Recent Articles

[Alexander Bolton][1]:

> Only 47 of 100 senators attended the 2:30 briefing, leaving dozens of chairs in the secure meeting room empty as Clapper, Alexander and other senior officials told lawmakers about classified programs to monitor millions of telephone calls and broad swaths of Internet activity.

No biggie though, I’m sure 53% of our senior lawmakers don’t need to worry themselves with such things as spying on Americans. I can’t wait for the list of names to come out.

> Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the chief critics of the surveillance programs, was spotted leaving the briefing.

[1]: http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/305765-senators-skip-classified-briefing-on-nsa-snooping-to-catch-flights-home

[Claire Cain Miller, reporting on the end, I mean secret court ruling that violates constitutional rights for the larger “security” of a nation][1]:

> The Yahoo ruling, from 2008, shows the company argued that the order violated its users’ Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. The court called that worry “overblown.”
> “Notwithstanding the parade of horribles trotted out by the petitioner, it has presented no evidence of any actual harm, any egregious risk of error, or any broad potential for abuse,” the court said, adding that the government’s “efforts to protect national security should not be frustrated by the courts.”

Jesus, what a load of bullshit. These things should be tried in the open so that the public can make their opinions known to their representatives.

I guess we will have to turn to WhiteHouse.gov for help, here’s a few great petitions:

– [Declassify and Discontinue Government Surveillance of Phone Records and Internet Activity][2]
– [Pardon Edward Snowden][3]
– [Repeal, in whole or in part, the U.S.A. Patriot Act, in order to stop secret, warrantless collection of data.][4]
– [Impeach federal judge Roger Vinson for authorizing warrantless NSA surveillance of millions of Americans’ phone records.][5]
– [President Obama, if you believe in NSA surveillance, we challenge you to a live, public debate with Edward Snowden.][6]
– [Let Glenn Greenwald Interview President Obama About The NSA][7]

Those are fun, let’s do *all* of them.

In the meantime, I signed up for [Silent Circle][8], as I believe them to be the most secure, that is the easiest to use, encrypted communication system. Their apps don’t look great, but hey they work.

[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/technology/secret-court-ruling-put-tech-companies-in-data-bind.html?_r=0
[2]: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/declassify-and-discontinue-government-surveillance-phone-records-and-internet-activity/Cgc46HB2
[3]: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snowden/Dp03vGYD
[4]: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/repeal-whole-or-part-usa-patriot-act-order-stop-secret-warrantless-collection-data/pmTnXNw8
[5]: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/impeach-federal-judge-roger-vinson-authorizing-warrantless-nsa-surveillance-millions-americans-phone/sKFwyNP8
[6]: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/president-obama-if-you-believe-nsa-surveillance-we-challenge-you-live-public-debate-edward-snowden/dvjXcZHZ
[7]: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/let-glenn-greenwald-interview-president-obama-about-nsa/m5gHWwVC
[8]: http://silentcircle.com

[This post from Jason Kottke][1], which ties together [two][2] [articles][3] is a fantastic synopsis of the dangers of discarding metadata as just, well, metadata. Perhaps the easiest way to think about metadata is in relationship to people-watching. If you sit in a room full of people, random people, you can very quickly figure things out:

– Who is sleeping with who
– Who is scared
– Who is nervous
– Who has a crush on who
– Who hates who

We pick all of this information up with only seeing conversations happening and never actually hearing conversations. We pick this all up by watching patterns, by watching subtle cues like a touch, or a glance. That’s metadata, not the digital kind, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg of what the NSA is collecting on people right now.

My larger fear with the collection of this data is not what it may or may not be used to *stop*, the process by which it may proactively be used, but how it may be used to frame innocent people. It’s the looking backwards that scares me more.

If the government is convinced you aided a terrorist, I bet they can use *real* metadata collected about you to build a convincing story of your involvement — even if no such involvement occurred. It’s [six degrees of Kevin Bacon][4] with a much worse outcome.

