F-Secure Labs’ blog points to Cyberwar is Bullshit. I say yes! And I point you to Evgeny Morozov‘s cracking 10-step guide to cyberwar fearmongering. Follow his simple plan and you’ll be able to spread arrant drivel to the underbriefed with the best of them. I especially like: 2. Begin the story in Estonia, with a…
Read More HOWTO be a Cyberwar ExpertMinor triumph. Hacker News dropped 2,095 hits on this post yesterday, which just shows you what a bit of well-directed whining can achieve; the fleeting attention of one million social-network Skinner-box pigeons. But yes. Anyway, Reggie makes a very good point in comments – why can’t I subscribe to somebody’s contact details and have them…
Read More contacts, againHere are two news stories whose contrast should tell you a lot, via Charlie Stross. Spy chiefs fear Chinese cyber attack: INTELLIGENCE chiefs have warned that China may have gained the capability to shut down Britain by crippling its telecoms and utilities. They have told ministers of their fears that equipment installed by Huawei, the…
Read More spybreak!Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads has a hell of a story. Now, I’ve not always been totally convinced by Tim; he spends an inordinate amount of time pursuing minor politicos for breaches of netiquette I think I’d just forget. But two of the crucial principles of journalism can be summed up as the clam ethic –…
Read More tearing up the astroturfProfessional reactionaries, or put-on reactionaries, are as much of a characteristic feature of Internet culture as their polar opposite, professional neophiles and boosters. I can’t remember a moment in the last few years where there hasn’t been someone making a good living by bemoaning the kids of today and their…enter application…here in the public prints.…
Read More talking nonsense about Facebook: nonsense squared!Mumbai privilege-escalation attack news. Dawn reports that a Pakistani colonel has been identified in the evidence the Indians have presented – one R. Salahuddin from the “Special Communications Group” (Via Tom “Rickay!” Ricks). However, the evidence of his involvement is an e-mail with that address in the Reply-To field. If you can spoof voice CLI,…
Read More down at Abu Asterisk’s mobile phone shop againThe RBC’s Andrew Sabl wonders whether it’s best to write, e-mail or what? your elected representatives in a political pinch. What, what, what if there was a Web service that accepted, say, your ZIP code, found the relevant state and federal legislators, and routed your message to an online fax service? Well, there is, if…
Read More write to themA total disjuncture between cost and value; such was the problem facing Gorbachev. Consider this; Pajamas Media, that heroic attempt to refute the principle that putting 15 idiots around a table gives you the average of their intelligence, not the sum, is reorganising as a subscription video site. You will be able to pay $15…
Read More stupidity quantifiedJason Scott tells a sad tale of how AOL eliminated a whole mass of little Web sites and then erased all traces of their content. (Readers with long memories will recall the shutdown of Dave Winer’s blog farm.) What follows showed the best and worst of Internet culture – Scott called for volunteers to start…
Read More a small object lesson on the past decadeTwo things. Marty Lederman of popular legal blog Balkinisation has just become the first blogger in good standing to join the Obama Administration. He’s going to be Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Council. That’s repellent schreibtischtäter John Yoo’s old job. I repeat, old Organ Failure Yoo has been replaced by Liberal…
Read More US flattened by self administered denial of service attack