My paranoia is highly parallelized, so this immediately reminded me of how the RCMP gets all BCbians’ power consumption info as a consequence of the drug war. Now that Canada is beginning to engage in Copyright War (and, secondarily, our misadventures in mandatory minimum sentencing), I wonder how long before the natural tendency of government to connect and expand prosecutorial powers means that the RCMP can watch you download music and take note of when you watch one of Anonymous’ press channels.

After a decade and a half online, people my age are starting to understand the value of having an online presence. What do I mean? I mean, having an email address, maintaining a website, using some form of instant communication like AIM or Skype. I feel that folks around my age, who grew up with the explosion of the internet, originally started out carefully defending the information they posted online. Now, the benefit of having an accessible presence online, and instantly being able to access information from others in your network, is invaluable. This is social networking, and my peers are finally starting to understand the value of it. Folks younger than I generally seem to have skipped the fear of posting information about yourself and caught right on.

Foursquare is unique in that it understands that location is an important part of our identity. Just as we share our email address to receive the benefit of connected communication, foursquare understands physical location is a very important part of our identity, and allowing us to share that information with our friends is invaluable.

I would say that every couple of weeks I am in a situation where I would be able to do something beneficial for someone (like invite them out or go to their party) if they had posted their contact information on their Facebook profile. This is particularly acute because I have a smart phone, so I’m used to being able to manage my affairs in the field and I’m always a little shocked when I can’t solve problems with my magic phone. I encourage everyone to post their full contact info (after checking your privacy settings).

It’s not exactly clear what publishing our locations will achieve. An era of spontaneous interaction? Maybe it won’t make sense until a critical mass of people are doing it, so I’m going to start.

Cryptome welcomes documents for publication that are prohibited by governments worldwide, in particular material on freedom of expression, privacy, cryptology, dual-use technologies, national security, intelligence, and secret governance — open, secret and classified documents — but not limited to those. Documents are removed from this site only by order served directly by a US court having jurisdiction. No court order has ever been served; any order served will be published here — or elsewhere if gagged by order. Bluffs will be published if comical but otherwise ignored.

Some of the drama was over this document, which contains Microsoft’s policies for providing information to police, including advice to the cops on what to ask for and how to ask for it.

I’ve read it, and it’s actually pretty benign, aside from Softie’s DMCA action over it. The part about XBox Live is the most intrusive. Microsoft preserves, forever, every IP ever used to talk to your 360 and the title-and-time of every game you’ve ever played while online, as well as obvious stuff like your GamerTag and credit card info.

MSN conversations, interestingly, aren’t retained server-side at all. This has been a big worry of mine and my more paranoid friends for a while.

That said, you should still encrypt basically everything.

The trial recommences tomorrow, and they’ve been blogging the proceedings on their main page if you’d like to play along at home.

Good luck, Newzbin dudes. I wish you pwnage.

We’ve had some privacy concerns recently. This will certainly make things more… interesting.

I’ve already signed up, so perhaps in the future when you Google a film you’ll be more likely to see one of my reviews.

Remember: You’re never actually anonymous online. The companies you do business with will sell you out at the slightest provocation, regardless of your expectation of privacy.

I mean: Go law enforcement! Another nasty young marijuana dealer behind barz!

The vulnerability was apparently that the satellite uplink was wholly unencrypted. Hopefully the downlink was — one of the compromised UAVs carries remote-launchable Hellfire missiles.

My paranoid face-covering wasn’t fast enough. “They” totally got me, you guys!

SkyNet is watching, Canada. I covered my face, but who knows if it was in time? We’ll have to see. At least I was in a ball cap and shades.

Edge accepted my article — my editor/buddy “loved” it, but I’m powered by flattery and I suspect he might know that. In any case it was good enough to secure a regular writing gig, so now I review movies.

Anyone want see Drag Me To Hell? The gig is for the entertainment section, so I can do music and games as well. I’ve been asked to review “whatever I like” — carte blanche! Maybe I can do a general pop culture column.