July 19, 2011
Federal Government Indicts Former Demand Progress Executive Director For Downloading Too Many Journal Articles

coderspiel:

Moments ago, Aaron Swartz, former executive director and founder of Demand Progress, was indicted by the US government. As best as we can tell, he is being charged with allegedly downloading too many scholarly journal articles from the Web. The government contends that downloading said articles is actually felony computer hacking and should be punished with time in prison.

Demand Progress is a prominent organizer of civil opposition to US government efforts to curtail freedom of information on the internet, including the kill switch and blacklist bills. They are political threat to a paranoid, cynical, and technologically ignorant worldview—and nothing else. If a member of their leadership has indeed been arrested on trumped up charges, it is disturbing to say the least.

The indictment.

3:19pm  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZzgRWy7HdwlY
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: Internet Freedom JSTOR Library Digital Library 
July 18, 2011

Maven: the build tool that takes more time to build and configure than the actual application it’s building. Somehow—and maybe this is just personal bias—it doesn’t seem like xml just vomited into a wiki should count as documentation.

7:07pm  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZzgRWy7Fff3x
(Notes: 11)
  
Filed under: java maven frustration 
July 15, 2011
Short Science Fiction: The Phone

Preface: Sometimes I daydream short fictions. I liked this one.

I pick up the phone in the middle of the night and on the other end is my Grandmother, light-years away. “Your Grandfather,” she says through tears, “has passed on this morning, threw a clot and had a heart—-” The line fuzzed out and went dead. I called Grandmother back; she answers and there are no tears in her voice, though I begin stammering: “I got cut off. Did he suffer much?”

The reply: “Did who suffer much, dear?”

“Grandfather.”

“Your Grandfather is fine, child, just as he’s always been. No one healthier.”

“Okay, sorry Nanna. I must have had a nightmare.” We hang up. I say to myself, “Goddamn quantum entanglement phones.”

12:51pm  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZzgRWy78I9sG
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: communication fiction grandmother quantum entanglement sci-fi sf ultra-short fiction creative writing short stories 
July 14, 2011

There are a trio of fighter jets making low altitude circles around Rochester, NY. They look like F/A-18s. There are no armaments loaded: a training exercise? I find military aircraft to be utterly compelling devices for the skill needed of the designer, maintenance crew, the operator and technical mastery of its engineering. The sheer number of people which must be coordinated to even sustain the industrial civilization of which such planes are artifacts is beyond my grasp, a thing to be understood only in a logarithmic sense. I am a caveman plus 10,000 years—I keep and train wolf derivatives, leading them about on ropes in a manner instantly recognizable to any nomadic, agricultural, industrial or informational human in history—but through the effort of unknown hands I live 60 feet in the air with no fear, consume electricity to drive a digital mechanism I am familiar with though training and interest but could never rebuild from scratch and receive money for using this machine to instruct others like it with specially structured artificial languages. My wife studies the dead languages of Germanic pirates, poets and the latinized culture they eventually encountered—texts from a mere thousand years ago. Yet, mere; a strange word to use. I knew my great-grandparents but such people as I am descended from that lived even two-hundred years ago I can now only understand in aggregate. Sharon can sing the songs of skalds, long-boats sliding on icy, ink-black seas. Into the future do our works and genes go, but who can say which will survive into memory as idea or as body?

12:30pm  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZzgRWy760kAF
(Notes: 5)
  
Filed under: rochester f/a-18 navy airplane fighter jets new york life 
July 13, 2011

The manner in which Puppet manages its ssl certification is an atrocity: dropped requests, broken revoking and more obscure error messages forwarded from the bowels of openssl than I can shake a stick at. Such problems are so obtuse that I’ve found it more simple just to purge puppet and puppetmaster from my cluster machines and start over from scratch. Clearly this will not fly once I’m into production.

The Puppet manual glosses over these difficulties by providing you a virtual machine image with which to play, all pre-configured and humming. While convenient, it obscures an important problem: managing ssl certificates is too damned complicated and Puppet is terrible at aiding the end-user in this task.

3:35pm  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZzgRWy73zXJd
(Notes: 17)
  
Filed under: devops puppet ssl openssl grouch 
July 13, 2011

I rather wish the Amazon Kindle was connected with some sort of lending library. Especially with regards to current events, buying a hard-copy text for $50 is far too much but so too $15 for a Kindle version, if even one such exists. My American Library copy of Thoreau’s longer works is well-thumbed and increasingly taking on the character you might expect of a book found at the bottom of a NATO rucksack, but I cannot see that I would read Edith Sheffer’s “Burned Bridge” more than once. In my subjective experience, a book, no matter how well written, is either a low re-use commodity or a continual companion. I should like to see the former in free or nearly so libraries and the latter being the pleasant detrious of my life. If Amazon were to enslave my Kindle to an optional subscription-funded library I would eagerly pay. Similarly, I believe that public libraries would do well to offer digital versions of public domain works in open formats, but the toolset for that requires substantial work to create, not to mention device incompatibilities to be surmounted. (Worse, many non-fiction ebooks that I have found tend to be poorly formatted, having bad line breaks or forced indentation. Fixed form media habits die hard, I suppose.) It is primitive days, yet.

