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Paul Merrell

The coming merge of human and machine intelligence - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...uman-machine-intelligence.html

brain-computer-interface networking Internet

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 May 15 - No Cached
  • Now, as the Internet revolution unfolds, we are seeing not merely an extension of mind but a unity of mind and machine, two networks coming together as one. Our smaller brains are in a quest to bypass nature's intent and grow larger by proxy. It is not a stretch of the imagination to believe we will one day have all of the world's information embedded in our minds via the Internet.
  • BCI stands for brain-computer interface, and Jan is one of only a few people on earth using this technology, through two implanted chips attached directly to the neurons in her brain. The first human brain implant was conceived of by John Donoghue, a neuroscientist at Brown University, and implanted in a paralyzed man in 2004. These dime-sized computer chips use a technology called BrainGate that directly connects the mind to computers and the Internet. Having served as chairman of the BrainGate company, I have personally witnessed just how profound this innovation is. BrainGate is an invention that allows people to control electrical devices with nothing but their thoughts. The BrainGate chip is implanted in the brain and attached to connectors outside of the skull, which are hooked up to computers that, in Jan Scheuermann's case, are linked to a robotic arm. As a result, Scheuermann can feed herself chocolate by controlling the robotic arm with nothing but her thoughts.
  • Mind meld But imagine the ways in which the world will change when any of us, disabled or not, can connect our minds to computers.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Back in 2004, Google's founders told Playboy magazine that one day we'd have direct access to the Internet through brain implants, with "the entirety of the world's information as just one of our thoughts." A decade later, the road map is taking shape. While it may be years before implants like BrainGate are safe enough to be commonplace—they require brain surgery, after all—there are a host of brainwave sensors in development for use outside of the skull that will be transformational for all of us: caps for measuring driver alertness, headbands for monitoring sleep, helmets for controlling video games. This could lead to wearable EEGs, implantable nanochips or even technology that can listen to our brain signals using the electromagnetic waves that pervade the air we breathe. Just as human intelligence is expanding in the direction of the Internet, the Internet itself promises to get smarter and smarter. In fact, it could prove to be the basis of the machine intelligence that scientists have been racing toward since the 1950s.
  • Neurons may be good analogs for transistors and maybe even computer chips, but they're not good building blocks of intelligence. The neural network is fundamental. The BrainGate technology works because the chip attaches not to a single neuron, but to a network of neurons. Reading the signals of a single neuron would tell us very little; it certainly wouldn't allow BrainGate patients to move a robotic arm or a computer cursor. Scientists may never be able to reverse engineer the neuron, but they are increasingly able to interpret the communication of the network. It is for this reason that the Internet is a better candidate for intelligence than are computers. Computers are perfect calculators composed of perfect transistors; they are like neurons as we once envisioned them. But the Internet has all the quirkiness of the brain: it can work in parallel, it can communicate across broad distances, and it makes mistakes. Even though the Internet is at an early stage in its evolution, it can leverage the brain that nature has given us. The convergence of computer networks and neural networks is the key to creating real intelligence from artificial machines. It took millions of years for humans to gain intelligence, but with the human mind as a guide, it may only take a century to create Internet intelligence.
  • Paul Merrell on 28 May 15
     
    Of course once the human brain is interfaced with the internet, then we will be able to do the Vulcan mind-meld thing. And NSA will be busily crawling the Internet for fresh brain dumps to their data center, which then encompasses the entire former state of Utah. Conventional warfare is a thing of the past as the cyberwar commands of great powers battle for control of the billions of minds making up BrainNet, the internet's successor.  Meanwhile, a hackers' Reaper malware trawls BrainNet for bank account numbers and paswords that it forwards for automated harvesting of personal funds. "Ah, Houston ... we have a problem ..."  
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Five Things That Could Topple Facebook's Empire | Epicenter | Wired.com - 0 views

www.wired.com/...ings-totopple-facebooks-empire

Facebook biggest social network 500 Millions subscribers

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 21 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 21 Jul 10
     
    * By Ryan Singel Email Author * July 20, 2010 | * 6:58 pm | * Categories: Social Media * Facebook is primed to announce this week that it's amassed a half billion active friends, a milestone reinforcing its status as the king of social networks - a company to be regarded with the seriousness and power (if not revenue) of Google, Apple, Yahoo and Microsoft. Read More http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/07/five-things-totopple-facebooks-empire/#ixzz0uM4KGGQc
Gary Edwards

With faster Chrome browser, Google offers an Android alternative - CNET - 0 views

www.cnet.com/...-offers-an-android-alternative

web-app-framework Chrome Android

shared by Gary Edwards on 27 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 27 Jun 14
     
