Link tags: nsa
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The invisible seafaring industry that keeps the internet afloat
A fascinating in-depth look at the maintenance of undersea cables:
The industry responsible for this crucial work traces its origins back far beyond the internet, past even the telephone, to the early days of telegraphy. It’s invisible, underappreciated, analog.
It’s a truism that people don’t think about infrastructure until it breaks, but they tend not to think about the fixing of it, either.
The Website vs. Web App Dichotomy Doesn’t Exist | jakelazaroff.com
If there’s one takeaway from all this, it’s that the web is a flexible medium where any number of technologies can be combined in all sorts of interesting ways.
Apocalypse-Proof
Back in 2017 when I was in New York, I went on a self-guided infrastructure tour: 32 Avenue of the Americas, 60 Hudson Street, and the subject of this article, 33 Thomas Street. One of my pictures is used to illustrate its creepiness, both in real life and as an evil lair in fiction:
A windowless telecommunications hub, 33 Thomas Street in New York City embodies an architecture of surveillance and paranoia. That has made it an ideal set for conspiracy thrillers.
A Quick History of Digital Communication Before the Internet - Eager Blog
A potted history of communication networks from the pony express and the telegraph to ethernet and wi-fi.
National Security Agency (NSA) security/motivational posters from the 1950s and 1960s [PDF]
This responds to your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, which was received by this office on 5 February 2016 for “A digital/electronic copy of the NSA old security posters from the 1950s and 1960s.”
The graphic design is …um, mixed.
A Wire Across the Ocean | American Scientist
Ainissa Ramirez recounts the story of the transatlantic telegraph cable, the Apollo project of its day.
A web of anxiety: accessibility for people with anxiety and panic disorders [Part 1] | The Paciello Group – Your Accessibility Partner (WCAG 2.0/508 audits, VPAT, usability and accessible user experience)
Enumerating the anti-patterns that cause serious user experience issues that don’t get nearly enough attention:
- Urgency
- Unpredictability
- Powerlessness
- Sensationalism
While such intrusions can be a source of irritation or even stress for many people, they may be complete showstoppers for people with anxiety or panic disorders.
I’m looking forward to reading the follow-up post.
(I was going to say I was anxiously awaiting the follow-up post but …never mind.)
The New York Herald, August 7, 1865
A transatlantic cable, hurrah!
Flying Toasters | After Dark in CSS
For people of a certain age, this will bring back memories of a classic screensaver.
If you had told me back then that the screensaver could one day be recreated in CSS, I’m not sure I would’ve believed it.
How did we end up with a centralized Internet for the NSA to mine? - O’Reilly Radar
A great analysis of how centralised hubs are the easiest attack vector for bad actors like the NSA and GCHQ:
How did we get such industry concentration? Why is a network famously based on distributed processing, routing, and peer connections characterized now by a few choke points that the NSA can skim at its leisure?
NSA files decoded: Edward Snowden’s surveillance revelations explained
A superb piece of hypertext from The Guardian.
PRSM - The Sharing Network
Don’t ever worry about not sharing again.
NSA-Proof Your Email! Consider your Man Card Re-Issued. Never be Afraid Again.
We shouldn’t be protecting ourselves. We should be protecting each other.
How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets - NYTimes.com
Metajournalism.
The Ecuadorian Library by Bruce Sterling
A good ol’ fashioned rant.
NSA: The Decision Problem by George Dyson
A really terrific piece by George Dyson taking a suitably long-zoom look at information warfare and the Entscheidungsproblem, tracing the lineage of PRISM from the Corona project of the Cold War.
What we have now is the crude equivalent of snatching snippets of film from the sky, in 1960, compared to the panopticon that was to come. The United States has established a coordinated system that links suspect individuals (only foreigners, of course, but that definition becomes fuzzy at times) to dangerous ideas, and, if the links and suspicions are strong enough, our drone fleet, deployed ever more widely, is authorized to execute a strike. This is only a primitive first step toward something else. Why kill possibly dangerous individuals (and the inevitable innocent bystanders) when it will soon become technically irresistible to exterminate the dangerous ideas themselves?
The proposed solution? That we abandon secrecy and conduct our information warfare in the open.
Silicon Valley through a PRISM · Ben Ward
Ben is rightly worried by the blasé attitude in the tech world to the PRISM revelations. Perhaps that attitude stems from a culture of “log everything by default”?
I think there’s a deep rooted trait within this industry that sedates the outrage. That is the normality, complicity, and dependency on ‘surveillance’ in the software we make.