Curmudgeonly addendum: I find it to be a great sorrow that of such mobile work as is being done a not insignificant portion is directed toward amusing ourselves to death.

12:55pm  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZzgRWy73eX_W
(Notes: 18)
  
Filed under: Amazon Kindle library reading books book 
July 12, 2011
randomandkeila: Rustic TruckBurnside, Portland Strange. I know this truck, that dog and the coffee shop up there on the corner (Coffeehouse Northwest; best coffee in the neighborhood but you should really hike pastries over from Ken’s on 22nd.)

randomandkeila:

Rustic Truck
Burnside, Portland

Strange. I know this truck, that dog and the coffee shop up there on the corner (Coffeehouse Northwest; best coffee in the neighborhood but you should really hike pastries over from Ken’s on 22nd.)

6:53pm  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZzgRWy71-qU7
Filed under: portland oregon pdx 
July 12, 2011
zentrope: Jury duty lunch, 4th St, Portland. (Taken with instagram) I’ve been surprised to find that I can love a city. I should clarify: take “love” in the most passionate way possible; not as a slightly stronger form of “like”, meaning to enjoy very much. It has nearly been a year since we left, Sharon and I, and it is nearly a year until we can return. I feel, each time I see even a hint of home, a pain in my chest, a deep sadness of loss. In my dreams I’m still there, just as my parents have not been divorced for half my life and all my great-grandparents not dead for a quarter. In my dreams I can’t sleep and I go for a walk toward the river, turning off at the Park Blocks down to PSU, left down to 4th and back again to Everett: it’s misting and the water on the bricks shines with the street lights, suffusing the city with a hint of unreality, of utopia made of coffee and art and science. When I wake in the morning after such dreams I feel for a small time that I must never have left home; I believe myself still to be at 21st and Everett on the second floor, grand old windows facing a fresh courtyard. Instead, as far as my eye can see, parking lots dotted by crumbling buildings: a hellscape. I am in love with a city. It was always my ambition as a child to move on to better things: away from Bertrand, then Charleston, then Maryville, then Kansas City and Chicago, finally; until Portland. Now in Rochester I desire to go home, to stay and grow old and familiar. To catalog the trees on walks with my dogs as my father does in his woods, but donate the data to the city at large, rather than locking it away in a state database. I should like to reproduce someday, tiny human with an indeterminate accent, as unaccustomed to car travel as it was familiar to me—as knowing of Powell’s as I was of the Sikeston McDonald’s PlayPlace. To see leisure as a necessary and welcome aspect of life, rather than an evil to be eradicated through peer pressure, anti-depressants and stale caffeine solutions. It is a place I would not mind to die, though, being currently of sound mind and body I should hate to do so. To love is very much to move beyond the fears of influence and dependence. To say, then, that I love Portland is simply to become one with a place, to allow the fluid culture of a place to make you one of it’s own and, likewise, to throw your own contribution, however slight, into that same great mixture.

zentrope:

Jury duty lunch, 4th St, Portland. (Taken with instagram)

I’ve been surprised to find that I can love a city. I should clarify: take “love” in the most passionate way possible; not as a slightly stronger form of “like”, meaning to enjoy very much. It has nearly been a year since we left, Sharon and I, and it is nearly a year until we can return. I feel, each time I see even a hint of home, a pain in my chest, a deep sadness of loss. In my dreams I’m still there, just as my parents have not been divorced for half my life and all my great-grandparents not dead for a quarter. In my dreams I can’t sleep and I go for a walk toward the river, turning off at the Park Blocks down to PSU, left down to 4th and back again to Everett: it’s misting and the water on the bricks shines with the street lights, suffusing the city with a hint of unreality, of utopia made of coffee and art and science. When I wake in the morning after such dreams I feel for a small time that I must never have left home; I believe myself still to be at 21st and Everett on the second floor, grand old windows facing a fresh courtyard. Instead, as far as my eye can see, parking lots dotted by crumbling buildings: a hellscape.

I am in love with a city. It was always my ambition as a child to move on to better things: away from Bertrand, then Charleston, then Maryville, then Kansas City and Chicago, finally; until Portland. Now in Rochester I desire to go home, to stay and grow old and familiar. To catalog the trees on walks with my dogs as my father does in his woods, but donate the data to the city at large, rather than locking it away in a state database. I should like to reproduce someday, tiny human with an indeterminate accent, as unaccustomed to car travel as it was familiar to me—as knowing of Powell’s as I was of the Sikeston McDonald’s PlayPlace. To see leisure as a necessary and welcome aspect of life, rather than an evil to be eradicated through peer pressure, anti-depressants and stale caffeine solutions.

