Security story of the day:

• Navy Warship’s Facebook Page Hacked to Stream “Age of Empires” Gaming — The destroyer-class USS Kidd streamed hours of game play in a funny incident that has serious cybersecurity ramifications.

Twitch has reset everyone’s stream keys. Presumably because of the hack. Funnily, they don’t say why in the email they sent out to streamers. Maybe they presume everyone knows of the hack by now? Interesting corporate communications strategy there…

Notes on Deathloop #5

Well, played as Julianna the first time and promptly my game crashed.

Apparently this is a know issue with the game’s handling of refresh rates and VSync under strain. If it happens to you, this might help. Seems to have fixed it for me.

Notes on Deathloop #4

Jesus. This game is fucking with my brain on so many levels.

Notes on Deathloop #3

Well, a restart of the game fixed the dual wield icon issue. At least that’s something… Although I still don’t understand the default layout. Such a weird design choice.

Notes on Deathloop #2

Why the fuck is the dual wield control on mouse/keyboard this idiotic in this game? By default, left hand is right mouse button and right hand is left mouse button. And even if you change the bindings, the permanent icons at the bottom of the screen are still wrong. What the fuck!?

The amount of times I’ve ended my stealth run by accident now because I looked at the icons and squeezed off a (very loud) SMG burst instead of using my (silent) machete… This is infuriating!

Notes on Deathloop #1

Well, despite continuous warnings that my old GTX 980 has about 2 GB too few VRAM, the game actually runs quite well. I mean, it isn’t exactly pretty and I sometimes have some screen tearing, but it’s very playable and actually quite smooth. And since it’s a very stylised look anyway, even more than with previous Arkane games, it’s actually not that jarring to turn the graphics settings down to low.

The Wall Street Journal once again very good at pulling people into a story, even if the story is largely just what anyone with a modicum of common sense would expect:

• These People Who Work From Home Have a Secret: They Have Two Jobs — When the pandemic freed employees from having to report to the office, some saw an opportunity to double their salary on the sly. Why be good at one job, they thought, when they could be mediocre at two?

I mean, why are you surprised? The reason for this is obviously that many people are only working half as much when they are working from home. I can’t possibly be the only one who noticed productivity tanking across the board with all kinds of organisations last year – from Ikea’s invoice department to all kinds of support hotlines to governmental offices and even regarding teachers in schools (from what I hear from people who have kids.)

There are clearly people who work well (and a lot) when left largely to their own devices. I’ve been a freelancer working for myself for almost three years now, I ought to know. But these people are clearly in the minority. Most people just work less, the less supervision they have. And it should surprise nobody that some of these people have figured out how they can work just the same at home, just for two employers making bank twice. Especially in America. Come on, you don’t have to be a genius to figure this out!

Why are there so many possible podcast topics cropping up exactly when I have so little time to produce new Private Citizen episodes? I hope I can catch up on all of this stuff at some point…

• HTTPS Is Actually Everywhere
• India, Japan flex cyber-defence muscles as China kicks the Quad — Tokyo’s new cyber-security policy names China, Russia, North Korea as sources of increasing threat
• FCC details $1.9 billion program to rip out Huawei and ZTE gear in the US — Carriers with under 10 million customers as well as some schools, libraries, and health care providers can apply for FCC funding to dispose of Chinese-vendor network equipment from October 29.
• When you “Ask app not to track,” some iPhone apps keep snooping anyway — To test Apple’s privacy protections, we watched the data flow out of 10 popular apps.
• Study: Effectiveness of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency
• Kidnapping, assassination and a London shoot-out: Inside the CIA’s secret war plans against WikiLeaks

Holy shit! After saying for decades it wasn’t going to happen, JMS is working on a remake of Babylon 5!

To answer all the questions, yes, it’s true, Babylon 5 is in active development as a series for the CW. We have some serious fans over at the network, and they’re eager to see this show happen. I’m hip deep into writing the pilot now, and will be running the series upon pickup.

It seems whoever had to die or otherwise move on has done so.

And JMS is keeping with the spirit of the original show while not being afraid to change it up.

The network understands the uniqueness of Babylon 5 and is giving me a great deal of latitude with the storytelling. As noted in the announcement, this is a reboot from the ground up rather than a continuation, for several reasons. In the years since B5, I’ve done a ton of other TV shows and movies, adding an equal number of tools to my toolbox, all of which I can bring to bear on one singular question: If I were creating Babylon 5 today, for the first time, knowing what I now know as a writer, what would it look like? How would it use all the storytelling tools and technological resources available in 2021 that were not on hand then?

