Recent activity on the Web site. Buying Tumblr isn't the only big thing that Yahoo has done today. Flickr, the photo storage and sharing site bought by Yahoo way back in 2005, has been brought into the 21st century with a new look, new pricing, and a new Android app. Gone is the old Flickr interface of small thumbnails, gobs of whitespace, and lots of metadata. In its place, the site has big thumbnails, full-screen pictures by default, and metadata for each image tucked below the fold. Flickr's Lightbox view, that removes the clutter around the page and shows pictures on their own, remains available. The home page now shows photos of everyone you subscribe to with the most recent handful of pictures that your contacts have uploaded. Each user's photostream displays a big tiled view of their pictures. This isn't entirely new to Flickr—it was a feature of the site's Explore page—but it's new to individual user pages. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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A new Senate report (PDF from The New York Times) shows that Apple has been employing potentially sketchy business methods to avoid heavier tax burdens. According to the investigation, the company did dodged billions in potential taxes on $44 billion in foreign income during the past four years. Some of the interesting bits from the Senate's report: three Apple subsidiaries in Ireland claim no responsibility to pay income taxes to any country. Apple Operations International, one of the Ireland three, reported $30 billion in income during 2009 to 2012 despite having no employees and not filing income taxes anywhere within the last five years. Apple did not violate any laws during this time according to the Senate investigation. As The Chicago Tribune notes, many of the tactics Apple employed are common for multinational corporations (see cost-sharing arrangements). Google and Amazon were slammed by British parliament last year for their own tax-tiptoeing practices abroad. Nevertheless, the information released today cannot be welcomed by Cupertino with its CEO set to speak in front of Congress tomorrow. The Tribune quoted written testimony for that hearing which addresses this new tax spotlight. According to those statements, Apple does not utilize "tax gimmicks" and "has substantial foreign cash because it sells the majority of its products outside the US.” The company also reiterates that it pays plenty of US taxes, a defense it used in the face of tax accusations last year. Read on Ars Technica | Comments
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One of the longer-running, and higher stakes, high-tech patent disputes has been laid to rest. Brocade and A10 Networks settled their patent and copyright dispute over their competing application delivery controllers today. The deal was struck just one hour before a San Jose jury was about to hear opening statements in a damages trial, according to Mike Swift, a reporter for the MLex legal and regulatory news service. Brocade won a huge court victory against A10 last year when a jury ruled that A10's AX line of "load balancers" infringed both Brocade copyrights and patents. The case became even more noteworthy after trial when a judge ruled that Brocade would win an injunction because of patent violations. In the past several years, changes to patent case law have made it much harder to win an injunction. Overall, A10 took a walloping. The company was found liable not just for patent infringement but also for copyright infringement, trade secret violations, and unfair competition. A10 was ordered to pay Brocade $60 million, and the company had to change the design of its flagship networking equipment in view of the court's injunction. A10 was facing a separate jury trial, starting today, on the issue of damages, which could have been up to an additional $50 million. That's not pocket change for an organization that had $92 million in revenue in 2011. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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I log some face-on time with Glass at Google I/O. Florence Ion "When you're at a concert and the band takes the stage, nowadays 50,000 phones and tablets go into the air," said Google Senior Development Advocate Timothy Jordan in the first Google Glass session of this year's Google I/O. "Which isn't all that weird, except that people seem to be looking at the tablets more than they are the folks onstage or the experience that they're having. It's crazy because we love what technology gives us, but it's a bummer when it gets in the way, when it gets between us and our lives, and that's what Glass is addressing." The upshot of this perspective is that Glass and its software is designed for quick use. You fire it up, do what you want to do, and get back to your business without the time spent diving into your pocket for your phone, unlocking it, and so on. Whether this process is more distracting than talking to someone with Glass strapped to his or her face is another conversation, but this is the problem that Google is attempting to solve. Since Google I/O is a developer's conference, the Glass sessions didn't focus on the social implications of using Glass or the privacy questions that some have raised. Rather, the focus was on how to make applications for this new type of device, something that is designed to give you what you want at a moment's notice and then get out of the way. Here's a quick look at what that ethos does to the platform's applications. Read 22 