[1]: http://kottke.org/13/06/prism-in-the-18th-century
[2]: http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/
[3]: http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Kevin_Bacon

[Matt Gemmell talking about the new iOS 7 design][1]:

> Gone are embellishments like gloss and bevelled edges, shadows and borders. Visually dead areas that provoke tension rather than inspiring relaxation. Weight that suffocates, rather than open air to breathe.

It’s much too early to know what the final version of iOS 7 will look like, but the large points Matt is making I think will hold true to release. iOS 7 is brighter, and more open. The result is that the screen on your device actually feels large when you use it.

[1]: http://mattgemmell.com/2013/06/12/ios-7/

[Bruce Schneier on the route to prosecuting Edward Snowden][1]:

> We need to determine whether these National Security Agency programs are themselves legal. The administration has successfully barred anyone from bringing a lawsuit challenging these laws, on the grounds of national secrecy. Now that we know those arguments are without merit, it’s time for those court challenges.

[The New Yorker’s Amy Davidson, while responding to David Brooks, makes a solid point about Snowden too][2]:

> The founders did create the Constitution so that a solitary voice could be heard, whatever strictures of power surround it. More than that, they would not want a twenty-nine-year-old to feel so overcome with gratitude for his social betters—so humbled that they had noticed him—that he would be silent.

How, and what next steps, the Department of Justice takes towards Snowden is going to have a lasting impact for decades. I fear the NSA will walk away without being investigated and that Snowden will bear an unjust amount of punishment.

[1]: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/prosecuting_sno.html
[2]: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/06/david-brooks-and-edward-snowden.html?mobify=0

[Dr. Drang on the parallax feature of the iOS 7 Home screen][1]:

> Despite all the talk of flatness—and there’s no question, the icons and certain other parts of the UI are much flatter—this gives iOS 7 as a whole a greater illusion of depth than it ever had before. The shadows and reflections of today pale in comparison. If Apple can enforce, or at least encourage, a consistent use of this new depth, our experience using iOS devices will improve because the software will seem even more physical.

I’m really interested to see if this bit of magic makes it to third-party apps or not. It’s a really neat effect that not only adds immense depth, but one that surprisingly makes the device feel a lot better to use — I’ve no clue why.

[1]: http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2013/06/the-view-master-user-interface/

[Marco Arment on how Apple just re-ignited the App gold rush][1]:

> Apple has set fire to iOS. Everything’s in flux. Those with the least to lose have the most to gain, because this fall, *hundreds of millions* of people will start demanding apps for a platform with thousands of old, stale players and not many new, nimble alternatives.

I can attest to what Marco is saying, because right now *every* app that isn’t an Apple app looks ancient on my phone. I’m holding my money up in the air — so too will millions of iOS users this fall — who’s going to grab it?

[1]: http://www.marco.org/2013/06/11/fertile-ground

There’s a lot of information to parse that came out of Apple (did you know you can buy new Airport/Time Capsules already?), but I think two really important factors that can be evaluated now are summed up well by Jim Dalrymple and John Gruber.

[Dalrymple][1]:

> One thing that became very clear to me early on in today’s keynote is that Apple was having fun again. They were really enjoying themselves.

The product demos were tedious as always, but the remaining parts of the keynote were very fun and most importantly engaged with the audience. This is a company that has been paying attention to what is said about them, and ignoring it because they don’t think it is true.

[Gruber][2]:

> The software is now of a piece with the hardware. Two sides of the same coin. Not hardware design and software design. Just design.

The amount of overhaul is astounding and it is very clear the the direction forward is that there is no software, there is no hardware, there is just iPhone (or iPad, MacBook Pro, what have you).

Ignore every other judgment. I have and am playing with both iOS 7 and Mavericks on my full-time devices ((I’m a sadist, clearly.)) and a lot will change from now until launch. Ignore criticisms of design until Apple has worked all of the design out. This is a beta, and not even a public one at that.

Or as [Cap Watkins put it][3]:

> We asked for a revolution and were delivered one which, all complexities considered, amounts to more than any one of our best first launches.

