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Random Wednesday: Maternal Homecoming, Productivity in the New Year, and Unraveling “Russian Hackers”

Random Wednesday: Maternal Homecoming, Productivity in the New Year, and Unraveling “Russian Hackers”

Last updated on: January 5, 2017 at 2:48 am by Tom Swiss

Random Wednesday: Maternal Homecoming, Productivity in the New Year, and Unraveling “Russian Hackers” 2017-01-05T02:48:13-04:00 Tom Swiss

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Welcome to the first Random Wednesday of 2017, bringing you a quick selection of links and short bits for your entertainment and edification.

And yes, as our editor Jason “Raise the Horns” Mankey has noted, sometimes it’s Thursday by the time I get this posted. But it’s still Wednesday in time zones out west!

Part of the reason I’m a little late getting this up is because I paid my twice-weekly visit to my mom at the rehabilitation center where she’s been the past two months. But this was my last visit there! She will be returning home on Friday, almost 15 weeks after a harrowing medical crisis that she survived against the odds.

To make it perfect, Friday is my father’s birthday.

So, thus far 2017 is off to a good start for my family.

Productivity in the New Year

If your New Year’s resolutions include working more effectively, let me make two suggestions. First, if you’re a Firefox user, and you sometimes find yourself falling into a timesuck black hole on the net, you may find the Leechblock extension useful. It lets you set up rules for blocking distracting websites, either during certain hours or after a timed period of use. Of course there are ways you can work around the block — it’s a reminder, not an information security solution.

Second, when I was working on my NanoWriMo project two year ago, I found it effective to work in bursts. I would set a timer for a work interval, then force myself to take a timed break.

After some experimentation I found that twenty minutes on, ten off, worked best. And I’ve successfully applied it to many areas. Even to my “day job” in software development, I’ll do focused work for twenty minutes, then take ten minutes to check e-mail, walk to the kitchen and get a cup of tea, and handle other side tasks.

So I was interested to see the same 20/10 rule mentioned in Cory Doctorow’s review of Rachel Hoffman’s book Unf*ck Your Habitat: You’re Better Than Your Mess.

Here’s hoping we all can work more effectively in 2017 — there’s certainly plenty to do.

Public domain image via WikiMedia Commons

The “Russian Hackers” Narrative Unravels

Everybody loves Russian hackers these days. Democrats get to blame them for Clinton’s embarrassing loss the buffoonish Donald Trump. Republicans get to blame Obama for being weak on cyber defense. The deep state gets to play up Cold War-style fear of the Russkies in order to increase their power.

Were there Russian spies in the DNC network, trying to see what was going on? Quite likely, that’s spycraft as usual; given the lousy infosec they had, it seems everyone was in that network.

Were Russian spies responsible for some of the leaks of Democratic and Republican[*] data, intending just to throw a golden apple into the room? Doubtful, but possible. Disregarding various paranoid conspiracy theories about Trump being a Russian puppet, it’s difficult to see how Russia would benefit. While there’s no love lost between Putin and Clinton, it’s far from clear that he would prefer an unknown quantity like Trump rather over the known and predictable Clinton.

([*] As much as this point is ignored in the popular narrative, there were indeed GOP leaks. Those notably included Colin Powell’s e-mail but also mail from the campaigns of John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Michele Bachmann.)

Were Russian spies the source for WikiLeaks, in an attempt to throw the election to Trump? That’s an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence, but absolutely no evidence at all has been provided. WikiLeaks has said all along that its source was an insider, and a credible witness, former UK ambassador and whistleblower Craig Murray, has admitted to participating in forwarding the leaked information.

Several recent stories show how thin the evidence is behind the allegations of Russian interference in the election — allegations which are being used to ramp up international tensions in a dangerous and irresponsible manner:

“Something About This Russia Story Stinks”, Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
“The U.S. Government Thinks Thousands of Russian Hackers May Be Reading My Blog. They Aren’t.”, Micah Lee, The Intercept
“Russia Hysteria Infects WashPost Again: False Story About Hacking U.S. Electric Grid”, Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
“FBI/DHS Joint Analysis Report: A Fatally Flawed Effort” and The GRU-Ukraine Artillery Hack That May Never Have Happened”, Jeffrey Carr, Medium

Acupressure and Meditation

If you’re local to Baltimore, I’ll be hosting another Community Acupressure & Meditation event on January 20th. It’s a pay-what-you-will event. Contact me if you’re interested in attending. I’m also starting to plan another short “Introduction to Self-Care with Acupressure and Shiatsu” class, for early February.

Happy 2017! Thanks for reading The Zen Pagan.

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