Firesheep Countermeasures

It's just that simple.

Amplify’d from steve.grc.com

Amid all the fury over the release of Firesheep, no one else seems to have noticed, or at least mentioned, that the only thing any WiFi hotspot needs to do to protect its users is activate WPA encryption using any simple publicly-known password.

As long as the universally supported WPA encryption protocol is used, each individual user receives their own private “session key” that absolutely prevents eavesdropping between users, even through they are all using the same WiFi password.  It’s just that simple.

Hotspots only need to switch from “no encryption” to WPA and post or publish any static WPA password … and a large part of the problem, and more, is solved. Read more at steve.grc.com

 

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The Meltdown Caucus

Argh! I feel like Brewster's Millions. I just want to vote for "None of the Above"

Amplify’d from www.slate.com

I bring this up because it's the legacy of Macaca, an inevitability of the age of cheap, free media and atomized political media. You can ruin your career by doing or saying something stupid. And that's obvious, but we might be adding more bodies to the pile this year.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. Members of Congress should be deferential to their constituents, and they should never physically assault the people they're arguing with. Obviously. But the danger of being captured on film looking like a jackass (and it really could be the introduction of the camera that induces the jackassitude and panic) is, so far, leading to smarter candidates realizing they should limit access. See: the Democrats putting restrictions on how to attend their town halls. Read more at www.slate.com

 

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Obama's Last Laugh

A (surprisingly?) lucid take on Stewart's interview with Obama on #thedailyshow. I have to say I have been impressed with Stewart's abilities as an interviewer, particularly with guests he clearly doesn't agree with. He presses them, but he doesn't go out of his way to belittle them or humiliate them.

Amplify’d from www.thedailybeast.com

While joshing around with Barack Obama last night on a set festooned with faux Roman columns, Stewart spoke as the voice of disenchanted liberalism, demanding to know: What happened to that hope-and-change guy?

"You ran with such, if I may, audacity… yet legislatively it has felt timid at times," the host said. "I am not even sure at times what you want out of a health care bill."

That the president of the United States would appear on the Daily Show six days before a midterm election that could sink his party speaks volumes, or at least chapters, about that buzzworthy forum. But it was also a test of sorts for the host, who is casting his big "sanity" rally in Washington as an escape from the nuttiness fostered by the extremes of both parties.

I'd say Stewart passed the initial exam, making Obama feel comfortable while also delivering the zinger that "Democrats this year seem to be running on 'please baby one more chance.'"

Stewart told me years ago that he regarded the nightly interview segment as little more than filler that spared his staff from having to write one more comedy sketch. But it's evolved into an key component of the program, as anyone who saw his combative sessions with CNBC's Jim Cramer or health care critic Betsy McCaughey can attest (though Stewart conceded that Bush torture defender John Yoo "slipped through my fingers"). Read more at www.thedailybeast.com

 

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A guide to the misguided criticism of the Stewart/Colbert rally

Good take-down of press angst over #rally4sanity. My favorite criticism: "But Stewart appears uninterested in generating enduring change; he wants a day-long party. Then people can go back to the things that matter — lives of domesticity, and watching shows that make jokes about how seriously screwed up things are." Party on, dudes!

Amplify’d from www.tbd.com

Stewart, who's been rationing out details for weeks, would only say, "Let me put it this way — you'll have fun." It's a word that bears repeating — "fun" — and one that Stewart has been repeating, perhaps because a growing number of cultural critics, unlike his fans, refuse to believe that a comedian who hosts a news-satire show on a channel called Comedy Central could possibly aspire only to be entertaining.

"I think that they're all guilty of what jazz musician Charles Mingus called 'mental tardiness,'" Slate's Jack Shafer, who doesn't plan to write a Press Box column about the rally, tells me. "I think these critics aren't really thinking it out all the way."

Or maybe they're thinking too hard. While their conclusions, invariably, are that Stewart and Stephen Colbert should cancel their Oct. 30 rally, the supporting arguments are myriad, ranging from "Stewart is too serious" to "laughing isn't funny."

What strikes me most about the aforementioned critiques is their tone — of admonishment, betrayal, and even anger.

Clearly, the rally is political. Stewart even admitted at Monday night's taping of The Daily Show that he booked the National Mall right after he heard about Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally, and surely it's not lost on Stewart that his event falls just three days before the midterm elections. To say the rally isn't political is slightly disingenuous.

What Stewart means to say, of course, is that he's not overtly espousing a particular partisan line. Is he pushing his fans in a leftward direction? Sure — just look at The Daily Show lineup this week, which includes President Obama tonight. But anyone who's watched the show knows where Stewart's political beliefs lie, and many of the critics above are professed fans of his. So why this sudden defection? Because, I think, they felt a certain ownership over, or at least camaraderie with, Stewart. Print and web journalists, generally speaking, are a prickly, defensive, and arrogant bunch. We imagine ourselves superior to TV newscasters, who traffic in sound bites and manufactured controversy and high-decibel alarmism. In our minds, we writers slave away at our desks, composing thoughtful articles that are too nuanced for TV, and yet we remain largely anonymous while all those empty-headed beautiful people soak up the relative fame afforded by television.

As the criticism of Stewart's rally proves, we are delusional: Writers often aren't very thoughtful at all. We're just bitter. We loved Stewart because he voiced that bitterness we felt — about politics, about television, and even about our own careers. Now that his narrative has diverged from our own, we fear he'll become just another media figure — or worse, a politician — about whom we're forced to write articles. Some of us, consequently, reject Stewart in the way we might reject a boyfriend or girlfriend who has left us for something bigger: He or she is already gone, but somehow we convince ourselves that the decision was ours to make. Read more at www.tbd.com

 

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The World’s Largest Solar Project

It seems to me that 1000 MW is kind of small for industrial power generation, but it is significant. The company's website indicates other projects that generate more, so I don't know if this is really the largest. It's a start, anyway.

Amplify’d from techcrunch.com

Solar Millennium, a German firm, plans to build four plants on the expansive property with a total capacity of 1,000 megawatts— which is roughly on par with the country’s current total solar capacity. With 1,000 MW at completion, the station would be able to power more than 300,000 homes.

The hope, the company says, is to start supplying the grid with electricity by 2013. In terms of regional economic impact, Solar Millennium predicts that the project will hire 1,000 people during the construction phase and 220 permanent workers (once its operational). Read more at techcrunch.com

 

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The Top 5 PC Alternatives To The MacBook Air

Just a little perspective for those those getting a little tired of the big Apple-gasm going on.

Amplify’d from www.crunchgear.com

Well, yeah, but the MacBook Air isn’t for everyone. Good thing the PC world has been doing the ultra-portable thing just as long as Apple and offers some quality alternatives. Sure, there really isn’t one model that soundly beats the new MacBook Air in every category, but the same can be said about the Air versus the five computers listed after the jump. Read more at www.crunchgear.com

 

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Sorry for the repeat, just testing... http://amplify.com/u/dv7l

The real danger from NPR's firing of Juan Williams

I don't always agree with Greenwald, but here he has an effective takedown of all the faux umbrage over the firing of #juanwilliams.

Amplify’d from www.salon.com

But there's one point from all of this I really want to highlight. The principal reason the Williams firing resonated so much and provoked so much fury is that it threatens the preservation of one of the most important American mythologies:  that Muslims are a Serious Threat to America and Americans.  That fact is illustrated by a Washington Post Op-Ed today from Reuel Marc Gerecht, who is as standard and pure a neocon as exists:  an Israel-centric, Iran-threatening, Weekly Standard and TNR writer,  former CIA Middle East analyst, former American Enterprise Institute and current Defense of Democracies "scholar," torture advocate, etc. etc. Gerecht hails Williams as a courageous "dissident" for expressing this "truth": Read more at www.salon.com

 

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