And now Silent Mail shuts down and speaks out

Phil Zimmerman, who is the creator of the PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption algorithm and the head of Silent Circle, the other encrypted global communication company that shut down along with Lavabit, has explained in an open letter why he took this action. He says that unlike the other services that his company provides for phone, video, and text services, where his company retains no data that it can be forced to provide to third parties and is thus secure from end-to-end, the nature of email is such that he could not provide that level of guarantee. [Read more…]

The strange story of Lavabit

Two email companies that used encrypted systems, one of which was used by Edward Snowden, have decided to shut down because they were clearly asked to do things by the government that compromised their clients’ confidentiality and they refused to do so.

The bizarre nature of the country we now live in demonstrated by the short letter that the head of one agency (Lavabit) released, of which I will highlight a small bit. [Read more…]

Australia’s Sarah Palin?

Stephanie Banister, a parliamentary candidate in next month’s Australian federal elections from the right wing nationalist One Nation party, is being described as their Sarah Palin. And it is not a compliment as this clip from a news report indicates. She thinks that Islam is a country and uses the Arabic word ‘haram’ (which roughly translates as sinful or forbidden or disapproved by god) as a umbrella term to cover anything Islamic. [Read more…]

Don’t judge an envelope by what it says

On Monday, there was left on our doorstep a small package in a white envelope. There was no address but on the top right there was a printed image of a cancelled stamp with the Star of David and Hebrew lettering on it, below which was written “Hand delivered by IRM”. On the top right where the return address would be was the same Hebrew word in larger lettering, below which was a logo of a menorah and “ISRAEL RESTORATION MINISTRIES: Hope and Gladness for the Jewish People”. [Read more…]

Introversion and extroversion

Of the ‘Big Five’ dimensions that psychologists use to classify people’s personality traits (Openness v. Closed mindedness; Conscientiousness v. Disorganized; Extroversion v. Introversion; Agreeableness v. Disagreeableness; Neuroticism v. Calmness), the extrovert/introvert dimension probably draws the most attention and interest, perhaps because we think it is the easiest to identify in others and identify with ourselves. [Read more…]

The trickle of information continues

As one could have predicted, news is slowly emerging that the sweeping statements provided by the government about the limits of the information it was collecting are turning out to be false. They said that they only collect metadata and not the contents of the messages themselves. But a new report says that they do search through the data looking for certain keywords and if those are found, those emails are saved for later close analysis by humans. [Read more…]

How to reduce the threat of terrorist attacks

Medea Benjamin takes a logical approach to this question. She identifies ten things that the US is doing that are inflaming tensions in the Middle East and suggests that not doing them might reverse the situation. As she says, “This 10-point plan would significantly reduce terrorist threats, save taxpayers billions of dollars and make Americans more loved and admired in the world. After a decade of wielding the military stick, it’s time for some carrots.” [Read more…]

Obama administration supports prayers at government meetings

As I wrote before, the US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge to the practice of the Town Board of Greece, NY opening its meetings with a prayer that was almost exclusively Christian. The court has put this case on its docket for the 2013-2014 session but a date for oral arguments has not yet been announced. Another federal judge in North Carolina also ordered a county government to stop having an opening prayer at its meetings. [Read more…]

The problem with the NSA data gathering

Most of us are law abiding and not law fearing. By that I mean that people follow the law because they think it is reasonable to do so. This is why people stop at stop signs even in remote areas where there is no one around and they can clearly see that there is no cross traffic. This is also why people (mostly) are truthful about what they say on their tax returns and don’t steal their neighbor’s newspapers and potted plants when they are away. [Read more…]