Category: Links

I’ve been using BTSync for a while now and it is fantastic. I have a Mac mini server to sync with, but if you don’t then this solution from Shane Reustle looks like a great solution. I’d love it if the hard drive could be encrypted too — I am sure it is possible.

Bruce Schneier:

> Although the Washington Post article specifically talks about Google and Yahoo, you have to assume that all the other major — and many of the minor — cloud services are compromised this same way. That means Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Badoo, Dropbox, and on and on and on.

You heard you can now use your iPad during all phases of the flight, right? Well don’t get too excited:

> Can I use my e-book reader/tablet/cell phone throughout my flight now?
> Once your airline has shown the FAA its airplanes can safely handle radio interference from portable electronics, they can let you use your devices in airplane mode only most of the time. At certain times — for example, a landing in reduced visibility — the Captain may tell passengers to turn off their devices to make absolutely sure they don’t interfere with onboard communications and navigation equipment.

So the FAA has approved it, but now the airlines themselves have to send data to the FAA to allow passengers to use these devices. That shouldn’t take *any* time.

Adam L. Penenberg:

> The newly updated OSX malware, which another member of the team, digital forensics specialist Josh Grunzweig coded, was dropped on to her machine. SpiderLabs now had complete access to her laptop whenever it was on the Internet.

> On Charlotte’s machine were our family’s W2s, which included our social security numbers as well as our income and all of our deductions, paperwork and copies of credit card and banking statements. They also came upon a password to our home router. More frightening, they discovered her password and log in to our Chase online banking account.

> To bring the world our unique end-to-end encrypted protocol and architecture that is the ‘next-generation’ of private and secure email. As founding partners of The Dark Mail Alliance, both Silent Circle and Lavabit will work to bring other members into the alliance, assist them in implementing the new protocol and jointly work to proliferate the worlds first end-to-end encrypted ‘Email 3.0’ throughout the world’s email providers. Our goal is to open source the protocol and architecture and help others implement this new technology to address privacy concerns against surveillance and back door threats of any kind.

Sarah Kessler:

> Friends can be an impediment to a life off the radar. For one, they probably think they’re doing you a favor when they invite you to a party using Evite, add you to LinkedIn or Facebook, or keep your information in a contact book that they sync with their computer.
> But from your perspective, as someone trying to remain as untraceable as possible, they are selling you out. “Basically what they’ve done is uploaded all of my contact information and connected it to them,” Sell says.

Proof that I am not nearly paranoid enough.

New Snowden documents are out, and show how the NSA captures data traveling between Yahoo and Google servers, thus giving the NSA access to a large swath of data. Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani for The Washington Post:

> In an NSA presentation slide on “Google Cloud Exploitation,” however, a sketch shows where the “Public Internet” meets the internal “Google Cloud” where their data resides. In hand-printed letters, the drawing notes that encryption is “added and removed here!” The artist adds a smiley face, a cheeky celebration of victory over Google security.
> Two engineers with close ties to Google exploded in profanity when they saw the drawing. “I hope you publish this,” one of them said.

The Google engineer reactions are great. I think companies like Google have long suspected that these things *could* happen, but now that they know it will be interesting to see how they combat it. And I think they must combat it to stay competitive.

Looks really neat, like the original File Transporter that you can just plug into any USB drive. This is probably a better solution than the “normal” File Transporter, but I have yet to try one.

This is a great article by Brian Barrett, I may have to start reading Gizmodo again (just not for the latest Apple product release reviews — BURN):

> This coming Sunday’s New York Times magazine blows the lid off of an Apple conspiracy more outrageous than a dozen Foxconns. Cracking the Apple Trap, it’s called in the print edition. Why Apple Wants to Bust Your Phone, online. But in our hearts, let it be known only as Uhh… Seriously? Time to sigh together, point by point.

E. Jones on iPad HQ counters my argument for the iPad Air and bangs the familiar tune of “size & weight” in favor of the mini.

The mini will always be better to hold, no matter your hand size, but hand size is still a factor. I discount any arguments for “one-handed this” when it comes to the mini because that’s not universal — and unless you are in the NBA, likely not comfortable for over 5-10 minutes.

That said, the mini is good, but I think the iPad Air is better for the majority of people. Luckily no one has to take my word for it and we can all go to the Apple store and play with (and possibly return) things.

