Recent Articles

[Jeff Jarvis writing about how American and UK media seem to largely be ignoring the NSA debate, while Germans are up in arms over it][1]:

> In the NSA story, we are seeing both traits but, of course, we are mostly seeing the political side in open anger about American and British government attacks on their privacy. Germans held protests in almost 40 cities — dwarfing the turnout in a few American cities (I attended the one in New York and was saddened by the sparseness of it). German media — led strongly by Der Spiegel — are holding politicians’ feet to the fire over any allegations of cooperation with American and British spies. They have already made the NSA a big issue in the upcoming national election. It is a major story there.

> But that’s not so much so in the two countries where the story originates, the US and UK (present company of the Guardian excepted, of course). Why not?

I think the explanation is a simple two parter:

1. Reading about the NSA scandals is fatiguing and boring. It’s fatiguing to readers because it is upsetting and complicated. It is boring, because it *is* boring (at least I think it gets boring to read about). That’s not something that most media companies want to run front and center for fear of losing any eyeballs and thus advertising dollars.
2. Many US journalists/media companies fear losing “access” to politicians more than they fear not reporting the most important news. See: [HBO’s Newsroom][2]. And thus this gets shoved to the back corner.

That’s my take on it at least.

[1]: http://buzzmachine.com/2013/08/20/the-nsa-germany-and-journalism/
[2]: http://www.hbo.com/the-newsroom/index.html

[Benjamin Wittes writing about the Washington Post coverage of the NSA leaks][1]:

> The Post, for its part, has managed, in my opinion at least, to completely mislead its readers as to the significance of these documents. The problem is not the paper’s facts. It is with the edifice it has built with those facts.
> On the administration’s side of the ledger, if there were a way to botch more completely a public response to these disclosures, I’m not sure I know what it would look like.

This is a really good analysis that counters a lot of the stuff being circulated around these past two weeks. Good, strong, counter-points — many of the misleading facts are ones that I have been helping to circulate. That’s on me for not fully reading the source documents and taking the Post at its word.

You should read this.

[1]: http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/08/the-nsa-the-washington-post-and-the-administration/

[Gary Marcus writing about the failure of artificial intelligence][1]:

> In Levesque’s view, the field of artificial intelligence has fallen into a trap of “serial silver bulletism,” always looking to the next big thing, whether it’s expert systems or Big Data, but never painstakingly analyzing all of the subtle and deep knowledge that ordinary human beings possess.

This is an interesting post. Marcus and Levesque are focusing on the fact that most AI systems are designed to game a particular test, rather than trying to actually achieve intelligence.

Sounding smart, instead of *being* smart.

I’m not sure the problem is the researchers, as much as the funders. If the “awards” for AI are a particular test that is easy to game, then the funders want those awards for their mantles — thus you get AI that games those tests, instead of getting actual AI. That’s annoying, but I don’t see how it changes unless you find someone who is more Apple like with their spending on R&D (i.e. Not giving two shits about what others think, and instead trying to make the best system they can.).

With Siri Apple is trying that, but Siri isn’t so much designed to be AI, as it is designed to be a verbal interface to your iOS device right now. In that context Apple is doing OK, but in the context of AI Siri is piss-poor.

For instance, I just asked iOS 7 Siri: “What does my schedule look like for this week.”

What’s the expected answer? What’s the desired answer?

I expected Siri to list out the appointments I had in my calendar, but what I really desire is to know if this is a busy week or not. Siri can’t answer that, because “she” wasn’t designed to answer that query.

Siri told me I had eight appointments, but is that a lot or a little? I don’t know, and apparently Siri doesn’t care to know either. The better solution to that query would be for Siri to look at:

– Current appointments as compared to historical weeks.
– Email count in my inbox (unread, and emails that sound actionable).
– Tasks in my to-do app of choice.

If you compile all that information then you stand a chance at spitting out: “You have quite a bit more appointments scheduled this week — including one on Thursday that keeps you out of the office for the day. Luckily, your inbox and to-do list are fairly light compared to last week.”

That’s helpful, accurate, and *meaningful* information. I know what last week was like, so if Siri compares tasks and emails to last week and appointments to history — that’s great information and easy for me to understand. Highlighting things that keep me out of the office all day are equally great because I *really* need to know those things and likely would stress out if I had forgotten.