How can it be used to reflect the world in which we live, and the questions we are asking and confronting every day? Fans regularly point out how prescient the show was and is of our current world; it would be fun to take a shot at looking further down the road. So we will not be retelling the same story in the same way. There would be no fun and no surprises. Better to go the way of Westworld or Battlestar Galactica where you take the original elements that are evergreens and put them in a blender with a ton of new, challenging ideas, to create something fresh yet familiar.

To those asking why not just do a continuation, for a network series like this, it can’t be done because over half our cast are still stubbornly on the other side of the Rim. How do you telling continuing story of our original Londo without the original Vir? Or G’Kar? How do you tell Sheridan’s story without Delenn? Or the story of B5 without Franklin? Garibaldi? Zack?

The original Babylon 5 was ridiculously innovative: the first to use CGI to create ships and characters, and among the very first to shoot widescreen with a vigorous 5.1 mix. Most of all, for the first time, Babylon 5 introduced viewers accustomed to episodic television to the concept of a five-year arc with a pre-planned beginning, middle and end… Creating a brand new paradigm for television storytelling that has subsequently become the norm. That tradition for innovation will continue in this new iteration, and I hope to create additional new forms of storytelling that will further push the television medium to the edge of what’s possible.

Let me conclude by just saying how supportive and enthusiastic everyone at the CW has been and is being with this project. They understand the unique position Babylon 5 occupies both in television and with its legions of fans, and are doing everything they can to ensure the maximum in creative freedom, a new story that will bring in new viewers while honoring all that has come before.

This is beyond exiting! The original Babylon 5 is in my top three of best TV shows of all time. And with JMS involved like he seems to be, this is going to be epic. I can’t wait to see this show!

<*>

I read a very interesting story today that I think I want to make a single-episode topic on The Private Citizen in the future (along the lines of the well received episode 14). Apparently the Stasi, the principal intelligence service of the Communist GDR, was able to intercept West German B-Netz mobile phone communications in West Berlin from 1975 onwards.

• Staatliche Hacker: Stasi hörte seit 1975 Autotelefone in West-Berlin ab — Das B-Netz der Deutschen Bundespost wurde spätestens seit 1975 von der DDR-Staatssicherheit abgehört.

This story about the Quad alliance taking on China also needs to be covered, I think:

• “Quad” group seeks to set security standards for global tech industry — USA, India, Australia, and Japan pledge to build own 5G tech, share space data, secure rare earth supply chains, and more
• Quad Principles on Technology Design, Development, Governance, and Use (whitehouse.gov)

Some more stories for The Private Citizen that I should have a closer look at once I have the time:

• Google Report Spotlights Uptick in Controversial ‘Geofence Warrants’ by Police — Digital privacy rights defenders contend that geofencing warrants grab data on everyone near a crime, without cause.
• Zensurvorwürfe: Will Xiaomi vor allem Porno-Werbung filtern? — Warum laden Xiaomi-Smartphones Wörterlisten mit politischen Begriffen herunter? Möglicherweise soll damit auch explizite Werbung gefiltert werden.
• Indictment, Lawsuits Revive Trump-Alfa Bank Story

Guess what? The Hunter Biden laptop stuff was real. And it was actively supressed with counter-propaganda in the media. I mean, it was obvious to me. I went on the record on episode 48 of The Private Citizen saying so. But now we have another good analysis that indicates this. Glenn Greenwald, who quit the publication he founded over this farce, has a good analysis of all the lies and propaganda by the CIA, the Democrat-allied press and the big tech companies on his Substack:

• New Proof Emerges of the Biden Family Emails: a Definitive Account of the CIA/Media/BigTech Fraud

Here we go again. I’ve got more Private Citizen topics than I know what to do with. Well, once I have time to podcast again, I’ll owe listeners some extra episodes, so I’m guessing all of these links will come in handy.

• Lithuania tells its citizens to throw Xiaomi mobile devices in the bin — Baltic state’s cyber security centre uncovers remote censorship blocklist function in Mi 10T handset

This is another topic for an upcoming episode of The Private Citizen, I think:

• Suex to be you: Feds sanction cryptocurrency exchange for handling payments from 8+ ransomware variants — Russia-based biz targeted in Uncle Sam’s crack down on cyber-extortion

I’m writing a review of Icarus and as such will be taking part in the game’s beta weekends once my other work obligations allow it. I’m planning to stream the game on the beta weekends beginning in October and have updated my streaming schedule accordingly.

I’m currently on the road and unable to record any podcasts. But I am working and came across some potential topics for future Private Citizen episodes today. So let me just park a few links here for future reference. They might help you as well, just be aware of the source of each story – obviously something I always carefully examine on the podcast.

• How surveillance capitalism will totally transform the domain name system
• Top German Court Says Facebook Must Inform Users About Deleting Their Posts Or Suspending Their Account, Explain Why, And Allow Them To Respond
• The digital identity imperative