The NSA scandal just gets worse.

First of all, just a thought:  Who puts the graphics for these NSA slide decks together?  WRETCH.  Hire a graphic designer for chrissakes!

Posting today on his new multi-million dollar wordpress blog, The Intercept,  Glenn Greenwald shows how the NSA just keeps seemingly digging it's hole deeper and deeper:

Top-secret documents reveal that the National Security Agency is dramatically expanding its ability to covertly hack into computers on a mass scale by using automated systems that reduce the level of human oversight in the process.

The classified files – provided previously by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden – contain new details about groundbreaking surveillance technology the agency has developed to infect potentially millions of computers worldwide with malware “implants.” The clandestine initiative enables the NSA to break into targeted computers and to siphon out data from foreign Internet and phone networks.

So far, I hate to say it, but I'm not surprised.   Nothing we have learned so far has shown anything other than the NSA's need to know the whereabouts, conversations, and interests of every person on the planet.   What did surprise me was this little nugget:

In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social media site as a launching pad to infect a target’s computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive. In others, it has sent out spam emails laced with the malware, which can be tailored to covertly record audio from a computer’s microphone and take snapshots with its webcam. The hacking systems have also enabled the NSA to launch cyberattacks by corrupting and disrupting file downloads or denying access to websites.

I wonder if Facebook is complicit in this?  It seems it would be extraordinarily difficult for the NSA to pull something like this off without at least SOME allowed access to Facebook's infrastructure.    This may indeed be the bigger story here.   Is it something akin to Apple's goto fail issue?  Where backdoor access has been "accidentally" added in a bit of code somewhere?  Or more frighteningly, is Facebook actively cooperating with the surveillance of the American people?   Terrifying thought if true,  that's for sure.

Barack Obama Between Two Ferns

Ok, I'll be the first to admit I was late to the game on this one. But this is HILARIOUS.

Photo of the Day - March 12th

No words for this.  Absolutely stunning. Kudos to Lee Jeffries for creating this.

..that moment...just "before".... by Lee Jeffries on 500px

Archival Disc Format - Finally!

Read a great piece today on the newly announced Archival Disc Format.

Move over, Blu-ray: Sony and Panasonic have just announced a new optical disc specification with even higher storage capacities. The new "Archival Disc" format promises to store between six and 20 times the data of a standard 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray disc. Unlike Blu-ray, this new format is intended primarily for professional, archival use. The companies first announced that they would be working on this then-nameless standard together in July of 2013.

"Optical discs have excellent properties to protect themselves against the environment, such as dust-resistance and water-resistance, and can also withstand changes in temperature and humidity when stored," reads the release. "They also allow inter-generational compatibility between different formats, ensuring that data can continue to be read even as formats evolve. This makes them robust media for long-term storage of content."

First-wave Archival Discs are slated to launch in summer of 2015 and will be able to hold up to 300GB of data. By comparison, the largest commonly available Blu-Ray discs use the 100GB and 128GB BDXL format. Archival Discs will apparently be double-sided, so this works out to 150GB of data per side. Future versions of the technology will improve storage density, increasing to 500GB (or 250GB per side) and 1TB (500GB per side) as the standard matures.

As a professional photographer,  this seems like nothing short of a godsend.   So far there has been no truly good way of archiving old work besides maintaining ever growing stacks of hard drives which need to be cloned and replaced as they age, burning multiple DVDs or BluRays per job which can be extremely time consuming,  as well as utilizing expensive cloud storage options to store multiple terabytes of raw photos.  This disc format could allow for a nice and simple way of archiving a lot of data in a short amount of time in a very small space.   Instead of going back and digging through a card catalog of DVDs, looking for DVD 3 of 8 of a certain job,  it could be much easier to simply find the 1TB archive disc that holds all of the work for a month,  or a quarter.  I'm looking forward to keeping a close eye on the development of this.

The Napster of Movies?

Could the new Mac app "Popcorn Time" be on the verge of becoming the Napster of movies?  Becoming the app that makes film piracy so easy that it becomes mainstream?  Yannick Lejacq of Motherboard seems to think so.

Popcorn Time, which is currently available in beta form for Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) or higher, is pretty much identical to Netflix for all intents and purposes. The only difference is that all of the content therein is pirated, of course.

According to the site's FAQ, it's designed to download and stream torrented video that's "buried in a secret folder somewhere in your drive until you restart your computer," at which point it's deleted. In essence, it's a torrent client dressed up with a better presentation. At face value, Popcorn Time has the potential to be truly huge.

Then again, something makes me think that the wide availability of streaming services like Amazon Instant Video and Netflix will damper some of the enthusiasm for this product.   Though it may be enough to start to get movie studios to add their newer catalog to those streaming services a bit sooner than before.   Which would be a plus for consumers.   Either way I think the authors of the software are way too optimistic that they won't be creating too much controversy.  We shall see.

Incredible COLOR photos from 1905-1915!

Looking back on old photography is always an interesting adventure.  It's a window into a past life that can otherwise be difficult to imagine.  That being said, there has always been a bit of an "uncanny valley" in black and white photography.   You get a lot of the feeling of the photo,  but without the color it's difficult to immerse yourself in the image.  That's why I was truly mesmerized when I saw this grouping of COLOR photographs posted on PetaPixel dating to around 1905 by Sergey Produkin-Gorsky.   Yes, you heard that right.  Color photos.   These photos were not colorized later, they were taken in color.

The images were produced by taking 3 seperate exposures .  Each one using either a red, green, or blue filter over the lens.   Then those resulting monochrome images were projected through red green and blue filters onto a screen where the images could be printed in their full color glory. The amount of technical skill involved in doing something like this with the limited technology that was available in the early 1900s is absolutely staggering.  Think about the amount of exposure time, and the necessity to make sure nothing in the frame moves throughout the entire production of the image.   Staggeringly good work.

For more information,  please read the full PetaPixel article, and visit the full collection online.

[gallery link="file" columns="2" type="slideshow" ids="62,65,66,71,70,69,68,67"]

First Kiss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpbDHxCV29A Came across this beautiful art piece today.   The creators asked a number of random strangers to kiss for the first time ever.  So interesting to watch the stages of awkwardness that the participants go through, and how quickly it dissolves once they begin.   Very well done piece.  Check it out.