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Back when Sony's February PlayStation 4 unveiling concluded without actually showing what the console itself would look like, I actually defended the company. After all, the look of the plastic shell surrounding the new PlayStation hardware didn't actually matter as much as the games on display. After seeing today's teaser trailer promoting the PS4's E3 press appearance, though, I have to think that Sony is just trolling us at this point. I mean what other conclusion is there to draw from the 39 second trailer above? It shows the system as a far off black rectangle that looks like it was shot through a jar of vaseline. What are we supposed to make of intercut split-second extreme close-ups of things like a shiny PlayStation logo against a Matte plastic background or a numeral 4 etched into more matte plastic? Is that a set of circular air vents or a colander? It's hard to say for sure. Of course, now Sony can technically say it managed to show off some version of its system shell before Microsoft has its big Xbox announcement tomorrow. The timing is undoubtedly a deliberate attempt to keep Sony on the radar during a week that will be full of Microsoft news. Still, this kind of extended strip tease for the PS4's case seems destined to frustrate as much as it titillates. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Josh Chin The Chinese hackers who breached Google's corporate servers 41 months ago gained access to a database containing classified information about suspected spies, agents, and terrorists under surveillance by the US government, according to a published report. The revelation came in an article published Monday by The Washington Post, and it heightens concerns about the December, 2009 hack. When Google disclosed it a few weeks later, the company said only that the operatives accessed Google "intellectual property"—which most people took to mean software source code—and Gmail accounts of human rights activists. Citing officials who agreed to speak on the condition that they not be named, Washington Post reporter Ellen Nakashima said the assets compromised in the attack also included a database storing years' worth of information about US surveillance targets. The goal, according to Monday's report, appears to be unearthing the identities of Chinese intelligence operatives in the US who were being tracked by American law enforcement agencies. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock When Microsoft officially announces the next Xbox tomorrow, it will have been 2,932 days since the company last unveiled a new video game console. In those eight years and 10 days, Sony and Nintendo have combined to unveil six pieces of hardware across the home and portable markets. Apple and Google have revolutionized the mobile phone and gaming markets with iOS and Android. Microsoft itself has even gone through three PC and two mobile operating system launches. So it's fair to say that the pressure is on to make the follow-up to the Xbox 360 as much of a durable and long-lasting product as its predecessor. Here's a primer on what to expect and what not to expect from Microsoft's big event tomorrow. Price and release date It's hard to remember now, but Microsoft's star-studded Xbox 360 reveal event in May of 2005 didn't actually mention anything about the system's price or release date. That information didn't come out until August of that year. The safe money is on Microsoft holding these crucial details close to its chest again this time around, at least for the time being. Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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GSM Arena Late last month, we heard rumblings that Samsung planned to launch a water- and dustproof version of its Galaxy S 4 smartphone. The Wall Street Journal reported that this handset would be called the Galaxy S 4 Active, and now images of it have apparently been leaked. Though we were under the impression that it would look similar to the current Galaxy S 4 handsets out on the market, it appears that this “lifeproofing” will take on a bit of a different aesthetic. The images were leaked by GSM Arena. They show a brightly colored red handset with black trimming that appears on either end on the back while framing the screen on the front. The touch-enabled navigational hardware buttons have been replaced with physical buttons. The phone features what looks like a 480 ppi display, which raises some questions about its actual display size. Rumors previously pointed to a 5-inch 1080p Super AMOLED display. The photos also show an AnTuTu benchmark screen, which suggests that the phone features a quad-core ARMv7 processor as well as an Adreno 320 GPU. As we previously reported, the manufacturer of the SoC has not been the object of speculation. Samsung has usually produced at least two variants of each handset for different markets, so if this handset is targeted for the American market, it may include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600. It's not clear whether it will share its other specifications with the standard Galaxy S 4 handset, like 2GB of RAM, a 2,600 mAh battery, and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Trying (and failing) to video chat over AT&T. Andrew Cunningham When Google unveiled its new Hangouts service at Google I/O last week, AT&T users quickly discovered that they couldn't use its new video chat feature over cellular. This occurred despite the fact that the iOS version of the application works just fine on the carrier's