MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. It's the first Tuesday of the month, and bumping slow jam can mean only one thing. It's The Computer Guys & Gal, taking this moment, a week ahead of Valentine's Day, to ponder the limits of love and obsession.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIMaybe you love your iPhone and iPad...

MR. KOJO NNAMDI...but can that love withstand the disturbing news about conditions in the Chinese factories that produced those devices? Perhaps you love sharing music and other files, and maybe, just maybe, you didn't pay for all of it. Does that mean you're changing your online behavior after the Justice Department took down the website Megaupload? Hundreds of millions of people love Facebook, but does that mean it's worth $100 billion? Love is in the air with all The Computer Guys & Gal.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIThey join us in studio.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIAllison Druin is associate dean for research at the University of Maryland's iSchool and co-director of the Future of Information Alliance. Allison, looking for love when Valentine's Day comes around.

MS. ALLISON DRUINNo, just looking...

MR. JOHN GILROYCo-director of the future, I like that.

DRUINNo. But I'm just -- I'm not looking for -- I'm looking for Valentine's Day gifts, really not love. You know? Come on.

NNAMDIWe'll talk about that. John Gilroy is our resident computer guy and director of business development of Armature Corporation. John Gilroy is...

GILROYAnd I'm not co-director of the future.

NNAMDI...searching and never finding love.

DRUINIt's so true.

NNAMDIBill Harlow is our hardware and software technician from Macs & PCs at Mid-Atlantic Consulting, Incorporated. We can slow jam The Computer Guys & Gal, can we not?

GILROYI like the new format.

MR. BILL HARLOWYeah.

NNAMDIThank you very much. We're going there. Of course, you can join the conversation. Slow jam us at 800-433-8850. Or you can send us a tweet at #TechTuesday, email to kojo@wamu.org. Or simply go to our website, kojoshow.org. Join the conversation there. A big question, suppose you have a device you love? I mean, you really love it. Then suppose a whole raft of articles come out indicating that your favorite device was produced in, oh, not so pleasant conditions. What should you do?

NNAMDIThat bill, in a nutshell, is the question Apple users are confronting after stories about worker deaths, suicides and poisonings at a factory run by a company called Foxconn. Who is Foxconn?

GILROYFoxconn probably makes everything you own that's electronic. That's the reality of it.

DRUINWow.

GILROYI mean, you look at their client list, it's, you know, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, HP and Nintendo. The list goes on and on and on. So I don't know what the answer is. And the thing is, there are very few places in the world where you can build consumer electronics, you know, at this scale. So, I mean, if we want Apple to improve conditions there, it's going to have to be at Foxconn. I don't see where else it could really go. There are companies, like Pegatron, that also manufacture devices, but, you know, Foxconn is kind of the big dogs.

GILROYAnd the thing that's kind of scary, too, is, as these stories come out, keep in mind that these conditions are considered pretty decent as far as these factories go. They could be a lot worse, and they've been trying to make them better as they go on.

HARLOWWell, politicians go up to Steven Jobs and say, why don't you try the factory in California?

GILROYRight.

HARLOWHe'd say, well, it's so much easier to start over there. Well, now, we know why. I mean...

NNAMDIThese articles -- well, Allison, these stories are very disturbing, and it's easy and probably fair to criticize the tech companies. But are we, we as in we the consumers, partly to blame because...

GILROYLet me ask this to Allison, how often do we complain about the prices of these things, too?

NNAMDIThank you.

DRUINYeah, it's so true. I mean, honestly, this goes back to the other turn of the century. I mean, we went through -- this is a developing nation ourselves and thinking about, you know, labor laws and justice. And now it's time, in some sense, to fight a distributed fight, but in another nation. And so if we really are going to depend on these other sources for our technologies, then we're going to have to look at how we can best impact, distributively, these practices. It's terrible.

DRUINI mean, I was reading these things thinking, I read this about my great-grandparents. I read this about how people organized labor unions and how we today teach our kids about why unions are important. And yet it's still happening. I mean, we're just repeating history here. It's scary.

NNAMDIAllison Druin taking a walk through history. You can join the conversation by calling us at 800-433-8850. Have revelations about factory conditions in China made you question your tech purchases? 800-433-8850. Bill, these articles broke after the holiday sale season. So, maybe, who knows? This could actually put a dent into our love affair with Apple. But the quarterly results indicate just the opposite.

HARLOWYeah. And that's probably why these reports came out when they did because Apple recorded insane revenue and profit, you know, with the most profitable American company right now, especially in tech. I think only the energy companies do better. But just having the money is enough. What are they going to do to actually improve the conditions there? The other thing, too, is it's clear there's an appetite for these in quantity. So, again, it gets back to, like, how do you manufacture these things? I mean, they sold, what, 37 million iPhones during that quarter?

NNAMDIMm hmm.

HARLOWThat's a hard to contemplate number to me.

NNAMDIWhat would it take to break your love affair with your favorite devices? Call us at 800-433-8850, or send us a tweet at #TechTuesday. While this bad press may have some tech companies on defense, some companies are getting out in front of these questions and taking up their commitment to corporate responsibility. It would appear this week from Nokia an explicit policy on so-called conflict minerals requiring that its supply chain be traceable down to smelter level for minerals that come from places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Good thing?

