From Wired: A government memo saying a railway was hacked in a targeted attack was incorrect, according to a spokeswoman for the Association of American Railroads. “There was no targeted computer-based attack on a railroad,” according to spokesman Holly Arthur. “The memo on which the story was based has numerous inaccuracies.” Asked if there was an “untargeted” incident that disrupted train service nonetheless, Arthur declined to comment, leaving the public in the dark about what exactly was right and wrong in the memo. I don't think it's just the public who is in the dark - and I'm not talking about the railways!
Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category
I Feel Safe, Don’t You?
Thursday, January 26th, 2012Some More Perspective On Online Piracy
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012I've read through the Megaupload Indictment, and I'm not terribly impressed by the case presented by the U.S. government. Not when there are items like these to be found throughout it: In approximately April 2006, members of the Mega Conspiracy copied videos directly from Youtube.com to make them available on Megavideo.com. So? Were these copied videos copyrighted and the licensing ignored, were the licenses followed, or were they in the public domain? On or about August 31, 2006, VAN DER KOLK sent an e-mail to an associate entitled “lol”. Attached to the message was a screenshot of a Megaupload.com file download page for ...
Some Perspective On Online Piracy
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012Now, it may seem like SOPA is the end game in a long fight over copyright, and the Internet, and it may seem like if we defeat SOPA, we'll be well on our way to securing the freedom of PCs and networks. But as I said at the beginning of this talk, this isn't about copyright, because the copyright wars are just the 0.9 beta version of the long coming war on computation. The entertainment industry were just the first belligerents in this coming century-long conflict... But the reality is, copyright legislation gets as far as it does precisely because it's ...
A Funny Thing, Trust…
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012...it can take years to build up, but can be instantly destroyed, with just one single, careless act.
Pointless
Friday, January 20th, 2012I recently went to the DMV to renew my driver's license. Going to the DMV has always sucked, but somehow or another, the fine folks at the DMV always manage to make it worse with every experience. Actually, getting driver's licenses has never been a problem, it's always been getting vehicle registration that's sucked. The last time I did this wasn't too bad at all - I walked in and breezed out, with a new license, in 20 minutes, and the employees there were both intelligent and respectful. This time, they were neither. OK, admittedly, the last time was before the ...
Spam spam spam, Spammity-spam!
Thursday, September 9th, 2010Whew! It's been awhile, but I'm still here. Nothing has changed politically - the subsidy for big insurance and big pharma was passed, and we have a new consumer-protection agency (the SEC has already redesigned their site, including removal of all content about their consumer-protection role). The complete lack of any change or improvement, along with the realization that not every problem has a political solution, has had me ignoring political news, with my time better spent elsewhere. When I started this blog, and even up to my last post last December, I didn't have to worry about spammers - my ...
Oba Mao Censored
Friday, November 27th, 2009The maker of the Oba Mao t-shirts has been muzzled by the Chinese for fear of embarassing Obama during his recent visit to China. Apparently, the extreme right and the extreme left in this country have much in common with the Chinese government. And, similar to this country, most people don't care: But while Liu’s and Qi’s lives have been temporarily derailed by the president’s visit, the general public in China hasn’t showed too much fervor over it. A survey by China’s leading Web portal Sohu.com and the English newspaper China Daily asked, "What’s your viewpoint on Obama’s visit to China?" Almost 40 ...
Good Will – Bah humbug
Friday, November 27th, 2009I can't wait for the holidays to be over. I'm already sick of Christmas decorations - how can I not be, when so many simply replace their Halloween decorations with Christmas decorations on November 1st. And whatever happened to the bible verse I learned as a child? Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. Luke 2:14 KJV While I haven't seen the kind of mobs that result in injuries and deaths (because I hate shopping and avoid that scene like it's the black plague) I did see complete disregard for one's fellow man at my local ...
Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool
Sunday, October 18th, 2009From Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool by George Orwell (bolded emphasis is mine): A sort of doubt has always hung around the character of Tolstoy, as round the character of Gandhi. He was not a vulgar hypocrite, as some people declared him to be, and he would probably have imposed even greater sacrifices on himself than he did, if he had not been interfered with at every step by the people surrounding him, especially his wife. But on the other hand it is dangerous to take such men as Tolstoy at their disciples' valuation. There is always the possibility - the ...