From the Tor Project’s blog today come “10 Principles for User Protection.” The very first principle is “Do not rely on the law to protect systems or users.” Tor Project developer Mike Perry: Unfortunately, it is […] likely that in the United States, current legal mechanisms, such as NSLs and secret FISA warrants, will continue …
Category Archives: Tech News
Cell 411, the “de-centralized” smartphone app that “cops hate” is neither de-centralized nor hated by cops
If you’re following anti-police brutality activists, you might have heard about a new smartphone app that aims to cut down on the need for police. Cell 411 is touted as “the decentralized emergency alerting and response platform” that “cops don’t want you to use.” There’s only one problem: its central marketing claims aren’t true. Cell …
Introducing CloudFog. Part cloud. Part fog. All security.
I’d like to talk to you for a moment about my new data security venture: CloudFog. Part cloud. Part fog. All security. […] We take a novel, horizontal approach to vertical socket encryption. The result can only be described as diagonal. Stephen Colbert keynoting this year’s controversial RSA Security Conference: Watch highlights from Colbert’s speech, …
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Stop wasting energy fighting Internet ID: If you don’t trust the government, fight bills like SOPA & PIPA instead!
This evening over dinner after Poly-NYC‘s “Politics and Passion” meeting, I found myself in an unexpected debate over Internet ID, part of the US government’s plan to centralize Internet identity mechanisms. Although this is actually old news—over a year old at this point!—fears about it seem to be cropping up again this week on places …
Internet censorship *FACEPALM* moment of the day
A friend linked me to “US National Science Foundation blocks Global Voices Advocacy website” by Ethan Zuckerman. In this post, Ethan discusses how the National Science Foundation (NSF), which (for those unfamiliar with the Internet’s history) in 1986 funded NSFNet as a cross country 56 Kbps backbone for academic purposes, essentially the first significant University computer …
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Crosspost: My impressions on the new “sex-positive social network†Blackbox Republic
This post was originally published on my other blog, a much more Not Safe For Work site, at maybemaimed.com. However, it turns out that blog is censored in various countries, such as Dubai. Gotta love Internet censorship. Sigh. Anyways, since I think the material there is interesting and technology-relevant, and in order to help people …
Guest Appearance on Technocolor NYC Technology Talk Radio Show
Last week, I was invited to make a guest appearance on a technology talk radio show called Technocolor, which airs on 90.3 FM locally in New York City. The radio station is WHCR. The invitation was rather unexpected but I had a great time and a fun conversation with the host, Lena Marvin. We had …
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YubiKey and OpenID: Two great tastes that taste better together
In some communities, this is sort of old news, however I’ve recently become aware of an exciting and affordable security product called the YubiKey, manufactured by Yubico. The YubiKey is a $35 USD one-time password second-factor authentication token that uses 128-bit AES encryption to provide identity verification. That’s a mouthful, but what it really means …
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XML.com Managing Editor Kurt Cagle sees the future, one that I’ve experienced a decade ago
I subscribe to a number of really great technology newsletters because they interest me. One of these is the XML.com weekly newsletter. XML is a technology that has exploded in the last several years, and its specifically an area that I, as a front-end and semantic web specialist, find exceptionally intriguing. Most intriguing today, however, …
Service-oriented Internet companies and porn: Ning gets it right
I think it’s important—for a lot of reasons—to let people do what they want rather than to try to force people to do what you think is right. Ning is a company that gets it: In a nutshell, we aren’t pro-porn, but we are pro-freedom. To prevent porn, you have to take an activist stand …
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