Steve Bellovin et al:

Architecture matters a lot, and in subtle ways.

Decius:

Internet protocols are complicated and sometimes they fail in subtle ways that defy naive assumptions.

Tom Cross:

These are harder problems that require more thought.

Thomas Powers:

Is more what we really need?

Tom Cross:

We need to balance privacy interests with the state's interest in monitoring suspected criminals.

Bruce Schneier:

Will not wearing a life recorder be used as evidence that someone is up to no good?

Noam Cohen's friend:

Privacy is serious. It is serious the moment the data gets collected, not the moment it is released.

Andy Greenberg:

And once data has been collected using the lawful intercept, it can be sent to any destination, not merely to an authorized user.

Jean-Luc Godard:

It's not where you take things from -- it's where you take them to.

Straw Man:

It's gonna be cool. Give me money. No consequences, no whammies, money.

Tom Cross:

It's not just the router vendor and the [Internet service provider] who have an interest in how this interface is built.

We all do.

Viktor Chernomyrdin:

We wanted the best, but it turned out as always.

Tom Cross:

The situation is fairly bleak.

Decius:

The ship has already sailed on the question of whether or not it's reasonable for the government to collect evidence about everyone all the time so that it can be used against them in court if someone accuses them of a crime or civil tort. This is just another brick in the wall.

Decius:

What you tell Google you've told the government.

Andy Greenberg:

The exploitation of lawful intercept is more than theoretical.

Wikileaks:

Several rumors from Google sources [allege] that China accessed Google's US Government [lawful] intercept system, which provides Gmail subjects/dates.

A.C. Grayling:

The Chinese government tried to hide the incident. It failed to; think how often it succeeds.

In And Out Through The Backdoor

Andy Carvin, last Thanksgiving:

Several weeks ago, the family of information studies professor Phil Agre reported him missing, saying that they had not heard from him in over a year.

Charlotte P. Lee, reflecting at the time:

All of us had lost touch with him over the years. How would you know if one of your friends not only lost touch with you, but had also lost touch with almost everyone they know? You wouldn't.

Yesterday, Andy Carvin:

Well, apparently the search is over. The UCLA police department has updated their missing persons bulletin for Agre with the following news: "Philip Agre was located by LA County Sheriff's Department on January 16, 2010 and is in good health and is self sufficient."

See also, at the end of the article:

Those of us guiding the search for Phil have more detailed information about the interaction between the officer and Phil that is not being made public. The information we did receive gave us no evidence that he is actually "safe". Therefore we are continuing to search for him.

Phil Agre, from 2001:

Increasingly freed from geographic constraints and equipped with powerful search tools, we will be able to pick out exactly the people we want to associate with, and we will be able to associate with them whenever we want.

The problem with feudalism, of course, is that most of the relationships aren't good ones, so that everyone is trapped in the relational world they were born with.

Missing Internet Pioneer Phil Agre Is Found Alive

Decius, 2010:

The Republicans are actively attacking the court, in particular because of Roe, but also because of the "unitary executive" idea and resistance to checks and balances that informs their perspective on the GWOT. What is the impact of Obama joining in?

On a direct level, it's a partisan attack on a political institution. It contributes to political divisiveness, and helps further undermine the system of checks and balances, which is the opposite of what Obama claims to be doing.

On an indirect level, it puts partisan conservatives in the odd position of defending the Supreme Court. Perhaps THAT was the intent?

Decius, 2004:

I was thinking this morning that I don't really like the changes that have taken place in order to reform campaign finance.

There is a lot of bad speech in our democracy.

But in my experience the answer to bad speech has always been more speech.

Decius, 2010:

The thing that sucks about freedom of speech is that rich people can afford more speech than you can.

Decius, 2003:

Your right to freedom of speech is an inalienable right. Even if you are rich. That's what an inalienable right is.

Decius, 2003:

The problem is that if the king has overwhelming force, you cannot question the king, lest you wind up dead. Eventually, the king always takes liberties with this power. THIS is the lesson of human history.

Rattle, 2005:

Remember ... It's a conspiracy. It's designed to have perceived inconsistencies. That's what makes it all so damn fun.

From just after the last Presidential election:

For those interested in high political theater, it will be a fascinating time.

It will not be easy.

It should be exciting.

"You have to laugh to keep from crying these days," she said as she wiped away tears.

In the long run we are all dead.

Citizens United and the Obama-Alito Exchange

Bob McDonnell:

Americans were shocked on Christmas Day to learn of the attempted bombing of a flight to Detroit. This foreign terror suspect was given the same legal rights as a U.S. citizen, and immediately stopped providing critical intelligence.

As Senator-elect Scott Brown says, we should be spending taxpayer dollars to defeat terrorists, not to protect them.