HARLOWI think so. Apple has a lot of policies like that, too, but that's the thing, is there are a lot of policies that Apple had that still weren't being followed in some cases. So, you know, that's why it's important to audit and to hold these companies accountable. And, you know, Apple is actually publishing, these are our suppliers. Here's what we've done. Here are the violations we found. And I think there needs to be more of that, not just from Apple but from all of these companies regarding what the policies are, what they're doing to look into them, how they're enforcing them and making that more transparent.

NNAMDITransparency and full disclosure from your tech companies. If that is of interest to you, give us a call at 800-433-8850. We move on to now to Valentine's Day wishes. I know what John Gilroy wants for Valentine's Day...

GILROYI do, too.

NNAMDI...a swarm of nano quadrotors.

GILROYThat is what I want to see.

NNAMDIWhat is a nano quadrotor?

GILROYThis is very, very hot in the CTO community. And I saw this at CTOvision. I just couldn't believe it. What they're doing is college kids are making robots. We know that. And they're making small robots the size of a hand that can fly. But they can not only fly, they can fly in formation, they go up and down. It just -- it looks like I'm watching the movie "The Terminator" or something. I mean, it's very, very scary.

GILROYIt's, like, well, this is not supposed to happen so quickly. I mean, ostensibly, these are used for disaster recovery. But I can see them be used for a lot of different malicious intent, I would say.

HARLOWSo after you make them fetch your fifth beer, they might decide to revolt and turn against you is what you're saying.

GILROYNow, we finally have a practical use for these small robots. But you could go to kojoshow.com -- I don't know if the link's going to be up there or not -- but they're called quadrotors, and they can fly. And it's just it's -- of all the things I've seen in the last 10 or 15 years, this is one of the scariest things (unintelligible).

NNAMDIHow to make your neighbors really paranoid.

GILROYWell, they'd be paranoid just looking at it. So, yes, it will make you paranoid if you see it.

HARLOWBut, yet, you want one.

GILROYI want 20 of them...

NNAMDIOf course, he wanted them.

GILROYAnd fly in formation and send to Kojo's house.

NNAMDIWe do have a comment from Matt in Washington, D.C., on the earlier conversation we were having. Matt, it's your turn. Go ahead, please.

MATTThank you, Kojo. I just wanted the panel to maybe ask, are there any options for either a cell phone or a laptop that, you know, soup to nuts, from processor to display to casing that doesn't use or doesn't take any parts from these Chinese manufacturers that have these awful working practices? You know, that maybe...

NNAMDIThe product's made top to bottom in the U.S.?

DRUINNot that I know of.

HARLOWYeah. I can't think of -- I mean, there's going to be something, whether it's the storage, whether it's the chips. I mean, some of the stuff is, you know, made in China. Some is made in Taiwan, Malaysia. The processor might be made in Costa Rica by Intel. But as far as having a guilt-free computer, I can't think of a way to do it.

GILROYIt's like cars. I mean, the cars aren't made the same. In fact, one of the problems with PCs now is hard drives got hit by the weather in Thailand. I mean, it's just -- it is a flat world, as our friend Tom Friedman would say.

NNAMDIThe last tech product made completely in the U.S. is now malfunctioning. It's called John Gilroy.

NNAMDIAllison, what is...

GILROYI wasn't made in the United States.

NNAMDIAllison, what is on your Computer Guy or Gal Valentine Day wish list? I've heard rumors about something called an Evernote.

DRUINOh, yes. OK. So this is a nerd alert. This is what my husband Ben wants, OK, for Valentine's Day.

NNAMDIGuaranteed not to get it.

DRUINOK.

DRUINIt's a whole $48. This is called Evernote Premium Update, OK? What is Evernote? Evernote is where you can collect all of your notes, your Web clips, your filings and images and so on, and you can actually have it between a number of different devices. And then you can share it with your friends by sending them URLs for different things. But, with the premium, he doesn't have to look at advertising. He can -- it's got better security, and you can -- and you can actually search within your PDFs.

DRUINSo, anyway, so he's decided that would be the most romantic, amazing Valentine's Day gift in the world. I asked him. I asked him. That's what he wants.

NNAMDIBen, please, join us in the real world.

GILROYYes. Earth to Ben. Earth to Ben.

NNAMDIWe got a tweet from Tinumes. (sp?) "Over 185,000 have signed -- D.C. residents -- at Change Petition asking Apple to protect Chinese workers." That tweet coming into #TechTuesday. You can send yours also. Allison, traditionally, we non-digital natives give old-fashioned flowers and chocolates at Valentine's, but for the Web-focused set, there's now, apparently, an app for that.

DRUINThere's always an app for that, and you know I'll find it. So two free apps. One app is called ProFlower, and you can order fresh flowers and other gifts.

NNAMDIThere goes the Evernote.

DRUINAnd it'll even remind you on other occasions and so on. And then -- I love this one -- the Godiva App. And guess what?

NNAMDISeriously.

DRUINYou can get your chocolate treats and send them. So -- and then...

NNAMDIWake up, John.

DRUINYeah. Come on. And then just in case -- you know, just in case you're one of those Android people, and you're very organized, OK, and you need to see the progress of what you're buying for your loved ones, there is something called a Kiss My Valentine app.

GILROYOh, that was a close one. Dangerous.

GILROYWe'll have to edit that one out.

NNAMDIA Kiss My Valentine app. In case you're just joining us, it's the Computer Guys & Gal.

GILROYYou could kiss my sweet Valentine.

