Chipping away of Freedoms

The recent brain fart from president Trump has yet again distracted the public as to the real motivations of such snips of feigned disdain about respect for the country. And the belief that a employer can force employees not to voice their beliefs. Kneeling as a form of protest becomes an important freedom under attack.

While this seems like yet another simplistic Alt-Right solution, it falls within the GOP goals of legalizing corporations to require contributions to candidates by their employees. This has been floating around congress for years. With the Citizens United decision the push has been on to allow control of contributions, and in effect the political opinions of the corporate employees in violation of their democratic rights to voice their own political beliefs.

IF you can force employees to stand for that national anthem, then you can control their political contributions, and later whom they vote for.

Election 2016: Fascism in America

In the current climate the urge to paint Donal Trump as the New Hitler is often the theme, however the ‘The Donald’ is more showman and trickster than absolute dictator. And as showman he will say and do anything that it takes to win. However winning is nothing, the show must go on and the next ‘Thing’ must be won. And should Mr. Trump become Mr. President you will see such a unification of Republican and Democratic Congressional resistance against anything dangerous, that Mr. President should pursue, than has ever been seen before, ever. The world is safe.

The same can not be said of Hilary Clinton. While she is often alluded to as being better than Donald, and forgetting any and all dirt that might be heaved around at the moment. Her belief that the Presidency is hers by Rights, that she believes that the presidency is owed her, and does not have to be earned by a popular vote, is the most condemning sociopathic belief imaginable. This is the root of Fascism, of entitlement of the elite (or self deluded elite), that assumes authority where it is not granted. But should Ms. Clinton become Ms. President the world could slip under such a dark shroud that any and all, real or perceived, enemies and threats to Hilary would fear for their lives. As to threaten Her Reign would be a personal and bloody thing. And the world would tremble.

And while I do favor Bernie Sanders in the next election, anyone (not GOP) plucked off the street could be substituted here, as a last effort to prevent the next disaster.

Whoops: Guess who won? But worst than that, the GOP retained both the House and Senate.

Apple vs FBI: The unspoken Truth on Encryption

While one can admire Apple for ‘defending’ it’s customers privacy, while also benefiting with the positive advertising. It is probably a moot, and hollow victory as the NSA and the CIA have already broken Apple security.

Not that it shouldn’t be of high importance, the resources required to do the cracking of any particular extraction of an encrypted message sent with a iPhone would most likely exceed the budget of a small country. Which is exactly the point of encryption, making it hard, and expensive to decrypt. Imagine the joviality at the NSA/CIA after the hours of decryption, that the ‘Important’ message turns out to be a high priority, top secret Cookie Recipe from you mothers cookbook.

And thereby is the unspoken truth of encryption the first one is this: you must either decrypt everything, to find what is being said, because if you can only choose strategic messages, choosing the right ones are tantamount.

During WWII monitoring enemy communication was aided by observing the frequency of communication traffic, when frequency increased, something important was being communicated. Modern military communications is continuous and unbroken, transmitting meaningless message traffic, and therefore not highlighting any particular message in the traffic stream that would be required to be decrypted. This would now be a requirement to decrypt everything, in the military traffic stream.

The second Truth is this; The assumption that you can decrypt all the messages is the hight of arrogance and ignorance. Anyone, yes anyone can create an encryption that will be impossible for a machine of any sort to decrypt, and many of these can be hidden to the point that even a human expert directly observing the message can not decipher.

Imagine hiding messages in the continuous email stream called Spam, which now constitutes more that 80% of all email traffic?

Thoughts like this keep the NSA/CIA/FBI up nights, and no matter what Bull Shit they might tell you about the need to have back doors and encryption keys it will NEVER catch all the potential secret messages that terrorists might choose to pass to each other.

Because the simplest of truths: It isn’t possible.

My Proxie server has been found.

I’ve had a proxie server running in my domain for some few years, it was an experiment. But now it has been ‘discovered’ and is now under heavy use. And while it’s interesting, and I don’t mind, I’ve found that the two heavy users country’s involved Iran and the U.S.

Proxie Traffic by Country
Proxie Traffic by Country

UPDATE:

I’ve been ask to take down the proxie…

Hosting Ireland

Dear Branedy

We have noticed you are using a Proxy service on your account at http://tanagra.branedy.net. This is against our acceptable usage policy especially being publicly accessible. We have therefore disabled access via .htaccess

Please let us know if you have any questions regarding this.

