Category: Links

I just finished Kevin Mitnick’s hacking-auto-biography and it was an excellent read. It’s actually the first full book I have finished in years and I found it hard to put down each night.

This is a great script from Dr. Drang, which allows you to publish directly to your WordPress blog. Couple it with Keyboard Maestro and you have quite the robust tool for publishing to your blog. I used this for a long time, but have a new tool I have been using to accomplish the same thing.

Macminicolo.net brings you:

> With our new low-cost service, we’ll host your Transporter in a high end data center so your data is safe and quickly retrieved from anywhere. It’s a perfect mix of convenient data in the cloud and hosting securely on your own hardware.

I’m sending in my Transporter, and I am pumped. I had asked them about this a while ago and I am glad to see they set something up for those of us that want this.

(Why do I want this? Good question: it’s a bit easier to do certain things with the Transporter than it is with a Mac mini server. That’s my short answer at least.)

Not sure if it will be great, but it’s funded already. I backed it, and I am hopeful that it turns out to be great.

A really fantastic collection of mugshots taken in the 1920s. The first picture really is the best in my opinion.

[The start of Dr. Drang’s analysis](http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2013/08/hyperloop/):

> I’m no billionaire industrialist, and I don’t pretend to know anything about the Kantrowitz limit, but I do know about some of the topics touched on in the Hyperloop proposal, and since I’m paying for this blog, I might as well use it.

And the end:

> I’m not saying that the problems with Hyperloop can’t be solved. Money, time, and talent can solve any problem that doesn’t involve breaking physical laws, but I wouldn’t put my money, time, or talent in the hands of someone who takes me for a fool.

The stuff in between those two statements are pure gold. I actually didn’t read anything about the Hyperloop — it sounded stupid to me — but man did I love this from Dr. Drang.

[Stephen Hackett on the lack of security overview on Google Play (store?)][1]:

> In short, Craig Young, a researcher at security firm Tripwire, built an app that can steal weblogin tokens and pass them off to another server. Once there, they can be used in a non-Android browser to log in to users’ Google accounts without the actual passwords.
> Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar can all be accessed with these weblogin tokens, for regular Gmail users as well as Google Apps customers.

The app apparently went up (is up?) for download. Hackett argues that at the very least Google needs to begin looking through the apps for security issues to protect users, while still allowing crazy apps through if they pass the security test, but if Google pulled all the insecure apps, what apps would be left?

[1]: http://512pixels.net/2013/08/google-build-up-this-wall/

[Michiel Bijl shows the “complicated and very secure way” FireFox handles passwords][1]. I guess you are left with Safari if you are a Mac user… Though, I would be willing to forgive FireFox if they make Tor a standard part of their browser.

[1]: https://alpha.app.net/michielbijl/post/8679197

[Bruce Schneier in a simply fantastic essay][1]:

> Our elected officials are often supported, endorsed and funded by these corporations as well, setting up an incestuous relationship between corporations, lawmakers and the intelligence community.
> The losers are us, the people, who are left with no one to stand up for our interests. Our elected government, which is supposed to be responsible to us, is not. And corporations, which in a market economy are supposed to be responsive to our needs, are not. What we have now is death to privacy—and that’s very dangerous to democracy and liberty.

[1]: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/08/the_publicpriva_1.html

Great reporting by PBS’ NewsHour, worth 9 minutes if you don’t want to read about the NSA this weekend.

You guys are going to be *shocked*.

[A really great post from Bruce Steinberg][1], following up on many of the Mac security tips that have been floating around. Steinberg has some good suggestions on password use and management, as well as pointing out what looks to be a great new (to me) email service.

[1]: http://www.readinggeorgefox.com/2013/08/02/re-mac-power-users-148-security-audit/

[Smart argument from Timothy Edgar on the NSA spying programs][1]:

> Where the government sees three branches of government working together in harmony, the public sees a disturbing pattern of secret law and secret government accompanied by demands to “trust us, we are keeping you safe.” Secret checks and balances appear to be nothing more than a pale shadow of our constitutional design.

Edgar’s been on both sides — working as in-house council for Bush, and for the ACLU — he knows what he is talking about. I still don’t think we have the full truth, I still think the spying is wrong, and I still think open debate is needed.

That said, I do *believe* that the government at large is *trying* to act in the best interest of United States citizens — it’s just that their actions look misguided, unless thoroughly explained.

[1]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323309404578617463152440542.html?mod=hp_opinion

I have a suspicion that posting about beef jerky could prove heated, but I will nonetheless. I learned about Krave Jerky a couple of weeks ago and promptly ordered a package, or four. Not knowing much about the flavors I went with the above “Garlic Chili Pepper” variety.

And it’s good — I’m salivating just thinking about it, yikes.

As a kid I was always an Oberto jerky fan, and then I slowly progressed to Tillamook Honey Glazed, then on to World Kitchen Hot & Spicy. Tillamook always had the best meat and flavor, but is expensive. World Kitchen’s meat is a bit meh, but the flavor is nice and spicy.

Sadly the above mentioned brands seem to have been slipping lately (as I assume they work to grab more market share in a Yeti-dominated-Jack-Links-world).

Krave is different — it’s *exceedingly* good.

Good flavor, good meat, good heat.

*(Note: Buying from this link could potentially make me a millionaire.)*

This a quick link to a post from a couple of years ago that I wrote about switching to interleaved email replies and why you should do it. Worth a read if you are still a top-posting person.