does so without any intervention. In general, worms harm the network and consume bandwidth, whereas viruses infect or corrupt files on a targeted computer. Viruses generally do not affect network performance, as their malicious activities are mostly confined within the target computer itself.
• Trojan Horse. In the context of computer software, a Trojan horse is a malicious program that is disguised as legitimate software. The term is derived from the classical myth of the Trojan Horse. They may look useful or interesting (or at the very least harmless) to an unsuspecting user, but are actually harmful when executed. Often the term is shortened to simply “trojan,” even though this turns the adjective into a noun, reversing the myth (Greeks were gaining malicious access, not Trojans). There are two common types of Trojan horses. One is otherwise useful software that has been corrupted by a cracker inserting malicious code that executes while the program is used. Examples include various implementations of weather alerting programs, computer clock setting software and peer to peer file sharing utilities. The other type is a standalone program that masquerades as something else, like a game or image file, in order to trick the user into some misdirected complicity that is needed to carry out the program’s objectives.
• Malware. Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner’s consent. The term is a portmanteau of “mal-” (or perhaps “malicious”) and “software,” and describes the intent of the creator rather than any particular features. Malware is commonly taken to include computer viruses, Trojan horses, spyware and adware. Malware is sometimes pejoratively called scumware.

History

After the first computers (Post ENIAC) were rolled out and programming languages evolved from their humble punch card origins, people began to play around with the programs as pranks or jokes, or out of boredom. At first they were benign, such as silly messages and the like, but soon after more malicious intents were translated into computer code. A program called “Elk Cloner” is credited with being the first computer virus to appear “in the wild” — that is, outside the single computer or lab where it was created. Written in 1982 by Rich Skrenta, it attached itself to the Apple DOS 3.3 operating system and spread by floppy disk.
The first PC virus was a boot sector virus called (c)Brain, created in 1986 by two brothers, Basit and Amjad Farooq Alvi, operating out of Lahore, Pakistan. The brothers reportedly created the virus to deter pirated copies of software they had written. However, analysts have claimed that the Ashar virus, a variant of Brain, possibly predated it based on code within the virus. As computers became more commonplace, more viruses were written. As computers evolved, so did viruses.

What can I do to protect myself?

In order to guard yourself against evil minded folks and the casual bored hacker, you need to educate yourself more about how and why these exploits happen. However, since computer security, much like legalese, has quite a bit of slang, jargon and geek-speak, it is difficult for the average person to understand just what is going on. I hope to explain these meanings to you in non-geek, but since I come from a computer science background, I hope you bear with my attempts.

Get a decent anti-virus. Much like getting inoculated, a decent anti-virus package will help protect and clean your computer system should it get infected. Many, many anti-virus companies are out there selling some great products.

• Symantec/Norton
• McAfee
• Trend Micro/PCCillin
• Panda Anti-Virus

There are a lot more anti-virus programs suggested by Microsoft.

However, if you want a free antivirus software package, try Freebyte’s listings of antivirus programs.

Get a decent firewall. What is a firewall? A firewall is a piece of hardware and/or software which functions in a networked environment to prevent some communications forbidden by the security policy, analogous to the function of firewalls in building construction. A firewall has the basic task of controlling traffic between different zones of trust. Typical zones of trust include the internet (a zone with no trust) and an internal network (a zone with high trust, i.e. LAN). The ultimate goal is to provide controlled connectivity between zones of differing trust levels through the enforcement of a security policy and connectivity model based on the least privilege principle.

There are many commercial and free firewall programs out there. Check out Freebyte for a list of free firewalls.

(Note: If you use file sharing programs such as bittorrent, you need to have the firewall allow access to its ports. For bittorrent, these are ports usually 6881-6889. Check your firewall’s manual on how to open ports for these programs. However, try not to open too many ports as that will leave a welcome mat for hackers. Check out PortForward for more information.)

I personally use Zone Alarm Pro on überparanoid settings in addition to the firewall provided by my school and my home network.

Get a decent anti-malware program. I cannot stress this enough. Many websites have evil things lurking in their seemingly docile code that can install programs on your computer without you knowing it. Even programs that look harmless, such as those smileys, weather forecasts, etc., potentially might be malware. Check out PCWorld’s favorite selection.

