From Channel NewsAsia, regarding Singapore's Foreign Affairs and Law Minister's current trip to the US:
SINGAPORE: Singapore and the US have reaffirmed their desire to enhance the existing strong legal cooperation between both countries.
Ah crap.
Flowers in the various parks around my neighbourhood in Sydney started to bloom, so I went out with my D60 and my favourite little AF-S NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8 yesterday for a quick break :)
You can view the full gallery on Flickr, if you so desire.
From the Times of India Enterprise IT section, emphasis added:
NEW DELHI: Hackers, allegedly belonging to a Chinese group called Evil Shadow Team, struck at www.microsoftstore.co.in on Sunday night, stealing login ids and passwords of people who had used the website for shopping Microsoft products.
While it is troublesome that hackers were able to breach security at a website owned by one of the biggest IT companies in the world, it is more alarming that user details – login ids and passwords – were reportedly stored in plain text file, without any encryption.
Absolutely inexcusable security in 2012. My only hope is this was a dodgy contractor doing shoddy work, and doesn’t represent standard Microsoft Store policy.
Perhaps our first unintentional pun on PunWatch:
Deutche Welle – European Union News
EU commission is loosing patience with Greece
Either they've made a classic loosing/losing typo mistake, or they really mean loosening. I'd like to think it's a Freudian slip with regards to European Union policy… giving them the "slip" perhaps? ;)
UPDATE: They've fixed it, darn! Fortunately, I made a screenshot!
Since we took a detour through Bavaria over to the Czech Republic on our last Europe trip, I've been really interested in the country. Of the former Eastern Bloc states, it's arguably the most developed and integrated with Western Europe, yet it still retains the Koruna. Classical buildings stand beside Soviet style blocks, and brand new complexes. They make goulash and dumplings [dare I say!] better than the Germans! Politically, culturally and economically, it's a fascinating crossroads, and well worth keeping up to date with their news.
ACTA of course is the Orwellian Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that was largely been drafted and legislated in secret. Now the Czech Republic and Poland are showing the West how to do democracy; at least better than what the likes of the United States and Australia have done of late. Twenty years ago, who would have thought.
We all know now that Australia is going to introduce those full body scanners. Here's an example of how the press is reporting on the issue.
Photo of the Sydney Airport departures drop-off area by ml12310 on Wikipedia.
Article from the AAP:
Body scanners are soon to be installed across all Australian international airports as part of a government plan to beef up anti-terrorism measures.
I believe the term they're looking for is security theater.
Aside from those with serious medical conditions, any passenger who refuses may be denied the right to board their flight.
So that means Australia's border controls are worse than the United States? There you can opt-out and be felt up instead of being unnecessarily exposed to carcinogenic radiation. The story makes no mention of this; clearly some research of my own will be needed.
Transport Minister Anthony Albanese says there is no need for passengers to be concerned about modesty, as the machines only produce a generic outline, with no defining features.
Modesty is the least of my concerns in this case. With a history of cancer and leukemia in my family, I don't want to go through a machine spewing radiation for no reason. And there is no reason, these machines don't work.
All this talk about modesty and privacy is an absolute red herring. Albanese and this AAP reporter are guilty of either not doing their jobs properly, misdirection or lying. I'm not sure which of the options is scarier.
The technology was trialled by 23,000 volunteers in Sydney and Melbourne.
“They were queueing up. People wanted to try out this new technology,” Mr Albanese said.
People queue up to buy cigarettes too, what's your point?
It won't make any difference, but Mr Albanese's department will be receiving a polite but stern letter and phone call from me in the coming days. I will be researching this further, and posting more about it.
In the meantime, the Sydney Morning Herald should do a better job reporting on legitimate concerns, rather than just republishing a report that heaps on nothing but praise and distractions. It's embarrasing to read!
I've touched on the whole New Google thing a few times, but only in reference to other people's comments. Here are some of my own. Get it? TRACKING!? :D
In the same way Microsoft and Lotus standardised the disparate applications that made up their office suites, on the surface Google is attempting to simplify things for their users and engineers by making things look and work similar. Leaving aside questions of effectiveness, one need only look at the user interface changes in Gmail, Google Reader, Analytics and Google+ to see this new line of thinking in action.
In that vein, a unified Terms of Service for all their products makes nothing but sense. Instead of a different one for each service, their users can now ignore and click accept under just one.
Still, while everyone seems worried with the tracking (more on that below), I'm more concerned that a unified Terms of Service will lead to the same lowest common denominator problem that is plaguing their new UIs. Some services naturally need more and different information than others, but a blanket TOS would (logically, perhaps?) need to include all of these. The result is services that don't need certain personal information to operate now have legal access (well, as legal as a TOS can be, as I sort of wrote about way back in 2006).
It didn't entirely wash with me, and it seems even US lawmakers are having a hard time believing it too.
The tech world is all a dither about the potential tracking problems this new TOS introduces. For one thing, all their services will now be sharing data with each other, and worse still you won't be able to opt-out of this sharing. The end of the world… right?
Firstly, anyone who banked on having their YouTube history insulated from their Google profiles, Gmail history and so on need a cold glass of reality. I've been told they've always been doing this, so presumably they've merely become public about it recently. In either case, wake up guys!
Secondly, not being able to opt-out is also not unusual behavior from Google. While other advertising companies were issuing statements saying they'd respect the Do Not Track headers that Mozilla, Apple and even Microsoft had implemented into their browsers, Google was tellingly silent. Under increasing public pressure, they eventually released an optional extension for Chrome. If you want some fun, try opting out of DoubleClick's tracking as well. On every browser on every device you own. Individually.
I'm not entirely defending Google here, I'm just pointing out they're doing what they've always done. They're an internet advertising company.
As I've repeatedly said here, it's impossible to have complete privacy online, and cloud computing will only continue to grow. The key isn't to stop using the Internet, it's to use it intelligently. There's still a place for Google (indeed, any cloud company), provided you take the right precautions and weigh up the utility you derive from them with what you're giving up.
Sandra Laville, crime correspondent for The Guardian:
The Metropolitan police said emails were sent out to 1,136 victims, mostly of car theft or pickpockets, as part of a survey on 30 January. But the addresses were put in the wrong section of the email, which meant they were shared with other victims.
While New Google and Facebook are taking the headlines, I'd still argue the biggest threat to online privacy still comes from people misusing IT (and from Sherlock). Part of the solution is education and effective oversight, but even then we're all prone to making mistakes, and our software isn't perfect.
Perhaps the Metropolitan Police should look into using email clients with stricter field validation!
I think I just burst a blood vessel. I don't think I can wait until the Northern Hemisphere Summer!
My current minifigs and anime figs might get jealous though, that's the problem!
On my botanic garden photo post:
The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney says: We love your photos of the Garden, Rubenerd. Thank you.
I think this is the first time I've had a representative from a place I've take pictures comment on them! Gave me a warm fuzzy feeling, and makes me want to visit more often. Great PR! :')
I spent much of my teenage years on my iBook G3 at the Singapore Botanic Gardens, when it wasn't raining. I love urban gardens, and Sydney's is beautiful.