DRUINI know. I knew you'd like that, John.

NNAMDIJohn Gilroy is director of business development at Armature Corporation. Bill Harlow is a hardware and software technician for Macs and PCs at Mid-Atlantic Consulting, Incorporated. And Allison Druin, this week, is dean of -- associate dean of research at the University of Maryland's iSchool and co-director of the Future of...

GILROYOf the future. Incredible.

NNAMDI...Information Alliance. John Gilroy, some more materialistic people are holding up hope for a new iPad 3. But, as usual, nobody knows when it will be coming out, and there's some debate as to whether it makes sense to buy a new version or cheaper, older one. What say you?

GILROYWell, Apple's always been surrounded with hints, intimations, rumors, someone says that, my brother-in-law heard someone at a bar, and someone leaves a sample at a bar, in fact. And no one really knows what's going on. But there's hints that they may go off schedule this year with the -- they don't. I mean, it's -- you've heard them all, haven't you, Bill?

HARLOWI have. And the thing that cracks me up, too, is the schedule, like Apple has ever committed to any sort of schedule. It's our clock, you know, our dates that they're missing, so how can they be late for something they haven't announced yet?

DRUINOh, but didn't they -- didn't you hear the rumor that they might release the iPad 3 on Feb. 24, which is Steve Jobs' birthday?

HARLOWI heard the rumor that they might not, too.

GILROYOh, my god.

DRUINYeah. If you want an iPad 3 for Valentine's Day, you better get an IOU.

HARLOWExactly.

GILROYYou can talk about a launch cycle with Apple, which really -- I mean, that's really pushing it. It's -- but there is a launch cycle that may be delayed. So we'll just have to see what happens, and I'm sure there are people in this room who will run out and buy it.

DRUINOh, come on. Don't you think that iPad 3 is going to be totally worth it 'cause it's -- that amazing high-res screen, and then the camera's going to be better, and you're going to be able to get 4G LTE. Come on. You know you're going to get one.

NNAMDIAs we said --- as we said...

HARLOWAnd it will be made in America, too. That's the other rumor.

GILROYOh, yeah. Right. Yeah.

DRUINOh, yeah (word?).

NNAMDIAs we said, someone in this room, but that, of course, seems to remain anonymous. We're going to be taking a short break. When we come back, we'll continue this conversation with the Computer Guys & Gal. Inviting your calls at 800-433-8550, or you can send email to kojo@wamu.org, or simply go to our website, kojoshow.org. Talk with the Computer Guys & Gal there. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWe're talking with the Computer Guys & Gal. Why? It's the first Tuesday of the month, so that's why Bill Harlow is here. He's a hardware and software technician for Macs and PCs at Mid Atlantic Consulting Incorporated. Allison Druin is associate dean for research at the University of Maryland's iSchool and co-director of the Future of Information Alliance, and John Gilroy is director of business development at Armature Corporation.

NNAMDIWe got several responses about revelations about factory conditions and whether they would change people's behavior. We got this tweet from @sanggisummer, (sp?) "Great topic. This made me realize I do the right thing only when convenient." We got a tweet from @psmart, (sp?) who says, "Answer is very simple. People need to stop consuming these products." Yeah, right. "Our need is marketing-driven. Ninety-nine percent are responsible." Well, we'll have to see how that turns out.

NNAMDIYon can call to offer your opinion also, 800-433-8850, or send email to kojo@wamu.org. Have revelations about factory conditions in China made you question your tech purchases? On to Facebook, "Is it worth $100 billion? The company is going public, and that huge number is the one that's being thrown around. But the filing is also telling us a lot we didn't know about Facebook, its investors and where we think the Web is heading." Is that correct?

HARLOWWhat's funny is that when (unintelligible) how much I really didn't care. I mean...

DRUINJust jealous.

HARLOWWell, no. Well, sure. But, you know...

HARLOW...billions of dollars, that's -- now you're talking. But, I mean, the more interesting to me is just simply, OK, they're a publicly traded company now, so, you know, if anything adversely affects them as a business, they have to report it. So if there's something they're doing policy-wise as far as privacy goes that negatively impacts their business, we're going to hear about it. So, to me, that's more interesting. It could be a more transparent Facebook just based on the rules here, and that's what I want to see going forward.

DRUINBut, you know, the other -- the thing about the risk factors is that it's, in fact, risk factors for almost any company that's going to be getting into the social media area. And, basically, you know, there's really three very major areas that could take them down in terms of, you know, the market price at any given time, which is, you know, if they have challenges with their advertising and suddenly somebody wants to restrict certain parts of their advertising, then their bottom line goes down.

DRUINThere may be also problems, you know, breaches in their data security, and then you've got problems with, you know, how much people can access and privacy and so on. And then you also have your IP protection. I mean, how much are they, you know, able to protect their intellectual property because some of this stuff is built on open software? So it's, you know, Facebook is just a wonderful example of where we're all going to be heading in the future when it comes to these IPOs.

NNAMDIWhat do say, John?

GILROYWell, you know, just take a look at these iPads, you know? Five years ago, the business didn't exist. Now, it's a $33-billion business. It went from I don't know what to five years. And Facebook came out of nowhere. And now all of a sudden this -- what's going to happen in the future? When I look at Facebook, it seems to me it's a walled garden, much like the AOL was years ago and CompuServe years ago. It seems like it's too limiting. Although, I see more and more businesses, instead of advertising their website, they're advertising their Facebook page.

