Technology

US Senate IP Caught Defacing Edward Snowden's Wikipedia Entry

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Usually the only wiki we associate with Edward Snowden is WikiLeaks. However, in a hilarious turn of events, an IP address linked to the United States Senate was caught defacing Edward Snowden's Wikipedia article last evening. The "less than neutral" edit was to change the lead sentence from this:

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Sacrificing Privacy Online: Is it Really a Choice?

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I posted this question in triciawyse's diary and I thought I would pose this to the entire community. I've frequently come across a very popular argument in response to the NSA scandal, that we willingly sacrifice our privacy when we sign up for facebook, Google, foursquare, and other email and social networking services. It's true that nobody held a gun to my head when I signed up for facebook and I knew that I wasn't completely anonymous when I came up with the clever nickname for my newest Google account. But in the 21st century, can we really opt out of the internet?

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US Government Secretly Collects All Verizon Phone Records in Massive Data Fishing Expedition

We are receiving confirmation today of a secret FISA court order that requires Verizon to hand over to the NSA all phone call metadata, including the phone numbers and locations of all US customer communications between April 25th and June 19th.

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Whether Technology

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I just finished doing an electronic restoration on an old Hallicrafters S40 communications receiver circa 1947. Replaced all the old paper capacitors and the electrolytic capacitors and a few resisters. I also replaced the audio out put tube and it's associated components with an audio amplifier module I had since that particular vacuum tube was pretty pricey and the transformer as well.

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DOJ Persecuted Internet Activist and Technologist Aaron Swartz Commits Suicide

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Today is a bad day. We have lost one of the most valuable and promising minds in the world. Aaron Swartz was an incredibly dynamic voice in the global conversation about technology's place in society. He was only 26 years old, but had managed to be a co-author of the RSS 1.0 specification, a co-founder of Creative Commons, an early builder of Reddit, the founder of DemandProgress, and the target of a DOJ case against his liberation of publically available academic journal articles. Aaron was instrumental in the effort to stop the SOPA Internet censorship legislation from being enacted in Congress. In the days ahead, many will speculate that the cause of his suicide was his self-admitted depression. However, I think it can be safely assumed that the prospect of up to 35 years in prison for downloading articles might have had something to do with his malaise. There is also some discussion as to whether the Department of Justice was persecuting Aaron because of his involvement with the PACER/RECAP project and subsequent escape of any prosecution. I believe a fitting tribute for Aaron would be to take personal responsibility for changing a society which would even dare attempt to criminalize linking or to prosecute someone for downloading public information. Let Aaron's voice speak for himself:

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Is it Election Fraud, or the Way It's Supposed to Be?

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As someone who believes the show will go on no matter who is elected President, with occasional doubts due to the crazies on the right, I've never delved into the issues of electronic voting.  Also, in the state of Washington where I reside, I've always used the option of mail-in ballots, never having the experience of voting by machine.  Sometimes I get so cynical I think everything election is bullshit and pay no attention at all.  Except the referendums and initiatives which seem to be the only real democracy we are allowed, some of them anyway.   

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Executive Order Grants Authority to Seize Private Communications Facilities

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In news carried on page 3,146 of the mainstream media, President Obama quietly released his latest Executive Order on Friday, July 6, the “Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions".

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