the rule change, as requested by the department, would allow judges to grant warrants for remote searches of computers located outside their district or when the location is unknown.

The government has defended the maneuver as a necessary update of protocol intended to modernize criminal procedure to address the increasingly complex digital realities of the 21st century. The FBI wants the expanded authority, which would allow it to more easily infiltrate computer networks to install malicious tracking software. This way, investigators can better monitor suspected criminals who use technology to conceal their identity.

But the plan has been widely opposed by privacy advocates, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, as well as some technologists, who say it amounts to a substantial rewriting of the rule and not just a procedural tweak. Such a change could threaten the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable search and seizures, they warn, and possibly allow the FBI to violate the sovereignty of foreign nations. The rule change also could let the agency simultaneously target millions of computers at once, even potentially those belonging to users who aren’t suspected of any wrongdoing.

This tale of an industrial turncoat ought to be a lesson to all high-tech captains

An employee of TSMC defected to Samsung is the focus of this tale of industrial espionage

TSMC has paid dearly due to their inaction and is losing clients, including Apple, Qualcomm and Nvidia, to Samsung, as a result

TSMC's blind trust on its former employee, and the resultant loss of business should become a case study for all industrial captains, especially those running high-tech companies

Here's a very brief quote

One detail that does stand out: Romney was brilliantly ruthless: He clearly had the sort of plan one would expect of a high-grade consultant, and the idea of having his aides privatize their own data by purchasing their hard drives as surplus equipment shows the type of lateral thinking one seeks in a President. However, Clinton’s concept of privatizing the entire server from the beginning is even more brilliant, and even more ruthless. By contrast, Bush, Walker, and Kitzhaber don’t seem to have had any disaster planning in place, and improvised what to do with the hardware and the data only after the scandal broke. However, the blurred lines between public and private apply in each of these scandals, and in all the email episodes that don’t rise to the level of scandal.

Proposal and Conclusion

Zephyr Teachout knows a thing or two about corruption, and has this to say:

Corruption exists when institutions and officials charged with serving the public serve their own ends.

And that’s why we should avoid mixing public and private communications together when doing email as official business. Again:

Corruption is about greed and private interests put ahead of the public good.

And that’s exactly what privatizing email is all about. If the person who owns the server determines what the public can see, how is the public to be certain that the public good has not been placed second to private gain?

The Open Compute Project, which wants to open up hardware the same way Linux opened up software, is starting to tackle its forklift problem. ... ... The idea is that if a lot of vendors build hardware to OCP specifications, IT departments will have more suppliers to choose from offering gear they can easily bring into their data centers. Standard hardware can also provide more platforms for innovative software, Frankovsky said.

Now HP and other vendors are starting to deliver OCP systems in a way the average IT department understands. At the same time, the organization is taking steps to make sure new projects are commercially viable rather than just exercises in technology.

Bush has some thoughts on net neutrality. Speaking at the Cedar Rapids Pizza Ranch in Iowa this weekend, Bush criticized President Obama's stance on internet regulation, saying it would "stifle competition, stifle innovation."

"The idea of regulating access to the internet with a 1934 law is one of the craziest ideas I’ve ever heard," he said.

Gigaom recently became unable to pay its creditors in full at this time. As a result, the company is working with its creditors that have rights to all of the company’s assets as their collateral. All operations have ceased. We do not know at this time what the lenders intend to do with the assets or if there will be any future operations using those assets. The company does not currently intend to file bankruptcy. We would like to take a moment and thank our readers and our community for supporting us all along.

— Gigaom management

Let’s talk about a domain that’s near and dear to my heart, .dev. Wouldn’t it be great to have a domain for content targeted at software developers? So that you could actually get a domain name for www.[your-side-project].dev? Instead abusing the .io domain which is officially for the British Indian Ocean Territory. Alas, Google does not think much of that plan. Under their shell company “Charleston Road Registry Inc.” (whose “CEO” is merely Google’s in-house counsel), they have applied for control of the .dev domain, which they intend to be:

completely closed for the sole use of Google.

In case you thought that was a typo, they elaborate:

Second-level domain names within the proposed gTLD are intended for registration and use by Google only, and domain names under the new gTLD will not be available to the general public for purchase, sale, or registration. As such, Charleston Road Registry intends to apply for an exemption to the ICANN Registry Operator Code of Conduct as Google is intended to be the sole registrar and registrant.

In case you believe Google is drunk and they meant to apply for some other, more Google-specific string, instead of claiming some kind of monopoly over software development in its entitreity, they helpfully clarify that no, they know exactly what they are doing:

The proposed gTLD will provide Google with direct association to the term dev, which is an abbreviation of the word, development. The mission of this gTLD, .dev, is to provide a dedicated domain space in which Google can enact second-level domains specific to its projects in development. Specifically, the new gTLD will provide Google with greater ability to create a custom portal for employees to manage products and services in development.

In 10 years, every human connected to the Internet will have a timeline. It will contain everything we’ve done since we started recording, and it will be the primary tool with which we administer our lives. This will fundamentally change how we live, love, work, and play. And we’ll look back at the time before our feed started — before Year Zero — as a huge, unknowable black hole.