Category: Aside

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Aside Links

Two Ridiculous Headphones and a Pile of Schiit

Marco has a good piece that analyses the relative value of über-high-end headphones over just-high-end sets. He reaches the unsurprising conclusion that just-high-end is enough for most people. And, in what might surprise some people, that the most technically precise sets aren’t necessarily what you want to spend your money on.

Based on my own purchases of headphones and earphones over the past 5-7 years I definitely tend to agree with him: technically neutral can be super dull to listen to though, at the same time, overly unbalanced sound profiles just destroy the songs and sounds that people pipe into their ears.

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Aside

Posterous’ ‘Best’ Thing

The single most memorable thing about Posterous for me – and about as mediocre in opening beer as as their platform was for blogging!

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Aside

The NSA’s Utah data centre

The NSA’s Utah data centre, as taken by the EFF.

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Aside Links

iOS 8 strikes an unexpected blow against location tracking

iOS 8 strikes an unexpected blow against location tracking:

It wasn’t touted on-stage, but a new iOS 8 feature is set to cause havok for location trackers, and score a major win for privacy. As spotted by Frederic Jacobs, the changes have to do with the MAC address used to identify devices within networks. When iOS 8 devices look for a connection, they randomize that address, effectively disguising any trace of the real device until it decides to connect to a network.

Good: Apple is demonstrably improving an aspect of wifi privacy. Kudos to them!

However: Retailers are using Bluetooth to engage in the same activity, so ideally a similar privacy enhancing technique will be designed when Bluetooth functionality is turned on.

Depressing Reality: I’ll really believe that Apple is invested in privacy when they enable/initiate similar privacy by design functions in their own physical environment system, iBeacons.

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Aside Humour

Harper: Trust Me

Cartoon by Greg Perry

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Google to deploy 180 low-orbit satellites that provide Internet access

Google to deploy 180 low-orbit satellites that provide Internet access:

Billion-dollar project will complement Google’s balloons and drones.

It would be particularly interesting to see if Google tried to marry its satellites with its Loom project, to the effect of not having to integrate Loom balloon networks with known censorious ISPs in various countries around the world. If Google could  overcome technical and regulatory hurdles it could, by routing through space, try to proxy data access via ‘open’ Internet nations. Of course, this would mean that Google would become the ‘real’ pipe to the Internet itself…

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Aside Links

Privacy Levels

One (user-friendly) way of considering a gradient of ‘privacy levels’ for the Internet. Certainly a reasonable way of thinking about things generally.

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Declaration on mass surveillance calls for new privacy measures

Declaration on mass surveillance calls for new privacy measures:

One of the voices behind a new declaration on mass surveillance says Canada needs a commission of inquiry to ensure governments and corporations respect privacy in an era of big data.

While I’m sympathetic to the sentiment behind the Ottawa Statement, I remain unclear about how useful it is – when presenting the Statement to the media – to state that the current government of the day is unlikely to listen to anything the signatories have signed off on. If that’s the case, then what is the aim of the Statement itself?

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RCMP use of data may spark probe

RCMP use of data may spark probe:

Canada’s privacy watchdog is considering a formal review into the RCMP’s use of Canadians’ personal data gleaned from telecom and Internet companies without a warrant. The potential review comes after the Mounties admitted to Parliament in April that they do not track how often requests are made for “basic subscriber information” from telecom and Internet service providers.

At this point, there is a Supreme Court of Canada case concerning warrantless disclosure of data, a constitutional challenge being mounted against the section of Canadian commercial privacy law authorizing such disclosures, newspaper editorials calling for a Royal Commission on Spying (based, in part, on these warrantless disclosures), along with additional (related) legal, policy, and advocacy efforts to reform contemporary surveillance in Canada. Something in the current regime has to give.

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CCLA Challenges Federal Privacy Legislation

What may likely be a long, and very interesting, case to follow.