5 hour power outage Friday. Threw my whole day off, as you might imagine. I don’t even know whose fault it was: my apartment building’s or Dominion Power’s.
Apple cut Bitcoin from the App Store.. Bitcoiners are responding like a combination of spoiled children and offended followers of a religion. Wait until they find out that Russia is banning bitcoin and Florida is going after Bitcoin money laundering.
Bitcoin and crime go hand in hand. Mt. Gox is now preparing to rip off its users once and for all, it seems. Mt. Gox is the Magic: the Gathering Online eXchange, a site originally founded to trade collectible game cards, but now trades Bitcoins. Also, organized drug dealers are looking at Bitcoin.
Continue reading »
How do we know that the NSA stuff is being driven by anti-Americanism? So much outrage about NSA and American allies, but so little about Russia, China, and American rivals. Heck, I’m not even seeing a peep about a Chicom firm Lenovo buying Google Motorola.
Now here’s a major reform idea I could get behind: merging FCC and FTC. By removing one entity, we reduce the added burden on business when two different regulators come after them for the same stuff. Getting rid of DoJ’s antitrust division would help, too. Because now even SEC is grabbing new tech powers.
Continue reading »
So I took Christmas off, but don’t forget: even as Democrats play blame the Victim, you should get your debit card or credit card replaced if you used it at Target recently. The attackers got your PIN even.
The traitor Edward Snowden very interestingly says he won, which seems to mean he thinks it’s himself against we the people. He’s sure not on the side of liberty, when he’s on the side of the child pornography den Tor. And yet, He’s still desperately trying to feel his Russian paymasters. Not even loyal to them.
Continue reading »
As I mentioned Friday night, I had so much to cover I was breaking up Tech at Night into two parts. This is part two.
Remember when I called out Wikileaks for abandoning their ally Edward Snowden in Russia? They claimed he had settled there and their job was done, but I knew better. Well, here’s the proof that they’ve used him up and thrown him away: he’s still trying to get out of Russia, this time to Brazil. Spying for Wikileaks doesn’t even pay.
Remember when Snowden was supposed to be all about defending American civil liberties? Now he’s sticking up for Russia against Norway. Huh. Almost like we’d expect a traitor that fled ultimately to Russia to do, eh?
Continue reading »
Crime in Bitcoin is big money. $28.5 million more worth if Bitcoins have been taken from the Silk Road racket. Other things are big money in Bitcoin too, such as those on Reddit who are paying young women to take their clothes off and put the video on the Internet, a great personal risk to themselves.
It’s no wonder Bitcoin people are trying to run offshore to countries like China hostile to liberty and the rule of law, even as they try to hide their tracks accessing US markets with conspiracies like Tor.
It’s also no wonder the anarchists have seized upon recent events to try to demonize the NSA.
Continue reading »
Sorry I missed Monday. That night it just slipped my mind and I went to bed!
The purpose of patents is to encourage useful works. That’s not just my idea. It’s in the Constitution. That’s why anti-patent troll legislation makes sense. Apparently more and more people are agreeing, because patent trolls are starting to lobby against it. Though I still say the best way to fight patent trolls is to stop issuing so many bad patents to begin with, by taking away that source of funding from USPTO that gives them an incentive to give too many patents. Give them a fixed budget.
Look, I’m fine with the kind of non-specific transparency of FISA warrants Google is loking for but ACLU trying to help terrorists isn’t interesting to me at all.
Continue reading »
Good news! California Democrats think you can erase stuff from the global Internet just because you really really want to. This is magical thinking in law form. Telling kids they should run amok online because they can just erase it later, is insane. The Internet is dangerous and not for kids.
Again, the core problem with patent troll litigation isn’t with the court system, it’s with too many patents being issued. So the patent-holding tech industry may have a conflict in what it recommends to fix this. But seriously, the only reason patent trolling works is that so many bad patents get issued to begin with.
Continue reading »
There’s not a whole lot going on right now. Right now I’m seeing a few efforts here and there to push different policies, some good, some bad, but we do need to keep an eye on them in case any one of them takes off.
Let’s start with a bit of a laugh from California. Democrats there are desperately trying to regulate the Internet, but at the same time it’s clear that party in California, now totally hijacked by extremists, has no clue how the Internet actually works. How else would the pass a bill creating a right to delete information from the Internet? Imagine the jokes if Republicans passed such a bill.
The Google effort to push for reasonable FISA transparency continues to gain allies, this time Dropbox, as that firm is now getting criticisms in that area.
Continue reading »
Are there people who use search services like Google’s to find illegal distributions of works? For some crazy reason, MPAA thinks not. The evidence seems to disagree.
When it comes to arguments about Net Neutrality, attitude is not a substitute for facts and reason. Then again do the Net Neutrality zealots like Susan Crawford even have any?
Continue reading »
Missed Tech on Monday due to a very uncomfortable and annoying, but not particularly threatening health issue. So let’s catch up.
Spying and cybersecurity. Edward Snowden intended to defect all along. And he’s probably now in Russia after serving up anti-American propaganda bait in commmunist China.
Meanwhile, one Lulzsec anarchist is under tough parole terms, we find Bitcoin is increasingly tied to crime, and Wikileaks isn’t going to get off easy backing Assange, Snowden, and Manning. For good reason.
Continue reading »