It’s tempting to say that Caesar could only have won if he had argued like Cato. It’s certain, though, that Cato’s words became the prototypical case for security opposed to liberty. What Caesar missed, and what Cato grasped, was just how central emotional appeals and logical non sequiturs are to security politics: national security as […]

In his tenure as Apple CEO, Tim Cook has taken a company built by Steve Jobs, and transformed it into something a bit more corporate, according to a new report. Although Cook himself wouldn’t sit down with Fortune, the publication today published a a feature citing several sources with knowledge of how the Apple chief […]

In another blatant demonstration of why curated electronic bookstores are no friend to literacy and freedom of expression and thought, Barnes & Noble pulled issue #154 of Linux Format magazine as they believed it contained an article instructing people how to engage in illegal activities. The problem is that it didn’t. A complaint was made […]

No. A snippet of chat log posted by Darxus (link below) shows how current minimalist X Window Managers can be ported to become Wayland display servers without the bottom-up effort of having to handle input and other events from scratch. Another common statement is that “compositing is bloat”, but this is just the sort of […]

Whenever the head of a major corporation cries about Internet freedom you can rest assured their words are laced with cynicism. We saw this same behavior in Apple CEO Steve Jobs when he pontificated on the open web in an effort to elimitate flash, while pushing everyone to use their QuickTime browser plugin. Google is […]

“In the future, [we’ll be able to] get better data about how many people are in a room when a [football] game is being played,” he said. “How are those people engaged with the game? Are they wearing Seahawks jerseys or are they wearing Giants jerseys?” http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/how-to/computer-security/why-you-should-be-concerned-about-your-digital-privacy

Modern science relies upon researchers sharing their work so that their peers can check and verify success or failure. But most scientists still don’t share one crucial piece of information — the source codes of the computer programs driving much of today’s scientific progress. Access to source code is the only way to verify trustworthiness […]

In short, Facebook is happy the bill will protect it from being sued by a user for handing over their information to authorities. We want to thank you again for your legislation addressing demonstrated cyber security needs, and look forward to continuing to work with you and your colleagues on this important issue. Facebook is […]

A number of US companies had expressed concerns that various departments in the Australian Government, namely, the Department of Defence, The National Archives of Australia, the Department of Finance and Deregulation, the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) and the State of Victoria’s Privacy Commissioner had been sending negative messages about cloud providers based outside […]

“Because Aleynikov did not ‘assume physical control’ over anything when he took the source code, and because he did not thereby ‘deprive [Goldman] of its use,’ Aleynikov did not violate the NSPA,” Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs wrote in the three-judge panel’s unanimous decision (see below). “We decline to stretch or update statutory words of plain […]