Arsham Mirshah:

>Now, after years of happily co-existing, Google is making a power play. It’s withholding key data and justifying it in the name of privacy. This really hurts businesses that were relying on that data, yet leaves Google nicely situated. It’s pretty clear who’s now getting the most out of the “free” transaction.
>Admittedly, there are two sides to the privacy debate, and Google is correct that withholding the keyword data does help the general population in securing their privacy.  At the same time, two parties still have access to this data: Google and its paying advertisers (those using Google Adwords). Hmm… pretty interesting…

At least the Google stock he owns is doing well.

Marco Arment on Apple’s iPad event:

> The lines were so tightly scripted that the presenters often stumbled off-script slightly, and rather than rolling with it naturally, they’d just jump back and awkwardly retry the line.

I made that note too. Cook seemed to be struggling and it felt awkward to watch. The products Apple launched were great, but the problem was the shipping times. It needed to be sooner, that’s what gets nerds excited. “Oh shit, I have to clear my calendar for Friday!”

Instead we now have a lot of time to consider the purchases, to consider the changes — to realize those changes are iterative.

I personally think Apple needs to make these presentations a one man show — where that one person gets to decide how much time each product gets. Where they can cut stupid collaboration demos. And I don’t think that person should be any of the executives that were on stage presenting. It needs to be someone else.

After all, there’s probably a really good reason Ive never presents.

Cook usually does fine, but (like me) he doesn’t project a person that gets excited about things and that makes him a poor MC. Apple needs that cheerleader, that person that doesn’t just show fake excitement, but believes you are crazy if you aren’t excited with them.

Steve Jobs was always good at that. When he spoke of the iPhone and iPad you knew, inherently *knew*, that he was speaking with genuine passion and excitement. Jobs wasn’t trying to convince anyone of his excitement, or to be excited with him because he thought what he was presenting spoke for itself.

The MacBook Pros didn’t need to be presented, nor did iWork being free. Or even the new iWork — they weren’t that great. They could have been just an update on the store website and left at that.

But when you have a team of people presenting, they will all want their babies in the presentation. They worked hard on them, no doubt, but they weren’t the products the press assembled to see.

Full documentation on creating styles in Ulysses III for exporting — this is an incredibly powerful tool.

David Sparks on which iPad he is getting:

> The only difference at this point is that one is nearly 10 inches and one is nearly 8 inches. With this as the only deciding factor, for a lot of people this will make the decision really easy. They will know immediately whether they want a large one or the small one.

That’s a great way to look at it. Personally I think I may get a 32GB iPad Air with Cell and a 16GB iPad Mini (retina) with cell — like Sparks there is a lot of value in having both.

Hopefully sanity prevails and I just get the iPad Air — I think I can make my current mini last another year.

Joe Kissell on changes to Mail that hate on Gmail:

> Mail and Gmail were never a fantastic combination out of the box, because Gmail has a wacky, highly nonstandard way of using IMAP, and Mail always wanted to treat Gmail as though it were a conventional IMAP server.

Pairing a Gmail email with Mail.app is just about the worst thing you can do. I don’t say that in jest either — the two just do not play nicely with each other.

> In 1992, Stella Liebeck spilled scalding McDonald’s coffee in her lap and later sued the company, attracting a flood of negative attention. It turns out, there’s more to the story.

Trent Walton:

> Sites like Milwaukee Police News and Apple’s recent string of product 1-pagers are beautiful, but hijacking a user’s scroll rate for marketing purposes has to be one of my least favorite things in web design these days.

This drives me crazy too. I thought my trackpad died when I visited the iPad Air page — when I realized it was working as designed I was more than annoyed.

Yesterday I was working on a side project for a buddy, and was out and about shooting some pictures with my old Canon 5D in my yard. As I was walking back inside I noticed that one leaf had fallen on our car. I thought it might make a neat shot to post on Favd, so I snapped a picture with my 5S, posted it and forgot about it.

Today I was looking for a picture in my Photostream on my Mac and saw the photo there. I was blown away by how sharp the image was. It’s not a great photo, but the quality of the image the iPhone 5S produced — well I am not sure I could have got that with any of the other cameras I own. (I don’t have a macro lens.)

This 5S camera is going to be a lot of fun.