Anonymous is at it again. The only group at the moment who seems to have the guts to stand up to ISIS’s Cyber Caliphate, Anonymous has defaced an ISIS site with an add for Viagra and enhanced calm.
Author: Will Ross
Okay, Terrorists Might Have Used Games Consoles To Communicate… But Please Calm Down About It
Quite a breathless little moral panic is starting over reports that ISIS terrorists may have used PS4 consoles to communicate while planning the attacks. One of the raids in Brussels reportedly found a PS4 console. The federal home affairs minister then compared it to WhatsApp, a popular communication app, saying it was even more difficult to keep track of. This has, of course, kicked off a bit of excitement in the tech and semi-tech press, over something that’s not even confirmed to have been their main vector of communication yet – but beyond 1) they had a console and 2) it might have been used, that’s all we actually know. Well, we know terrorists are console plebs, I guess. That’s three things. Confirmed
ISIS console plebs https://t.co/2xB3NnWROV — Mairéad (@MargaretsBelly) November 15, 2015 So instead of speculating, let’s talk about not speculating. About not being afraid of technology just because a bad person touched it, or misused it. About not being afraid in general, since that’s kinda what these stories end up doing – making us afraid of our technology – in particular things that spawn confusing subcultures like video games. It’s no great surprise that everyone in the world hates gamers and
‘Fallout 4′ Release Leads to Drop in Pornhub Traffic
Pornhub’s Insights blog is a guiltier pleasure than their actual site — it’s data porn about porn. It turns out gamers change their porn viewing habits around new releases, or at least for Fallout 4.
Your Vizio TV May Be Watching You
ProPublica, a nonpartisan journalism outlet I’ve done a bit of pro bono work for in the past, has released a story about how Vizeo’s smart TVs ship with an on-by-default setting that shares quite a bit of fairly invasive information, like very specifi…
‘Kingdom’ Review: Capitalism Works
My horse is swift, my torch is bright, and I’ve got a sack full of sweet, sweet gold to throw right at peasants. I may be a harsh taskmaster, but you’ll all thank me once it gets dark and the monsters come. There’s a blood moon tonight, and anybody wh…
Ten Years And $3bn Into Immigration Digitization, The Government Has Processed 1 Form
The government is terrible at computers. It gets breached, intercepted, and defaced… and that’s when they can actually get a website up and running, as the well-known Obamacare problems remind us. Despite the VA promising to improve its outdated records systems, so bad they once nearly caused a structural collapse from the weight of paper, it’s not modernizing fast enough to help our veterans. Technology legislation and execution just aren’t the federal government’s wheelhouse. Our computer crime laws were literally written in response to Matthew Broderick movies. So in news that’s not a great surprise to anyone, the Washington Post is reporting today that we’ve botched another records modernization push. The government has managed to digitize a grand total of a single immigration form… in 10 years. There are 94 others left to complete, meaning at this pace they’ll be finished at about the time I’m dead long enough for my writings to pass into the public domain. Technically, three forms made it through, but two had to be pulled because “nearly all of the software and hardware from the original system had to be junked.” According to the Post: “The initiative was mismanaged, the records and interviews show. Agency officials did not complete the basic plans for the computer system until nearly
This Hilarious Short Film Mocking Social Justice In Schools Is Going Viral
Modern Educayshun, a short film by Neel Kolhatkar, is a hilarious take on social justice and Oppression Olympics culture, and we urge you to watch it. It’s the followup to his short film #Equality, which enjoyed over a million views and has been making the rounds all year on social media since it was released in January. Neel Kolhatkar is an emerging talent in Australia. We like him!
‘Sublevel Zero’ Review: A Rogue-Like ‘Descent’ into Classic Fun
Before I get too far into reviews where I’m “fanboy compromised,” I like to disclose that fact — I enjoyed 1995’s Descent a lot. So when I saw that Sigtrap Games had released a rogue-like Descent-like mine shooter titled Sublevel Zero, I put on my he…
If Bernie Sanders Hates Uber, Why Is It The Only Cab Service He Uses?
Bernie Sanders really isn’t a fan of Uber, the ride-share company he’s called “unregulated” with “serious problems” in an interview with Bloomberg in August. So it strikes us as odd that his own campaign uses this “unregulated service” a stunning 100 per cent of the time. Now, I’m actually the last person at this masthead to take a shot at Bernie for no good reason. I’m center-left, and frankly I’m terrified that we’re going to be stuck with a Hillary coronation. And between Black Lives Matter breaking up his rallies because… well, I can’t quite explain the political strategy where you hit your own side like that, and Hillary already pulling the sexism card out of her Pokemon deck because someone said “shouting,” I really don’t think Bernie is getting a completely fair shake in this primary. Bernie is the liberal Trump. He probably can’t win, but he forces the Democrats to say what’s actually on their minds, and he’s untethered from the large, dark-money interests that control what’s almost certain to be the most expensive election in world history. Basically he’s a really important disrupter, even if he doesn’t end up as our candidate, and as a kinda-sorta-liberal you’ll always see me giving him the fairest shake
Media Whips Up Sensationalist Headlines About ‘Drone Porn’
Today the Daily Star posted an article called “DRONE PORN: Shock rise in sex pests filming horny Brit couples from the sky,” which I think we can all agree is the best title ever. The question I was asking myself is, is this true, or are we seeing ano…