The surveillance should include all Internet traffic, Mueller said, “whether it be .mil, .gov, .com–whichever network you’re talking about.”

Bold emphasis in the above quote was added by me.

Sounds delicious, doesn’t it? You can read more about it here: FBI wants widespread monitoring of ‘illegal’ Internet activity

What exactly is “illegal”?

Maybe you’re simply venting to a friend in chat when you say, “The president should go choke on a pretzel, and maybe next time someone should help the pretzel!” Uh oh, you went and threatened the life of the president! You poor sod. That’s a secret service visit for you. Never mind the fact that you were merely venting in an instant message conversation with a friend when you said it.

I wonder when people are going to realize what’s happening? Or, rather, I seriously question if they give a damn at all. Maybe they just think, “It’s not MY problem, so I won’t worry about it!” Maybe they just think that their personal emails are so boring that the FBI or NSA simply wouldn’t care to begin with.

What nonsense. Do you really want random strangers reading your IMs, emails, and watching the sites that you visit? So that stuff’s no big deal then… unless the funny picture that you just viewed is showing something that’s technically illegal in your state. That’ll be a $500 fine, thank you very much!

Yeah that’s stretching it thin, but seriously. There comes a point when I say, “You know what? They’re getting what they deserve”. If people just want to sit around on their butts and do nothing about what’s happening, then they’ve worked very hard indeed at earning the loss of their privacy. Cynical? Yeah, you bet’cha I’m getting that way.

You want my philosophy about it? The more that they push, the more that we should push back. You don’t have to be a criminal to demand respect and your basic rights.

• Get a VPN and have all of your traffic encrypted, not just your web browsing. There’s a lot more to cover than just the fact that you hit your favorite website every day.
VPN services cost a yearly or monthly subscription. I use WiTopia.net because it’s wonderfully inexpensive and really fast, but there are probably better (and more expensive) services that you should peruse first.
• Another area of privacy concern should be your IM chats. Do you really think that a group as intrusive as the FBI wouldn’t be monitoring your chats?
Unfortunately a proxy or even a VPN won’t completely secure your conversations. Get OTR encryption for Pidgin & Adium, or at least have SecureIM enabled in Trillian.

Technorati Tags: security, privacy, rights, human rights, anonymous

This is the most awesomenest thing that I’ve ever done.

That said, I’m not going to put my entire schedule up here. At least not yet. I can say that I’m finally starting to get excited about this trip.

We’re not going to be in one hotel. We’re actually changing hotels three or four times (I don’t remember off hand).

We’re going to a major city in the East of South Korea as well as in the South, then going back to Seoul. We’ll be staying at a hotel in each of those cities.

We’re going to visit a few different universities. This is actually turning out to be a slightly bigger deal than I previously thought, because we’ll be meeting the deans of those universities. One fella who’s going on the trip with us will be bringing a suit because it’s apparently that big of a deal. I have no suit, so they’re just going to have to accept my slacker ass as is lol

::ahem::

More updates later. I don’t feel like typing anymore atm. byyyyeee~

I was browsing through my feeds this morning, seeing as I’m sick and didn’t go to class, and I came across a link to an incredibly fascinating article. At first I was very disappointed because it was from the Daily Mail, but a Google search found articles that back up the story. Apparently The Daily Mail’s headline was the most sensationalist part of the article.

Being that I’m a psychology major it should be no surprise that I was absolutely fascinated with this article about Multiple Personality Disorder. Meet My 17 Personalities .. is a well written article that is worth the read. Another online source, The Chicago Mag, has an interview with the psychotherapist who has written a book about the whole experience. The 17 Faces of Karen is the title of that article.

Lastly, a general Google link that brings up a number of additional sources is available. The Google search for Karen Overhill should help those who are after more online sources.

All in all, it’s a crushing tale.

Technorati Tags: multiple personality disorder, MPD, dissociative identity disorder, DID, psychology

So, I just finished the single player campaign of UT3. It was strange, having a story line taking such front stage in a game that’s little more than run, gun, and respawn. I found the whole “respawners” idea (the story’s way of explaining away the infinite lives that one has) to be a bit hokey. The rest of the story was interesting enough though, and the voice actors done a darn good job.

For all of its flash and popularity, UT3 is a very limited game that quickly becomes dull. At one point I found myself wondering why the game just didn’t end. There are only three game modes – CTF, DM, and “Warfare” – and that’s it. Through the entire single player campaign. These three modes simply are not enough to hold interest over a game that spans multiple levels on two different planet settings.

The real joy, however, comes from the bots. When I say “joy”, I mean this as sarcastically as possible. Here’s a quick little image: Read the rest of this entry »

I now have my travel itinerarie for my trip to Seoul, South Korea.

It looks like we’ll be departing from Kansas City International Airport, which was a given, and then stopping in Chicago. From Chicago we have a straight flight to Tokyo Japan’s Narita International Airport. From there we’ll take a little ride over to the famous Incheon International Airport.

It’s kind of depressing, you know? I really miss my Japanese friend. I miss her a lot. I wish that the situation would have worked out better. The lay over in Japan, not to mention the two weeks that I’ll be in Seoul, could have been a great opportunity to sit down and actually talk rather than chat, and goodness knows that we have tons of silly things to talk about.

Well crap. I’m just going to get myself seriously depressed if I think about that… so anyway..

We still don’t know specifically what we’ll do on each individual day. The general plan that I have for our visit there is:

• Lectures:
Korean Culture
Korean History
Politics and International Business
• Field Trips (the university stuff):
Samsung Electronics
Kia Automobile Co.
Pohang Steel Co.
Daewoo Shipbuilding
Korean Traditional Pottery Yard (this one actually sounds a bit interesting)
Korean Stock Exchanges
DMZ
• Sightseeing (the good stuff!):
Kyungju
Kyungbok Palace
Jinju and surrounding southern coastal area (go go exercise video, get mah bootay into shape! heh heh)
Songkwang Buddhist Temple
Korean folk Village
Seoul Tower and Han River
Korean War Museum
Lotte World (of course!)

Obviously the business related trips are not particularly interesting for me. However, I am traveling with the International Business majors, so there you have it. I wish that I could meander off and do my own thing during these days but I’ve already been told that this is not an option.

My interests are in the culture and the people. I’ve always enjoyed learning about these sort of things, especially the music and the individual people and what it means to be a part of their culture. I wonder if that makes as much sense on paper as it does in my head?

We’ll be leaving May 18^th and returning on the 31^st.

Later folks.. !

Technorati Tags: Korea, South Korea, Seoul, 한국

Having good grades at a university is a really good thing. It gives you access to scholarships, which of course allows one to continue their studies.

Yet sometimes it can be very stressful. There is, of course, the fact that everyone simply begins to expect you to do good or to be able to answer questions. That’s not so bad as much as it’s occasionally irritating.

Then there are circumstances like this: This morning I learned that the letter that our language instructor handed out was a formal, yet personal invitation. To an annual awards banquet of the foreign languages department.

It starts like this:

Dear Stephen Meyer,

The Department of Modern Languages and Literatures requests the honor of your presence at its annual awards banquet …”

Goodness gracious! O.O

I thought that this letter was the same for everyone in class and that it was simply a (incoming redundancy!) formal form letter. Nope, no such luck.

Am I complaining? Not necessarily. Am I stressing out? Well let’s see. Now I need to prepare for a possible speech in a foreign language, or at least an inevitable request to have a small conversation, at an honor banquet.

Yep, that’s a bit heavy doc.

(why yes, that was a reference to the 80’s.)

~Steph

Technorati Tags: languages, language, foreign language, Korean, 한국어, Korean Language