To me, that’s AI: the prediction of what my *desired* answer is, and the useful summary of the historical data that most humans would internalize. There’s a lot of companies out there that want to build this, but I don’t trust them. They want my data running through their servers — with Siri this could potentially all be done on the device, with anonymous meta-data sent out for quick analysis.

[1]: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/08/why-cant-my-computer-understand-me.html

[Andrew Sullivan writing about][1] the [detainment of Glenn Greenwald’s spouse][2] (as a terrorist) as he passed through London:

> In this respect, I can say this to David Cameron. Thank you for clearing the air on these matters of surveillance. You have now demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that these anti-terror provisions are capable of rank abuse. Unless some other facts emerge, there is really no difference in kind between you and Vladimir Putin. You have used police powers granted for anti-terrorism and deployed them to target and intimidate journalists deemed enemies of the state.

I link to Sullivan’s post instead of all the “news” coverage elsewhere because it brings up a lot of great points. Sullivan has been far more accepting of Greenwald and Snowden’s revelations than I have, but this was the straw that broke the proverbial camels back for Sullivan.

[1]: http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/08/18/cameron-proves-greenwald-right/
[2]: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/18/david-miranda-detained-uk-nsa

[Cassidy James, writing about the motivation behind Elementary OS][1]:

> In April of 2011, a small group of high school and college kids released an Ubuntu 10.10 remaster that we called elementary OS “Jupiter”. And for us, it was huge. It was a demonstration of a desire to create a Linux-based OS that championed consistency and great design. It featured several home-grown apps and heavy patches to the UI of others.

Their latest beta, “Luna”, is simply fantastic. I was turned on to this from [Keith][2] [Smiley][3] and I am glad he pointed this OS out. What the Elementary team is creating is a gorgeous version of Linux. I downloaded and installed this in Parallels and it is really nice. It’s pretty, it’s clean, it’s useable.

I also like that they are operating off of the pay-what-you-want model instead of just shipping it for free (though it can be had for free, which is what I did as I only wanted to check it out quickly — if I do install it on a machine permanently I will pay for it).

In addition to Elementary OS, Ubuntu 13.04 looks really great and boasts a lot of great encryption out of the box. I don’t think either OS is *better* than OS X, but both are good alternatives and worth checking in on here and there. Linux is getting closer, that much is clear — so close that I am tempted to get an 11″ Air just to run these two variations of Linux on.

If nothing else, [the site][4] is worth checking out.

[1]: http://elementaryos.org/journal/the-road-to-luna?utm_medium=App.net&utm_source=PourOver
[2]: https://alpha.app.net/smileykeith/post/9128637
[3]: https://alpha.app.net/smileykeith/post/9128686
[4]: http://elementaryos.org

[Carol D. Leonnig reporting on the rather obvious][1]:

> “The FISC is forced to rely upon the accuracy of the information that is provided to the Court,” its chief, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, said in a written statement to The Washington Post. “The FISC does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance, and in that respect the FISC is in the same position as any other court when it comes to enforcing [government]() compliance with its orders.”

President Obama on August 9th, 2013, [transcript from The Washington Post][3]:

> What you’re hearing about is the prospect that these could be abused. Now part of the reason they’re not abused is because they’re — these checks are in place, and those abuses would be against the law and would be against the orders of the FISC.

Now [here’s a report from The Washington Post’s Barton Gellman][4] (posted last night):

> The [NSA audit obtained by The Post][5], dated May 2012, counted 2,776 incidents in the preceding 12 months of unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications. Most were unintended. Many involved failures of due diligence or violations of standard operating procedure. The most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders.

It’s hard to fathom just how bad that is, but consider these other tidbits from Gellman’s article:

> One in 10 incidents is attributed to a typographical error in which an analyst enters an incorrect query and retrieves data about U.S phone calls or e-mails.

That’s both funny and disturbing. What isn’t funny at all is the fact that the NSA created a massive dragnet that they ran for months without court approval. Then when the court heard the arguments:

> James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has acknowledged that the court found the NSA in breach of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, but the Obama administration has fought a Freedom of Information lawsuit that seeks the opinion.

And yet politicians adamantly defend the NSA and its programs, or are barred by “national security” from saying anything about them. You either agree, or you shut the fuck up. *Democracy.*

> In one required tutorial, NSA collectors and analysts are taught to fill out oversight forms without giving “extraneous information” to “our FAA overseers.”

