Weaver95

So, lately there has been a quiet effort to get Yahoo, Nextel, and a whole bunch of other telcom and web companies to tell the public the details of how corporations help the government spy on their customers.  Unsurprisingly, these companies object to the attempts to expose this information. Take this article for example:

Yahoo writes in its 12-page objection letter (.pdf), that if its pricing information were disclosed to Soghoian, he would use it “to ’shame’ Yahoo! and other companies — and to ’shock’ their customers.”

Wow.  Shock their customers.  And Yahoo is dead set against that information being released to the public.  They’re fighting tooth and claw to make sure that ‘we the people’ (i.e. their customers) don’t find out all the dirty details of how Yahoo sells us out to The Man.

Wait - what’s this?  Oh look! Yahoo’s internal documentation regarding how they help the government sell us out to The Man! thanks cryptome.   Head down to around pg 12 or so - there’s even a handy price list. Yahoo sells us out for $30-40 per email account.   I don’t know what’s more insulting - that yahoo has a price list for their spying, or that the prices are set so low.

Yahoo is fighing really really hard to make sure that documentation doesn’t get out to the great unwashed masses.  Anyone reading this blog might want to take a moment or two and skim that document.  Might be something there that jumps out at you, and I figure if a corporation fights to keep something secret, it’s worth reading.

sorry about the lack of updates lately, but as I’m sure you know - the holiday season can force one to be quite busy.

where to start…hmm.  well, lets go with a personal note.  I survived thanksgiving.  No relatives were harmed in the making and consumption of a turkey dinner…although there was a few moment there when I almost cried ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war.  Luckily for all concerned there was a bottle of wine within easy grasp, so that occupied me until the urge to shatter the illusion of peace finally calmed down.

On the blogger front, i’ve got a couple things backlogged.  An interview with a porn star/dominatrix (which was the unintended result of  a VERY interesting series of email exchanges), a write up on the whole ecologist/global warming email hacker document dump and of course…more goldman-sachs insanity.  i’m actually taking my time with the first two write ups.  i’m still digesting the material and doing some reading on the background before I write my article.  And no you pervs, i’m not watching porn.  I’ve been reading about the business, not the material itself.  yeesh.

However, I can slam goldman-sachs in my sleep.  Take this article for example. GS bankers are apparently all buying up hand guns and various sorts of artillery.  Now gee, why would anyone think goldman-sachs was evil?  well…there’s this little gem:

Henry Paulson, U.S. Treasury secretary during the bailout and a former Goldman Sachs CEO, let it slip during testimony to Congress last summer when he explained why it was so critical to bail out Goldman Sachs, and — oh yes — the other banks. People “were unhappy with the big discrepancies in wealth, but they at least believed in the system and in some form of market-driven capitalism. But if we had a complete meltdown, it could lead to people questioning the basis of the system.”

think about that for a second.  Consider what Paulson said there - people were ‘unhappy with the…discrepancies in wealth’.  yeah…I think that’s pretty obvious.  And while we’re talking about wealth and it being all discrepancies up, consider this news - shoppers up, sales down.  After two years of layoffs, pay cuts, bonus cuts, and 17% unemployment apparently some bright light analysts were thinking that somehow and against all reason that THIS black friday would see a massive surge in consumer spending.  And bankers wonder why nobody respects them anymore.

So now we’ve got bankers going around armed.  Apparently they’re looking at the fiscal system in this country and have decided to stock up on canned goods and shotguns while turning their mansions into fortified bunkers.  Yeah - that’s really inspiring me to trust my local banks.  thanks guys…I think i’ll head off to ebay and see how much a couple cases of MREs is gonna cost me.

And on that note - I think i’ll close this rant.