Quotes

Encryption: Apple vs. FBI

The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers. We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand.

This moment calls for public discussion, and we want our customers and people around the country to understand what is at stake. (…)

Compromising the security of our personal information can ultimately put our personal safety at risk. That is why encryption has become so important to all of us.

For many years, we have used encryption to protect our customers’ personal data because we believe it’s the only way to keep their information safe. We have even put that data out of our own reach, because we believe the contents of your iPhone are none of our business. (…)

The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But that’s simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable. (…)

While we believe the FBI’s intentions are good, it would be wrong for the government to force us to build a backdoor into our products. And ultimately, we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect.

Apple CEO Tim Cook: A Message to Our Customers »

A must read!

The future of digital currencies

What is actually going to happen is, each virtual currency is going to continue doing its thing. If bitcoin’s current situation becomes a problem, people are going to start using something else. That something else will gain traction. It may even become more popular than bitcoin. Or, when that begins to happen, the bitcoin community is actually going to decide to evolve. This process is necessary for evolution. To think that we need only one virtual currency is short sighted. There are going to be many virtual currencies that have various properties that are suited to their environment better than another. Virtual currencies are going to become some of the human beings’ tools to transmit value between each other, in addition to ancient technologies such as bank transfers or Paypal.

Bitsapphire: The necessities of Evolution »

The War on Cash

Holger Steltzner in Frankfurter Allgemeine...

Beim Feldzug gegen das Bargeld geht es um mehr als das Bezahlen. Ginge es nur darum, könnte man die Leute einfach selbst entscheiden lassen, wie sie künftig zahlen wollen. Es geht um das Ende von Privatheit und selbstbestimmter Entscheidung, um Lenkung von Verhalten und um den Zugriff auf das Vermögen. Der Bevormundung des Bürgers wäre in einer solchen Welt keine Grenze gesetzt, Geld wäre kein privates Eigentum mehr. Der Übergewichtige könnte mit seiner Karte auf einmal die Kalorienbombe nicht mehr zahlen, der Alkoholiker sich die Weinflasche nicht mehr besorgen, und am „Veggie Day“ dürfte man mit seinem Smartphone kein Fleisch mehr kaufen. Der Zugriff des Fiskus auf das Konto des Bürgers wäre selbstverständlich. Und in totalitären Staaten gäbe es kein Entrinnen vor Überwachung und Unterdrückung. (…)

Andere Motive sind für den Krieg gegen Cash wichtiger, aber über sie wird weniger geredet. Hier kommen die Notenbanken ins Spiel, auch die Europäische Zentralbank, deren Präsident Draghi schon laut darüber nachdenkt, wie er am besten die Abschaffung der 500-Euro-Note kommuniziert, die der EZB-Rat noch gar nicht beschlossen hat. Ohne Bargeld wären die Bürger den Negativzinsen der Zentralbanken ausgeliefert. Davon träumen auch viele Finanzminister und keynesianische Ökonomen.

Bargeld ist Freiheit » | Google Translate »

Update: Translation to Swedish in the comments, thanks to Christian Engström.

Why the war on VPNs is one Netflix can’t win

Netflix’s solution to its problem is about to create a huge new one — for millions of people who aren’t trying to trick the service out of a Canadian show in the US. One year ago, UK-based GlobalWebIndex estimated that 54 million people use VPNs to watch Netflix every month (Netflix declined to comment to Variety on GWI’s numbers).

What Netflix is asking (er, forcing) its customers to do is, well, insane from a privacy and security perspective. That a company might insist you use 123456 as your password because it solves an internal problem for them sounds … ludicrous. Except that’s pretty much what Netflix is doing by disallowing widespread use of a security tool as critical as a VPN.

Engadget: Why the war on VPNs is one Netflix can’t win »

EU not to regulate Bitcoin. At present.

Over the past few months, the EU, in collaboration of international law enforcement agencies have dedicated a significant allocation of its operations in exploring the application of bitcoin in the dark web. Particularly, the organization has been investigating the use of bitcoin in purchasing illicit goods like weapons and drugs, and hacking groups like DD4BC which demanded ransoms in bitcoin. (…)

Regardless of the growing number of “criminal” activities involving digital currencies including bitcoin, EU’s European Commision and its senior financial services official Olivier Salles stated that it is too early to impose various regulations and financial policies on bitcoin, as technologies are easy to fail when regulated.

EU will Not Regulate Digital Currencies like Bitcoin »

“Just giving people information isn’t enough”

But just giving people information isn’t enough; unless you give them an opportunity to do something about it, it will just make them more apathetic. So the second part of the site is building tools to let people take action: write or call your representative, send a note to local papers, post a story about something interesting you’ve found, generate a scorecard for the next election.

EFF on the upcoming book on Aaron Swartz — The Boy Who Could Change the World.

Link»

Routers, a tool for Big Brother?

Routers, for example, capture ‘chatter’ from smartphones, tablets and wearables, including successful and failed attempts to log onto a network, as well as the time they attempted to connect.

In addition, routers capture a media access control (MAC) address from mobile devices, which are unique identifiers for each phone, laptop or tablet that try to connect to the network.

Daily Mail: Forget fingerprints, ROUTERS could soon help police solve crimes: Data collected by Wi-Fi devices can find and identify criminals »

Meanwhile, in Germany…

(T)he publishers insisted that Google’s News search was somehow illegal and taking money away from them, and thus they demanded money from Google. When Google responded, instead, by removing the snippets providing summaries to their stories, the publishers claimed it was unfair and blackmail. In short, not only do these German publishers want Google to pay them to send them traffic, they want such payments and traffic to be mandatory. (…)

If you thought the situation was over, you underestimated the short-sightedness of VG Media and the German publishers. They’ve now apparently filed a lawsuit against Google over all this, taking the issue into court. Again: this is all because Google is sending their websites traffic… for free.

German Publishers Still Upset That Google Sends Them Traffic Without Paying Them Too; File Lawsuit »