The BlogPage 3
I believe strongly in owning your own words on your very own home online, which is why I concentrate most of my writing here, and less on various social media outlets. You should consider the same, for a more open web.
-
Dropping the tech giants
A widely spread NYT column talks about dropping the five tech giants – Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Alphabet – and in what order. It’s an interesting premise, one that I’d like to dive a little deeper into, with my own reasoning.
-
Was WannaCry the NSA's fault?
Wired reporting on the Windows ransomware that’s wreaking havoc at the moment: One reason WannaCry has proven so vicious? It seems to leverage a Windows vulnerability known as EternalBlue that allegedly originated with the NSA. The exploit was dumped into the wild last month in a trove of alleged NSA tools by the Shadow Brokers […]
-
Longreads is thriving
Longreads is thriving under Automattic. It’ll be interesting to see where this ends. They’re using a member funded model to pay for original stories, with a bonus attached: Longreads has raised about $250,000 from “thousands of members” since it added memberships in 2012. The suggested monthly amount is now $5 a month or $50 a […]
-
SMS is not a secure protocol
This was bound to happen: O2-Telefonica in Germany has confirmed to SĂĽddeutsche Zeitung that some of its customers have had their bank accounts drained using a two-stage attack that exploits SS7. In other words, thieves exploited SS7 to intercept two-factor authentication codes sent to online banking customers, allowing them to empty their accounts. The thefts […]
-
Fake ID, present and past
Fascinating story about fake IDs, present and past: The fake ID racket wasn’t always so easy. In 1994, one of my 10th-grade classmates in boarding school purchased a fake ID kit from a graduating senior for $700. Even at 15, Phil had a remarkable entrepreneurial spirit and naturally gravitated toward the prospect of cornering the […]
-
The Nesticle story
Motherboard tells the story about the NES emulator Nesticle, an interesting read for those of us who used it back in the day: NESticle, nonetheless, did something amazing: It allowed people to play old Nintendo games on cheap computers made by Packard Bell and other firms, and did so while introducing a number of fundamental […]
-
Your digital journal, printed
Day One is my journaling app of choice. They’re branching out, offering printed journals if you want them. A brilliant move, but journals have a tendency to be kind of personal. Don’t worry, Day One’s got you covered: The privacy of your printed journal is important to us, so we’ve created a printing process that […]
-
Moore's Law's days are numbered
From a Moore’s Law obsessed piece on computer improvement: As Moore’s law runs into the sand, then, the definition of “better” will change. Besides the avenues outlined above, many other possible paths look promising. Much effort is going into improving the energy efficiency of computers, for instance. This matters for several reasons: consumers want their […]
-
Princess Leia's Stolen Death Star Plans
This is my new favorite album: Princess Leia’s Stolen Death Star Plans. This year marks two important pop-culture milestones: The 40th anniversary of Star Wars on May 25, and the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band a week later, June 1. Our new album merges both into one full-length concept […]
-
Want your face scanned? Travel to Australia
Futurism posted this video regarding Australia replacing passports with facial recognition at airport starting this June: Personally, I think this raises so many privacy issues that it’s scary. What will they do with all that data? Who’ll benefit from it, and when someone steals it (because that’s bound to happen), what will the data be used for then? I […]