These are the basic steps I would suggest you Microsoft Windows users follow. You Linux and Mac guys should be careful too, especially since Linux/Mac attacks are on the rise.

Get a decent web browser. Nicholas posted previously on excellent web browsers that are free to boot. I personally use Firefox 1.5.0.2 with the following extensions: NoScript, AdBlock, AdBlock Filterset.G, and Flashblock.

Beyond the basics

For those who are computer savvy and would like extra protection, I will lead you. (Linux and Windows users only, I don’t have a Mac so I can’t write about it. Since Mac OS X is based on FreeBSD, I would suggest you read up on FreeBSD security implementation and optimization.)

Windows

For the über paranoid (me) or those who have something to hide or protect, I would suggest implementing NIST Computer Securing Templates. The Small Business/Personal templates with some modifications should suit your needs. This also involves using separate accounts (Administrator for installing and management, User for daily use) thus reducing the likelihood of installing crap or being infected. I would also suggest before full implementation to use a virtualization program such as VMWare, etc., to play around with these templates until you get the hang of it.

Linux

I have used Gentoo Linux, but I assume it’s the same on all distros. Implement the SELinux (hardened Linux) policies and kernel and using separate accounts, as mentioned above. Before full implementation, use virtualization and sandbox to test, test, test!

Windows, Linux, Mac

Edit your HOSTS file to reduce crap from loading on your computer. I suggest HpHOSTS hosts file. Over 40,000 web pages blocked for your convenience. I would suggest, however, finding which sites you visit and searching through this file to see if they are blocked, as some legitimate sites may link to these (very rare though). The installation is quite simple, and the forum is also quite helpful.

All in all, this was a rather short article, but I hope I have pointed out a few things to help you guys out. If you have any questions, post them on the forum and my fellow computer nerds or myself will answer them.

I’m freshly back from a four-day trip to Kyoto with my wife and our aforementioned visitor. Being in Kyoto, the epitome of beautiful Japanese cities, we did what any good tourists should do: take loads of pictures. Pictures of temples. Pictures of deer. Pictures of deer at temples.

We took so many pictures, in fact, that our guest’s digital camera gave out on the last day of our trip. One minute it was chugging away, and the next minute it was refusing to retract its lens or focus (important things for a digital camera to do). Luckily for our guest, her camera (like the three of us) just needed a break; it started working again the next day.

For that one day her camera was broken, though, our guest was seriously considering buying a replacement. She was in the right place–digital cameras in Japan are probably the smallest, coolest and pinkest in the world. I was of course only too happy to help her do a little research on what kind of camera was best for her. Since she ended up not needing a new camera, and since I can’t let good research go wasted, allow me to pass my thoughts on buying a digital camera on to you.

The usual caveat

Remember in my article on buying the right computer when I said no one computer was right for everybody and you had to “buy the computer you need”? The same holds true for digital cameras. While there are fewer digital camera models on the market than there are computers, there’s still literally hundreds of cameras to choose from. The best way to get a camera you’ll be happy with is to take a few minutes to figure out how you will use your camera. Questions like:

• What will you use the camera for? (Taking snapshots? Taking professional quality portraits?)
• Where will you take the camera? (Everywhere you go? Just on special trips?)
• What will you do with the photos you take? (Put them online? Print them?)
• What accessories will you use the camera with? (Tripod? Other lenses?)
• What kind of media will you store the photos on in the camera? (Do you have old SD cards around? How about CF?)
• What kind of batteries do you want to use? (Standard AA batteries? Camera-specific batteries?)

What to look for

Once you’ve answered questions like those above, you’re ready to start matching your needs with the available features. That list of “available features” is pretty vast, though; here are some options you’ll want to consider and how each option fits with what you need in a camera.

