[Jon Vlachogiannis took a stab at estimating the cost of building][1] PRISM on commercial hardware:
> Total Hardware & Personnel Costs: €12M Per Month (€144M Per Year) = $187M Per Year
That’s not even a blip on the “defense” budget — though I would triple that number to figure out what the government would actually pay to make such a system.
[1]: http://highscalability.com/blog/2013/7/1/prism-the-amazingly-low-cost-of-using-bigdata-to-know-more-a.html
[I’ve been seeing this OmniFocus for iPhone redesign float around this morning][1] (done by Chris Sauvé). I must be the only one that thinks it doesn’t look great. I like the layout of the new task sheet, as I think it streamlines a rather cumbersome process for OmniFocus. That’s about the one of the few points of the design that I like.
The action bars look crappy, and the overall iconography of the design looks silly to me. Most of all, this app doesn’t look like it would fit well with iOS 7, and given that OmniFocus *is* made by an Apple only development company, I figure they are interested in looking more native that unique.
Sauvé has some great ideas surrounding things like notes and templates (and the input sheet mentioned above) but the overall look isn’t much improved.
[1]: http://cmsauve.com/projects/omnifocus/
[Ben Lincoln did some digging on his Motorola phone][1] and found that it was calling home. Worse yet, the wholly owned Google subsidiary is sending your usernames and passwords to Motorola/Google servers. Now what would Google want with all this non-metadata?
Gee, why would Google/Motorola care what apps are on your Home screen, what percentage of contacts come from which service — I mean why would any of that be valuable to the largest and most ruthless advertising company? *It’ll come to me…*
[1]: http://www.beneaththewaves.net/Projects/Motorola_Is_Listening.html?source=hn
Thomas Brand on Apple's choice of wallpapers:
You don’t have to be a Mac user to appreciate a good desktops pattern, but the attention to detail Apple takes towards choosing a default wallpaper means excitement for Mavericks will build long before it hits the shore.
What I like best about the Mavericks Wave photo is not the photo itself, but that the photo is bright. The space photos were gorgeous, but dark. I like bright images because they feel light — they feel happy — and this Wave photo does just that.
(Of course I change my wallpaper automatically based on the time of day, so that my eyes aren't seared by blinding brightness late at night.)
I’m getting reports that member feeds (and only member feeds) are not migrating to some RSS services properly. This seems to happen when you go to migrate, with some having success manually adding the member feed after the migration.
Please let me know if you are having any troubles.
[Reuters][1]:
> Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, said that if the report was correct, it would have a “severe impact” on relations between the EU and the United States.
> “On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the U.S. authorities with regard to these allegations,” he said in an emailed statement.
So maybe if we can’t get *our* Government to answer us another Government can get answers for us. Sad, but likely.
[1]: http://news.yahoo.com/u-bugged-eu-offices-computer-networks-german-magazine-162017024.html
[From The Washington Post on new information about how PRISM works][1]:
> The FBI uses government equipment on private company property to retrieve matching information from a participating company, such as Microsoft or Yahoo and pass it without further review to the NSA.
This sounds a lot like “direct access” to me.
[1]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/
[Eyder Peralta][1]:
> A Defense Department spokesman tells us that the DoD is “not blocking any websites.”
> Instead, it is blocking offending content.
That content which is being blocked is anything that is classified — but once something is published publicly how can it still be classified?
Additionally, wouldn’t this make those whom we trust to protect us the least informed?
On another note: good to see that the U.S. and China agree on [some things][2].
[1]: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/28/196571320/u-s-army-restricts-access-to-the-guardian-website
[2]: http://greatfirewallofchina.org
Dalton Caldwell [has written up some likely scenarios on the Google Reader shut down][1], as it pertains to publishers on the web. The scenarios he offers are mostly ‘meh’ situations, but I have a completely different take. ((*Shocking.*))
I actually think this shut down parallels well with implementing a paywall on your site, because both are creating natural obstacles for people. Every alternative RSS reader I have seen and tried isn’t as simple as Google Reader. What made Google Reader simple is that everyone already had a Google account so they could naturally discover this other “thing” and start using it, Google made discovery, use, and signup easy.
