US House Narrowly Defeats Proposal to Re-instate the Fourth Amendment

A narrow majority of Democrats and Republicans in the US House are fervent opponents of the Fourth Amendment.  From the Washington Post:

A controversial proposal to restrict how the National Security Agency collects telephone records failed to advance by a narrow margin Wednesday, a victory for the Obama administration, which has spent weeks defending the program since media leaks sparked international outrage about the agency’s reach.

Lawmakers voted 217 to 205 to defeat the proposal by an unlikely political pairing: Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), a 33-year-old libertarian who often bucks GOP leadership and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), an 84-year old liberal stalwart and the chamber’s second longest-serving member. Usually divergent in their political views, they joined forces in recent weeks in response to revelations about the NSA’s ability to collect telephone and Internet records that were leaked by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor who is seeking asylum in Russia.

SEC Cracks Down on Bitcoin Ponzi Scheme

One of the most common and likely ill-informed criticisms of Bitcoin is that the virtual currency is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme.  A minimal amount of research into what Bitcoin is and how it functions should, however, dispel any reasonable doubt that Bitcoin itself is a scam.  Yet that does not mean that Bitcoin cannot be used to construct traditional scams like the Ponzi scheme.  The SEC has filed a suit against one such scammer who operated an enterprise called the Bitcoin Savings and Trust.  From Entrepreneur:

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed its first fraud lawsuit involving the virtual currency, claiming it was used in a Ponzi scheme.  The SEC filed suit against Trendon T. Shavers, founder and owner of Bitcoin Savings and Trust, saying he raised more than 700,000 BTC from 66 investors. According to the SEC’s suit, that amounted to $4.5 million in cash based on the daily Bitcoin price at the time, according to the SEC. 

Of course, knee jerk detractors of the digital currency will argue that this proves Bitcoin is  nothing more than a scam, as if the structure of such a scheme were internal to Bitcoin itself.  Interestingly, however, this action by the SEC may inadvertently serve to strengthen the Bitcoin market, since it presupposes that the digital currency is a legitimate means of investment in securities, which are regulated by the SEC.  The article notes:

The SEC also took the step of asserting its jurisdiction over virtual-currency trading. “Any investment in securities in the United States remains subject to the jurisdiction of the SEC, regardless of whether the investment is made in U.S. dollars or a virtual currency,” the agency said. 

Leaks of Dragnet Surveillance Inspire Changes in Web Habits

People who first recognized the scope of the potential threats to their online data privacy following the NSA leaks last month are now beginning to change their habits.  Or so it appears.  From the Boston Globe:

News of the US government’s secret surveillance programs that targeted phone records and information transmitted on the Internet has done more than spark a debate about privacy. Some are changing their online habits as they reconsider some basic questions about today’s interconnected world. Among them: How much should I share and how should I share it?

Some say they want to take preventative measures in case such programs are expanded. Others are looking to send a message — not just to the US government but to the Internet companies that collect so much personal information.

‘‘We all think that nobody’s interested in us, we’re all simple folk,’’ said Doan Moran of Alexandria, La. ‘‘But you start looking at the numbers and the phone records . . . it makes you really hesitate.’’

First They Came for the Pornographers . . .

A coalition of self-appointed moral censors and fear-mongering hysterics in the UK are pushing forward with a plan to implement the first stages of internet censorship under the guise of – what else?  – protecting the children!  From BBC:

Most households in the UK will have pornography blocked by their internet provider unless they choose to receive it, David Cameron has announced.

In addition, the prime minister said possessing online pornography depicting rape would become illegal in England and Wales - in line with Scotland.  Mr Cameron warned in a speech that access to online pornography was "corroding childhood".

The new measures will apply to both existing and new customers.  Mr Cameron also called for some "horrific" internet search terms to be "blacklisted", meaning they would automatically bring up no results on websites such as Google or Bing.

He told the BBC he expected a "row" with service providers who, he said in his speech, were "not doing enough to take responsibility" despite having a "moral duty" to do so.
He also warned he could have to "force action" by changing the law and that, if there were "technical obstacles", firms should use their "greatest brains" to overcome them.

PHP vs. Python vs. Ruby

From Udemy, here's an interesting infographic comparing PHP, Python and Ruby according to a few different metrics:

Yahoo Removes Adult and Erotica Blogs and Tumblrs from Search

From ZDNet:

When Yahoo bought Tumblr, it suggested that its adult and porn blogs would be left alone.  Users found out this wasn't true when a new adult blog search policy went public on Thursday, capping Tumblr's quarantine on adult content, which now also includes excluding adult blogs from Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines.

The changes render an estimated 10% of Tumblr's userbase invisible and unfindable.  Now, around 12 million Tumblr blogs marked "adult" have been removed from Tumblr's internal search; this follows the revelation two months ago that adult blogs were no longer indexed by Google, and the pre-sale removal of Tumblr's "Erotica" category from its category index.

Tumblr's "Erotica" category had been launched in January 2010 with much sex-positive fanfare - it would appear that the days of Tumblr's tolerance are long gone . . .

Tech Firms Team Up to Call for Transparency in Government

From Time:

The largest Internet companies in the United States have joined forces with top civil liberties groups to call on the White House and Congress to increase the transparency surrounding the government’s controversial National Security Agency surveillance programs. Apple, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft and Twitter are among the tech giants that have signed a letter to the feds, asking for the right to disclose more information about national security data requests. Notably absent are the nation’s largest phone companies, including AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which have remained silent about their participation in the government’s snooping program.