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Is the Russian kamikaze sub misinformation or an inadvertent warning to the West?
Is the Russian kamikaze sub misinformation or an inadvertent warning to the West?
Apparently,
The screen capture depicts a project called "Ocean Multipurpose System 'Status-6.'" The weapon would apparently be delivered by a nuclear-powered underwater drone, carried externally by a nuclear submarine. The drone would be capable of depths of up to 3,280 feet and capable of speeds of up to 65 miles an hour. It would also have a range of 6,213 miles.
A weapon like this could take out the transatlantic data cables as mere collateral damage…
Russian Ships Too Close to Data Cables for U.S. Comfort
Russian Ships Too Close to Data Cables for U.S. Comfort
The first of two this-is-really-concerning posts you’ll find here today:
The role of the cables is more important than ever before. They carry global business worth more than $10 trillion a day, including from financial institutions that settle transactions on them every second. Any significant disruption would cut the flow of capital. The cables also carry more than 95 percent of daily communications.
I hope there are ways for at least economic, government and military organizations to route around those cables via satellite if necessary…
Apple has learned nothing from Microsoft's Surface
Apple has learned nothing from Microsoft’s Surface - The Verge
iPad sales are indeed down, but it does not follow from that fact that iPad use is down. This Time article did the yeoman’s work of aggregating some data about iPad sales. The bottom line is that in the five years since the iPad’s 2010 launch, Apple has sold more than 258 million of the tablets. That’s more iPads in the wild than people living in Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, Japan, Mexico, Philippines, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Egypt, Germany, Iran, Turkey, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Thailand, France, United Kingdom, or Italy (thanks Wolfram|Alpha).
My dad has an Android tablet and a Windows PC. Since he got the tablet (which, interestingly from a marketing perspective, he insists on calling an iPad) he does nothing on the PC except pay bills, and that’s primarily because most of the apps you use to pay bills on mobile devices are, to put it mildly, user-hostile antichrists of design and experience.
He is a sample of one, but my dad isn’t even your typical cutting edge older gentleman. For example, he was on Aol dial-up until sometime around 2013, and refuses to use a non-clamshell mobile phone. So his taking so quickly to using a tablet implies to me that the replacement of PCs by iPads and other tablets may be closer than Tom Warren of The Verge thinks, although still far off.
I don’t see my dad using an iPad Pro though because most of his use is on the couch as a second screen. I suspect that the second screen use case coupled with the price point will dampen iPad Pro sales outside of the geek and artist demographics.
When is time to take antitrust action against Comcast?
When is time to take antitrust action against Comcast?
It’s hard to read about U.S. comeptition law without wondering when Comcast is going to face consequences for its clear abuse of its market power.
China hack attacks on US continue despite commercial spying pact
China hack attacks on US continue despite commercial spying pact
If this surprises you, I’ve got a real-life, fully functional totally Back to the Future hoverboard to sell you…
Hackers Can Silently Control Siri From 16 Feet Away
Hackers Can Silently Control Siri From 16 Feet Away
Well this is concerning:
A pair of researchers at ANSSI, a French government agency devoted to information security, have shown that they can use radio waves to silently trigger voice commands on any Android phone or iPhone that has Google Now or Siri enabled, if it also has a pair of headphones with a microphone plugged into its jack. Their clever hack uses those headphones’ cord as an antenna, exploiting its wire to convert surreptitious electromagnetic waves into electrical signals that appear to the phone’s operating system to be audio coming from the user’s microphone. Without speaking a word, a hacker could use that radio attack to tell Siri or Google Now to make calls and send texts, dial the hacker’s number to turn the phone into an eavesdropping device, send the phone’s browser to a malware site, or send spam and phishing messages via email, Facebook, or Twitter.
You can disable Siri whenever your iOS device is locked by going to Settings > Touch ID & Passcode > Allow Access When Locked and toggling the Siri switch to the “off” (as in not green) position. This doesn’t guarantee a hack like the one deascribed above won’t work on your device, but it does guarantee you’ll see Siri doing something weird and can thus be alerted to the hackery.
Axel Springer bans adblock users from Bild online
Axel Springer bans adblock users from Bild online
According to the report by Reuters at The Guardian:
More than 30% of Germans online use such software, many more than the 5% of internet users globally in 2014, according to Dublin-based analytics and advisory firm PageFair, which develops “ad blocker-friendly” advertising.