Hosting Ireland Team

Hosting Ireland,
info@hostingireland.ie
Phone: 1890 987 000
International: +353 51 84 34 64
Fax: +353 51 84 34 66

My new Clevo W240EUQ Laptop from PC Specialists

This is the Laptop I have moved to. No longer a Mac user, never more than a PC user and never a Windows fan. I’m now entirely into my custom built Clevo W244EUQ laptop, built to my configuration by PC Specialist in the UK. Having done a lot of research and agonizing over prices and parts, my system was constructed and sent to me in, call it 10 days including shipping and weekends. And yes I’m writing this post from it. and I’m doing it from Mint 13 with the Cinnamon interface. Everything works, with the single exception that the SD card reader is not picked up. It also has one ‘hot’ pixel which only shows up during boot time, and I can live with that. I was amused and gratified that the laptop was NOT an exact match to the photos on the PC Specialist site, but I don’t think it was their fault as the Clevo site have many different configurations of this model laptop. On the positive, the laptop is better looking, and has a better keyboard than shown in the Clevo or PC Specialist photos. Mine photos are included below, though the first one isn’t perfect, because the top cover is so black that the auto focus couldn’t lock in.

The Specs are not stunning, about the same as a MacBook Pro. A Intel i5-3210M processor, 8 GB of ram, a 500GB 7200rpm disk with 16MB cache, 14″ screen 1366/768 HDMI, 1000 base ethernet, A/G/N Wifi, 2 USB 3 and 1 USB 2 port and a (currently) non-working SD Cardreader.

UPDATE:

      Benchmarks
-------------------------------------
CPU Blowfish	    4.070
-------------------------------------
CPU CryptoHash   343.235
------------------------------------
CPU Fibonacci	   1.819
------------------------------------
CPU N-Queens	   5.411
------------------------------------
FPU FFT		   0.972
------------------------------------
FPU Raytracing	  3.688
-----------------------------------

Skype security, and privacy

Communications and privacy will always be a concern, any protocol a computer can generate can be broken, the question is how long, and how important.

If your ego about your importance in the world is justified by others, then expect them to be listening. You can only slow them down.

For the rest of us, who are meaningless, no one will take the time to break through tissue paper to listen in on us. And we are safe enough.

If you seek real security, don’t use a computer to encrypt your message, find a better way.

The Banking Crisis is Our Fault!

I heard all the arguments, and if I were in a position to actually have made the decisions, or been allowed to tender an opinion on the actions taken. I know I would have made different choices. But in the end;

WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BANKING CRISIS!


We the people of Ireland are personally responsible for the crisis, for WE voted on the corrupt and idiotic government, the bad bureaucracy and bribed banked owned politicians who put us into this position. AS IN PERIOD!

WE ARE RESPONSIBLE!


There is no getting around it, so stop talking about a banking crisis, it’s a crisis of a democratic majority more concerned with trifling personalities, and historical artifacts that have no basis in fact. A Nonsensical political system that reenforces the rich, and dumps the poor and middle classes.

Gaddafi, the better deal for the western world.

If it hasn’t been apparent from the start. The western nations, via their corporate masters have deemed Gaddafi is the better choice to make deals with, regarding Libyan oil. Democratic governments are too, ‘open’ to he public. So in libya, the choice was clear, let the western leaders wring their hands, talk the talk, the let the revolution fail.

Simple, every government can pat themselves on the back for saying the right thing, while declaring that their hands were tied due to a ‘catch 22‘ situation, dammed if they do, dammed if they don’t.

The real question for the United States, what if the French had chosen NOT to intervene in the American Revolution?

Bow down before your corporate (interest) masters folks. Bend over, you are being given another drilling.

The Woe of WiKileaks

George Carlin on the “American dream, outlines why WiKileaks is being assaulted. And why we have such rotten governments around the world.



Additional Material: Amnesia as a Way of Life: WikiLeaks Amid the “Careless People”

The ownership of the House (of Representatives)

I know all the Mass Media Press and even Intrade have predicted that the Republican Party will take over the U.S. House of Representatives during this election. But I am wishing this were not true, and I think that maybe I’m not the only one.

This is the same GOP Party that has brought the U.S.A. to the brink of destruction with their Corporate Policy’s that favor the Rich and powerful over the general population. And they are gaining GrassRoots support largely due to their ownership of most of the Press.

I fear that the GOP is both repeating The Big Lie so much that they expect to win on it, and that because the press it telling everyone that the GOP will take over the House, that they are expecting a Self-fulfilling prophecy to seduce the public into voting them back into control of the house.

