Archive for November, 2010
Open Source Diplomacy
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010The commoditisation of information proceeds apace, and although the stakes are perceived to be higher in this case, the effects will probably be similar in nature. A fractious dialectic is already emerging between those who truly believe in the benefits of information resources like those circulated to millions of US military and government staffers on SIPRNET, and those who seek to leverage proprietary knowledge for their country’s -and sometimes their own- gain.
All secrets are like kindling. Used at the right time, gossip can provide warmth, build allegiance and influence. Used rashly, well… you know where this is heading. In that sense, wikileaks may seem like a 10 year old boy with a stolen box of matches. But applied judiciously and with a sober sense of timing, the same principles of near-complete openness and sharing that are at the heart of free software development (and the Internet itself) could usefully animate international diplomacy.
False Equivalence
Sunday, November 28th, 2010Again and again over the years, I’ve listened to people excuse Microsoft’s chronic insecurity and apparent inability to escape from its virus-infected legacy. This in spite of the fact that the nearly boundless contagion of the Microsoft world has yet to spread into other, increasingly popular areas of technology. The claim typically runs like this: [...]
Blogging for Dollars
Sunday, November 14th, 2010Over at the Wired Epicenter blog, people are speculating that Next Monday’s big announcement from Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg will be a webmail client, aimed directly at stealing Google’s technological thunder. Reaction from commenters was universally negative. People complained about privacy concerns, made silly FailMail jokes and observed that Google would be pretty hard to beat [...]
Is this thing on…?
Thursday, November 11th, 2010(04:13:21 PM) gcrumb@gmail.com/70427720: what’s the password? (04:13:34 PM) gcrumb@gmail.com/70427720: (we are using ssl on this chat, right?) (04:14:02 PM) G: just pick a good one…you know how this works:) (04:14:11 PM) gcrumb@gmail.com/70427720: Heh (04:14:27 PM) G: and yes, this conversation is fully secure ! (04:14:48 PM) gcrumb@gmail.com/70427720: Let’s verify that…. (04:14:59 PM) gcrumb@gmail.com/70427720: I WANT [...]
Steal This Book, But Buy Me a Beer
Sunday, November 7th, 2010The Economist’s Babbage has written a sardonic critique of Amazon’s recently announced decision to allow its customers to lend e-books to one another: AMAZON.COM says soon you will be allowed to lend out electronic books purchased from the Kindle Store. For a whole 14 days. Just once, ever, per title. If the publisher allows it. [...]