My basic position on ad blocking is that it’s a permissible response to shitty or intrusive advertising but whatever tool you use should have a whitelisting feature. I don’t know what the ultimate solution to this debate will be but I know that Bild.de publisher Axel Springer’s approach is unwise.
It’s so easy to find well-done news on the internet these days that Axel Springer is only hurting itself with the new policy. Instead of focusing on taking only high-quality advertisements that aren’t obnoxious or classless and minimizing the concomitant tracking, Bild.de is walling itself off from 30 percent of its native-language audience.
In short, someone at Axel Springer should be fired.
CFPB proposes ban of class action prohibitions in arbitration clauses
CFPB proposes ban of class action prohibitions in arbitration clauses
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said in a press release today:
In the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Congress required the CFPB to study the use of arbitration clauses in consumer financial markets and gave the Bureau the power to issue regulations that are in the public interest, for the protection of consumers, and consistent with the study’s findings. The CFPB’s study – released in March of this year – showed that arbitration clauses restrict consumers’ relief for disputes with financial service providers by allowing companies to block group lawsuits.The study also found that, in the consumer finance markets studied, very few consumers individually seek relief through arbitration or the federal courts, while millions of consumers are eligible for relief each year through group settlements. According to the study, more than 75 percent of consumers surveyed in the credit card market did not know whether they were subject to an arbitration clause in their contract. Fewer than 7 percent of those consumers covered by arbitration clauses realized that the clauses restricted their ability to sue in court.
The March 2015 CFPB report on this issue (PDF) said:
The Bureau understands that class lawsuits have been subject to significant criticism that regards them as an imperfect tool that can be expensive and cumbersome for all parties. However, the Bureau notes that Congress, state legislatures, and the courts have mechanisms for managing and improving class procedures over time. On balance, the Bureau believes that consumers are significantly better protected from harm by consumer financial service providers when they are able to aggregate claims. Accordingly, the Bureau believes that ensuring that consumers can pursue class litigation related to covered consumer financial products or services without being curtailed by arbitration agreements protects consumers, furthers the public interest, and is consistent with the Study.
Class action lawsuits can be a pain in the ass for everyone involved and the only winners are the plaintiffs' lawyers. But the mere possibility of a class action may be enough to prevent predatory behavior on the part of service providers.
'Happy Birthday' copyright held invalid
‘Happy Birthday’ copyright held invalid
Until now, Warner has asked for royalties from anyone who wanted to sing or play "Happy Birthday to You" --- with the lyrics --- as part of a profit-making enterprise. Royalties were most often collected from stage productions, television shows, movies or greeting cards. But even those who wanted to sing the song publicly as part of a business, say a restaurant owner giving out free birthday cake to patrons, technically had to pay to use the song, prompting creative renditions at chain eateries trying to avoid paying royalties.
I hope this is the death knell of every non-‘Happy Birthday’ song all of those tchotchke-full restaurants have been forcing their underpaid and overworked waitstaffers to sing to uncomfortable diners.
Video gamer hunts down, stabs man who killed his online 'Counter-Strike' character
Video gamer hunts down, stabs man who killed his online ‘Counter-Strike’ character
Michael Sheridan reports at NYDailyNews.com:
Julien Barreaux reportedly spent six months looking for the person who killed his online character in a virtual knife fight, and eventually found the foe living only a few miles away in Cambrai, a town about 2 hours north of Paris.
The lunatic only got two years' imprisonment for what pretty plainly looks to me like premeditated attempted murder. I don’t know anything about French law, but that seems like an embarrassing outcome for any prosecutor.
Image is top of French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
My annual sportsball post: Tom Brady’s Four-Game N.F.L. Suspension Erased by Judge
Tom Brady’s Four-Game N.F.L. Suspension Erased by Judge
Tom Brady is now set to play in the Patriots' opener. I don’t care, but I know my parents, my siblings and most of my friends might. Here’s what the presiding judge said:
"The court finds that Brady had no notice that he could receive a four-game suspension for general awareness of ball deflation by others or participation in any scheme to deflate footballs, and noncooperation with the ensuing investigation" Berman wrote.
So there you have it. A sportsball post. Don’t say I never gave you anything.
Photo by Belinda Haskins Miller
Missouri Teenagers Protest a Transgender Student’s Use of the Girls’ Bathroom
Missouri Teenagers Protest a Transgender Student’s Use of the Girls’ Bathroom
I can’t blame the students for protesting. Kids can be cruel, and kind of dumb. I certainly was.
But parents and attorneys like Derrick Good display a shameful vacuity in couching their bigotry in terms like “physical privacy.”
Karen Workman quotes one such parent:
"My goal is for the district and parents to have a policy discussion,” said Derrick Good, a lawyer who has two daughters in the district and wants students to use either facilities based on their biological sex or other gender-neutral facilities.
Requiring the teen in question, Lila Perry, to use the men’s room is no different than requiring Mr. Good’s daughters to use the men’s room. The absurdity of Good’s position is that it presumes Lila is a male pretending that she is a female so she can infiltrate Mr. Good’s daughters' physical privacy in the ladies' room.
And the twisted aspect of this circumstance is that Good’s “fight” for that privacy has obliterated Lila’s own physical privacy by turning her gender dysmorphia, with which she appears to have otherwise been coping rather well, into a national news story and an indictment of her morals.
This isn’t the first time the Christian advocacy group with which Good worked have used the plight of a child to their benefit. The hilariously named “Alliance Defending Freedom” compared “threats to its freedom,” which, hilariously, it claims are “multiplying,” to the death of a small boy on its Who We Are page.
It’s not impossible though for such people to change their minds. Consider the father of D.W. Trantham, speaking in a story about parents pulling a child out of D.W.’s school after the school allowed her to choose which bathroom she would use:
Her father Tim believes people getting mad over transgender bathroom choice is a red herring. He thinks most people are just uncomfortable or scared of what they don't understand.Tim admits he used to be the same way.
“I was some of those people myself at one point in my life,” Tim said. “I didn’t understand what transgender was or the issues involved.”
Ms. Perry is not discouraged:
She said she knows of other, younger transgender students in the district and wants to open a dialogue so they have a better high school experience.
Years of data suggest that between 30 percent and 50 percent of transgender people attempt suicide at least once.1 There is a mountain of data since then, and the Wikipedia article on suicide among LGBT youth is a good starting point if you’re interested in further research.
My point it that as a former Catholic of about 18 years I’m certain it’s rather unChristian to consciously exacerbate what is already a difficult process for transgender youth.
Image is the transgender pride flag
Alison Parker, Adam Ward of WDBJ remembered by friends
Alison Parker, Adam Ward of WDBJ remembered by friends
It’s inappropriate to use these tragic murders as fodder for the never-ending Second Amendment debate, and people on both sides of the isle are already guilty of that.
If the killer’s intent was to terrorize, are those people who are disseminating photographic and video imagery of the murders aiding and abetting that son of a bitch, even after his suicide?
I’m obviously emotional over this thing, as many people are, and the aiding and abetting thing is more a thought experiment than a serious question. But if we don’t at least think about it, try to push the debate forward somehow, if nothing changes at all, Alison and Adam died for nothing. That’s unacceptable.
Lewis James Fogle Free, 34 Years After His Wrongful Conviction
Lewis James Fogle Free, 34 Years After His Wrongful Conviction
The case against Mr. Fogle itself was never a strong one – it was based entirely upon the testimony of so-called jailhouse informants, including a man himself suspected of the crime. It was only years after the 15-year-old victim’s body was found in the woods that the suspect, Elderkin, named Mr. Fogle as being involved. This accusation came during Elderkin’s fifth statement to police, while Elderkin was receiving psychiatric treatment and with the assistance of hypnosis. No physical evidence connected Mr. Fogle to the murder, and he testified at trial he was nowhere near the scene when the girl was murdered. Nonetehless, the jury convicted Mr. Fogle and the court sentenced him to life in prison without parole.
This gentleman spent more time in jail for something heinous he didn’t do than I have spent being alive. This guy has a wife and kids, who not only haven’t lived with him for 34 years, but who have had to deny he assaulted and murdered a teenager, as well. The District Attorney was admirable in his cooperation with Innocence.
But there is no utility in blaming or blessing any single person: what changes can we make to the criminal justice system that will prevent mistakes like this from happening in the first place?
