bricolage

As a fairly regular occurrence—one can almost expect at least one data breach per week, customers have become rather inured to the compromise of their vital demographics in the States—not that this attitude has made the majority more cautious or defensive by any measure, but this sort of development, unprecedented but probably, unfortunately a record soon to be toppled, in Germany inspires users and government agencies alike to circle their wagons.

Some sixteen million email accounts had their passwords lifted and authorities are particularly concerned, not over spam and spear-fishing but rather because many people recycle passwords, using similar credentials to access shopping sites or on-line banking. Das Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (BSI) in Bonn has even established a help-line. It's not merely the breach of one virtual version of a retailer or networking-group that nearly goes as far as inviting a hack but rather the further-reaching repercussions are realised. One would think that the omnipresence of the American intelligence agencies would have gotten to be really good at prevention or at least persecution of such spillage and pillage, having already exploited system weaknesses, but we probably don't want their help. Those three letter initialisms, however, have become something like the US Secret Service, whose chief charge is not to protect the president but rather to combat counterfeiting of legal-tender, expanded far beyond their original mandate.

uncorrected personality traits

In response to a US congressional investigation launched into the comic-book industry, accusing the publishers as a gateway into delinquency and deviancy, a whole spate of educational and up-building series were started. It sort of sounds like more contemporary witch-hunts and conversions against television and marketing aimed at children. The spin-offs include this bizarre arch-of-story, a patient's progress, with a super-powered psychoanalyst, whose bed-side manner has the approval of the Comics Code Authority, brought to us by Dangerous Minds. Kids, don't try this at home.

zwei plus vier

It's a little bit strange that Germany, modern and advanced with the meta-diplomacy of lobbyists and care-taking, does little to recognize violations of sovereignty on its own soil, real or suspected.

Perhaps it is out of fear of admitting collusion—or ignorance for the past. I learnt that it is far more bureau- cratically difficult to carry out any business as an ombudsman for a foreign government, diplomatic or military, on the soil of the former East German Democratic Republic, as defined by the pre-1990 borders than any largess committed in the West. The reason has to do with the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (das Vertrag über die abschließende Regelung in bezug auf Deutschland) which codified and accorded the reunification between the East and West and the occupying plus the four occupying powers, France, Great Britain, America and the Soviet Union. The winning powers agreed to relinquish all claims to the occupied lands, except reserving the right-of-return, withdrawing their forces and placing limitations on the militarization of united Germany.

Unlike in the West (where NATO allies seem content to allow the Americans to keep watch), military operations in the lands of East Germany are strictly limited to German activities, without special and rare credentialing. The treaty's drafters argue that there was also the sub-text that the influence of NATO would advance no further east, nor the Warsaw Pact further west, as well—though that condition is placed in a dubious position with the expansion of the alliance to many former Soviet bloc nations (after the union's dissolution, having over-extended its resources in Afghanistan as part of the reason) and hosting multinational training exercises on the Baltic and the build-up of Leipzig airport to handle air-force traffic.

boundless informant or ham radio

Virtually unsourced as if it's just an accepted precept—some revisionist bit of Orwellian historyclaiming things have always been this way and not otherwise, the New York Times reported that the National Intelligence Agency has devised a way to access closed computer networks essentially via induction.

Rather than unlocking a back-door into a computer network by exploiting software vulnerabilities or honey-pots, a computer's activity can be gleaned and relayed through hidden radio transmitters that only need be near the machine. Evil genius is not to be out-done, but this technique is decades old and been used to snuggle up to computers for many years already and still, to sort it all out later—indefinitely later, is cheaper and more cost-effective than actual intelligence-gathering, like billboard advertising. Some one hundred thousand transceivers or so are said to have been been deployed in foreign lands to aggressively infiltrate systems secured against conventional eavesdropping. I wonder what form these dark minions take.

just deserts

Mental Floss shares a few interesting occurrences of desserts that have shaped history, citing how routines and sweet-tooths have been employed in assassination attempts to famous flubs, both reviled, like “then let them eat cake,” or revered like “Ich bin ein Berliner.” Such totems become taboo, in some cases, are really pivotal things and say as much about history and culture as other more controversial foodstuffs like tea, coffee,spices and hootch—or non-food import/export like tulips, tobacco and opium. Be sure to check out Mental Floss' other lists of superlatives and curiosities.