Now that same group is going to switch? Yeah right.
More likely: this is going to be a reality check for a lot of websites. Sure, the numbers (RSS subscribers) will be boosted in the days immediately following as many try multiple services at once, but in a month or two? My guess is the numbers will be way down.
My thinking is:
1. A lot of people got sucked into RSS by Google, but don’t really care about RSS. Maybe they check it here and there, but they won’t miss it when it’s gone.
2. A lot of people will simply find other ways that they think sufficient — ways that would not be sufficient for a nerd. (Twitter, Facebook, Friends, etc.)
3. This presents itself as a really great time for nerds to clean out their subscriptions — and many sites won’t make the cut. “I still subscribe to that site? Not anymore.”
So we have users that just don’t care enough to continue with RSS and the more nerdy set that does care enough, but may, or may not, keep subscribing to your site — because they do care about what they read, they will likely take this moment to reevaluate their subscribed feeds.
## Side Note
The most lucrative way to run a blog is with RSS Sponsors. You can charge quite a bit — people paid me about $500 per week with only 8,200 subscribers before I stopped — this is the best source of money for a blogger. That money is in jeopardy here not because of Google Reader, but because of Feed Wrangler.
Feed Wrangler offers Filters that can filter out keywords. This is great if you are tired of iWatch rumors, and typically doesn’t hurt bloggers.
But you know what will hurt? Filtering out sponsored RSS posts. The reason you get paid more for RSS sponsorships than for “banner” style ads is because the blogger can more or less assure you that your post *will* be seen by X-many subscribers. Google Reader showed it all to you. But with new RSS readers hell bent on making things better for users, well it’s only a matter of time before an RSS reader comes to market with an automatic “sponsored posts blocker”. I think that’s a killer feature for users, and an income killer for bloggers.
[1]: http://daltoncaldwell.com/where-will-google-reader-traffic-go
I’ll be honest, he needs a more badass voice, but still worth [watching this short video on Seattle’s Phoenix Jones][1].
[1]: https://vimeo.com/69041352
One of my bigger complaints with the Tom Bihn Smart Alec is that I have a bit of friction getting the strap on and off my body. That’s good in that it means the strap fits well and comfortably when on, but it’s cumbersome. I received a response from Tom Bihn about this that detailed how he loosens the strap when he takes it off and tightens when he puts it back on — I’ve been doing that same trick too.
Tom Bihn promised me a video on this a while ago and a couple of days ago they sent it over. [Here’s the video][1], but as you will notice (as apparent by the title of this post) this is not just about taking a backpack on and off. No this is about packing the Smart Alec for a hike. I didn’t think much of that until I watched the video — because holy cow does he fit a lot in that backpack. (The strap trick is right in the last 30 seconds or so of the video.)
Worth a watch if you want to see just how much a backpack like this will hold.
[1]: http://www.tombihn.com/blog/smartalechikevideo
[Marco Arment][1]:
> Since WWDC, every iOS-imitating UI looks ancient. Soon, they’ll start to feel obsolete. Most imitating efforts will need to be redone or abandoned to look current. And what will happen if people try to imitate iOS 7?
This is a great post from Marco, well worth a read as it is going to affect everyone with a phone. While I don’t think “defense” was the motivation behind the redesign, I do think it’s a nice fringe benefit.
I doubt it drove the design, but if the design could lend a hand — why not?
What I will tell you is that I will have very little tolerance for apps that don’t feel native on iOS 7. What that means is that my home screen is effectively up for grabs.
Every app on it feels old and gross on iOS — make your app feel native and I’ll switch to it just to get something that looks modern. That’s a big deal, because I certainly won’t be alone. ((This is similar to what happened when phones went retina and when the iPhone 5 came out needing taller apps. Similar, but not as big of a potential.))
[1]: http://www.marco.org/2013/06/27/ios7-as-defense
Speaking of Shawn Blanc, [he has a great overview of how to use Smart Streams in Feed Wrangler][1]. I think that’s one of the neatest features of all the new RSS readers and likely to be very powerful in the long run.
