Modpress – Page 6 – Kultur, natur og modstand

Onion Pi: Beskyt dit privatliv med et bærbart Tor-hotspot

Raspberry Pi + Tor + trådløst netkort er en kombination, som let og elegant kan befri dig for efterretningstjenesters og andres overvågning af din Internettrafik. Jeg har faktisk tit tænkt på at lave noget lignende.

Ideen beskrives nærmere hos Adafruit:

Feel like someone is snooping on you? Browse anonymously anywhere you go with the Onion Pi Tor proxy. This is fun weekend project that uses a Raspberry Pi, a USB WiFi adapter and Ethernet cable to create a small, low-power and portable privacy Pi.

Using it is easy-as-pie. First, plug the Ethernet cable into any Internet provider in your home, work, hotel or conference/event. Next, power up the Pi with the micro USB cable to your laptop or to the wall adapter. The Pi will boot up and create a new secure wireless access point called Onion Pi. Connecting to that access point will automatically route any web browsing from your computer through the anonymizing Tor network.

Who is this good for?

If you want to browse anonymously on a netbook, tablet, phone, or other mobile or console device that cannot run Tor and does not have an Ethernet connection. If you do not want to or cannot install Tor on your work laptop or loan computer. If you have a guest or friend who wants to use Tor but doesn’t have the ability or time to run Tor on their computer, this gift will make the first step much easier.

What is Tor?

Tor is an onion routing service – every internet packet goes through 3 layers of relays before going to your destination. This makes it much harder for the server you are accessing (or anyone snooping on your Internet use) to figure out who you are and where you are coming from. It is an excellent way to allow people who are blocked from accessing websites to get around those restritions.

According to the Tor website:

Journalists use Tor to communicate more safely with whistleblowers and dissidents. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) use Tor to allow their workers to connect to their home website while they’re in a foreign country, without notifying everybody nearby that they’re working with that organization.

Groups such as Indymedia recommend Tor for safeguarding their members’ online privacy and security. Activist groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recommend Tor as a mechanism for maintaining civil liberties online. Corporations use Tor as a safe way to conduct competitive analysis, and to protect sensitive procurement patterns from eavesdroppers. They also use it to replace traditional VPNs, which reveal the exact amount and timing of communication. Which locations have employees working late? Which locations have employees consulting job-hunting websites? Which research divisions are communicating with the company’s patent lawyers?

A branch of the U.S. Navy uses Tor for open source intelligence gathering, and one of its teams used Tor while deployed in the Middle East recently. Law enforcement uses Tor for visiting or surveilling web sites without leaving government IP addresses in their web logs, and for security during sting operations.

Via Boing Boing.

Ud af landet – du kan myrde udlændinge i stedet..

Den danske hverdagsracisme er nu så integreret i vores mentalitet at den sjældent bliver noteret. Se fx en aktuel tragisk sag om en 16 årig der har voldtaget flere mindreårige piger. En ubeskrivelig tragedie for pigerne og deres familier og naturligvis noget der bør straffes.
Men ikke alene skal den unge fyr straffes, nu kræver flere at fyren skal sendes tilbage til Somalia hvor hans familie holder til. Tilbage til et endnu værre sted, uden familie, hvor sandsynligheden for at nogle unge somaliske piger bliver udsat for noget lignende er markant høj.

Men dem er vi ligeglade med – monstret skal sendes hjem, og hvis han så går helt amok dernede, så hører vi jo ikke om det alligevel.
Det er grimt. Og den 16 årige er ikke det eneste monster i denne historie.

Crowdfunding af “Den danske naturs genkomst”

Den danske naturs genkomst

Rune Engelbreth Larsen arbejder i øjeblikket på en vigtig bog om den danske naturs genkomst, som han forsøger at skaffe midler til at færdiggøre. I den forbindelse skriver han på Facebook:

42,63 procent er nået af bogprojektets ansøgte beløb, og der er tre dage tilbage til at nå 100 procent – hvis ikke sendes samtlige donationer retur. Gi’ en hånd og få boggaver som tak – læs hvordan her:

http://www.booomerang.dk/projects/den-danske-naturs-genkomst

Jeg har lige været inde og støtte med et passende beløb, og jeg kan kun opfordre dig til at gøre det samme. Vi har en smuk natur i Danmark, og der er alt for få, der passer på den.

Forsørgerpligt for kæresten er skattepligtig

Hvis du er i den sitation, at du får kontanthjælp og bor sammen med din kæreste, vil du nu ikke længere kunne få kontanthjælp, fordi din kæreste har forsørgerpligt (eller omvendt). Hvad du nok ikke havde regnet med er, at du også skal betale skat af din kærestes forsørgelse af dig.