[1]: http://www.loopinsight.com/2013/06/10/apples-confidence/
[2]: http://daringfireball.net/2013/06/ios_7_signature
[3]: http://blog.capwatkins.com/ios-7-unpolished-by-design

A great post from [Matthew Green comparing different encryption apps for iOS][1]. Someone (I can’t find the source) on App.net sent this over to me and it is a great breakdown from someone who presumably knows his stuff.

Of the apps listed I use Wickr quite a bit. I thought it was pretty secure, but it looks like it is less secure than I thought. I just signed up for Silent Circle and will be testing that out. It’s a much more complicated system, but it looks to be far more secure of a system.

[1]: http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/03/here-come-encryption-apps.html?m=1

[Jane Mayer for *The New Yorker*][1]:

> “The public doesn’t understand,” she {Susan Landau} told me, speaking about so-called metadata. “It’s much more intrusive than content.” She explained that the government can learn immense amounts of proprietary information by studying “who you call, and who they call. If you can track that, you know exactly what is happening—you don’t need the content.”

Mayer also points out that when you are looking at just metadata the operation effectively becomes a data driven collection, whereby computers do all the heavy lifting. This means the NSA can effectively monitor every communication with minimal manpower. Yikes.

[1]: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/06/verizon-nsa-metadata-surveillance-problem.html?mobify=0

[Richard Dunlop-Walters has an excellent break down of PRISM and the NSA][1], so if you don’t want to read all the details, but want to be informed — Dunlop-Walters’ summary is your best bet.

[*The Verge* also has a good synopsis][2] of President Hypocrite, I mean, President Obama’s remarks on the matter. President Obama’s comments largely can be summarized by: “Dude, totally legal, chill out. Can’t we all just snorkel this out?”

What an asshat.

I’ve long assumed that calls, texts, and emails are not really private. ((Side note: This makes Justin Blanton all the wiser. He requires that you use an encrypted text client called Wickr to text with him.)) Sure they are private from the average Joe, but not for the mighty “intelligence community”. What’s actually bugging me most is the file aspect of this. Because Microsoft, Google, Apple — they all *store* files for users. These files could, and many probably are, sensitive in nature — at least sensitive enough you’d actually care that the government is/can be looking at them at will.

Add to that reports are Dropbox is about to join up. [OwnCloud][3] and [File Transporter][4] are looking better and better each day — despite the near zero developer support for them.

[1]: http://thebrief.io/news/the-nsas-dragnet
[2]: *The%20Verge*
[3]: http://owncloud.org
[4]: http://www.filetransporter.com

I don’t even know where to begin on this [PRISM program the NSA is running][1]. All I can say is that it is bullshit and kudos to the Washington Post for breaking the story and providing a lot of detail.

Additional stories [here][2], [here][3], and [here][4].

[1]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html
[2]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/
[3]: http://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/191-press-releases-2013/869-dni-statement-on-activities-authorized-under-section-702-of-fisa
[4]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/06/06/nsa-chief-two-weeks-ago-were-the-only-ones-not-spying-on-the-american-people/

*I originally started writing a normal Vesper review. I talked about the design, the icon that I like slightly more than I dislike it. About the features missing, about the use cases, and so on. But because I am a bit slow on this, I had the chance to read a lot of other reviews. So I deleted mine and wrote this instead.*

I’ve met John and Dave. I don’t have their phone numbers or anything, and I don’t warrant any special consideration from either — I’ve only met them briefly at that. Oh, and Brent is from the same city as me too.

It smells of bias in here.

Oh, and this app they have created, this beautiful gem of design (both graphic and interactive), my god they charged $4.99 for it and [I’m all about paying for things][1].

Bias I tell you. *Bias*.

But I’ve been struggling all day with my next sentence here.

It’s just that I don’t know if the app is worth $4.99 and that’s tough for me to say for a few reasons.

$4.99 is nothing to spend on a good app. It’s a trivial amount given the clear work that was put into [Vesper][2]. Trivial.

And yet do we buy a “thought collection” app — which by the way really is an apt description no matter how pompous it sounds — for $4.99?

It does so little, and there’s so many options. It’s not the price, it’s just how do you recommend that, how do you sell that argument to someone looking at all the options?