Either President Obama didn’t know about this report and these violations, and thus the biggest spy agency on the planet is lying to him, or the President is lying to the people that elected him. Quite honestly, I hope it is the latter.

[1]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/court-ability-to-police-us-spying-program-limited/2013/08/15/4a8c8c44-05cd-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html
[3]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-president-obamas-august-9-2013-news-conference-at-the-white-house/2013/08/09/5a6c21e8-011c-11e3-9a3e-916de805f65d_story_4.html
[4]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-broke-privacy-rules-thousands-of-times-per-year-audit-finds/2013/08/15/3310e554-05ca-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html
[5]: http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/nsa-report-on-privacy-violations-in-the-first-quarter-of-2012/395/

I’ve long had a need to take a file sitting on my computer and send to to someone. While you can do that with the share menu on OS X, it’s not that great for a couple of reasons:

1. It’s a menu item you have to click.
2. It doesn’t, and can’t, set simple things like the to, subject, bcc, and sending email account.

Those are items I always need to change — so I’d like to be able to set those to a keyboard shortcut for faster sending of files. Additionally I have PDFs that I email monthly, to the same people, with just the date in the subject changing (and the PDF) — it’d be great to automate that too.

What I have come up with in Keyboard Maestro (hat tip to [this post from Viticci][1]) is a macro that does just that. More so than any of my other macros, this macro heavily relies on AppleScript to get the job done.

What this macro is doing is using Keyboard Maestro to pass variables to an AppleScript. I pass the date, because I simply couldn’t figure out how to get todays date formatted the way I wanted it in AppleScript. You will also notice a blank variable for the recipient email address — I use that in later macros and it was easier to keep in than remove.

The heart of the macro is this AppleScript:

([Download the script here](https://brooksreview.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/file-emailer.zip).)

At my office we BCC all communications to Highrise, and so you can see the address for that on the BCC line. I also set the sender in the AppleScript, but if you wanted to you could set that with a Keyboard Maestro variable just like I have for the recipient and subject lines.

With that all setup, and the basic macro in place, I just duplicated the macro for each group of people I wanted to send an email to. Pasted their address in the macro variable box for addresses, and modified the subject variable as needed.

In all I have 14 different file emailing macros. All stored in one group and activated with the same hotkey. You can select as many files as you want and they will all be attached — this saves me a ton of time each month.

[1]: http://www.macstories.net/tutorials/automating-mail-signatures-and-senders-with-applescript-and-keyboard-maestro/

Peter Lewis, in response to my post about the Gmail scanning, has [two][1] fantastic [App.net posts][2], the latter of which ends:

> They both [U.S. Government and Google] think they are not being evil to learn absolutely everything, as long as they only use it for “good”. So they shift the evilness onto the use of the information rather than purely collecting…

That’s spot on.

[1]: https://alpha.app.net/peternlewis/post/9124661
[2]: https://alpha.app.net/peternlewis/post/9127531

Email, by its very design, cannot be a truly secure system, so let’s stop trying to make “secure” email systems. In order for email to work, headers (recipients, subjects, from) need to be sent in the clear so that servers can route the email to the correct server — think of this data like the information on the outside of an envelope that you mail to someone. That’s all “publicly” readable information — [and telling][1].

Email, once sent, is bouncing around an awful lot, perhaps the most simple route being:

– From sender computer to sender email server
– From sender email server to receiver server
– From receiver server to receiver computer

In this very basic setup, that’s four places that your actual message is being stored, and three transmission legs. If any one of those points is not secure, then neither is the message. If any one of those legs is out of *your* control, then the encryption can be circumvented. And even *if* all those points *were* secure the NSA could still tell who was sending what message to whom (and what its subject was).

Above I linked to the rather [damning analysis][2] of “PRISM in the 18th Century”, the gist of which is (as written by Jason Kottke):

> In a [clever article][3], Kieran Healy uses only the membership lists of various Boston-area organizations in the late 1770s to find out quite a lot about who might be the leaders of the nascent revolutionary cell. Even with this simple analysis, Paul Revere’s name pops out of the data.

So even if you can hide the contents of your communications, the very information of who you are communicating with, how often, and when, is damning in itself.

So why is everyone so wrapped up in securing this current email system? My guess is because it’s what we have, but that’s like trying to find a faster horse, instead of inventing the car. We now need to invent the car, so to speak.

