One News Story Shows All - SOPA/PIPA Isn't Needed, is Stupid, and Doesn't Work

Umm, I think the following post is incorrect - check the update

If you haven't heard, the day after the SOPA/PIPA internet protest, and the governmental retreat, the Justice Department showing their stunningly bad decision making (and timing), shut down Megaupload.com.

Anonymous responded, shutting down the RIAA and the Justice department ( this BTW is not really part of the story )  I do not condone this reprehensible behavior ( believe me ).

On the other hand, I can vouch for the fact that Megaupload is used for legitimate uses - it's where I get my home router firmware.

We shouldn't worry, in spite of our crack justice department work, megaupload was down for less than 24 hours. 

Our taxpayer dollars at work.  Sheesh

Perry

Update
One of the people arrested is Kim Schmitz. Not exactly a poster child for protected speech. Actually a global celebrity in Internet Abuse and Fraud.

Hey - If you've real lost work because you stored it on MegaUpload, did you do a little bit of research?

Update 2 It's probably worse than that

I haven't read the indictment, but Wikipedia has, and says:
"In Megaupload's case, the indictment asserts DMCA provisions were used for the appearance of legitimacy - the actual material was not removed, only some links to it were, takedowns agreement was approved based on business growth rather than infringement, and the parties themselves openly discussed their infringing activities. The indictment states that Megaupload executives "... are willfully infringing copyrights themselves on these systems; have actual knowledge that the materials on their systems are infringing (or alternatively know facts or circumstances that would make infringing material apparent); receive a financial benefit directly attributable to copyright-infringing activity where the provider can control that activity; and have not removed, or disabled access to, known copyright infringing material from servers they control."[46]"

Which, from what I know of Schmitz, is just him acting as himself. So he's making a business stealing intellectual property. This is illegal in a large number of civilized countries, which I define as places where I'd like to live. He was living in a mansion in New Zealand, and (allegedly) living off wholesale IP theft. Too bad for him.

OTOH if he was living in some sort of country where this wasn't illegal, well, our legal process just couldn't touch him, so that would be too bad for us. Oh well, let's see how it plays out in the courts.

Of course, that doesn't matter for Anonymous or Luzsec - they're just in it for the chaos or the Lulz

Perry

Does Android have a Siri Competitor ?

Nuance (owns Dragon) has released a free product that's supposed to be context sensitive voice recognition for Android

http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/10/nuance-dragon-go-android/#continued

Let's see what happens

Remy: Grandma Got Indefinitely Detained (A Very TSA Christmas)

This is hilarious



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek1uqrwLmQk

Alien Spaceship near Mercury

This is an amazing video (with amateur narrator). If I didn't already believe there's life out there, it would definitely move me closer.

From Space.com: On Dec. 1, a camera onboard NASA’s STEREO spacecraft recorded a wave of electrically charged material shooting out from the sun and blasting Mercury. Footage of this “coronal mass ejection” (CME), as such events are called, has caught the attention of alien-hunters, who say it has unveiled a giant, “cloaked” spaceship parked near the solar system’s innermost planet.

Full Disclosure - The space.com article does have some mumbo-jumbo about "image processing artifacts" and/or other things that are hard to understand, but let's just say the aliens are either watching, or, even better, have a vacant, operating, space station out there for us to pick technology off, as soon as we can get that close to Mercury.

Are we up to the challenge?

Perry

Chris DiBona at Google says all AV makers on Android are [crooks]

There's an interesting discussion on the web about whether AV products are needed on Android and Chris DiBona really got things going when he claimed all the AV makers "charlatans and scammers", and "IF you work for a company selling virus protection for android, rim or IOS you should be ashamed of yourself."

[ although these juicy quotes may change in subsequent edits ]

Then,

Antivirus makers responded on Ars - "We're not Scammers"


Unfortunately there was a small matter of 21 apps pulled from the Android market

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/03/malware-in-android-market-highlights-googles-vulnerability.ars

So is this simply a matter of Mr DiBona using a pedantic definition of AV?

1. AV has truly morphed to Malware detection
2. If you use Perry's Law of Malware - You can only respond to two kinds of problems - the kind you've seen and the kind you can anticipate. People who care about their data and IT need to address both - and we can't simply trust Google and the Carriers to do it for us.

Perry

Update 1/4/2012 - Maybe he means this?
http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/fake-antivirus-scams-targeting-android-users-122911

Update 1/28/2012 
From Slashdot: Android Malware May Have Infected 5 Million Users

Oh really?  5 million users af[in]fected because a platform is 

1. Totally insecure
2. Has no AV or Malware detection
3. Even though it has a single place to acquire software, the administrators of the distributor have completely abdicated their responsibilities for quality control 
4. Largely unpatched due to closed platform on customer dependence on suppliers who prioritize releasing new devices far above fixing the security of old devices?

And the people trying to make a business out of this obvious customer need are scammers?
Hello? Anybody home?  

Google knows all, and sometimes it's easy to make them tell

This is interesting - a blogger uses google analytics to de-anonymize another blogger

http://waxy.org/2011/11/google_analytics/

Lesson- If it's important to keep your anonymity - link nothing together

It's 1984, i guess

Well I guess it's like the frog in the water...  He never notices it's boiling until it's too late.

I think it's too late

When will the TV's be two way?  Soon?

What can these people possibly be thinking?

:-(