WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week’s net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
Greetings readers, another edition of Winding Down hits the virtual presses. This week we are offering a view of July 4th fireworks from a very different angle, decent coffee for astronauts, a Google maps blunder, the Facebook ‘research’ story, Microsoft domain seizures, electronic voting in Norway – or rather lack of it, Text-to-3D, Google Glass and the movies, and DARPA crazy projects! Not a bad haul, and if you’re not satiated there are URLs pointing to government spy tools, jet-lagging and memory, Germany + Verizon + NSA, Dropbox being used for malware command and control, and Amazon v FTC over in-app charges.
You know, I hate these first paragraphs that have to have everything included or you don’t get indexed by the search engines. Phooey!
Shorts:
First the fun stuff! Take a look of this drone produced video of July 4th fireworks – from the inside. Amazing view of the fireworks as you’ve never seen them before.
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/a-drone-shows-you-4th-of-july-fireworks-like-youve-neve-1600412194/+matthardigree
Next something for astronauts – real coffee. I had no idea that the current state of space technology was so primitive that the inhabitants of the International Space Station only had access to -instant- coffee. Ugh! To my mind this is the very definition of ‘a cruel and unusual punishment’. Now, however, Lavazza, Argotec and the Italian Space Agency have got together to produce an espresso machine that can withstand the rigors of space. At least I now know what Lavazza have been doing with the money they’ve been getting from their vastly overpriced coffee!
OK – so now there is no excuse for not providing decent coffee on commercial airline flights!
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/16/for_the_first_time_ever_astronauts_will_be_able_to_drink_good_hot_and_steaming_coffee_in_space/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
I see that Google is exhibiting its usual cultural sensitivity. It’s taken to displaying Paris Metro signs for the locations of London Tube stations on Google Maps. So, let me give you some idea of its effect on British sensibilities with a quote from British politician Clement Atlee. When asked what he thought of the Common Market (forerunner of the EU), at the time it was founded by France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. He said, “The so-called Common Market of six nations. Know them all well. Very recently this country spent a great deal of blood and treasure rescuing four of ‘em from attacks by the other two”*
We Brits don’t forget these sort of things, you know – indeed, some of the forts we built to repel a Napoleonic invasion still exist...
http://londonist.com/2014/07/french-invasion-of-tube-stations-on-google-maps.php
Yet again Facebook demonstrates the totally amoral nature of its senior management, by carrying out psychological experiments on its users. Unless you’ve been on Mars, you’ve probably read all the details, so I won’t go over them again. I just want to say that the ethics of Facebook stink. Even worse is that it’s obvious that the people in charge of Facebook have no idea what it is they have done wrong. None whatsoever. What does this mean for the future? It means that this will not be an isolated instance – expect more in the future.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/30/facebook-only-got-permission-to-do-research-on-users-after-emotion-manipulation-study/
http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/facebooks-mood-study-how-you-became-the-guinea-pig/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-tinkers-with-users-emotions-in-news-feed-experiment-stirring-outcry.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=1
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/even-the-editor-of-facebooks-mood-study-thought-it-was-creepy/373649/
A major row is developing over Microsoft’s heavy handed seizure of another company’s domains. Microsoft obtained a secret court order allowing it to take over 22 of No-IP’s domains because they were used by cyber crooks. They were indeed being used by to control malware, it’s true. However there were also, according to No-IP’s figures four million other legitimate business using those domains.
Four Million.
Four million businesses whose websites became unreachable by their customers. And, according to No-IP, Microsoft not only obtained the court order in secret, it also didn’t contact them beforehand to discuss the problem. The first they knew about it was when the court order arrived. Even people who are in the security business are unhappy about this action by Microsoft, especially given the size of the collateral damage. Four million websites? Do I detect a whiff of class action in the air?
http://www.darkreading.com/microsofts-seizure-of-no-ip-domains-disrupted-criminals-and-innocents-alike/d/d-id/1279079?
https://www.noip.com/blog/2014/06/30/ips-formal-statement-microsoft-takedown
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/01/sorry_chaps_microsoft_unborks_legitimate_noip_users_domains/
http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/07/order-restored-to-universe-as-microsoft-surrenders-confiscated-no-ip-domains/
Homework:
Electronic voting. A thorny subject. The latest news on the subject comes from Norway where they’ve been running a trial for the last couple of years. The trials have now been ended because of voters’ fears that their votes becoming public could undermine the democratic process. Interestingly, the trials did nothing to boost turnout, something which is often claimed for e-voting.