Maybe life with parole shouldn’t be on the table unless there is conclusive DNA evidence of the defendant’s guilt. I don’t know. But we can’t shrug our shoulders about it. After all, we were happy to incarcerate Fogle for the rest of his life when we thought he took someone else’s life. What will do now that we have effectively taken most of his?
What's better for free speech on reddit, saving a single thread or getting the whole site unbanned in Russia?
If the choice is between all of reddit remaining banned in most of Russia and IP-blocking access to one thread about mushrooms, I’d block access to the thread. I think there’s a far stronger “pro-free-speech” argument for restoring access to 99.99% of reddit for Russians rather than inciting a total ban by refusing to restrict access to a single post.
Photo by Kirill Vinokurov, from Wikimedia
Facial Recognition Software Moves From Overseas Wars to Local Police
Facial Recognition Software Moves From Overseas Wars to Local Police
This is troubling:
Lt. Scott Wahl, a spokesman for the 1,900-member San Diego Police Department, said the department does not require police officers to file a report when they use the facial recognition technology but do not make an arrest. The department has no record of the stops involving Mr. Hanson and Mr. Harvey, and Lieutenant Wahl said that he did not know about the incidents but that they could have happened.
Should police departments be allowed to use facial recognition?
Yes.
Should they be able to use it with minimal consent, oversight and reporting requirements?
No.
Image from Wikimedia
The ethics of modern web ad-blocking
The ethics of modern web ad-blocking
Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper and, more recently, Overcast:
This won’t be a clean, easy transition. Blocking pop-ups was much more incisive: it was easy for legitimate publishers to avoid one narrowly-useful Javascript function to open new windows. But it’s completely reasonable for today’s web readers to be so fed up that they disable all ads, or even all Javascript. Web developers and standards bodies couldn’t be more out of touch with this issue, racing ahead to give browsers and Javascript even more capabilities without adequately addressing the fundamental problems that will drive many people to disable huge chunks of their browser’s functionality.
I vascillate between Ghostery and uBlock, but they do the same thing: disable the scripts that power advertisements and tracking on the web. Some sites respect their visitors and present unobtrusive, high-quality advertisements. I whitelist those because, even if I’m unlikely to look at the ads and far less likely to actually click on them, the respect the publisher showed me deserves reciprocation.
But Arment is right. There’s no nice way to say it: publishers with shitty ads won’t remain viable much longer in the face of increased user awareness and response. The ability to use ad blockers in iOS 9 will only accelerate the downfall of sites with shitty ads.
Can the FTC ban digital goods?
Can the FTC ban digital goods?
Brent Kendall, writing at The Wall Street Journal:
The current case is about patents, but the ITC also can take action against goods that infringe copyrights, an issue important to Hollywood and other rights holders. They are eyeing the ITC as a new venue for combating foreign websites that trade in pirated digital material and the ability of U.S. consumers to access them.
If the court hearing this case on August 11th upholds the FTC’s decision to exercise its import ban authority in the digital realm the ramifications will be far-reaching and almost immediate. Music and movies, 3D printing, and perhaps even digitally transmitted and executed software code would be among the items open to FTC authority. The Federal Trade Commission has very little expertise in the digital space, so making the arbiters of what digital imports are okay and which are not may not be an intelligent approach.
Do we need a Digital Transmission Commission? If the FTC is to get digital ban authority it will need strong oversight.
Photo by Uberpenguin at Wikipedia
Federal Court's data breach decision shows new tilt toward victims, class-action lawsuits
Federal Court’s data breach decision shows new tilt toward victims, class-action lawsuits
John Fontana writes at ZDNet:
In an interesting twist, the Court said the fact Neiman Marcus offered free credit monitoring services was evidence that there was harm to these victims. The ruling turned on its head the way courts historically view such services as compensation for harm while negating a victim's right to file a lawsuit (re: standing).
This may get very interesting very fast: if companies are at risk of being held ot have tacitly admitted liability by offering credit protection services to potential breach victims, they will stop offering that stuff.
The possibility of class actions instead of free credit monitoring may appeal to those whose data has been stolen, but it’s not really a great trade at all. Credit monitoring is expensive and the industry is still suffering growing pains, but class actions usually net plaintiffs an insignificant amount of money in damages while making lawyers very, very rich.
