spriteleigh

As Abraham Lincoln famously said, “The problem with quotes from the internet is that they’re often fake.” The internet is littered with falsehoods that spread quickly because they can be easily retweeted or reposted with a couple of mouse clicks. To my shame, I’ve been occasionally suckered by them.*

There are widely-followed Twitter accounts, such as @HistoryInPics and @HistoricalPics, that have been accused of taking manipulated photos and passing them off as real or adding wildly inaccurate captions. Rebecca Onion of Slate described the problems that these Twitter accounts pose here.

Eric Drass, an artist, agrees. There’s a problem with images that are unsourced or fake images circulating the internet, becoming facts in the minds of people who don’t know any better. To highlight the problem, he created @factbot1, a program that automatically generates random facts, finds relevant images, then tweets them.

-via 22 Words

*One of the hardest research projects I’ve ever had was, oddly enough, the 2013 Neatorama Desk Calendar. It’s filled with 365 bits of interesting trivia. I found that the majority of neat trivia that I uncovered didn’t stand up to fact-checking.

Urban Jungle Street View is a Google Street View mashup that pulls out the 3D information latent in the Streetview database and uses it to map lush, ecotopian foliage over the surfaces of the buildings and street furniture. You can put your own address in and see your home covered in climbing jungles and explore from there, or use great architectural landmarks as your starting point. Shown here: the Flatiron building in midtown Manhattan, where my publishers are located.

Its creator, Einar Öberg, has created a ton of other amazing mashups based on similar principles.

Urban Jungle Street View (via Waxy)

(YouTube link)

Christopher Walken may play creepy roles most of the time, but he loves to dance. In fact, before he was an movie star, he trained as a dancer for musical theater. This video has clips of 57 different Christopher Walken movies going back as far as 1977, and he dances in most of them. That’s a lot of movies! See a list of the films at HuffPo.  -via Tastefully Offensive

Writing under the rallying cry "Gender-specific books demean all our children," Katy Guest announces that the Independent on Sunday -- one of the UK's great weekend papers -- will no longer review any books that are marketed to "exclude either sex." It's tied to the Let Toys Be Toys/Let Books Be Books campaign, which petitions companies to stop tying their products to specific gender-identities. Guest characterises the segregation of products by gender as a means of "convincing children that boys and girls can’t play with each other's stuff, is forcing parents to buy twice as much stuff."

I remember being surprised when someone told me that Little Brother was a "boy book." Yes, its protagonist is a boy, but every protagonist has to have some kind of gender identity, and it's a weird world when we're only allowed to read fiction in which the lead character has the same gender identity as us. I once co-wrote a novella whose major characters are galaxy-spanning AI hiveminds -- it would have a rather small audience by that standard.

Good on the Independent on Sunday for this!

There are also those who argue that children are set upon their boyish and girly courses from conception, and that no amount of book-reading is going to change them. In fact, there is no credible evidence that boys and girls are born with innately different enthusiasms, and plenty of evidence that their tastes are acquired through socialisation. Let’s face it, any company with a billion dollar advertising budget could convince even Jeremy Clarkson to dress up as a Disney princess if it really wanted to, and probably would if his doing so could double its income. So what hope is there against all this pressure for an impressionable child?

I wouldn’t mind, but splitting children’s books strictly along gender lines is not even good publishing. Just like other successful children’s books, The Hunger Games was not aimed at girls or boys; like JK Rowling, Roald Dahl, Robert Muchamore and others, Collins just wrote great stories, and readers bought them in their millions. Now, Dahl’s Matilda is published with a pink cover, and I have heard one bookseller report seeing a mother snatching a copy from her small son’s hands saying “That’s for girls” as she replaced it on the shelf.

You see, it is not just girls’ ambitions that are being frustrated by the limiting effects of “books for girls”, in which girls’ roles are all passive, domestic and in front of a mirror. Rebecca Davies, who writes the children’s books blog at Independent.co.uk, tells me that she is equally sick of receiving “books which have been commissioned solely for the purpose of ‘getting boys reading’ [and which have] all-male characters and thin, action-based plots.” What we are doing by pigeon-holing children is badly letting them down. And books, above all things, should be available to any child who is interested in them.

