The Secret Life of Cats

The Secret Life of Cats: What You Can Learn by Putting a GPS on Your Kitty - Alexis C. Madrigal - The Atlantic: " . . . The narrative centers on Paul's two cats, Fibula and Tibia, and what happens when the latter mysteriously leaves home for six weeks -- and then returns. Paul becomes fixated on discovering where he'd gone (and where she suspects he continues to go) with the aid of technology. MacNaughton, Paul's partner, rides shotgun on the quest, documenting the trip in a series of improbably hilarious and profound drawings. There are so many good jokes and cute kitties, you can almost miss the terror of loving something (or someone) that provides the book's depth. . . . ."


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Lost Cat, a Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology

A beautiful story--

Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology
By Molly Oswaks
Caroline Paul and her partner, the illustrator (and friend of Gizmodo) Wendy MacNaughton, were devastated when their beloved tabby cat Tibia disappeared from their San Francisco home. It was utterly out of character for the timid Tibby to ...
Gizmodo

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EFF and ACLU team up against CISPA

EFF and ACLU team up against CISPA - Salon.com: "Congress wants to appear as if it’s doing “something” about Internet security. But the truth is that the proposals they’re suggesting don’t address most of the major network security issues. From social engineering to two-step authentication, from the broken CA system to encrypting the web, there are concrete and real issues around network security that can and should be addressed (though a lot of them aren’t legislative solutions). Instead of grappling with these issues, Congress is trying to push an information “sharing” bill that would undermine existing privacy laws."


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Eric Schmidt on threats to internet freedom

Eric Schmidt talks about Internet Freedom and the threats--note what he is talking about, in the case of North Korea and China, is exactly what the UN and its corrupt agency, the ITU, want:

Inside the mind of Eric Schmidt | Alan Rusbridger | Technology | guardian.co.uk: "Let me give you some examples of what governments could do. There is something called the DNS, which is the Domain Name Service, which is how you get to things, so Google.com, Microsoft.com, guardian.co.uk. If you go in and you programme that in a certain way, you can actually delete things. You can also, at the protocol level, lock ports, so you can block, for example, access to YouTube in its entirety. So those have the property that it's not a flat open internet but rather it depends on which country you're in. There are things called VPNs. The Chinese Government, for example,plays a game we call whack-a-mole, where every time a VPN shows up, they shut it down and people move. Using modern encryption there are ways of getting even more sophisticated versions of this kind of thing working. The problem is that if you put these restrictions in place, the elites will figure out a way to get around it, but the average person won't, because they don't have time, or knowledge, or education, so there's a real loss of information."

Never, ever, let the ITU or UN take over the internet!


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Who Are the Enemies of the Internet?

Christophe Deloire: Who Are the Enemies of the Internet?: "Two billion people across the world now have access to the internet -- but for a third of them, that access is limited by government censorship, filtering and surveillance. The Internet's founders saw it as a place of freedom, a place where anyone could exchange information and ideas, a place that went beyond borders. That model is now under threat -- in a battle without bombs or bullets. And the future of freedom of information is at stake."


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Tokyo cat cafe - Islandia (video)

Tokyo cat cafe - Islandia (video)

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Online fury after airport feline fatality - 'The cat is no more'

A tragic story--another airline feline fatality--

'The cat is no more': Online fury after airport feline fatality - CNN.com: "Preeti Varma was inconsolable after seeing her pet cat crushed to death at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport as the creature was loaded onto a flight to Singapore. "You see a crowd forming round her but she is given no medical aid and no one does anything," Varma says of the March 23 incident. Her grief soon turned to rage among tens of thousands of online pet lovers worldwide.The day after Varma's cat, James Dean, died, a friend published online an open letter to Jet Airways, the international airline that had been carrying the cat.The letter demanded a full explanation and apology from the privately owned Indian airline and blasted its "insensitive" handling of the tragedy and pet travel procedures. The blog post spread quickly across social media sites and within 24 hours had 20,000 hits from across the world. Hundreds of furious animal lovers also unleashed Twitter fury at Jet Airways, forcing the airline to issue two public statements on Facebook. . . ." read more at link above

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Embryos of world's most endangered cat preserved

Iberian Lynx

The copyright holder of this photo, Programa de Conservación Ex-Situ del Lince Ibérico, allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed. Redistribution, derivative work, commercial use, and all other use is permitted.

Embryos of world's most endangered cat preserved for 1st time | Fox News: "The Iberian lynx is the only wild cat to be listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and IZW is working with the Iberian lynx Conservation Breeding Program to help save them. If reviving a dying species sounds ambitious, consider the scientists who are trying to bring back animals that are already extinct. . . ." (read more at link above)

Interesting--I hope they are successful!

