UK Document on Leaks Leaked to Wikileaks October 6, 2009
Posted by Joey in Culture, Government, Internet, Media, Oops!.Tags: MoD, Wikileaks
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In the age of the intertubes, it’s not easy keeping secrets. Expect governments to get their panties in wads. Spying on you and all that.
For your reading pleasure: UK MoD Manual of Security Volumes 1, 2 and 3 Issue 2, JSP-440, RESTRICTED, 2389 pages, 2001
MoD ‘how to stop leaks’ document is leaked – Telegraph.
The Defence Manual of Security is intended to help MoD, armed forces and intelligence personnel maintain information security in the face of hackers, journalists, foreign spies and others.
But the 2,400-page restricted document has found its way on to Wikileaks, a website that publishes anonymous leaks of sensitive information from organisations including governments, corporations and religions.
Known in the services as Joint Services Protocol 440 (JSP 440), it was published in 2001. As Wikileaks notes, it is the document that is used as justification for the monitoring of certain websites, including Wikileaks itself.
FTC to Regulate Blogging October 5, 2009
Posted by Joey in Government, Internet, Politics, Technology.Tags: FTC
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Which part of the 1st Amendment don’t these FTC turds understand?
Here’s my freakin’ disclosure: No one is stupid enough to pay me to write this blog.
Via Instapundit, FTC to Regulate Blogging – Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News – FOXNews.com.
The Federal Trade Commission will try to regulate blogging for the first time, requiring writers on the Web to clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products.
The FTC said Monday its commissioners voted 4-0 to approve the final Web guidelines, which had been expected. Violating the rules, which take effect Dec. 1, could bring fines up to $11,000 per violation. Bloggers or advertisers also could face injunctions and be ordered to reimburse consumers for financial losses stemming from inappropriate product reviews.
The commission stopped short of specifying how bloggers must disclose conflicts of interest. Rich Cleland, assistant director of the FTC’s advertising practices division, said the disclosure must be “clear and conspicuous,” no matter what form it will take.
Bloggers have long praised or panned products and services online. But what some consumers might not know is that many companies pay reviewers for their write-ups or give them free products such as toys or computers or trips to Disneyland. In contrast, at traditional journalism outlets, products borrowed for reviews generally have to be returned.
The Pedobear Celebrates October 1, 2009
Posted by Joey in Culture, Internet.Tags: 4chan, Pedobear
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4chan’s birthday.
Sell Verizon, Their CTO Is An Idiot September 30, 2009
Posted by Joey in Internet.Tags: Internet Service Providers, Metered Pricing, Verizon
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Verizon’s CTO thinks you’ll line up to pay by the byte for internet service. Here’s a little clue, Mr. CTO. I’ve got a half-a-dozen potential internet service providers that could provide my surfing needs. If you try to charge me by the byte, I’ll find one that won’t.
Verizon, fire this idiot before he destroys your company.
Verizon CTO advocates for metered broadband pricing | Signal Strength – CNET News.
Will consumers one day pay for every megabyte they use while downloading video, streaming music, or updating their Facebook statuses?
They just might. The notion of metered billing gained a major supporter Tuesday when Verizon Communications’ CTO Dick Lynch told press and attendees at at fiber-to-the-home industry conference in Houston that broadband service providers “cannot continue to grow the Internet without passing the cost on to someone,” according to Telephony Online.
In the future, broadband service will likely be sold in packages based on how much bandwidth a person consumes, Lynch said during that press conference at the FTTH Conference & Expo, according to reports. This metered approach is similar to how the wireless industry has operated. Voice calls are charged by the minute. Wireless carriers have long offered a “bucket” that gives subscribers a set number of voice minutes or data service. And when users go over the allotted amount, they are charged on a per minute basis.
3G Carriers: You Pay Us To Fix Our Crappy Service September 21, 2009
Posted by Joey in Internet, Technology.Tags: AT&T, Femtocells, Sprint, T-Mobile
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Gizmodo goes off on a rant on AT&T and other cellular providers on femtocells. In other words, customers are expected to pay to fix their crappy service.
However, T-Mobile’s @Home service is VoIP service for replacing your telephone line, not a femtocell. It exists basically as an attempt to kill off Vonage and other VoIP providers.
3G MicroCells: Carriers Want You to Pay Extra to Fix Their Own Failures – 3G microcell – Gizmodo.
AT&T’s network is basically a huge failure. And if you want to fix their incompetence in your area, you’ll need to pay an additional $150 for a 3G MicroCell. I call bullshit.
Danny touched on this earlier, but the logic here is blowing my mind. How little regard for your customers do you have to have to offer a product that fixes your own product for an additional fee every month? Seriously, somebody explain to me how this is going to fly.