NNAMDII saw an article this morning that said that kids in India are getting away from social networks in general and Facebook in particular. They find that their mobiles allow them to connect one-on-one a lot more, and that's where they're trending at this point. We don't know, of course, what that trend is likely to be in this country.

HARLOWThings change too quickly to predict. But we have someone who's director of the future so...

NNAMDIFacebook presides over an ocean of use of data, which is part of the reason why it's being valued at such astronomical levels, and we seem to be beginning to see how the company might use that data in new ways. During the Republican primary in South Carolina, Facebook cut an exclusive deal with Politico, granting the news outlet exclusive access to data about users' political postings. The deal raised some red flags about privacy, but they also point of possible new uses for social media data that might be shared or sold in the future, Allison.

DRUINWell, I mean, this is interesting because, now, you say to yourself nobody else has access to this data, so nobody can confirm or deny whether or not the results are actually valid. So this presents an enormous question about, you know, about even the validity of what we find on these massive data sets and what is the notion of actually even mining these data sets in the future? And how much do you want it to be only between two companies? And how much can you allow, you know, university researchers in there to be able to, at least, confirm this stuff, so that you're not saying, well, is that the truth or is it?

NNAMDIGood question. We'll leave it unanswered. Here is...

NNAMDI...Suzie. You're on air. Go ahead, please. Hi, Suzie. Are you there?

SUZIEOh, I'm here. Yep. I didn't hear you 'cause my son is (unintelligible). I was calling about the issue of the consumer and our needs for electronic devices. And I don't think that it's something that we can cut off altogether, but I do think it is something that we seriously have to consider, the society, because we're just -- not only are we putting pressure on foreign countries to make this for us, but we're creating huge wastes. And I'll take my answer off the air.

NNAMDIWell, I'll respond first with an email we got from Eric, who says, "Even though I'm a fan of free trade, maybe that we have to go back to trade regulations where we state what we expect of products and services we consume. The rules for import, no child labor." OK, we covered that. "No lead paint." OK, we've covered that. "No other toxins." More or less covered. "Not created by cutting rainforest." Not sure. "Workers work only 40-hour weeks." Not even so in the U.S.

NNAMDI"Workers earn enough to pay for a decent living, minimum wages that are sufficient for sustaining someone. Workers have health insurance." Not even so in the U.S., "Et cetera." That's the kind of checklist I don't think that the average iPod purchaser is likely to go through. But, I guess, Eric is suggesting that maybe that's what we should be doing, going through that kind of checklist.

DRUINWell, it's a big business opportunity. Anybody want to make this in the U.S.? Come on. Step up, man. This will be -- this would be quite the selling point. Of course, it would probably cost you about three times as much, so you got to decide how much is priced.

HARLOWThat would reduce the waste, though. If we can't afford to replace things on a regular schedule, that will definitely reduce waste.

DRUINThere is no question.

NNAMDIAnd if you can make it affordable -- remember when Google said its goal was not to be -- to not be evil.

DRUINYes.

NNAMDIIt was so young and idealistic then. It was easy to fall in love with, and fall in love we did. We used them for all of our searching needs. We marveled at the cool services they unveiled for email and maps. But then something happened, Bill. Our search partner started acting, well, different. It became enamored with social networks like Facebook, and it started to change.

HARLOWI don't think it's enamored or anything than getting more of our data personally and selling it. And, you know, the social networks have offered. They're going to, you know, make something like Google Plus and try to get us to use that. But notice they're being a little more evil. That just means they're growing up, Kojo. That's all that means.

HARLOWThey're big boys now. But the thing that was...

NNAMDIThe ideals have disappeared.

HARLOWExactly. So, yeah, they're members of the real world now is what I'm saying. So what I thought was interesting was, in Kenya, there is a business called Mocality, and it's kind of like a directory for budding Kenyan businesses. And these guys were noticing that there are some patterns in their data, and they eventually traced it back to Google, that Google was somehow scraping their data. And they wanted to find out why.

HARLOWSo they -- on a few of these hits, they redirect it to call the Mocality offices and answered and impersonated the businesses that Google thought they were contacting...

DRUINOh, wow.

HARLOW...and found out that Google was actually misrepresenting themselves of partnering with Mocality and signing them up for services. Now, I don't, for a second, think that this is Google's MO. I think that it's something like a much smaller sect, if you will, within Google that's doing this. But still, I thought this sting was pretty impressive. And now to be fair to Google also, they exposed -- when this was exposed, they apologized to Mocality profusely. They said this is definitely not what we're going to do. We're looking into this.

HARLOWI haven't heard what the total fallout is from it, but stuff like this is going on more and more, I think. And as Google expands, you know, maybe -- be a little more careful with who they hire or who they partner with.

NNAMDIWell, Allison, Google recently announced big changes to its search engine, making the search more social, and some people think this could change its relationship in a profound way. What is social research -- social search?

DRUINWell -- social search. Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but if you do, just go and do a regular Google search. And you see the...

NNAMDII've noticed.

DRUINOK. You see the search results. On the very top of your search results, there's now a line that says personal results. And those personal results are actually pointing to anybody in your Google Plus circles that actually refers to that topic. So if you search on cats or cooking, you're going to get anybody that's referring to that. And that's a little bit scary because they made an enormous business on being able to define what the most popular or the most relevant search results would be.

DRUINAnd then all the sudden they're saying nope. At the top of your page, now your eye is going to the personal. Now, you can turn it off, by the way, OK? So -- but it's not easy to find. This was interesting. I was looking at it, going, I know you can turn this thing off. Well, you actually have to slide your page over to the right, and you can then actually see two extra icons, and there's a little globe there that says -- that actually is -- you can click on that, and that actually will be moving you to a global search, the one you're used to.

DRUINBut it doesn't -- right now, it doesn't mix these two together. But it is a little bit disconcerting because how then -- are people really only going to stick to their searches among their friends, and how valid is that.

NNAMDIOn to the telephones. Here is Dick in Washington, D.C. Dick, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

DICKThank you. It seems to me that to my simple mind that there's nothing technologically revolutionary here. They reassemble existing technologies in an interesting way. But at least it was no modus, Warren Buffett says. They think their business plan or model is going to be sustainable because there is no mode. Others can enter the field. That's my question.

NNAMDII'm not sure I understand the question.

DICKWell, is their business model sustainable because there is no mode, it seems to me?

NNAMDIWhose business model?

DICKFacebook.

NNAMDIOh, OK. We're talking Facebook here. Is Facebook...

DICKDid I miss a point or something?

NNAMDIYou missed saying that word. Is Facebook's business model sustainable? What do you think?

DRUINWell, they've been going strong for five years, and they also crushed a few other social networks on -- in the process. They -- and it is what a lot of folks are replicating their social media companies on. So for the moment, this is the game in town.

HARLOWYeah, I don't think -- I think that's a good call because what you said is true. They aren't going anywhere, and a lot of social networks have -- they haven't really taken off. This one is established. And other, you know, micro networks like -- micro is not the accurate word, but Twitter, which has its own network, people often will have their tweets sent to Facebook. So Facebook seems to be like the dumping ground for a lot of the other stuff we do as well. That's where all this information kind of funnels towards.

DRUINYeah, though people have been coming away from Facebook and going to Twitter. And, in fact, actually, you're seeing that a lot with the younger crowd. So, you know, this is not to say they're going to be forever, but it is -- it's to say it's now, and it's been growing, and there's going to be the next version of this. But, yeah, it's not new now but because -- that's because it's been around for a while.

NNAMDIDick, thank you very much for your call. John Gilroy, the Web is full of scammers trying to dupe users into turning over their credit card data. And a new study explores exactly who the ideal mark is for cyber scammers. Apparently, the most susceptible target, victim, is a low-income, high school educated woman between the age of 18 and 25 in the Southwest. And the least susceptible is a male aged 56 to 65 with an advanced degree who lives in the Midwest. Where does that leave you?

GILROYIt leaves me not falling for a scam.

GILROYI love these scams. I used to know a guy who wasn't working, and he used to have a scam of the month. One month, he'd be selling Christmas trees. A month, he's selling Valentines, and we called it scam of the month club. And this is similar to this scam of the month club here. And I just think that many youngsters or digital natives, as what they call them, I think, they just assume things that, let's say, people my age, over 20...

HARLOWSo technically savvy but not streetwise?

GILROY(unintelligible) Yeah, and so they may not have -- I mean, Kojo and I can remember going to the gas stations and having some guy -- want to buy a Bulova watch? And he'd whole armful of watches, you know? I mean, we've seen...

NNAMDIAnd they would have names like Abulova. (sp?)

GILROYYeah, or Bolivia. Want to buy a watch? And so we've seen a lot of scams. And so I think people are just -- if you're raised in electronic media, you may trust it more than others. And it's interesting -- is that the folks earning over $200,000, the 1 percent, aren't as susceptible as these digital natives. So it's a fun little study to see, and I think it just -- it reinforces the fact that our listeners should be wary about anything they see. And they see these trends, and they see the things that happen.

GILROYAnd with handheld devices, you're more vulnerable because you're going to click on something quicker than you would do on the screen. So it's just -- it's a perfect storm for the scam of the month club.

NNAMDIThat study even waded into political territory, finding that Republicans and Democrats were about equally likely to be victims, while members of some alternative parties, like the Tea Party or the Green Party, rated better. Independents were found a little bit...

GILROY'Cause they don't trust anybody.

HARLOWExactly.

NNAMDIIndependents that coveted demographic of both parties we're found to be the most vulnerable.

GILROYHmm.

DRUINHmm.

NNAMDISo I don't know if the relationship between scamming and being appealing for the two political parties. Here is Mark in Vienna, Va. Mark, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

MARKOh, thank you. I'm just having an issue for a while. I am using Cox as my Internet provider. And when I'm using their Web interface to get to my email, I'm often getting a pop-up on the page where I'm doing my login username and password. And I'm having this issue both whether I'm using Windows XP or Windows 7 and whether I'm using Firefox or whether I'm using Internet Explorer.

MARKAnd the pop-up is essentially saying that this encrypted page comes with unencrypted information, and a third-party can easily see any information that I enter into this page. Well, I know this is caused by fact that Cox is putting advertisements up there, which are coming from this party. Now, when I talked to Cox, they're turning around and saying, our servers are very secure, and nobody can see your information.

MARKOn the other hand, I got Microsoft with Internet Explorer, and I got Mozilla with Firefox telling me that people can see the information that I enter onto this page. So my first question is, can I believe Cox? I think I know the answer to that. And my second question is, how can I bring some pressure on Cox to get them to address the issue?