    "On mobile devices, the Web hasn't lived up to its promise of a universal programming foundation. Google is trying to change that." Android hogged the spotlight at Google I/O, but performance improvements in Google's Chrome browser show that the company hasn't given up on trying to advance its other programming foundation -- the Web. The mobile version of Chrome has become much more responsive since 2013, said Paul Irish, a developer advocate on the Chrome team, speaking at the San Francisco conference. "We've improved the speed of animation by 75 percent and of scrolling 35 percent," Irish told developers Thursday. "We're committed to getting you 60 frames per second on the mobile Web." That performance is crucial for persuading people to use Web sites rather than native apps for things like posting on social networks, reading news, and playing games. It's also key to getting programmers to take the Web path when so many today focus on native apps written directly for Google's Android operating system and Apple's iOS competitor. The 60 frames-per-second rate refers to how fast the screen redraws when elements are in motion, either during games or when people are doing things like swiping among pages and dragging icons. The 60fps threshold is the minimum that game developers strive for, and to achieve it with no distracting stutters, a device must calculate how to update its entire screen every 16.7 milliseconds. Google, whose Android operating system initially lagged Apple's rival iOS significantly in this domain of responsiveness, has made great strides in improving its OS and its apps. But the mobile Web hasn't kept pace, and that means programmers have been more likely to aim for native apps rather than Web-based apps that can run on any device. ............................ Good review focused on the growing threat that native "paltform specific" apps are replacing Web apps as the developer's best choice. Florian thinks that native apps will win
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

The Linux desktop battle (and why it matters) - TechRepublic - 2 views

www.techrepublic.com/...ktop-battle-and-why-it-matters

linux desktop battle party why IT matters strong community despite proprietary press pamphlets

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 30 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 30 Mar 15
     
    Jack Wallen ponders the problem with the ever-lagging acceptance of the Linux desktop and poses a radical solution.
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 30 Mar 15
     
    "Jack Wallen ponders the problem with the ever-lagging acceptance of the Linux desktop and poses a radical solution. Linux desktop I have been using Ubuntu Unity for a very long time. In fact, I would say that this is, by far, the longest I've stuck with a single desktop interface. Period. That doesn't mean I don't stop to smell the desktop roses along the Linux path. In fact, I've often considered other desktops as a drop-in replacement for Unity. GNOME and Budgie have vied for my attention of late. Both are solid takes on the desktop that offer a minimalistic, modern look and feel (something I prefer) and help me get my work done with an efficiency other desktops can't match. What I see across the Linux landscape, however, often takes me by surprise. While Microsoft and Apple continue to push the idea of the user interface forward, a good amount of the Linux community seems bent on holding us in a perpetual state of "90s computing." Consider Xfce, Mate, and Cinnamon -- three very popular Linux desktop interfaces that work with one very common thread... not changing for the sake of change. Now, this can be considered a very admirable cause when it's put in place to ensure that user experience (UX) is as positive as possible. What this idea does, however, is deny the idea that change can affect an even more efficient and positive UX. When I spin up a distribution that makes use of Xfce, Mate, or Cinnamon, I find the environments work well and get the job done. At the same time, I feel as if the design of the desktops is trapped in the wrong era. At this point, you're certainly questioning the validity and path of this post. If the desktops work well and help you get the job done, what's wrong? It's all about perception. Let me offer you up a bit of perspective. The only reason Apple managed to rise from the ashes and become one of the single most powerful forces in technology is because they understood the concept of perception. They re-invented th
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 30 Mar 15
     
    Jack Wallen ponders the problem with the ever-lagging acceptance of the Linux desktop and poses a radical solution.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Open source software's implications beyond software | Nicole C. Engard | 27 Oct 2015 | Opensource.com - 0 views

opensource.com/...ed-hat-all-things-open-keynote

open source beyond software workforce management respect consideration skills share

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 28 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 28 Oct 15
     
    Recap: Jim Whitehurst keynote, All Things Open 2015 "... But today what we realize is that to get people who want more than a paycheck, people who want to go above and beyond because they believe in the mission, the company and the leadership must treat those people as participants."
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 28 Oct 15
     
    Recap: Jim Whitehurst keynote, All Things Open 2015 "... But today what we realize is that to get people who want more than a paycheck, people who want to go above and beyond because they believe in the mission, the company and the leadership must treat those people as participants."
Paul Merrell

