Beware Of Unreal Things

The first ever official Twin Lizard (v4) music video: Twin...

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:17:00 +0000

The first ever official Twin Lizard (v4) music video:

Twin Lizard (v4) - Nemesis (featuring Texture and David Downey Jnr) by TwinLizardV4

Read ‘the making of’ here

Where There's No I

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:15:44 +0000

We live in the age of narcissism. I don’t believe for one second that this generation is substantially worse than the one before, or the five hundred before that. The young were immoral and lazy and unwise when Socrates walked the streets of Athens, and they are no different now. As were the old. But this generation has developed the technology to perfectly express the same narcissism our parents and our ancient forebears carried.

Nevertheless, in this age of narcissism, there exists an opposite impulse. Matt Webb quotes Borges: “All men, in the vertiginous moment of coitus, are the same man. All men who repeat a line of Shakespeare are William Shakespeare.” In another story, Borges writes: “I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist.” There is a saying, everyone’s favorite word is their own name, and there’s some truth to that. But isn’t there something exhilarating about Borges’s statement, too?

There is no actor, there is only the act. All men are every man, and every man is all men. It is the ultimate denial of narcissism: there is no ego. Much has been said about the so-called online disinhibition effect. When online and anonymous, we act differently, and frequently malevolently. But couldn’t this be a healthy antidote to the narcissism of social networks? Many people claim that anonymity is simply an easy way for people to act like assholes with no consequences. But I think part of it, at least for some people, is also a healthy impulse that is opposed to the egoistic drive.

I don’t know if there are any other animals that have such contradictory instincts: are there any creatures as fiercely individualistic, and at the same as fiercely social as humans? And while we celebrate our own egos, while we prop up celebrity mega-egos and build technologies designed for the generation of ego-worship, shouldn’t we also be celebrating this contrary impulse? Both individualism and collectivism can be ugly, but both can also be beautiful. It would be a beautiful thing if we could have arenas for the expression of both. When I get tired of fapping to the magnificence of my own ego, can’t I have somewhere to go where I can get lost in the masses, where I am everyone and everyone me?

This is one of the reasons I’m such a big proponent of anonymity, which seems to be evolving into public enemy number one. Governments want to kill anonymity so they can keep tabs on us. Companies want to kill anonymity so they can make money off us. Individuals want to kill anonymity so they can worship and be worshipped. I want to preserve anonymity so there can be a place where there is no I.

Bolding mine.

paxmachina: Unknown - Ekaterinburgh, Russia

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:09:54 +0000

paxmachina:

Unknown - Ekaterinburgh, Russia

blech: A white 500 pixel square JPEG with its colour data...

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:39:38 +0000

blech:

A white 500 pixel square JPEG with its colour data replaced by “lorem ipsum” in a hex editor. (Next time I’ll make it 512 pixels.)

Ironically, I had to export it as a PNG before Tumblr would accept it as a valid file to upload.

Photo

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:24:15 +0000

snowce: Peacekeeper missile test, 1986

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:20:12 +0000

snowce:

Peacekeeper missile test, 1986

Photo

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:05:00 +0000

"There’s a rule futurists use: go back twice as far as you wish to predict forwards. I have a new..."

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:56:29 +0000

“There’s a rule futurists use: go back twice as far as you wish to predict forwards. I have a new theory though, that’s hinted at by the popularity of Atemporality: the further we progress with our technology, the more all of time itself can (effectively) exist at the same time.”

- grinding.be » Blog Archive » Time travellin’ with Werner Herzog (via eddieatthegov)

yearoftheglitch: 040 of 366 Source: a video consisting of one...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:41:06 +0000

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

yearoftheglitch:

040 of 366

Source: a video consisting of one black frame and one white frame.

Process: iterative re-compression using Quicktime .MOV h264 w/ QT filters and selective manipulation of the raw data using a hex editor.

Concept: successive signal degradation returns to the initial starting point.

I love the aesthetic of these videos, perhaps even more so when watching them at work over a VPN that barely has enough bandwidth for video playback and introduces further glitches of its own so that each playback is slightly different.

People using pseudonyms post the highest-quality comments, Disqus says

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:06:26 +0000

People using pseudonyms post the highest-quality comments, Disqus says:

untanglingtheweb:

two interesting things in this article from Poynter:

1) “real identity” is described as “verified by Facebook”

2) “many news sites have been using [Facebook’s plugin] to verify identity… and raise the level of discourse”

I’m ISO any research that correlates “raising the level of discourse” and “real identity”. It’s for #hate.

HT the magnificent Meg Pickard.