[1]: http://shawnblanc.net/2013/06/feed-wrangler-smart-streams/
[Shawn Blanc on his assumed departure from NetNewsWire][1]:
> And I know I’m not the only one. This weekend a lot of us will say goodbye to an old friend. You’ll forgive me if I’m a little sentimental, but if you’ve been reading this site for longer than a day you know I’ve got an affinity for fine software.
NetNewsWire was the first client I ever got for RSS and it introduced me to the medium. With the beta of version 4, and the pre-lease price of $10, I went ahead and bought [NetNewsWire 4][2]. I am a huge fan of [Fever°][3] and [Sunstroke][4]. They are great tools for RSS, but lately when I am out and about I have found I don’t have time for RSS — it’s too much. Instead I rely on App.net and (yes) Digg.com to stay up to date on what’s going on. That’s less overwhelming and faster.
So for the moment I am using NetNewsWire 4, un-synced to the web, and just checking my feeds when I happen to be at my Mac. So far I am loving the heck out of it.
[1]: http://shawnblanc.net/2013/06/nnw/
[2]: http://netnewswireapp.com
[3]: http://feedafever.com
[4]: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id488564806
[Alex Berenson][1]:
> We have treated a whistle-blower like a traitor — and thus made him a traitor. Great job. Did anyone in the White House or the N.S.A or the C.I.A. consider flying to Hong Kong and treating Mr. Snowden like a human being, offering him a chance to testify before Congress and a fair trial? Maybe he would have gone with President Vladimir V. Putin anyway, but at least he would have had another option. The secret keepers would have won too: a Congressional hearing would have been a small price to bring Mr. Snowden and those precious hard drives back to American soil.
This is just the tip of the iceberg — I hope the government decision makers get held responsible for the shitty handling of this so far.
[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/opinion/snowden-through-the-eyes-of-a-spy-novelist.html?_r=0
When I was [writing about Apple’s privacy statement][1] regarding PRISM, I noted that wording around iMessage was rather vague and that I wanted to know more. I really didn’t get more information, but cryptographer [Matthew Green was also interested and did a little poking around iMessage][2]. His post is a fantastic read about what Apple may or may not being doing — because really we need Apple to reveal at least the high-level methods of encryption they are using before we know any of this for sure.
What does seem clear from Green is that iMessage *is* encrypted, but that Apple controls that encryption — this is an important point. It seems likely Apple *could* turn over at least a few days worth of iMessage content if compelled by a Government order — and highly probably that they store the meta-data for iMessage in a way that is easy to turn over if compelled.
Essentially it comes down to: how much do you trust Apple, and how much do you care about the government reading your iMessages?
[1]: https://brooksreview.net/2013/06/apples-commitment-to-customer-privacy/
[2]: http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/06/can-apple-read-your-imessages.html?m=1
Let’s start off with Conor Friedersdorf, [with a closing statement that *might* have been shocking only a month ago][1]:
> To sum up, America, the privacy protections you’re afforded are much weaker than you’re being led to believe, and when it comes to destroying communications that concern U.S. citizens, the NSA is either lying to the Senate about its ability to flag those communications, or else misleading the public about how reliably the communications of American citizens are destroyed.
Michael Horowitz, [writing for Computerworld has another unsettling discovery][2] about the security of HTTPS transaction — specifically talking about outlook.com in this passage seems to have some *slightly* more shocking information:
> But every lock has a key and outlook.com has a HUGE MASTER KEY. Anyone in possession of this master key can read the encrypted HTTPS pages. **All of them**. Every single encrypted web page that has ever been transmitted by outlook.com to millions of former Hotmail users can be decrypted with a single master key.
Horowitz goes on to explain how to get around it — right now only Google and Bloomberg are the ones that employ the best standards for HTTPS transaction. Apparently Google and Bloomberg want to be the *only* ones that can spy on you.
The above seems in line with this post from [Leonid Bershidsky on PRISM and its effectiveness for fighting terrorism][3]:
> The infrastructure set up by the National Security Agency, however, may only be good for gathering information on the stupidest, lowest-ranking of terrorists. The Prism surveillance program focuses on access to the servers of America’s largest Internet companies, which support such popular services as Skype, Gmail and iCloud. These are not the services that truly dangerous elements typically use.
