lix blog

1. Unconsiousness
With the OS X 10.7 software release Apple fulfills and nurtures the users unconscious handling of his computer. The users data, such as photos, documents, etc. are geo- and meta-tagged and the accordant applications connect to the respective servers, such as Google maps, “the Cloud”, several Akamai servers, keeping the user in the dark about how and where his personal data is shared.

2. Self-surveillance
Further the operation system entrap and mislead the user to activities of self-surveillance, by eliminating “Big Brother” and leading the operator through “sexy” and technically well designed applications, which conceal where data and meta-data is shared and stored. The nebulous “Cloud”, easing the users data replication, inducing potential privacy hazards, assuming that the user has “nothing to hide”.

3. Anti-Social
By implementing Social Media applications and functionalities, explicitly based on proprietary standards and formats, caching cookies that track their users continuously, even after having logged out, complete patterns on the users behaviors are tracked, locally stored and shared on obscure servers and nebulous “Clouds”. The friends counter remains a real-time raising number of people whom the user never meets in real life (any more)…

4. Average
Apple Macintosh used to be a product of computers that come together with an operation system that is designed for professionals. Graphic Designers, Film Directors and Musicians. Since OS X 10.7 the system is designed to merge into the needs of a mediocre human to nurture his archaic behavior by caressing a touch-pad with his finger. A built-in baby comforter may follow in upcoming versions…

5. status_msg > /dev/null && userinfo > /apple/survey && echo –bold “WTF!”
By suggesting the user to improve the functionalities of programs, the operation system shares system data which can explicitly identify the computer and the user. Users privacy is deliberately violated.

6. Contemptuous
No ext2, ext3 or ext4 support. Gimme back my control over my data & choice of filesystem!

This week Cory Doctorow gave a great talk about this (*sigh*) boring old issue of Freedom and Human Rights in the age of the knowledge society at the ACM Siggraph Conference in Vancouver.

For further reading:
EFF
Cory’s Blog

Steve Jobs (22. December 2010):

“We removed WikiLeaks because it violated developer guidelines. An app must comply with all local laws. It may not put an individual or target group in harms way.”

- What local laws does Wikileaks violate?

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

25 years ago Apple promised to its customers that “1984 won’t be like 1984″. – This is beyond sarcasm!

Thank you, Gleuch!

You enrich my daily internet surfing with Shaved Bieber and this beautiful Captcha script.

Use :
git clone github.com/gleuch/fuckCAPTCHA.git
to implement it to your website.

We come in peace

We come in peace, said the conquerers of the New World.
We come in peace, says the government, when it comes to colonise, regulate, and militarise the new digital world.
We come in peace, say the nation-state sized companies that have set out to monetise the net and chain the users to their shiny new devices.
We come in peace, we say as hackers, geeks and nerds, when we set out towards the real world and try to change it, because it has intruded into our natural habitat, the cyberspace. Let us explore each other’s truly peaceful intentions at this year’s Chaos Communication Congress 27C3 to be held from Monday December 27 to Thursday December 30, 2010 in Berlin, Germany.

Soon on events.ccc.de/congress/2010

The “Berlin way” to hinder Google maps tracking:

Track the trackers ( streetcar.fffff.at)

More about this: http://fffff.at/?s=google

@fffffat (twitter)

And here’s the “Norwegian way” of protesting for privacy:

(Read more on Boingboing)

This reminds me of a project we did in 2004, when I studies media arts at the University of arts and applied sciences, messing around with an omnidirectional video camera, recording the streets in Zurich: