Filtering the Revolution

In the aftermath of the election in Iran, Twitter emerged as the most powerful way for Iranians to disseminate information and organize protests. The Iranian government has been censoring the Internet for years, but of course -- as the Cute Cat Theory explains -- firewalls don't stop anybody for long.

But don't expect our own government to understand technology, firewalls, or cute cats. Sens. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., plan to introduce a bill that would bar foreign companies that sell technology to Iran from receiving federal contracts.

My first thought -- have these senators heard of China? China's net censorship is well documented. American companies like Cisco, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have all been complicit in China's human rights abuses. Heck, you might even say they were enthusiastic.

But why do these companies make technologies with wiretapping features built in anyway? Our lawmakers should know the answer to this simple question. In the EU and the US, telecommunications networks are legally required to have those capabilities for Lawful Intercept. Unfortunately, the exact same network hardware that is sold over here is also sold over there.

This fact shouldn't give the above mentioned companies a free pass for supporting oppressive regimes. However, our own government has to see the bigger picture. We want our law enforcement agencies to be able to wiretap (with a court order -- wink wink), but these Lawful Intercept requirements have consequences far outside our own borders.

Oh, and this leads me to my second thought -- why the hell aren't we punishing the companies who enabled warrantless wiretapping within the US? Schumer and Graham ought to work on that one for a while.

A New Kind of Search

I was always curious about A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram, but never curious enough to spend my own money or time on the book. In a previous era, I was a very nerdy college student with a PC and a 2400 baud modem. I had early access to the underworld of fringe science and free text files. So the idea of reading over 1100 pages from Wolfram, an author who is overly impressed that a simple computer program can produce output that seems irregular and complex, seemed kind of anticlimactic.

But since Wolfram is obviously into rehashing old ideas, he built a search engine, WolframAlpha, which launched yesterday. It's certainly different. Remember that Cute Cat Theory I discussed a few days ago? Well, try searching for "cute cats" and all you'll find is that "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input." I doubt this thing can survive!

But to be fair, it's not trying to replace the old search engines. This engine is all about computing answers. I'm not really sure how I can put it to use yet, but here's a handy table comparing the popularity of the names Michael and Elvis:

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And here's one chart I get when I enter "greenhouse gas emissions":

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And here are the demographics of Zimbabwe:

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That's all cool, but it took quite a bit of poking around to get results. WolframAlpha doesn't understand the simple human queries that I thought it would handle. If it can't be HAL, I might as well stick with Google and WikiPedia... Sadly, the only time it does act like HAL is when it can't complete a computation. At least it's not killing anybody yet.

Basically it's a Google

John McCain recently joked about using the Internet to investigate his list of potential VP candidates.

"You know, basically it's a Google," he said. "What you can find out now on the Internet -- it's remarkable."

That's great that he's learning about "the Google," but one day he should learn about "the YouTube." It's also remarkable. In fact, the most remarkable consequence of video sharing is that it's making it harder for politicians to get away with lying. Take for example this montage of McCain's own words (h/t The Jed Report):



My favorite McCain quote: "I disagree with what the majority of American people want."

Remind me to run this post again in early November.

Where's Waldo?

Do you think Google Earth is cool, or a tool for peeping toms? Might as well have some fun with it, right? From NPR, 22-year-old artist Melanie Coles recently made a 2,300-square-foot Waldo and put him on a roof in Vancouver. Now she's waiting for Google Earth satellites to pick him up.

On a related note, I've had a recent interest in maps and atlases. I stumbled upon Fresh Logic Atlas the other day, and I'm impressed. It's web based (no software to download), and it includes road, aerial and hybrid maps. Maybe I'll finally make up for all those 9th grade geography classes I slept through.

Not Very Funny

Today is April Fool's Day, so don't trust anything you read online. For my more gullible friends, let me make it perfectly clear: Google is not allowing you to send e-mail into the past, Virgin and Google are not colonizing Mars, ICANN is not shutting down the Internet for an hour (does anybody still fall for this one?), TechCrunch is not acquiring Tiger Beat, the eHarmony founder did not find love on Match.com, and... ok.... this list is exhausting me. Don't believe anything today! You can find a more complete list of pranks here.

If you have some time to waste today, fill out the Virgle Pioneer Job Application.