Alternative Search Engine – DuckDuckGo

My preferred Internet Search engines is DuckDuckGo. Why use a an obscure search engine? Especially one with a long name to type? Three reasons…

  1. Privacy / Security – Zero Tracking of Searches
  2. No Advertising following you
  3. Search Results not Gerrymandered

Most folks understand the issues surrounding Privacy and Security. For this reason, we won’t do deep dive here. Suffice to say, DuckDuckGo does NOT track your searching activity.

They also don’t bombard you with advertising that follows you wherever you go. Ever wonder why that Ad in Facebook just happened to be something you looked for on Amazon or Google earlier? Because the other search engines track you and sell your data.

Better Search Results

While Security and Privacy are important, there’s a larger reason I often use DuckDuckGo. They do NOT filter search results. Why is this important?

Part of understanding an issue or topic is knowing multiple viewpoints. Understanding people requires understanding those with alternate views than yours. Not to get political, but let’s take an extreme example to illustrate the point…

In the US, Guns are a hotly debated topic with two major groups. Those FOR increased gun legislation to help curb violence are on one group. And those AGAINST gun legislation viewing it as an infringing on Second Amendment rights. The two sides never seem to find common ground.

With traditional search engines, they track your search history and filter your results based on what they THINK you are looking for. This leaves you with a deficit of information contrary to what you may personally believe. Or just contrary to what the programmer of the search results algorithm thought you wanted.

Filtering search results can be very beneficial if you’re looking for specific type of thing. But they are absolutely the wrong approach if you’re trying to research a topic.

That’s where DuckDuckGo comes in. If you want raw, unfiltered search results, I’d give them a try. Because they’re not tracking your searches, they can’t assume what you want or how to think. In society has ever needed a better understanding and tolerance of views alternate to our own, it’s now. DuckDuckGo helps provide that.

ESTmep Cost Exposed in Revit

If you’re a user of ESTmep and Revit Fabrication parts, consider yourself warned. I’ve recently had some dialog with an industry colleague and the discussion of Cost data in Revit came up.

We know that that a Revit file which uses Fabrication Parts contains a copy of your Fabrication Configuration (Database). We also know that the Fabrication Extension for Revit now allows you to run reports. Those reports can also report on Cost data. That’s generally a good thing in most firms using ESTmep, exposing that Cost data to Revit users can be very helpful.

Now when you send someone your Revit model, they do NOT have access to your database (Unless you send that to them a well). Without your database, the Fabrication Add-In will not find the reports and the option is grayed out.

You also can’t change the configuration either because the drop down is disabled. They need your database to do anything….maybe.

So this sounds like we’re OK but let me assure you that’s not the case. Your database isn’t “available” to the person who had your Revit file but it is contained within the Revit file itself. And even though the Revit API’s don’t give you access to the costing data, it can be extracted.

I won’t go into details for the sake of security in our industry but rest assured, there is a process where as a user can extract your cost data. This includes being able to figure our your vendor pricing multipliers.

What To Do?

That leaves the question about what to do. Some may be familiar with the option in Edit Configuration that disables the storing of EST tables in DWG files. This has NO effect or control of Revit. Sure would be nice if it did nit that’s not the case.

So there’s really 2 options that I can see….

  1. Remove or Rename the COST.MAP, ETIMES.MAP, FTIMES.MAP and SUPPLIER.MAP tables from your database. These are where labor rates, times and costs are stored. Without these tables,, Revit can not store this information in the model. If you’re previously had a Revit model with this information saved, rename/remove the files and reload your configuration and the data will be removed. The down size is you’ll no longer be able to use ESTmep.
  2. Make a copy of your database without the COST.MAP, ETIMES.MAP, FTIMES.MAP and SUPPLIER.MAP tables and have Revit point to that. Each time you update your Fabrication database, you’ll need to refresh this copy. It’s fairly easy to script this process and have those files removed. The down side is you’ll no longer have access to Cost data in Revit but at least you can keep using ESTmep internally.

If you feel this is unacceptable, please submit a support ticket with Autodesk. The more people that raise the issue, the more likely that it will be addressed in a future release or update. To date, all they told me is the option I’ve outlined are the ONLY way to address the issue.

Critical Update for Older Autodesk Products

If you’re using 2017 or older Autodesk products, your software may stop working on June 15th, 2019. Newer versions will continue to work but may have intermittent issues with any of their cloud related services. Exact services and product versions vary.

Many products and services use Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.0/1.1. Due to known vulnerabilities, on June 15, 2019, Autodesk will be updating their systems to no longer support this protocol. This service is what’s used for Autodesk to determine your “Identity” when providing access to your products and services.

You can read more about the affected products and versions here. This article is specific to which older products will stop working completely. It does not cover newer products that have services which may stop working.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/search-result/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Transport-Layer-Security-TLS-Updates-Required-to-Maintain-Software-Access.html

A fairly comprehensive description of the issue was also posted to the Autodesk forums. You can read it here…

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/installation-licensing/transport-layer-security-updates-required-email-notifications/td-p/8798819

What You Really Need to Know

This issue isn’t nearly as bad as it seems. Based on Autodesk’s information you only need to be concerned if…

  • Login access to use your core product will be affected subject to the following
    • You are NOT using Perpetual Licenses
    • You are NOT using Network (FlexLM) Licenses
    • Your product IS using Single User Subscription Licensing
    • Your product IS listed in the Knowledge Base Article
  • Newer products (2018-2020) Not mentioned in the Autodesk articles are also affected subject to the following….
    • Ancillary related services and newer products have their own security updates
    • Access to core product is Not an issue
    • Ancillary cloud connected services May be affected such as…
      • Revit Cloud Worksharing
      • Personal Accelerator (PAC) for Revit Cloud Worksharing
      • Communicator
      • Energy Analysis
      • Dynamo Package Search/Upload
      • P&ID Modeler
    • Licensing type of product does NOT matter

Most products have updates available however there are a few that do not. Autodesk Fabrication products in version 2014 or 2015 do not have updates. So unless you’re using those version with a Single User Subscription, you don’t need to worry. If you are using a product that does not have an update, you will need to upgrade to continue working.