• SLR vs. point-and-shoot. The first decision you need to make is whether you want a digital SLR (single lens reflex) or a digital point-and-shoot. (You want a film camera you say? What is this “film” you speak of?) SLRs are the kinds of cameras you see professionals carrying around–the kinds with big bodies and giant lenses. They take very high quality photos and give you complete control over functions like f-stop and timing, but are also hard to carry around and cost a small fortune. Point-and-shoots, on the other hand, are what everyone else carries around and are usually box-shaped. Quality of point-and-shoot photos ranges from mediocre to pretty good and composition controls are sometimes limited, but they are small and affordable enough for anyone to take anywhere. Unless you’re planning to make money from your photos, a nice point-and-shoot should suit your needs.
• Size. I remember back in the day, when I was walking uphill to school both ways, digital cameras were the size of my head and stored photos on floppy disks. Times have changed: today’s cameras are usually smaller than my hand, and in this case, smaller is definitely better. My advice is to get the smallest camera you can that has all of the other features you want and feels comfortable in your hands.
• Speed. The biggest complaint I have with my current, sadly outdated camera is how slow it is. I’ve missed many a good shot waiting for the thing to turn on or to take a photo after I’ve pressed the shutter button. Today’s cameras generally work much faster, but not all are equal: the best way to compare is to go to an electronics store and play around with the display models. Failing that, check out the test stats on cameras you’re thinking of buying (links to those are below) and aim for something with a startup time of under one second and the shortest shutter lag (time between pressing the button and taking the picture) you can find.
• Megapixels. Pixels are the tiny, tiny dots that make up a digital photo. The more pixels your camera is capable of recording, the more detailed your photos will be. When you hear that a camera takes “seven megapixel photos,” then, that means its photos are composed of seven million little points. The number of megapixels you need in a camera depends on what you will do with your photos. If you plan to mostly view your photos online or on your computer and occasionally print out a 3×5 snapshot to send home, you’ll be fine with four to five megapixels. If, on the other hand, you want to retouch, enlarge or publish books of your photos, go higher.
• Modes. Most compact digital cameras come with several modes that let you take pictures in a variety of conditions: low light, up close or with different depths of focus. These modes are all just preprogrammed combinations of different f-stop, timing and flash values. If you don’t really know what “depth of focus,” “f-stop” or “timing” are, a camera’s preprogrammed modes will be all you need. If you do know what all of those words mean (or think you might learn someday), get a camera with aperture priority, shutter priority and full manual modes.
• Zoom. The cardinal rule of photography is “get close, then get closer.” In other words, the best photos are usually ones where the subject takes up most of the frame, and nothing helps fill the frame like a good zoom lens. I’d recommend a camera with at least a 3x optical zoom, although more zoom will make for better photography. Don’t be fooled by cameras that advertise “3x optical zoom and 10x digital zoom”; all digital zoom does is electronically magnify the photo, trading a closer shot for a serious degradation in image quality. The first thing I did when I got my camera was turn off the digital zoom, and it hasn’t been back on since.
• Storage format. Storage media is to a digital camera what film is to a film camera: a place to keep your photos until you have them downloaded (or “developed” as they called it back in the day). Most of today’s digital cameras will use one of three kinds of storage media: Secure Digital cards (SD cards), Compact Flash cards (CF cards) or, if your camera is made by Sony, Sony Memory Sticks. All of these formats will work equally well for a non-techie. If you have CF cards, SD cards or Memory Sticks around from a music player, old digital camera or handheld gaming device, by all means get a new camera that can reuse those media. Also, do yourself a favor and splurge on a big memory card/stick; half the fun of having a digital camera is being able to take 500 pointless pictures at a time.
• Batteries. Batteries work the same way as storage media: different cameras use different kinds. Some use standard AA batteries, others use rechargeable units that only fit that camera. Before you decide on a camera model, check the review sites below to make sure that, whatever kind of battery the camera uses, it lets you take more than a few hundred pictures before needing a recharge.
• Screen and viewfinder. If lack of speed is the biggest shortfall of my current camera, its tiny screen ranks a close second. Since you’ll probably be checking your photos on your camera as you take them, look for a model that won’t make you squint to see your snapshots. Models with 2.5-inch screens give you plenty of room to review your work. Also, ignore the path camera manufactures are starting to go down and look for a camera with an optical viewfinder (that little hole you look through to compose your pictures). There are lots of cameras on the market that make you compose your shots using the screen; I find doing it that way leads to more shaking and blurrier pictures.
• Holes. The optical viewfinder isn’t the only important hole on a digital camera. All cameras have a port that lets you connect the camera to your computer, usually via a USB cable. Look for connections that let you hook up your camera to a TV for photo and video playback or to a tripod for stable shooting if either of those things is important to you.
• Language. One important note about buying a camera in Japan: unless you want to be perpetually confused, make sure the model you get lets you choose the language you went menus and commands displayed in. Also, if the manual you get with your camera is all in Japanese, you can usually find other versions on the manufacturer’s website.

