Sprint and AT&T have admitted to secretly installing a piece of software called Carrier IQ which tracks everything you type into your phone and where you go. While there is nothing saying that they do anything with this data, it exists if the police/FBI/whatever want to grab it or if a lawyer wants it for evidence. I can just imagine the folks at AT&T saying “OBTW, there’s a record of everyone you called and every text you sent and everywhere you went. Didn’t we mention that? We don’t really look at it, we just like to have logs of where you go. It, uhhhh, ummmm, it’s fun!” Creepy!
At what point is it appropriate to turn into a raving protestor and get ignored by the news? How do we actually affect change?
The Texas Supreme Court has declared that the voters there can’t sue to get electronic voting machines which are capable of being audited and recounted. According to the court, the voters need to prove that they were wronged somehow. Sooo, after someone hacked the machines to steal an election, the voters would need the sort of papertrail that they are suing to get. Then, and only then, can they sue to get their papertrail.
It is my professional opinion, as a software engineer, that any software product can be hacked eventually. It is an invitation for abuse to deploy a voting system which relies only on software. If you are asked to vote on a machine that does not include paper evidence, I would recommend casting a write-in or absentee ballot.
Another video for the It Gets Better Project. A music video by Rebecca Drysdale. It rocks, has some vulgarity and almost made me cry at work.
“There’s no one who is meaner than a bunch of asshole teens.
Those assholes are the first people that you will soon forget
When you’re living life and learning how much better it can get.”
If you need to skip the music, listen to the last minute, starting around 4m27s.
Folks ask why I didn’t stick with Apple for my second smart phone. It’s because they act like nannies and limit what their users can do. Most recently, Apple banned an app that presents Android news. And, as I looked into it, I found out that Apple gets to approve each and every issue of a magazine before it’s allowed to be published via an iPhone app. That’s just not acceptable.
Looks like the TSA is going to compromise by doing everything the same long enough that it stops being news.
A NY Times article has some great quotes. “in the sort term there will not be any changes.” And “most Americans are not used to a real law-enforcement pat-down like that.”
Yeah, it’s surprising how few law-abiding citizens have been arrested or treated like criminals isn’t it?
VIP’s like TV magician Penn (& Teller) and congressmen can opt out of security. Some people are, after all, more equal than others.
In the land of the free, routine search is not acceptable.
Yes, really, the scanners see through you clothing. You don’t have anything to hide though so why shouldn’t you be stripped naked. I’m sure the fellow operating the machine isn’t checking out your body, saving the image and bringing it home.
