Category: Quotations

Categories
Aside Quotations

2013.3.24

With drones, the question is how long before the dozens of states with the aircraft can arm and then operate a weaponized version. “Pretty much every nation has gone down the pathway of, ‘This is science fiction; we don’t want this stuff,’ to, ‘OK, we want them, but we’ll just use them for surveillance,’ to, ‘Hmm, they’re really useful when you see the bad guy and can do something about it, so we’ll arm them,’ ” Singer said. He listed the countries that have gone that route: the United States, Britain, Italy, Germany, China. “Consistently, nations have gone down the pathway of first only surveillance and then arming.”

When the Whole World Has Drones – NationalJournal.com (via thisistheverge)

It’s the creeping use, combined with perceptions of citizens’ inability to affect government behavior that, combined, arguably are provoking resistance to drones in Canada and the US.

Categories
Aside Quotations

More Visibility, Less Privacy

While admitting that increased surveillance was “scary” and that governments will have to be thoughtful with their laws, [Bloomberg] seemed to side with prioritizing radical transparency, especially through the use of automated drones, “but what’s the difference whether the drone is up in the air or on the building? I mean intellectually I have trouble making a distinction.”

…

Lest Bloomberg be labeled as a surveillience hawk, the interview took on a tone of inevitability, rather than advocacy: “Everybody wants their privacy, but I don’t know how you’re going to maintain it.”

Gregory Ferenstein, “Bloomberg: ‘We’re Going To Have More Visibility And Less Privacy,’ Drones And Surveillance Coming”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but his sentence “Everybody wants their privacy, but I don’t know how you’re going to maintain it” indicates a failure to understand his role as a politician. If everybody – including, one presumes, residents of New York city – “wants their privacy” then it is his job, and that of council, to protect and preserve those constituents’ privacy.

To be clear: it is not his job to authorize enhanced surveillance, and then throw his hands up and say that he doesn’t get how his constituents are going to realize their wishes as he and council march against those interests.

Categories
Links Quotations

Sometimes, I Like To Wait

parislemon:

Anthony Ha for TechCrunch:

Yet when I watched House of Cards, I really enjoyed the space between the episodes, when I could wonder about what happens next and anticipate the next time I’d have an hour or two to catch up. That’s not a new idea — in fact, it’s one of the main pleasures of television. But I think it’s something people lose sight of when they talk about bold new distribution models.

I agree, this topic is being lost in the larger debate. I believe I prefer the House of Cards model for the same reason I’ve long preferred watching shows on DVD rather than when they air — I like to binge.

But I do miss some of the “watercooler” effect of everyone talking about what just happened on Lost this week — something which the very existence of Twitter has essentially perfected. There’s still definitely a watercooler effect with House of Cards but it’s more about the show in general rather than specific plot points since we’re all likely at different parts of the show right now (unless we’re doing with season 1 already, of course).

I think that the sense of community can be lost in the binging, insofar as it’s (often) a solitary event. But, at the same time, I think this (to an extent) may speak to how some people are increasingly moving to more private viewing (i.e. in a room alone) that is simultaneously more social (i.e. ability to share/comment/etc on social media).

Categories
Aside Links Quotations

2013.3.21

An oil spill recovery vessel ran aground en route to a federal announcement on oil tanker safety in Vancouver on Monday, officials have confirmed.

The vessel was making a 12-hour trip from its base in Esquimalt to Vancouver for a tanker safety announcement by Federal Transport Minister Denis Lebel and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver when it struck an uncharted sandbar near Sandheads at the mouth of the Fraser River near Steveston.

Wow okay I feel safer already and would gladly welcome more large oil tankers in an inlet or strait near me. (via jakke)

Just…wow. I can only picture delivering the news to the Minister, and watching his face twitch upon learning about this particular PR fubar.

Categories
Quotations

2013.3.19

So even in the worst cases, free products don’t usually end too badly. Well, unless you’re a user, or one of the alternatives that gets crushed along the way. But everyone who funds and builds a free product usually comes out of it pretty well, especially if they don’t care what happens to their users.

Free is so prevalent in our industry not because everyone’s irresponsible, but because it works.

In other industries, this is called predatory pricing, and many forms of it are illegal because they’re so destructive to healthy businesses and the welfare of an economy. But the tech industry is far less regulated, younger, and faster-moving than most industries. We celebrate our ability to do things that are illegal or economically infeasible in other markets with productive-sounding words like “disruption”.

Marco Arment, “Free Works”
Categories
Quotations

2013.3.16

This is the problem. Against a sufficiently skilled, funded, and motivated adversary, no network is secure. Period. Attack is much easier than defense, and the reason we’ve been doing so well for so long is that most attackers are content to attack the most insecure networks and leave the rest alone.

Bruce Schneier, “Phishing Has Gotten Very Good”
Categories
Quotations

2013.3.15

Cheney’s office, according to Leonard, took secrecy to excessive lengths – attempting to classify as much as possible, and often bypassing the system altogether by inventing classification markings. Even documents as ordinary as Cheney’s talking points were marked Treated as Top Secret/SCI or Treated as Top Secret/Codeword.