Sounds like the “security theater” that the TSA practices — only a lot more expensive and time consuming.
[‘Digby’ has brought to light a federal program][4] I had not heard of. It’s called the “Insider Threat Program” and designed to have government workers spy on each other to make sure that neither is doing something labeled as “treason” like leaking documents (classified or otherwise) to the media.
Which rather comically (if you can ignore how stupid this program is) leads to:
> When the Department of Education is searching for “insider threats” something’s gone very wrong.
Indeed.
So far we have learned that the U.S. has an awful lot of resources spent spying on U.S. Citizens — and Federal employees.
Which is pretty annoying, but not as concerning as this post from [James C. Goodale on how President Obama is doing his best to reduce the first amendment rights][5]:
> Until President Obama came into office, no one thought talking or emailing was not protected by the First Amendment. President Obama wants to criminalize the reporting of national security information. This will stop reporters from asking for information that might be classified. Leaks will stop and so will the free flow of information to the public.
This to me is one of the worst things I have heard about the current White House — this simply shouldn’t be. We are getting closer and closer to *Minority Report*… and that’s not praise.
Lastly, [in a post on Medium][6], Colin Lee claims to have known Edward Snowden from gaming, and makes a salient point:
> When you grant excessive powers even in limited circumstances, it becomes very difficult to take them back or to limit them. This is how many dictatorships came to power throughout history.
It’s like that old saying (as dumb as it may be): “You don’t boil a frog by tossing him in boiling water, instead put him in cold water and slowly bring the pot to boil.”
The proverbial pot looks to be boiling.
[1]: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/2-senators-say-the-nsa-is-still-feeding-us-false-information/277187/
[2]: http://blogs.computerworld.com/encryption/22366/can-nsa-see-through-encrypted-web-pages-maybe-so
[3]: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-23/u-s-surveillance-is-not-aimed-at-terrorists.html
[4]: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/this-really-is-big-brother-leak-nobodys.html?m=0
[5]: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/05/21/obama-the-media-and-national-security/only-nixon-harmed-a-free-press-morehttp://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/05/21/obama-the-media-and-national-security/only-nixon-harmed-a-free-press-more
[6]: https://medium.com/surveillance-state/19c2494940d5
A few days ago I was sent [this link to Alexander Hanff’s blog post about DuckDuckGo][1]. In that post he is claiming that DuckDuckGo is a bit hypocritical about their actions versus words in their Privacy Policy.
The bottom line is that a few things seem to have come out of this:
1. DuckDuckGo does not log your searches.
2. DuckDuckGo potentially *could* be compelled to intercept a user’s traffic, but;
3. DuckDuckGo actually doesn’t set cookies to identify users. Now, Hanff did find a cookie, but it appears to be from an third-party help-desk software provider — which has since been removed. That’s certainly a bit of mud of DuckDuckGo’s face, but compared to other sites I don’t see it as a big deal.
Basically if DuckDuckGo were compelled by legal action they would have very little (if anything) to turn over, and wouldn’t have a way to target a specific user for intercepts — at least not without the user being able to figure that out. ((I really could be wrong here, but that’s my best understanding.))
I think a lot of people that saw me get this link were expecting me to cut out DuckDuckGo, but I just don’t see the major concern here. I would guess there is a concern if you are a terrorist, potentially, but for the average nerd? What’s the problem? None that I can see.
At the end of the day, this statement from the CEO and Founder of DuckDuckGo, Gabriel Weinberg, [says everything I need to know][2]:
> In short, when you search on DuckDuckGo you are anonymous. That’s why it says search anonymously on our homepage. We stand by that statement wholeheartedly.
With any internet company it comes down to trust. Do you trust the people running the company? DuckDuckGo has garnered a large part of their user base by being anonymous and more specifically *not* Google — if they were found to be lying the company would die overnight. From what I can see, there were honest mistakes made, but nothing else of note.
[1]: http://www.alexanderhanff.com/duckduckgone
[2]: https://duck.co/topic/we-have-to-talk-about-ddgs-honesty