An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian reports that many of the security industry's top researchers are being threatened by lawyers and law enforcement over their efforts to track down vulnerabilities in internet infrastructure. 'HD Moore, creator of the ethical hacking tool Metasploit and chief research officer of security consultancy Rapid7, told the Guardian he had been warned by U.S. law enforcement last year over a scanning project called Critical.IO, which he started in 2012. The initiative sought to find widespread vulnerabilities using automated computer programs to uncover the weaknesses across the entire internet. ... Zach Lanier, senior security researcher at Duo Security, said many of his team had "run into possible CFAA issues before in the course of research over the last decade." Lanier said that after finding severe vulnerabilities in an unnamed "embedded device marketed towards children" and reporting them to the manufacturer, he received calls from lawyers threatening him with action."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This Cosmos clip of Neil DeGrasse Tyson is going viral, and for good reason. It's a terrific explainer of the difference between weather and climate change, and the role we humans play in warming the earth's oceans. It's just two minutes long. Read the rest

Measles cases in the U.S. just hit a two-decade high. In case you can't already guess why, assistant surgeon general Dr. Anne Schuchat explains:

The current increase in measles cases is being driven by unvaccinated people.

From Aeon, Polio whack-a-mole:

The great allies of infectious diseases are no longer poverty, nor dirt, but the global anti-vaccination movement.

Tags: medicine   polio   vaccines

An anonymous reader writes "Representative Bob Latta (R-OH) introduced a bill on Wednesday that would limit the FCC's power to regulate ISPs in a supposed effort to keep the internet free. The bill's text is currently not available on the Library of Congress webpage or on congress.gov, but a purported copy has been spotted on scribd. Representative Latta's press release nevertheless indicates that the bill is intended to prevent the FCC from re-classifying ISPs as common carriers under Title II. Latta is one of the 28 representatives who lobbied the FCC earlier this month and were shown to have received double the average monetary donations given to all House of Representative members from the cable industry over a two year period ending this past December."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Daniel Ellsberg, no slouch himself in bringing to public awareness documents that reveal uncomfortable facts about government operations, says that "Edward Snowden is the greatest patriot whistleblower of our time." Ellsberg says, in an editorial at The Guardian pointed out by reader ABEND (15913), that Snowden cannot receive a fair trial without reform of the Espionage Act. According to Ellsberg, "Snowden would come back home to a jail cell – and not just an ordinary cell-block but isolation in solitary confinement, not just for months like Chelsea Manning but for the rest of his sentence, and probably the rest of his life. His legal adviser, Ben Wizner, told me that he estimates Snowden's chance of being allowed out on bail as zero. (I was out on bond, speaking against the Vietnam war, the whole 23 months I was under indictment). More importantly, the current state of whistleblowing prosecutions under the Espionage Act makes a truly fair trial wholly unavailable to an American who has exposed classified wrongdoing. Legal scholars have strongly argued that the US supreme court – which has never yet addressed the constitutionality of applying the Espionage Act to leaks to the American public – should find the use of it overbroad and unconstitutional in the absence of a public interest defense. The Espionage Act, as applied to whistleblowers, violates the First Amendment, is what they're saying. As I know from my own case, even Snowden's own testimony on the stand would be gagged by government objections and the (arguably unconstitutional) nature of his charges. That was my own experience in court, as the first American to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act – or any other statute – for giving information to the American people." Ellsberg rejects the distinction made by John Kerry in praising Ellsberg's own whistleblowing as patriotic, but Snowden's as cowardly and traitorous.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Brooklyn artist is claiming a broad trademark in T-shirts, jackets, caps, and other apparel featuring the Greek letter, resulting in the mass, temporary removal of thousands of products from the custom t-shirt printing site Zazzle.

For this week's Awesome Stuff post, we've got three separate projects that have something to do with alternative energy -- some more ambitious and nutty than others.