Gender-specific books demean all our children. So the Independent on Sunday will no longer review anything marketed to exclude either sex [Katy Guest/The Independent]

(Image: Modern Book for Girls, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from snigl3t's photostream)

The NSA has a research facility in Bluffdale, Utah. It's loaded with "metadata-gathering computers that currently require 1.7 million gallons of water a day" to keep them cool. Utah representative Marc Roberts (R) has introduced HB161, which would shut off their water supply. If the bill passes, how will the federal government respond?

A new Snowden leak reveals that all the voice calls in an unnamed country are recorded and saved for 30 days on a rolling basis, with millions of voice "cuts" (clippings) harvested from the corpus for long-term storage by the system. The system, called MYSTIC, has been running since 2009, and its search tool, RETRO, has been fully operational against a whole country's phone calls since 2011.

President Obama has stated that " the United States is not spying on ordinary people who don't threaten our national security" -- this is a hard statement to square with the idea of recording all the voice calls made in an entire country.

The Washington Post article detailing the programs states at least five more countries are now covered by MYSTIC, with a sixth coming online.

The emblem of the MYSTIC program depicts a cartoon wizard with a telephone-headed staff. Among the agency’s bulk collection programs disclosed over the past year, its focus on the spoken word is unique. Most of the programs have involved the bulk collection of either metadata — which does not include content — or text, such as e-mail address books.

Telephone calls are often thought to be more ephemeral and less suited than text for processing, storage and search. Indeed, there are indications that the call-recording program has been hindered by the NSA’s limited capacity to store and transmit bulky voice files.

In the first year of its deployment, a program officer wrote that the project “has long since reached the point where it was collecting and sending home far more than the bandwidth could handle.”

Because of similar capacity limits across a range of collection programs, the NSA is leaping forward with cloud-based collection systems and a gargantuan new “mission data repository” in Utah. According to its overview briefing, the Utah facility is designed “to cope with the vast increases in digital data that have accompanied the rise of the global network.”

NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls [Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani/Washington Post]

(YouTube link)

If Superman strapped a camera to his forehead while he went about his crime fighting business, it might look something like this sequence from Corridor Digital. It’s not all just flying around, either- he fights crime and does good deeds along the way. This really should be a video game. Maybe with enough response, it will be eventually. Hey, it worked with Goat Simulator! -via Gamma Squad

Every few weeks I check my search results to see what people were looking for that brought them to this blog.  Then I blog about them and then I get even more weird search terms the next week.  It’s like I’m asking for this.  Stop blaming the victim, you guys.

The strangest searches that brought people to TheBloggess.com this week:

“What will happened if centipedes go inside your ear?” (Screaming, probably?)

“Does anyone pronounce the L in caulk?”  (I find it’s more fun if you don’t.)

“Why is everything making sense in my life?”  (Frankly, that would be disconcerting to me too.)

“Not my fault your ugly.” (Fair enough.  Not my fault you can’t use “you’re” properly.)

“Human baby eating”  (I’m confused.  Are you wanting to know what human babies should be eating, or the best way to eat human babies?  Please be more specific.)

“How to make people think you are a wizard”  (Good luck with that.)

“I burnt the fucking soufflé.”  (You’re not alone.)

“What’s that thing near my veginer?”  (No idea, but that’s probably my favorite new pronunciation of “vagina”.  Vej-Eye-Ner.  That is awesome.)

“Can I move my buried dog?”  (Not while it’s still buried.)

“My life goal is to end up on Jenny’s weirdest search term blog list.”   (Success!  Now go reevaluate your life goals.  You can do better.)

“If my boo is not answering his phone can I pop up at his house and ask do he need to borrow your phone charger?”  (I like your style, lady.  Be my new best friend.)

“My spirit animal is fisting Steven Seagal.”  (Wait.  Is your spirit animal currently fisting Steven Seagal.  Or is your spirit animal Steven Seagal, who is currently fisting?  Either way, it’s unsettling.)

Penis spatula  (Well, you wouldn’t want it to burn, I suppose.)

Mouse riding on octopus (The weird thing here is that seven different people looked for this.  I’ve disappointed seven people in one week.  At least.)

Where can I buy lemonade flavored crystal meth?  (You meant to type “Crystal Light” didn’t you?)

“Feels like I have been stabbed.”  (Check for knives.  You may have been stabbed.)

“How much is a 20 dollar bill worth?” (Huh.  Is this a trick question?)

“When can baby see squirrels at night?”  (I don’t even know what’s going on here.)

“Midgets that are tired of being hit on.” (First of all, we don’t use the word “midget” anymore.  Secondly, it’s “who” rather than “that”.   Third, WHAT IN THE FUCK?)

