Blogger since 2002, political activist since 2003, geek since birth. Opinions informed by mixed-race, multi-ethnic, cis-female condition, further shaped by kind friends of all persuasions. Sci-tech frenemy, wannabe artist, decent cook, determined author, successful troublemaker. Mother of invention and two excessively smart-assed young adult kids. Attended School of Hard Knocks; Rather Unfortunate Smallish Private Business School in Midwest; Affordable Mid-State Community College w/evening classes. Self-employed at Tiny Consulting Business; previously at Large-ish Chemical Company with HQ in Midwest in multiple marginalizing corporate drone roles, and at Rather Big IT Service Provider as a project manager, preceded by a motley assortment of gigs before the gig economy was a thing. Blogging experience includes a personal blog at the original blogs.salon.com, managing editor for a state-based news site, and a stint at Firedoglake before landing here at emptywheel as technology’s less-virginal-but-still-accursed Cassandra.
Over the last handful of days breathless reports may have crossed your media streams about Stuxnet infecting the International Space Station. The reports were conflations or misinterpretations of cybersecurity expert Eugene Kaspersky’s recent comments before the Australian Press Club in Canberra. Here’s an excerpt from his remarks, which you can enjoy in full in the […]
The Republican-led House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, chaired by Rep. Lamar Smith (TX-21), wants the National Science Foundation’s grants to be evaluated based on the “national interest.” Bring it, boneheads. By all means let’s try that standard against EVERYTHING on which we spend federal money. How many television and radio stations, licensing publicly-owned […]
It’s a shame Halloween has already come and gone. The reaction to Monday’s Washington Post The Switch blogpost reminds of a particularly scary horror story, in which a young woman alone in a home receives vicious, threatening calls. There’s a sense of security vested in the idea that the caller is outside the house and […]
This won’t be a cool, calm, collected post like Marcy writes, because it’s me, the angry mom. You might even have seen me Tuesday afternoon in the school parking lot waiting to pick up a kid after sports practice. I was the one gripping the steering wheel too tightly while shouting, “BULLSHIT!” at the top […]
Did you know there was a blizzard last week? I’ll admit I didn’t. Never saw a peep about it across several Twitter and internet news feeds until today. Between 28 and 60 inches of snow fell across parts of South Dakota late last week in a freakishly early snow storm, the white stuff accumulating rapidly […]
I’ll bet tonight’s blog traffic will drop sharply, and explode on Twitter — and at 9:00 p.m. EDT exactly. That’s when the last episode of AMC’s Breaking Bad will air, following a 61-hour marathon of all preceding episodes from the last five years. A friend expressed concern and astonishment at the public’s investment in this […]
If you value emptywheel’s insights, donate the equivalent of a couple beers—and thanks for your readership and support. My Twitter timelines across multiple accounts are buzzing with Apple iPhone 5s announcement news. Pardon me if I can’t get excited about the marvel that is iPhone’s new fingerprint-based biometric security. Let’s reset all the hype: There is […]
If you want fresh and weedy perspectives you won’t find in corporate-owned media, please donate! A friendly handshake is offered; Names are swapped after entry; The entrant delivers a present; The present is unboxed with a secret key… And * BOOM * Payload delivered. This is cyber weapon Stuxnet‘s operations sequence. At two points in […]
Microsoft’s “trusted computing platform.” Microsoft’s “secure boot” technology. The doublespeak almost writes itself these days. Whose “trusted computing”? Whose “platform”? And whose “secure boot”? At least one government has expressed concerns in internal documents, buttressed by an unusual public statement in response to reports about the leaked documents. According to German news outlet Die Zeit, […]
Remember this presentation slide on PRISM from last month’s blockbuster report by the Guardian-UK? Remember the one outlier right smack in the middle of the slide — the company name most folks don’t recognize? PalTalk. Very few news outlets tackled PalTalk, explaining what the business is and asking why it was included in the program. […]