The EFF is Orwellian as fuck

As this blog has documented many times * * * *, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is exactly the populist demagogues that Orwell targets in his books 1984 and Animal Farm. Today, the EFF performed yet another amusingly Orwellian stunt. Urging the FCC to regulate cyberspace, it cites the exact law that it had previously repudiated.

Specifically, the EFF frequently champions the document Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, written by one of its founders, John Perry Barlow. This document says:
"Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather."
Specifically, Barlow is talking about a then recent act of Congress:
In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us.
That 1996 Act adds sections to the telcom laws, such as this portion:
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Podcast Update

As many of you probably know, I launched a new podcast, called the Full Stack Journey Podcast, back in January. (Here’s the blog post announcing the new podcast.) In this post, I wanted to provide a quick update on the podcast.

Dedicated Website Now Up

First, the podcast now has its own website! Like this site, the Full Stack Journey site is a Jekyll-powered site hosted on GitHub (here’s the site’s repository). I find the Jekyll+GitHub Pages workflow works really well for me, so leveraging the same workflow for the Full Stack Journey site—as opposed to using WordPress or some other CMS—will (hopefully) help make it easier to continue to produce and publish the podcast.

Late Episodes Available

The effort involved in getting the dedicated site up took up a fair amount of time over the last few weeks. This leads me to the second point, which is that I’ve published episode #4 with Brent Salisbury, and will soon (in the next few days) be publishing episode #5 with Patrick Kelso. These episodes are very late (sorry!). June’s episode shouldn’t be as late, and I’m aiming to be back on track with an early July Continue reading

Verizon and striking unions reach tentative contract agreement

Some 40,000 striking Verizon workers are poised to resume their regular job duties next week after their unions and the company reached a tentative contract agreement today.The strike has caused widespread service and installation delays, concerns among corporate customers that their needs would be neglected, as well as violent confrontations and allegations of vandalism and sabotage.Though the details of the pact have yet to be made public, it reportedly will run for four years and for the first time cover Verizon Wireless workers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Verizon and striking unions reach tentative contract agreement

Some 40,000 striking Verizon workers are poised to resume their regular job duties next week after their unions and the company reached a tentative contract agreement today.The strike has caused widespread service and installation delays, concerns among corporate customers that their needs would be neglected, as well as violent confrontations and allegations of vandalism and sabotage.Though the details of the pact have yet to be made public, it reportedly will run for four years and for the first time cover Verizon Wireless workers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: The privacy of telephone metadata

We investigate the privacy properties of telephone metadata to assess the impact of policies that distinguish between content and metadata. We find that telephone metadata is densely interconnected, can trivially be reidentified, enables automated location and relationship inferences, and can be used to determine highly sensitive traits. —National Academy of Sciences

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Are there workloads in the cloud that don’t belong there?

According to ESG research, 75 percent of organizations currently use a public cloud service, while another 19 percent have plans or interest in doing so. Furthermore, 56 percent of all public cloud-based workloads are considered IT production workloads, while the remaining 44 percent are classified as non-production workloads (i.e., test, development, staging, etc.).This trend has lots of traditional IT vendors somewhat worried, and they should be.  Nevertheless, some IT veterans believe there are limitations to this movement. Yes, pedestrian workloads may move to the public cloud over the next few years, but business-critical applications, key network-based business processes and sensitive data should (and will) remain firmly planted in enterprise data centers now and forever.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Are There Workloads that Don’t Belong in the Public Cloud?

According to ESG research, 75% of organizations are currently using a public cloud service while another 19% have plans or interest in doing so (note: I am an ESG employee).  Furthermore, 56% of all public cloud-based workloads are considered IT production workloads while the remaining 44% are classified as non-production workloads (i.e. test, development, staging, etc.).This trend has lots of traditional IT vendors somewhat worried, as well they should be.  Nevertheless, some IT veterans believe that there are limitations to this movement.  Yes, pedestrian workloads may move to the public cloud over the next few years but business-critical applications, key network-based business processes, and sensitive data should (and will) remain firmly planted in enterprise data centers now and forever.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Surface Books get major driver updates

Microsoft issued a number of driver updates for both the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book that ought to make owners very happy because they should improve performance of the two devices.The updates are all centered around driver support to improve stability and usability, along with improved battery support. So, these are all features that Surface users will definitely want. It's interesting to note that the Surface Pro 4 updates were not back ported to the Surface Pro 3.+ Also on Network World: Surface Book vs. Surface Pro 4: Picking the best came down to just one thing + To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Anki, My New Love

Until now, I was never one to use flashcards. I could not see their value, and I was too lazy to actually write things down on a paper flashcard (and my handwriting is horrible). I recently discovered a program called Anki. On the surface, it is just a flash card program, but underneath, it can be as […]

The post Anki, My New Love appeared first on Packet Pushers.

HPE Hunkers Down On Datacenter Hardware

Any aspirations that the Hewlett-Packard that we knew for nearly a decade and a half to build a conglomerate that resembled IBM in its own former enterprise breadth and depth of software, services, and systems is now over with the company spinning out its Enterprise Services business and focusing very tightly on its core hardware and related software businesses.

In conjunction with the posting of its financial results for the first quarter of its fiscal 206, the trimmed down Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which has not included the PC and printer businesses since last year, announced that it was going to …

HPE Hunkers Down On Datacenter Hardware was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

35% off Omron 10 Series Bluetooth Wireless Blood Pressure Monitor – Deal Alert

The Omron 10 series wireless blood pressure monitor averages 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon from over 4,450 customers (read reviews). With a regular list price of $99.99, this 35% off deal puts it at just $64.99.  The bluetooth monitor is compatible with Omron's free iOS and Android apps. It features multi-color indicator lights which show if your readings is in the normal (green) or hypertension (orange) range. BP level bar displays how your reading compares to normal home blood pressure levels. An Easy-Wrap ComFit Cuff inflates around your entire arm to avoid incorrect cuff positioning. It automatically takes 3 consecutive readings one minute apart and displays the average, following guidelines set by the American Heart Association. An easy-to-read display with extra-large digits & backlight make results easier to read. The unit stores 200 readings in device or 100 each for 2 users, and operates with an included AC Adapter or 4 AA batteries. See the discounted Omron 10 series bluetooth blood pressure monitor on Amazon now.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fearing forced Windows 10 upgrades, users are disabling critical updates instead

Microsoft stepped on the gas in its quest to drive Windows 7 and 8 users to Windows 10 over the past couple of weeks, rolling the upgrade out as a Recommended update. Watch out! The only behavior that could deny the Windows 10 upgrade before—closing the pop-up by pressing the X in the upper-right corner—now counts as consent for the upgrade, and worse, the upgrade installation can automatically begin even if you take no action whatsoever.It’s nasty business, and it’s tricking legions of happy Windows 7 and 8 users into Windows 10. Over the past week, I’ve received more contact from readers about this issue than I have about everything else I’ve written over the rest of my career combined. But beyond merely burning bridges with consumers, these forced, non-consensual upgrades could have more insidious consequences.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Shared malware code links SWIFT-related breaches at banks and North Korean hackers

Malware links suggest that North Korean hackers might be behind recent attacks against several Asian banks, including the theft of US$81 million from the Bangladesh central bank earlier this year.Security researchers from Symantec have found evidence that the malware used in the Bangladesh Bank cyberheist was used in targeted attacks against an unnamed bank in the Philippines. The same malware was also previously linked to an attempted theft of $1 million from Tien Phong Bank in Vietnam.Symantec confirmed the earlier findings of researchers from BAE Systems who found code similarities between the Bangladesh Bank malware, which was used to modify SWIFT transfers, and the malicious program used in attacks against Sony Pictures Entertainment in December 2014.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Shared malware code links SWIFT-related breaches at banks and North Korean hackers

Malware links suggest that North Korean hackers might be behind recent attacks against several Asian banks, including the theft of US$81 million from the Bangladesh central bank earlier this year.Security researchers from Symantec have found evidence that the malware used in the Bangladesh Bank cyberheist was used in targeted attacks against an unnamed bank in the Philippines. The same malware was also previously linked to an attempted theft of $1 million from Tien Phong Bank in Vietnam.Symantec confirmed the earlier findings of researchers from BAE Systems who found code similarities between the Bangladesh Bank malware, which was used to modify SWIFT transfers, and the malicious program used in attacks against Sony Pictures Entertainment in December 2014.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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