Som man hører i DR P1:

Kommunerne skal i fremtiden ikke skele til, om kontanthjælpsmodtagere er gift eller bare bor sammen som par. Fremover får også ugifte pligt til at forsørge kæresten, hvis han eller hun bliver arbejdsløs. Det skal ikke længere være kommunens opgave.

Beskæftigelsesminister Mette Frederiksen skriver på ministeriets hjemmeside, at “samlevende par (…) hermed ligestilles med ægtepar”. Men det viser sig nu slet ikke at passe.

Tværtimod stiller kontanthjælpsreformen fremover ugifte par langt ringere økonomisk end ægtefolk, der bor sammen. Ifølge skattereglerne, skal den ugifte mand eller kvinde, der bliver arbejdsløs nemlig betale skat af de penge, som vedkommende fremover skal ha’ af kæresten i stedet for kontanthjælp. Det skal ægtefolk ikke.

Og samtidig kan kæresten IKKE overtage den arbejdsløses bundfradrag, men skal også selv betale fuld skat af sin indkomst, som om han eller hun var enlig.

Det er en borger i Valby, Palle Jensen, der har gjort Folketinget opmærksom på disse øjensynlig uforudsete konsekvenser af kontanthjælpsreformen. Og en lektor i skatteret Inge Langhave Jeppesen fra Syddansk Universitet giver ham fuldstændig ret i, at kontanthjælpsreformen dermed ikke ligestiller samlevende par med ægtepar – sådan som ministereren siger. Tværtimod.

Ja, det manglede vel næsten bare.

Via Denmark Online.

Dagpenge

Nej det er ikke en optimal løsning, ja – finanseringen er helt hul i hovedet – men lad os her på bloggen give regeringen en klapsalve for at løse et kæmpe, aktuelt problem for en masse arbejdsløse. Det er dælme godt, og viser at højrefløjen er gået helt i selvsving i anarkokapitalistiske, minimalstatsløsninger uden rod i virkeligheden.

flot

Dagens citat: Århus, 1. maj

Peter Hegner Bonfils skriver på sin blog på Modkraft:

Århus har gennem de sidste 100 år først og fremmest været en socialdemokratisk by; en by hvor den politiske spillebane VAR socialdemokratiet.

Så når en socialdemokratisk formand og statsminister bliver spillet ud af den bane af titusinder af fremmødte århusianere, så er det en begivenhed, der meget vel kan gå over i historien og blive et sindbillede på socialdemokratiets kollaps og tab af magt.

Apropos.

Recessionspakken gennemført

Så har de danske politikere endnu engang skåret i velfærden for at give gaver til virksomhedsejerne. Denne nedskæringsrunde gik ud over dem der har allermindst – SU-modtagere og folk på kontanthjælp. Til gengæld blev der til billige øl og sodavand, og mindre skat på indkomst på firmaers overskud.

Det er flot. Vi klapper regeringen helt ud på historiens losseplads. Thatcher ville have været stolt.

Nu venter vi så på næste runde med nedskæringer – topchefernes krævementalitet kan ikke stoppes

Det er skadeligt at følge med i medierne, og du burde holde op med det

Rolf Dobelli skriver i The Guardian om, hvordan nyhedsformidling er en slags kognitionenens fast food, der fylder dig med en lind strøm af trivielle kendsgerninger og sidste-minuts-opdateringer, der stjæler din opmærksomhed, forhindrer dig i at se det store billede og forvirrer mere end godt er.

Jeg har ikke selv set TV-avis i årevis og åbner meget sjældent en avis, så selv om man altid kan diskutere det enkelte argument, har han nogle særdeles vigtige pointer:

News has no explanatory power. News items are bubbles popping on the surface of a deeper world. Will accumulating facts help you understand the world? Sadly, no. The relationship is inverted. The important stories are non-stories: slow, powerful movements that develop below journalists’ radar but have a transforming effect. The more “news factoids” you digest, the less of the big picture you will understand. If more information leads to higher economic success, we’d expect journalists to be at the top of the pyramid. That’s not the case.

News is toxic to your body. It constantly triggers the limbic system. Panicky stories spur the release of cascades of glucocorticoid (cortisol). This deregulates your immune system and inhibits the release of growth hormones. In other words, your body finds itself in a state of chronic stress. High glucocorticoid levels cause impaired digestion, lack of growth (cell, hair, bone), nervousness and susceptibility to infections. The other potential side-effects include fear, aggression, tunnel-vision and desensitisation.

News increases cognitive errors. News feeds the mother of all cognitive errors: confirmation bias. In the words of Warren Buffett: “What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.” News exacerbates this flaw. We become prone to overconfidence, take stupid risks and misjudge opportunities. It also exacerbates another cognitive error: the story bias. Our brains crave stories that “make sense” – even if they don’t correspond to reality. Any journalist who writes, “The market moved because of X” or “the company went bankrupt because of Y” is an idiot. I am fed up with this cheap way of “explaining” the world.