How Edward Snowden Changed Everything | The Nation - 0 views

www.thenation.com/...ard-snowden-changed-everything

surveillance state Snowden Wizner state-of-play civil-liberties must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Ben Wizner, who is perhaps best known as Edward Snowden’s lawyer, directs the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy & Technology Project. Wizner, who joined the ACLU in August 2001, one month before the 9/11 attacks, has been a force in the legal battles against torture, watch lists, and extraordinary rendition since the beginning of the global “war on terror.” Ad Policy On October 15, we met with Wizner in an upstate New York pub to discuss the state of privacy advocacy today. In sometimes sardonic tones, he talked about the transition from litigating on issues of torture to privacy advocacy, differences between corporate and state-sponsored surveillance, recent developments in state legislatures and the federal government, and some of the obstacles impeding civil liberties litigation. The interview has been edited and abridged for publication.
  • en Wizner, who is perhaps best known as Edward Snowden’s lawyer, directs the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy & Technology Project. Wizner, who joined the ACLU in August 2001, one month before the 9/11 attacks, has been a force in the legal battles against torture, watch lists, and extraordinary rendition since the beginning of the global “war on terror.” Ad Policy On October 15, we met with Wizner in an upstate New York pub to discuss the state of privacy advocacy today. In sometimes sardonic tones, he talked about the transition from litigating on issues of torture to privacy advocacy, differences between corporate and state-sponsored surveillance, recent developments in state legislatures and the federal government, and some of the obstacles impeding civil liberties litigation. The interview has been edited and abridged for publication.
  • Many of the technologies, both military technologies and surveillance technologies, that are developed for purposes of policing the empire find their way back home and get repurposed. You saw this in Ferguson, where we had military equipment in the streets to police nonviolent civil unrest, and we’re seeing this with surveillance technologies, where things that are deployed for use in war zones are now commonly in the arsenals of local police departments. For example, a cellphone surveillance tool that we call the StingRay—which mimics a cellphone tower and communicates with all the phones around—was really developed as a military technology to help identify targets. Now, because it’s so inexpensive, and because there is a surplus of these things that are being developed, it ends up getting pushed down into local communities without local democratic consent or control.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • SG & TP: How do you see the current state of the right to privacy? BW: I joked when I took this job that I was relieved that I was going to be working on the Fourth Amendment, because finally I’d have a chance to win. That was intended as gallows humor; the Fourth Amendment had been a dishrag for the last several decades, largely because of the war on drugs. The joke in civil liberties circles was, “What amendment?” But I was able to make this joke because I was coming to Fourth Amendment litigation from something even worse, which was trying to sue the CIA for torture, or targeted killings, or various things where the invariable outcome was some kind of non-justiciability ruling. We weren’t even reaching the merits at all. It turns out that my gallows humor joke was prescient.
  • The truth is that over the last few years, we’ve seen some of the most important Fourth Amendment decisions from the Supreme Court in perhaps half a century. Certainly, I think the Jones decision in 2012 [U.S. v. Jones], which held that GPS tracking was a Fourth Amendment search, was the most important Fourth Amendment decision since Katz in 1967 [Katz v. United States], in terms of starting a revolution in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence signifying that changes in technology were not just differences in degree, but they were differences in kind, and require the Court to grapple with it in a different way. Just two years later, you saw the Court holding that police can’t search your phone incident to an arrest without getting a warrant [Riley v. California]. Since 2012, at the level of Supreme Court jurisprudence, we’re seeing a recognition that technology has required a rethinking of the Fourth Amendment at the state and local level. We’re seeing a wave of privacy legislation that’s really passing beneath the radar for people who are not paying close attention. It’s not just happening in liberal states like California; it’s happening in red states like Montana, Utah, and Wyoming. And purple states like Colorado and Maine. You see as many libertarians and conservatives pushing these new rules as you see liberals. It really has cut across at least party lines, if not ideologies. My overall point here is that with respect to constraints on government surveillance—I should be more specific—law-enforcement government surveillance—momentum has been on our side in a way that has surprised even me.
  • Do you think that increased privacy protections will happen on the state level before they happen on the federal level? BW: I think so. For example, look at what occurred with the death penalty and the Supreme Court’s recent Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. The question under the Eighth Amendment is, “Is the practice cruel and unusual?” The Court has looked at what it calls “evolving standards of decency” [Trop v. Dulles, 1958]. It matters to the Court, when it’s deciding whether a juvenile can be executed or if a juvenile can get life without parole, what’s going on in the states. It was important to the litigants in those cases to be able to show that even if most states allowed the bad practice, the momentum was in the other direction. The states that were legislating on this most recently were liberalizing their rules, were making it harder to execute people under 18 or to lock them up without the possibility of parole. I think you’re going to see the same thing with Fourth Amendment and privacy jurisprudence, even though the Court doesn’t have a specific doctrine like “evolving standards of decency.” The Court uses this much-maligned test, “Do individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy?” We’ll advance the argument, I think successfully, that part of what the Court should look at in considering whether an expectation of privacy is reasonable is showing what’s going on in the states. If we can show that a dozen or eighteen state legislatures have enacted a constitutional protection that doesn’t exist in federal constitutional law, I think that that will influence the Supreme Court.
  • The question is will it also influence Congress. I think there the answer is also “yes.” If you’re a member of the House or the Senate from Montana, and you see that your state legislature and your Republican governor have enacted privacy legislation, you’re not going to be worried about voting in that direction. I think this is one of those places where, unlike civil rights, where you saw most of the action at the federal level and then getting forced down to the states, we’re going to see more action at the state level getting funneled up to the federal government.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15
     
    A must-read. Ben Wizner discusses the current climate in the courts in government surveillance cases and how Edward Snowden's disclosures have affected that, and much more. Wizner is not only Edward Snowden's lawyer, he is also the coordinator of all ACLU litigation on electronic surveillance matters.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Beginner's Guide to the Linux Desktop - Freedom Penguin - 0 views

freedompenguin.com/...beginners-guide-linux-desktop

beginner guide linux desktop freedom penguin

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 13 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 13 Oct 16
     
    "October 7, 2016 Joe Collins 4 Comments How To There is much talk in the Linux world about the mythical "average user." There is no such thing with Linux. First off, people who use Linux usually are those who know a thing or two about computers to begin with and want to take advantage of all the choices Linux offers. "
Alexandra IcecreamApps

Online Schedule Maker: Top 4 Choices - Icecream Tech Digest - 1 views

icecreamapps.com/...e-schedule-maker-top-4-choices

DayViewer free online calendar Google Calendar Localendar online calendar online calendar maker Online schedule maker ScheduleBuilder.org schedule maker

shared by Alexandra IcecreamApps on 12 Aug 16 - No Cached
  • Alexandra IcecreamApps on 12 Aug 16
     
