Finally launched the new Haul-All website! My VP had first approached me about this late last summer… he was hoping to have it up in the fall, ha! Neither of us fully anticipated the magnitude of what we had undertaken. Hmm, seems it was about 9 months from conception to now - perhaps I will introduce it to Stephen as his sister. ;) :p
True story.
Don’t believe it? http://itanimulli.com
Soooo somebody registered a domain name and has it forwarded to a government website. That means what exactly? Someone spends $10 a year to mess with conspiracy theorists, that’s what.
My new home ‘office’ setup: macbook, 2 pc’s (one running ubuntu linux w/ touchscreen, the other windows xp), wacom tablet, galaxy tab, 1TB external hd, b/w laserjet, and vinyl plotter.
CISPA Update of the Day: CISPA, the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act that passed the House in April, likely is headed for a Senate vote in early June.
To drum up opposition to the legislation, which would create “a ‘cybersecurity’ exemption to all existing laws,” Fight for the Future, Democrats.com, The Liberty Coalition, and the Entertainment Consumers Association have created a new website called Privacy Is Awesome. The site outlines the top five ways to help defeat CISPA:
- Call your senators and tell them to oppose the Lieberman-Collins bill (CISPA), and ask for a constituent meeting during the Memorial Day recess to help change their mind.
- Email senators offices about CISPA, expressing your opposition.
- Keep calling senators until they plan a constituent meeting.
- Donate to anti-CISPA organizers — the same teams that helped defeat SOPA/PIPA.
- Share your opposition online — Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is spearheading opposition to the legislation, concluding a recent Senate floor speech with:
I believe these bills will encourage the development of a cyber security industry that profits from fear and whose currency is Americans private data. These bills create a Cyber Industrial Complex that has an interest in preserving the problem to which it is the solution.
Watch the full video here. It’s terrific.
F.C.C. Weighs Treating Video Sites Like Cable Companies - Brian Stelter via NYTimes.com
The FCC is likely to let the genii out of th bottle, and redefine who is a Multichannel Video Programming Distributor, or MVPDs, now effectively limited to the linear TV players like Comcast and DirecTV. If the rules are changed to include streaming video services like Hulu and YouTube, the landscape of TV will never be the same:
Brian Stelter via NYTimes.com
Major distributors like Comcast and Time Warner Cable want the definition of M.V.P.D. to remain rather narrow, to include only those who provide the transmission path for programming, like themselves.
Some broadcasters, however, want the definition to be broadened to include online video sites, because then the sites would be subject to the same rules as cable operators, called retransmission consent, and would have to pay fees for their station signals. A number of online TV start-ups, including the Barry Diller-backed Aereo, are trying to sidestep these rules.
Jack Perry of Syncbak, which helps stations simulcast their signals on the Web, said his company would be able to grow more rapidly if the F.C.C. adopted a “21st-century definition of M.V.P.D.’s.”
“The impact could be huge,” he said. Still other stakeholders, including trade groups that represent giants like Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Netflix, have said that the F.C.C. should take more time before deciding.
Yeah, some large players want to avoid paying fees for rebroadcasting, and to possibly limit the entrance of new start-ups.
And the cable and satellite operators want to freeze time, and delay the inevitable, which will turn those companies’ product into a single commodity: basically bringing the Internet to our homes, through which we will be able to access whatever streaming content we want from whatever sources we want: ‘over the top’ TV. Comcast and Time Warner Cable do not want to be competing directly with Apple, Amazon, and Google, but it is in the best interest of the average person is the FCC allows this change to happen.
Stowe Boyd: A Web That Forgets
Megan Garber writes about a new iPhone photo app that will only share pics for a certain period of time — Snapchat — and suggests that the persistence of the web has it’s downside in that it cannot forget, and so we can’t either:
Forget About It: Making the Internet More Like Our Brains -…
Google+ solves Google’s big problems, at least in theory. It delivers a social network—arguably better constructed Facebook—that lets it understand the connections between people. It also lets Google tap into a stream of real-time data, and build a search system around that without having to worry that it will ever be left at the altar. And it does so much more, too! It has real time photos, like Instagram. It has a video chat service, like Skype. It lets you see which businesses your friends recommend, like Yelp. It’s a one size fits all solution, and what’s more it’s on the open Web. Perfect!
One problem: People don’t really want to use it. They’re already entrenched in other stuff. Many of Google’s recent actions can be explained by understanding that dilemma. Google wants to know things about you that you aren’t already telling it so you will continue asking it questions and it can continue serving ads against the questions you ask it. So, it feels like it has to herd people into using Google+ whether they want to go there or not.
This explains why Google has been driving privacy advocates crazy and polluting its search results. It explains why now, on the Google homepage, there’s a big ugly black bar across the top that reminds you of all its properties. It explains the glaring red box with the meaningless numbers that so desperately begs you to come see what’s happening in its anti-social network. It explains why Google is being a bully. It explains why Google broke search: Because to remain relevant it has to give real-world answers.
Google has to get you under its tent, and break down all the silos between its individual products once you’re there. It needs you to reveal your location, your friends, your history, your desires, your finances; nothing short of your essence. And it needs to combine all that knowledge together. That’s Search Plus Your World. “Your World” is not just your friends, or your location. It’s your everything. The breadth of information Google wants to collect and collate is the stuff of goosebumps.
”- Mat Honan, The Case Against Google
Google would like to be the next great thing, the bridge into the future, but instead they are failing to deliver breakthrough technology, despite all their edvantages and huge cash reserves. And realizing it, they have become so desperate, and cavalier about a world dominated by user experience that they will wind up chasing us away.
Google is the new Microsoft.
(via stoweboyd)
Obama And ISP’s To Launch Largest Digital Spying Scheme In History (Must Read)
If you download potentially copyrighted software, videos or music, your Internet service provider (ISP) has been watching, and they’re coming for you.
Specifically, they’re coming for you on Thursday, July 12.
That’s the date when the nation’s largest ISPs will all voluntarily implement a new anti-piracy plan that will engage network operators in the largest digital spying scheme in history, and see some users’ bandwidth completely cut off until they sign an agreement saying they will not download copyrighted materials.
Word of the start date has been largely kept secret since ISPs announced their plans last June. The deal was brokered by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and coordinated by the Obama Administration. The same groups have weighed in heavily on controversial Internet policies around the world, with similar facilitation by the Obama’s Administration’s State Department.
The July 12 date was revealed by the RIAA’s CEO and top lobbyist, Cary Sherman, during a publishers’ conference on Wednesday in New York, according to technology publication CNet.
The content industries calls this scheme a “graduated response” plan, which will see
-Time Warner Cable
-Cablevision
-Comcast
-Verizon
-AT&T
and others spying on users’ Internet activities and watching for potential copyright infringement. Users who are “caught” infringing on a creator’s protected work can then be interrupted with a notice that piracy is forbidden by law and carries penalties of up to $150,000 per infringement, requiring the user to click through saying they understand the consequences before bandwidth is restored, and they could still be subject to copyright infringement lawsuits.
Response: This is much worse than SOPA/PIPA and ACTA. It doesn’t necessarily censor the internet but it spys on everything you do. Your ENTIRE web history will be watched and recorded and might even assist the government. This was coordinated by Obama and his administration with the help of the MPAA and RIAA.
What is so dangerous about this is that this is not a law it is a policy adopted by several companies. That means this will not be debated in Congress and you will agree to be spied on by signing a contract with the company.
Internet censorship is becoming a reality and now the corporate elite will legally be able to spy on you. If we spread this and cause an uproar like what we did with SOPA, maybe they will back down. Either way people NEED to know about this.
We need our own internet. Soon.
