• Drones over NYC.
• If you thought SOPA was bad …
• Rutherford institute tells the Census Bureau to back the heck off.
• Ominous? Interesting? Ominously interesting.
• Ditto this: Punching holes in firewalls.
• How long would it take to break your password?
• You remember the good old random name generator, don’t you?
• This may be the best test I’ve seen of Internet invisibility. When I visited with JavaScript turned off (standard practice with unknown sites), it told me I was “very visible” in these days when most sites require JavaScript. But it didn’t tell me anything else. When I temporarily enabled JavaScript, it told me more than I thought it would, given all the precautions I take.

Tips of hats to SC, MJR, H

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… don’t worry.

I’m just mucking around, changing operating systems again.

My old laptop (running Linux Mint 11) headed toward slow death a month or two ago. I eBayed myself a newer ThinkPad and upgraded (or so I thought) to Mint 12.

I’ve been loving Linux Mint since version 8 or so, and I guess I’m not alone in that since it’s risen from nowhere to become one of the top Linuxes, if not the top Linux, for real people. Love its media friendliness!

But 11 had problems. Not the Mint team’s fault, but there were some new Ubuntu features they got stuck with (hidden slider bars that you can’t see until you’ve moused over them — and moused over them in just exactly the right way — was a very, very, very bad idea). (Okay, they’re scroll bars, as everybody in the comment section is reminding me very diplomatically. I don’t care what they’re called, as long as they work properly.)

Alas, although Mint 12 (and I presume the version of Ubuntu it’s based on) killed off the dreadful catch-us-if-you-can sliders, in other ways it, too, is not ready for prime time.

Again, it seems to be not the Mint team’s fault. Just as Mint is tethered to Ubuntu, it’s also tethered to Gnome, a heretofore marvelous GUI (aka desktop management system; with Linux, unlike Windows, there are several options for the user interface; sometimes users get a choice, sometimes developers make the decision). This time the Gnome team made some rocky decisions. Like the folks who thought hiding the slider bars was an “improvement,” they decided to get too clever for their or their users’ own good. They removed basic functionality (like actually being able to place tasks on the now-misnamed task bar) in favor of a bunch of jumpy jazz.

There’s also the problem of the OS briefly, from time-to-time, consuming all system resources so the computer turns into a snoozing tortoise. There’s a workaround for that. But I don’t want a workaround. I want an operating system that’s smooth and un-annoying right out of the box.

I’ve been using Mint 12 for about a month and am thoroughly irked by its quirks. I expect Mint 13, later this year, will once again be a primo, terrific Linux. They’re addressing every one of the main problems, and the underlying OS is really a great thing. But right now … just not ready for real-user prime time.

Fortunately, at the same time I ordered the Mint 12 DVD, I also bought Mandriva 2011.

Mandriva was the first Linux to aim for real-people friendliness, and was my long-time Linux love. Then they dug themselves a big hole for a few years (are you seeing a pattern here?) and the media-friendly Mint galloped past them.

Anyhow, that’s the long way of saying that I’m about to back up the system and all my data and replace Linux Mint 12 with Mandriva 2011.

If all goes well, you won’t even notice I’m gone. If it doesn’t … don’t worry. The feds probably haven’t carried me off. Yet. More likely I just hit some wrong button. Or several.

And please don’t take any of this as saying that Linux has gone bad for us ordinary, non-geek users. Thing is with Linux, if one version goes wrong, you can try another — for a free download, a $2 CD, or a $6 DVD. You can even try it via a “live” CD or DVD to make sure you like it before committing to an installation.

When Windows goes wrong, OTOH (ME or Vista, anyone?), you’re just plain stuck.

—–

Speaking of Windows, though: the new ThinkPad came with a new, hot version of M$ Windows, Windows 7 Ultimate, pre-installed. I must admit, it’s a pretty slick OS.

Since setting the new computer up to dual-boot Windows and Linux Mint, I haven’t used the former. But before installing Mint, I plinked around with Windows for a week or so and almost persuaded myself I could like it.

… Except, of course, for the conviction that I was being spied on (or potentially spied on) with every click of the mouse.

It’s really beautiful, though, and highly intuitive to use. I hate to say it but … “Nice job, Microsoft.”

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Been collecting again …

• Your awwwwww story for the day: An unlikely mother.
• But this is pretty awww-some, too. Especially if you consider what would have happened had the government gotten to the money before an honest man did.
• The 10 jobs with the happiest workers. (And I’m in two of those jobs; I should be delirious with joy.)
• The dogs of Cat Island. This is in some ways a horrible story. Yet so weird it’s funny. BTW, this is from the Paladin Press blog, and if you poke around a bit you’ll find a few entries by somebody you know.
• The amazing Katherine Albrecht has been blogging about her cancer treatment. You go, Katherine. You’ve got a lot of people out here rooting for you.
• Proof of Ron Paul’s shocking racism.
• Will a simple Firefox add-on negate the evil SOPA?
• The “government is making us fat” meme is gaining ground.

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• Trust him or not? That’s a good question. Me, I think Stephen Glass has more than earned a “trust, but verify” status. But not honest enough to be a lawyer???. Please tell me you’re joking.
• Well That was predictable. A black market in Cheetos.
• I nearly tossed my Christmas cookies yesterday when, at the local general store, I ran across tree ornaments that said, “Police officers: Angels on earth.” Among other things, I had no idea angels were prone to this kind of blatant cronyism. (Of course, I’m sure those little tags, just like these, will be used only for honest, civic-minded purposes.)
• Haven’t seen too many angels doing this, either. Or this. But of course, if the “angels” were only better trained and supervised everything would be heavenly. Tell me, do you routinely beat people up just because no government official has “trained or supervised” you not to? Hm. Didn’t think so.
• the DEA? What??? Did the so-called journalists even question any of this?
• There’s some good news, though. Any MafiaaFire users hereabouts? If so, care to give a report?

