Archive for the 'Technology' Category
How Unique – and Trackable – Is Your Browser?
February 3rd, 2010Via: Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Is your browser configuration rare or unique? If so, web sites may be able to track you, even if you limit or disable cookies.
Panopticlick tests your browser to see how unique it is based on the information it will share with sites it visits. Click below and you will be given a [...]
Pentagon Black Budget Sees Year Over Year Record Funding; Tops $56 Billion
February 2nd, 2010More Change.
Via: Wired:
The Defense Department just released its king-sized, $708 billion budget for the next fiscal year. Much of the proposed spending is fairly detailed — noting exactly how many helicopters the Pentagon plans to buy and how many troops it plans on playing. But about $56 billion goes simply to “classified programs,” or to [...]
Quadrennial Defense Review: Melee Mode, Cyberwar, More Killer Robots, Environmental Catastrophes
February 1st, 2010Via: CNN:
The Pentagon will no longer shape the U.S. military to fight two major conventional wars at once, but rather prepare for numerous conflicts and not all in the same style, according to a draft of a new strategic outlook the Pentagon is announcing on Monday.
The new mantra for military planners will replace the almost [...]
Microsoft Executive Thinks That Individuals Should Have to Obtain Government Licenses to Use Internet
January 31st, 2010Via: AFP:
The world needs a treaty to prevent cyber attacks becoming an all-out war, the head of the main UN communications and technology agency warned Saturday.
International Telcommunications Union secretary general Hamadoun Toure gave his warning at a World Economic Forum debate where experts said nations must now consider when a cyber attack becomes a declaration [...]
Apple’s iPad as Metaphor for The Nightmare Future of Computing
January 29th, 2010Someone asked what I thought about Apple’s iPad. I wrote back:
This was the most hype I’ve seen since Hope and Change. The iPad is going to save publishing. It’s going to save marriages. The blind will see and the deaf will hear! Pay Steve Jobs a commission everytime you want to scratch your ass and [...]
My U.S. Credit Card Was Deactivated After I Sent $20 to Wikileaks
January 26th, 2010Wikileaks is down for fund raising. I sent them $20 using my U.S. credit card.
The next day, Bank of America’s Magic 8 Ball deactivated my account and sent this to me:
Irregular Credit Card Activity
Account: Bank of America ending in XXXX
Date: 01/25/2010
We detected irregular activity on your Bank of America Credit Card on 01/25/2010. [...]
Nanosecond Trading Strains Infrastructure: Firms Failing to Control Their Algorithms
January 26th, 2010See: Trading Shares in Milliseconds
Via: Financial Times:
An explosion in trading propelled by computers is raising fears that trading platforms could be knocked out by rogue trades triggered by systems running out of control.
trading-thumb.jpgTrading in equities and derivatives is being driven increasingly by mathematical algorithms used in computer programs. They allow trading to take place automatically [...]
Court Rules That Mass Surveillance of Americans is Immune From Judicial Review
January 24th, 2010Via: EFF:
A federal judge has dismissed Jewel v. NSA, a case from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of AT&T customers challenging the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans’ phone calls and emails.
“We’re deeply disappointed in the judge’s ruling,” said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. “This ruling robs innocent telecom [...]
Britain: Police Plan to Use Military-Style Spy Drones
January 24th, 2010Via: Guardian:
Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the ”routine” monitoring of antisocial motorists, protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance.
The arms manufacturer BAE Systems, which produces a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for war zones, is adapting the [...]
Computers Down at All 168 California DMV Offices
January 23rd, 2010Via: AP:
A systemwide computer failure at the California Department of Motor Vehicles caused several hours of delays at all 168 offices Thursday.
The offices remained open, but with computers unable to connect to the state’s network, DMV workers were forced to do everything by hand, such as processing driver’s licenses and registrations, DMV spokeswoman Jan Mendoza [...]
