A format so old, it’s new and radical

Above: I spy Natasha Lyonne and a Plymouth Barracuda. So the car is part of her screen identity? So it should be, it’s television. I might have to watch this.   Two very fascinating responses come up in Wired’s interview with director Rian Johnson on the Netflix release of his film Glass Onion. I’m not […]

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History of the 2010s: a look back at the decade that was

When I first wrote a satirical look back at the decade, which ran on this blog in December 2009 (on the old Blogger service, as I was helping a friend fight a six-month battle with Google to restore his blog), it was pretty easy to make up little fictions based on reality. This one, covering […]

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A quick read from Prof Stephen Hawking in Wired UK

The late Prof Stephen Hawking’s interview with Condé Nast’s Wired UK is excellent, and a quick read. For those following me on the duopoly of Facebook and Google, here’s what the professor had to say: I worry about the control that big corporations have over information. The danger is we get into the situation that […]

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Has Facebook stopped forcing its “malware scanner” on to users after being busted by Wired?

  Since Louise Matsakis’s story on Facebook’s malware scanner came out in Wired, the number of hits to my pieces about my experience has dwindled.    This can mean one of two things: (a) Wired’s getting the hits, which I don’t mind, considering they are the only tech media who had the cojones to talk […]

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Wired’s Louise Matsakis did what no other journalist could: break the story on Facebook’s forced malware scans

With how widespread Facebook’s false malware accusations were—Facebook itself claims millions were “helped” by them in a three-month period—it was surprising how no one in the tech press covered the story. I never understood why not, since it was one of many misdeeds that made Facebook such a basket case of a website. You’d think […]

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Of course Facebook knew about stolen accounts, even back in 2014: I told them

Official White House photo by Pete Souza In Wired today: ‘Russian trolls stole US identities to hide in plain sight’. This included hacking to steal Social Security details, then create social media presences using real identities.    I could have told you about the fake Facebook presences in 2014. Hang on, I did. There was […]

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I remember one of IMI’s scare campaigns

I came across a fascinating article in Wired’s online edition about two scammers who promote “scareware”: those inferior antivirus programs designed to rid users of fake viruses they tell you about through fake pop-ups. And once you install them, you get a virus.    This paragraph struck a chord: But those troubles didn’t do much […]

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It’s hard finding the old stuff on Google

My Wired for March 2010 arrived today (things take a while to reach the antipodes), with the most interesting article being on the Google algorithm. And hold on, this isn’t a Google-bashing blog entry.    Steven Levy’s article was probably written before the furore over the Google Buzz privacy flap. And it points out how […]

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