AT&T is currently testing the MicroCell in North Carolina, charging up to $20 a month to people who want to fix the dead spot in their apartment by running their phone through the internet. And they’re charging subscribers $150 for the box itself. It’s all a trial, so any of these prices could change, but as it stands it’s pretty ridiculous.
And AT&T is the last carrier to the femtocell party. Sprint charges $20 a month for its AiRave femtocell and Verizon charges $250 for its Network Extender box. T-Mobile charges $10 a month for its @Home service, which uses Wi-Fi instead of a cellular connection, but does the same thing. All of the carriers are ripping off their customers with these things, since all of the work is being put on your home internet connection, which you pay your broadband carrier for.
The Lost Symbol: Kindle Version Rulez Amazon September 19, 2009
Posted by Joey in Books, Gadgets, Internet, Technology.Tags: Amazon, Dan Brown, Kindle, The Lost Symbol
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Kindle version of The Lost Symbol is still #1 on Amazon’s best seller list.
The Kindle edition of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol seems to be outselling the Hardcover edition of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol as was first discovered by Kindle Nation Daily. At the time I’m writing this, the Kindle version is still ahead on Amazon’s sales charts.
The Pirate Bay Deal Scuttled September 10, 2009
Posted by Joey in Culture, Internet, Media, Politics.Tags: The Pirate Bay
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The Pirate Bay sale scuttled by a penny stock manipulator. Nice.
Vote: What’s Next for The Pirate Bay? | Threat Level | Wired.com.
Thursday’s de-listing from a Swedish stock exchange of The Pirate Bay’s corporate suitor is likely to scuttle the planned $8.5 million purchase of the world’s most notorious BitTorrent site.
The removal of GGF from the AktieTorget exchange was based, in large part, on the exchange’s findings that the Swedish company’s CEO, Hans Pandeya, never had the financing to go through with the deal, and was just trying to manipulate the company’s penny stock prices.
Amazon To Make Good On Orwell Blunder September 5, 2009
Posted by Joey in Gadgets, Internet, Oops!, Technology.Tags: 1984, Amazon, George Orwell, Kindle
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Finally, Amazon comes clean on its blunder of erasing 1984 and other Orwell books from Kindles.
Amazon Offers to Replace Copies of Orwell Books – NYTimes.com.
Amazon invited some unflattering literary analogies earlier this summer when it remotely erased unlicensed versions of two George Orwell novels from its customers’ Kindle reading devices.
Jeffrey P. Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, apologized to customers for the deletions in July. And late Thursday, the company tried to put the incident behind it, offering to deliver new copies of “1984” and “Animal Farm” at no charge to affected customers.
Amazon said in an e-mail message to those customers that if they chose to have their digital copies restored, they would be able to see any digital annotations they had made. Those who do not want the books are eligible for an Amazon gift certificate or a check for $30, the company said.
The message included Mr. Bezos’s mea culpa from July. “This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of ‘1984’ and other novels on Kindle,” Mr. Bezos said. He went on to describe Amazon’s actions as “stupid, thoughtless and painfully out of line with our principles.
Day By Day Pwns Obama’s Nefarious Internet Takeover August 29, 2009
Posted by Joey in Culture, Internet, Politics, Software, Technology.Tags: Barack Obama, Day By Day, Internet Takeover, S.773
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One of my favorite comic strips, Day By Day, displays this banner:
which points to this article:
Bill would give president emergency control of Internet | Politics and Law – CNET News.
Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.
They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.
The new version would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for “cybersecurity professionals,” and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.
“I think the redraft, while improved, remains troubling due to its vagueness,” said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel, and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. “It is unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is necessary over the private sector. Unless this is clarified, we cannot properly analyze, let alone support the bill.”
Sony Adopts ePub for E-Book Readers August 13, 2009
Posted by Joey in Gadgets, Internet, Media.Tags: Amazon, e-books, ePub, Kindle, Reader, Sony
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Sony gets smart and ditches its proprietary e-book format and goes with ePub. Let’s hope Amazon gets the message and goes with ePub as well on the Kindle.
Sony Plans to Adopt Common Format for E-Books.
Paper books may be low tech, but no one will tell you how and where you can read them.
For many people, the problem with electronic books is that they come loaded with just those kinds of restrictions. Digital books bought today from Amazon.com, for example, can be read only on Amazon’s Kindle device or its iPhone software.
Some restrictions on the use of e-books are likely to remain a fact of life. But some publishers and consumer electronics makers are aiming to give e-book buyers more flexibility by rallying around a single technology standard for the books. That would also help them counter Amazon, which has taken an early lead in the nascent market.
On Thursday, Sony Electronics, which sells e-book devices under the Reader brand, plans to announce that by the end of the year it will sell digital books only in the ePub format, an open standard created by a group including publishers like Random House and HarperCollins.