“You mean I’m not a reptile.”  (You sound disappointed.  But if you typed this you are probably not a reptile.  Or you’re a very talented reptile.  Either way?  Good news.)

“Large bulge above the naval extending to rib cage looks like an alien is about to burst out.”  (Why are you googling this?  GO SEE A DOCTOR.)

“Always bring the banana to your mouth.”  (I’m not saying I disagree, but why are we even specifying?)

“Rotten banana in vargina” (Ah.  And now I see why we’re specifying.  Also, it’s “verginer”.  Not “vargina”.  Please update your spellcheck.  And please put down the banana.)

“How to know if something is appropriate for social media?”  (And you found yourself here.  How terribly ironic.)

“Third eye grows out of your forehead and wants to eat your brain.”  (I think we’ve all been there, friend.)

“Aliens gave my cat a beard.”  (But…how can you tell?)

“Is it safe to fix a loose needle on meth syringe with superglue?” (None of that is safe.  Everything you said is unsafe.  I’m not sure why I’m having to clarify that.)

“Why should you never fart on somebody’s balls?” (I don’t have an answer for that.  Or a response.  Or words.  speechless.)

“What is the worst thing that could happen if you put glue on your lips?” (A third eye could grow out of your forehead and eat your brain?  An alien could burst out of your stomach?  Someone could fart on your balls?  Apparently, just about anything.  None of us are safe, y’all.)

When you call tech support with a computer problem you usually reach someone who is really far away, but you probably had no idea that some of those calls were being routed to Middle Earth!

Tech Support Gandalf is the meme flavor of the year month week, and he’s full of all kinds of computer wisdom- You should always let the installation wizard finish doing its thing, for the installation wizard completes precisely when he means to, and when in doubt Google it.

We’ve included a blank version, so you can try your hand at creating a Tech Support Gandalf image of your own.

-Via Uproxx

If you have anything in iTunes bought prior to 2009, chances are it's got DRM on it. Here's how to take it off. [Wired]

The creators of the annual press freedom index have added the US and Britain to their list of countries that repress online speech, arrest bloggers and use the internet to conduct domestic surveillance. Longtime faves such as Iran, North Korea and Cuba have some rich new friends. From the EFF's digest:

United States: This is the first time the US has made it onto RSF’s list. While the US government doesn’t censor online content, and pours money into promoting Internet freedom worldwide, the National Security Agency’s unapologetic dragnet surveillance and the government’s treatment of whistleblowers have earned it a spot on the index.

United Kingdom: The European nation has been dubbed by RSF as the “world champion of surveillance” for its recently-revealed depraved strategies for spying on individuals worldwide. The UK also joins countries like Ethiopia and Morocco in using terrorism laws to go after journalists. Not noted by RSF, but also important, is the fact that the UK is also cracking down on legal pornography, forcing Internet users to opt-in with their ISP if they wish to view it and creating a slippery slope toward overblocking. This is in addition to the government’s use of an opaque, shadowy NGO to identify child sexual abuse images, sometimes resulting instead in censorship of legitimate speech.

Other newcomers to the list are Russia, Pakistan, India and Ethiopia. Tunisia and Burma were removed from the list after having "taken steps to ameliorate violations of Internet freedom"

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge and Engine have submitted comments [PDF] to the US Patent and Trademark Office explaining how examiners could improve the quality of patents that the USPTO issues by expanding their search for "prior art" (that is, evidence that the thing under discussion has already been invented) by building searchable databases, and by seeing through the common, misleading practices of using synonyms for common words to make obvious things sound new.

As EFF points out in its post on the filing, the real answer for this is action from Congress to reform patents and end patent-trolling, but these are all useful steps for the USPTO to take in the meantime.

Last week, together with Public Knowledge and Engine, EFF submitted written comments urging the PTO to do better at finding the most relevant prior art. We recommend that the office work to create searchable databases of existing software programs. We also urge the PTO to see past the kind of deliberate obfuscation that is too common in software patent applications. Applicants should not be able to get patents simply by inventing new words for old things.

Ultimately, while improved patent examination and fewer bad patents would be a good thing, we need fundamental reform to solve the current crisis. We hope this will include the Supreme Court striking down abstract patents, striking down vague patents, and new legislation from Congress that takes on the patent troll business model. We’ll continue to work on multiple fronts to keep innovation safe from bad software patents.