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Aaron Swartz Prosecution Team Claim They Have Been Threatened And Harassed

Aaron Swartz Prosecution Team Threatened And Harassed: " . . . Members of the legal team responsible for prosecution of Aaron Swartz have claimed they received threatening letters, emails and some had their social network accounts hacked following the death of the Internet freedom activist. The US Department of Justice filing claimed the lives of US attorney for Massachusetts Carmen Ortiz, assistant attorney Stephen Heymann and others were made miserable after hackers identified them and posted their personal details online, the practice sometimes known as “doxing”. . . ." (read more at links above and below)

Stephen Heymann - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: " . . . Heymann's conduct in United States v. Aaron Swartz has proven controversial.[18][19] A White House web site petition to fire him for his handling of the case garnered more than 25,000 signatures in less than a month.[5][20] One attorney for Swartz accused Heymann of using the case to gain publicity for himself.[21] Two others submitted a complaint to the Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility, accusing Heymann of prosecutorial misconduct and alleging the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence and undermined Swartz's right to a fair trial . . ."

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New CFAA Draft Could Have Put Aaron Swartz in Jail For Decades Longer

Dysfunctional Washington at it again--

Congress’ New CFAA Draft Could Have Put Aaron Swartz in Jail For Decades Longer Than the Original Charges | Electronic Frontier Foundation: "Law professor and historian Tim Wu has called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) the “worst law in technology.” The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has described the government’s interpretation of it “expansive,” “broad,” and “sweeping.” And Orin Kerr, former federal prosecutor and law professor, has detailed how the government could use it to put "any Internet user they want [in jail]." So it's pretty surprising to see that now, instead of reining in the CFAA’s dangerous reach, the House Judiciary Committee is floating a proposal to dramatically expand it and is reportedly planning to rush it to the floor of Congress during its April “cyber” week." (read more at link above)

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Endangered sharks return to Bahamas

Endangered Sharks swim home to the Bahamas--

BBC Nature - Endangered sharks return to Bahamas 'home': "The team found that although the sharks travelled far and wide as expected, they also spent a considerable amount of time in Bahamian waters. "I was not surprised that they went long distances but I was surprised that they turned right back around and returned to the Bahamas," Dr Chapman told BBC Nature. "We really think of these oceanic whitetips as ocean wanderers, we didn't think we'd see such a strong pattern of return migration." According to Dr Chapman, the results suggest that a ban on long-line fishing in the 1990s, reinforced by the more recent sanctuary status of the waters, combines to make the Bahamas a safe haven for the sharks. "I think one of the key questions about sanctuaries is 'do they work?' and this is a clear example that shows sharks benefitting from a sanctuary designation," said Ms Karan." (read more at link above)

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Internet Under Assault by the UN and ITU

“The idea that the UN ought to be controlling the Internet . . .  is like putting the Taliban in charge of women’s rights”

Thank God for the United States and allies who are trying to keep the Internet free--

Internet ‘Under Assault’ by Censoring UN, Regulator Says - Bloomberg: "International proposals to control the Internet will continue after a United Nations conference in Dubai and the U.S. should be ready to fight such efforts, lawmakers and a regulator said. “The Internet is quite simply under assault,” Robert McDowell, a member of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, said yesterday at a joint hearing by three House subcommittees. McDowell, a Republican, warned of “patient and persistent incrementalists who will never relent until their ends are achieved.” The U.S. and other nations refused to sign a revised telecommunications treaty at the UN conference (WCIT 2012 sponsored by the ITU) in December, saying new language could allow Internet regulation and censorship by governments. Technology companies including Google Inc. (GOOG), owner of the world’s largest Internet search engine, also opposed the changes. . . .  The U.K., Canada and Australia were among 55 delegations that refused to sign the telecommunications treaty or indicated they would need to check with their governments, while 89 countries signed the pact, according to a House Energy and Commerce Committee memorandum. The treaty doesn’t take effect until January 2015, providing an opportunity to persuade other nations not to adopt the regulations, the committee said in the memorandum. . . . " (read  more at link above)


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Lost Cat - A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology (video)

Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology - Cat owners Caroline Paul and Wendy MacNaughton offer a tender, hilarious illustrated look at how they used everything from cutting edge technology to psychics to track the adventures of their beloved cat Tibia. Visit www.lostcatbook.com for more information

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How US anti-hacking law went astray

Miscarriages of justice perpetrated by the so-called US Department of Justice--In 20 years, we've seen the law become broader and the penalties become more Draconian," says Hanni Fakhoury, a former federal public defender who's now an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco (source CNET, infra)

From 'WarGames' to Aaron Swartz: How U.S. anti-hacking law went astray | Politics and Law - CNET News: " . . . Aaron Swartz, the Internet activist who committed suicide while facing the possibility of a felony criminal conviction, was prosecuted under a law that was never intended to cover what he was accused of doing. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984 dealt only with bank and defense-related intrusions. But over the years, thanks to constant pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice, the scope of the law slowly crept outward. So by the time Swartz was arrested in 2011, the tough federal statute meant to protect our national defense secrets covered everything from Bradley Manning's offenses to violating a Web site's terms of use, a breathtaking expansion that has led to a House of Representatives hearingtoday and other calls for reform. In the hands of aggressive federal prosecutors, that wide-ranging law has become the proverbial hammer where a scalpel will do. It has been used against a New Jersey man who will be sentenced Monday for accesssing a portion of AT&T's Web site that was not password protected, and against a Missouri woman accused of lying on her MySpace profile. . . . " (read more at the link above)


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