GILROYWell, I think some listeners may have similar type of problems, and one quick solution is to try Chrome. My experience is, a lot of times, you run Chrome. It's fast. It solves a lot of these problems, and so that's -- it's real quick, but that's really not the issue.

HARLOWYeah, I think in this case, it's specifically how that website is developed. It's just -- there is an encrypted login, but then I think it's the system warning that any browser is going to give you. And if Chrome didn't, it's because it's not showing you the pop-up. But the issue is still there, which is simply that -- yeah, it's doing some steps securely, but in other stuff, it's not -- it may not be sent securely. And that's not really unique to Cox. There are plenty of logins where you may see that sort of thing.

HARLOWThere's a Microsoft setting you use that says something similar, and I know what it means, and I just choose OK. I know the risk, so I'm going to hit OK. I don't know how you're going to put the pressure on Cox. I get the feeling it's probably not a high priority for them. I don't know if it ever will be, and I'm sure a lot of people won't even look into it.

GILROYWhat if he's getting his mail from Cox? Just switch. I mean, just move to a different server. Move to Gmail server or something.

HARLOWYeah. Try a different mail provider, exactly.

GILROYOr, you know, vote with your feet and cancel.

NNAMDIMark, thank you very much for your call. You've been offered several options. You can choose one of those. In response to our earlier conversation about Apple manufacturing products in China, we got an email from Heidi, who says, "In a commentary written after The New York Times article, one writer suggested sending an equal amount of money to a human rights organization as that spent on the item.

NNAMDI"Example: if you spent $500 buying an iPad, send $500 to an organization that supports workers' rights. Also, recycle these heavy materials." That sounds like, also, make a lot of money.

NNAMDIWe're going to be taking a short break. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with The Computer Guys & Gal. But you can still call with your comments and questions, 800-433-8850. Send us a tweet at #TechTuesday, email to kojo@wamu.org. Or go to our website, kojoshow.org. Ask a question or make a comment there. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIIt's our Valentine preview show with The Computer Guys & Gal.

GILROY(unintelligible) too much fun.

NNAMDIAllison Druin is associate dean for research at the University of Maryland's iSchool and co-director of the Future of Information Alliance. John Gilroy is director of business development at Armature Corporation, and Bill Harlow is a hardware and software technician for Macs & PCs at Mid-Atlantic Consulting, Inc. There are lots of legitimate uses for file-sharing services over the Web, but the entertainment industry has long complained that sites like Megaupload were harboring illegal activities.

NNAMDILast month, the federal government went after Megaupload, and the charging documents sure seem to hint that there was indeed a lot of shady activities going on. What is going on there, Bill?

HARLOWA lot of shady activities, Kojo.

GILROYShady.

HARLOWSo, yeah, it's basically a play set. It makes it easy for you to upload a file, any file, and provide a download link so other people can download it. And you know what? That's a great way to share movies and music illegally, it turns out, so that seems to be what most the traffic was. And what's really fascinating, too, is, apparently, Megaupload traffic, it tends to bring down the Internet.

HARLOWWhat I mean by this is you look at, like, corporate networks and Internet usage, and Megaupload is right up there as one of the more popular things people are using. And, yeah, it's probably to download questionable material. And what's funny, too, is that it seems pretty clear from the documents we're seeing that Megaupload staff knew all along and were playing along and sometimes partaking the material themselves. So, eventually, you know, they were raided, and their servers were taken.

HARLOWAnd we also got a little more information about the man behind it, Kim Schmitz, who goes by Kim Dotcom. And with him out of the picture, John, I think, is going to change his name to John Dotcom and…

GILROYJohn Dotcom. Kojo Dotcom.

HARLOWThe space is wide open. You can do it, John.

DRUINYeah.

NNAMDIWell, Allison Druin changes her professional title, it seems like, every other month.

DRUINI'm telling you, you don't have a problem with that.

GILROYMega World Peace works, too.

DRUINIt's the future of information, really.

NNAMDIWhy not John Dotcom?

DRUINI don't know, really. It's branding.

NNAMDIHere we go to Gretchen in Washington, D.C. Gretchen, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

GRETCHENHi, Kojo. I think this is a great topic. I wanted to get back to the initial topic about the ethics of buying Apple products...

NNAMDIYes.

GRETCHEN...when the workers are being so poorly treated. I'm just -- I love my iPhone. I really don't want to stop buying Apple products. But are there ways that your guests can suggest that we can put more pressure on Apple? I know there's a petition, but is there a place on Apple's website where people can register comments? Or do they have any thoughts about, you know, really putting some pressure on Apple and getting Apple to respond?

NNAMDIThoughts? You're asking, The Computer Guys & Gal to have thoughts?

GILROYI say Occupy Android.

DRUINYeah.

GILROYThat's the only answer I can...

DRUINWell, you can use social media. I mean, in fact, actually tweeting about this. They have people at Apple that spend most of their day looking at the social media logs...

HARLOWRight.

DRUIN...to see what people are saying. This past month, a number of sites went black and dark because they were fighting against piracy, you know, fighting against the laws that so-called would restrict piracy but, in fact, actually would restrict rights for other things. And so the more that people online take a stand, actually, the more people notice. So, in fact, I would suggest, you know, go online, either on Facebook, Twitter, any of your social media outlets, and start tweeting and talking about it.

