EFF put out a short article on the perils of losing net neutrality. I would recommend everyone to take a few minutes and read it, and perhaps even submit a comment to the FCC.
In Harm’s Way: The Dangers of a World Without Net Neutrality (EFF)
Category: Uncategorized
Verizon wants to have their cake and eat it too
They claim that this infrastructure must be considered Title II, in order to get those subsidies, tax breaks and rights of way. And they insist that it’s proper to classify it as Title II because it offers voice service over those lines. But, at the very same time, they claim that all other services that they provide, must be classified under Title I.
Oh, and it gets better: they claim that in order to pay for all of this (even though they’re getting all these breaks and subsidies), they have to raise the prices on telephone service — which they’ve done at a fairly astounding rate.
And, we’re not done with the scam yet. As we’ve been describing for years, part of this shell game is that Verizon promises that, under Title II, it will install this fiber to everyone — and then never delivers. And then, for the final kick in the gut, after it fails to deliver on those promises, it gets local politicians to drop the requirements it agreed to in order to get the subsidies.
Journalism today
LICD for June 2nd:
… and this is why you should be buying AMD
“Gameworks represents a clear and present threat to gamers by deliberately crippling performance on AMD products (40% of the market) to widen the margin in favor of NVIDIA products,” Hallock told me in an email conversation over the weekend. But wait, it stands to reason that AMD would be miffed over a competitor having the edge when it comes to graphical fidelity and features, right? Hallock explains that the core problem is deeper: “Participation in the Gameworks program often precludes the developer from accepting AMD suggestions that would improve performance directly in the game code—the most desirable form of optimization.The code obfuscation makes it difficult to perform our own after-the-fact driver optimizations, as the characteristics of the game are hidden behind many layers of circuitous and non-obvious routines,” Hallock continues. “This change coincides with NVIDIA’s decision to remove all public Direct3D code samples from their site in favor of a ‘contact us for licensing’ page. AMD does not engage in, support, or condone such activities.”
TrueCrypt is down…
To me, this smells quite a lot like a NSL (National Security Letter) or similar.
Perhaps even an order to put a back door into TrueCrypt.
To quote one commenter at Techdirt:
It’s gotta be either a compromised key or a hidden message. The development team wouldn’t in their right minds advise people to move from TrueCrypt to Bitlocker–that’s clearly ludicrous. The fact that they haven’t made any clarifications to their statement is equally telling, and it’s pretty easy to do the math. My guess is that they are under a gag order
That isn’t really a denial, UPS
Regarding the case where NSA was accused of intercepting and planting back doors into Cisco equipment, UPS has issued a “denial”:
UPS, which Cisco has used since 1997 to ship hardware to customers around the world, said on Thursday that it did not voluntarily allow government officials to inspect its packages unless it is required to do so by law.
“Voluntarily” and “unless required to do so by law”. So they might be doing it, then.
She should stop being poor
According to Fox News, poor people should stop being poor. That should solve the problem.
Cutting Off Emergency Unemployment Benefits Hasn’t Pushed People Back to Work: Link (FiveThirtyEight)
Economic fallout from the NSA scandal
This should be a clear example of why the US policy of spying on everyone everywhere, and having secret court orders forcing companies to reveal information isn’t in anyone’s best interest..
Germany’s black-red “grand coalition” government has now tightened the rules for awarding sensitive public IT contracts. In cases of doubt, suspicious companies will now be excluded from such contracts. And companies now have to sign documents to the effect that no contracts or laws oblige them — nor can they be coerced — to pass on confidential data to foreign secret services or security authorities.
The new rule would seem to be aimed primarily at American companies. These companies, as numerous Snowden documents reveal, regularly pass on information to the U.S. spy agencies. At the NSA, a separate Special Sources Operations department deals with cooperation with “strategic partners,” as agents call such companies. The companies say they are merely following the laws of the respective country, and so far this explanation has been accepted.
But since April, any company that cannot guarantee that foreign services or authorities will not obtain any of their data is being excluded from federal contracts in Germany. A spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior said that the aim of the new rule is to prevent “the flow of data worth protecting to foreign security authorities.”
CIA: No more vaccination campaigns in spy operations
… at least not until next time
The administration’s response Friday said that under CIA policy, established by CIA Director John Brennan in August 2013, “the Agency will make no operational use of vaccination programs, which includes vaccination workers.” The letter also said the agency “will not seek to obtain or exploit DNA or other genetic material acquired through such programs.”
The cynic in me also notices how this new policy doesn’t really stop the CIA from setting up their own fake “vaccination programs”, just from using genuine vaccination programs.
No prior art here at all
Apple patents WiFi access point location lookup
Apple has once again demonstrated that it’s no slouch as a patent troll, applying for and receiving a patent to tell you where you are, by performing a database lookup of WiFi access points.