I personally am opposed to e-voting, and to postal voting except in circumstances where the voter cannot legitimately get to the polling station. My opposition has nothing to do with security, although that is, of course an issue. It’s much more fundamental.
Let me explain. In a voting booth no one else can see how you vote. You can’t be intimidated in the booth, no one offering bribes can check that you voted as they wish. There is just you, and you can vote as you want to, with no one looking over your shoulder. That ability to vote in complete privacy is fundamental to democracy; once you relax it in any way whatsoever, you compromise the validity of the vote.
Electronic counting and tallying of the vote is another matter. I’m not intrinsically opposed to that, provided that there is some way of verifying it separately from the electronic counting. I’m a programmer so I know how easy it is to make subtle mistakes when programming.
I’ve been asked several time by local political groupings to write a voting program for them. Since I regard this as an opportunity to educate politicos about the perils of e-voting, my answer is always the same: “Sure, who do you want to win?” Nobody has ever taken me up on the offer...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28055678
For Geeks:
Those of you who would like to be into 3D but lack the 3D drawing skills might like to take a look at a new way of working. It’s called Text-to-3D. You type in what you want and the program renders it for you. You’re limited to the objects it knows about, and the materials it can render, but it looks to me as though it might have its uses.
I haven’t tried it out yet, but it seems it might be useful for developing concepts rapidly. Take a look.
http://www.text-to-3d.com/
Calling all Google Glass wearers! Should you want to go to see a movie in the UK, you are going to have to remove the Google eyewear first. It seems that the movie business is getting worried about Glass wearers making bootleg copies of their movies. This is exciting news – it must mean that they are planning to make movies that are worth the effort of copying!
Joking apart, if the movie business really want to cut down piracy here in Europe, there is a much simpler solution – release films simultaneously in the US and Europe. Most people over here get bootleg copies of movies because they want to see the movie now, not wait for anything up to six months until it is released in Europe. Of course, if people have a decent bootleg of a movie, the chances of them -buying- the DVD are much reduced, even if they do go to see it on the big screen. Talk about making a rod to break your own back...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/30/google_glass_uk_cinema_ban/
DARPA – you’ve got to love it. It’s funded some great projects – including the genesis of the internet – but they do also fund some really crazy ideas! Like a mechanical elephant, for instance. Or how about a hafnium bomb – about a seventh of the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb, in a package the size of a hand grenade. Ideal for the terrorist, I suspect. Fortunately, as far as I’m aware, no one’s ever been able to get it to work. Anyway, take a look at the slide show pointed to by the URL for a whole bunch of wacky DARPA projects!
http://io9.com/the-10-maddest-of-the-mad-science-projects-funded-by-da-1597799224/+barrett
Scanner:
Researchers find and decode the spy tools governments use to hijack phones
http://www.wired.com/2014/06/remote-control-system-phone-surveillance/
Jet lagged and forgetful? It’s no coincidence
http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2010/11/24/jetlag/
Germany ends Verizon deal over NSA snooping fears
http://www.techienews.co.uk/9714330/germany-end-terms-verizon-nsa-snooping-fears/
Dropbox used as command and control for Taiwan time bomb
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/30/dropbox_used_as_command_and_control_in_taiwanese_govt_attack/
ISPs haul UK’s GCHQ into court over dragnet interwebs snooping
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/02/isps_take_gchq_to_court_over_mass_surveillance_privacy_international/
Amazon ready for a legal battle with FTC over in-app purchases
http://www.techienews.co.uk/9714570/amazon-set-face-legal-battle-ftc-app-purchases/
* Quoted in ‘Never Had It So Good’ by Dominic Sandbrook
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Andrew, Barb and Fi for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Thunderbird spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
6 July 2014
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/index.html.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
