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I've heard about this before. Using the right equipment, you can see most of what is on someone's computer monitor from a good distance and through walls.

Goodbye DRM

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Here's a neat article about how DRM is dying, but more importantly, how companies are realizing that searching for violators and charging them is far better than trying to implement DRM which doesn't work and ticks off customers at the same time. Duh.

This is an amazing essay from a former Geek Squad tech as to why Geek Squad was great, but isn't anymore.

The fact is that you are no more likely to see a real technician at a Geek Squad today than you would be to see a real 5'10" mouse, wearing red suspenders at Disneyland. It is all an act... a show to provide what the customer assumes they need to see. The shoes, the ties, the badges, the pants, the socks, and the shirts do not increase the persons ability to fix your computer, they merely fulfill the customer's subconscious expectation of what a competent computer technician looks like.

He talks of the time he opened a "new" computer only to find that it was in reality, used. His manager told him to clean it off and give it to the customers like nothing had happened of which he said "On this day, I would favor the respect of my superior, rather than that of my integrity".

Wow.

Then there's the time that they were backlogged on computers to repair so management decided that things like crashes and viruses could be fixed easily by wiping all data on every computer. They don't have to worry about legal ramifications because customers are forced to sign a disclaimer that says they've backed up all their data.

And don't forget that Geeks are lonely. If you have (or had) any porn on your machine, they'll find it and save a copy:

If there were a competition between a Playboy editor, a photo lab technician, and a voyeur for the person who has seen the most random pictures of naked people... the only way any of them would win is if the Geek Squad agent was late to the contest.

RFID

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The people over at CASPIAN have warned about how companies are trying hard to get RFID tags into all their products without people knowing. Well, now they will. The anti-theft tags that nearly every product currently has will be combined with RFID technology so that nearly every item you walk out of the store with will also transmit a unique identifying number to any reader nearby. Theives, marketers and big brother are salivating.

You don't believe that companies are desperately interested in what you do every waking moment? Then you haven't been paying attention.

Real ID

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Why they don't do this for other issues, I don't know, but several organizations have banded together to fight the implementation of REAL ID.

Free Speech Flag

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This article is worth reading just from this tagline alone:

Last night, the AACS LA's attempts to keep an HD DVD crack under wraps backfired in a spectacular fashion. Pandora's Box is now wide open, and there's no going back now.

The problem with DRM is that they companies are doing this for entirely their benefit at the detriment of normal users. It's no wonder that the entire Internet community is against them. Now if we could only get that kind of response for RFID.

(Image used under: Creative Commons 2.5 [SRC])

Apparently, a student made a game map of his school and uploaded it for his friends to play on. What this means is that anyone who plays on that map could play a given game and have a virtual shootout at the school.

People have lined up on both sides of this issue saying that it was harmless and others who think it encourages school shootings. To each I ask this question, if a neighbor kid had made a game map of your house and yard where the goal was to break into the house steal, rape, and kill the people inside, would you be ok with it?

Make all the custom maps you want, but if you want to model real structures then you'd better keep it to yourself.

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The title is the Addictiveness of Virtual Violence, but even by admission of thier own article, it's not the violence that's addictive, but the psuedo-social aspects as well as the feeling of building something worthwhile. "If I just work another 8 hours, I'll gain a level (whee!)".

On that note, you might be interested in my article about avoiding gaming addiction while still playing the game. In my case, I play the far less popular City of Heroes (as opposed to the massive audience of WoW), but the principle still applies.