I came upon the subject through a blog entry on Skepchick: Creationist Comeuppance on YouTube I started watching the video apology the creationist is “forced” to give for unethically and possibly illegally invoking DMCA to try to extort a critic of his to remove his critical videos. I got bored and stopped watching it. While [...]
READ MORE »Posts in category TECH TIPS
The People’s Encryption.
(Vital Update: Check out my comment at the bottom for some very important info on this post.) OK, remember that post I wrote not long ago: On the issue of privacy and protecting civil liberties? That got reprinted by Steganos security software site? (“Sheesh, you never freakin’ let us forget!”) Seems I have some people [...]
READ MORE »Review: Steganos Privacy Suite 2008
Last week I wrote an article where I briefly discussed some options regarding security and privacy software: On the issue of privacy and protecting civil liberties. In it I mentioned Steganos software and some of their free online options. I’ve been given the opportunity to review their flagship home security package: Steganos Privacy Suite 2008*–here’s [...]
READ MORE »On the issue of privacy and protecting civil liberties.
Let me ask you a question: How would you react if one day came home to discover that every room in your house had two or three CCTV cameras installed in it? You don’t know who’s watching them or when or why? Would you be OK with this? Let’s say someone came to your door, [...]
READ MORE »Thoughts on this year’s ICFA.
(Note: At some point my blog decided it no longer liked the word “from.” It wouldn’t post if I had too many of them. So after a while you’ll find “frm” instead. Sorry for the inconvenience.) Spectacular! I got back from this year’s International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts just this morning. Was [...]
READ MORE »Our Web; our privacy.
Here’s a cute, little silly, little longer than it needs to be but still short, video illustrating the issue of Net Neutrality and the push by corporations to gain literal control of the Internet–a virtual realm designed to be a haven for true democracy, education, information, and limitless open communication. The film is brought to [...]
READ MORE »1984 is only minutes away.
The ACLU has set a “Doomsday Clock” for the coming Surveillance State: ♦ Surveillance Society Clock I would have to think that Britain is closer to Midnight than the U.S., though: UK is a surveillance society. Lest you think the Surveillance Society is going to be completely at the hands of the government, the culture [...]
READ MORE »Good news/bad news re: the Intertubenets.
First the good news: ♦ Judge strikes down part of Patriot Act U.S. District Court Judge has determined that it was unconstitutional for the Justice Department to demand an Internet Service Provider to hand over private records without a court order. Well, now the FBI needs court orders to get your private info from the [...]
READ MORE »Golden age of the nefarious hacker.
I’ve been listening to Cory Doctorow reading Bruce Sterling’s The Hacker Crackdown. It’s a non-fiction work that at its core describes the actions and environment that lead up to the huge crackdown by the Secret Service, FBI, and the telco companies against the “hacker threat” during the early 90′s. The work takes a fascinating look [...]
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A.I. work together to solve all!
Saw this article on BoingBoing about artificially intelligent chat programs talking to each other: Discover Magazine: I Chat, Therefore I Am… It’s kind of funny, and certainly interesting to see what directions two non-human, A.I.’s take their conversations. I like this bit: J: Do you believe in God? A: Of course I believe in God. [...]
READ MORE »The coming tech market anarchy.
Read first: Blu-Ray AND HD-DVD broken – processing keys extracted to understand: Digg users revolt over AACS key This whole copyright and DRM all reminds me of the 1995 Bruce Sterling novel, Heavy Weather. While not the best written novel, he describes a near-future America of revolutionary copyright anarchy (in both senses of the word–chaos [...]
READ MORE »Mona Lisa in 1′s and 0′s
Discovered something interesting: Portrait Professional digital image software that “improves” the image by fixing imperfections in the face–from blemishes and acne, to facial structure and size problems! In one way, this is really cool! Look at the before and after pictures. The geek in me can’t help but find this fascinating. Some (not all!) of [...]
READ MORE »Video Sci-Fi Podcast: Fascinating!
The Slice of SciFi podcast had an interview last week with the creator of a new video podcast that’s really interesting: Stranger Things It’s an amateur project with an incredibly professional feel. Filmed in HDTV, it’s meant to be a “Twilight Zone” or “Outer Limits” for today, focusing on stories of speculative fiction like sci-fi, [...]
READ MORE »Microsoft’s Extortion of Linux Distros
Wow, Microsoft has some huge brass ones! Ballmer: Linux users owe Microsoft Ballmer never expresses, so far as I can find, what Microsoft “intellectual property” Linux users are using in violation of copyright. Just the ability to use an operating system to run a PC?! His statement: “Only customers that use SUSE have paid properly [...]
READ MORE »Presidential Words
Interesting link on BoingBoing today. Someone has compiled and analyzed all the words used in Presidential speeches throughout U.S. history and built a tag cloud with a sliding timeline gauge. http://chir.ag/phernalia/preztags/ (It may load slow, probably because it’s being hit hard after being BoingBoinged. Almost like being SlashDotted.) The word “terrorism” standout like a solar [...]
READ MORE »Crypto Comedy
This is great! I love this comic: XKCD. It’s often so smart and clever! This one really tickled me. =) (but then, I’m something of a crypto fan.) Which reminds me, in order to get the joke, you need to understand the method cryptographers use to teach and explain encryption processes and the like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_and_Bob [...]
READ MORE »The Virtue of Privacy
This opinion poll showing a slim majority of Americans don’t mind their phone records being tracked by the government is disgusting and depressing: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=1953464 It’s not as simple as “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about.” The very idea of privacy and right to privacy even if it’s for something as [...]
READ MORE »Internet Neutrality – Selling of the Net to Corporate Interests
There have been a lot of chain e-mail over the years with silly Internet scares. Unfortunately, this isn’t one of those. Congress (well, the Republicans in Congress) have been working with the telcos (remember, those companies which have been selling our phone records to the government?) to craft legislation removing the neutrality of the Internet. [...]
READ MORE »Revealing of the Lambs
From CNN’s article on DefCon (http://www.defcon.org/): http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/08/02/defcon.hackers.ap/index.html The Internet has become “crime ridden slums,” said Phil Zimmermann, a well-known cryptographer who spoke at the conference. Hackers and the computer security experts who make a living on tripping up systems say security would be better if people were less lazy. To make their point, they pilfered [...]
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