network. Officially, AT&T said at the time that it makes a distinction between pre-loaded applications (like FaceTime on iOS or Hangouts on Android) and those that are downloaded manually by the user (Hangouts on iOS or Skype on either platform). Phone makers that work with AT&T can enable video chatting in their built-in apps—Apple, Samsung, and BlackBerry were all given as examples. However, the Verge reports that the company will be removing this restriction by the end of the year. From AT&T's statement: For video chat apps that come pre-loaded on devices, we currently give all OS and device makers the ability for those apps to work over cellular for our customers who are on Mobile Share or Tiered plans. Apple, Samsung, and BlackBerry have chosen to enable this for their pre-loaded video chat apps. And by mid-June, we’ll have enabled those apps over cellular for our unlimited plan customers who have LTE devices from those three manufacturers. Throughout the second half of this year, we plan to enable pre-loaded video chat apps over cellular for all our customers, regardless of data plan or device; that work is expected to be complete by year end. Today, all of our customers can use any mobile video chat app that they download from the Internet, such as Skype. The carrier's ban on built-in video chatting apps obviously stems from a desire to reduce bandwidth usage rather than any real technical limitation, since Hangouts works in iOS but not in Android. However, if you're an AT&T customer who wants to get in some Hangout time with some of your loved ones, the policy change will (eventually) straighten everything out. Read on Ars Technica | Comments
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During a Q&A following a rambling conclusion to Google I/O's marathon keynote, Google CEO Larry Page said a few things that hinted at his frustrations with the one platform he can’t seem to find the right interfaces for: government. The Man is killing Page’s buzz and keeping him from finding the answers to the world’s biggest problems. If only Congress, the White House, and the FCC could just see things his way, he seemed to posit, all of the inefficiencies of regulation and privacy laws and the fear and loathing that come with them would simply disappear. If people would just be more trusting of technology and let Google know everything about them, government and health care and commerce would be immensely more efficient. But Washington doesn’t seem to be aligning with Page’s desires. So he’s turning to the Google developer community to help him try to push Congress closer to his worldview—a worldview that may be better suited to Burning Man than Washington, DC. Read 18 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Earlier this month, four Prenda-linked lawyers were hit with serious sanctions by a Los Angeles federal judge. The sanctions are starting to have consequences. On Friday, Paul Hansmeier, a Minnesota attorney who has been pointed to as one of the masterminds of the Prenda copyright-trolling scheme, filed an emergency motion to stay the $81,000 sanctions order while he and his colleagues could mount an appeal. Today the appeals court flatly denied (PDF) his motion. Two appellate judges signed this order, and it gives Hansmeier the option to make a plea for delay with the district court judge. That would be US District Judge Otis Wright, the judge who sanctioned Hansmeier in the first place. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Some Alaskan permafrost tumbles into the ocean. USGS It has become a staple for news coverage of natural disasters: shocked residents, standing among the wreckage, promising to rebuild. But as climate change and sea level rise are permanently altering the landscape, it may not make sense to rebuild in precisely the same location. That reality has already arrived for many communities in northern Alaska, where the vanishing sea ice and permafrost have left entire towns at risk of being washed away. If the experience of those residents is anything to go by, we're woefully unprepared for the new reality. A paper that will be released by PNAS details the challenges of what its authors call "climigration," the forced relocation of entire communities to safer ground. To date, the process has faced enormous hurdles, partially because there is simply no legislation that allows government agencies to pay for or coordinate the process—or even certify that it's conforming to federal regulations. At least partly as a result, the communities the researchers examined are still stuck in their deteriorating infrastructure. A number of factors combined to make the native towns of northern Alaska exceptionally vulnerable to climate change. Originally, the area's inhabitants moved among locations with the changing seasons, which limited the amount of infrastructure in any one place. But mandatory education meant that communities coalesced around the sites where the state built schools. Since the schools were built with material brought to the area by barge, this mostly led to small towns built along the coast. These areas remained reliant on barges for fuel and other supplies. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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SamMobile is reporting that the Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean test firmware for the Samsung Galaxy S III has leaked. While development on the software isn't entirely finished, it does offer plenty of clues about what’s to come to the handset. The Android 4.2.2 update comes with much of what is already included out of the box on the Galaxy S 4. The lock screen will have multiple widgets, a Ripple and Light unlock effect, and the ability to change the clock size and set a personal message. The update will also include new screen modes like Adapt Display, which automatically switches between seven presets based on each viewing situation, and Professional Photo, which calibrates the display to the Adobe RGB standard for viewing high-end photography. Additionally, Android 4.2.2 will enable the Galaxy S III to use the Galaxy S 4’s new S-Voice functionality and will come with much of the standard Jelly Bean features that have been missing from the Galaxy S III. You can see a brief walkthrough of the update in the video below. A few months ago, SamMobile also uncovered leaks of what the forthcoming Jelly Bean update would look like for the Samsung Galaxy S III. The screenshots showed many of the same features present in this most recent leak. While there is no word on which carriers will be pushing the update through, users who have just updated to the Galaxy S III will at least be able to use the same options as the new handset. It will be interesting to see how the new software fares on the Galaxy S III's hardware. Read on Ars Technica | Comments
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It's Monday, Arsians, and that means the Dealmaster is back with deals for you! Topping the list sent over by our partners at LogicBuy this week is a Dell Ultrasharp U2413, a 16:10 IPS-paneled LCD monitor with built-in USB 3.0. At 1920×1200 pixels in 24 diagonal inches, it's a great moderately sized screen that would work well as a primary or secondary monitor, depending on how your desk is laid out. Dell is running it at $499.99. There are many other cool things on the list this week, like a camera-equipped spy tank you can drive from your smartphone or a 60-inch LG 60LA6200 TV for $1,525 with free shipping. Strap on your buyin' pants and take a look! Top deal: Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Microsoft isn't waiting until E3 to pull back the curtain on its follow-up to the Xbox 360; the company has scheduled a presentation for select press at its Redmond campus mere weeks before the big industry confab. The fun starts at 10am Pacific on Tuesday, May 21 (use this tool to see when the event starts in your neck of the woods). "Xbox: A New Generation Revealed," will be Microsoft's first console unveiling in over eight years, and the company has to be planning a big splash in answer to Sony's February PS4 event. Expect details on everything from the new system's hardware power and controller to its big launch titles and even an official name that's less unwieldy than "next Xbox." Don't expect details on a price point or precise launch date to come until later in the year, though stranger things have happened. We'll update you on all the announcements as they're happening direct from Redmond in our liveblog coverage, followed by more reports from the Microsoft campus throughout the day. We'll also be hosting livestreamed video of the event provided by Microsoft; look for a link to that as the event is starting. Read on Ars Technica | Comments
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If you think the private messages you send over Skype are protected by end-to-end encryption, think again. The Microsoft-owned service regularly scans message contents for signs of fraud, and company managers may log the results indefinitely, Ars has confirmed. And this can only happen if Microsoft can convert the messages into human-readable form at will. With the help of independent privacy and security researcher Ashkan Soltani, Ars used Skype to send a four Web links that were created solely for purposes of this article. Two of them were never clicked on, but the other two—one beginning in HTTP link and the other HTTPS—were accessed, by a machine at 65.52.100.214, an IP address belonging to Microsoft. For those interested in the technical details, the log line looked like this: '65.52.100.214 - - [16/May/2013 11:30:10] "HEAD /index.html?test_never_clicked HTTP/1.1" 200 -' The results—which were similar but not identical to those reported last week by The H Security—prove conclusively that Microsoft not only has ability to peer at the plaintext sent from one Skype user to another, but that the company regularly flexes that monitoring muscle. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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A Russian spacecraft containing 45 mice, 8 gerbils, and 15 newts returned to Earth on Sunday. The spacecraft, a modified Bion-M life sciences satellite, was launched in April 2013 and was intended to study the biological effects of long-term weightlessness. However, due to a combination of equipment failure and what scientists referred to as "the stresses of space," fewer than half the mice (and none of the gerbils) remained alive after their month in space. The newts were fine, though. The mission's Bion-M life sciences satellite being prepped for launch. Russian Federal Space Agency The low survival rate among rodents "was to be expected," according to Vladimir Sychov, deputy director of the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems, the agency conducting the experiment. The Bion-M satellite was equipped with internal cameras so that scientists could visually monitor the animals during flight, which orbited at an altitude of about 357 miles (575 km). This is far higher than the International Space Station's orbit of 250 miles (410 km). That most organisms, including humans, undergo physical changes in prolonged microgravity is already well-understood; the United States and the Soviet Union (and later Russia) have been conducting long-duration manned space flights as far back as the early 1960s, and there is a plethora of data on the subject. However, conducting detailed experiments on the biological deficits incurred through long exposure to microgravity—including skeletal and muscular deterioration—is ethically difficult because at least some amount of the damage could be irreversible. Astronauts and cosmonauts undergoing multi-month missions on the International Space Station follow a rigorous exercise schedule intended to stave off microgravity-induced health problems. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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The Jolla running Sailfish OS exists out there, but it will be a while til it gets to consumers' hands. Jolla The Finnish mobile phone company Jolla unveiled on Monday its first smartphone running Sailfish OS, the spiritual successor to Nokia’s MeeGo. The phone, which is also named “Jolla,” will retail for €399 and features a user-replaceable battery and the ability to run Android apps. A number of Nokia employees splintered off from the company last July with the intent of taking MeeGo to the heights they thought it was destined for. MeeGo had been jointly developed by Intel and Nokia as a combination of the two companies’ Moblin and Maemo projects. Sailfish OS is based on Mer, an open-source OS that was part of MeeGo. The developers unveiled a concept device back in November, and the Jolla represents the actual product the company intends to ship. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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After being publicly exposed in February as the source of a long list of cyberattacks on US companies and media organizations, the Chinese People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Unit 61396 largely pulled back from the networks the unit had infiltrated. But now, the New York Times reports, the hackers are back in action using new techniques to go after many of the same corporate and government targets they had infiltrated before. The revived attacks come despite (or perhaps because of) the direct accusations leveled against China's military in a Pentagon report to Congress earlier this month. The White House approved "naming and shaming" the PLA unit in hopes that it would cause the Chinese government to take action. The move was part of an escalation of diplomatic pressure that began in March, when White House National Security Advisor Tom Donilon first publicly mentioned the Obama Administration's appeal to the Chinese government to "engage with us in a constructive dialogue" on cyber security. "In 2012, numerous computer systems around the world, including those owned by the US government, continued to be targeted for intrusions, some of which appear to be attributable directly to the Chinese government and military," the Pentagon report stated. "These intrusions were focused on exfiltrating information. China is using its computer network exploitation (CNE) capability to support intelligence collection against the U.S. diplomatic, economic, and defense industrial base sectors that support US national defense programs." Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/124330160/23764566/sizes/l/in/photostream/ A team of Croatian researchers are training honeybees to sniff out unexploded mines that still pepper the Balkans. Nikola Kezic, a professor in the Department of Agriculture at Zagreb University, has been exploring using bees to find landmines since 2007. Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and other countries from former Yugoslavia still have around 250,000 buried mines that were left there during the wars of the early 90s. Since the end of the war, more than 300 people have been killed in Croatia alone by the explosives, including 66 de-miners. Tracking down the mines can be extremely costly and dangerous. However, by training bees (which are able to detect odors from 4.5 kilometers away) to associate the smell of TNT with sugar, the researchers can create an effective way of identifying the locations of mines. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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I'll admit, I was not immediately drawn in by a recent hands-on demo of the upcoming Batman: Arkham Origins, currently scheduled for an October 25 launch on PC, Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii U. Though the PR team presented the prequel to the first two Arkham games as a new experience that presents a "rawer, scarier Batman" that's "more energetic, athletic and aggressive," the gameplay seemed incredibly similar to the games that came before it. That's not a bad thing, really. In Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, Rocksteady Games created what's probably the best system of third-person, open-world exploration and melee combat we've seen this generation. Warner Bros. Montreal hasn't messed with this formula for Origins, keeping the feeling of gliding gently from rooftop to rooftop and the timing-based, improvisational punch-and-dodge battles that made the first two games so enjoyable. Stil, the demo felt quite a bit familiar. PR reps took pains to highlight a new enemy type that features heavy armor and takes mighty, easy-to-avoid swings and another that can actually counter Batman's moves, but battling these didn't feel especially different from taking out the kind of thugs that Arkham fans have already taken out hundreds of times. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Aurich Lawson Thirty-party apps didn't exist when the iPhone first launched in 2007. At that time Apple offered its own set of built-in iOS apps and users were relegated to Web apps if they wanted tools made by someone else. Luckily things have changed since; we now have hundreds of thousands of apps to choose from for our iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches. Many of them even offer similar or better functionality than the default apps from Apple. Users still can't delete Apple's default apps from iOS devices (grumble grumble…) but there are plenty of useful alternatives out there for people hoping to use something other than the default. Readers are always asking about which apps the Ars staff uses when they choose to ditch the Apple's camera, mapping, music, or other apps. I put out a call to our editors and writers to find out just what does the Ars staff use for the major app categories (and why)? Here's what we came up with: Maps Google Maps I never upgraded my iPhone 4 from iOS 5 to iOS 6 so I can't say if the new Apple Maps are as bad as people claim. However, I rushed to download the new Google Maps when it hit the App Store and haven't been disappointed. The underlying map technology is the same as the one in my stock app since iOS 5's pre-installed app also relies on Google. But the spoken, turn-by-turn directions and traffic data make the new version of Google Maps far superior. Read 26 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Add the Financial Times to the growing list of media companies whose websites or Twitter accounts were hijacked by a group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army. On Friday, both the paper's Tech Blog and several of its Twitter accounts were seized by the group. The SEA used its unauthorized access to publish 12 blog posts in four minutes and also sent tweets through the FT's Twitter feeds. One stated "Syrian Electronic Army Was Here." Another linked to a YouTube video which appeared to show bound and blindfolded individuals being executed, according to The Wall Street Journal. The FT said the accounts were hijacked following a phishing attack targeting company e-mail accounts. That's the same method used two weeks ago to commandeer the Twitter account of parody news site The Onion. Other media companies that have been similarly hacked by the SEA in recent months include the Associated Press, The Guardian, The BBC, and Al Jazeera. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Julian Assange is the man in the middle of Alex Gibney's documentary, We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks. Focus World Warning: plot points of We Steal Secrets: the Story of WikiLeaks are discussed in this Q&A. Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney doesn't shy away from controversy. In fact, he may gravitate towards it. His previous works cover the fall of Enron (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room), the Elliot Spitzer saga (Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer), and torture during the war in Afghanistan (Taxi to the Dark Side). For his latest documentary, Gibney focused on the story of WikiLeaks—from its successful beginnings in Iceland all the way through Julian Assange embracing Ecuador. The film itself is an extremely thorough look at a complicated tale that still hasn't finished, with both Assange and Bradley Manning currently existing in a sort of legal limbo. It challenged Gibney to craft an ever evolving narrative and inspired him to consider doing a dramatic film about Manning in the future ("We're working on it, I wouldn't say more than that," he told Ars). Read 40 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Warning: potential spoilers ahead in this film review. Alex Gibney's new documentary hits select theaters on May 24. All movies have heroes and villains and Alex Gibney's documentary, We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, felt like vintage silver screen. Two-thirds of the way through, the film established clear roles. Our protagonist is Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder and underdog hacker hero. His evil nemesis is actually information-silencing bureaucracy but the US government largely plays this role (voiced often by Michael Hayden, former director of both the NSA and CIA). It's a classic conflict: a battle waged over censorship and the public's right to know. We Steal Secrets begins with point-of-view shots from above the Earth and this could loosely be seen as the start of a hero's journey. The satellite Galileo is orbiting as Bryant Gumbel, Ted Brokaw, and other talking heads read news of the WANK digital attack on NASA. The film later ties Assange unofficially to this Melbourne hacker collective that penetrated 300,000 NASA computers during the incident. (WANK's slogan, "You talk of peace for all and then prepare for war," is a lyric from one of Assange's favorite songs.) So here is the talented but misguided young hacker, shown at one point being charged in his home country for actions under his past Mendax moniker. WikiLeaks represents the realization of his potential. One talking head comments that it's something he would have screwed up 20 years ago, but the timing is right now. Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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