Donald Trump has made it quite clear that he views his reelection as not just a vindication of his views, but as a blessing for his plan to bring vengeance on those who disagree with him. His cabinet picks are following in his footsteps on that, with various threats of lawsuits flying this way and […]
To completely understand computer security, it’s vital to step outside the fence and to think outside the box. Computer security is not just about firewalls, Intrusion Prevention Systems, or anti-viruses. It’s also about tricking people into doing whatever a hacker wishes. A secure system, network, or infrastructure is also about informed people. The All-in-One Super-Sized […]
Tomorrow is the last day of our Kickstarter campaign for One Billion Users. We’re still beneath the funding threshold, so unless there’s a big closing rush, this campaign won’t reach our goal. Still, if we can get that big closing rush, we’d love your support for the campaign. At the very least, supporting it now […]
I’ve covered the cable TV and broadband industries for a long while, and for the vast majority of that time, U.S. regulators have looked the other way while companies rip consumers off with hidden fees. At some point the U.S. just decided that this type of false advertising was a form of acceptable creativity. And […]
Monster Energy. Go ahead, I’ll wait for your eyes to finish rolling. The trademark bullying company with a side business in making beverages has been the subject of discussion here for years and years and years. Monster Energy is one of the most prolific trademark bullies I’ve ever come across. It behaves so absurdly in […]
I apologize in advance for the non-specific nature of this headline. But there’s too much going on here to be summed up pithily in a few hundred words or less. No one here gets paid by the word, but we’re going to need a whole lot of them to get to the bottom of this […]
Long before TikTok histrionics took root, you might recall that numerous members of Congress spent numerous years freaking about another Chinese company: Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei. The argument, made without much in the way of public evidence, was that Huawei was systematically using its network gear to spy on Americans at a massive scale. Congress then […]
As a non-fan, non-supporter of Donald Trump, I don’t have much left after discovering a disturbing number of my fellow Americans prefer fascism to liberty. But I still have these things I will forever hold near and dear to my heart: schadenfreude and irony. And, if you’re like me, you get both of these things […]
Costco is your one-stop shop for everything you want and offers a wide range of merchandise that will likely cover all of your shopping needs! With hundreds of locations across the country, Costco is the ideal place to shop without the hassle of having to run numerous errands around town. A Gold Star Membership includes a FREE […]
Katie Couric recently claimed that repealing Section 230 would help combat online misinformation. The problem is, she couldn’t be more wrong. Worse, as a prominent voice, she’s contributing to the widespread misinformation around Section 230 herself. A few years ago, for reasons that are unclear to me, Katie Couric chaired a weird Aspen Institute “Commission […]
For the better part of the last thirty years, telecom giants and “free market” libertarian think tanks have told anybody who’d listen that gutting regulatory oversight of the U.S. wireless and broadband markets would result in near-Utopian outcomes across innovation and competition. Instead, the reduction in both competition and real oversight resulted in regional telecom […]
A few years back, Karl Bode wrote about YouTube TV’s 2020 price hike, going from $50/month for its base package, to $65/month. The framing of that post was spot on: Google was behaving much like that of a cable company, with the exact customer-angering actions being taken that drove so many people into YouTube TV’s […]
If you’ve ever wondered how the right-wing media ecosystem operates and why it’s effective, try viewing it as a form of improvisational theater or improv. In the wake of the 2024 U.S. elections, everyday people and political pundits alike have been trying to make sense of the results and the related observation that many Americans […]
Quite famously, snarkier-than-thou music review site Pitchfork posted a brief, incisive review of Australian band Jet’s second album in 2006. The review contained nothing more than the 0.0 score and this embedded video: This, my friends, epitomizes the legal travails of Mr. Jason Fyk, a “self-made millionaire” who leveraged Facebook’s reach to turn his websites […]
Earlier, Karl wrote about a bill from Senator Ron Wyden which would put pressure on big telcos to actually protect our privacy (following the news of Chinese hackers abusing backdoor access to our wiretapping systems to spy on tons of people). Sadly, despite the obvious need in the wake of this massive privacy breach, that […]
Demand for Python is booming in the job market and it is a skill that can help you enter some of the most exciting industries, including data science, web applications, home automation, and many more. The 2024 Python for Software Engineering Bootcamp Bundle has 7 courses to take you from beginner to expert in no […]
This week, the United Nations General Assembly is set to adopt the UN Cybercrime Convention, almost exactly five years after it approved a resolution to launch its negotiation. The Convention text has been widely panned by digital security experts, human rights organizations, industry, even the UN’s own human rights office, among many others. Yet still […]
We’ve noted for decades that U.S. telecom security and privacy standards aren’t great. T-Mobile has been hacked so many times in the last five years it’s easy to lose count. AT&T not long ago had a breach impacting the data of 73 million users it initially tried to pretend hadn’t happened. Telecoms have lobbied relentlessly […]
It’s a big week for anonymous commenters. We start out with our first place winner on the insightful side, an anonymous reply to an irrelevant comment: Speaking of bad actors, will you stop acting like your pet issue justifies spamming unrelated comments? In second place, it’s an anonymous comment about those who pledge to protect […]
If you’ve been following the Kickstarter campaign for our new card game, One Billion Users, then you know we’re not quite on track on to hit our goal — but we haven’t given up! We’ve now passed the halfway mark in funds raised, and we’re doing everything we can to make a final push before […]
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