Speaking to Tim Russert last Sunday, Donald Rumsfeld had the chance to comment on the Iraqi Minister of Information's pagentry of outrageous falsehoods. Rumsfeld said he couldn't understand why people were so shocked that the guy is a liar. Rumsfeld exclaimed, "he's been lying for years."
Rumsfeld pointed out that people are shocked because now they are getting the split screen view. On one screen they see the Iraqi minister claiming, for example, that the Iraqis have control of the Baghdad airport, while the other screen shows coalition forces in total control, with no Iraqis in sight.
Of course, as this account makes clear, maybe we wouldn't have been so shocked if our press hadn't been allowing itself to be a tool of disinformation. Just to 'get the story' of course...
Dave Winer of Scripting News points to the Boston Globe: "A plan to enact tough digital antipiracy legislation in Massachusetts has run into fierce opposition from technologists and civil libertarians who say the new law would violate civil rights and ban some common computer security techniques."
I'm reading a fascinating book right now by Bruce Schneier called Secrets & Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World. I don't expect many people to believe me when I say that this is a very easy to read, and captivating account of how digital security affects our life. Even if the book were boring, which is definitely not, I would say that a book like this is pretty much a must-read for most of us.
Lesson one: there is no such thing as complete security, especially not in the digital world. Security is all about compromises (i.e. how valuable is the thing that is sought to be protected, and how much money, time & effort are you willing to put into security?). Any DRM system or hardware based security system can be reverse-engineered. The description of how this is done is amazing.
So now that I'm almost through with the book I can say I now have a much different perspective of all of the brouhaha about DRM. Basically, it won't work. But that won't stop people from trying....
Tomorrow, Monique and I depart for the City of Lights. Once we get settled I hope to hit one of these cafes with connexion Wi-Fi to access the Web with my ordinateur portable. Otherwise, keep an eye peeled for me here. Yes, it's April in Paris.
It's interesting the reactions I get from people when I tell them about the trip to Paris (a trip that we obviously planned before the Iraq war was imminent). "Oh man, the French sure aren't going to like having Americans around," is one phrase I hear a lot.
I guess I'll find out for sure in a few days, but I really don't think that's true. My wife and I are going to be sporting cheerful tourist faces, freely spending our Euros in tourist-type places.
The French aren't going to be rude to tourists, whatever their nationality. I think it says more about our poor understanding of foreign culture when we assume that the entire nation of France will now decide to give all Americans the cold shoulder because of geopolitical events.
