firehose

Cristina Negrini

A recent academic paper (PDF) shows “that Tor faces even greater risks from traffic correlation than previous studies suggested.” In other words, one of the world’s best tools for keeping online speech anonymous is at risk in a previously known—but now even clearer—fashion.

In the wake of a recent uptick of Tor usage (whether from a botnet or from people inspired by former National Security Agency [NSA] contractor Edward Snowden), a reminder of these risks is certainly germane to today’s Internet.

The new research has shown that a potential adversary with control of Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) or autonomous systems (ASes) that have large-scale network control (like an ISP), could expose and identify a Tor user, given enough time.

James Anderson, aged 16, wants to make coding cool. The teenager, along with a pair of students from his school in South West England, has created Thinkspace, an organization that wants to put a space for kids to learn coding in every school in the UK and beyond. It's an ambitious aim, but Anderson is starting small: this week, the group is launching its first two Thinkspaces in the UK and Northern Ireland.

Thinkspace founders James Anderson, Ollie Bredemeyer, and Kamram Malik.

A tiny Google campus within a school

What is a Thinkspace? "Ideally, it's a room in a school that encourages kids to come and learn how to code, and how to create the apps of the future," Anderson tells me. Each Thinkspace must adhere to a strict "dress code" — think plain walls, Thinkspace logos, minimalist furniture, bean bags, large TVs, and modern computers — a tiny Google Campus within a school. "A lot of research went into designing Google's campuses, and there's a reason they're laid out like they are." The thought is that, outside of the confines a regular classroom, kids will be more engaged. "We want to inspire and promote creativity."

Kitting out schools with new furniture and computers is a noble goal, but it's not likely to change much without a dramatic shift in the British high school curriculum. Luckily, Thinkspace's plans amount to much more than a lick of paint. The goal is for teens to collaborate on projects, share, and learn from one another. To achieve that, they've created a new social network: Thinkspace Social.

Setting up a social network when the internet is overflowing with established services might appear misguided, but Thinkspace Social isn't an attempt to take on Facebook or Twitter. Each participating school has its own micro-network, moderated by the teacher that signed up, and discussion is limited to apps, coding, and technology. It's a space for kids to share what they're working on, ask for advice, and help others. It's also a way for Thinkspace to spread. Although only two schools have physical Thinkspaces, schools around the world chose to participate in the trial of Social, including some from the US, Ireland, Switzerland, Singapore, and the Netherlands.

Thinkspace's launch video is like a who's who of tech

Despite only launching Thinkspace today, Anderson and his associates Ollie Bredemeyer and Kamram Malik have already gained the approval of some big names in technology. A video introducing Thinkspace to the world includes messages from Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, Google's Vic Gundotra, Microsoft UK's Steve Beswick, and Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak. They've also gained an important flag bearer in the form of Stephen Fry, a British actor and personality who fronted a primetime show about new technology on the BBC.

In addition to the celebrity endorsements, Thinkspace is also getting free hosting for a year from the web hosting company Rackspace. Getting such huge names on board is a testament to both the importance of educating the next generation of coders, and the effort Anderson, Bredemeyer, and Malik have put into the project. Since we first spoke with Anderson a month ago, we've received no less than an email a day — he's a tenacious individual, driven to succeed.

The goal is admirable, but Thinkspace needs to inspire to succeed

For now, though, Thinkspace largely remains an unfulfilled dream in the minds of its creators. They've achieved a lot by getting this far, but they need the first two Thinkspaces to be a success, kids to be inspired and get involved, and many more schools to sign up. Starting later today, schools can do just that. Thinkspace Social is still in private beta, but invites can be requested at thinkspace.co.uk/social/ (once the site is live), and the full site will launch within a couple of weeks.

In a posting to JH Williams III’s website late Wednesday night, the acclaimed artist and his Batwoman co-writer W. Haden Blackman announced that due to what they described as a preponderance of “eleventh-hour changes” to stories that had been planned a year or more in advance, they’re walking off the book. Among the grievances alleged by Williams and Blackman was publisher DC Comics’ refusal to allow principal characters Batwoman (aka Kate Kane) and her fiancé Maggie Sawyer to get married.

