Arnvidr

Happy π Day

The Megagamerz are back again to mix it up with things and thoughts! They are realer than real, wetter than fish. Don’t mess with Gamer1 and Gamer2 unless you like pork and punches.

Okay!

Frozach Submitted

March, 11th

Halden Prison tests the limits of humane incarceration and rehabilitation, greatly reducing re-offending rates.

Aliens! Always with the eavesdropping and the anal investigation and the transgalactic benders. Whaddya gonna do.

OK kids! Have a great day or so.

Even if I had started the column with the intention of making a list that was distinctly metal, I’m not totally sure what I would have come up with. A high degree of metal-ness does not exactly equate to a high level of creative innovation. Currently, I think the inverse might be actually true.

This got me to thinking about the place we’re at with the close-minded and obtuse mindset of the heavy metal elitist. As I’ve matured, my place has been to play counterpoint to convention wisdom in the metal world, such as my article on defending mainstream metal or my recurring segment, Rejecting the Sickness on the Metalsucks Podcast, where I argue with hosts and true metal nerds, Chuck and Godless, about the validity of bands hated on by the fanboy elite.

In reaction to my Top 15 list, commenter, Seth, perhaps explained this mindset to a T, “Metal—and by metal, I mean death, black, doom, thrash, ‘traditional’ hm etc., NOT ‘post metal’ or ‘djent’ or ‘mathnoisecore’—should not appeal to non-metal people.”

I genuinely appreciate Seth’s candor and ability to draw strict guidelines on what his version of metal is, but I am not going to play ball. I am not going to tell you what you want to hear. There are plenty of metal websites and blogs that cater to the tastes of the underground palette. Metalinjection.net, Metalsucks.net, Decibelmagazine.com. I could have put Behemoth on the list instead of Bring My The Horizon because they have credibility and it would have kept the hounds at bay. I could have put Black Crown Initiate on the list because, well, “they were on the other critic’s list.” I guess there is something there that I should glom on to. Behemoth and Black Crown Initiate are great, but I am just using them as examples of bands that might meet the metal scene’s “trueness” qualifications.

Being new and sounding new means you are stepping outside of the boundaries established by metal’s past, and subsequently un-metal. The metal scene is conservative and wants things to stay as they have been. I wonder if Norman Rockwell ever painted head bangers.

Even though clean vocals are accepted in certain bands like Judas Priest (Old) or Opeth (European), you’d be best served by ditching the clean vocals altogether for maximum cred.

March, 9th

March, 6th

March, 3rd

dro-mo by dro-mo for March 03, 2015

February, 27th

March, 1st

February, 26th

Today was, no hyperbole intended, probably one of the more historic -- albeit at times one of the dullest -- days in FCC history. The agency, led by a former lobbyist for the cable and wireless industries few expected anything from, bucked a myriad of low expectations and voted 3-2 to approve Title II-based net neutrality rules after an unprecedented public-driven tech advocacy campaign. While net neutrality will likely get the lion's share of today's media attention, the FCC also today voted to begin a prolonged assault on ISP-driven, protectionist state telecom law.

First, it's important to note that despite a 3-2 vote approving the Title II-based rules, we won't get to see the actual rules today. Despite claims by neutrality opponents that this is some secret cabal specific to net neutrality, the agency historically has never released rules it votes on (pdf) until well after the actual vote. It's a dumb restriction that's absolutely deadly to open discourse, but it's not unique to one party or to this specific issue.

As for when we'll actually get to see and start dissecting the actual Title II rules ourselves, we may be waiting weeks -- in part, ironically, thanks to neutrality opponents on the Commission that spent the last few weeks professing to adore transparency:

"In fact, it could take weeks before the final rules are published, the official said. That’s because the two Republican commissioners, Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly—who oppose net neutrality of any sort—have refused to submit basic edits on the order. The FCC will not release the text of the order until edits from the offices of all five commissioners are incorporated, including dissenting opinions. This could take a few weeks, depending how long the GOP commissioners refuse to provide edits on the new rules."

Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O'Reilly voiced their opposition to the new Title II-based rules by not only voting against them, but by trying to bore meeting attendees to death. Pai, a former Verizon regulatory lawyer, offered a mammoth speech in which he ironically lamented "special interests" and claimed repeatedly to only be opposing net neutrality out of a concern for consumer wallets. O'Reilly tried to top Pai with an even longer, duller speech that continually insisted the FCC was trying to conduct a secret, regulatory takeover of the Internet. A visibly emotional Wheeler was having none of it:

"This proposal has been described by one opponent as, quote, a secret plan to regulate the Internet. Nonsense. This is no more a plan to regulate the Internet than the First Amendment is a plan to regulate free speech. They both stand for the same concepts: openness, expression, and an absence of gate keepers telling people what they can do, where they can go, and what they can think."

While the net neutrality rules are incredibly important, the FCC's decision on municipal broadband may actually wind up being more meaningful over the long run. As we've noted for years, neutrality violations are really just a symptom of a lack of competition. Around twenty states now have laws in place -- usually based entirely on ISP/ALEC model legislation -- that prohibit towns and cities from improving their own broadband infrastructure -- even in instances where nobody else will. In some cases these rules even go so far as to prohibit towns and cities from striking public/private partnerships to improve broadband service.

Specifically, the FCC voted 3-2 to approve petitions by EPB Broadband in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Greenlight in Wilson, North Carolina. Those petitions requested that the FCC use its authority to ensure timely broadband deployment using "measures that promote competition in the local telecommunications market, or other regulating methods that remove barriers to infrastructure investment." While some politicians have lamented the FCC's move as a trampling of states' rights, these individuals ironically have had no problem with ISPs writing state telecom law that tramples those same rights. The justifications for these restrictions have never been coherently supported, and Wheeler was quick to highlight the hypocrisy of the position:

"You can’t say you’re for broadband and then turn around and endorse limits on who can offer it. You can’t say, ‘I want to follow the explicit instructions of Congress to remove barriers to infrastructure investment,' but endorse barriers on infrastructure investment. You can’t say you’re for competition but deny local elected officials the right to offer competitive choices."

Needless to say, this is likely only a new chapter in the debate over both issues, the precise wording of the neutrality wording will be debated for months if not years, and you can expect ISP legal action on both fronts aimed at protecting the uncompetitive status quo. It also probably goes without saying that opponents of net neutrality and those who like it when AT&T, Verizon and Comcast are allowed to write protectionist telecom law aren't taking the day's events very well. One of the best freakouts of the day belonged to Hal Singer, author of that misleading study we've previously debunked claiming that you'd face $15 billion in new taxes under Title II:

With today's @FCC vote on #NetNeutrality, millions of innovation angels will die. It's our job to document the loss. pic.twitter.com/XGxT8EDx7u

— Hal Singer (@HalSinger) February 26, 2015

While some grieve the death of imaginary "innovation angels," thousands of others are celebrating a rare instance where Internet activism was able to overcome lobbying cash and push a government mountain toward doing the right thing.

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February, 25th

Back in 2012, the shadowy, majestic Canadian post-rock collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor released Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!, their first album after a decade-plus hiatus, and it was just as thundering and grand and powerful as everything else they’ve ever done. The band won Canada’s Polaris Music Prize for the album, and they issued a […]

Admiral Mike Rogers, the NSA Director, has barely been on the job for a year, and so far he'd mostly avoided making the same kinds of absolutely ridiculous statements that his predecessor General Keith Alexander was known for. Rogers had, at the very least, appeared slightly more thoughtful in his discussions about the surveillance state and his own role in it. However, Rogers ran into a bit of trouble at New America's big cybersecurity event on Monday -- in that there were actual cybersecurity folks in the audience and they weren't accepting any of Rogers' bullshit answers. The most notable exchange was clearly between Rogers and Alex Stamos, Yahoo's chief security officer, and a well known privacy/cybersecurity advocate.

Alex Stamos (AS): “Thank you, Admiral. My name is Alex Stamos, I’m the CISO for Yahoo!. … So it sounds like you agree with Director Comey that we should be building defects into the encryption in our products so that the US government can decrypt…

Mike Rogers (MR): That would be your characterization. [laughing]

AS: No, I think Bruce Schneier and Ed Felton and all of the best public cryptographers in the world would agree that you can’t really build backdoors in crypto. That it’s like drilling a hole in the windshield.

MR: I’ve got a lot of world-class cryptographers at the National Security Agency.

AS: I’ve talked to some of those folks and some of them agree too, but…

MR: Oh, we agree that we don’t accept each others’ premise. [laughing]

AS: We’ll agree to disagree on that. So, if we’re going to build defects/backdoors or golden master keys for the US government, do you believe we should do so — we have about 1.3 billion users around the world — should we do for the Chinese government, the Russian government, the Saudi Arabian government, the Israeli government, the French government? Which of those countries should we give backdoors to?

MR: So, I’m not gonna… I mean, the way you framed the question isn’t designed to elicit a response.

AS: Well, do you believe we should build backdoors for other countries?

MR: My position is — hey look, I think that we’re lying that this isn’t technically feasible. Now, it needs to be done within a framework. I’m the first to acknowledge that. You don’t want the FBI and you don’t want the NSA unilaterally deciding, so, what are we going to access and what are we not going to access? That shouldn’t be for us. I just believe that this is achievable. We’ll have to work our way through it. And I’m the first to acknowledge there are international implications. I think we can work our way through this.

AS: So you do believe then, that we should build those for other countries if they pass laws?

MR: I think we can work our way through this.

AS: I’m sure the Chinese and Russians are going to have the same opinion.

MR: I said I think we can work through this.

AS: Okay, nice to meet you. Thanks.

[laughter]

MR: Thank you for asking the question. I mean, there are going to be some areas where we’re going to have different perspectives. That doesn’t bother me at all. One of the reasons why, quite frankly, I believe in doing things like this is that when I do that, I say, “Look, there are no restrictions on questions. You can ask me anything.” Because we have got to be willing as a nation to have a dialogue. This simplistic characterization of one-side-is-good and one-side-is-bad is a terrible place for us to be as a nation. We have got to come to grips with some really hard, fundamental questions. I’m watching risk and threat do this, while trust has done that. No matter what your view on the issue is, or issues, my only counter would be that that’s a terrible place for us to be as a country. We’ve got to figure out how we’re going to change that.

[Moderator Jim Sciutto]: For the less technologically knowledgeable, which would describe only me in this room today, just so we’re clear: You’re saying it’s your position that in encryption programs, there should be a backdoor to allow, within a legal framework approved by the Congress or some civilian body, the ability to go in a backdoor?

MR: So “backdoor” is not the context I would use. When I hear the phrase “backdoor,” I think, “well, this is kind of shady. Why would you want to go in the backdoor? It would be very public.” Again, my view is: We can create a legal framework for how we do this. It isn’t something we have to hide, per se. You don’t want us unilaterally making that decision, but I think we can do this.

As you read it, you realize that Rogers keeps thinking that if he says "legal framework" enough times, he can pretend he's not really talking about undermining encryption entirely. Well known cybersecurity guy Bruce Schneier pushed back, pointing out that:

It’s not the legal framework that’s hard, it’s the technical framework. That’s why it’s all or nothing.

No matter what anyone said, however, Rogers appears to keep going back to the "legal framework" well, over and over again, as if that magic phrase would change magical thinking into reality:

“If these are the paths that criminals, foreign actors, terrorist are going to use to communicate, how do we access that?” he asked, citing the need for a “formalized process” to break through encrypted technology.

Rogers pointed toward cooperation between tech companies and law enforcement to combat child pornography. “We have shown in other areas that through both technology, a legal framework, and social compact that we have been able to take on tough issues. I think we can do the same thing here.”

Yes, but that's very different, even as anyone looking to rip apart important privacy and free speech tools loves to shout "child porn," the examples are not even remotely comparable. And no one's looking to backdoor everything just to get at people passing around child porn. But the larger point stands. Rogers seems to think that there is a magic bullet/golden key that will magically only let the good guys through if only the tech industry is willing to work with him on this.

“You don’t want the FBI and you don’t want the NSA unilaterally deciding what” is permissible, Mr. Rogers said.

Except that presumes that if only the surveillance community and the tech industry got together they could come up with such a safe system, and as everyone else is telling him, that's impossible. And for a guy who is supposed to be running an agency that understand cryptography better than anyone else, that's really troubling:

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