There’s two arguments that I can make about this app:

1. That this app is not worth the price. That there are other options out there that do far more for far less money. There are probably hundreds of note taking apps out there that offer data portability, syncing, and all the other options we have come to expect from a paid note taking app — options that just simply don’t exist in Vesper.

2. Or I could argue that this app is worth every penny of the $4.99, because just look at it. Just feel it. My god man.

I personally think both statements are true.

Vesper is phenomenally well designed from the graphics, animation, feel, speed, and interaction. It looks and feels great. It’s a fucking Ferrari of note, no, thought collection apps.

And yet I wouldn’t recommend people buy it for the same reason I rarely recommend or argue that people buy a Mac in 2004, an M5 at any time, or an iPhone in 2006.

Either the design is compelling you to use something more than you otherwise would, or you buy Windows/Kia/Android. That’s not a knock against other companies, it’s a statement of fact about human psychology. You either are compelled to use things you love because of practicality or because of the way they make you feel.

Vesper is not a practical app for a multitude of reasons.

Personally I’ll go out of my way to use things more if I love the way I feel, they feel, when I use them. It’s why people drive an M5 when a Toyota Corolla would do the job better 60% (ok 90%) of the time.

I don’t know or care what the future holds for Vesper because I just enjoy the app. You’ll find better options for $5, of that I won’t argue, because I’d rather just enjoy the app I pissed $5 away on.

[1]: https://brooksreview.net/2011/03/fragility-free/
[2]: http://vesperapp.co

For a very long time now I have had a [simple Keyboard Maestro macro](https://brooksreview.net/2011/03/mad-links-km/) that would take the link on my clipboard and make a Markdown link out of any editable text that I have selected. It’s been a huge help to me over the years for formatting my writing.

With my [recent switch to Ulysses III](https://brooksreview.net/2013/04/ulysses-iii/) as my all-things-everyday-writing-app the macro no longer worked. Well, it worked about 60% of the time. Ulysses is a bit *too* helpful when you go to create a link, popping up a dialog prompting you to enter the URL once you put brackets around your text.

So I tweaked my Keyboard Maestro macro specifically for Ulysses to solve this problem. Before I show it to you, I do want to note that it is not as instantaneous as before, so wait a beat after using it so that you don’t get things all messed up.

[Speaking of][1] fucking bullshit, [here’s another one][2]:

> The Transportation Security Administration is abandoning a plan to allow passengers to carry small knives, souvenir bats, golf clubs and other sports equipment onto planes in the face of fierce congressional and industry opposition, the head of the agency said Wednesday.

The reasoning is just absurd. Here’s the reason Pistole said they were making the move:

> He said intercepting them takes time that would be better used searching for explosives and other more serious threats. TSA screeners confiscate over 2,000 of the small folding knives a day from passengers.

Basically the argument for loosening the rules is that these items pose no real security threat and take away time that could be better spent looking for real threats. So in his backtracking Pistole naturally said:

> By scuttling the plan to drop the knives and sports equipment from TSA’s list of prohibited items, the agency can focus its attention on other priorities, including expanding its Pre-Check program to identify ahead of time travelers who don’t pose a security risk, TSA Administrator John Pistole told The Associated Press.

So they *were* going to loosen the rules to better focus on security, but *now* they will not loosen the rules so that they can better focus on — wait for it — security. Huh?

*Morons.*

I also saw that 145 jackass congressmen/women wasted their time writing a letter in opposition of loosening the rules, instead of fixing things like the economy. [Here’s their letter][3] if you are interested in shaming any of them (two jackasses even signed in green ink, granted their last names are Green, but be original people).

[1]: https://brooksreview.net/2013/06/nsa-collecting-phone-records-of-millions-of-verizon-customers-daily/
[2]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/government-drops-plan-to-allow-passengers-to-carry-small-knives-bats-golf-clubs-on-airplanes/2013/06/05/a494a448-ce0e-11e2-8573-3baeea6a2647_story.html
[3]: http://noknivesonplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/5.22.13_TSA_No-Knives-on-Planes.pdf