“Verified by Facebook” as the new online identity passport….Of course some of us either A:) Do not use facebook at all, or (and this is where I fall) B:) Use an account that is pseudonymous to interact with the web when required. Does this mean my fictional entity is my true online identity? What if I turned over control of my Facebook to a software agent or infomorph similar to Philter Phactory’s Weavrs to run my Facebook, would that be more real than the real me?

I have a bad feeling about this - raganwald's posterous

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:46:05 +0000

I have a bad feeling about this - raganwald's posterous:

At every point in the last forty years, wealth, health, and happiness in our economy have been built on the freedom to disrupt the entrenched powers, not the preservation of their rent-seeking monopolies.

Via Mark Pesce

"The Cyber-Industrial Complex"

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:27:44 +0000

"The Cyber-Industrial Complex":

Loving the Cyber Bomb? The Dangers of Threat Inflation in Cybersecurity Policy:

Jerry Brito & Tate Watkins

Abstract

There has been no shortage of attention devoted to cybersecurity, with a wide range of experts warning of potential doomsday scenarios should the government not act to better secure the Internet. But this is not the first time we have been warned of impending dangers; indeed, there are many parallels between present portrayals of cyberthreats and the portrayal of Iraq prior to 2003, or the perceived bomber gap in the late 1950s.
This Article asks for a better justification for the increased resources devoted to cyber threats. It examines the claims made by those calling for increased attention to cybersecurity, and notes the interests of a military-industrial complex in playing up fears of a “cyber Katrina.” Cybersecurity is undoubtedly an important policy issue. But with a dearth of information regarding the true nature of the threat, it is quite difficult to determine whether certain government policies are warranted—or if this merely
represents the latest iteration of threat inflation benefitting private and parochial political interests.

Via Jacob Appelbaum

churchofcyberpunk: Black Cat Hacks: This is meant to be a list of free technologies aimed at...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:32:00 +0000

churchofcyberpunk:

Black Cat Hacks: This is meant to be a list of free technologies aimed at empowering Internet users to gain better control over their…

whatajollyworld:

Abine - A Firefox / Internet Explorer plugin that blocks third party advertising networks, manages HTTP, DOM, and Flash cookies, and securely manages site logins. Currently in private beta, but invites aren’t hard to get. Abine Privacy Suite

Ad Blockers for Browsers - Firefox: Adblock Plus Chrome:AdBlock Safari: AdBlock

Anon email services - Send anonymous email awxcnx.de Email drop drop.io

Anonymouse - A Web search portal hosted on an island off the coast of Somalia. This PET seemingly allows you to access any webpage without leaving a trace. (I tried MSN.com and found that Ghostery detected no web bugs.) Anonymouse

aTube Catcher - Download videos and watch anytime and without needing to be online and thus frustrate tracking and monitoringaTube

BetterPrivacy Firefox Plug In - Add on for Firefox that creates “super-cookie blocker,” including flash cookies and most DOM storage objects. BetterPrivacy

BleachBit - BleachBit quickly frees disk space, removes hidden junk, and easily guards your privacy. Designed for Linux and Windows systems, it wipes clean 70 applications including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Flash, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, Adobe Reader, APT, and more. BleachBit

BugMeNot - Bypass many webpages requiring free registration with the click of a button. BugMeNot

CCleaner - application for Windows. Analyzes and facilitates deletion of various items of data stored on your PC, including state management cookies (HTTP, flash and other), cached temporary Internet files, etc. CCleaner

Certificate Patrol - Firefox plugin that saves SSL certificates of pages when encountered to act like SSH’s “known_keys” feature and alarm the user when the presented certificate is different from the usual one [1].

Darik’s Boot and Nuke (DBN) - Free self-contained boot disk that securely and completely deletes the contents of any hard disk that it can detect. DBN

Diaspora - the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network Diaspora

Documents over HTTPS - View online documents over HTTPS, just enter web link after = GoogleDocs Alternatively upload document or enter URL through Zoho Viewer Note: ixquick and google search results do not provide direct links to view documents over https.