    Living in the modern world, we need to be in the right places at the right moments. A regular person has a lot of things going on, and it’s crucial to have everything scheduled for at least a week or … Continue reading →
  • Alexandra IcecreamApps on 12 Aug 16
     
    Living in the modern world, we need to be in the right places at the right moments. A regular person has a lot of things going on, and it’s crucial to have everything scheduled for at least a week or … Continue reading →
Paul Merrell

FBI director: Cover up your webcam | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...-director-cover-up-your-webcam

surveillance state FBI Comey webcam-intercepts

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • The head of the FBI on Wednesday defended putting a piece of tape over his personal laptop's webcam, claiming the security step was a common sense one that most should take.  “There’s some sensible things you should be doing, and that’s one of them,” Director James Comey said during a conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.ADVERTISEMENT“You go into any government office and we all have the little camera things that sit on top of the screen,” he added. “They all have a little lid that closes down on them.“You do that so that people who don’t have authority don’t look at you. I think that’s a good thing.”Comey was pilloried online earlier this year, after he revealed that he puts a piece of tape over his laptop camera to keep away prying eyes. The precaution is a common one among security advocates, given the relative ease of hacking laptop cameras.  
  • But many found it ironic for Comey, who this year launched a high profile battle against Apple to gain access to data locked inside of the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino, Calif., terrorists. Many viewed that fight as a referendum on digital privacy.Comey was “much mocked for that,” he acknowledged on Wednesday.But he still uses the tape on his laptop.“I hope people lock their cars,” he said. “Lock your doors at night… if you have an alarm system, you should use it.”“It’s not crazy that the FBI director cares about personal security as well,” the FBI director added. “So I think people ought to take responsibility for their own safety and security.”
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Contributing to an Open Source Project | FOSS Force - 0 views

fossforce.com/...contributing-open-source

open source project contribution

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 28 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 28 Sep 16
     
    "Phil Shapiro There are many ways to contribute to an open source project. There are also many reasons for doing so. But before jumping in, you might want to know how things generally work within these projects."
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 28 Sep 16
     
    "Phil Shapiro There are many ways to contribute to an open source project. There are also many reasons for doing so. But before jumping in, you might want to know how things generally work within these projects."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Open source is in our DNA | Network World - 0 views

www.networkworld.com/...open-source-is-in-our-dna.html

Open Source is in our DNA we are open natural

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 31 May 16 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 31 May 16
     
    "The same thing that compels us to make Linux (and many other projects) free and open source is present in many of humanity's greatest achievements"
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 31 May 16
     
    "The same thing that compels us to make Linux (and many other projects) free and open source is present in many of humanity's greatest achievements"
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Linux Practicality vs Activism - Datamation - 0 views

www.datamation.com/...-practicality-vs-activism.html

Linux Practicality vs Activism coexistence #GetTheThingsDone #TheOpenSourceWayfree software -> open source mindset

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 03 Jul 16 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 03 Jul 16
     
    " ...For some, the freedom enjoyed by using Linux is the freedom from vendor lock-in or high software costs. Most would call this a practical consideration. Others users would tell you the freedom they enjoy is software freedom. This means embracing Linux distributions that support the Free Software Movement, avoiding proprietary software completely and all things related. In this article, I'll walk you through some of the differences between these two freedoms and how they affect Linux usage. ...."
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 03 Jul 16
     
    " ...For some, the freedom enjoyed by using Linux is the freedom from vendor lock-in or high software costs. Most would call this a practical consideration. Others users would tell you the freedom they enjoy is software freedom. This means embracing Linux distributions that support the Free Software Movement, avoiding proprietary software completely and all things related. In this article, I'll walk you through some of the differences between these two freedoms and how they affect Linux usage. ...."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Doing for User Space What We Did for Kernel Space | Linux Journal - 0 views

www.linuxjournal.com/...space-what-we-did-kernel-space

Linux kernel user space spaces tech open source free software technology

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 08 Jul 16 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 08 Jul 16
     
    "Jul 06, 2016 By Doc Searls in Community Identity kernel Privacy I believe the best and worst thing about Linux is its hard distinction between kernel space and user space. Without that distinction, Linux never would have become the most leveraged operating system in the world. Today, Linux has the largest range of uses for the largest number of users-most of whom have no idea they are using Linux when they search for something on Google or poke at their Android phones. Even Apple stuff wouldn't be what it is (for example, using BSD in its computers) were it not for Linux's success. "
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 08 Jul 16
     
    "Jul 06, 2016 By Doc Searls in Community Identity kernel Privacy I believe the best and worst thing about Linux is its hard distinction between kernel space and user space. Without that distinction, Linux never would have become the most leveraged operating system in the world. Today, Linux has the largest range of uses for the largest number of users-most of whom have no idea they are using Linux when they search for something on Google or poke at their Android phones. Even Apple stuff wouldn't be what it is (for example, using BSD in its computers) were it not for Linux's success. "
Paul Merrell