I am frankly appalled that candidates and officials continue to score points with this rhetoric. Back in the heat of the 2008 campaign, Palin got cheers for making a quip of it, and Obama responded:

"The reason that you have this principle is not to be soft on terrorism. It's because that's who we are. That's what we're protecting."

Here we are some 16 months later, and they've elevated this dangerous ignorance to their party platform statement following the State of the Union. And again it draws cheers. This time, though, the event was not just a local rally, but a nationally televised event "which cost about $30,000 and was paid for by the Republican Governors Association and the political action committees of McDonnell and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell." According to Ben Smith of Politico:

Scott Brown's aides believed this was a key wedge issue, and its inclusion here suggests that the campaign to keep terror suspects, even ones arrested in America, out of civilian courts, will be central to Republican campaigns this year.

As Decius wrote that same day in 2008:

If McCain's VP pick were just as boring as Obama's I might not care at all about this election, but Palin is an existential threat that demands an awakening from apathy. I don't know what's more fearsome, the fact that she was selected, or the fact that the American people have bought it and she has given McCain a huge boost in the polls.

I feel like I'm living in an insane asylum.

Whether it's the open attacks on ancient principles such as Habeas Corpus or the fact that we are in the midst of a nearly unprecedented economic cataclysm one cannot escape the conclusion that the people in charge have absolutely no idea what the fuck they are doing and that the people who do know what ought to be done have been totally marginalized by our corruption. Palin personifies all of this. She is the slick corporate VP who is all image and no substance, and they love that about her because they have convinced themselves that if they do away with substance it will free them from the problems that substantial people attempt to address.

This is the road to despotism. T... [ Read More (0.1k in body) ]

Bob McDonnell's Appalling GOP Response

What if I want something more than the pale facsimile of fulfillment brought by a parade of ever-fancier toys? To spend my life restlessly producing instead of sedately consuming? Is there an app for that?

Is more what we really need?

You have a choice in a situation like the one we're confronting. You can sit back in your chair and fondle your nihilism, or you can try to be original and work toward something creative.

Any technology that is going to have significant impact over the next 10 years is already at least 10 years old.

Some of your greatest successes are going to be the children of failure.

If you want to be in the right place at the right time you need to figure out where things are going.

I could have done that. I could have done that while doing all the other things that I do. Why didn't I?

Deliberate practice is a necessary but not sufficient condition for creating genius. For one thing, you need to be smart enough for practice to teach you something.

Stop looking over your shoulder and invent something!

One passionate person is worth a thousand people who are just plodding along ...

It's about effectiveness -- not effort.

Anything that doesn't take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.

Most people will do almost anything to be liked.

The process of tying two items together is the important thing.

It's not where you take things from -- it's where you take them to.

Architecture matters a lot, and in subtle ways.

Let's pull out the bazooka and be done with it.

"Poor folk love their cellphones!"

We are moving from a world with a billion people connected to the Internet to one in which 10 or 100 times that many devices will be connected as well. Particularly in aggregation, the information reported by these devices will blanket the world with a network whose gaze is difficult to evade.

Even before the old bubble had fully deflated, a new mania began to take hold ...

$500 can build things that change how people live.

What am I going to use it for?

Once something is fetishized, capitalism steps in and finds a way to sell it.

The human mind has a tremendous ability to rationalize, and the possibility of making millions of dollars invites some hard-core rationalization.

They just want theirs. That is the culture they have created.

A.C. Grayling:

In 2005 when the Songhua River itself was profoundly poisoned by an explosion (no surprise there) at a petrochemical plant, decanting vast quantities of benzene and nitrobenzene into the water, the Chinese government tried to hide the incident. It failed to; think how often it succeeds.

Andrew Brown:

The storyline is just gruyere, made up of nothing but cheese and holes.

Caleb Crain:

On Cameron's Pandora, the animals cavort with one another much like the peripherals on his desk, plugging and playing at will, and the afterlife is more or less equivalent to cloud computing. Once you upload yourself, you don't really have to worry about crashing your hard drive. Your soul is safe in Google Docs. In a climactic scene, rings of natives chant and sway, ecstatically connected, while the protagonists in the center plug into the glowing tree, and I muttered silently to myself, The church of Facebook. You too can be reborn there.

Amy Wilentz:

You have a choice in a situation like the one we're confronting. You can sit back in your chair and fondle your nihilism, or you can try to be original and work toward something creative.

Jennifer Schuessler:

Boredom isn't just good for your brain. It's good for your soul.

David Foster Wallace:

Bliss -- a second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious -- lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom.

Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like you've never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it's like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.

Rebecca Brock:

People say to me, "Whatever it takes." I tell them, It's going to take everything.

Philip K. Dick:

Never oversee or criticize what they take. It's not worth it. Just see what you've got left afterward, and go with that.

Caleb Crain:

Wouldn't you like to be the vampire of yourself? Wouldn't you like to live in an alternate reality, at the cost of consuming yourself?

