Monthly Archives: March 2016

Steven Levy on the New Crypto Wars

Posted on 2016-03-13 by jcs

I’ve written about Steven Levy before (1, 2, 3). I still consider his book, Hackers, the definitive history of the hacker culture. Now over at Backchannel Levy asks Why Are We Fighting the Crypto Wars Again? Levy recounts the history … Continue reading →

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The Data on Farook’s Phone

Posted on 2016-03-13 by jcs

Undoubtedly true but beside the point. The government wants a precedent not any purported data on the phone. Reminder: Farook destroyed his + wife's personal phones. There isn't jack on his work iPhone. He didn't even bother to hit it … Continue reading →

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Securing Your WordPress Site

Posted on 2016-03-12 by jcs

About three years ago, after Irreal was hacked, I published a short article on securing WordPress sites that pointed to a WordPress article on ways to harden a WordPress site. Recently, John Stevens wrote me to say that he and … Continue reading →

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Using Emacs for Prose

Posted on 2016-03-11 by jcs

Most Irreal readers are, I think, involved with development or at least some sort of tech. Nevertheless, when I, from time-to-time, write about using Emacs for writing I invariably get some feedback from readers thanking me for covering that aspect … Continue reading →

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The FBI Doesn’t Need Apple

Posted on 2016-03-10 by jcs

Regarding the San Bernardino iPhone 5C, Daniel Kahn Gillmor over at the ACLU blog writes about something I’ve pondered myself: why doesn’t the FBI simply attack the hardware itself? Specifically, why not back up the phone’s NAND memory, which contains … Continue reading →

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Find a Related File

Posted on 2016-03-09 by jcs

Here’s a nice tip if you’re writing in a language that has header files. Emacs command of the day: ff-find-other-file. Jump from foo.c to foo.h (or create the file) and vice versa. — Wilfred Hughes (@_wilfredh) March 7, 2016

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Testimony of Susan Landau

Posted on 2016-03-08 by jcs

The House Judiciary Committee recently held hearings on encryption and what should be our policy concerning disputes such as those between Apple and the FBI. If the committee reaches the wrong decisions it won’t be because they didn’t have expert … Continue reading →

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Bulk Rescheduling of Org Agenda Items

Posted on 2016-03-07 by jcs

Ben Maughan over at Pragmatic Emacs has a really useful tip for rescheduling Org agenda items in bulk. Maughan’s use case is that when at the end of the day he has unfinished TODO items in his Org Agenda he … Continue reading →

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Can We Have Our Cake and Eat It Too?

Posted on 2016-03-06 by jcs

No, but don’t let that stop you from asking. FBI v. Encryption hearings tl;dr The ignoranti: Can we have our cake and eat it too? (No.) — Kontra (@counternotions) March 1, 2016

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Rotating an Org Table on Export to PDF

Posted on 2016-03-06 by jcs

This is a note to myself but you may find it useful too. Kara Woo asks how she can arrange to have an Org table rotated on the page when she exports it to PDF: Anyone know if I can … Continue reading →

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