He Was a Hacker for the NSA and He Was Willing to Talk. I Was Willing to Listen. - 2 views

theintercept.com/...o-talk-i-was-willing-to-listen

surveillance state NSA-hacker-interview

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Jul 16 - No Cached
  • he message arrived at night and consisted of three words: “Good evening sir!” The sender was a hacker who had written a series of provocative memos at the National Security Agency. His secret memos had explained — with an earthy use of slang and emojis that was unusual for an operative of the largest eavesdropping organization in the world — how the NSA breaks into the digital accounts of people who manage computer networks, and how it tries to unmask people who use Tor to browse the web anonymously. Outlining some of the NSA’s most sensitive activities, the memos were leaked by Edward Snowden, and I had written about a few of them for The Intercept. There is no Miss Manners for exchanging pleasantries with a man the government has trained to be the digital equivalent of a Navy SEAL. Though I had initiated the contact, I was wary of how he might respond. The hacker had publicly expressed a visceral dislike for Snowden and had accused The Intercept of jeopardizing lives by publishing classified information. One of his memos outlined the ways the NSA reroutes (or “shapes”) the internet traffic of entire countries, and another memo was titled “I Hunt Sysadmins.” I felt sure he could hack anyone’s computer, including mine. Good evening sir!
  • The sender was a hacker who had written a series of provocative memos at the National Security Agency. His secret memos had explained — with an earthy use of slang and emojis that was unusual for an operative of the largest eavesdropping organization in the world — how the NSA breaks into the digital accounts of people who manage computer networks, and how it tries to unmask people who use Tor to browse the web anonymously. Outlining some of the NSA’s most sensitive activities, the memos were leaked by Edward Snowden, and I had written about a few of them for The Intercept. There is no Miss Manners for exchanging pleasantries with a man the government has trained to be the digital equivalent of a Navy SEAL. Though I had initiated the contact, I was wary of how he might respond. The hacker had publicly expressed a visceral dislike for Snowden and had accused The Intercept of jeopardizing lives by publishing classified information. One of his memos outlined the ways the NSA reroutes (or “shapes”) the internet traffic of entire countries, and another memo was titled “I Hunt Sysadmins.” I felt sure he could hack anyone’s computer, including mine.
  • I got lucky with the hacker, because he recently left the agency for the cybersecurity industry; it would be his choice to talk, not the NSA’s. Fortunately, speaking out is his second nature.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • He agreed to a video chat that turned into a three-hour discussion sprawling from the ethics of surveillance to the downsides of home improvements and the difficulty of securing your laptop.
  • In recent years, two developments have helped make hacking for the government a lot more attractive than hacking for yourself. First, the Department of Justice has cracked down on freelance hacking, whether it be altruistic or malignant. If the DOJ doesn’t like the way you hack, you are going to jail. Meanwhile, hackers have been warmly invited to deploy their transgressive impulses in service to the homeland, because the NSA and other federal agencies have turned themselves into licensed hives of breaking into other people’s computers. For many, it’s a techno sandbox of irresistible delights, according to Gabriella Coleman, a professor at McGill University who studies hackers. “The NSA is a very exciting place for hackers because you have unlimited resources, you have some of the best talent in the world, whether it’s cryptographers or mathematicians or hackers,” she said. “It is just too intellectually exciting not to go there.”
  • The Lamb’s memos on cool ways to hunt sysadmins triggered a strong reaction when I wrote about them in 2014 with my colleague Ryan Gallagher. The memos explained how the NSA tracks down the email and Facebook accounts of systems administrators who oversee computer networks. After plundering their accounts, the NSA can impersonate the admins to get into their computer networks and pilfer the data flowing through them. As the Lamb wrote, “sys admins generally are not my end target. My end target is the extremist/terrorist or government official that happens to be using the network … who better to target than the person that already has the ‘keys to the kingdom’?” Another of his NSA memos, “Network Shaping 101,” used Yemen as a theoretical case study for secretly redirecting the entirety of a country’s internet traffic to NSA servers.
  • “If I turn the tables on you,” I asked the Lamb, “and say, OK, you’re a target for all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons. How do you feel about being a target and that kind of justification being used to justify getting all of your credentials and the keys to your kingdom?” The Lamb smiled. “There is no real safe, sacred ground on the internet,” he replied. “Whatever you do on the internet is an attack surface of some sort and is just something that you live with. Any time that I do something on the internet, yeah, that is on the back of my mind. Anyone from a script kiddie to some random hacker to some other foreign intelligence service, each with their different capabilities — what could they be doing to me?”
  • “You know, the situation is what it is,” he said. “There are protocols that were designed years ago before anybody had any care about security, because when they were developed, nobody was foreseeing that they would be taken advantage of. … A lot of people on the internet seem to approach the problem [with the attitude of] ‘I’m just going to walk naked outside of my house and hope that nobody looks at me.’ From a security perspective, is that a good way to go about thinking? No, horrible … There are good ways to be more secure on the internet. But do most people use Tor? No. Do most people use Signal? No. Do most people use insecure things that most people can hack? Yes. Is that a bash against the intelligence community that people use stuff that’s easily exploitable? That’s a hard argument for me to make.”
  • I mentioned that lots of people, including Snowden, are now working on the problem of how to make the internet more secure, yet he seemed to do the opposite at the NSA by trying to find ways to track and identify people who use Tor and other anonymizers. Would he consider working on the other side of things? He wouldn’t rule it out, he said, but dismally suggested the game was over as far as having a liberating and safe internet, because our laptops and smartphones will betray us no matter what we do with them. “There’s the old adage that the only secure computer is one that is turned off, buried in a box ten feet underground, and never turned on,” he said. “From a user perspective, someone trying to find holes by day and then just live on the internet by night, there’s the expectation [that] if somebody wants to have access to your computer bad enough, they’re going to get it. Whether that’s an intelligence agency or a cybercrimes syndicate, whoever that is, it’s probably going to happen.”
  • There are precautions one can take, and I did that with the Lamb. When we had our video chat, I used a computer that had been wiped clean of everything except its operating system and essential applications. Afterward, it was wiped clean again. My concern was that the Lamb might use the session to obtain data from or about the computer I was using; there are a lot of things he might have tried, if he was in a scheming mood. At the end of our three hours together, I mentioned to him that I had taken these precautions—and he approved. “That’s fair,” he said. “I’m glad you have that appreciation. … From a perspective of a journalist who has access to classified information, it would be remiss to think you’re not a target of foreign intelligence services.” He was telling me the U.S. government should be the least of my worries. He was trying to help me. Documents published with this article: Tracking Targets Through Proxies & Anonymizers Network Shaping 101 Shaping Diagram I Hunt Sys Admins (first published in 2014)
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

