Anarchy is back. The last time anarchy was a noticeable political movement in the world, bomb throwing anarchists were killing heads of state and government leaders, as part of their scheme to take the whole system down, and impose socialist rule. Of course they claimed socialist rule didn’t really count as rule, because ideology.
Well, these days world leaders are much better protected, so instead the anarchists are going after websites and just trying to disrupt, particularly online. We must be mindful of this, create cybersecurity policies that let government and industry share information (through bills like CISA), and make sure to investigate and prosecute these crimes.
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The Global Warming fraudsters have to cheat their data in order to ‘hide the decline’ of temperatures. Likewise, it’s turning out that the left is going to have to cheat in order to make it look like American Internet competition is terrible. they’re going to do this by cheating the definitions by changing them mid-stream, in order to create a decline. Liars all, the Net Neturality/Universal Broadband left.
Uf you want to see the truth though, it’s Net Neutrality that actually harms Internet access, as seen in Chile.
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We missed Tech on Monday because of Memorial Day, but I was sick anyway so it wasn’t happening. Still getting over my cold though, so this tech is about 2 hours late.
Here’s your periodic reminder that kids and teenagers shouldn’t be online unsupervised. Adult sexual predators are actively hunting them to take advantage of them.
Keeping data Internet-accessible is inherently dangerous to your privacy. Internet security is spotty but still users don’t actually quit services that gather their data, as their outrage is always short lived. People want convenience and innovation so I reject calls for bigger government to try to use FTC to enforce a privacy few actually want.
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If you want an explanation of the ‘Heartbleed’ bug in the news, Francis Cianfrocca gives a good explanation in Coffee and Markets. But more important is his point about NSA. He always speaks carefully about that organization, but in his roundabout way he made an excellent point: NSA has a dual mandate. NSA’s job is both to break into enemy communications, and to protect our communications. The Heartbleed bug is so devastating that if they knew about it, they’d have to work to protect us from it, before someone else could use it against us. That’s how bad it is. There’s no way they knew about it a year.
If you don’t like that businesses hire lobbyists, shrink government and quit picking winners and losers so they don’t have to.
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How about some FCC? Some bad Net Neutrality laws are being proposed, attempting to save the terrible idea. Meanwhile Dean Heller is trying some targeted FCC process reform in the Senate. That’s great.
So, Retransmission Consent. You know what happens when you rig the system to limit competition, as the Congress and the FCC did in the early days of Cable? Broadcasters raking in the bucks. Never would I say that copyright should be attacked, but that price to license these broadcasts should be dictated by the open market. Let broadcasters compete.
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What’s better than anarchists getting arrested for spreading terrorists slogans, including threats? Anarchists getting arrested and caned for the same.
Speaking of people who need arrested, even as Kim Dotcom continues his war on copyright, he’s also going to get into politics in New Zealand. I think we can guess the sole platform element of his party: DO NOT EXTRADITE KIM DOTCOM TO AMERICA.
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They told us for years that Mitt Romney was a terrible person because of his ties to private equity. Now Julius Genachowski, Obama’s first FCC chair is going into private equity, and not a peep from the radicals.
Erick Erickson’s already covered all the reasons Peter King should be excluded from polite political society, but I just want to remind as well that Rand Paul’s grandstanding isn’t all that great. Snowden is an unrepentant criminal and traitor and it’s a shame that Paul is just sucking up to his father’s crazier fans. I guess he really wants their campaign donations more than he wants his dignity.
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As I mentioned Friday night, I had so much to cover I was breaking up Tech at Night into two parts. This is part two.
Remember when I called out Wikileaks for abandoning their ally Edward Snowden in Russia? They claimed he had settled there and their job was done, but I knew better. Well, here’s the proof that they’ve used him up and thrown him away: he’s still trying to get out of Russia, this time to Brazil. Spying for Wikileaks doesn’t even pay.
Remember when Snowden was supposed to be all about defending American civil liberties? Now he’s sticking up for Russia against Norway. Huh. Almost like we’d expect a traitor that fled ultimately to Russia to do, eh?
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The argument for the ECPA (email warrant law) reform in a nutshell: because a lot of people store important data on other people’s servers, we need to tighten warrant laws for that data. I don’t buy the necessity, especially with FISA also under attack. If terrorists have data on Google’s servers, I want Google to be able to hand over that data. But this idea is popular and I expect it to pass eventually.
I called it: China cut Bitcoin’s access to the Chinese banking system, just as the US cut online gambling access to the US banking system (and like the US did after the freezing of Mt. Gox’s Dwolla account. Result: Bitcoin prices are tumbling, even if firms like Bank of America can’t assume it’s going to go away.
I wish it would though, since Bitcoin continues to be a magnet for crime.
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Two reminders I usually make here. Use good passwords, and make sure not to run software you don’t trust. Keep your software updated. If you use it, consider switching away from the leading target online, Microsoft Windows. Government is trying to catch these guys, but you have to lock your own door at night.
Teenagers need to be monitored online. It’s for their protection against bad elements. Most parents would be disturbed to see their kids making videos like this, but without somebody watching, how would parents ever even know their kids were making video responses to requests by predators?
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