On Edward Snowden

Let me get this straight.

You want to fight against your nation's secretive ways that you insist are against the nation and your fellow countrymen and the people of your nation and to do it, you go to Russia?


Seriously?

Good news--and bad--on your birthday

First, the bad news:

The Google and Facebook and Pinterest and Socialcam and all kinds of computer organizations and people know all kinds of things about you, because of your computer and what you do and where you go on it.

Additionally, they sell that information.

Third, they can--and maybe sometimes do?--track you on it.

The good news?

They remember your birthday and send you this:

Think happy thoughts.

(Have a great weekend, y'all).

A problem with Google

I hate how, by hook or by crook, Google wants to make sure that somehow, some way, with all the sites and services they have to offer, they're going to find some way--some way--to get all our phone numbers. It really chaps my hide. Bloodsuckers.

Two very common computer things that shouldn't exist

The first is spam.

I mean, really.  People are sitting around, running machines so they can send out this crap and somehow, remarkably, they make money doing it.

Who responds to this nonsense anyway?

Yet somehow, somewhere, someone does.  And again, someone else then makes money.  Further proof, yet again, as if we needed it, that "There's a sucker born every minute."

The other thing that shouldn't exist is hacking and hackers.

At lest, the hackers that just do it for hacking sake.

I'm not talking about the international espionage hacking of one country vs. another or the hacking into a bank, for example, in an effort to steal millions--or billions of dollars.  At least you can say they've got a goal and a reason and purpose, albeit wildly illegal.

I'm talking about the computer hacking that is just so the hacker can see if they can do it.  Apparently these guys have nothing better to do than just hack for hacking's sake.

Now, if those same hackers could use their time, instead, to create some beautiful, elegant, simple, truly effective security program that would work on even just Microslop, I mean Microsoft computers, they'd be trillionaires.

We can't even imagine the devastation of a cyber war in the US

President Obama is wisely and quietly both warning the country and trying to protect us, much as any government can, from any cyber warfare that would shut down the internet in this country. It's a huge threat to virtually all business in this country and so, our way of life. Truly, we can't even imagine the devastation that kind of an act--a collapsed internet--would have on this country. Sure, nothing would be blown up and no one would be killed but the financial devastation would be virtually complete, if "successful". Think World War III, without the bombs. You can't. Link: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/06/cia-cyber-warfare-could-paralyze-us.html