We need a secure, decentralized, communication system.

I look at the current email system in much the same way that Napster was designed at its peak: A system brought down by its own design. The centralization killed it. BitTorrent, on the other hand, is decentralized and much harder — perhaps even impossible — to shut down because there is no central switch to kill the whole the system.

Essentially we need the BitTorrent of email systems. I don’t mean sending messages over BitTorrent, I mean a modern system designed from the ground up for secure communications. There are systems out there that do this, for example Silent Circle’s text messaging system, which was designed to be secure from the outset (and allows file sharing). But Silent Circle’s system is proprietary. We need an open, standards-based system that tools can be built around for secure correspondence.

I don’t know how such a system would work, but it seems to me that trying to secure email is futile. Instead we should work to create a new secure communication system that, perhaps insecurely, is still backwards compatible with our current email systems.

Let’s not worry about making email secure. Instead, let’s make a new, entirely secure, system that just happens to work with the existing email infrastructure (albeit in an insecure manner).

[1]: http://kottke.org/13/06/prism-in-the-18th-century
[2]: http://kottke.org/13/06/prism-in-the-18th-century
[3]: http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/

[Dominic Rushe has published an article about Google’s response to a lawsuit][1]. The article paints the picture that Google has written a big “fuck you” to users, and thus has Google saying that users are stupid if they think their email *isn’t* being read, or in Google parlance “scanned”.

Instead of trusting Rushe’s article, here’s a few tidbits I pulled out of the [actual legal response][2]:

> These protections reflect the reality that ECS providers like Google must scan the emails sent to and from their systems as part of providing their services.

> Here, all Plaintiffs who are Gmail users consented to the automated scanning of their emails (including for purposes of delivering targeted advertising) in exchange for using the Gmail service, thus precluding any claim under federal law.

Nope, Rushe was right on the money. Not only does Google believe they have the right to scan all of your emails, but you consented to it by signing up for the service, even though you probably never read those terms.

I’ve been thinking about this a little bit with regard to Google’s *forgotten* “don’t be evil” mantra. I believe that Google very much believed in that statement when they started, but my question now is twofold:

1. Does Google still embrace that mantra?
2. If so, how do they reconcile that against statements quoted above?

I think the answer to the first question is a resounding, YES. I very much believe that Google embraces the idea of not being evil.

So, how then does Google reconcile “don’t be evil” with the fact that they are scanning all emails for (more or less) the sole purpose of targeting ads? My best guess is that Google rocks itself to sleep at night citing the fact that the users agreed to this.

All the while knowing, that the users, never read that clause.

[1]: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/14/google-gmail-users-privacy-email-lawsuit
[2]: http://www.scribd.com/doc/160134104/Google-Motion-to-Dismiss-061313

[Adam Siegel writing about his not-yet-year-old daughter’s interactions with him][1]:

> In an almost unconscious habit whenever I have a short moment of free time in between tasks, I took the brief respite to pull out my phone and check my mail. 60 seconds later after reading a couple messages and deleting a few more, I looked up from the screen to see that Margot had stopped playing and was staring at me. “This is how it begins,” I thought. I’m showing her my screen deserves my attention at the moment more than she does.

My wife and I went through the same struggle, we still go through it daily, and I suspect that most parents are going through this too. Sure, when you are dating someone you keep your phone stashed, but back then phones also did less. And then you get married and, well, you are both on your phone watching TV and eating ice cream (like any good American). And then you have a kid and the habit of checking your phone is so much a part of your flow, that you don’t notice when you do it.

And then you look up.

And there’s your daughter, staring at you, not playing — just looking. It makes my heart sink a bit every time.

Then my daughter strides over, grabs my phone, unlocks it, and starts tapping on stuff. “Nooo, not that one…” ((True story, I had to set my iOS devices to require pass codes immediately.))

[1]: http://amsiegel.com/post/58170083617/i-am-being-watched

[This article][1], that I skimmed, sent me over to the [Android Niceties Tumblr][2], basically a site showing you screenshots of Android apps they think are beautiful. I guess this could easily be a post where you expect me to say “not even close to iOS”, but that’s not the case. There’s some really great looking apps collected here.

I’d even say this is an easier way to find good Android apps.

As has been noted by others before, the design divide between iOS and Android has closed — now the question is the revenue divide. iOS developers [still make substantially more money on average][3], so the question for me is whether that can change before the developers investing in good design give up on the platform.

