Privacy
How To Mod A Hacked Phone
Watch Edward Snowden teach you how to mod your phone so that if it's been hacked you can no longer be seen or overheard. http://www.wired.com/2016/05/snowden-vice-cell-phone-hack/
Latest
Creativity and Innovation
June 13th Meetup - An Introduction to Locksport
Still have your copy of "The MIT Guide to Lock Picking" from the BBS era, perhaps tucked away with the Anarchist's Cookbook and other favorites? The hobbyist lockpicking scene has exploded in the U.S. in the last decade, and Austin has been a major player
Privacy
Russian Phone App Can Identity Strangers In Pictures With 70% Accuracy
The ethics of the mass adoption of facial recognition software and what it means for people's right to privacy and the rise of the surveillance state are questions we're going to have to grapple with sooner rather than later. http://boingboing.net/2016/05/18/russian-face-recognition-app.
Creativity and Innovation
Javascript Is Taking Over The Entire Programming Ecosystem
Javascript is increasingly being used not just for client-side programming and server-side programming with Node.js, but for the creation of traditional desktop applications. This is being facilitated by the creation of the Electron development platform, which is what Slack used to create their desktop application and what Brendan Eich
Creativity and Innovation
Automation Is Coming To The Professions
Services like IBM's Ross can allow lawyers to automate the gruntwork of searching through the entire corpus of law for the information relevant to their particular cases. http://futurism.com/artificially-intelligent-lawyer-ross-hired-first-official-law-firm/
Creativity and Innovation
Apple Music Deletes All Music Files From Users' Computers
Be careful if you sign up for Apple Music. Apparently, Apple believes that signing up for the service gives them the right to delete all the music files from your computer, even ones that are songs you personally created. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/apple-stole-my-music-no-s_b_9873638
Privacy
Police Can Force You to Use Your Fingerprint to Unlock Your Phone
Locking your iPhone with your fingerprint as opposed to a passcode might not be as secure as you thought it was. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/iphone-fingerprint-search-warrant/480861/
Events
May 9th Meetup - The Role of Government Regulation in the Sharing Economy
Our speaker this month will be Chris Herndon. Chris is a serial entrepreneur with a geeky obsession for real estate. He most recently co-founded The Guild, a early-stage, Austin-based startup that's combining the charm and authenticity of short-term rentals with the consistent quality and service of hotels. Prior
Government 2.0
CIA Social Media Surveillance
The CIA is investing in several tech companies working on mining social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., with the purpose of determining "networks of association, centers of influence and potential signs of radicalization.” https://theintercept.com/2016/04/14/in-undisclosed-cia-investments-social-media-mining-looms-large/
Privacy
Meet Brave, A Browser That Enforces Do Not Track Settings
Brendan Eich, inventor of Javascript and co-founder of Mozilla, is working on a new, open-source, experimental browser named Brave that enforces a model where third party ads must comply with a browser's Do Not Track settings. If they do not, the browser replaces them with ads that do
Privacy
Richard Stallman talks about EME/DRM in the HTML5 Standard
If you've got 90 minutes to spare, this looks like a great discussion with Richard Stallman of GNU and FSF fame about EME, also known as DRM in the HTML5 standard, and why such systems of software control leave us all worse off. https://boingboing.net/2016/04/
Creativity and Innovation
April 11th Meetup - Rhythms and Collective Intelligence: The Neuroscience of Shared Intentions
Our speaker at our April monthly meetup will be David DeMaris. David DeMaris has worked in computer design software, computational neuroscience, computer vision, social robotics, music, visuals, theatrical sound design, and DJing. His Ph.D. work was on similarity and object invariance using time-varying oscillating networks. David will be giving