News inhibits thinking. Thinking requires concentration. Concentration requires uninterrupted time. News pieces are specifically engineered to interrupt you. They are like viruses that steal attention for their own purposes. News makes us shallow thinkers. But it’s worse than that. News severely affects memory. There are two types of memory. Long-range memory’s capacity is nearly infinite, but working memory is limited to a certain amount of slippery data. The path from short-term to long-term memory is a choke-point in the brain, but anything you want to understand must pass through it. If this passageway is disrupted, nothing gets through. Because news disrupts concentration, it weakens comprehension. Online news has an even worse impact. In a 2001 study two scholars in Canada showed that comprehension declines as the number of hyperlinks in a document increases. Why? Because whenever a link appears, your brain has to at least make the choice not to click, which in itself is distracting. News is an intentional interruption system.

Link: News is bad for you – and giving it up will make you happier

Lock af, Corydon!

Gymnasieskolernes lærerforening har i dag denne kommentar til Bjarne Corydons retorik i skolekonflikten i en annonce, der bringes i diverse dagblade.

Adventures and Japes har et langt og som sædvanlig fremragende indlæg om, hvorfor skolelockouten er et overgreb og et brud på samfundets spilleregler:

There is a social contract here and it is being broken. I pay taxes so that they can send the kids to school. Instead, they are with grandma and hanging around shopping centres. The government is pocketing the millions meant for our salaries and spending it on.. what? Our union support payments are taxed as if they were an income *and* we have to pay them back. So, the government gets to keep half our “wages” when we don’t even. The government gets to skip out on paying a month’s salary with no accountability but still gets the same in taxes from us. You see this in dodgy dictatorships, not Scandy socialist paradises.

I am also angry because of the lack of fair play. The model of negotiations is that if both parties cannot reach a compromise, then a lockout hurts both parties until negotiations re-start. The KL is not being hurt by this. They are about the only party to this mess that is not being injured by the lockout. I am furious that they were able to threaten a lockout on day one, I am angry they had nothing in the way of compromise, it is outrageous that the politicians claim THIS is the Danish Model and refuse to consider re-starting negotiations.

The incompetence is also horrifying. Apparently, every time the teacher union man, Bondo, says “Oh for heaven’s sake, just do a political intervention already, stop the lockout out!” it pushes the political intervention back two days, so the precious Danish Model is not called into question. The politicians did not expect this much popular support, they thought people would turn against ‘lazy, spoiled teachers’ in much greater numbers. The politicians thought they could starve the unions out in two weeks, they have money for a month. The politicians thought they could run things like this and no one would notice the loss of a system that Danish people value. The politicians are possibly going to wait until after May Day (a celebration of the labour movement), before they do an intervention because they do not want to look like hypocrites as they praise the Danish Model.

I am angry that there is now no political movement in Denmark that supports me. There are the blue who hate me because I am unashamedly foreign and the red who mistreat me because they don’t think they can afford me. I expect the blue team will win next election and where does that leave people like me?

But most of my outrage is for the students. They deserve better than this. Some countries have longer holidays but the trade off is longer school days or there are activity camps. Having an indefinite time off of school means you cannot use the time for good. I don’t know how many of my readers have taught children with special needs or unsupportive families? After the summer holidays, you have to teach them things you already taught them. You need to make sure they can still read. You need to lay the ground rules again. It takes about a month to get up and going again. Those students will be especially ill-served by this government. And then there are disabled children who really need routine and certainty. Facing them with “I don’t know when school will start again,” is cruelty. And then there are students in their final year who have been preparing for exams. The government solution is “Well, we’ll just give you your average grade.” Why not do that every year then, if the exams are not important?

All the students of Denmark are being held hostage by incompetent politicians.

Som sædvanlig: Læs endelig det hele

Ubuntu-stand på Aarhus Hovedbibliotek

Jeg var i dag nede forbi Aarhus Hovedbibliotek og fik lige et billede af Ubuntu Danmarks stand, hvor de gør opmærksom på, hvad man kan med Ubuntu – dette er timet med, at biblioteket pr. 1. april 2013 er gået over til Ubuntu på de fleste af deres publikums-PC’er.

Det er et godt initiativ, som man kun kan håbe på, at flere biblioteker og andre institutioner rundt om i landet vil efterligne.

Bemærk: Den artikel, der ligger til almindelig uddeling yders til højre er Ole Wolfs blogindlæg Linux er også bedst for almindelige brugere, som vi også tidligere har linket til her på siden.