From David Foster Wallace’s “Introduction” (The Best American Essays 2007):
Here is an overt premise. There is just no way that 2004’s reelection could have taken place—not to mention extraordinary renditions, legalized torture, FISA-flouting, or the
passage of the Military Commissions Act—if we had been paying attention and handling information in a competent grown-up way. ‘We’ meaning [...]
Posted on November 5th, 2009 by Scott Granneman
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From Jim Giles’ “The inside story of the Conficker worm” (New Scientist: 12 June 2009):
23 October 2008 … The dry, technical language of Microsoft’s October update did not indicate anything particularly untoward. A security flaw in a port that Windows-based PCs use to send and receive network signals, it said, might be used [...]
Posted on July 5th, 2009 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, history, security, tech in changing society | No Comments »
From Rob Cottingham’s “From blocking to botnet: Censorship isn’t the only problem with China’s new Internet blocking software” (Social Signal: 10 June 2009):
Any blocking software needs to update itself from time to time: at the very least to freshen its database of forbidden content, and more than likely to fix bugs, add features and [...]
Posted on June 13th, 2009 by Scott Granneman
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From Brian Prince’s “How Terrorism Touches the ‘Cloud’ at RSA” (eWeek: 23 April 2009):
When it comes to the war on terrorism, not all battles, intelligence gathering and recruitment happen in the street. Some of it occurs in the more elusive world of the Internet, where supporters of terrorist networks build social networking sites to recruit and [...]
Posted on May 19th, 2009 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, politics, security, social software, tech in changing society | No Comments »
From Steven Weinberg’s “Without God” (The New York Review of Books: 25 September 2008):
But if the direct conflict between scientific knowledge and specific religious beliefs has not been so important in itself, there are at least four sources of tension between science and religion that have been important.
The first source of tension arises from the [...]
Posted on April 18th, 2009 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, religion, science | No Comments »
From Mark Danner’s “Words in a Time of War: Taking the Measure of the First Rhetoric-Major President” (Tomgram: 10 May 2007):
[Note: This commencement address was given to graduates of the Department of Rhetoric at Zellerbach Hall, University of California, Berkeley, on May 10, 2007]
…
I give you my favorite quotation from the Bush administration, put [...]
Posted on February 6th, 2009 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, language & literature, politics | No Comments »
From Bruce Schneier’s “Security in Ten Years” (Crypto-Gram: 15 December 2007):
Bruce Schneier: … The nature of the attacks will be different: the targets, tactics and results. Security is both a trade-off and an arms race, a balance between attacker and defender, and changes in technology upset that balance. Technology might make one particular tactic more [...]
Posted on February 5th, 2009 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, law, security, technology | No Comments »
Image by rsgranne via Flickr
Image by rsgranne via Flickr
Image by rsgranne via Flickr
From Dave Alan’s “Interview with Alex Christopher” (Leading Edge Research Group: 1 June 1996):
Legend: DA [Dave Alan, Host] AC: [Alex Christopher] C: [Caller]
…
(Note: according to former British Intelligence agent Dr. John Coleman, the London-based Wicca Mason lodges are one-third of the overall global [...]
Posted on December 20th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: art, history, language & literature, politics, religion, science | No Comments »
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Posted on November 30th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
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From James Bamford’s “Big Brother Is Listening” (The Atlantic: April 2006):
This legislation, the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, established the FISA court—made up of eleven judges handpicked by the chief justice of the United States—as a secret part of the federal judiciary. The court’s job is to decide whether to grant warrants requested by [...]
Posted on November 27th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, law, politics, security, tech in changing society, technology | No Comments »
From Jill Lepore’s “Bound for Glory” (The New Yorker: 20 October 2008):
The biography was published in 1817 as “The Life of Andrew Jackson.” The next year, Eaton was rewarded with an appointment to a vacant seat in the United States Senate. In 1823, Jackson was elected as the other senator from Tennessee, and followed his [...]
Posted on November 24th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, politics | No Comments »
From Bruce Schneier’s “Gathering ‘Storm’ Superworm Poses Grave Threat to PC Nets” (Wired: 4 October 2007):
Storm represents the future of malware. Let’s look at its behavior:
1. Storm is patient. A worm that attacks all the time is much easier to detect; a worm that attacks and then shuts off for a while [...]
Posted on November 22nd, 2008 by Scott Granneman
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From Shane Harris’ “China’s Cyber-Militia” (National Journal: 31 May 2008):
Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military, have penetrated deeply into the information systems of U.S. companies and government agencies, stolen proprietary information from American executives in advance of their business meetings in China, and, in a few [...]
Posted on November 22nd, 2008 by Scott Granneman
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From Glenn Greenwald’s “A tragic legacy: How a good vs. evil mentality destroyed the Bush presidency” (Salon: 20 June 2007):
One of the principal dangers of vesting power in a leader who is convinced of his own righteousness — who believes that, by virtue of his ascension to political power, he has been called to a [...]
Posted on October 11th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, law, politics | 1 Comment »
From Marc Ambinder’s “HisSpace” (The Atlantic: June 2008):
Improvements to the printing press helped Andrew Jackson form and organize the Democratic Party, and he courted newspaper editors and publishers, some of whom became members of his Cabinet, with a zeal then unknown among political leaders. But the postal service, which was coming into its own as [...]
Posted on October 6th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, politics, technology | No Comments »
From Jonathan M. Gitlin’s “Does ideology trump facts? Studies say it often does” (Ars Technica: 24 September 2008):
We like to think that people will be well informed before making important decisions, such as who to vote for, but the truth is that’s not always the case. Being uninformed is one thing, but having a population [...]
Posted on October 6th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: education, history, politics, science | No Comments »
From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (IV: 7):
TALBOT:
Where is my other life? mine own is gone;
O, where’s young Talbot? where is valiant John?
Triumphant death, smear’d with captivity,
Young Talbot’s valour makes me smile at thee:
When he perceived me shrink and on my knee,
His bloody sword he brandish’d over me,
And, like a hungry lion, did commence
Rough [...]
Posted on January 16th, 2007 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: language & literature | Comments Off
From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (IV: 4):
SOMERSET:
It is too late; I cannot send them now:
This expedition was by York and Talbot
Too rashly plotted: all our general force
Might with a sally of the very town
Be buckled with …
buckled: encountered; To give way; collapse
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1 Henry VI: Talbot’s deer metaphor
1 [...]
Posted on January 16th, 2007 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: language & literature, word of the day | Comments Off
From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (IV: 2):
TALBOT:
He fables not; I hear the enemy:
Out, some light horsemen, and peruse their wings.
O, negligent and heedless discipline!
How are we park’d and bounded in a pale,
A little herd of England’s timorous deer,
Mazed with a yelping kennel of French curs!
If we be English deer, be then in blood;
Not [...]
Posted on January 16th, 2007 by Scott Granneman
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From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (IV: 2):
TALBOT:
English John Talbot, captains, calls you forth,
Servant in arms to Harry King of England;
And thus he would: Open your city gates;
Be humble to us; call my sovereign yours,
And do him homage as obedient subjects;
And I’ll withdraw me and my bloody power:
But, if you frown upon this proffer’d [...]
Posted on January 16th, 2007 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: language & literature | Comments Off
