technology

PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder Phil Zimmermann on the surveillance society

"Right now Moore’s Law is being accelerated in a specific direction by policy pressures. The policy pressure of creating more surveillance as response to the 9/11 attacks. We have to work harder to push back on policies that 9/11 brought us. It is time to re-examine the Patriot Act and re-examine everything. We need engineers and technologists to guide technology in the right direction and not optimize for surveillance. I would like to see a pushback, both on the technology and policy fronts. The engineers tend to be more aware of these problems and they need to be politically aware of the dangers of developing tools of surveillance." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder Phil Zimmermann on the surveillance society

Steve Gibson: The Lesson of Lavabit

"I am impressed that Ladar chose to shutdown his service rather than continue to promise something that he now unequivocally knew was no longer secure in the face of law enforcement’s quasi-legal incursions. It would have probably been better if he hadn’t attempted to offer security that was beyond his ability to provide. During my weekly Security Now! podcast with Leo Laporte, we use the acronym 'TNO' (Trust No One) to refer to any system where readily available cryptographic technology is properly employed in such a fashion that it is not necessary to trust the behavior of any third party." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSteve Gibson: The Lesson of Lavabit

Circle startup CEO: Taking magic mushrooms can help solve business problems

"'It completely changes how you think,' Evan Reas of Circle told Business Insider on Wednesday. 'About your problems, about yourself, everything. It forced me to ask, ‘Is what I’m doing important?' 'When you work on a problem for a long period of time, you build up biases and filters and it becomes harder to get fresh thoughts. Mushrooms eliminates those biases.' Psychedelic substances are no stranger in the tech industry. Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs said in 2005 that doing LSD was one of the most important experiences in his life. Douglas Englebart, the father of the computer mouse, also experimented with LSD, as did Microsoft founder Bill Gates." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCircle startup CEO: Taking magic mushrooms can help solve business problems

10 Geniuses Who Used Drugs — And Their Drugs of Choice

"Is intelligence related to an increased likelihood of recreational drug use? It's an interesting hypothesis, and one that's been gaining momentum in recent years. If a definitive link between intellectual capacity and drug use does exist, it will likely be some time before anyone establishes one. Having said that, this much is for certain: history has more than its fair share of experimenting experimentalists. Let's meet 10 of history's most influential scientific and technological visionaries, along with their drugs of choice." Continue reading →

Continue Reading10 Geniuses Who Used Drugs — And Their Drugs of Choice

New “451″ Error Message Would Tell Users When Governments Block Websites

"If you don't think book burning is a fair analogy for blocked websites, may I remind you that the British Library's wi-fi filter recently blocked users from accessing Hamlet due to its 'violent' content. Over the years there's been a steady stream of reports of innocent websites getting swept up in overzealous copyright crackdowns, and free expression activists fear the same will happen under British Prime Minister David Cameron's controversial 'pornwall.' A UK consumer rights organization wants to create a new error message, called '451 unavailable,' to specify that a webpage wasn’t simply not there, it was ordered to be blocked." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNew “451″ Error Message Would Tell Users When Governments Block Websites

‘We can do this without Congress’: Obama to unilaterally impose cell phone tax

"President Barack Obama is looking to unilaterally impose a $5-per-year tax on all cellphone users to avoid asking a recalcitrant Congress for funding. Obama hopes to rake in enough funds for a project called ConnectED that will cost taxpayers billions: expanding high-speed Internet access in classrooms across the country so that 99 percent of public school students can freely access the Internet. Obama administration officials promise that the tax would end in three years after the FCC filled its coffers with $6 billion, but gave no details on how the government would prevent potential cost overruns or measure the program’s progress." Continue reading →

Continue Reading‘We can do this without Congress’: Obama to unilaterally impose cell phone tax

John Kerry, Organization Man

"Lots of people have lots of complaints about the Internet, and some of those complaints are based in fact. One that I hadn’t heard before, until US Secretary of State John Kerry brought it up, is that the Internet makes it 'much harder to govern, much harder to organize people, much harder to find the common interest …' Kerry’s lamentation isn’t the first such, nor will it be the last: The American and global political classes recognize fast, cheap communication between their subjects as the death knell for their own tenuous grip on power. The bloated, bureaucratic, hierarchal, snail-paced organizations on which states rely are no match." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJohn Kerry, Organization Man

John Kerry, Organization Man

"Lots of people have lots of complaints about the Internet, and some of those complaints are based in fact. One that I hadn’t heard before, until US Secretary of State John Kerry brought it up, is that the Internet makes it 'much harder to govern, much harder to organize people, much harder to find the common interest …' Kerry’s lamentation isn’t the first such, nor will it be the last: The American and global political classes recognize fast, cheap communication between their subjects as the death knell for their own tenuous grip on power. The bloated, bureaucratic, hierarchal, snail-paced organizations on which states rely are no match." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJohn Kerry, Organization Man

Study Rejects Cell Phone Driving Danger Claims

"A study published in the August edition American Economic Journal rejects the commonly held view that the proliferation of cell phone use among the driving public has made travel more dangerous. Politicians have seized on the perception and outlawed driving while talking on a handheld cell phone in eleven states. The researchers began by posing a difficult question for politicians: Why has cell phone use skyrocketed at the same time that traffic accidents and fatalities are at an all-time low? The study found that fatal accident rates did not see either a short-term or a long-term drop in the states that adopted cell phone driving bans." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingStudy Rejects Cell Phone Driving Danger Claims

PayPal freezes GlassUp’s $100K crowdfunding money, eventually releases it

"Today, the news is good: PayPal is releasing the funds. 'It’s great news. It’s wonderful,' Giartosio told me this morning from Venice, Italy. 'Now I can open PayPal payments again on the campaign.' Early this morning, a PayPal representative contacted me with the news. It turns out, on reflection, that there’s nothing nefarious about an Italian wearable computing company — and that PayPal thinks GlassUp is actually a pretty cool product. The question is: How much more successful would GlassUp have been if PayPal had not caused this problem? Or if, even after freezing the account, someone had just Googled the project, picked up the phone, and had a conversation?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPayPal freezes GlassUp’s $100K crowdfunding money, eventually releases it