Eraser - Secure data removal tool for Windows. (Open Source)Eraser

FireGPG - FireGPG is a Firefox add-on which brings an interface to encrypt, decrypt, sign or verify the signature of text in any web page using GnuPG. FireGPG

Freenet - Decentralized, censorship-resistant distributed data store which aims to provide freedom of speech through a peer-to-peer network with strong protection of anonymity. Freenet works by pooling the contributed bandwidth and storage space of member computers to allow users to anonymously publish or retrieve various kinds of information. Freenet

Ghostery - Scans visited web pages to find web bugs used to track user behavior on the web. Ghostery, CIS Ghostery review (note:Ghostery has been purchased by a behavioural advertising firm)

GoogleSharing - A system for anonymizing requests to Google services which don’t require a login. Consists of both a Firefox Addon and a free proxy. GoogleSharing

Hosts file domain blocking - A slightly technical (but very easy) procedure that provides you nearly complete invisibility from all data aggregation engines of your choosing. The principle behind the technique is simple: you use your own computer’s local domain name information repository (known as the hosts file) to associate a privacy-infringing domain (ie, doubleclick.net) with an incorrect IP address - usually your own. See the following link for more details and resources, including a pre-made hosts file that takes care of most of the technical details for you. MVPS.org

HTTPs Everywhere - A Firefox plugin that defaults supporting websites to HTTPs. HTTPs Everywhere

I2P - Mixed-license free and open source project to build an anonymous network that other applications can use to anonymously and securely send messages to each other. Uses include anonymous surfing, chatting, blogging and file transfers. I2P

IPREDator - “IPREDator is a network service that makes people online more anonymous using a VPN.” (Note: This service appears to involve a monthly fee. Added: it costs 50SEK/month - roughly $10) IPREDator

Internet Privacy Forum - Reports on what a website can know about you just by visiting it. IPF

Internet Proxy - Free internet web based proxy. Conceals your IP address from visited sites. Internet Proxy

Ixquick - Metasearch engine that returns the top ten results from multiple search engines. Can be used over encrypted SSL/HTTPS and has a facility to view search results via it’s SSL/HTTPS proxy option. Ixquick was the first search engine to delete private details of its users—IP addresses and other personal information are deleted within 48 hours of a search. Ixquick also does not share its users’ personal information with other search engines or with the provider of its sponsored results. Ixquick Note: View docs over HTTPS Zoho Viewer or GoogleDocs

Java Anonymous Proxy - Free, cross-platform proxy system designed to allow browsing the web with revocable pseudonymity.Java Anonymous Proxy

JonDoNym - German-based software that encrypts and mixes Internet communications to render them anonymous. Fee based and slower free services available JonDoNym

KeePass Password Safe - Open source password manager.KeePass Linux version KeepassX

MelonCard - Removes you from a vast number of people search and people lookup websites (e.g. RapLeaf, MyLife, Spokeo) for free. MelonCard automates the process of removing yourself from these websites, sending forms, letters, and faxes on your behalf. The basic level of service is free with an option to upgrade for additional opt-outs (e.g. Intelius and ZabaSearch) and monitoring for your information. MelonCard

Mixmaster - Type II anonymous remailer which sends messages in fixed-size packets and reorders them, preventing anyone watching the messages go in and out of remailers from tracing them.Mixmaster

MyTube - A free script for website designers intending to use embedded videos, which is designed to prevent cookies from being sent to external sites or advertising networks unless the embedded video is actually played. MyTube

NoScript - Firefox add on that protects against certain types of web hacks. NoScript

OptimizeGoogle - Firefox add-on to enhance Google search results, remove click-tracking, ads, spam, enable Google over https options and more. OptimizeGoogle

Password Generators (online) - Ultra High Security Password Generator GRC. Plus online password generators/hashers, using Master Keys that when remembered can be used to recover forgotten passwords! Password Hasher PwdHash Password Chart

Panopticlick - A tool for measuring how rare/unique a browser configuration is. Rare configurations may function as fingerprints that allow websites to track the browser even if the user limits or deletes cookies Panopticlick.

Peer Block - PeerBlock lets you control who your computer “talks to” on the Internet. You can block communication with advertising or spyware oriented servers, p2p activity monitors, even entire countries! They can’t get in to your computer, and your computer won’t try to send them anything either. Best of all, it’s free! Peer Block

pidder - A host-proof service that lets you build an encrypted, private social network where you stay in control what data you wish to share and with whom. Includes encrypted messaging and password management. Free Base Edition. pidder

Privacy Bird - Free software designed to automatically read full P3P privacy policies of websites and compare them to your personal privacy preferences, providing warning messages when a site’s policies do not match your own. Privacy Bird

PrivacyBox - The PrivacyBox provides primarily for journalists, bloggers and other publishers the possibility to offer non-tracked (and also anonymous) contact forms. privacybox.de

PrivacyChoice Opt-out - Gathers opt-out cookies from over 150 ad companies, with an optional Firefox add-on to preserve and automatically update preferences. Opt-out from all companies or opt-out selectively based on industry certifications and policy terms.PrivacyChoice Opt-out

Privacy Collections - Users compilations of Firefox add-ons with a focus on Privacy 200+ “Privacy” Collections

