msnbc is running a piece that makes it appear as if maybe we do have something to fear in big brother [see previous post]:
posted by e3
9:44:07 PM
" In 1999, police officers searched for individuals in the National Crime Information Center database 2 million times daily, up from the 600,000 daily transactions averaged in 1988. Likewise, wiretaps are expected to rise more than 300 percent in the next 10 years, according to the 2001 FBI budget request. The trends will only get worse, as technology lowers the barriers that face law enforcement surveillance, said Thomas M. Cecil, a superior court judge for the county of Sacramento, Calif. “In reality, most of what we have is the illusion of openness. Today, we have de facto privacy policy because we are inefficient; probing and gathering are time consuming and expensive. That protects our privacy,” he said. "
neil stephenson [ author of cryptonomicon, which is is being read by myself at the average of one page per day ] has made it into the washington post with the supposedly heretical view that we need to update our 'threat model' and be concerned less with cartoonish privacy issues of big brother and spend more brainpower on more urgent issues:
posted by e3
9:40:50 AM
"Stephenson challenged the more than 1,000 people who had gathered from around the world to focus their attention less on installing encryption software against the vague threat of snooping by Big Brother, a reassuringly simple fantasy of a totalitarian state, and more on the very real pattern of injustice brought to bear on people through employers and other institutions.yes - i pilfered this from slashdot where most of the argument is lost in the feeding frenzy, although the author of the article did attempt to clarify his position:
Stephenson said he was less worried these days about broad, theoretical privacy issues than about a recent incident in which a stray bullet crashed through a window at a friend's house and narrowly missed a sleeping child."
"Stephenson's speech was a lot more subtle and textured than the discussion of it here would lead you to believe. In fact, he said that he greatly admired people like Phil who have brought encryption to the world, and believes in fighting oppression in all its forms. The underscored point, however, was the "in all its forms" part. He referred back to our hominid ancestors and showed a pie chart of what their threat model might have been. It was about 98 percent HYENAS and about 2 percent OTHER. Once early man developed some good spears, he said, the hyena problem was less pressing--but early man didn't move on to try to conquer threats like intestinal parisites. His point, then, was that we need to update our threat models more often, and more subtly, than humans usually do. He then showed another pie chart. 98 percent was BIG BROTHER. 2 percent was OTHER. It got a big laugh from the crowd, because a lot of people recognized themselves. Stephenson again said that it was important ot expose and fight the bad things that "domination systems" to, but said that we should open the pie chart up to include and focus on other threats as well. In fact, he conceded, his pie chart of the threat model with lots of slices still could have the largest slice devoted to worrying about Big Brother. I hope that this gives a more full description of what Stephenson said in his talk. I wrote the story for the Washington Post, and tried to get as much of that flavor into it as I could. "
remember today - because it's the day the web changed the world. you can now rent a lackey to do all your dirty deeds dirt cheap:
posted by e3
6:43:47 AM
""Tomorrow we're sending someone to cut firewood," McGarvey said flatly. "We've been asked to pick up dog poop, and even to provide escort service--that one we turned down. We'll do anything that's legal."the mind reels. i'll adopt when priceline.com patents the 'reverse-auction' business process for renting-a-lackey. anyone want to clean the dog pooh in back yard for 5 bucks? anyone? anyone? bueller?
On Mylackey.com, consumers can find someone to detail their car ($75), repair their snowboard ($30) or walk their dog--individually or with a pack--($18-$38 for up to 2 hours). Among its most popular offerings are lackeys who run errands for $40 for a 2-hour period. "
well - i gave the preview of netscape 6 a run-through. not too bad for a preview, although still as sluggish as the m14 mozilla build, presumably due to debugging code. all the regular sites rendered fine, if not speedily. however, it didn't like the javascript-based hushmail login. all-in-all, it's fun to play with and shows promise, but it's aggravating to feel like your browsing in a tar pit (yes i know you have to put up with debugging code as part of a beta). on a related note, someday i hope to play around with xul and develop the soon-to-be-ubiquitous snowdeal skin.
posted by e3
9:19:03 PM
i usually really like first monday, but the new issue leaves an odd taste in my mouth. it appears to be dangerously close to an advertisement for "The Social Life of Information". not that this is intrinsically bad, "The Social Life of Information" looks like an interesting book - but first monday seems to have fallen short of it's stated mission to, "..[expand] the frontiers of academic publishing by combining the traditional values of peer review with publication on the World Wide Web." hi. ho.