RIAA Says YouTube is Running a DMCA Protection Racket - TorrentFreak - 0 views

torrentfreak.com/-dmca-protection-racket-160412

riaa says youtube dmca protection racket Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley #HollywoodvsSiliconValley

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 16 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 16 Apr 16
     
    " Andy on April 12, 2016 C: 110 News In the latest broadside in the content takedown debate, RIAA chief Cary Sherman has suggested that Google-owned YouTube is short-changing the labels by operating a DMCA-protected protection racket. Unsurprisingly Google sees things quite differently, noting that the tools already exist to take down unauthorized content on a permanent basis."
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 16 Apr 16
     
    " Andy on April 12, 2016 C: 110 News In the latest broadside in the content takedown debate, RIAA chief Cary Sherman has suggested that Google-owned YouTube is short-changing the labels by operating a DMCA-protected protection racket. Unsurprisingly Google sees things quite differently, noting that the tools already exist to take down unauthorized content on a permanent basis."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

New 'Company' Claims It Uses Algorithms To Create Content Faster Than Creators Can, Making All Future Creations 'Infringing' | Techdirt - 1 views

www.techdirt.com/...ure-creations-infringing.shtml

company uses algorithms creatin content claim copyright over everything created even future

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 30 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 30 Sep 14
     
    "from the [algorithmically-generated-trollface] dept Over the weekend, TorrentFreak covered the discovery of the latest thing in copyright enforcement: algorithmically-generated content created solely for the purpose of extracting infringement settlements and licensing fees. " [# ! The Dark Side of the #Copyright, #unveiled: # ! It's just to #undermine #creation (contrarily to its original #aim…) (# ! #wonder why #copyleft is #rising…)]
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 30 Sep 14
     
    "from the [algorithmically-generated-trollface] dept Over the weekend, TorrentFreak covered the discovery of the latest thing in copyright enforcement: algorithmically-generated content created solely for the purpose of extracting infringement settlements and licensing fees. "
Gary Edwards