• First up, we've got Trinity - The Portable Wind Turbine Power Station. Usually, when people think of personal alternative energy sources, solar is the first thought. However, these guys have built what appears to be a relatively small wind turbine power station. They describe it as portable, though that may depend on your definition of portability. If you have a big bag it'll work, but it's not something you'd slip in your pocket. Oh yeah, also, you need wind. Of course, since it also has a fairly massive 30,000 mAh battery, in many cases, it may act more as just a typical portable battery rather than a wind turbine. But, still, how often do you get to say you've got a wind turbine to charge your phone? Wind freaking turbine. This project is over 150% funded... (up around $75,000 on a $50,000 target) and it's ending in just a few hours, so if you want one of the original batch, jump in now. It'll cost you $279 (at the currently available "early bird" level) which is certainly pricey if it were just the battery. But, if you're looking for a personal wind turbine, I'm not sure you'll do much better -- well, unless you want to build your own.
• Okay, moving a bit more into more traditional alternative energy, there's the SPOR Solar Battery charger. Yes, portable solar chargers aren't particularly new, but this one seems nice and compact. The creators of this project point out that they were going for a Goldilocks-level solution -- something in between the chargers that are too big and bulky and the useless keychain-sized ones. This one is looking for the sweet spot. This is already more than 1/4 funded (goal of $100,000) with a month to go, suggesting it's fairly likely to meet its goal. As I type this there are still some early birds left at $40, but after that the price goes up to $50.
• If we're going to talk solar, why not go big. Super big. Crazy, ridiculous big. You may have heard about this project, because it's gotten some press, but some big dreamers are working on a project to build solar freaking roadways. If you replaced the roads with solar power, you'd be able to generate quite a lot of power -- as well as making the roads much smarter, including variable road lines, automatically melting snow and ice, and even analyzing and treating stormwater for pollution. It's a crazy ambitious goal, but quite cool too. As they repeat in their pitch, it's solar freaking roadways. And they've actually already received two rounds of funding from the US Federal Highway Administration, and a variety of other grants and prizes, including being chosen by Google as one of their "Moonshots." Obviously, they're not looking to Indiegogo crowdfunding for everything they need, but they are looking for more support to bring the project closer to reality. And they're getting it. With three weeks left, they've already raised about $1.7 million, well over the initial $1 million goal.

That's it for this week. Go out and enjoy some sun and wind.

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Ahh, 1994′s Stargate, one of the most endearing, earnestly optimistic and ambitious science fiction films to ever be founded on the idea that it’s so impossible for brown people to have built the pyramids that it must have been aliens. Bask in the glory of James Spader‘s awkward academic phase, or at least the awkward academic as interpreted by mid-nineties cinema. Statistically, 70% of these roles were played by Jeff Goldblum, but you might get to see another actor in that role real soon.

Confirming hints dropped by Stargate director Roland Emmerich last September, MGM has announced that it is moving forward on a reboot of the twenty year old film into a full trilogy. From The Hollywood Reporter:

Roland Emmerich, who directed and co-wrote the original film with Dean Devlin, will direct and Devlin will produce.

MGM will be running production on Stargate, with Jonathan Glickman, president of the motion picture group, overseeing the project on behalf of MGM and Greg Silverman, president of creative development and worldwide production, overseeing for Warner Bros. Pictures.

It’ll be neat to see another writer take a stab at the story with the same folks involved in crafting its overall feel. Setting aside the movie’s obliviousness to its white savior tropes, it remains entertaining in spite of being kind of a hot mess writing-wise. It’s got all the right elements, but kind of jumbles them in its second act. The original Stargate was also intended to be the first of a trilogy, but, despite a strong box office, it wound up seeing continuation in television rather than on the big screen. This time around it looks like Emmerich, et al. will get a chance to keep telling their crazy story about awkward nerds who accidentally trick illiterate brown people into thinking they are incarnated gods but get the girl anyway, and aging military guys who learn to overcome their tragic backstory when they open up to some brown teenagers and learn to care again through a couple films.

Your milage may vary, but what Stargate lacks as a film, it has always made up to me in a sense of overall optimism and joy in its own setpieces that you don’t always get in action film of this era, and if Emmerich and buddies want to try and do it again and better, I’ll be in the theater waiting.

(via The Hollywood Reporter.)

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People are still trying to figure out what the hell happened with TrueCrypt suddenly announcing that development had stopped and that the code was not secure. However, as people sort that out, the same folks who were leading the charge on the TrueCrypt audit have announced that they're looking into the possibility of picking up the TrueCrypt project and running with it themselves. The idea would be to complete the security audit, but then start managing a fork of the project themselves. They haven't fully committed to this, but it sounds like that's what they'd like to do. Yet another example of how open source projects are quite handy.

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After NBC confirmed Ed Snowden's earlier claims that he had tried to make use of internal channels to question NSA surveillance programs, James Clapper released a single email from Snowden to the legal department at the NSA, which they claim shows he never actually raised these issues. Snowden quickly responded, noting that this is not the only email, that he raised the issue more directly with his supervisors... and, most importantly, that none of this really matters.

Oh yeah, also that the NSA lied before when it claimed no such thing existed.

The NSA’s new discovery of written contact between me and its lawyers - after more than a year of denying any such contact existed - raises serious concerns. It reveals as false the NSA’s claim to Barton Gellman of the Washington Post in December of last year, that “after extensive investigation, including interviews with his former NSA supervisors and co-workers, we have not found any evidence to support Mr. Snowden’s contention that he brought these matters to anyone’s attention.”

Today’s release is incomplete, and does not include my correspondence with the Signals Intelligence Directorate’s Office of Compliance, which believed that a classified executive order could take precedence over an act of Congress, contradicting what was just published. It also did not include concerns about how indefensible collection activities - such as breaking into the back-haul communications of major US internet companies - are sometimes concealed under E.O. 12333 to avoid Congressional reporting requirements and regulations.

