dsplittgerber

Sorry to be nit-picky, but that sounds conspiracy theory-ish. The link you provided does not back-up your claim of the NSA having hacked the Starwood database. The linked article makes it sound like as a by-product of massively vacuuming up internet traffic, GCHQ has been able to track hotel booking confirmations sent to gov.whatever addresses. Which is noteworthy but (legally and morally) not as sinister as active measures.

I'm interested in your argument to why fiction is not time "wasted"! Would you mind discussing? I have thought about this a lot and personally only read non-fiction, but am always interested in other viewpoints.

From what's publically known, the email to The Intercept related to their podcast, of which we supposedly was a listener and not to the matter at hand.

Blendle is a solution to a very different problem. Blendle provides unbundling for popular magazines and newspapers, i.e. you can selectively read single articles for < 1€ rather than having to buy a full issue of the paper in question.

It's really well done, but basically does what the iTunes store did for MP3s.

What Medium faces is a rather different beast: Trying to reach the holy grail of finding non-advertising funding for journalism (ideally, without a subscription-based model).

From your blog post: "The cables or other releases could be posted on torrent sites, signed by the Wikileaks organization, and it would be just as effective at generating the media circus and necessary public attention that they seek."

There's your biggest misconception about how the media and world/people's attention works right there.

Why do you think no layperson knows what the heck cryptome is, although they have been leaking stuff for far longer than Wikileaks? Why do you think cryptome (probably) hasn't changed anything and hasn't made anyone aware of anything?

You need the most publicity you can get as a leaking platform, as much as it will kill you (by making a person synonymous to the mission and providing an attack window) at the same time. And actual mass publicity will not be generated by putting it out there via bittorrent, which the majority of journalists don't even know about.

How can I, as a somewhat proficient non-techie, accomplish that without having to dedicate a 24/7 *nix box from home?

Please, if anyone knows a simple, yet elegant solution, I'm all ears.

It's also ridiculously outdated. It's from 1957 and based on an outdated, traditional understanding of "big" industrial/engineering companies and their employees ("the little guys"). Also, it protects the companies' interests to the detriment of the employees' interests, which is understandable given that it is based on a war-time law (WWII) which was supposed to support German war engineering.

I read his book, "You are not a gadget", and found it really thought-provoking and inspiring to focus more on real-world stuff I needed to do and less on reading about the ever latest fad that has no impact on my life whatsoever.

As always, was it the book or my state of mind/stage in my life during which I read the book that made me change my mind about re-prioritizing? I don't know. But I'd recommend the book for an alternative perspective not often heard in the TechCr/otherblogs/Forbes/BW hype cycle that is the tech (esp consumer internet) world.

FWIW, the book didn't strike me as elitist at all. I didn't know anything about him before, so I was strictly considering his arguments for their merits.

Edit: Just finished the Smithsonian article, which I consider singularly unhelpful in really understanding the points he makes in his book. Do not judge his book or his arguments by this article. The article is an incoherent mess.

Is the most obvious question being adressed in any jurisdiction yet? - Do you legally have to disclose your results to any insurance company you already have an existing contract with or prior to any new insurance contract?

By chance, I just read a typical life insurance contract and it already stated that if you have undergone a genetic testing, you do have to disclose your results if you enter into a life insurance contract >300.000€. This was stipulated in the contract and not under general German contract law. If you do not disclose your results, the company can void the contract any time and/or terminate it any time in the future.

This is going to be THE most important issue with genetic testing - the implications for your insurance contracts. Obviously, your test results can have massively positive or negative results.

You have a smart marketing ploy with the "Privacy made in Germany" slogan. Similar to "German engineering", instantly recognizable. Also, great looking product.

I wonder though, I am a German lawyer myself and under the impression that German data privacy laws (which I am not specialised in) are not that different from US/UK/generic EU country laws. Do you have any research or comparisons on that?

Because I see two ways how my data might get misappropriated anyway: either by your hosting provider, over which you have no control whatsoever if you don't own the physical servers, or by a police investigation, with which you have to comply anyway. So what exactly does German privacy protection buy me here?

Your site is awesome! I've been looking for a way to read without distractions and without having to enter every single article into instapaper.

What many people underestimate is that summaries have an inherent problem: bias. No two people are ever going to summarize an article the exact same way - much less so when it comes to politics etc. So before I use a site to read summaries, I have to trust the brand (I trust The Economist, for they mostly differentiate between reporting and editorializing) and I will never ever trust an anonymous bunch of people (the "crowdsourcing" summaries-solution) to accurately summarize without bias. I value as-close-to-objective-reporting-as-possible very highly - judgments I can make my own.

Non-programmer's question: Why is WhatsApp always able to push notifications and why is that different from Sparrow?