Can C.E.O. Satya Nadella Save Microsoft? | Vanity Fair - 0 views

www.vanityfair.com/...-gates-steve-ballmer-microsoft

Microsoft-Cloud

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • he new world of computing is a radical break from the past. That’s because of the growth of mobile devices and cloud computing. In the old world, corporations owned and ran Windows P.C.’s and Window servers in their own facilities, with the necessary software installed on them. Everyone used Windows, so everything was developed for Windows. It was a virtuous circle for Microsoft.
  • Now the processing power is in the cloud, and very sophisticated applications, from e-mail to tools you need to run a business, can be run by logging onto a Web site, not from pre-installed software. In addition, the way we work (and play) has shifted from P.C.’s to mobile devices—where Android and Apple’s iOS each outsell Windows by more than 10 to 1. Why develop software to run on Windows if no one is using Windows? Why use Windows if nothing you want can run on it? The virtuous circle has turned vicious.
  • Part of why Microsoft failed with devices is that competitors upended its business model. Google doesn’t charge for the operating system. That’s because Google makes its money on search. Apple can charge high prices because of the beauty and elegance of its devices, where the software and hardware are integrated in one gorgeous package. Meanwhile, Microsoft continued to force outside manufacturers, whose products simply weren’t as compelling as Apple’s, to pay for a license for Windows. And it didn’t allow Office to be used on non-Windows phones and tablets. “The whole philosophy of the company was Windows first,” says Heather Bellini, an analyst at Goldman Sachs. Of course it was: that’s how Microsoft had always made its money.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • Right now, Windows itself is fragmented: applications developed for one Windows device, say a P.C., don’t even necessarily work on another Windows device. And if Microsoft develops a new killer application, it almost has to be released for Android and Apple phones, given their market dominance, thereby strengthening those eco-systems, too.
  • At its core, Azure uses Windows server technology. That helps existing Windows applications run seamlessly on Azure. Technologists sometimes call what Microsoft has done a “hybrid cloud” because companies can use Azure alongside their pre-existing on-site Windows servers. At the same time, Nadella also to some extent has embraced open-source software—free code that doesn’t require a license from Microsoft—so that someone could develop something using non-Microsoft technology, and it would run on Azure. That broadens Azure’s appeal.
  • “In some ways the way people think about Bill and Steve is almost a Rorschach test.” For those who romanticize the Gates era, Microsoft’s current predicament will always be Ballmer’s fault. For others, it’s not so clear. “He left Steve holding a big bag of shit,” the former executive says of Gates. In the year Ballmer officially took over, Microsoft was found to be a predatory monopolist by the U.S. government and was ordered to split into two; the cost of that to Gates and his company can never be calculated. In addition, the dotcom bubble had burst, causing Microsoft stock to collapse, which resulted in a simmering tension between longtime employees, whom the company had made rich, and newer ones, who had missed the gravy train.
  • Nadella lived this dilemma because his job at Microsoft included figuring out the cloud-based future while maintaining the highly profitable Windows server business. And so he did a bunch of things that were totally un-Microsoft-like. He went to talk to start-ups to find out why they weren’t using Microsoft. He put massive research-and-development dollars behind Azure, a cloud-based platform that Microsoft had developed in Skunk Works fashion, which by definition took resources away from the highly profitable existing business.
  • They even have a catchphrase: “Re-inventing productivity.”
  • Microsoft’s historical reluctance to open Windows and Office is why it was such a big deal when in late March, less than two months after becoming C.E.O., Nadella announced that Microsoft would offer Office for Apple’s iPad. A team at the company had been working on it for about a year. Ballmer says he would have released it eventually, but Nadella did it immediately. Nadella also announced that Windows would be free for devices smaller than nine inches, meaning phones and small tablets. “Now that we have 30 million users on the iPad using it, that is 30 million people who never used Office before [on an iPad,]” he says. “And to me that’s what really drives us.” These are small moves in some ways, and yet they are also big. “It’s the first time I have listened to a senior Microsoft executive admit that they are behind,” says one institutional investor. “The fact that they are giving away Windows, their bread and butter for 25 years—it is quite a fundamental change.”
  • And whoever does the best job of building the right software experiences to give both organizations and individuals time back so that they can get more out of their time, that’s the core of this company—that’s the soul. That’s what Bill started this company with. That’s the Office franchise. That’s the Windows franchise. We have to re-invent them. . . . That’s where this notion of re-inventing productivity comes from.”
  • Ballmer might be a complicated character, but he has nothing on Gates, whose contradictions have long fascinated Microsoft-watchers. He is someone who has no problem humiliating individuals—he might not even notice—but who genuinely cares deeply about entire populations and is deeply loyal. He is generous in the biggest ways imaginable, and yet in small things, like picking up a lunch tab, he can be shockingly cheap. He can’t make small talk and can come across as totally lacking in E.Q. “The rules of human life that allow you to get along are not complicated,” says one person who knows Gates. “He could write a book on it, but he can’t do it!”
  • At the Microsoft board meeting in late June 2013, Ballmer announced he had a handshake deal with Nokia’s management to buy the company, pending the Microsoft board’s approval, according to a source close to the events. Ballmer thought he had it and left before the post-board-meeting dinner to attend his son’s middle-school graduation. When he came back the next day, he found that the board had pulled a coup: they informed him they weren’t doing the deal, and it wasn’t up for discussion. For Ballmer, it seems, the unforgivable thing was that Gates had been part of the coup, which Ballmer saw as the ultimate betrayal.
  • what is scarce in all of this abundance is human attention
  • And the original idea of having great software people and broad software products and Office being the primary tool that people look to across all these devices, that’ s as true today and as strong as ever.”
  • Meeting Room Plus
  • But he combines that with flashes of insight and humor that leave some wondering whether he can’t do it or simply chooses not to, or both. His most pronounced characteristic shouldn’t be simply labeled a competitive streak, because it is really a fierce, deep need to win. The dislike it bred among his peers in the industry is well known—“Silicon Bully” was the title of an infamous magazine story about him. And yet he left Microsoft for the philanthropic world, where there was no one to bully, only intractable problems to solve.
  • “The Irrelevance of Microsoft” is actually the title of a blog post by an analyst named Benedict Evans, who works at the Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. On his blog, Evans pointed out that Microsoft’s share of all computing devices that we use to connect to the Internet, including P.C.’s, phones, and tablets, has plunged from 90 percent in 2009 to just around 20 percent today. This staggering drop occurred not because Microsoft lost ground in personal computers, on which its software still dominates, but rather because it has failed to adapt its products to smartphones, where all the growth is, and tablets.
  • The board told Ballmer they wanted him to stay, he says, and they did eventually agree to a slightly different version of the deal. In September, Microsoft announced it was buying Nokia’s devices-and-services business for $7.2 billion. Why? The board finally realized the downside: without Nokia, Microsoft was effectively done in the smartphone business. But, for Ballmer, the damage was done, in more ways than one. He now says it became clear to him that despite the lack of a new C.E.O. he couldn’t stay. Cultural change, he decided, required a change at the top, and, he says,“there was too much water under the bridge with this board.” The feeling was mutual. As a source close to Microsoft says, no one, including Gates, tried to stop him from quitting.
  • in Wall Street’s eyes, Nadella can do no wrong. Microsoft’s stock has risen 30 percent since he became C.E.O., increasing its market value by $87 billion. “It’s interesting with Satya,” says one person who observes him with investors. “He is not a business guy or a financial analyst, but he finds a common language with investors, and in his short tenure, they leave going, Wow.” But the honeymoon is the easy part.
  • “He was so publicly and so early in life defined as the brilliant guy,” says a person who has observed him. “Anything that threatens that, he becomes narcissistic and defensive.” Or as another person puts it, “He throws hissy fits when he doesn’t get his way.”
  • round three-quarters of Microsoft’s profits come from the two fabulously successful products on which the company was built: the Windows operating system, which essentially makes personal computers run, and Office, the suite of applications that includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Financially speaking, Microsoft is still extraordinarily powerful. In the last 12 months the company reported sales of $86.83 billion and earnings of $22.07 billion; it has $85.7 billion of cash on its balance sheet. But the company is facing a confluence of threats that is all the more staggering given Microsoft’s sheer size. Competitors such as Google and Apple have upended Microsoft’s business model, making it unclear where Windows will fit in the world, and even challenging Office. In the Valley, there are two sayings that everyone regards as truth. One is that profits follow relevance. The other is that there’s a difference between strategic position and financial position. “It’s easy to be in denial and think the financials reflect the current reality,” says a close observer of technology firms. “They do not.”
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Oct 14
     
