I'm scared.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T for passing the traffic on its network backbones and communication databases directly to the National Security Agency (NSA). In short, the NSA was spying on every AT&T internet or telephone customer in the United States, as well as anybody else whose data happened to travel over AT&T's lines en route to its destination. Obviously, this is an flagrant breach of the Fourth Amendment

Yesterday, the Feds filed a 'statement of interest' in the case. It says that the goverment intends to seek dismissal of the case, on the grounds that proceeding will reveal state secrets. The gov't is attempting to remove all accountability to the people, even in a case where the issue is that they're massively violating the Constitutionally-granted rights of those very people!*
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* If that doesn't make you tremble with anger, I ask that you please leave this country. The UK and Australia are even further along than the USA in the transition to a police state - you should be happy in either place. Save America for those who value their freedom.

nerd politics

Recently, I've often found myself pondering the sweeping changes in my political interests and views over the last decade. I think that the central issues in that transformation have been a newfound [and absolute] lack of faith in the government and a sudden [very strong] antipathy towards much of 'Corporate America'.

Re government, I spent most of my childhood believing that a strong (not sprawling and socialist, but strong) federal government would keep me safe from danger, both at home (police) and abroad (military). Now, I have finally realized that fascism is just a different kind of nanny state; it's not largely better or worse than socialism. The only difference is the /kind/ of freedoms you give up, not the /number/. I have always railed against seatbelt and helmet laws [for adults], social security [in its current form, at least], and the progressive income tax. To my list of government evils, I've now added several things from the opposite end of the spectrum: censorship, invasion of privacy, and imperialism.

Re the corporate world, my biggest concern is companies that are actively anticompetitive; when the government fails to put an end to cartels and monopolies that abuse their power, everybody suffers. Secondly, and this is in some ways a subset of the first problem, I cannot help but hate companies that believe they still own my property after I've purchased it. 'Intellectual property' is often the culprit; unfortunately, Congress has taken a piss all over the Constitution (specifically, Article One, Section 8) and given away the rights and freedoms of American citizens to their precious, corporate campaign donors.

After all that ranting, the most important part of this post is a question. What do /you/ care about? Seriously, I want to know. C'mon you lurkers, don't be shy. What are the most important issues facing us today?

IT + MSFT: double-whammy

In my group of about 50-100 engineers, the IT folks set us up with 'My Documents' folders (we use MS Windows 2000) that automatically synchronize our files between a server and our PCs/laptops. A few months ago, the aforementioned server ran out of space. Apparently that had not been anticipated by IT, who nonetheless quickly dumped all our files over to a larger server in another building.

Unfortunately, IT names our file servers partially according to the building in which they reside. Since the servers are in different buildings, the path names to those servers are also different. Our PCs/laptops didn't know the new path name, so nobody could access the master (server) version of their documents! Eventually, between the efforts of IT and the more computer-savvy engineers (e.g. yours truly), everybody got relinked to the correct server.

MS Windows 2000, however, is not smart enough to handle that change. If you edited any documents between the time OldServer died and the time you were first connected to NewServer, your computer had the new version of the document while the server still had the old... and since Windows couldn't find the old server, it had nowhere to sync the new version with. The edited files on your PC are effectively orphaned, and Windows will pester you about it for all eternity, reminding you that you're disconnected from OldServer and urging you to please synchronize your changed documents.

Both IT and I tried everything we could to make MS Windows forget about the old share. We deleted the shared drive, purged the local version of My Documents (which was safe since I had sync'd them to NewServer already), and disabled file synchronization (hoping to erase Windows' memory of the old sync profile). No. Such. Luck.

As if that wasn't frustrating enough, a similar snafu happened again recently. My immediate workgroup has a network drive that we use to store project files, share test data within the group, etc. Some three-plus years after my business unit changed names, many things are still called by the old name: signs, websites, posters, and the name of this particular network drive! Well, IT finally decided that it was time to have the drive name reflect the new BU name. They changed the name, and I had to spend all of Monday 'fixing' people's computers when they couldn't access anything on the shared drive.

You may currently be asking yourself, 'What is the point of this freaking blog? I fell asleep twice already and I didn't even really finish it - I just skipped down to the end!' I'm sorry to disappoint you, but there really wasn't much of point to this. I just wanted to complain about how shitty my IT department and Microsoft are. Sorry!

V for Vendetta

Those crazy Wachowski brothers sure have a knack for writing compelling stories about freedom. The Matrix is, without a doubt, one of my favorite movies of all time. I don't think V for Vendetta is /that/ amazing, but there is one way in which it trumps The Matrix: the relevance of its plot to modern life.

The system of control in the Matrix is transparent to those within its grasp. The people inside have no way of knowing that their free will is nothing but an illusion. In system of control in V, however, is much more tangible in terms of technological and political proximity to the modern world. The oppressors are not futuristic, mechanical overlords. They are regular people who came to power through the regular political process. Their tools, fear-mongering and xenophobia, should be familiar to anyone. Their motive, the consolidation of power in their own hands, is the same motive that drives all governments.

... After all that writing, I've just realized that what I really want to say is much simpler. In summary...
1) V for Vendetta is a sweet action movie. Go see it!
2) V for Vendetta is a frightening portrayal of where our country is headed with legislation like the USA PATRIOT Act. Even scarier is the fact that Britain and Australia may be even worse off than us! Scarier /still/ is that most people are so oblivious that they will probably sit through V for Vendetta without ever realizing how close we are to becoming 'citizens' of a police state.