The House Judiciary committee hearing today titled, "The Encryption Tightrope: Balancing Americans' Security and Privacy" ended up being full of drama, and riveting moments of confrontation–along with a cavalcade of inept analogies for encryption and hardware security. — Read the rest

Michel de Nostradame, the 16th century apothecary and seer, published prophecies that remain chilling to this day. Their power is in their peculiar mix of vagueness and specifics: they describe nightmarish scenes with names and analogies that adhere with unsettling elegance to the political forces and personas of later ages. — Read the rest

Sarah Jeong reports on how Twitter has begun to take control of the hatred, harassment and general horseshit posted on its site.

Twitter talked some big talk, but it has buckled under both lawsuits and media outrage, tweaking and changing the Rules around speech whenever something threatened its bottom line.

Sarah Jeong had me standing up and cheering with her comparison of kudurrus — the ancient Mesopotamian boundary stones used to mark out territorial land-grants — and the way that laws like the US DMCA protect digital rights management systems.

In South Korea, where the rate of suicide is on the rise, a former funeral director has established a "death experience" therapy center to help people understand the benefits of not killing yourself.

From Oddity Central:

Participants at the centre come from all walks of life, including teenagers who struggle with pressure at school, older parents experiencing isolation, and the elderly who are afraid of becoming a financial burden on their families.

That was bullshit.

— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) October 7, 2015

A jury in Sacramento, California, today found former Reuters deputy social media editor Matthew Keys guilty of computer hacking under the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act (CFAA). — Read the rest

Sarah Jeong led an absolutely brilliant Twitter seminar this morning on the subject of DCFAPITM and how it relates to copyright (if at all).

Jargon for the XXIth C. [via Sarah Jeong]

The Washington Post editorial board lost its mind and called on the National Academy of Sciences to examine "the conflict" over whether crypto backdoors can be made safe: the problem is, there's no conflict.

Sarah Jeong reports on the bizarre and public wrangling over Reddit, whose free-for-all atmosphere blew up just in time to singe new investors expecting rapid growth. A labor problem, hidden in free speech posturing…

To outsiders, it looks like a form of collective insanity, a sign that Reddit itself is overrun with the denizens of r/CoonTown, utterly broken beyond repair.

The embattled interim CEO of Reddit, who became all the more embattled after the sacking of a popular admin left unpaid mods outraged, is leaving the company.

A teacher in rural South Korea is under investigation after he reportedly killed a live rodent in front of children and then ate it.

After observing the youngsters hurting hamsters, the man, 44, did so in order to teach them "how dear life is," according to a report in the Korea Times. — Read the rest

Ross Ulbricht, the 29-year-old man accused of running billion-dollar drug bazaar Silk Road, gets his day in court today.

Online harassment is real, it's terrible, and tech companies can and should do more about it — but when the normally sensible Jessica Valenti wrote in the Guardian that tech companies could solve online harassment in a snap by implementing a system like Youtube's Content ID, she wasn't just wrong, she was dangerously wrong.

Glenn Fleishman explains Twitter's blocking system and its freshly-fortified abuse-reporting tools.

Glenn Fleishman reports on how the platform could fix its harassment problem.

85% of domestic violence shelters work with women who have been GPS-tracked by their abusers; 75% have clients who were attacked with hidden mobile surveillance apps; cops routinely steal and share nude selfies from the phones of women pulled over in traffic stops, and NSA spies used agency's massive, illegal surveillance apparatus to stalk women they were sexually attracted to, a practice that was dubbed "LOVEINT."

Sarah Jeong has the absolute funniest mockery of NYT columnist Maureen Dowd's silly "I ate 16 times too much marijuana while alone in a hotel room therefore drugs are bad" column.

Jeong assumes the persona of Malcolm Gladwell on ketamine, Thomas L Friedman after noshing weed brownies, Gail Collins rolling on ecstasy, Ross Douthat on psilocybin mushrooms, and Paul Krugman snorting up crushed Adderall. — Read the rest

Carl Malamud writes, "On May 16, Boing Boing brought us the story of five years of intimidation on the Uniform System of Citaiton required in the United States, a system otherwise known as The Bluebook.

Based on your story, a stern keep off the grass warning was dispatched from the ever-growing Bluebook Legal Task Force at the eminent white shoe firm of Ropes & Gray."

"Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" stands as one of Community's all-time greatest episodes, both stylistically impressive and narratively heartfelt. It's an immensely satisfying episode of television that forms the peak of the show's run in the heart of its second season. — Read the rest