Boil Before Drinking » internet

Wall Street Journal Suggests Cause for Cable Cuts

Brother Greg — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:56:00 +0000

And you’ll never guess what it is. Ok, maybe you will because of the picture. And this is according to the Wall Street Journal.
SHARKS WITH LASER BEAMS ARE KILLING THE INTERNET!
I knew it had to be something more devious than a series of accidents, or a multinational conspiracy. But this begs the question, who strapped those lasers to the sharks?

Context for Undersea Cable Cuts? The Pentagon’s Information Operations Roadmap

Ninja Man: with Ninja Powers! — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:38:00 +0000

Given the recent developments regarding the recent undersea internet cable cuts, as brought to the attention of BBD reader by Brother Greg (see previous post), I thought some further documents and websites might provide some greater context, and more ammunition for the “conspiracy” minded among us.

Here are couple of initial reports (BBC) and commentaries (Information Clearinghouse) from last year regarding the Pentagon’s recently declassified “Internet Operations Roadmap”, a document created in 2003 under the watchful eye of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Extra details can be found at this very interesting wiki site regarding media and democracy called “Source Watch“. Finally, have a look at the original pentagon document, as well as a host of others stored at “IWS – The Information Warfare Site.”

So, it begs the question, is it really a “conspiracy” if the plans of the conspirators intentions have been publicly available for some time; much like the “conspiracy” which saw “the tragic events of 9/11″ used as an excuse to launch a war on a Iraq that had been in the planning for 10 years prior?

More undersea internet cable cuts!

Brother Greg — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:40:00 +0000

The total number of internet cables feeding India and the Middle East cut is now up to 5. I guess we’d hear more about it, but we can’t, you know cuz their internet is broken.
I was originally thinking this was someones way of reducing the economic appeal of outsourcing to India, but the focus of the cuts is more Middle-Easterly. So who has the resources in the area to make all these cuts? Russia, maybe but I thought all their boats were rusty or waiting to have reactor accidents. Israel, surely they do. U.S.A. also.
So why? Perhaps an effort to isolate communication into and out of Iran?

Data Visualization: Books that Make You Dumb

The Runs — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:00:00 +0000

Virgil Griffith has put together an interesting data correlation: books and SAT scores. His goal: find out which books make you dumber.

Check out his website to see the results:

Booksthatmakeyoudumb

Ever read a book (required or otherwise) and upon finishing it thought to yourself, “Wow. That was terrible. I totally feel dumber after reading that.”? I know I have. Well, like any good scientist, I decided to see how well my personal experience matches reality.

With all of the data floating around in webspace, projects like this are becoming more and more common. I’m not sure I would want to draw too many conclusions from this, but its fun to look at and definitely not something I would completely discard. More interesting to me, at least, are the methods and means by which the information was gathered and correlated.

Documentary Guide

The Runs — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:45:00 +0000

Kevin Kelly has updated his guide to documentaries (or True Films as he refers to them in the title). Better yet, he is offering it free. Here is his post on his Cool Tools blog:

Cool Tool: True Films eBook

If you are interested in documentaries, or reality film-making, definitely check this out. You are sure to find a few new gems between the covers.

Looking beyond the surface content, though, the release of this eBook give some interesting things to consider. Kevin is releasing this free, and has created the eBook so that it will include advertisements, which will in turn generate some revenue. In his post, he explains all of this, and notes that the user of the eBook needs to allow the pdf reader to retrieve the advertisements. I like the fact that he has not tried to force anyone to view these, and his take on the viral nature of internet marketing. This should be an interesting experiment, and I will be interested to read about the results if and when they are posted. Its cliche to go on about how people need to think about business, marketing and information differently with regards to the internet – there seems to be infinite articles on the subject. Its nice to see someone put a theory to the test.

Check out the post. You’ll get an excellent guide, and learn something too.

And now for something completely (sort of) different

Ninja Man: with Ninja Powers! — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:23:00 +0000

I am reminded almost daily why I love the internet (yes, in that way) by sites like this one.

http://www.weirdasianews.com/

Computer Security Q&A With Bruce Schneier

The Runs — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 15:38:00 +0000

I finally caught up with my Freakonomics Blog reading. I found the Q&A session with security guru Bruce Schneier to be the most interesting of the last 2 weeks. He answered a ton of questions, and gave very detailed responses, with lots of supplementary links. This is definitely not dry, techie/hacker security talk – Bruce answers many of the question from a socio-economic point of view that I found to be very enlightening. Check it out.

Q: All ethics aside, do you think you could make more money obtaining sensitive information about high net worth individuals and using blackmail/extortion to get money from them, instead of writing books, founding companies, etc.?

A: Basically, you’re asking if crime pays. Most of the time, it doesn’t, and the problem is the different risk characteristics. If I make a computer security mistake — in a book, for a consulting client, at BT — it’s a mistake. It might be expensive, but I learn from it and move on. As a criminal, a mistake likely means jail time — time I can’t spend earning my criminal living. For this reason, it’s hard to improve as a criminal. And this is why there are more criminal masterminds in the movies than in real life.

Freakonomics Blog: Bruce Schneier Blazes Through Your Questions

How Many 12 Year Olds Can You Beat Up?

Brother Greg — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:10:00 +0000

In my constant effort to support the wackier elements of the internet I bring you “A REALISTIC ASSESSMENT OF HOW MANY 12-YEAR-OLDS I COULD BEAT UP BEFORE THEY OVERTOOK ME“.
I figure I could take on an even dozen before I get too tired and they swarm me

Google as Standard Activity

The Runs — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:27:00 +0000

Google has become a standard activity in internet-enabled societies. Googling something is right up there with going for groceries, taking out the trash, walking the dog, and other things that almost everyone does, or is at least intimately familiar with the concept. That said, ‘Googling’ shows up as an error in this spell check. Didn’t ‘Googling’ get into the dictionary lately?

Driving to work a couple of days ago, I was listening to a Toronto sports station, Chris Chelios’ workout routine that had been written up in a Sports Illustrated article. Rather then reading any of the article, or detailing the workout, they simple talked about it and then suggested that the audience could just ‘google’ it if they were interested.

This drove home the notion that everyone ‘googles’, and its a generally understood and performed activity these days. At least in a society with high levels of internet access, such as here in North America. Interesting stuff.

Kick in the Nuts Blog

Brother Greg — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:22:00 +0000

Check this out- A blog entirely dedicated to people getting groin injuries in comic books -
I’ve said it before, i’ll say it again. I love the internet.