Why is the Patent Office So Bad At Reviewing Software Patents? [Daniel Nazer/EFF]

The pyramid, the All-Seeing Eye, the pentagram- these are the symbols utilized by the Illuminati, that shadowy organization controlling the world with their secrecy and power of lots of money.

Conspiracy enthusiasts know that when you start looking for the Illuminati you’ll discover to your horror that they are everywhere, putting their symbols into everything so we’re constantly reminded that they are in power.

From puppy mouths to Jay-Z’s nose to seemingly random pixel arrays, you can find the Illuminati’s power pyramid everywhere and in everything, but if you’re still not convinced take a look at these 4chan Illuminati images posted to Imgur by bravesaint.

Warning- once you start seeing the Illuminati everywhere you won’t be able to stop seeing the Illuminati everywhere, because they are everywhere!

-Via Super Punch

In honour of the 30th anniversary of the brilliant (and incredibly frustrating) Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy text adventure game, BBC Radio 4 Extra have recreated the game in an online edition. I remember playing this for endless hours, with my Peril Sensitive Sunglasses perched on my forehead, repeatedly typing "look." The R4 version allows for saved games, so you can come back to it. You can also play the 20th anniversary edition.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Game - 30th Anniversary Edition (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Doge 2048 is a spinoff of the game 2048, which I never understood. But Doge 2048 is a lot more fun, because it has Doge! Use your arrow keys to combine two Doges that look alike. And keep doing it. The first time through, you will think, “I have no idea what I’m doing.” That was how I felt, anyway. The second time through, I sort of got the hang of it and scored 2500. Have fun playing Doge 2048. Much fun. Such score. -via Metafilter

In the Watchmen comics universe, the physicist Jon Osterman was widely known as Doctor Manhattan. He was a tragic figure who first acquired unsurpassed powers, but at the cost of his humanity. He exiled himself to Mars, cutting himself off from a humanity that wished to use him, but he could only destroy.

Elsa, too, had great powers that made her dangerous and only isolated her from other people. So it is fitting that Alex Wolinetz, added the lyrics from the song "Let It Go" to scenes from Dave Gibbons's depiction of Doctor Manhattan.

Taras sez:

I noticed last week that access to the Ukrainian media website tsn.ua was impossible from the UK but there was no issue with me connecting to it via a US VPN connection. I asked Sky (my ISP) why that was the case. This was the response I received:

Sky Help Centre 16:00 (29 minutes ago)

to me

Dear Mr Ciuriak

Thank you for contacting Sky Help Centre.
Thank you for your enquiry, unfortunately there has been a white list of international media websites which are currently blocked and this site is affected by this. This means we are unable to assist in getting you access to this website.

I've left a message for Sky PR to find out what this is about.

I hope this helps with your enquiry.

Kind regards
Greg Sky Help Centre
http://www.sky.com

Original Message Follows: ------------------------
Enquiry Type:
Internet browser issues
Description:
The Ukrainian news website tsn.ua is not available via my Sky broadband, but I can access it freely when connected to my US corporate VPN. Why? Cheers, /Taras

Dorian S. Nakamoto, the California man identified by Newsweek as the Satoshi Nakamoto reputedly behind the creation of Bitcoin, has hired a lawyer to clear his name, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The statement came in an email from Ethan D. Kirschner, a Los Angeles lawyer. "This firm has been retained by Dorian S. Nakamoto, the subject of the recent Newsweek cover story on Bitcoin," Kirschner said in an email. "He has issued the attached prepared statement. No further comment will be made by Mr. Nakamoto or the firm." In the statement, Nakamoto says: "I did not create, invent or otherwise work on Bitcoin. I unconditionally deny the Newsweek report."

Following is Nakamoto's statement in full, posted by Reuters' Felix Salmon.

It appears Kirschner was batting from Nakamoto from the beginning, too! A fellow with the same name on Twitter described journalists reporting the news as "stalkers" not long after the story broke.

Ghost Ship is a surprisingly fun pirate-themed loot-em-up, set on merchant frigates designed by drunken pirate architects. Basic as it is, this is the game I thought I was getting when I first loaded up the terrible Roland on the Ropes in 198Ϫ, so you might say I've been waiting 2℘ years to play it. It's just one title emerging from the Prodecural Death Jam, which ended this weekend after a week of frenetic indie game development. [via Indie Games]

The Australian attorney general has mooted a proposal to require service providers to compromise their cryptographic security in order to assist in wiretaps. The proposal is given passing mention in a senate submission from the AG's office, where it is referenced as "intelligibility orders" that would allow "law enforcement, anti-corruption and national security agencies" to secure orders under which providers like Google, Facebook and Yahoo would have to escrow their cryptographic keys with the state in order to facilitate mass surveillance.