At some point you have to make money to recoup the time input. I just don’t see ads cutting it, so will the paid Android app market mature, and uh, start paying?

[1]: http://paulstamatiou.com/android-is-better
[2]: http://androidniceties.tumblr.com/
[3]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/tristanlouis/2013/08/10/how-much-do-average-apps-make/

You know how idiots write stupid shit about Apple, and then an Apple writer will go section by section through the idiotic post and show how stupid, and verifiably false, the post is? You know what I am talking about. Well, [Conor Friedersdorf just did that for The Atlantic][1], except the target of his article is the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, which might have been shocking a few months ago.

Friedersdorf concludes:

> The surveillance debate is arguably the most important of our era.
> Yet throughout the surveillance debate, the executive branch, including Obama, has lied, obfuscated, and misled the American people in a variety of ways. Before Edward Snowden’s leaks, they could at least tell themselves that the disinformation was serving the purpose of keeping al-Qaeda operates from learning the general contours of our surveillance capabilities. But today, when that excuse has long since expired, Obama is still lying, obfuscating, and misleading the American people. In doing so, he is preventing representative democracy from functioning as well as it might. With the stakes so high, and his performance so dubious in so many places, Friday’s speech has got to be one of the low points of his presidency. 

This is a long post by Friedersdorf, but truly fascinating to see the lies, half-truths, and weasel words coming out of the man *we* elected to lead us. Sickening, really.

[1]: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/the-surveillance-speech-a-low-point-in-barack-obamas-presidency/278565/

Two interesting posts surrounding the greater NSA debate caught my eye recently. The first is [an Op-Ed in The LA Times by Andrew Liepman][1], titled “What did Edward Snowden get wrong? Everything”. Don’t be confused though (as easy it would be with that headline), because the article is *not* refuting the validity of the leaks that Snowden made, it is a refutation of how *necessary* those leaks were/are.

Here’s the resume that The La Times bills for Liepman: “Andrew Liepman, a senior analyst at Rand Corp., was a career CIA officer and is a former deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center.” The gist of Liepman’s argument is:

> But the intelligence community — always a less sympathetic protagonist than a self-styled whistle-blower — actually has a good story to tell about how seriously the government takes privacy issues. We should tell it.

Liepman’s argument is probably true, as I highly doubt that people work for any three-lettered U.S. agency and don’t have a very patriotic sense about their duty and job. I highly doubt that these agents of the U.S., like their military brothers in arms, have any ill-will towards Americans in general — I truly believe they are out to do good and protect us. Liepman is over stepping though, I agree the claim should not be that these agency want to violate American rights, but I don’t agree that you can lump that as the larger “government”. The problem is not with the tactics used by these agencies, but the laws that allow for their use passed not by the agencies, but by the executive branch. ((There’s an argument to be made that the legislative branch is to blame, but nothing more than my guy says this is more of an executive branch strong arm, so I place blame there.))

More specifically, the problem is not PRISM or XKeyscore, the problem is that there was, and is, no open debate of the passing of the laws that allowed for these programs. The American people are not at odds with the NSA, CIA, FBI, DEA, etc, they are at odds with the idea that secret laws, secret debates, and secret opinions are now what passes for ‘democracy’.

[Which brings me to the second post on Techdirt][2] by former deputy chief of staff for Ron Wyden, Jennifer Hoelzer — Wyden being one of the largest critics of these secret laws. Hoezler’s post very much echoes my concerns:

> I think it’s understandably hard for the American people to trust the President when he says his Administration has the legal authority to conduct these surveillance programs when one of the few things that remains classified about these programs is the legal argument that the administration says gives the NSA the authority to conduct these programs.

Yes the collection, and analyzing of American records that the NSA and others are doing is simply outrageous — but even more outrageous is the sheer fact that our publicly *elected* President is so unwilling to share the legal basis, or even allow for debating, these programs with *all* elected officials — let along the public.

Again, from Hoelzer:

> That’s right, supporters of a full scale reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act put out a press release explaining why this was a good thing, while explicitly barring the Senator who voted against the legislation from explaining his concerns.

*Democracy?*

[1]: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-0811-liepman-snowden-and-classified-informat-20130811,0,2610260.story
[2]: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130810/09240524136/jennifer-hoelzers-insiders-view-administrations-response-to-nsa-surveillance-leaks.shtml