While I was riding the skytrain to work today, a pregnant lady got on at one of the stations. Now, the train was far from crowded yet there were no empty seats [I myself was standing up.] So I look around... the closest seats to the door... 5 men and one woman sitting down. Train starts and I keep looking around to see one of the 'gentlemen' stand up and let her sit - the thought of giving a speech did cross my mind repeatedly during this interval. Lo and behold, nothing happens. We have 5 young, healthy, middle-class men sitting down while a pretty, young, healthy, pregnant middle-class woman is holding on for her life - admittedly, skytrain rides are occasionally bumpy.

The one lady that I mentioned was the one that finally stood up to offer her seat. She was the oldest of the 'group' [as in, over 35 or so] and the only one with a clue as to what's polite. I turned to her to make a remark about how one would expect a gentleman to make that gesture and how none were, apparently, in sight. This would have led to some distinctly painful damages to my body, but that's not why I refrained from comments, she just moved further up the aisle.

I know these things probably happen everyday. And you think "blah, nothing special, what's this guy's deal?" Well, my deal is that it has become something commonplace. We're desensitized, caught in our mindsets and life's something we live on pain-killers, anti-depressants and recreational drugs. I do not think those men were ill-intended. I think they were either unmannered or simply blocking life from their minds [because, yeah, it's fucking hard to deal with life sometimes.] More and more we all go this path, start leaving our children to their own devices, DVD players and video games in Mom' SUV, allowance and rides from Dad. The downfall of the technological age is that everyone has access to technology when some should not be entitled. It is, for many, a drug. It forms addictions that are not physically harmful [in general] and as such tolerated by our gym-going society. The flip-sode is that women are mistreated, not made to feel special and not given the proper attention they deserve.

The list could go on...

society

Well the title says it all, all my test messages sent to the MailVault account came back. I did receive the usual 'delay' message initially and eventually the 'failed delivery' ones. Unfortunately I do not think I will recommend MailVault to anyone - I've discussed the risks of hosting your keyring on someone else's servers - just yet because it is not an e-mailing service just yet. More like sending postcards with no return address.

Unfortunately it is near-impossible to offer encrypted webmail without trying to use this method of hosting the keys. Webmail should be completely mobile and accessible to people with no strings attached; tying them to having to bring their key with them definitely sucks and would not actually make the service remarkable through their encryption schemes. Even storing your private key on a USB stick and bringing that with you is not a solution because, well, once it gets uploaded and used, who's to say how long the server 'cached' copy will stay there?

You need secure, tested and tried applications to use on the local machine. Nothing else is really worth your time. There are quite a few solutions that you can carry around on a decently-sized USB stick in order to not be tied to a particular computer.

cryptography
security

It was reported on www.TWiT.tv #63 that KDM a.k.a. Kevin David Mitnick a.k.a. The Condor is in a hospital in Columbia. Wether this is in the US or in South America... not known at this point.

Good luck!

hacking

I found out of - and begun testing on - a web-based e-mail service dubbed MailVault. While there are countless mail services out there with various but plenty of features for each, why is this a contender?

MailVault allows you to use OpenPGP encryption straight out of your mailbox, without the need to copy/paste content or to use additional applications. You use a passphrase to create a key pair that you can use to sign or decrypt your e-mail [obviously you need someone else's public key to encrypt mail going to them.] All in all, it sounds like a sweet service, short of a few less-than-minor issues:

Yesterday as I was trying this, incoming mail did not reach my Inbox. I tried again today with both encrypted and unencrypted mail but to no avail. I guess you cannot really use this service right now, I will check back to see whether the messages were delayed or not.

Your private key is stored on some server, somewhere. Where cypherpunks worry about keys being stored in the VRAM of the computer during encryption, these guys store keys and make an attempt to advertise their service as super-safe. Which is not and will never be. Sure, it makes sense to use the service for minimal tasks, but then again why bother? It is no safer, in the fight against Big Bro, than plaintext. Since both keys are stored on the server there is little in the way of either impersonating or opening your messages.

False sense of security is much, much worse than paranoia.

cryptography
cypherpunk

So I have decided to branch out and include more than just - scantily, as they have been - tech news and information. This will become more of a 'life of a geek' blog rather than purely a cypherpunkish, hacktivist endeavour. Now, most information will have some sort of technical side to it, either from a 'political' perspective or otherwise.

Onwards for the bulk of this post, a few issues to concern myself with;

• Blogging about blogging and guerilla journalism.


• Mac mods.


• CPU architectures.

Blogging about blogging
This would go in a 'bashlist' entry because, really, how much can you entertain this subject? Sure, artists talk about art, webmasters about webdesign etc. However I have come across numerous blogs with countless entries regarding this topic. Note: You cannot blog about blogging if you do not blog about anything else. I mean, you barely know anything about that in the first place, so let it be. And yes, I do realize how ironic this section is because I am doing that very thing I am condemning, I suppose. But this is what happens when new things go pop, unavoidably.

Are bloggers journalists? Undoubtedly, some are. I am talking about those guys with first-hand knowledge of particular products/technologies/etc that are braking news in their posts. But journalism is also about analyzing facts and discussing them from a certain perspective; in that sense I am using the term of 'guerilla journalism'. Short, concise entries regarding pressing issues and offering a focused analysis. Certainly they are often controversial or unpleasant but this is what makes them that much more important. That is also why I feel 'guerilla' fits. It feels great being part of a revolution that has to take place - in this day and age - across all forts of media available.

Mac mods
I have made a few cosmetic modifications to my interface, basically just a theme and an icon set. Pretty, is it not? :) Certainly, a list of my favourite applications is in the works. Works well especially for new converts [of which I am one, of course] such as Znuff. Well, it is his boss' laptop but maybe soon enough he will get one of his own. One can only hope :)

CPU architectures
A discussion ensued today - on some IRC channel I am a regular of - regarding different CPU architectures. My idea is that we have no conclusive way of properly comparing the existing technologies. We revolved around AMD, Intel and IBM chips and from a consumer perspective I think that the last one is not even relevant anymore [with Apple phasing out their PowerPC line.]

MIPS are irrelevant since they vary greatly across platforms. Clock frequency is inadequate because equal-speed CPUs of RISC and CISC design will be obviously very different.

This just comes as a wake-up call to those people measuring their e-penis in terms of pure speed ratings. My G4 will destroy your comparable [but puny] AMD or Intel running at the same 1.33 GHz speed any day of the week. =)

Well, this should conclude today's episode. Check back, check often, check the RSS. Cheers!

Apple
blog
CPU
personal

Did I mention how much I love 'smart' playlists on my iPod? They let you do all kinds of nifty things and they still do live updating if such selected.

Apple
iPod