    Awesome article describing the history of Microsoft as seen through the lives of it's three CEO's: Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Satya Nadella
Alexandra IcecreamApps

Best Skype Alternatives for Windows - Icecream Tech Digest - 0 views

icecreamapps.com/...est-skype-alternatives-windows

skype alternatives windows oovoo hangouts trillian pidgin line tango jitsi IM messenger

shared by Alexandra IcecreamApps on 15 May 15 - No Cached
  • Alexandra IcecreamApps on 15 May 15
     
    Skype is one of the most popular and famous messengers in the world. Through the years of its existence, this IM has gone through drastic changes. The interface, the owning company, the functions - all these things have been evolving … Continue reading →
  • Alexandra IcecreamApps on 15 May 15
     
    Skype is one of the most popular and famous messengers in the world. Through the years of its existence, this IM has gone through drastic changes. The interface, the owning company, the functions - all these things have been evolving … Continue reading →
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Advocate General Doubts Legality of Pirate Bay Blockade | TorrentFreak - 0 views

torrentfreak.com/-of-pirate-bay-blockade-150529

advocate general doubt legallity blockade advocate general Tha Pirate Bay

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 29 May 15 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 29 May 15
     
    " Ernesto on May 29, 2015 C: 0 Breaking In a landmark lawsuit over the legality of the Dutch Pirate Bay blockade, Attorney General Van Peursem has advised that the case should be sent to EU Court of Justice. Among other things, the Attorney General wants the EU Court to rule whether The Pirate Bay communicates illegal content to the public. "
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 29 May 15
     
    " Ernesto on May 29, 2015 C: 0 Breaking In a landmark lawsuit over the legality of the Dutch Pirate Bay blockade, Attorney General Van Peursem has advised that the case should be sent to EU Court of Justice. Among other things, the Attorney General wants the EU Court to rule whether The Pirate Bay communicates illegal content to the public. "
Gary Edwards

Chris Dixon Explains Why He Loves Paper - Business Insider - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/ains-why-he-loves-paper-2013-6

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Steve Jobs predicted that tablet computers would become so dominant that “PCs would become like trucks” – special-purpose industrial devices. Skeptics replied that tablets were only useful for consumption and not creation and therefore couldn’t replace PCs, to which Jobs said:
  • We are just scratching the surface on the kinds of apps for the iPad…I think there are lots of kinds of content that can be created on the iPad. When I am going to write that 35-page analyst report, I am going to want my Bluetooth keyboard. That’s 1 percent of the time. The software will get more powerful. I think your vision would have to be pretty short to think these can’t grow into machines that can do more things, like editing video, graphic arts, productivity. You can imagine all of these content creation possibilities on these kind of things. Time takes care of lots of these things.
  • History supports Jobs’ argument. In the past, new user interfaces led to new categories of creation applications. Back in the 70s and 80s, when computers had text-based interfaces, word processors and spreadsheets were invented. In the 80s and 90s, when computers had graphical interfaces, presentation and image editors proliferated. Jobs was simply predicting that historical patterns would repeat.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Today we are announcing that Andreessen Horowitz is leading a $15M Series A investment in FiftyThree, a company whose goal is to build the essential suite of mobile tools for creativity. You might know FiftyThree as the company behind the iPad app Paper. Paper has been embraced by millions of everyday creators, and has won dozens of awards (including Apple’s App of the Year). It is also one of the top grossing iPad productivity apps ever. But this is only the beginning of FiftyThree’s ambitious plans.
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