Other resources

As much as I’d like to believe otherwise, I’m certainly no expert on digital cameras. Lots of people are experts, though, and they have websites to prove it. The following sites are worth a look when you’re considering buying a new camera; they have subjective reviews, objective stats and lots and lots of pretty pictures.

• CNET’s digital camera reviews
• Digital Camera Resource Page
• Steve’s Digicams

PowerPoint slides and a handout from the leavers workshop at the 2006 Saga JET conference are available for those getting ready to end their tenure as a JET this summer. Download away if you liked them at the conference and want your very own copy!

• Leaving JET slides (2 MB, Microsoft PowerPoint format)
• Leaving JET handout (115 KB, Microsoft Word format)

Saga JETs heading to Bangladesh to work with Habitat for Humanity are throwing a charity “passport party.” Two thousand yen for adults (1000 for kids) will get you into five party rooms modeled after a different country. The party starts at 6 p.m. Saturday, April 15 at the Saga City ken apartments and everyone is welcome (kids can stay until 9 p.m.). There’s a lot more info on the message board.

The Saga City language classes at Avance are starting again on 12 April and will run until the 19 July. Classes are Wednesdays at either 6:30 p.m. or 8 p.m. Tuition is 4000 yen. The classes are “for those who are interested in entering at the introductory and beginner levels, covering basic Japanese daily conversation, reading and writing skills.”

If you want to sign up, send your name, address, nationality, work/school name, and telephone number to fax 0952 24-7337 or email nihong_saga@yahoo.ne.jp.

The placement test is on April 12th, so please arrive by 6 p.m.

Astute readers might have noticed that there was no “Hi, Tech” last week. Apologizes for not writing, but I had a really good reason, I swear. My wife and I are playing hosts to a friend from college, and we’ve been busy doing out host duties, like showing our guest the local sites (i.e. big trees and tiny cars) and helping her avoid accidentally eating raw horse.

All the hosting has (a) put me in a very travel agent-y frame of mind and (b) not left me with much time to plan a proper article. I didn’t want to let my writing muscles atrophy any more than they already have by skipping another week, though (some days I can barely string two words together as it is), so this week I’ve gone with my newfound fondness for planning other people’s trips and pulled together a collection of sites that may be useful the next time you have a visitor.

None of these sites are particularly obscure and you could probably find most of them after 30 seconds on Blingo (which may or may not be how I found some of them). Still, it might be nice to have them collected in one place for easy access the next time you’re looking to distract your visitors with something other than your tales of bravely facing six classes of elementary school students in one day.

General

Coming to Japan for the first time can be scary. Remember when you first got here and didn’t know why there were slippers in public bathrooms? Chances are your guests aren’t going to know things like that, either, and that you don’t have the time to write them a six-page email explaining all of Japan’s quirks. Luckily other people have explained the basics of visiting Japan for you, and all you have to do is send your future visitors a few links to make sure they don’t get themselves deported before you can pick them up at the airport.

Lonely Planet Japan

Lonely Planet, makers of many a paperback guidebook, also has a website with information on every country they cover. Not surprisingly, the (free) website contains only a fraction of the information in the (not free) guidebooks, but it does cover the basics pretty well. Perhaps more helpful are the Lonely Planet Japan Bluelists, where Lonely Planet readers can make suggestions of things to see and do that might not get covered anywhere else.

Wikitravel’s Overview of Japan

You’ve probably heard of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that is written and edited by its users. Wikitravel works just like Wikipedia, only all of its articles focus on world travel. Wikitravel’s Japan section is huge and all-encompassing: it contains all the general Japan info a visitor could want, as well as links to more in-depth articles. It also puts my humble little guide to shame, but I’ll try not to let that bruise my ego too much.

Tourism and Sightseeing

As painful as it is to accept, your visitors might want to do more while they’re in Japan than just see you. I know, it’s insulting, but you have to rise above it, be a good host and help them have the Japan adventure they’re hoping for. Or you could just point them to some website and go back to brooding on why anyone wouldn’t want to spend all of their time with you.

About.com’s Guide to Visiting Japan

Like most other About.com sections, this guide offers a wide variety of recommendations and resources for tourists coming to Japan. It may not contain the most insightful or in-depth information, but the guide is at least edited by a real human being and is frequently updated.

JapanGuide.com

JapanGuide.com, as one might expect, is a guide to Japan. It has info on all the tourist hot spots in the country as well as many out of the way places like national parks and local museums. It also has information on living in Japan, although it’s nothing you won’t figure out after a couple of months as a JET. Sadly, JapanGuide.com fails the “Saga test,” having a measly one line of information on my beloved prefecture.

Japan National Tourist Organization

I’ve mentioned the JNTO site before, but it’s worth writing about again here, if only because it passes the “Saga test” with four whole paragraphs on my home. Four! That’s approximately one paragraph for every non-Japanese restaurant in the prefecture.

Hotels

Sometimes, when your six tatami apartment isn’t big enough to hold you andyour parents, or when your guests are traveling to places not near your home, you need to find a decent hotel. Sadly, many decent hotels in Japan are either outrageously expensive or booked five years in advance. There are some good deals out there (”out there” meaning “not found through Japanese travel agents”), though, if you know where to look.

JapanHotel.net

JapanHotel.net is a database of hotels, inns and ryokans all over Japan. You can search for lodgings by area, read about each accommodation (including room rates) and book online if you find something you like. You can find some nice bargains if your guests are up for staying in a basic Japanese style room. I just used this site to book a room in Kyoto during cherry blossom season, so it gets my recommendation.

Rakutan Travel

Rakutan Travel works just like JapanHotel.net only with different hotels. Again, deals can be had with a little hunting.

Ryokan Reservations

If your rich aunt and uncle are coming to visit you rather than your friend in the Peace Corps, they might want to try a night or two in a ryokan, the Japanese guest houses that often feature swanky hot spring baths and elaborate meals. JapanGuestHouses.com can help you make reservations at a number of ryokans across the country, although it’s not cheap: visitors can expect to pay anywhere from 7000 to 70,000 yen per person for the chance to stay at one of these places.

Language

Visitors to Japan will get further with a few Japanese words and phrases in their vocabularies than without. These sites cover basics like “do you speak English,” “where is the bathroom?” and “no blowfish, please.” (Fine, so maybe they don’t cover that last one, but I still think it’s important.)

Wikitravel’s Japanese phrasebook

Wikitravel’s wonders never cease. Not only do they have that huge sections on what to see and where to go in Japan, they also have a nice little phrasebook so visitors don’t get lost in all the seeing and going. The phrasebook is very nicely written using both Japanese characters and the Western alphabet.

About.com’s Guide to the Japanese Language

This About.com guide is written for both students (or wanna-be students/anime fans) of Japanese and visitors alike and thus covers a pretty wide range of topics. The audio files can be helpful to tourists looking to pick up a little spoken Japanese.

Trains

Japan could be hit with the apocolypse itself and still the trains would run on time. This punctuality makes traveling by train an excellent choice for visitors, and the all-powerful JR Rail Pass can make it semi-affordable, too. All of the following links go to the various regional Japan Railways sites, which contain not only train information but also local sightseeing advice.

JR Hokkaido

Covers all of Hokkaido, that big island all the way up north.

JR East

Covers the Tohoku region of Japan, including Tokyo.

JR Central

Covers central Japan, including Nagoya and the bullet train line from Tokyo to Kyoto and Osaka.

JR West

Covers the Kansai region including Kyoto and Osaka.

JR Shikoku

Covers all of Shikoku, the island everyone forgets about.

JR Kyushu

Covers all of Kyushu, the not-so-big island all the way down south.

The annual Kyushu Cup football tournament (that’s soccer for the yanks) will be held in Saga this year. Kickoff is 1:30 p.m. Saturday, April 8, at Saga Nishi High School. There’s more info on the message board, including a nice preview by Dustin Hovda.

Takeo’s Spring Festival runs from 1-2 April. Come for the drunk men parading through the streets, stay for the crowning of Miss Sakura.