Recommended:

> #### Cyber Law, Tech and Policy

> [Meet Executive Order 12333: The Reagan Rule that Lets the NSA Spy on Americans](http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/meet-executive-order-12333-the-reagan-rule-that-lets-the-nsa-spy-on-americans/2014/07/18/93d2ac22-0b93-11e4-b8e5-d0de80767fc2_story.html) — John Napier Tye, former section chief for Internet freedom in the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, in an OpEd at The Washington Post:

“A legal regime in which U.S. citizens’ data receives different levels of privacy and oversight, depending on whether it is collected inside or outside U.S. borders, may have made sense when most communications by U.S. persons stayed inside the United States. But today, U.S. communications increasingly travel across U.S. borders — or are stored beyond them. For example, the Google and Yahoo e-mail systems rely on networks of ‘mirror’ servers located throughout the world. An e-mail from New York to New Jersey is likely to wind up on servers in Brazil, Japan and Britain. The same is true for most purely domestic communications. Executive Order 12333 contains nothing to prevent the NSA from collecting and storing all such communications — content as well as metadata — provided that such collection occurs outside the United States in the course of a lawful foreign intelligence investigation. No warrant or court approval is required, and such collection never need be reported to Congress. None of the reforms that Obama announced earlier this year will affect such collection. Without any legal barriers to such collection, U.S. persons must increasingly rely on the affected companies to implement security measures to keep their communications private. The executive order does not require the NSA to notify or obtain consent of a company before collecting its users’ data.”

> [Network Neutrality and Quality of Service: What a Non-Discrimination Rule Should Look Like](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2459568) – a new paper [(pdf)](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2461807_code523473.pdf?abstractid=2459568&mirid=1) by Stanford Law Professor Barbara Van Schewick.

> [Why the Security of USB Is Fundamentally Broken](http://www.wired.com/2014/07/usb-security/) — Wired:

”Computer users pass around USB sticks like silicon business cards. Although we know they often carry malware infections, we depend on antivirus scans and the occasional reformatting to keep our thumbdrives from becoming the carrier for the next digital epidemic. But the security problems with USB devices run deeper than you think: Their risk isn’t just in what they carry, it’s built into the core of how they work. That’s the takeaway from findings security researchers Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell plan to present next week, demonstrating a collection of proof-of-concept malicious software that highlights how the security of USB devices has long been fundamentally broken.”

> #### General Interest

> [40 Years on, the Barcode Has Turned Everything Into Information](http://www.wired.com/2014/06/forty-years-on-the-humble-barcode-has-turned-everything-into-information/) — Wired:

“On June 26, 1974, at 8:01 a.m., Sharon Buchanan used a barcode to ring up a 10-pack of Juicy Fruit at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. A tectonic shift in the underlying economics of trade in tangible, physical goods of all kinds soon followed. “

> [Stanford Team Achieves ‘Holy Grail’ of Battery Design: A Stable Lithium Anode](http://engineering.stanford.edu/news/stanford-team-achieves-holy-grail-battery-design-stable-lithium-anode).

> [Revolutionary new blood test ‘could detect ALL types of cancer’](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2709708/Revolutionary-new-blood-test-detect-ALL-types-cancer.html) – The Daily Mail

08/1/2014: 

Recommended:

#### Cyber Law, Tech and Policy

+ [**Scholars Warn of NSA Loopholes**](http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/07/09/scholars-warn-nsa-loopholes/Q0Gk1Jsnua25qb5DGXquRP/story.html) — summary in **The Boston Globe** of the academic paper [“**Loopholes for Circumventing the Constitution: Warrantless Bulk Surveillance on Americans by Collecting Network Traffic Abroad**”](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2460462) by professors Axel Arnbak (Harvard) and Sharon Goldberg (Boston University):

>> “Arnbak and Goldberg said that the NSA could increase its surveillance of Americans by modifying overseas communications networks so that they would intercept data being transmitted between destinations inside the United States. As soon as the data passes through a foreign server, the NSA could legally monitor it, they said. ‘There are all sorts of things you can do to change the flow of traffic,’ Goldberg said.”

>> Internet traffic rerouting, swaps and sharing of intelligence with foreign intelligence services, etc. – all these loopholes serve to make vigorous Congressional and judicial oversight of permitted U.S. intelligence activities of prime importance. See also, by the paper’s authors, [**’Loopholes for Circumventing the Constitution’, the NSA Statement, and Our Response**](https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/axel/our-response-to-the-nsa-reaction-to-our-new-internet-traffic-shaping-paper/) at **Freedom to Tinker**.

