Letter from an Air Force Family in Fukushima and Yokota

I am usually leery of "humanitarian aid" requests from anyone other than the well-known international agencies immediately after major natural disasters -- in my profession I am keenly aware of the ways scammers will take advantage of major events to prey on our good will.

However, in this case two personal friends are involved in collecting and delivering aid to the people of Fukushima that have been largely passed over due to the fear of radiation exposure.  I went to college with Michelle and Aron, and spent many hours serving alongside them at the Baptist Student Ministry.  I trust that what they are doing is legitimate.

Michelle's message follows:

Subject: Fukushima relief please forward

My name is Michelle Pena, a proud American, military wife at Yokota AB! My husband, Capt. Aron Pena, a United States Air Force officer is working directly in delivering humanitarian relief to the Japanese people through the C-130 Hercules. We are members of Yokota Baptist Church (http://www.yokotabaptist.org) and have collaborated with our friend, Wendy Iwamoto, director of Cross English School in supporting relief efforts specifically to the people of Fukushima prefecture who have limited resources due to the fear of radiation exposure.

As you may have seen via the media, many agencies are helping the victims here. We, too, are joining together in assisting our community. Here is information from our friend Wendy:

******************************************************Dear friends and families,

As you know, a massive earthquake and tsunami struck the Northern Japan and it has sparked a nuclear crisis in Japan. Right now Japan is more in the life-saving, immediate-response mode. This has led to a delay in the recovering acts in the disaster-stricken area. Although lots of efforts have been put in to deliver relief goods to the victims in the devastated areas where hundreds of thousands of them are forced to stay in the evacuation centres, it is still not enough. As has been reported in the news, from the fear of radiation in Fukushima, very little aids and helps have reached the victims there. They have been bypassed although they are desperately in need of primary supplies such as food, medicines and water. Thereupon, a volunteering group under Global Mission Chapel in Iwaki City in Fukushima Prefecture has stood up and took a leading role in delivering the relief goods to the victims there directly with their own trucks and vehicles. Here at Cross English School (where I work), we are deeply touched and encouraged by their courage in showing their love by risking their own lives. In response to that, we have decided to show our support by setting up a relief goods collecting center here. What we do is, we let people who want to make their donation of relief goods know that they can bring them to us at Cross English School within operating hours. We will divide the goods according to their categories and have them picked up to be distributed to the victims in Fukushima Prefecture.

Information:
Operating hours: Weekdays (Mon-Fri 2-6p.m.) from 22nd of March to 8th of April.
Where: Cross English School
197-0024 Court Advance 202, Ushihama 128, Fussa-City.
(right in front of t he East exit of Ushihama station)
What we need: Food, medicine, baby products (diapers, wipers, formula, bottles, baby food etc), adult-diapers, blankets and so on.
Persons in charge: Wendy Iwamoto, Mami Otsuba
Contact: 042-539-2299

The flow of the distributing route:
Cross English School (Ushihama) →Tokyo Shibuya Gospel Church (Shibuya, Tokyo) →Global Mission Centre (Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture) →different evacuation centers, homes for the aged, hospitals and so on (the disaster-stricken areas)
For those of you who can send your relief goods directly to the following address in Shibuya, Tokyo, please do so. This will enable the distributing process goes smoother hence faster. However, please do not try to send them directly to Fukushima because all the delivery companies have stopped their routes there.
Tokyo Shibuya Fukuin Kyoukai
150-0036 Nanpeidai-Machi 6-17, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

TEL 03-3463-1364　
FAX 03-3463-1369　
E-mail [email protected]

Information on the volunteering group in Fukushima
Name: Global Mission Centre
Conducted by: Global Mission Chapel(Taira kirisuto Fukuin Church)
Director: Pastor Moriaki
Leaders on the spot: Pastor Ikarashi Yoshitaka, Pastor Abe Toshiya
Address: Amako-Mchi2-7, Taira Aza, Iwaki-City, Fukushima Prefecture.
What they do: Collecting and distributing the relief goods, Counseling, providing shelters and so on. Currently, they are in partnership with the city hall of Iwaki City as they carry out their activities there.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. May God bless you and be with you always.

In Christ,
Wendy Iwamoto
(School Manager of Cross English School)

***********************************************************************************************

How can you help? We are asking for monetary contributions so that items can be bought here. It would save money on shipping as it can be very expensive to ship to Japan. We can guarantee that 100% of the funds will be used for the victims of the Fukushima prefecture. A receipt will be provided for tax purposes.

