February 2013
24 posts
3 tags
What Happens When You Walk Into a Bar Wearing... →
Alexis Madrigal in The Atlantic:
“When you buy a new phone, it’s in your pocket, but this, you’re wearing something on your face. Anyone that cares what they look like is not gonna wear Google glasses. That’s my opinion,” [bar owner Tom] Madonna said. “If you are super nerdy and you like to show off that you’re in tech and smart and all those things, I...
January 2013
49 posts
4 tags
Aaron Swartz: The Punishment Did Not Fit the Crime →
Yours truly writing at Reason.com:
The problem, therefore, is not just that federal prosecutors in this case refused to engage sober prosecutorial discretion, it’s that they had the option to seek—and to threaten with—a punishment so out of proportion to the crime. How can such severe punishments be justified for computer crimes?
3 tags
Chinese Hackers Infiltrate New York Times... →
Here’s an admission against interest in the eighth paragraph:
Security experts found evidence that the hackers stole the corporate passwords for every Times employee and used those to gain access to the personal computers of 53 employees, most of them outside The Times’s newsroom.
How were the passwords for every employee available for the taking? Let me guess, they were unencrypted....
2 tags
5 tags
“I don’t want to watch the dang westerns. Maybe he takes the best parts of...”
– Kathleen, after I try to convince her that since her favorite movie is Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, she should watch some of the movies it references like Black Sunday or The Searchers.
4 tags
Drones spur fierce debate in Oregon over privacy,... →
I was just saying how it will only be a matter of time before someone attaches a gun to a commercial drone, and I come across someone else who thinks this, too:
Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, and Rep. John Huffman, R-The Dalles, have introduced separate but related legislation aimed at restricting future use of drones by law enforcement and the public. Both bills would criminalize use of...
2 tags
2 tags
4 tags
Hold Your Fire Before Freaking Out Over 3-D... →
In an otherwise excellent post on the overblown reaction to 3D-printed guns, Rob Pegoraro writes this:
I don’t know what real-world problem advocates of home-printed munitions are trying to solve. Do these people all think they’re John Connor? Sorry, but a) the Constitution doesn’t grant you a right to armed rebellion, and b) the military has tanks, aircraft carriers, fighter planes, drones and...
2 tags
2 tags
1 tag
2 tags
Idea: the Tumblr Tip Jar →
I love this. But I wouldn’t create a new button. I’d just use the existing ‘like’ and ‘reblog’ buttons. Users would be able to voluntarily pay any amount they want each month—say $5—and it would get distributed among the original posters of what they like and reblog.
Obvious problems:
1. Most original posters are not original creators.
2....
4 tags
2 tags
Google and the future of search: Amit Singhal and... →
Best sentence I’ve read today:
“In Japan for example,” she says, “our analysis shows that people want to know quite a lot about the blood type of film stars”, so that will be a prioritised part of the instant Knowledge Graph in that part of the world.
2 tags
3 tags
“The culture inside Apple is one of a giant metronome, which ticks once or twice...”
– Former Apple employee, and current Android user, Tom Dale
2 tags
2 tags
1 tag
2 tags
2 tags
3 tags
NYT: Mixed Response to Comcast in Expanding Net... →
What an utterly disgraceful hit piece. According to the article, participants in Comcast’s broadband program for low income families, as well as school administrators and city officials, are happy with the program. So what’s this “mixed response”?
But as the program gains popularity, the company has come under criticism, accused of overreaching in its interactions with...
3 tags
1 tag
2 tags
NYT: A Hacker Says Smart Grid Can Be Penetrated →
A hacker wearing a fake beard and dark sunglasses took the stage at a computer security conference in Miami on Thursday and showed a group of about 60 security researchers how to intercept the radio communications between Silver Spring Networks, a maker of smart grid technology, and its clients, which include major utilities like Pacific Gas and Electric and Pepco Holdings.
The hacker, who...
2 tags
We’re releasing the files for O’Reilly’s Open... →
As a tribute to Aaron Swartz, O’Reilly is making available for free, to download and share, the book Open Governemnt to which he contributed the chapter “When Is Transparency Useful?” I also have a chapter in that book, “All Your Data Are Belong to Us: Liberating Government Data.”
The files are posted on the O’Reilly Media GitHub account as PDF, Mobi, and EPUB...
1 tag
4 tags
3 tags
3 tags
Andy Greenberg Q&A With Steve Israel, The... →
Rep. Israel’s efforts are understandable, but it’s pretty clear from the interview that he understands that any law he passes to ban the 3D-printed guns specifically will only be symbolic. What I wonder is if he realizes that maybe he’s setting himself up to be a Baptist.
But there are lots of plastic magazines already for sale, and they’re not covered by the current...
3 tags
2 tags
1 tag
2 tags
“What *Should* We Be Worried About?” →
Fifty notable thinkers, including Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Kevin Kelly, Evgeny Morozov, Bruce Schneier, and many others answer the question in this free collection of essays.
2 tags
Charles C. Mann on the security hazards of the... →
This is a good piece on how Internet-connected devices like pacemakers, smart meters, and coffee machines are designed without much thought given to security. This is true and articles like this one thankfully sound the alarm. But what to make of this:
The same thing was true of computer-software companies, he pointed out. Not until credit-card numbers by the millions began to be stolen did...
1 tag
1 tag
1 tag
1 tag
1 tag
1 tag
1 tag
1 tag
