The Starbucks archipelago

March 23, 2012

in Geek stuff, Internet matters, Travel

For a person on the move, the world’s countless Starbucks locations provide a lot of very useful infrastructure. They provide caffeine, wireless internet access (even at night when they are closed), a place to sit, bathrooms, electrical outlets, and tolerable food. Their bagels with cream cheese are affordable, reasonably filling, and not spectacularly unhealthy when [...]

{ 6 comments }

Ubiquitous surveillance

March 18, 2012

in Geek stuff, Internet matters, Law, Politics, Rants, Security

We now live in a world where it is highly likely that various web companies, your government, and your internet service provider are tracking your web browsing. Where facial recognition software identifies you at borders, airports, and subway stations. Where your DNA may be sampled if you are arrested. Where new face tracking software gets [...]

{ 43 comments }

Hillis Plot on a 13″ MacBook Pro

February 23, 2012

in Geek stuff, Internet matters, Travel

The Hillis Plot is a beautiful way of displaying the common ancestry of all life on Earth. The Hillis and Bull Lab at the University of Texas has several images of the plot on their website. Included among them is a PDF version with effectively infinite resolution which they say is free for “non-commercial, educational [...]

{ 16 comments }

Googling the Cyborg

February 23, 2012

in Bombs and rockets, Books and literature, Geek stuff, Internet matters, Psychology, Science, Travel

In his engaging essay “Googling the Cyborg”, William Gibson effectively argues that the expectation that ‘the cyborg’ will be a human being with an electronic eye and a robot arm is mistaken. The cyborg – he argues – exists in the physical interactions between human beings and machines: “The electrons streaming into a child’s eye [...]

{ 2 comments }

Preliminary Boston photos

February 20, 2012

in Daily updates, Geek stuff, Internet matters, Photography, Travel

Sasha and I are exploring Boston. Right now, we are in the Stata Center at MIT. As I find WiFi hotspots, I am uploading preliminary photos from my iPhone to my Flickr feed. Better photos from the 5D will come later.

{ 4 comments }

Twitter grabbing address books from phones

February 18, 2012

in Geek stuff, Internet matters, Politics, Security, Writing

Here’s an example of what I mean about the internet creating all sorts of new security vulnerabilities. Twitter has recently confessed to grabbing entire address books from the smartphones of people using the service. As well as being a violation of privacy, this is a practice that could seriously endanger people. Consider all those brave [...]

{ 2 comments }

Internet surveillance in Canada

February 14, 2012

in Bombs and rockets, Canada, Geek stuff, Internet matters, Law, Politics, Rants, Security, Writing

The Conservative government is proposing a new law that would require internet service providers to monitor and record what Canadians do online, and to provide that information to the authorities without a warrant. As well as being an obvious violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (§8 “Everyone has the right to be secure [...]

{ 25 comments }

South By Southeast full video

February 9, 2012

in Films and movies, Internet matters, Travel

Earlier, I put up a link to the trailer for my brother Mica’s latest video, detailing his travels in Southeast Asia. The entire 90-minute film is now available via Vimeo: South By Southeast from Mica Prazak on Vimeo.

{ 2 comments }

The TOR browser bundle

February 7, 2012

in Geek stuff, Internet matters, Politics, Security, Writing

The TOR browser bundle seems like a reasonably effective and very easy-to-use means of circumventing web censorship and surveillance. The speed of web browsing falls significantly when data is routed through the TOR network, but tools like this are increasingly essential as governments undertake more and more inappropriate meddling with the free flow of ideas [...]

{ 6 comments }

The second rule of the internet

January 30, 2012

in Geek stuff, Internet matters, Rants, Security

Back in 2010, I described what I called the ‘first rule of the internet‘: Against a sophisticated attacker, nothing connected to the internet is secure. To this, I feel like I should add a second item: Everything is internet now. While there were once large numbers of electronic systems entirely disconnected from the internet, nowadays [...]

{ 10 comments }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →