Yikes:
Two weeks ago, Kakao Talk in South Korea users got an unpleasant surprise. After months of enduring public criticism, President Park Guen-Hye announced a crackdown on any messages deemed as insulting to her or generally rumor-mongering — including private messages sent through Kakao Talk, a Korean messaging app akin to WhatsApp or iMessage. Prosecutors began actively monitoring the service for violations, promising punishment for anyone spreading inappropriate content.
To hear US law enforcement respond, you'd think Apple's move heralded an unstoppable crime wave. See, the FBI had been using that vulnerability to get into people's iPhones. In the words of cyberlaw professor Orin Kerr, "How is the public interest served by a policy that only thwarts lawful search warrants?"
Ah, but that's the thing: You can't build a backdoor that only the good guys can walk through. Encryption protects against cybercriminals, industrial competitors, the Chinese secret police and the FBI. You're either vulnerable to eavesdropping by any of them, or you're secure from eavesdropping from all of them.
Backdoor access built for the good guys is routinely used by the bad guys. In 2005, some unknown group surreptitiously used the lawful-intercept capabilities built into the Greek cell phone system. The same thing happened in Italy in 2006.
In 2010, Chinese hackers subverted an intercept system Google had put into Gmail to comply with US government surveillance requests. Back doors in our cell phone system are currently being exploited by the FBI and unknown others.
Finally, the Western value of equal treatment of individuals under the law is utterly violated if rights are accorded to groups rather than individuals. Affording rights to groups removes the government’s ability to protect individuals from “local bullies.” (In fact, I’ve argued that this is the big mistake modern American libertarianism makes.)
The U.S. population is about 319 million, according to the U.S. Census. Of course, only a fraction of Americans will actually vote in November's election. How small?...
The US Supreme Court on October 6 effectively legalized same-sex marriage in 11 states by deciding not to hear appeals for court rulings that affirmed gay and lesbian couples' right to marry.
Several good data points/articles linked in this one, including:
First, we got new data from the Federal Reserve Board and the Census Bureau, both of which showed that typical families are still seeing very little benefit from the recovery to date. The Fed released the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finance which showed median family wealth was still below the 2010 level in spite of the run-up in the stock market.
The Census Bureau released its annual data on income, poverty, and health insurancecoverage. While there was some good news on the latter two, median income remained flat. The story in both the Fed and Census analysis remains the same: Those at the top continue to get the bulk of the benefits from economic growth.
And why we should leave history to the professionals (in general):
State Board of Ed member: ‘U.S. ended slavery voluntarily’
Pam Mazanec, a Larkspur businesswoman who sits on Colorado’s Board of Education, posted on a Facebook discussion thread her concerns that questions asked on the Advanced Placement U.S. history test “portray the negative viewpoint as the correct answer.”
“As an example, I note our slavery history,” she wrote to a woman who teaches AP U.S history. “Yes, we practiced slavery. But we also ended it voluntarily, at great sacrifice, while the practice continues in many countries still today!
“Shouldn’t our students be provided that viewpoint? This is part of the argument that America is exceptional. Does our APUSH (AP U.S. History) framework support or denigrate that position?”
Nearly a million Texas women will now have to travel a minimum of 300 miles round-trip to access abortion. The provision, which went into effect following Thursday’s court ruling, requires all abortion clinics to meet hospital-style building requirements, reversing the order of a lower-court judge who found the restrictions posed an undue burden to women.