Michael Osinski:

Oyster farmers eat lots of oysters, don't they?

Richard Wiseman:

We are far more like somebody watching ourselves than somebody in charge of ourselves.

Cathy N. Davidson and David Theo Goldberg, with Zoe Marie Jones:

Over the past two decades, the way we learn has changed dramatically. We have new sources of information and new ways to exchange and to interact with information. But our schools and the way we teach have remained largely the same for years, even centuries. What happens to traditional educational institutions when learning also takes place on a vast range of Internet sites, from Pokemon Web pages to Wikipedia? This report investigates how traditional learning institutions can become as innovative, flexible, robust, and collaborative as the best social networking sites. The authors propose an alternative definition of "institution" as a "mobilizing network" -- emphasizing its flexibility, the permeability of its boundaries, its interactive productivity, and its potential as a catalyst for change -- and explore the implications for higher education.

Nicholas Carr:

Over the past few years I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn't going -- so far as I can tell -- but it's changing. I'm not thinking the way I used to think.

John Seely-Brown:

The best way to predict the future is not to look ahead, but to look around.

Bill Buxton:

Any technology that is going to have significant impact over the next 10 years is already at least 10 years old.

John Schwartz:

The critical issue is no longer getting information, but getting the right information to the right people at the right time. And that turns out to be one of the hardest tasks around.

Junot Diaz:

Ideas are wonderful things, but unless they're couched in a good story they can do nothing.

Louis Kahn:

A good idea that doesn't happen is no idea at all.

The Future of Thinking

The electoral college is a time-honored system that has only broken down three times in over 200 years. However, it's obvious that reforms are needed. The organization of the states should be altered.

This Electoral Reform Map redivides the territory of the United States into 50 bodies of equal size. The 2000 Census records a population of 281,421,906 for the United States. The states ranged in population from 493,782 to 33,871,648.

In this map, new states have formed, all with equal populations of roughly 5,617,000.

James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow, Jr.:

The "Gospel Temperance Railroad Map" is an example of an allegorical map.

Louis Kahn:

A good idea that doesn't happen is no idea at all.

electoral college reform

On thesixtyone, new artists make music and listeners decide what's good. We're nurturing a growing ecosystem where talented folks can sell songs and merchandise directly to their fans. Unlike a record or distribution deal where they only make $1-2 per album (if they ever get paid, that is), artists on thesixtyone make at least $7 per album and are paid every 30 days -- no wait for recoupment and no complex royalty schemes!

We're named after Highway 61, a U.S. route that runs along the Mississippi River and marks the origin of American music culture. Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan and B.B. King rode the 61. Elvis grew up in the housing projects along it. Highway 61 was the road by which people left their homes to take their music to the world.

thesixtyone

Do you ever wonder what is to become of the children who grew up as the gloves came off?

From the Q&A with Michael Haneke:

The grownups of 1933 and 1945 were children in the years prior to World War I. What made them susceptible to following political Pied Pipers? My film doesn't attempt to explain German fascism. It explores the psychological preconditions of its adherents. What in people's upbringing makes them willing to surrender their responsibilities? What in their upbringing makes them hate?

The willingness to follow ideological Pied Pipers arises everywhere and in every age. All that's needed are misery, humiliation and hopelessness, and the longing for deliverance swells up. Anyone who promises salvation will find followers, and it doesn't really matter whether theirs is a right- or a left-wing ideology, a political or a religious doctrine of salvation.

Q: Why are your films always so disturbing?

A: Audiences are having mainstream cinema and television touch on only the surface of things, and they get irritated when confronted by a more exacting gaze into the depths of our existence. But since its beginnings in the Greek tragedies, hasn't drama sought to examine the depths of human existence?

John Lanchester:

If I had to name one high-cultural notion that had died in my adult lifetime, it would be the idea that difficulty is artistically desirable.

David Kilcullen:

People don't get pushed into rebellion by their ideology. They get pulled in by their social networks.

Louis Menand:

Ideas are not "out there" waiting to be discovered, but are tools -- like forks and knives and microchips -- that people devise to cope with the world in which they find themselves. Ideas are produced not by individuals, but by groups of individuals -- ideas are social. Ideas do not develop according to some inner logic of their own, but are entirely dependent, like germs, on their human carriers and the environment. And since ideas are provisional responses to particular and unreproducible circumstances, their survival depends not on their immutability but on their adaptability.

Ideas should never become ideologies -- either justifying the status quo, or dictating some transcendent imperative for renouncing it ... [There is a need for] a kind of skepticism that helps people cope with life in a heterogeneous, industrialized, mass-marketed society, a society in which older human bonds of custom and community seem to have become attenuated, and to have been replaced by more impersonal networks of obligation and authority. But skepticism is also one of the qualities that make societies like that work. It is what permits the continual state of upheaval that capitalism thrives on.

The White Ribbon