More importantly, though, Snowden points out that none of this really matters:

Ultimately, whether my disclosures were justified does not depend on whether I raised these concerns previously. That’s because the system is designed to ensure that even the most valid concerns are suppressed and ignored, not acted upon. The fact that two powerful Democratic Senators - Ron Wyden and Mark Udall - knew of mass surveillance that they believed was abusive and felt constrained to do anything about it underscores how futile such internal action is -- and will remain -- until these processes are reformed.

Still, the fact is that I did raise such concerns both verbally and in writing, and on multiple, continuing occasions - as I have always said, and as NSA has always denied. Just as when the NSA claimed it followed German laws in Germany just weeks before it was revealed that they did not, or when NSA said they did not engage in economic espionage a few short months before it was revealed they actually did so on a regular and recurring basis, or even when they claimed they had “no domestic spying program” before we learned they collected the phone records of every American they could, so too are today’s claims that “this is only evidence we have of him reporting concerns” false.

Separately, after ODNI published the email, Tim Lee wrote a great piece over at Vox.com highlighting why it really doesn't matter at all if he did, or did not, raise the matter internally:

But the NSA's response to Snowden also has a deeper problem: it wouldn't have made a difference if Snowden had raised his concerns more forcefully through internal channels.

Remember, the NSA's position is that it hasn't done anything wrong. The agency claims that its domestic surveillance programs comply with the law, and that it gets plenty of oversight from both the courts and Congress. The NSA has stuck to this position despite a year of pressure from Congress and the public. Why would it have been any more receptive to the concerns of a lowly contractor?

Maybe Snowden should have brought his concerns to sympathetic members of Congress? That wouldn't have done any good either, because key members of Congress already knew about the program. And some of them were outraged about it!

And, of course, other whistleblowers had their lives completely destroyed. Still, this story is one worth paying attention to, because it demonstrates a serious problem with how the intelligence community handles anyone concerned about its programs. The idea that there are internal controls to handle such a thing is pretty clearly misleading, whether or not Snowden made full use of those channels.

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As we've mentioned, the USA Freedom Act -- which had been the "good" bill to reform some of the NSA's domestic spying activities -- was completely watered down right before it passed the House. Basically the entire civil liberties community pulled their support for the bill at the last minute once they saw the changes that the White House demanded (even after the bill had already been watered down). What got a little less attention was that many in the tech industry had also dropped their support for the bill, despite earlier supporting it.

With the fight to fix the bill now moving to the Senate, Google has apparently decided to ramp up its activism on getting a much better bill out there. Google's main Twitter account announced that it wants real reform and linked people to a "take action" page that trashes the bill that passed the House and asks people to sign on to support real reform in the Senate:

It's been a year since Edward Snowden shocked the world with his deeply troubling revelations about the extent of U.S. government surveillance.

The House of Representatives just passed a bill called the USA FREEDOM Act. That bill was designed to prevent the bulk collection of Internet data (e.g., who you email and who emails you) by the U.S. Government. This kind of surveillance — where data may be collected for no specific intelligence purpose and without effective judicial oversight — runs counter to our democratic principles.

Unfortunately, as the bill made its way through Congress, the text was watered down so badly that it will not prevent bulk Internet data collection. For example, as the bill stands today it could still permit the collection of email records from everyone who uses a particular email service. As the legislation moves over to the Senate, it is critical that this loophole be closed. We need real surveillance reform urgently.

If the Senate is actually going to resist the White House's demands for a watered down bill, we're going to need a lot more partnerships like this: companies and individuals together speaking out about how bulk surveillance by the NSA is simply unacceptable. The NSA has already managed to poison the well for tech companies overseas by basically telling the world that their data is simply not secure. These companies and their customers and users need to let the government know that this needs to stop now. Hoping, quietly, that these issues will go away isn't going to do the trick. Hopefully more companies will speak up as well.

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In April 2014, I completed a study, with several other students, for my Media Research Methods class, which we then entered into BYU-Idaho’s Research and Creative Works Conference. My group’s research took second place. Many have asked to see that, so here is the final report. 

Is Doctor Who Sexist?

Back in 2010 Steven Moffat took over as head writer of the cult classic British Sci-Fi Doctor Who from Russell T. Davies. Davies had headed the reboot of the show back in 2005. When the switch happened many fans began voicing problems they were having with the new direction of the show. One of those problems was sexism, or at least that is what people were claiming. However some fans of Moffat said people were being overly sensitive and just couldn’t let go of the RTD era. So which side was right? We sat down and watched all of the episodes since the reboot to the departure of the Pond’s (excluding a couple specials) to figure out if there was a quantifiable answer to the claims that female character writing had taken a nose dive.

We conducted two major tests on all the companions since 2005 that had completed their tenure in the show. The first was a Bechdel Test, and then the second was speaking time.

The Bechdel Test was developed for films. To pass, a movie must have at least two women in it who talk to each other, about something besides a man. This was applied to each episode the specific companion was in. The companion scores ended up looking like this:

Bechdel Test:

Rose: 74% with 23/31 passed

Martha: 78% with 14/18 passed

Donna: 100% with 16/16 passed

Amy: 53% with 17/32 passed

*River: 57% with 8/12 passed

How it was determined if a conversation qualified:

Conversations were allowed to pass if they were not centered around a man but did briefly mention one. This was to allow for a companion to be able to mention the Doctor, for example if someone were asking where they were from they could say “Oh, I came here in a box with a man called the Doctor,” and then carried on. Or also perhaps two women discussing something where they may briefly mention their brother, employer, etc. If the mention of the man was removed from the conversation, the purpose of the conversation would still stand. An episode could also pass if the conversation(s) happened in the presence of/with a man as long as it was still between at least two women who were actually conversing with each other (i.e. more than one or two lines and was clearly directed at each other), and about something besides a man. However, conversations where two women were addressing the Doctor (or another man), and not really talking to or acknowledging each other, were not included. This was to allow for three (or more) way conversations, since the test did not say that a man/men observing/participating in the conversation with two or more women disqualified it. A simple address was not considered as a conversation. The women had to have more than a two line exchange. (See end of post for a full list of failed episodes.)

Next we measured the companion’s average speaking time per episode.

Companion Speaking Time:

Rose speaking time: 2:37

Martha speaking time: 3:15

Donna speaking time: 3:46

Amy speaking time: 2:35

*River speaking time: 3:06

Finally, we did a comparison between the numbers from Russell T. Davie’s era and Steven Moffat’s era.

RTD vs. Moffat

Number of episodes that failed the Bechdal test

89% (24/27) of the episodes written by RTD passed the Bechdel test with 78% (45/58) passing during his era.

57% (12/21) of  the episodes written by Steven Moffat passed the Bechdel test, with 58% (19/33) passing during his era.

Speaking time

Companion Speaking time went from 3:12 to 2:35 per episode, a19% decrease.
Female Speaking time went from 8:30 to 5:46 per episode, a 32% decrease.
Female Speaking roles went from 5.5 to 4.2 per episode, a 24% decrease.

But What About River Song?

Ironically, the woman who is often propped up as proof that Steven Moffat is, in fact, not a sexist was one of the worst in terms of the Bechdel test and overall independence of thought and character. While maintaining an average speaking time, the episodes she is in only pass the Bechdel Test 57% of the time, and she herself only passes 42% of the time. She also never passes it on her own after Series 5. It is also important to note that River’s “passes” barely scraped by this test. Her passing conversations were always around three or four lines of exchange total, limited to one per episode, and were always in the presence of/with the Doctor.

Personal Commentary

As I watched these episodes again with a fine tooth comb, I noticed many things that were not included with this study, as they were not quantifiable, which was the purpose of this research. One thing that struck me was the difference between Rose Tyler and River Song, and how the two writers dealt with the main love interest during their run. I came across the following post on Tumblr while I was conducting my analysis, and I think it pertains to this conversation.

(Just for the record, I am neither of those users.)

I think when it comes to giving women love interests in fiction, you have to let them maintain their own independence of thought. This keeps them from simply becoming a sex object or plot device. Rose (and Martha and Donna) had that in spades. While both Rose and River had their share of arguments with The Doctor, how they handled them was drastically different. Rose argued when she had moral issue with his choices, stood her ground, defended others, and overall became the moral compass of their relationship. River rarely if ever, disagreed on issues or principles. If asked to do something she disagreed with she would just yell, “I hate you,” and then do it. Her mentality toward The Doctor can be summed up with a conversation she has with Amy in series 6. The Doctor has left them with instructions Amy does not want to do, but River tells her, “We’re going to as The Doctor’s friends always do. As they’re told.” I think I just heard Rose, Martha, Donna, Romana, and Sarah Jane slap you. When it comes to River Song, it seems that audiences were fooled into thinking she was a strong female character because of her propensity toward violence, and some admittedly excellent monologues.

I think there is a discussion to be had here though. I think Rose probably should have had more speaking time, but then again maybe people who are quiet may not be oppressed. Writing a variety of women is important, and there may be times you want to write a girl who doesn’t say much. That’s ok. I simply think that its important to make sure women have their voices heard, and at the same time avoid the “Strong Female Character” stereotypes. I suppose the most important thing would be to simply write people. I think Moffat struggles with this in general, but especially when writing any sort of romantic female character. (Fun fact, Rose’s Bechdel test score would have been in the 80′s were it not for the episodes Moffat wrote during her run.)