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Many hat tips today. To S, C^2 and Matt, another.

• Have you noticed that companies you deal with online increasingly force you to place symbols, capitals, and numbers in your passwords — under the illusion that their nannying guarantees a password stronger than any you could possibly invent for yourself? In its own inimitable style XKCD notes the folly of that.
• Another bank closes. But not for the usual post-crash reason. Nope. Just the usual governmental reason.
• “A right to be forgotten”? There’s an interesting concept. Could it really interfere with the right to free speech?
• More village self-defense. But this time, is it justice, or …?

And two personal notes.

Because Pat asked: Nope, you didn’t miss part V of “Responsibilities of a Resident of the Police State.” I haven’t written it yet. Was hoping to get to it last week, but my brain has been overloaded lately. Think pieces are hard, and that one just hasn’t gelled yet.

I usually don’t mention such things until afterward, since the only way I can get through them is to pretend nobody’s listening. But I’m scheduled to be on Brian Wilson’s radio show tomorrow at 4:30 EDT. Brian is so cool I have no worries about the interview going well. We’re going to talk about Hardyville for 15 or 20 minutes (which also explains the book-selling post that’ll go up tomorrow morning).

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• Three new chapters this week in Jake MacGregor’s novel The Advisor. Chapter 19 and 20 on Tuesday. Chapter 21 last night.
• Good news from the lemonade wars. Well, if anything can be considered good news in this business of cops and code authoritah shutting down kids’ front-yard ventures. Can you imagine the kind of person who would — with “official” blessing — go out of his way to yell at little girls for selling lemonade? The mind boggles.
• But then, I suppose we’re supposed to be grateful that the criminal little lemonade pushers weren’t beaten and tasered to death. (NOTE: Heartbreakingly graphic photo. But OMG, read the quote from the murdered man’s father, who used to be a LEO.)
• Okay. After that we can use something light. And this, too.
• This is a very handy little book — and an excellent getter-starter for friends and relatives who may feel daunted by preparedness: The Prepper’s Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster
• Eejits. Don’t they realize this will never — and I mean never, ever, ever — even be possible, let alone desirable? How absurd that all this talk of “ending anonymity on the Internet” keeps coming from alleged techfolk. Do they have no clue what an Outlaw wonderland would result if anybody tried this? (Tip o’ hat to D.A.)
• “Hideouts or Sacred Spaces?” Weird in either case: the story of Europe’s mysterious underground chambers.
• Hope they mean it.
• Finally, in the category of stylish Outlawry: Did LulzSec trick police into arresting the wrong guy?

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• Radley Balko, who posts a lot of photos on his blog, has just posted the best two ever, bar none, no possible comparison: Cory Maye as a free man.
• How come Al Quaeda is always responsible, even when Al Quaeda isn’t responsible?
• “Playing to Your Strengths.” For some, this might be a no-brainer. But for others (e.g. who were forced or simply fell into their career paths), not so.
• Charles Hugh Smith is a wonderful thinker. He’s just come up with the best analysis of what the Euro really is and what the current goings on in European finances really are.
• “The U.S. Government and Activist Technology.” (Tip o’ hat to C^2; I think he’s also the author of the piece, but there’s no byline.)
• And similarly … “Subtext, and Saving the World.” Brilliant!

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To those of a certain age, “Telex” may evoke memories of large, unwieldy, chattering ancestors of the fax machine.

Today Telex is something else: a potentially revolutionary way to route around Internet censorship.

S., who found the information, comments (this will make more sense if you’ve read a bit on the above links):

I suspect there will be a number of interesting variations on this technology. For example, the The Mental Militia forum is almost certainly monitored by one or more Three-Letter Aacronyms. The Telex approach requires many different machines in the network to run a Telex server, and is therefore somewhat difficult and slow to deploy.

Imagine that the TMM server ran a modified server, let’s call it Telex-2 server. People could log into TMM (or another, single website) and would appear to read innocuous stuff. The small group who were trusted and/or in the know enough to have installed a Telex-2 client would be accessing a secure forum, which might contain censored literature, discussion of verboten topics, notice of meetings, a marketplace, etc.

The beauty is that instead of a network of servers running Tor or Telex, a single server could provide secure, well-obscured access to a group of like-minded people. The TLAs might wonder at the level of interest in a site hosting pictures and discussions of well-formed goat udders (I actually saw that following Mutti’s links on TMM) but would have no clue what information was actually being shared, or that any info was being covertly shared.

No smoke, no key words, no interest. They can vacuum it all up and learn nothing, in fact they get more noise in their databases. I think picture and video sharing websites would make good screens, as they use a lot of bandwidth. That makes it that much easier to mask the traffic signature from the secret site.

Another example: When people communicate with PGP, it sends up red flags. They can’t know what we are saying, but they know we are talking, and that we use PGP.

If there were a picture-hosting site with Telex-3, we could use it to store and forward PGP-encrypted messages. I post a picture of an especially nice goat udder, but as the picture is uploading my Telex-3 client sends the PGP message. When you log into the site, the message is sent to you along with a suitable image for cover. No one sees that an encrypted message was sent.

This is the kind of technology that will enable phyles. I’m not a software guru but there are plenty of smart people who will take this and run with it. It’s good news for the good guys.

Hm. It’ll be very interesting to see which governments will scream in alarm about this and try to forbid its adoption. How many alleged “lands of the free” will suspect their own citizens of using telex privacy to perform Evil Plots against them?

Not our “land of the free,” of course. Never that. Our government serves and respects its citizens, always …

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