PrivacyFinder - Privacy-enhanced search engine allowing users to state privacy preferences and order search results based on how sites’ computer-readable privacy policies comply. PrivacyFinder

Privatix Live-System - Free portable encrypted system on an usb flash drive or an external hard drive for safe editing and carrying along of sensitive data, for encrypted communication and anonymous web surfing. Privatix

Privoxy - Privoxy is a non-caching web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for enhancing privacy, modifying web page data and HTTP headers, controlling access, and removing ads and other obnoxious Internet junk. Privoxy has a flexible configuration and can be customized to suit individual needs and tastes. It has application for both stand-alone systems and multi-user networks. Privoxy

Qubes - Open source operating system designed to provide strong security for desktop computing. (Under development) Qubes

RefControl - Control what gets sent as the HTTP Referer on a per-site basis. RefControl

RetroShare - Open Source cross-platform, private and secure decentralised communication platform. It lets you to securely chat and share files with your friends and family, using a web-of-trust to authenticate peers and OpenSSL to encrypt all communication.RetroShare

Scroogle.org - A service that functions as a search-engine proxy, taking your queries, passing them to google, and returning the results to you without ever passing along any identifying information. The service claims to scrub its own logs after 48 hours.Scroogle

Seeks - Open and social websearch infrastructure featuring anonymous nodes and proxies based on Privoxy. Seeks

SpoofStick - An explorer and Firefox plug in that helps detect phishing attacks. SpoofStick

Stealthier - A great new Firefox add on that can pause most online tracking activities. Stealthier

Swipe Toolkit - The Swipe Toolkit from Turbulence.org features several elegant tools to educate users on what personal information is collected about them and how it is used. There is a tool that decodes your license info and another that calculate the value of your PII. Swipe

TAILS: The (Amnesic) Incognito Live System - The (Amnesic) Incognito Live System (Live CD, Live USB) is aimed at preserving your privacy and anonymity, all outgoing connections to the Internet are forced to go through the Tor network, no trace is left on local storage devices unless explicitly asked. TAILS

Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt Out - Sticky opt out for behavioral profiling in the form of a browser plug in. Non commercial verion BEEF TACO See: Firefoxers howl as (TACO) privacy add-on auto updates with ‘bloatware’ TACO (Abine’s Commercial version

Tor - Free software implementation of second-generation onion routing, a system enabling its users to communicate anonymously on the Internet. Tor

TrackerScan - Available as a Firefox extension or a bookmarklet (no download required), TrackerScan shows you ad companies present on any webpage, with summaries of key privacy policies, industry certifications, and opt-outs. TrackerScan

TrackMeNot - Browser extension that helps protect web searchers from surveillance and data-profiling by search engines. Hides users’ actual search trails in a cloud of ‘ghost’ queries, using noise and obfuscation to significantly increase the difficulty of aggregating such data into accurate or identifying user profiles. TrackMeNot

TrueCrypt - Free, open-source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux. Encryption is automatic, on-the-fly, and transparent. TrueCrypt

User Agent Switcher - The User Agent Switcher extension adds a menu and a toolbar button to switch the user agent of the browser.User Agent Switcher.

Vanish - Enhancing the Privacy of the Web with Self-Destructing Data (Under development) Proof of concept under developmentVanish

Vuze - Browser plug-in designed to reveal network management practices. Vuze

Web of Trust - Firefox add on that warns users of risky websites.WOT

WhatApp.org - Website that reviews apps for privacy and security.WhatApp?

Wikileaks - Website that allows for the anonymous posting of documents. Wikileaks

WordPress Privacy Plug In - Plug in for WordPress that creates Adsense compliant privacy policy. Wordpress Plug In

Yauba Privacy Safe Search Engine - World’s first Privacy Safe Search engine, with no cookies, no storage of personal data, and built in anonymising proxy for private surfing of third party websites. Yauba is the only search engine in the world that offers this level of privacy protection. Yauba’s searches across multiple categories of filetypes including websites, videos, image files, social networks, pdf files, powerpoint files, word files, and more. Yauba

There are also a variety of resources describing or otherwise devoted to privacy enhancing technology. Please add your favorite.

Berkman Center - Harvard’s Berkman Center has put together this comprehensive report on the state of technologies that circumvent government monitored Internet connections. Circumvention Landscape Report

CDT - The Center for Democracy and Technology describes the role of PETs. CDT

EPIC - The Electronic Privacy Information Center has a very good list of PETs, not all of which appear above. EPIC

ICO - UK Information Commissioner’s Office discussion of PETs.ICO

Inside Facebook - Inside Facebook’s guide to protecting your privacy on Facebook. Facebook Privacy Guide

LCNS - 2003 computer science book devoted to designing privacy enhancing technologies. LCNS

Microsoft - Microsoft has put together a privacy education toolkit.MSFT Privacy Toolkit

PET Awards - Annual award through IPC of Ontario and Microsoft for best privacy enhancing technology. PET Awards

PRC - Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has assembled a list of info brokers and instructions on how to opt out of their activities. Opt Out List

Privacy Resources - Consultant Marcus Zillman has assembled a variety of privacy resources, including PETs. Privacy Resources

PrivacyChoice Index of Tracking Companies - A comprehensive index of companies involved in user tracking, including key privacy policies, industry certifications, tracking methodologies and opt-out specifications. Look up by company name or tracking domain.PrivacyChoice Index

Radialpoint.net - User community around protecting yourself and your computer from spyware, viruses, and fraud. Radialpoint

SSD - The Electronic Frontier Foundation has assembled resources around “Surveillance Self Defense,” including defensive technology.Surveillance Self Defense

Surfing Anonymously - A blog about surfing anonymously on the interner. It covers legal, technical, political discussion on how to protect your anonymity online Surfing Anonymously

Telecomix Crypto Munitions Bureau A focus area of the internet activist cluster Telecomix that functions decentrally as a mix between a study group / interest fellowship The Interfax - News releases regarding cryptography and privacy-enhancing use of software (from the “Department of Defense” Propaganda and mission statement cryptoanarchy.org - the practical documentation wiki (temporarily down as of Jul 20th 2010)

Here’s the full list.

philnoto: Roy Batty

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:31:06 +0000

philnoto:

Roy Batty

laeke: Appleseed - Masamune Shirow This blog is a Shirow...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:04:41 +0000

laeke:

Appleseed - Masamune Shirow

This blog is a Shirow Masamune positive area

magnolius: Warning: Violent footage / NSFW* Get your...

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:57:39 +0000

magnolius:

**Warning: Violent footage / NSFW*** Get your cameras ready world. Police brutality is our norm now. And it’s extremely disturbing!

funrama: Page 1 of COCOTTE is up. Page 2 is on Friday 2/10 and...

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:46:12 +0000

funrama:

Page 1 of COCOTTE is up. Page 2 is on Friday 2/10 and page 3 is on Monday 2/13 and then the weekly schedule begins. Please check it out.

cocottecomic.com

decemberpaladin: foolonparade: Iron Sky is going to Premier at...

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:04:05 +0000

decemberpaladin:

foolonparade:

Iron Sky is going to Premier at the Berlinale this weekend and we finally have the Theatrical trailer for it and of course the poster above. Looks awesome, will be awesome.

Look forward to a more broad release in cinemas across Europe and the world starting 04.04.2012.

Until then, here is the new full-HD Trailer on YouTube: http://youtu.be/Py_IndUbcxc

One of my homeys worked his ass off on this movie.

heterochronia: The Gherkin The iconic City office tower is...

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:38:52 +0000

heterochronia:

The Gherkin

The iconic City office tower is now high-rise housing. Originally converted into luxury flats, the block soon slid down the social scale to become a high-density, multi-occupation tower block. The Gherkin now worries the authorities as a potential slum.

Refugees from equatorial lands have moved north in search of food. They make their homes in the buildings that once drove world finance – before the collapse of the global economy.

Image © Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones.

London’s future Kowloon Walled City

Photo

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:30:15 +0000

Beware Of Unreal Things

The first ever official Twin Lizard (v4) music video: Twin...

Where There's No I

paxmachina: Unknown - Ekaterinburgh, Russia

blech: A white 500 pixel square JPEG with its colour data...

Photo

snowce: Peacekeeper missile test, 1986

Photo

"There’s a rule futurists use: go back twice as far as you wish to predict forwards. I have a new..."

yearoftheglitch: 040 of 366 Source: a video consisting of one...

People using pseudonyms post the highest-quality comments, Disqus says

I have a bad feeling about this - raganwald's posterous

"The Cyber-Industrial Complex"

churchofcyberpunk: Black Cat Hacks: This is meant to be a list of free technologies aimed at...

philnoto: Roy Batty

laeke: Appleseed - Masamune Shirow This blog is a Shirow...

magnolius: **Warning: Violent footage / NSFW*** Get your...

funrama: Page 1 of COCOTTE is up. Page 2 is on Friday 2/10 and...

decemberpaladin: foolonparade: Iron Sky is going to Premier at...

heterochronia: The Gherkin The iconic City office tower is...

Photo

magnolius: Warning: Violent footage / NSFW* Get your...