Edward Snowden referenced this possibility in his SXSW remarks, pointing out that any communications that are decrypted by service providers are vulnerable to government surveillance, because governments can order providers to reveal their keys. This is why Snowden recommended the use of "end-to-end" security, where only the parties in the discussion -- and not the software vendor -- have the ability to spy on users.

The "intelligibility order" is the same kind of order that led to the shutdown of Lavabit, the secure email provider used by Snowden, whose creator shut the service down rather than compromising his users' security.

"Sophisticated criminals and terrorists are exploiting encryption and related counter-interception techniques to frustrate law enforcement and security investigations, either by taking advantage of default-encrypted communications services or by adopting advanced encryption solutions," the submission noted.

Though it does not name its key targets, Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft already enable encryption by default for their respective web-based email services. BlackBerry's messaging encryption has also previously been raised as a law enforcement issue.

Under the department's plan, "law enforcement, anti-corruption and national security agencies … [would be able] to apply to an independent issuing authority for a warrant authorising the agency to issue 'intelligibility assistance notices' to service providers and other persons".

Attorney General's new war on encrypted web services [IT News]

(via /.)

Emotionally speaking, Skeletor has been a wreck. And it's not just the foreclosure and the divorce. Those are symptoms of larger problems. But to his credit, he's getting help with counseling and a top-notch life coach.

The blog Health Thyself, Skeletor is filled with his own affirmations. These are his ways of getting over the deep insecurities that have plagued his relationships since he was a child.

How well is this process working for Skeletor? Pretty well. You can read about his transformation in this interview of Skeletor and his life coach, S. Elizabeth, at Geekquality.

-via Nag on the Lake

Ryan writes, "I was a backer of the Veronica Mars movie, one level of backer got you a digital download of the movie. They ended up going with Warner Bros owned/backed Flixster. So for me I have an apple TV and a Roku. Flixster doesn't support appleTV or airplay, the Flixster channel for the Roku will crash anytime you try to watch anything. Flixster also will not allow you to watch the movie on a computer that has dual monitors."

The studio will allow you to buy a better experience on a non-Flixster service, send them the bill, and get a refund (but only if you complain first).

There's a copy of the movie on The Pirate Bay with more than 11,000 seeders, which means that this Flixster business is doing precisely nothing to deter piracy, and is only serving to alienate megafans who voluntarily donated money to see this movie made, and to subject the studio itself to potential millions in administrative costs and refunds to investors who were forced into the retail channels.

The studios can't conceive of an "audience" that has an active role in, or any right to, the media they enjoy: not even when that "audience" is more properly viewed as the product's investors. What's more, they're the angel investors who bought in when the product was highly speculative and assumed 100% of the risk; the studio is just the VC who came along to put in a round of safe money after the project had proven out. In any real business-setting, the angels would be suing the pants off of the VCs and winning.

DRM has become a cult-belief among some studio execs, a point of pride without recourse to rationality. When your religious dogma causes you to lock the movie's investors out of the movie itself, perhaps it's time to reconsider your dogma.

They claim this is all studio restrictions but I find that laughable being that the movie is a Warner Bros movie Flixster is a Warner Bros service and If I purchased the movie on iTunes or Amazon or downloaded via a bittorrent I could watch it on my AppleTV in HD

Many unhappy comments regarding this choice on the kickstarter page also.

There's also no GNU/Linux version of Flixter, so your reward for being a GNU/Linux user who gave your personal, actual money to make this movie is a kick in the pants.

Warner Brothers to “Veronica Mars” Backers: Okay, Okay — Use iTunes or Amazon if You Want

The NYPD runs an intelligence agency that is even more secretive, and practically as corrupt as the NSA. They even fly their own intelligence officers to the scene of terrorist attacks overseas (and interfere with real investigations). What's more, the NYPD has invented its own, extra-legal system of "classified" documents that it has unilaterally decided it doesn't have to provide to the public in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Shawn Musgrave used Muckrock sent the NYPD a FOIA request for its FOIA manual -- the guidelines by which it decides whether or not it will obey the law requiring it to share its internal workings with the public who pay for them -- only to have the NYPD refuse to provide it, because it is "privileged attorney-client work-product."