posted by e3
7:07:10 PM
interested in software development? Joel Spolsky has some opinions that he doesn't mind sharing:
posted by e3
6:43:56 PM
"I'm convinced that most people think about software companies in an upside-down way. The common belief is that when you're building a software company, the goal is to find a neat idea that solves some problem which hasn't been solved before, implement it, and make a fortune. We'll call this the build-a-better-mousetrap belief. But the real goal for software companies should be converting capital into software that works. If you understand this, its easier to make the right strategic decisions."
"Imagine that the goal of your software company is not to solve some specific problem, but to be able to convert money to code through programmers. That's a little bit strange, but bear with me. A software company has to think of recruiting the right people as its number one problem. If you are successful, this can solve any other problem. Hire smart people, and they will produce good stuff that you can sell and make money off."
"Microsoft has a great recruiting strategy. They hire inexperienced, smart people right out of college... people that haven't learned from dysfunctional corporate cultures elsewhere. These kids get to Seattle, not really knowing anybody, work their asses off, and absorb the Microsoft way of doing things like a sponge. By the time they are ready to get disgruntled, their stock options start to kick in and their effective salary for staying around goes up into the stratosphere, where it is unlikely that anybody else will be able to lure them away. A five year Microsoft veteran could be making $500K a year including stock options -- care to match that?"
just in time for summer - look snazzy and support the site at the same time by buying some snowdeal schwag!
“The stranger has been a fundamental touchstone of cultures at least since Abraham and Sarah invited weary road travelers into their tent only to find out that they were angels in disguise. The Odyssey, too, is a meditation on strangers and hospitality: Odysseus experiences different ways of being a stranger on his way home while the suitors abuse every rule of hospitality in his own house. It's easy to see why strangers are so important: a culture's attitude towards them expresses its understanding of its position in the world of social groups. In our culture, we're suspicious of strangers. They're a threat. They lurk in shadows. On the Web, however, strangers are the source of everything worthwhile. Strangers and their utterances are the stuff of the Web.”
the hyperlinked metaphysics of the web
ev / cam / rc3 / dave / dangerousmeta / boing boing / keeptrying / textism / anil / sylloge / caterina / haughey / genehack / megnut / kottke / kalsey / splorp / john robb / paracelsus / nick denton / eatonweb / /usr/bin/girl / commonme / torrez / overstated / C:\PIRILLO.EXE / gulker / mcgee / delacour / webcrumbs / dane carlson / soapbox / vielmetti /
doc / satn / joho / egr / rushkoff / scoble / kevin werbach / amy wohl / tim o'reilly / dan bricklin /
langreiter / glish / morelikethis / hack the planet / raelity bytes / aaronland / burningbird / decafbad / tesugen / netcrucible / skippingdotnet / aaron swartz / flangy / salad with steve / w3future / jy / a frog in the valley / kumo / diveintomark / voidstar / too much news / dan sheridan / lawrence's notebook / joel / scott andrew / brent ashley / eric freeman / dithered / youngpup / loudthinking / jon udell / ringnalda /
shifted librarian / libtech / handheldlib / jessamyn / researchbuzz /
802.11b / sifry / reiter / mostly harmless / dailywireless / 802.11 planet /
qmacro / stpeter / dizzyd / durand /
blogzilla / mike's blog / mpt / hyatt / asa / blake ross / chris nelson /
simon fell / sam ruby /
webvoice / saltire / websense / bblog / poelog / bizquick /
forwarding address:osx /
bekkers / burkhardt / pope / hugh /
zeldman / rosenfeld / peterme / xblog / soapbox / design weenie / antenna / blackbeltjones / cognitive architects / arts and farces / noisebetweenstations / eleganthack / brad lauster / brushstroke / webword / signals vs. noise / uxblog / iaslash / nooface / lucdesk /
dan gillmor / glennf / onlinejournalism / deborah branscum / jd lasica / paul andrews / ken layne / talking points /
metafilter / metatalk / alterslash / spinsanity / adequacy / plastic /
valid xhtml 1.0 ?
This site designed by
Eric C. Snowdeal III
.
© 2000-2002