+ [**With Big Data Comes Big Responsibility**](http://om.co/2014/07/08/with-big-data-comes-big-responsibility/) – **Om Malik**:

>>“’You should presume that someday, we will be able to make machines that can reason, think and do things better than we can,’ Google co-founder Sergey Brin said in a conversation with Khosla Ventures founder Vinod Khosla. To someone as smart as Brin, that comment is as normal as sipping on his super-green juice, but to someone who is not from this landmass we call Silicon Valley or part of the tech-set, that comment is about the futility of their future . . . . [T]he new machine age is already underway, unseen by us. ‘It is not really just a human world,’ said Sean Gourley, cofounder and CTO of Quid who points out that our connected world is producing so much data that it is beyond human cognitive abilities and machines are going to be part of making sense of it all. So the real question is what will we do and what should we — the technology industry and we the people do?”

+ [**How to Digitally Avoid Taking It to the Grave**](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/03/technology/personaltech/how-to-digitally-avoid-taking-it-to-the-grave.html) – practical advice in **The New York Times** on planning for your heirs’ control of your personal digital (including online) information after you die.

#### General Interest

+ One of my favorite recurring web features is **The Millions’** semi-annual books preview. The latest version – [**Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half 2014 Book Preview**](http://www.themillions.com/2014/07/most-anticipated-the-great-second-half-2014-book-preview.html)

+ At Nate Silver’s **538**, a great, multi-part series on the search for America’s best burrito – start [**here**](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/in-search-of-americas-best-burrito/). Lots of burrito joints across the U.S.A. to bookmark.

+ [**On the (Very Smelly) Trail of the Skunk Takeover – Pet-friendly American Suburbs Make Ideal Habitats for Skunks, and Populations of the Bushy-tailed Moochers have Exploded in Recent Years**](http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/nature/On-the-Very-Smelly-Trail-of-the-Skunk-Takeover.html?utm_campaign=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=xmlfeed) – **Outside** magazine

+ [**Raspberry Pi Microcomputer Gets Beefed Up – Still Only Costs $35**](http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/14/raspberry-pi-model-b-plus/) – **Techcrunch**

+ [**Nature’s Most Perfect Killing Machine**](http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/blog/why-people-work-rewards-theyll-never-get-enjoy) — **Leigh Cowart** writing in **Hazlitt** on the ebola virus.

07/14/2014: 

Recommended:

#### Cyber Law, Tech and Policy

+ [**Comcast and Us**](http://www.mondaynote.com/2014/02/16/comcast-and-us/) — **Jean-Louis Gassee** at **MondayNote.com**:

> “We need a set of rules that would allow Microsoft, Google, Roku, Samsung, Amazon, Apple — and companies that are yet to be founded — to provide true alternatives to Comcast’s set-top boxes. Today, you have a cable modem that’s so dumb it forces you to restart everything in a particular sequence after a power outage. You have a WiFi base station stashed in among the wires. Your set-top box looks like it was made in the former Soviet Union . . . . You have to find your TV’s remote in order to switch between broadcast TV, your game console, and your Roku/AppleTV/Chromecast…and you have to reach into your basket of remotes just to change channels. Imagine what would happen if a real tech company were allowed to compete on equal terms with the cable providers.”

+ [**The Real Problem with the Comcast Merger**](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/02/the-real-problem-with-the-comcast-merger.html) — **Tim Wu** at **The New Yorker**

+ [**Comcast’s Time Warner Deal Is Bad for America**](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-13/comcast-s-time-warner-deal-is-bad-for-america.html) — **Susan Crawford** at **Bloomberg Opinion**

+ [**How Slow, Expensive Internet Is Holding Back Our Economy**](http://www.the-american-interest.com/articles/2014/01/23/how-slow-expensive-internet-is-holding-our-economy-back/) — **Alexis Caffrey** at **The American Interest**

+ [**Fast Internet Is Chattanooga’s New Locomotive**](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/04/technology/fast-internet-service-speeds-business-development-in-chattanooga.html?_r=0) — **Edward Wyatt** at **The New York Times**

+ [**U.S. Takes Steps to Bolster Patent System, Cut Frivolous Lawsuits**](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/20/us-usa-patents-frivolous-idUSBREA1J1WG20140220) at **Reuters**.

