Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
White House Exempts Keystone XL Pipeline From “Buy American” Mandate Image courtesy of Keystone-XL.com Despite recent declarations by the White House that new oil pipelines would be required to be made with steel and iron sourced from within the U.S., the administration has confirmed that the recently resurrected proposal for a pipeline running from Nebraska to…
Uber’s Tactics to Avoid Law Enforcement Mike Isaac speaks on CNBC about Uber’s tool, “Greyball.” SAN FRANCISCO — Uber has for years engaged in a worldwide program to deceive the authorities in markets where its low-cost ride-hailing service was resisted by law enforcement or, in some instances, had been banned. The program, involving a tool…
Technology Inside Uber’s Aggressive, Unrestrained Workplace Culture close story-meta-footer close story-meta Photo Uber offices in Berlin last year. Some current and former Uber employees describe a largely unrestrained workplace culture. Credit Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg SAN FRANCISCO — When new employees join Uber, they are asked to subscribe to 14 core company values, including making bold bets,…
I’m tired. From what I’ve seen on the internet, we’re all tired. And while normally I’d try to give some sort of insight into a problem or offer up some semblance of a solution, or at the very least talk about my balls, I don’t know what to do here. Maybe you can help me…
A Republican bill to replace Obamacare is reportedly hidden somewhere on Capitol Hill — and on Thursday morning, legislators and reporters ended up on a bipartisan wild goose chase to find it. Republicans have been hard at work drafting a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. House Speaker Paul Ryan has repeatedly promised it…
Donald Trump has inherited the most powerful machine for spying ever devised. How this petty, vengeful man might wield and expand the sprawling American spy apparatus, already vulnerable to abuse, is disturbing enough on its own. But the outlook is even worse considering Trump’s vast preference for private sector expertise and new strategic friendship with Silicon…
There’s a little-known federal agency whose job is to ensure U.S. spy agencies protect privacy and other civil liberties even as they work to defeat terrorists and criminals, and to blow the whistle when that doesn’t happen. But the agency, known as the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, is down to just a single…
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is deploying a new intelligence system called Investigative Case Management (ICM), created by Palantir Technologies, that will assist in President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport millions of immigrants from the United States. In 2014, ICE awarded Palantir, the $20 billion data-mining firm founded by billionaire Trump advisor Peter Thiel, a $41 million…
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who during his confirmation hearings repeatedly vowed to promote human rights as a core American value, alarmed human rights advocates when he did not appear in person to present the State Department’s annual human rights report, released Friday. In a break with long-standing tradition only rarely breached, Tillerson’s remarks were…
If you ever wake up feeling kind of down, just take a second to remember that you share most private secrets, your company’s intellectual property, and your dog’s digestive issues over online chat. Then take another second to think about how even apps that take user security seriously can be breached, as a recent (and…