“That’s not a recognized marking,” said Leonard. “I have no idea if it was the intent, but I can guarantee you what the consequences of those markings are. When any of this material eventually does end up at a presidential library and access demands are being made, or it’s being processed for release, when some poor archivist sees material marked Handle as SCI, it’s going into the bottom of the pile, and it is going to get much more conservative review. Whether it was the intent to retard the eventual release of the information, I know that’s going to be a consequence of it.”

D.B. Grady, “Why We’ll Never Get a Full Account of the War in Iraq”
Categories
Quotations

2013.3.13

In January, the government filed a declaration [PDF] signed by Mark Bradley, the FOIA director of DOJ’s National Security Division, explaining what records would be responsive to EFF’s request. The descriptions of the documents are extremely basic. For instance, Bradley explains that there are 200 relevant documents dated from May 2006 to Sept. 2011 that were provided to a key House intelligence committee, and that they total 799 pages. It goes on in that fashion.

At today’s hearing in Oakland federal court, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers suggested that the document wasn’t going to be sufficient.

“Why can’t I have a basic categorization of what the documents are?” asked Gonzalez Rogers.

“That list itself is classified,” responded Mark Bressler, the DOJ attorney present for the hearing.

“Are you suggesting the number of pages of each document is classified?” asked the judge. “What’s been provided is: ‘200 documents consisting of 799 pages.’ That doesn’t tell me anything. It doesn’t tell the public anything. It was never explained to me how something as basic as a list with page numbers could, in any way, shape, or form, be contrary to the interests of the government.”

“Mr. Bradley has sworn, under penalty of perjury, that to say more would tend to reveal classified information,” said Bressler. “A wealth of information is available for in camera review.” Information like page numbers and timing of documents “may be put together by targets of investigation, or adversaries of the United States,” he said.

Joe Mullin, “Gov’t won’t even give page counts of secret PATRIOT Act documents”

The heights of absurdity that the American government reaches concerning the non-revelation of government documents, seemingly on a weekly basis, continues to swell.

Categories
Links Quotations

2013.3.13

Apple’s response was less detailed and less persuasive. To give you an idea of how complex the problem has become, it has discovered that its metals are supplied by 211 smelters, liberally distributed around the planet. Any of them could be using minerals seized by militias in Congo. But the fact that it has mapped its own supply chain is a good sign.

Two years ago Motorola launched a scheme – which looks credible – whose purpose is to buy conflict-free tantalum from eastern Congo. Projects of this kind, which start at the beginning of the long chain of suppliers, provide an income for local people, while guaranteeing that armed psychopaths have not profited from the sale of your phone. It’s hard to see why all the manufacturers can’t join it.

Other companies, hiding behind their trade associations, have done all they can to undermine these efforts. Two months ago a new provision of the US Dodd Frank Act, which obliges companies to discover whether the minerals they buy from Congo are funding armed groups, came into force. It should have happened before, but it was delayed for 16 months by corporate lobbyists. Thanks to their efforts, and after 17 years of ignoring the issue, companies will still be allowed to dodge their duty for another two years, by stating that they don’t know where the minerals come from.

My search for a smartphone that is not soaked in blood | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian (via new-aesthetic)

It’s a good sign that there have been some, however marginal, efforts by Motorola to address this issue. I would suggest, however, that until carriers are forced to declare whether the phones they sell are blood free or not (either because of legislation or because they’re trying to head off legislation) you won’t get the consumer to care in a more visceral manner. And without the consumer this is a horrifically hard uphill slog.

Categories
Links Quotations

Shaw email customers are scrambling after an interruption of Shaw’s email services Thursday led to millions of emails being deleted.

About 70 per cent of Shaw’s email customers were affected when the company was troubleshooting an unrelated email delay problem and an attempted solution caused incoming emails to be deleted, a spokesman told The Sunday Province.

Shaw has about 1.9 million Internet subscribers across Canada, with the majority in Western Canada.

Emails were deleted for a 10-hour period between 7:45 a.m. and 6:15 p.m. Thursday, although customers did not learn about the problem until Friday, and only then by calling customer service or accessing an online forum for Shaw Internet subscribers.

Shaw promised to email affected customers some time over the weekend with a list of deleted messages and details such as sender, subject and time sent. The actual content of the emails, however, is unrecoverable.

Glenda Luymes, “Shaw Internet customers up in arms over lost emails during service ‘interruption’”

Count this amongst the many reasons I just don’t trust ISPs to host my email. It’s great that Shaw does this, really, given how it generally interferes with ports used for email: not only are they screwing consumers in how they treat email protocols (you can pay a monthly fee for full port access) but they’re also screwing them by not properly managing their email systems. I bet that Shaw customers don’t receive any restitution beyond an apology.