Please send any money contributions via check to:

Yokota Baptist Church

C/o Michelle Pena
PSC 78 Box 3086
APO, AP 96326

Any questions, please contact me at 210-881-4360 (Japan time is 14 hours ahead of US central time), email at [email protected], via Skype name michellefpena, or Facebook – Michelle Flores Pena.

Why I am passionate about Awana

I’d like to take a break from my generally technology-oriented postings to talk about something else I am passionate about.  I spend a great deal of my personal time involved in my local church – using my career skills to support our technology needs, yes, but also teaching youth Sunday School, and running our Awana kids’ program.

I heard someone say yesterday that once the Baby Boomers die off, so will religion. I disagree with his reasoning – that an “enlightened” new generation has discovered religion is merely a way of controlling the unenlightened – but embedded in his statement is a nugget of truth. Christianity is, always has been, and always will be, one generation removed from extinction. Faith in Christ is an intensely personal decision. My parents’ faith shaped me, but does not save me. My grandparents’ faith is a powerful example to me – but it is not my faith. I will one day have to meet Jesus face to face and make an accounting for my decision – not my parents’ decision, not my grandparents’ decision.

108 to 3

A few weeks ago, I heard a story in the news.  The story is not what bothered me, though.  It’s the response to the story – and to others like it in recent years.  A high school girls’ basketball team in Utah beat another team by the score of 108 to 3.  The response was outcry against the victorious team.  The victor should have quit trying, quit making baskets, avoided making the other team look bad.  At the risk of controversy, I’m going to say that’s the wrong message to send the next generation.

A home network security primer

I just gave a career-day talk on computer security to the 1st grade class at my kids' elementary school.  If you think public speaking in front of adults is hard, try talking to 75 six- and seven-year-olds!  While they seemed to love the various hacking and countermeasure stories, for some reason they latched on to the idea of hacking cars, and for the rest of the talk kept asking questions about air bags...

During my talk, one of the adults asked how I recommend securing a home network, and what I do at home.  The answer would have been over the heads of 1st-graders, and taken longer than the time I was alotted, so I thought I'd address it in the form of a blog. There are four things I see as the foundation to a secure home network: always installing the latest patches, a firewall to keep bad stuff from coming in, a web filter to keep you from accidentally getting to bad stuff, and an antivirus program to catch and remove the bad stuff that will inevitably fall through the cracks.

This has absolutely nothing to do with security...

 ...and yet, it does.  I could also have titled this post missing the forest for the trees.  I had an interesting experience recently (two, actually), that I thought really drove home a point we in the information security field, and in fact in any field that makes rules, often forget.  We forget the reason for rules, or we do not adequately express the reasons to those that must follow the rules.  The result can be quite frustrating to those required to comply.

I recently spent a week in Costa Rica - a beautiful country, I might add, but also my first experience outside the United States and its immediate neighbors, so there were a few cultural and communication challenges to overcome.  One evening, after signing out and calling for a taxi to take me to my hotel, I decided to check my personal email while waiting in the lobby.  I had a half hour to wait, and didn't want to sit there bored for a half hour.  

The Bank of iTunes

As a security professional, I am more aware than most of the risk of identity theft and financial fraud.  So some may find it odd that I was an early adopter of, and am a big fan of, online banking.  After all, isn’t that how one’s identity is stolen?  Isn’t online banking the quickest path to financial fraud?  Well, no, and yes.

The interconnectedness of the Internet and the myriad financial transactions that take place across it certainly expose me to risks I would not face in a brick-and-mortar branch.  A fraudster no longer has to interact with me face-to-face, and a modern-day bank robber no longer has to go after the physical vault (though they still do, as recent stories from Folsom and Austin show).  Instead, he or she can attack the bank electronically, or plant malware on my PC to steal login credentials (it is far less likely for someone to intercept the communication between my PC and the bank, due to encryption technology).

Have we reached the "Jetsons Age" yet?

This week, I saw several seemingly-unrelated articles, one (a video) on eavesdropping Bluetooth headsets, one on automotive hacking, and one on attacking the keyless ignition system popular on some newer cars.  These topics have been in the news quite a bit in the past year (albeit mostly back page), and it got me to thinking.  Our world is evolving.  Entertainment, convenience, and transportation devices are increasingly Internet-aware, bringing us ever more convenience, ever more capability. 

I love that I can play mp3 music from my DLNA server using my Blu-ray player.  I love that I can stream movies from Netflix using my Wii or my Blu-ray player.  I love that I can challenge players anywhere in the world to a round of Mario Kart on my networked Wii.  I love that my car has tire pressure monitoring sensors to tell me at a glance the exact air pressure in each tire.  I love that I can listen to music on my smartphone, and seamlessly take phone calls from my Bluetooth-enabled headset.