how is this news?

from here (source image)

thanks to ryan naraine for tweeting this absurd 'news'paper headline (and for the title). of course the government is examining your social network data. we heard about them gathering data from facebook months ago. that was part of the whole prism brouhaha. then there's the phone metadata whose primary utility is in mapping social connections.

so you want to quit facebook?

see more hipster robot webcomics and pixel t-shirts

oh, facebook, why can't i quit you? oh, right, because you track me all over the internet even when i'm not logged in or have never made an account.

(edited to add: apparently rstevens' hotlink code links to his site but not this exact comic. here's the link)

it's the end of security as we know it

from here

it's the end of security as we know it, and i feel fine.

when the government talks of NSA oversight

tweeted by Koen Rouwhorst

for extra-lawful intimate knowledge

from here (source image)

intimate knowledge is not the same as intimacy, clearly.

i wonder how the first lady feels about all the unwanted attention the president is giving other people.

XKCD on privacy

found on XKCD

that seems to be a pretty good list of the different sorts of opinions people have about privacy, but it's missing an important one: the one that sees privacy as an essential defense against the subversion of free will.

you're a keen one, mr. lynch

from here (source image)

i doubt you could actually swing that sword properly inside a normal home, but i'm sure if some pesky kids did break into his home and saw that then they'd never do it again. it doesn't need to be effective at cutting so long as it's effective at deterring.

chris the crafty cockney

fictional as this may be, part of the humour is in how true it is. while i don't think a thief would admit to it so readily, it's amazing how many signs people will actually overlook when it comes to placing trust in complete strangers.

where's that farm yard smell coming from?

from here (source image)

if you can't even tell the difference between a dog and a goat, i don't want to know what you think qualifies as security.

trust no one

found on fail blog

trust is such a hard problem. it seems like collectively we are always putting our trust in the wrong people. the safest bet would be to not trust anyone, but is that feasible? maybe we should just cut back on the trusting instead.