It is a place I would not mind to die, though, being currently of sound mind and body I should hate to do so. To love is very much to move beyond the fears of influence and dependence. To say, then, that I love Portland is simply to become one with a place, to allow the fluid culture of a place to make you one of it’s own and, likewise, to throw your own contribution, however slight, into that same great mixture.

(Source: zentrope)

4:34pm  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZzgRWy71ichs
(Notes: 2)
  
Filed under: portland oregon home love future nostalgia 
July 7, 2011
Letter to my Senator

On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 3:32 PM, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand Senator@gillibrand.senate.gov wrote:

July 7, 2011

Dear Brian,

Thank you for writing to me with regard to legislation that would give the federal government the authority to turn off portions of the internet in the event of a major cybersecurity incident. I understand your concerns.

In the 21st Century, access to the internet has become an indispensible communication tool and a forum for vigorous public discourse. We have seen the power of the internet leveraged to promote democracy and topple repressive regimes in North Africa. While the internet has become a great tool for good, it has also provided new opportunities for criminals to exploit individuals, disrupt commerce and attack governments. For that reason, Congress and the Administration are working on various proposals to better protect the United States against cyberattacks and cybercrime. This is necessary if we are going to be vigilant against existing and emerging online threats and ensure a coordinated and coherent U.S. approach to cybersecurity. In addition, I have sponsored legislation to foster greater international cyber cooperation and ensure that the United States is working with other governments to address the threats emanating from overseas.

Any legislation that is considered by Congress to address cybersecurity must maintain a balance between security and individual rights. I will fully evaluate all legislation as it comes to the Senate floor for consideration to ensure that it strikes the right balance, and work with my colleagues to fully protect the rights of all Americans.

Thank you again for writing to express your concerns, and I hope that you keep in touch with my office regarding future legislation. For more information on this and other important issues, please visit my website at http://gillibrand.senate.gov and sign up for my e-newsletter.

Sincerely yours,

Kirsten Gillibrand United States Senator

Senator Gillibrand:

Speaking as a computer scientist, issues of individual rights need not come into play. Basic computer security procedures are lax for two reasons:

  • human ignorance
  • human laziness

Consider the recent spree of computer break-ins by children: Anonymous, LulSec and others. Each attack has followed vectors well known for at least a decade. The administrators of those machines were, and remain, incompetent. Sony Entertainment ran a web-server daemon several years out of date, with well known and responsibly published flaws. These were exploited by children, crippling the PS3 console online play for weeks. SQL Injections into web application code are well known and chronic problems. Sites confirmed or suspected to have been attacked by children using such injections:

  • the Washington Post job website
  • Oracle’s MySQL website
  • Sony Ericsson’s website
  • Wordpress.org and its flagship product, Wordpress

The list goes on; I’m sure you’re aware of the basic flaws in many State and Federal websites. Such attacks are a result of, as mentioned before, human laziness and or ignorance. No law can address these root causes, unless being stupid is to be made illegal. Enforceable standards of security for computational, government assets are a solution, not extensions to the power of law enforcement to react after a breach has been made. In my lifetime the balance of security and individual rights has too often gone toward security, toward an intolerable overreach, an inept authoritarianism. I want to live freely. I want to live with basic human dignity afforded by my natural rights. Even if it’s done with the best of intention—of which I have no doubt—arbitrary control of the means of communication by our government negates these things, makes all of us beholden, of extent unknown except in hindsight, to a faceless authority, neither elected or removable.

Nearly ten years ago two towers crumbled into dust and flames and a few thousand people died. We went to war, twice, and spilled such blood that, were we able to revive our dead, we might drown them in a pool of it ten times over. After billions spent stripping rights and dignities, reorganizing and expanding the State security apparatus, a handful of Navy SEALs killed an old, despicable man in his bedroom: eight more pints for the pool. Such evident strength of will, such monetary and technological prowess. Meanwhile, water lines burst and are not repaired: budgetary concerns; less than the cost of one tenth of a specially configured helicopter. Tap water flows in rusty and filled with sediments, enough to cause illness. How does a death in Pakistan make me secure of body if I have no water to drink? How does the power to muzzle the primary communication medium of our age give me more of the basic materials to live a life of dignity?

I am yet a young man. Please, I should like to inherit the country I was promised as a child and not an inept authoritarianism which declares its greatness even as basic, vital infrastructure crumbles into the dirt.

— Brian L. Troutwine

5:37pm  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZzgRWy6sUiQN
(Notes: 10)
  
Filed under: computer science government politics security Kirsten Gillibrand Gillibrand New York internet kill switch kill switch law enforcement 
July 6, 2011
Nature -- "...why scientific programming does not compute"

9:08pm  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZzgRWy6qYO4B
(Notes: 6)
  
Filed under: Nature computer programming programming science pdf