#### <General Interest

+ [**Why People Work For Rewards They’ll Never Get to Enjoy – a/k/a Why Do Rich People Work So Much?**](http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/blog/why-people-work-rewards-theyll-never-get-enjoy) — **Nicholas Hune-Brown** at **Hazlitt**:

> “The researchers call this behaviour ‘mindless accumulation’—the tendency for people to forgo leisure to work towards rewards they’ll never be able to use. They argue that it’s a distinctly modern problem. For much of human history, earning rates were low and people needed to work as much as possible just to survive. The idea that you could ‘overearn’ simply wasn’t realistic. If you’re one of today’s highly paid office workers, however, earning comes comparatively easily, yet the drive to hoard as much as possible remains.”

+ [**Moving South and West? Metropolitan America in 2042**](http://www.newgeography.com/content/004153-moving-south-and-west-metropolitan-america-2042) — **Wendell Cox** at **NewGeography.com**

02/21/2014: 
Tags:   

Recommended:

####Cyber Law, Tech and Policy

+ [**Spying for the Sake of Spying**](http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/anne-applebaum-spying-for-the-sake-of-spying/2013/10/31/170f7556-4250-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html): an Op-Ed in the Washington Post by **Anne Applebaum**, lauded author of “Gulag” and “Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956”:

> “But Bismarck couldn’t tap phones. We can. And that, as far as I can tell, explains why we were doing it. White House spokesman Jay Carney declared this week that the president is anxious to ensure ‘that we are not just collecting information because we can but because we should.’ Yet almost everything publicly known about the NSA to date indicates the opposite: The United States collects information because it can, whether or not it is moral to do so, violates the trust of allies or is a monumental waste of time and money.”

+ [**Senate Committee Votes in Favor of NSA Phone-Records Snooping**](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/10/phone-snooping-approved/) at **Wired**, and [**Feinstein Releases Fake NSA Reform Bill, Actually Tries To Legalize Illegal NSA Bulk Data Collection**](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131031/12394625090/feinstein-releases-fake-nsa-reform-bill-actually-tries-to-legalize-illegal-nsa-bulk-data-collection.shtml) at **TechDirt**. The original sources: Senator Feinstein’s [**press release**](http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ContentRecord_id=3aa4ed70-e80b-4c2b-afd6-dc2e5bc75a7b) and her [**draft bill** (pdf)](http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/pdfs113th/113fisa_improvements.pdf) which has been approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

+ [**Want To Avoid Defaming Someone Online? Link To Your Sources**](http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2013/10/want-to-avoid-defaming-someone-online-link-to-your-sources-forbes-cross-post.htm): Law Professor **Eric Goldman** at the **Technology & Marketing Law Blog**. See also, his recent post on California’s new “do-not-track” law: [**How California’s New ‘Do-Not-Track’ Law Will Hurt Consumers**](http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2013/10/how_californias.htm).

+ [**Tech Companies Are Better Off Targeting Geezers Instead Of Youngsters**](http://www.businessinsider.com/tech-companies-are-better-off-targeting-silver-surfers-than-the-saturated-younger-poorer-market-gartner-2013-10) at **Business Insider**.

+ [**Finally, a Bill to End Patent Trolling; Bipartisan Bill has Most of What Reformers Want—and a Real Chance of Passing**](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/its-finally-here-a-bill-to-end-patent-trolling/): at **ArsTechnica**.

####General Interest

+ [**The 50 Greatest Breakthroughs Since the Wheel**](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/innovations-list/309536/) ranked by a panel of scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers and historians of technology – **The Atlantic** (via [**kottke**](http://kottke.org/13/10/50-greatest-innovations-since-the-wheel)).

+ [**Memo to Workers: The Boss Is Watching; Tracking Technology Shakes Up the Workplace**](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303672404579151440488919138): **The Wall Street Journal**.
+ [**Who Made that Coffee Lid?**](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/magazine/who-made-that-coffee-lid.html?_r=0): **New York Times Magazine**.

+ [**How to Succeed as an Author: Give up on Writing; The Rancid Smell of 21st Century Literary Success**](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115016/publishing-back-so-long-successful-authors-give-writing): **Lionel Shriver** in the **New Republic**.

11/1/2013: