God bless Aaron Swartz

This is important. There is now a new way to blow the whistle on evildoers -- despite president Obama's KGB-style war on whistleblowers. Now you can report "sensitive" information about the overlords in complete safety. No one will ever be able to track it back to you.

And best of all, Aaron Swartz -- the activist who was coerced into suicide by the US government -- invented the way to do this. Go, Aaron!

Hat tip: Ed Brayton.

Good column on hacktivists

The Stone, the NYT's "philosophy" column, is usually dreck -- at least when Gary Gutting writes it. But today the column is a smart opinion piece written by Peter Ludlow. "Hactivists as gadflies" tears apart the United States' inane and overbearing prosecution of computer-savvy activists.

Really, it reads like a chronicle of North Korean tactics. But this is happening at the behest of the United States -- the home of, you know, freedom and all.

It's like the government is Richard Nixon, come back to life, and the hactivists are every hippie who ever existed. It is insane that these prosecutions are conducted without a rational basis -- and with such venom. Just ask Aaron Swartz.

Good column. Go read it.