Interesting article in the New York Times – “How China meddled with the Internet,” based on a report to Congress by the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission. The Times article talks about an incident where IDC China Telecommunication broadcast inaccurate Web traffic routes for about 18 minutes back in April. According to the Times, Chinese engineering managers said the incident was accidental, but didn’t really explain what happened, and “the commission said it had no evidence that the misdirection was intentional.” So there was a technical screwup, happens all the time, no big deal? Or should we be paranoid?
No doubt there’s a lot to worry about in the world of cyber-security, but what makes the Times article interesting is this contention (not really attributed to any expert):
While sensitive data such as e-mails and commercial transactions are generally encrypted before being transmitted, the Chinese government holds a copy of an encryption master key, and there was speculation that China might have used it to break the encryption on some of the misdirected Internet traffic.
That does sound scary right? China has an “encryption master key” for Internet traffic?
Except it doesn’t seem to be true. Experts tell me that there are no “master keys” associated with Internet traffic. In fact, conscientious engineers have avoided creating that sort of thing. They use public key encryption.
So why would the times suggest that there’s a “master key”?
Phi Beta Iota: We have three thoughts:
1) There's been a movie on the idea, and a low-rent mind might have been led to use the idea for spin.
2) Much more seriously, we have been told that many routers strip security as a routine means of increasing speed. We do not know the truth of the matter, since encrypted emails do arrive with encryption, but as a general proposition, security does seem to have been sacrificed to speed, and it may be there is no need for an Internet key in general.
3) Finally, we would observe that 80% of signals intelligence is pattern analysis, and being able to pull a massive amount of Internet into a place where pattern analysis of who is talking to who can take place, might, conceivably be worth doing.
Asked to name the world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs, few people would think of Eric Lefkofsky, who is 40 and keeps a deliberately low profile in his hometown of Chicago. But Mr. Lefkofsky has an impressive entrepreneurial track record, one that recently led Forbes to estimate his wealth at $750 million.
The first business Mr. Lefkofsky started, StarBelly, made tools for building Web sites; he sold it in 2000 for $240 million. He then started two companies that have since gone public — InnerWorkings, which provides printing capabilities over the Web, and Echo Global Logistics, a transportation and logistics outsourcing business he founded with a law school friend, Brad Keywell. He also founded MediaBank, which helps companies buy advertising. In each case, Mr. Lefkofsky used the power of technology and the Internet to update an industry.
And then came Groupon, the social-coupon Web site that he bankrolled and started in 2008 with Andrew Mason — a venture that has been called the fastest-growing company ever. Groupon offers its followers a deal-of-the-day coupon, sponsored by a local business, that the followers are encouraged to share with their social networks. The local business gets customers, and Groupon takes a share of the coupon proceeds — a business model that has led to talk that Groupon, still privately owned, could be worth as much as $3 billion. More recently, Mr. Lefkofsky and Mr. Keywell started an investment fund with $100 million of their earnings. It’s called Lightbank, and it invests only in early-stage technology companies that are built around social media. The following is a condensed version of a recent conversation with Mr. Lefkofsky.
A great adjustment in human affairs is underway. Political, commercial and cultural life is changing from the centralized, hierarchical and standardized structures of the industrial age to something radically different: the economy of the emerging digital era.
Amazon Page
A History of the Internet and the Digital Future tells the story of the development of the Internet from the 1950s to the present, and examines how the balance of power has shifted between the individual and the state in the areas of censorship, copyright infringement, intellectual freedom and terrorism and warfare. Johnny Ryan explains how the Internet has revolutionized political campaigns; how the development of the World Wide Web enfranchised a new online population of assertive, niche consumers; and how the dot-com bust taught smarter firms to capitalize on the power of digital artisans.
In the coming years, platforms such as the iPhone and Android rise or fall depending on their treading the line between proprietary control and open innovation. The trends of the past may hold out hope for the record and newspaper industry. From the government-controlled systems of the ColdWar to today’s move towards cloud computing, user-driven content and the new global commons, this book reveals the trends that are shaping the businesses, politics, and media of the digital future.
Help advocate and influence in regards to the following:
There is unseen information in all materials
To know and grow a greater awareness about the world(s) we live in.
$12 backers of this project receive one American made tee shirt + a one page research handout not available online.
In January 2010 I (Jason Liszkiewicz) had a test batch of 52 of these t-shirts printed and sold (see here). It was a non-profit project which I would like to again see in print. My first batch received incredibly positive responses in-person & through the Internet from California to as far as India.
Below is an overview of the scope of the project:
From Farm to Fashion, what goes into the production of one cotton t-shirt?
This is the result of a one year side project to create a public awareness product.
The aim is to stimulate conversation about the water, energy, human labor, toxins, migration, and inventive practices that go into the products we own. How do we perceive or how aware are we about the people and processes that produce the products we have come to depend on in this global commercial society?
First hand research along with information from 30 sources comprise the contents of this shirt.
This T-Shirt is a “gateway concept”. By wearing this, it will insert into society not only the topic of t-shirts, but the overall question of what is the “true cost” of the products we are surrounded by, eating, and wearing? How can these answers become more publicly available? Can more knowledgeable shoppers that base purchase-decisions on more than dollar-amounts eventually augment the way product-designers think, design, and produce?
Imagine true cost information for all products and services available via text messaging/SMS (text a code for each product & service). And eventually, public kiosks in malls, public spaces, etc. A mobile encyclopedia service revealing the “open supply chains.” See http://wiki.re-configure.org for more information.
MassChallenge has awarded OsmoPure, an NCIIA E-Team, one of its four $100,000 prizes. See announcement.
OsmoPure, from Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute, is developing a low-cost water purification device for developing countries based on simple membrane filtration technology. The team showcased the invention at NCIIA's student innovation showcase in San Francisco earlier this year.
The U.S. midterm elections register a level of anger, fear and disillusionment in the country like nothing I can recall in my lifetime. Since the Democrats are in power, they bear the brunt of the revulsion over our current socioeconomic and political situation.
More than half the “mainstream Americans” in a Rasmussen poll last month said they view the Tea Party movement favorably – a reflection of the spirit of disenchantment.
Noam Chomsky
The grievances are legitimate. For more than 30 years, real incomes for the majority of the population have stagnated or declined while work hours and insecurity have increased, along with debt. Wealth has accumulated, but in very few pockets, leading to unprecedented inequality.
These consequences mainly spring from the financialization of the economy since the 1970s and the corresponding hollowing-out of domestic production. Spurring the process is the deregulation mania favored by Wall Street and supported by economists mesmerized by efficient-market myths.
Phi Beta Iota: Emphasis added above. The chapter on “Legitimate Grievances” in ELECTION 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (EIN, 2008) comes in two parts–domestic grievances warranting state nullification of federal abuse, and state consideration of secession if the legitimate Constitutionally-derived Republic cannot be restored; and global grievances occasioned by a century of unilateral militarism, virtual colonialism, and predatory capitalism working in unison to loot the commonwealths of all nations–our elite corrupted the other elites, and between them they have come very close to destroying what should be a prosperous world at peace.