In their co-authored blog post Williams and Blackman said their approach to Batwoman was based on avoiding a status quo, with each successive story arc designed to that end.

“Unfortunately, in recent months, DC has asked us to alter or completely discard many long-standing storylines in ways that we feel compromise the character and the series,” wrote Blackman and Williamst. “We were told to ditch plans for Killer Croc’s origins; forced to drastically alter the original ending of our current arc, which would have defined Batwoman’s heroic future in bold new ways; and, most crushingly, prohibited from ever showing Kate and Maggie actually getting married. All of these editorial decisions came at the last minute, and always after a year or more of planning and plotting on our end.”

The marriage note will likely strike a sour note with many Batwoman readers given the character’s notoriety as one of the few openly gay American superherho characters and (to the best of my knowledge) the only one with their own title. Batwoman’s emergence coincided with increasing support for gay rights in the United States, and her origin was inspired the U.S.’s controversial real-life policies concerning homosexuals serving in the armed forces. In another story reflecting the cultural zeitgeist, Batwoman recently proposed to her girlfriend Maggie Sawyer. That they wouldn’t get to depict the couple’s marriage was the “most crushing” aspect of the situation.

Asked to expand on the marriage note, Williams said the following via Twitter: “Not wanting to be inflammatory, only factual — We fought to get [Kate and Maggie] engaged, but were told emphatically no marriage can result.” He added, “But must clarify– [the decision] was never put to us as being anti-gay marriage.”

Additional tweets between Williams and fellow DC writer Gail Simone suggest that the decision to keep Kate and Maggie from officially tying the knot was made for dramatic reasons as opposed to political ones. “More of an anti-marriage thing in general” is how Simone described her suspicion, referring perhaps to recent DC editorial moves that undid the marriages between several super-couples including Superman and Lois Lane, the Flash and Iris West, and Green Arrow and Black Canary. Williams confirmed Simone’s suspicion: “Gail is right, but it still should not be a story to be avoided, but embraced fully.”

DC Comics did not reply to inquiries as of publishing time.

Along with Batman, Wonder Woman and The Flash, Batwoman is one of DC’s few remaining titles that could be described as “auteur books” — which is to say, comics guided by a cohesive creative vision over the course of years. These comics tend to be the most critically acclaimed and in some cases the most popular of the New 52 line. Williams’ work on last year’s “World’s Finest” storyline guest starring Wonder Woman was so strong that ComicsAlliance included Batwoman on its list of the Best Comics of 2012, not to mention an Eisner nomination for cover art.

Williams and Haden indicated their final issue of Batwoman would be #26, which while not yet solicited to retailers is expected to ship in December.

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number developer Dennaton Games has removed a controversial sexual assault scene from the game's current demo while it works to change the sequence, said the studio in an interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Dennaton recently presented a segment of Hotline Miami 2 to members of the media and received criticism — most notably from an article on PC Gamer — for a scene at the end of the demo in which the player character appears to force himself on a woman and is about to rape her. It's quickly revealed that the sequence was part of a film, but the backlash against Dennaton still stands.

"We didn't add the scene just to be controversial," Dennis Wedin, the game's co-creator, told Rock, Paper, Shotgun. "There is a meaning to these two characters. There's a lot more to them than just this scene.

"We removed it for the demo. We're going to work with it, see if we can fix it. You get a bigger picture when you play the whole game, which is lost in the demo, of course."

Wedin noted that Hotline Miami 2 will feature female playable characters, whereas the victim in the demo was the only woman in that part of the game. In addition, Dennaton will evaluate feedback from testers of the full version of Hotline Miami 2 before the studio decides if it will include the scene in the final game.

"Our scene made [people] feel this way, so we have to think about why and if there's something we can do to make it better," said Wedin.

You can check out our preview of Hotline Miami 2 here.