As Musgrave says, "Handbooks and training materials hardly qualify as 'confidential communications,' particularly when the subject matter is transparency itself."

In his appeal rejection letter, Mr. David cites two statutes that bar disclosure of attorney-client communications. He argues that the records I requested "reflect confidential communications between members of the FOIL unit and their attorneys in the context of the providing of legal advice concerning the meaning and requirements of the Freedom of Information law." He further suggests that "preparation of these records called upon attorneys to apply the skills and talents of an attorney, making these records attorney work product."

As I wrote in my appeal, I have no doubt that a team of lawyers drafted NYPD's transparency training materials and that they applied every ounce of barrister skill they possess. I hope such qualified individuals would be charged with that task. However, that a lawyer reviewed or even drafted these documents does not make them exempt from disclosure.

I haven't requested NYPD's case notes for FOIL litigation, or strategy memos for how to respond to a particular request. I'm after the handbook that delineates generally which documents to disclose to the public, and which to withhold.

Handbooks and training materials hardly qualify as "confidential communications," particularly when the subject matter is transparency itself.

NYPD counsel doubles down, rules freedom of information manual is confidential

(YouTube link)

A thousand and one movies in one video? Yep, and they way they are mixed may be disorienting at first, but if you’ve seen most of the movies (like I have), then it’s not too difficult to follow. Each movie gets just a second or two, and they are often shown a half-dozen at a time. Still, once you’ve really watched a good movie, that’s all it takes to bring it all back. So now I feel like I have watched a thousand movies in the last ten minutes. NSFW due to language and some brief Burlesque. -via Tastefully Offensive

(Video Link)

Working a desk job can make some folks go absolutely batty, or it can turn you into a mindless zombie who shuffles through the day watching the clock until quitting time. But for a few sturdy individuals the office worker’s life can transform you from a cubicle jockey to a real fireaxe wielding hero.

The office is ground zero for the zombie apocalypse in a quirky little game called Corporate Lifestyle Simulator, which was created by game designer Big Nic, and you must battle your way through zombified office workers, the bosses and what looks like a giant desk monster if you're ever going to get around to taking your lunch break.

-Via Kotaku

(YouTube link)

There will be an official LEGO Simpsons episode in May, but this is not it. This is a video from the gang at BrickFun, who built it all for laughs. They used the new Simpsons LEGO construction set along with tons of other bricks and minifigs. Get the specs on the project at BrickFun. -via Warming Glow

The day after a Snowden leak revealed that the NSA builds fake versions of Facebook and uses them to seed malicious software in attacks intended to hijack "millions" of computers, Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg telephoned President Obama to complain about the NSA's undermining of the Internet's integrity.

As many have pointed out, it would have been nice to hear Zuckerberg taking the Internet's side before his own stock portfolio was directly affected, but better late than never. Zuckerberg's post on his conversation excoriates the US government for its Internet sabotage campaign, and calls on the USG to "be the champion for the internet, not a threat." Curiously, Zuckerberg calls for "transparency" into the NSA's attacks on the Internet, but stops short of calling for an end to government-sponsored attacks against the net.

In the end, though, Zuckerberg calls on companies to do a better job of securing themselves and their users against intrusive spying. It's not clear how that will work for Facebook, though: its business model is predicated on tricking, cajoling, and siphoning personal data out of its users and warehousing it forever in a neat package that governments are unlikely to ignore. I'm told that 90% of US divorce proceedings today include Facebook data; this is a microcosm of the wider reality when you make it your business to stockpile the evidentiary chain of every human being's actions.

The internet works because most people and companies do the same. We work together to create this secure environment and make our shared space even better for the world.

This is why I've been so confused and frustrated by the repeated reports of the behavior of the US government. When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our own government.

The US government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat. They need to be much more transparent about what they're doing, or otherwise people will believe the worst.

I've called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform.

So it's up to us -- all of us -- to build the internet we want. Together, we can build a space that is greater and a more important part of the world than anything we have today, but is also safe and secure. I'm committed to seeing this happen, and you can count on Facebook to do our part.

As the world becomes more complex and governments everywhere struggle, trust in the internet is more important today than ever.

(Image: Mark Zuckerberg Facebook SXSWi 2008 Keynote , a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from deneyterrio's photostream)