Josh Wieder

Its hard to believe that its been almost 15 years since I watched a video of a second plane fly into the World Trade Center. I remember panic thinking about my family in NYC - was anyone in the city that morning? A few short years later brought the British bus attacks and another moment as I realized that the family of a close friend was commuting through London that day. Tonight the target was the city of lights and Camus and Curie and Poincare. A city-wide series of shootings & bombings were launched in Paris that bear a troubling resemblance to the similar series of murders in Mumbai. Once again the targets are ordinary people who play no role in global politics. Concert goers. Soccer fans. I hope it is still possible to stop this type of violence. I hope it does not spark further violence or serve as an excuse to turn Paris into a DMZ. I hope that this tragedy brings out the absolute best of the French and those of us who share her values. No matter what happens, we can...

In my internet travels today, I came across a group called the " Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium " (TRAC). TRAC claims to provide: " researchers in the fields of terrorism studies, political science, international relations, sociology, criminal justice, philosophy and history with content that provides comprehensive data and analysis for complex topics." I assume that one of those complex topics is terrorism, both because of the name, and because their website is a large list of various groups and individuals that TRAC describes in a few incendiary paragraphs before pigeon-holing them as terrorists. TRAC claims they have a lot of these profiles: "With tens of thousands (and expanding) web pages of information, over 4,650 (and expanding) group profiles, and 2,800 consortium members, TRAC provides many ways to efficiently access information." These profiles are apparently compiled into a database, which they sell subscriptions to. Indivi...

This morning the headquarters of Parisian comedy rag Charlie Hebdo was attacked. Masked gunmen entered the magazine's office and killed 10 employees and 2 French policemen who tried to intervene. The gunmen escaped, and are apparently at large. While there has yet to be a formal claim of responsibility, just about everyone with a news press or a TV camera believes that the perpetrators are Islamic militants. Hebdo HQ has already been attacked for publishing funny papers mocking the holy Muhammed; about 3 short years ago, the office was firebombed. This blog o' mine is focused on fixing computers. Occasionally, we talk about how computers are used (and mis-used) to violate people's privacy. Rarely, if ever, do we get political; excepting once or twice when we have mocked US government attempts to abolish encryption . This post will be an exception. I take free speech seriously. I have always enjoyed shooting off at the mouth. Moreover, the newspaper racket is somewha...