NNAMDIIf you go to our website, you'll find a link to a story on "This American Life" with a guy who actually went to the headquarters of Foxconn and shot video there. So there are a lot of things you might want to do. Gretchen, thank you very much for your call. And speaking of wanting to do, Bill, in January, we saw how the power of a couple of million Twitter and social media users can literally beat back one of the most powerful lobbying forces in Washington when Congress effectively reversed course on the rigid anti-piracy legislation known as SOPA.

NNAMDIThose protests centered on possible consequences of a crackdown on legal activities. But you flagged an interesting piece by the folks at Freakonomics, which actually questioned the numbers behind the piracy debate.

HARLOWYeah. I've long thought about this myself when I see numbers referring to, like, you know, software piracy or video piracy. They throw out, you know, all the, like, hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenue, and I always wondered where they got that from. And, you know, my gut told me that seems awfully high. You know, certainly, a lot of people who pirate stuff were never going to buy this in the first place. So they were taking a look at it, and they said, the reality is we don't really know what the numbers are.

HARLOWBut a lot of these are going to be pulled out of thin air based on that assumption, that, yeah, every pirated item is a lost sale when that's not the case. So I encourage people to check that link because, you know, by no means is piracy a victimless crime but things being blown away out of proportion, to the point where I think stuff like SOPA or PIPA seem to really focus too much on overly aggressive enforcement.

NNAMDIOn to David in Silver Spring, Md. David, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

DAVIDYes. I want to first bring to your attention the fact there are actually fake iTunes updates that were created, most notably, by a British firm called FinFisher, as reported on NPR, as well as in The Wall Street Journal, that are meant for essentially being downloaded onto the person's machine and allow, shall we say, nefarious sources out there to take over the machine and do things like use the webcam on the machine as well as the microphone on it.

DAVIDThere also, like, fake Microsoft updates that, unless you are downloading these things from a secured wired network, you are -- and you're checking the MB5 codes on them, you are probably going to put yourself in a situation where you are going to download software into your computer that will be installed at the sysadmin level that will essentially give the attacker complete control of your machine.

DAVIDThat means that they'll be able to, say, install virtual machine-type software so that -- imagine running AVG or some other antivirus software. They will be able to effectively put your copy of Windows and your copy of Mac OS X into a sandbox and it will say, oh, I don't see anything that's amiss. But if you ...

NNAMDITo what...

DAVIDOne way that you can -- come again?

NNAMDII was going to ask, David, to what extent have you identified this as a trend?

DAVIDWell, it's a trend because the fact of the matter is that, like that fake iTunes update was created by a firm in Britain purposefully to be...

NNAMDII don't know. I'll ask our computer guys and gal. Have any of you heard anything about this at all?

GILROYNothing trending in folks I know.

HARLOWI mean, I've heard about it. I know this exists. My understanding is it was designed for law enforcement, but I think, you know, they will sell it to other people as well. But as far as it being, like, a widespread phenomenon, I don't think so.

DRUINYou just have to be careful about what you actually click on. And, unfortunately, this is a perfect example of, unfortunately, the worst that could possibly happen to you.

NNAMDIHere is -- thank you for your call, David. Here is Yeta (sp?) in Fairfax, Va. Yeta, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

YETAYeah. Hey, Kojo. Thanks for taking my call. I have sort of a stump your chump kind of question. I know it's the wrong show, but I...

NNAMDINo chumps here.

GILROYIt's not me.

YETAI've exhausted all of my available resource. I just recently bought a new Android phone, which I love. It has this really cool Google voice search feature, which, when I installed one of my Gmail accounts, or both of those -- I have two Gmail accounts -- ceases to function. Now, if I install a brand-new Gmail account, it works fine, but my two existing Gmail accounts, it does not work.

NNAMDIWell, in with the new, out with the old, apparently, is the philosophy behind that. But I don't know if anybody can tell you what's going on the edge. Bill?

HARLOWNo, I wouldn't -- from what you're describing, I'd definitely check more on the Google's software side of things. I don't know if it's necessarily that phone. The problem is that there are so many different manufacturers of Android phones. We have no idea what version of the Android OS is running on there. I don't know what it could be. I would say, you know, check to see if there are any updates available for that phone.

HARLOWKeep your installed apps as updated as possible, maybe something related to that. There might be bug fixes. And the other thing, too, is depending on the brand of phone, it might be a while before you even have access to those bug fixes. Just try to hang in there and check every so often to see if there's a new Android update for that device.

DRUINYeah. And they have a limitation on how many accounts you can actually upload to and so on, and you just don't know because of the software, the versions.

NNAMDIThank you very much for your call. Good luck to you, Yeta. Speaking of voice features, Allison, is Siri a data hog? Last month, The Washington Post Paul Farhi wrote a provocative question asking just that question and provoked a spirited defense from some Apple, well, defenders.

DRUINWell, yeah. It actually -- Siri, you know, which is the voice activation on your iPhone to actually -- you know, you ask it a question and it's going to go and look for something to answer it with. And...

NNAMDIAnd don't curse at Siri either, please.

DRUINYeah, don't, and don't tell Siri you love it because it's not going to say...

GILROYLove.

DRUIN...it knows what love is. But anyway. But it actually uses twice as much data as plain old iPhone 4, and actually three times as much...

HARLOWYou're talking about the iPhone 4S in general, not Siri.

