Privacy Roundup #0080 • March 2013
March 2013 mixed fresh breaches and denial of service floods with a wave of corporate transparency, as regulators, courts and campaigners pushed back against everyday surveillance.
Privacy
Blog
Happy Easter
Easter continues to shape my adult life. The events of that first Easter weekend bring lasting peace.
Christianity
Good Friday
Good Friday continues to shape my adult life. The events of that first Good Friday bring lasting peace.
Christianity
Eurobloat #0034 • February 2013
The month Brussels invented a brand new EU-level tax, dreamed up a fingerprint database for every visitor, and discovered there was horse in the lasagne it had spent decades regulating.
Eurobloat
Borgen
Borgen is a Danish political drama series. It aired on DR1 with three seasons from 26 September 2010 to 10 March 2013. Adam Price created it. Sidse Babett Knudsen plays Birgitte Nyborg, a politician who becomes Denmark's first female Prime Minister by chance.
TV Series
What are the xpc system daemons?
If you see xpc.roleaccountd, xpc.smd, or xpc.uscwoap running on your Mac, here is what these XPC processes do.
Mac
Privacy Roundup #0079 • February 2013
February 2013 brought a wave of state-linked intrusions, fresh regulatory pressure on mobile apps, and hacktivists exposing corporate and government surveillance.
Privacy
De Cock en de dood van een profeet by A.C. Baantjer
De Cock looks into the murder of a failed theology student who had taken up the cause of young people with few chances.
Books
Monthly update #0274 • February 2013
Monthly update 274 • February 2013 • 2013-02-01 - 2013-02-28
Monthly Updates
NSAssertionHandler
In Objective-C, Foundation has macros like NSAssert for methods and NSCAssert for functions. They also have versions for parameters: NSParameterAssert and NSCParameterAssert.
Development
Eurobloat #0033 • January 2013
The month Brussels invented an eleven-country tax, a German Green tried to rewrite the internet, and frozen lasagne quietly turned into a horse.
Eurobloat
The Janus Reprisal by Robert Ludlum
In Robert Ludlum’s The Janus Reprisal, co-authored with Jamie Freveletti, Covert-One's Jon Smith survives a terrorist attack in The Hague and chases a Pakistani warlord across Europe.
Books
NSURLCache
NSURLCache is the built-in, automatic HTTP(S) cache used by NSURLConnection, NSURLSession (default/ephemeral configs), and WKWebView.
Development
Privacy Roundup #0078 • January 2013
January 2013 paired sweeping cyber espionage and breach disclosures with a wave of enforcement, transparency reports and the death of Aaron Swartz, which turned computer crime law into a privacy fault line.
Privacy
De Cock en het duel in de nacht by A.C. Baantjer
After a death notice for a notorious burglar arrives, De Cock and Vledder face a run of mysterious murders.
Books
Monthly update #0273 • January 2013
Monthly update 273 • January 2013 • 2013-01-01 - 2013-01-31
Monthly Updates
NSValue
NSValue is the lightweight way to put any C scalar or struct (int, float, CGPoint, CGRect, NSRange, etc.) into an object so it can live in NSArray, NSDictionary, NSSet, etc.
Development
The Killing
The Killing is a Danish crime drama series. It aired on DR1 from 7 January 2007 to 25 November 2012. Søren Sveistrup created it. Sofie Gråbøl plays Sarah Lund, a detective in Copenhagen who cannot let go of a case until she finds the truth.
TV Series
Eurobloat #0032 • December 2012
The month Brussels collected a peace prize in Oslo, levied its biggest ever fine, and quietly handed the banks of an entire continent to the central bank nobody elected.
Eurobloat
NSLocalizedString
NSLocalizedString is a macro in Foundation that gives a localised version of a string. It takes a key to find the string and a comment to help translators.
Development
Useful macOS defaults: Dashboard
Handy defaults write commands for com.apple.dashboard, controlling the legacy Dashboard widgets feature.
Mac
Monthly update #0272 • December 2012
Monthly update 272 • December 2012 • 2012-12-01 - 2012-12-31
Monthly Updates
De Cock en de ontluisterende dood by A.C. Baantjer
Two teachers are found dead on an Amsterdam car park within a short time, and an identical killing in Friesland brings De Cock into the case.
Books
Privacy Roundup #0077 • December 2012
December 2012 saw user data turned into advertising fuel, from Instagram's photo grab to a Verizon camera patent, while lawmakers reauthorised warrantless surveillance and China and Britain pushed competing visions of state control over the network.
Privacy
Reflecting on the year 2012
Reflection on the year 2012, checking progress of the goals, and some numbers.
Journal