But like I mentioned earlier, I can’t be the only one wishing that they will NOT get their hands on the controls of the House. If that is the case, I’m wishing that the Democrats get off their collective Asses and broadcast the GOP corruptions and Facts facing the voters this election. I’m afraid I’ll be disappointed, but I guess that I’ll just have to be satisfied that with the Democrats and the Republican splitting the Senate and House, that Congress will get nothing done. And that’s a good thing. Because ANY time congress passes a law, someone looses a freedom, and that can’t be good.

Real Democracy for the Tea Party.

Before the last big election in the U.S.A. I managed to get on to a great deal of political Email lists, as I’m sure many of you did. And while they all managed to end up in the Junk email box, as I have very little vested interest in U.S. Politics anymore. I have seen a great deal of anguish about the emergence of the Tea Party Movement and the Radical and apparently irrational candidates demands.

I have worried as many that these people represented the worst in U.S. politics, the radical Right Wing elements who are being manipulated by ultra-conservative GOP millionaires. However, and I mean some how, however, they have managed to get off the leash from the directions of their handlers and appear to actually believe in their, from my perspective, misguided ideals. And there by hangs the tail on the political animal.

Democracy! It’s not just for mainstream (managed) Democrat or Republican candidates, those willing to say or do anything to get elected to office. Those who, with party backing, pay millions of dollars to get elected to political positions that really only pay a pittance. Just so thay can exert influence for those who paid to put them there. They are not really representing their electorate who voted for them, not representing the views and opinions of the people they were elected to serve, but those who paid to put them there. And we both know that is wrong.

So from another perspective, if a Tea Party candidate, who might believe in Pink Faeries who deliver chocolate cookies, receives enough votes from people who also believe in Pink Faeries. Then that person has every right, democratically, to server in the U.S. government. They would be doing exactly what they were elected to do, represent those who believe in Pink Faeries. In fact they would have more right to be there than those who were bought and paid for by lobbyist with an agenda.

And the worst case of this Pink Faerie representative in the Senate, or the House, nothing, except that they would not be beholding to anyone, except those who believed in Pink Faeries. Do you, for a minute, believe that legislation would ever be created to effect the U.S. regarding Pink Faeries? Would they be capable of generating the votes in congress to pass such legislation? Then what does anyone have to worry about, with ANY other belief that ANY candidate might profess during an election. They will first have to gather enough votes to get elected, then manage to promote any such idea in congress to a majority vote. And they have the right to try, in fact that it part of the problem with the two party system of politics in the U.S., not enough parties to represent all of the views of the differing sectors of American voters.

So while I don’t believe in the Tea Party, I will defend their right to make the attempt put forth their ideas and views to the vote of the people of the U.S. and discover for themselves the measure of acceptance of those ideals from the voting public. And if they are elected, so be it, this is the voice of the electorate, let it be heard.

Apple’s outrageous share of the mobile industry’s profits

That pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?

Pie chart: Apple’s outrageous share of the mobile industry’s profits

In any other businesses this would be called a RIP OFF! by Apple, but with the Apple-Fanboy base, They can do no wrong. I used to be a Apple Evanglista back in Apple’s dark days, and I still use a MacBook. But I use a Nokia N900, because I can do more, with less Apple regulation, and I pay a great deal less than any iPhone ball-and-chain.

Underground War – Whistle Blowers strike back.

I may be the last to see this, a war, underground and undeclared, but a war. The opponents are a bit undefined but there is a clear and escalating combat in the world. I’m not talking about Terrorists, (although the establishment who is under assault may declare their attackers as such) I am talking about the the established order, The Multi-Nationals, the Big Press, Governments, Military establishments, Religious organizations. The big anonymous bodies that have been abusing their positions to detriment everyone else.

On the opposing side, are all the little people, groups and oppressed, or the perceived oppressed. Your fellow ‘pissed off’ worker setting next to you, who will explode in a fountain of Whistle blowing. A venting of frustration that will result in the next big internet explosion.

The WikiLeaks is merely the first oozing pustule on the face of the corporeal Corporations of the world. The World of Blogging has for many years undermined the world press both broadcast and print to the point that now the majority of the population now refer to the Internet for real news rather than the handful of corporation owned ‘News’ services.

Control has now slipped out of the hands of those who for years have managed the information flow. Evidence of this ‘management’ appears almost daily in the presentations of ignorance passed off as ‘News’. And where ‘Fair and Balanced’ openly bribe governments to maintain control, religious organizations openly attempt to promote such myths as Creationism at the scientific Truth.

The tide has turned, and the failing newspapers are only the start. Watch for more WikiLeaks and Whistle Blower sites springing up, more Lawsuits more Smear campaigns as the giant attempts to swat the Whistleblowers who are biting it to death.