I got asked a lot of questions while presenting this about this research confining women to only one type of character to be seen as good. I was very happy that these questions came! For one, it meant many people knew that a variety of women should be represented. However, the purpose of this was to study trends. Yes, there may be outlier episodes where it’s only the companion and The Doctor, and will there for not pass the Bechdel test, but this research allows us to see where the overall show is going. Writing a woman who doesn’t talk as much is fine, but when it becomes an overall trend to have all of the female characters failing the Bechdel Test and not speaking, that is when it becomes a problem. If you truly were writing a diverse group of women, those outliers wouldn’t matter.

Of course there’s a lot to be said outside of what I’ve mentioned above about the data and it’s implications. This was just one of the meant things I noticed as I rewatched the show. But what do you think? I’d love to hear all of your insights, so feel free to blow up that comment section!

I don’t think this will end the sexism debate. I realize I attempted to quantify something that is largely opinion based, and there will be some who will prefer Amy’s 2:35 to Donna’s 3:46, and say more isn’t better. Some will make excuses for episodes not passing the Bechdel Test, and all that’s fine. I acknowledge the limitations of this study. When it comes right down to it though, these are the numbers if you want them. But your thoughts are your own, so do with this as you will.

Episodes that failed the Bechdal Test:

“Father’s Day”

“The Empty Child”

“The Parting of the Ways”

“The Girl in the Fireplace”

“Rise of the Cybermen”

“The Age of Steel”

“The Satan Pit”

“Doomsday”

“Daleks in Manhattan”

“Evolution of the Daleks”

“The Family of Blood”

“The Sound of Drums”

“The Eleventh Hour”

“Amy’s Choice”

“The Hungry Earth”

“Vincent and the Doctor”

“The Lodger”

“A Christmas Carol”

“Day of the Moon”

“The Curse of the Black Spot”

“Let’s Kill Hitler”

“Night Terrors”

“Closing Time”

“The Wedding of River Song”

“Asylum of the Daleks”

“A Town Called Mercy”

“The Angels Take Manhattan”

Excluded episode: The Girl Who Waited. I couldn’t decided whether or not it was a pass or fail, so you can go decide.

*As River Song was never a full time companion, her averages were not incorporated into the overall numbers, such as “Average companion speaking time.”

Disclosure: I do not in any part own BBC’s Doctor Who. The photos used in the infograpic do not belong to me. This study and it’s contents are copyrighted by Rebecca Moore, and are not associated with Brigham Young University Idaho beyond what was disclosed in the opening paragraph. BYUI does not own or have responsibility for this research. I received no funding or any sort of monetary compensation from them.  

NOTE TO COMMENTERS:  Due to the recent popularity of this post, there are many comments coming in, and I will most likely not be able to read them all in depth and respond.

To address a few issues though, I am aware the Bechdel test has flaws, as do our other methods. This was simply to study trends between authors. However, I don’t think the whole thing should be dismissed simply because of issues with one part. All of the information is statically significant and a good starting point. I’ve seen many suggestions for expansion or improvement that are very good. I probably will not be expanding this though, simply because I do not have the time. If you wish to sit down and do hours of analysis, feel free. And, as a note to those who say I have too much time on my hands or some other such nonsense, I was in a Media Research Methods class. I had to choose media to research for my final to pass it. It wan’t just for fun. 

Beyond any of that, please try and refrain from hostility against your fellow commenters. 

In two separate TV interviews, Secretary of State John Kerry made some ridiculous arguments about how Ed Snowden should "man up" and come back to the US. This was in response to Snowden's claims that the only reason he's in Russia is the US State Department pulling his passport -- an argument that no one in the US government has ever denied. Given the chance to respond to this, Kerry effectively changed the subject, saying that Snowden can and should come home to face charges. Here was his statement on NBC's Today show:

QUESTION: Well, Mr. Secretary, what about it? Does he have a point? He’s basically saying but for the U.S. State Department revoking his passport, he wouldn’t be in Russia at all.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, for a supposedly smart guy, that’s a pretty dumb answer, frankly. Look, I’m not going to get into the – who he was, what he was. Let me just say this: If Mr. Snowden wants to come back to the United States today, we’ll have him on a flight today. We’d be delighted for him to come back. And he should come back, and that’s what a patriot would do. A patriot would not run away and look for refuge in Russia or Cuba or some other country. A patriot would stand up in the United States and make his case to the American people. But he’s refused to do that to this date, at least.

The fact is that he can come home, but he’s a fugitive from justice, which is why he’s not being permitted to fly around the world. It’s that simple and he knows it.

QUESTION: Have you softened your stance at all with regard to his alleged conduct here? I noticed earlier this year you said that there were disclosures about the NSA made because of Snowden that you yourself were not aware of that constituted NSA overreach. Does that change the calculus at all for you?

SECRETARY KERRY: That’s entirely up to the justice system. Let him come back and make his case. The fact is that he should – if he cares so much about America and he believes in America, he should trust in the American system of justice. But to be hiding in Russia, an authoritarian country, and to have just admitted that he was really trying to get to Cuba, I mean, what does that tell you, really? I think he’s confused. I think it’s very sad.

But this is a man who has done great damage to his country, violated his oath which he took when he became an employee, and yes, in fact, stole an enormous amount of information and released it to the public, to the detriment of his country.

Then, in an interview with CBS he effectively said the same thing, including the ridiculous "man up" statement, which is perhaps even stronger than his silly "that's what a patriot would do" statement above:

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, let me ask you about Edward Snowden. He has now given an interview in which he says he was trained by the United States as a spy. How damaging is this disclosure?

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, it’s not – it’s the same disclosure that everybody’s known. He very cleverly wraps it into his language about: I was a technical person; I didn’t go out there and work with humans, with other people; I wasn’t working and interacting with human beings. Basically, what he was doing is computer stuff, and that’s exactly what he says. So he wraps it into this larger language.

The bottom line is this is a man who has betrayed his country, who is sitting in Russia, an authoritarian country, where he has taken refuge. He should man up and come back to the United States if he has a complaint about what’s the matter with American surveillance, come back here and stand in our system of justice and make his case. But instead he is just sitting there taking potshots at his country, violating his oath that he took when he took on the job he took, and betraying, I think, the fundamental agreement that he entered into when he became an employee. And the fact is he has damaged his country very significantly in many, many ways. He has hurt operational security. He has told terrorists what they can now do to be able to avoid detection. And I find it sad and disgraceful.

I'm not even going to touch "what he was doing is computer stuff" quote, because that just kind of speaks for itself, doesn't it?

But of course, for all this "manly" (actually: sexist and misogynistic) talk, Secretary Kerry is being dishonest and disingenuous. As we've detailed a few times now, Snowden has been charged under the Espionage Act and, as such, he is not allowed to present a "public interest" or "whistleblowing" defense. His motive isn't even allowed to be used in the case at all. So all this talk about "making his case" is ridiculous. Snowden knows damn well that "our system of justice" on issues like this is inherently unfair and biased. Kevin Gosztola has highlighted examples of others who stayed and "made their case" under Espionage Act charges, showing how they were railroaded by a system that is not fair and does not allow them to actually present their case.

Similarly, as one of Snowden's legal advisors, Ben Wizner of the ACLU, points out, no matter what Kerry claims above, Snowden isn't dumb:

“He isn’t blind,” Wizner said. “Snowden saw what happened to other people who faced prosecution under the Espionage Act, and he saw the state of the law, which would not have allowed him to either to challenge the government’s improper withholding of this information in the first place, or to hold up the enormous public value of these disclosures. All that would have been irrelevant.”

So if we're going to use ridiculous misogynistic phrases like "man up," can we at least ask if Secretary Kerry will "man up" and admit that his claims about what Snowden would face back home were not even close to accurate? Or do real "men" like Secretary Kerry think it's appropriate to aggressively lie and mislead the American public? If so, perhaps it's time for someone to "woman up" instead. Though, as Glenn Greenwald points out, Kerry appears to be arguing that a female whistleblower in Snowden's shoes "wouldn't have the same obligation to return home." Or, perhaps (just perhaps) none of this has anything to do with manliness, and folks in the government could stop the macho aggressive bullshit and actually deal with the reality: Snowden blew the whistle on a program that all three branches of government have now admitted were illegal (and potentially unconstitutional). If someone has to "face the music," shouldn't it be the US government?

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Just when fans of NBC’s Community were resigning themselves to the fact that they’d never get their “six seasons and a movie,” Hulu swoops in with a glimmer of hope on the back of a soaring eagle! 

Deadline writes, “I have learned that Hulu is in talks with Community producer Sony Pictures TV for more original installments of the show, which was cancelled by NBC earlier this month.”

Could it really be? Deadline goes on to add:

Sources stress that conversations are preliminary and it is unclear whether they would lead to a deal, but I hear there is will on both sides. That includes Community creator Dan Harmon, who confessed on his blog that he had warmed up to the possibility of continuing the show elsewhere, changing his stance from “eh” when Sony TV called him with the news of the series’ cancellation by NBC to “sure, let’s talk” two days later. Said Harmon, “I’m not going to be the guy that re-cancels cancelled Community.”

I don’t think there’s any doubt the show would do well on Hulu but we shouldn’t get our hopes up just yet. Instead, perhaps we could find creative ways to let Hulu know this is totally something they should do?

(via Geekosystem)

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Last night, NBC aired Brian William's long interview with Ed Snowden in Moscow. It's worth watching. For a guy with no media training, he gives an astoundingly good interview. His statements remain consistent with what he's said in the past and, at least to me, he appears to reinforce his previous statements with these answers. While there really wasn't much new in the interview itself, it's still a good look into Snowden's situation and his mindset. The most "revealing" thing in the episode actually didn't come from Snowden, however. Instead, after he (again) claimed that he had raised his concerns internally, Williams stated that NBC had confirmed at least one case in which Snowden had communicated with the NSA's legal office to raise concerns about the legality of its programs. That's fairly big news, given that the NSA and its defenders keep insisting that Snowden should have just raised issues internally. He did.

Snowden also didn't mince words about why he thinks Putin has made a huge mistake in cracking down on freedoms in Russia, specifically calling out the new law that orders bloggers to register with the government. He noted that he wished he could do more in Russia, but is somewhat limited by the fact that he doesn't speak Russian.

The other thing I found worth noting: at one point, Williams asked Snowden what he would say to President Obama if they were in a room together. Snowden responded that he would leave that to the President's advisors, as he did not feel qualified to advise the President. Williams, after a pause, followed up by pointing out that he hadn't really meant about advising the President on the larger matters of the NSA, but rather about Snowden's own situation. And, again, Snowden indicated that this was a decision that the President would have to make. For all the talk from Snowden's critics about how he's some sort of "narcissist" (that word gets thrown around a lot), this exchange seemed to reveal quite the opposite.

Many people with large egos and who have become known as "experts" on a specific topic, when asked what they would say to the President when meeting, would immediately jump to their specific talking points. But Snowden wouldn't even presume that was appropriate. Similarly, when then asked about his own personal situation, the look on Snowden's face suggested he'd never even thought about what he would say to someone directly with the power to allow him to come back home. Perhaps he's an astoundingly good actor -- but Snowden really does come off as someone who is both incredibly self-aware and astoundingly humble given what he's done.

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May 28th, 2014: Birds are singing, the sun is shining, and there’s a Kickstarter campaign to bring Reading Rainbow back. Its new incarnation won’t be the same as it was before Satan reached up from Hell and cancelled it in 2009. Instead of a half-hour TV show, it’ll be a series of video field trips and interactive kids books better suited to today’s digitally connected world. LeVar Burton explains it all in the vid above, but here are some highlights: Part of the money raised will go toward making the new Reading Rainbow free for cash-strapped schools. That Star Trek pun. A completely accurate representation of what it would be like to meet Burton IRL. And the a special cameo at the end. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Watch the whole thing yourself.

After all, you don’t want to disappoint LeVar Burton, do you? Because we know from Community that that’s the worst feeling in the world.

(via: Geekosystem)

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One of the previously-unseen NSA documents released in conjunction with Glenn Greenwald's book, "No Place to Hide," contained this slide providing further details about the agency's interception of computer hardware.

As part of the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO), shipments are grabbed en route and loaded up with physical spyware before they reach the end user. The slide notes that this "supply chain interdiction" is one of TAO's "most productive operations."

The people in the photo may have had their identities concealed, but there's no mistaking the logo and name on the side of the box. Here's a closer look:

Cisco was none too pleased to see its hardware being given a spyware payload by NSA operatives. Its general counsel, Mark Chandler, said the following in a blog post addressing the newly-leaked document.

As a matter of policy and practice, Cisco does not work with any government, including the United States Government, to weaken our products. When we learn of a security vulnerability, we respond by validating it, informing our customers, and fixing it. We react the same when we find that a customer’s security has been impacted by external forces, regardless of what country or form of government or how that security breach occurred. We offer customers robust tools to defend their environments against attack, and detect attacks when they are happening. By doing these things, we have built and maintained our customers’ trust. We expect our government to value and respect this trust.

That the NSA has done what it can to ensure Cisco's world dominance (via its Huawei-related espionage) is probably of little comfort at this point. Anyone looking to purchase Cisco equipment has probably decided to take their business elsewhere. Cisco expressed some concern about the NSA's detrimental effect on its overseas sales last November. This photo only makes that situation worse.

Cisco has now decided to take its complaints right to the top.

Warning of an erosion of confidence in the products of the U.S. technology industry, John Chambers, the CEO of networking giant Cisco Systems, has asked President Obama to intervene to curtail the surveillance activities of the National Security Agency.

In a letter dated May 15 (obtained by Re/code and reprinted in full below), Chambers asked Obama to create “new standards of conduct” regarding how the NSA carries out its spying operations around the world. The letter was first reported by The Financial Times.

Chambers goes even further than Cisco's counsel, decrying the NSA's tactics and the damage they're doing to his company's reputation.

“We simply cannot operate this way; our customers trust us to be able to deliver to their doorsteps products that meet the highest standards of integrity and security,” Chambers wrote. “We understand the real and significant threats that exist in this world, but we must also respect the industry’s relationship of trust with our customers.”

The NSA's self-destructive "no one can touch us" attitude is finally beginning to hurt it -- and everyone it affects. This revelation will chase customers -- including potential targets -- to companies they believe are out of the agency's reach. American companies will be able to offer no assurances that their products have been intercepted/sabotaged. The entire situation is beyond their control, but they'll be the ones ultimately paying the price for the NSA's overreach.

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Date: May 19, 2014

Location: Global

Tags: toy, puzzle, nostalgia, puzzles, game, games, 1980's, toys, fun, 80's, Interactive

http://takethedamncash.tumblr.com

vegetablediary:

subana0303:

NEED!

WANT!!

As we noted, yesterday's FCC vote concerning the NPRM on "open internet" rules was really just the start of the process. A lot of people seem confused by this -- and part of the problem is really the FCC. Tom Wheeler keeps insisting that the rules are designed to protect net neutrality and the open internet, but as lots of people keep pointing out, the rulemaking he's proposing would likely do the opposite. Because of that, you get a ton of confusion, perhaps best shown by a simple comparison, put together by Drew Oden on Twitter of the summary from both the NY Times and the Washington Post about what happened: If you can't read that, the NYT's version was:

The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 on Thursday to move forward with a set of proposed rules aimed at guaranteeing an open Internet prohibiting high-speed Internet service providers from blocking or discriminating against legal content flowing through their pipes.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post's version was:

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted in favor of advancing a proposal that could dramatically reshape the way consumers experience the Internet, opening the possibility of Internet service providers charging Web sites for higher-quality delivery of their content to American consumers."

And you wonder why so many people are confused about what's going on? Of course, that's what happens when this stage of the process is really just about opening up the floor to comments, prior to the final rulemaking likely to happen later this year. But the bizarre thing is that both of the descriptions may be accurate, even as they appear to disagree fundamentally. Wheeler appears to be sincere in hoping that these rules would guarantee an open internet, but the reality may reshape how consumers use the internet by more clearly enabling such discrimination.

Welcome to the mess that is a fight over net neutrality.

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A couple months ago we came across a new technology called Spritz. It’s a tool that helps you read faster. Given how far behind I typically am in my Old Reader queue, we thought it would be a good thing to try out in the application. We were so happy with the results that we’ve decided to roll out the beta Spritz integration to our users today.

To enable Spritz, you’ll need to go into your settings and click the Spritz checkbox. You’ll then see the Spritz icon in your feeds which you can click on (or use the ‘i’ hotkey). The first time through you’ll need to create a Spritz account, but after that it should be clear sailing and fast reading.

Here’s an article about the new functionality on TNW.

Let us know what you think!

Exclusive comic at The Nib this week!

Have you ever had sudden urges to play the flute or ocarina when you're drinking tea? I mean it totally makes sense: soothing, hot liquid and calming music go hand-in-hand. Thanks to the Teacarina, your dreams are now attainable.

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The Senate is still working on patent reform, despite the House approving it months ago. However, you can be sure that patent trolls and their lawyers have been watching the space carefully. One of the proposed amendments on the Senate side would concern fee shifting -- making the losing party have to pay the winning party's legal bills -- and in the amendment it says it would go into effect, on April 24, 2014. Even though the bill has not yet gone anywhere and the amendment may not make it, it would appear that trolls and their lawyers (often one and the same) realized that if they wanted to avoid fee shifting, they'd better get filing. And, boy, did they ever file a lot of patent infringement cases on Wednesday April 23rd: 190 cases. In case you're wondering, the day before 8 patent cases were filed.

But just that number alone might not give you enough perspective to understand this mad rush to the courts (or, well, as we'll see, one court in particular) to file patent lawsuits. The good folks over at Lex Machina have put together some data to show just how noteworthy all those patent lawsuit filings are. Here are the daily patent lawsuit filings for the first four months of 2014. Notice any particular outlier? Of course, trolls have known that fee shifting was a possibility for a while now, so it's not like they suddenly realized it might be good to get lawsuits in just under the wire. So Lex Machina also went back a few years and looked at the weekly filings of patent lawsuits. You might notice a bit of a trend leading up to the massive outlier: And, with so many filings, they should be distributed widely around the country, right? It's not like trolls play a silly jurisdiction shopping game in which they all try to file in one random obscure court in eastern Texas, right? Well, let's look at where most of those 190 cases were filed: Oh, and if you're wondering why the district court in Delaware seems to be fairly popular too, I'm guessing some research by Mark Lemley may have something to do with that. He compared patent cases in various districts and found that, for cases that actually go to trial, Delaware had a higher win rate than East Texas. Oh, and also that a far higher percentage of patent cases actually go to trial in Delaware as well. East Texas still gets the majority of cases (by far), but Delaware has been the alternative favorite for trolls for quite some time now.

Of course, this also shows that trolls know they have questionable claims and that they fear fee shifting mightily. It's why any patent reform bill needs strong fee shifting provisions to deal with such bogus lawsuits.

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