DRUINYeah. Well, the iPhone 4S uses twice as much data as the iPhone 4, and three times as much as the 3G, and, essentially, you know, it's congesting the networks. And the question is, is there going to be a limitation to this at a certain point? Now, I think, honestly, we just have to make these kinds of automated systems just more efficient. Because this is the beginning of a generation of voice activation, I think that's what we're looking at as more than anything. Yes, it's going to increase our data. But the question is is how much more efficient can we be at accessing that data?

HARLOWMy understanding is Siri is awfully efficient. So if there's a lot of data hogging going on in iPhone 4S's, from what I've read, it probably isn't Siri. It could just be, you know, someone like me who, oh, look at me, I bought a new iPhone 4s. I'm going to download everything. That's -- I would guess it's more what's going on. In fact, Druin, I can shoot video at high resolution. I can take photos at high resolution. Anytime I send those...

DRUINYeah.

HARLOW...it's going to skyrocket. iMessage, that new service, which I use pretty much exclusively instead of text messaging, uses data rather than going SMS. So all that can contribute to the actual increased data usage as well.

DRUINYeah. And, actually, one of the things they're finding with Siri is that once people have it for a few weeks, they use it much less.

HARLOWYeah, it tapers off.

DRUINYeah.

HARLOWI use it only for a few essential things now.

DRUINYeah.

NNAMDIWell, speaking of the earlier conversation we had about Google Plus, we got an email from Sally, who says, "Allison just said that Google brings up the personal search only if you're a Google Plus member. I never joined Google Plus, and yesterday I got the banner message she described. It was just plain creepy. The match they got was someone whose webpage I've looked at and may have gotten Gmail from. It left me feeling that Google has gone from being a search engine to being Big Brother."

NNAMDIThis email we got from Constance in Silver Spring. "Are there any alternatives to Google as a search engine? As a freelance writer, I do research on a lot of different subjects, so I need accurate search for my current subject, not a personal search based on the previous subject. I've gone back to AltaVista, but it seems pretty primitive compared to Google. Any ideas?"

NNAMDIWell, Joshua Topolsky from The Verge recently had an article in The Washington Post on this topic. He flagged the following search engines: Bing, DuckDuckGo, Blekko and Wolfram|Alpha. We'll post a link to those on our website. Bill, video games used to be considered a low art form, but two museum exhibits are challenging that: one video installation currently on display, and one major exhibition coming next month.

HARLOWYeah. So there's one going on very soon -- if not now, actually -- Jonathan Monaghan's video game-inspired art. So he makes rendered -- pre-rendered CG movie movies, and this one is called "Sacrifice in the Mushroom Kingdom." It's sort of a hodgepodge of characters from, like, the Mario universe...

DRUINI love that title.

GILROYI would never waste my time with a -- shoot me first. Take me outside and shoot me first.

DRUINOh, come on. Just don't give me options.

HARLOWYou know, mixed up with pop culture. You and B grad.

DRUINYeah.

NNAMDIThere's a guy coming to take John outside and shoot him.

DRUINOh, please. Hurray.

GILROYPlease.

HARLOWSo then drag him kicking and screaming from the Curator's Office to the Smithsonian American Art Museum to see their video games art exhibition. They're kicking that off next month. They've got a game fest for the inauguration of this. And it's pretty cool 'cause they're going to have, in addition to the art on display, musical performances and open play space and panel discussion. So I'll be there, and I'm sure John will be too.

GILROYYeah, panel discussion. How delightful that would be.

NNAMDIJust for details, the "Sacrifice of the Mushroom Kingdom" is on display at Curator's...

GILROYNo.

NNAMDI...Office gallery at 1515 14th Street Northwest through Feb. 18. The other exhibit, Smithsonian's "Art of Video Games" exhibition, kicks off with game fest starting Friday, March 16, at the American Art Museum. We'll be kicking off a three-day game fest, featuring panel discussions, film screaming -- screenings...

GILROYI'll be screaming, too.

DRUINIt's the future. Come on.

NNAMDI...and musical performances.

DRUINIt's great.

GILROYGeez.

DRUINIt's great.

NNAMDIAnd, finally, we go to Andrew in Washington, D.C. Andrew, you may have the last word. Go ahead, please.

ANDREWHey, guys. You know, I've been following a lot of the different piracy things, and I got to go up to New York and actually see "The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs." And a lot of these things have really got me thinking that we might be in a phase like we were in the -- at the start of TV and radio and the -- and post-industrial America, I guess.

ANDREWWe're getting to the point where I'm starting to think that business models in general, whether it be piracy or whether it be, you know, Apple products, just really need to change. I feel that's really where the direction is heading to. Just everyone is so resistant to it. I mean, could you imagine how well a "cruelty-free and hate" in the United States, like, computer tablet would actually sell in the United States?

GILROYNot for $1,000. I mean...

HARLOWNot for $2,000.

GILROYYeah.

HARLOWI remember when computers in general were -- you know, I could buy a computer or a car.

GILROYYeah. You split $4,000 each. Yeah. I can't see Americans switching.

NNAMDII promised you the last word, Andrew. Sorry. But thank you...

NNAMDI...thank you very much for calling. John Gilroy is director of business development at Armature Corporation. Bill Harlow is hardware and software technician for Macs and PCs at Mid Atlantic Consulting Inc. And Allison Druin is associate dean for research at the University of Maryland's iSchool and co-director of the Future of Information Alliance. Thank you all for listening. Find love on Valentine's Day. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.