Category: Technology

Posted inPolicy Topics, Technology

Tim Eyman acquires email list of Democratic activists, begins sending them his propaganda

by Andrew Villeneuve

Hav­ing decid­ed he’s not enough of a pub­lic nui­sance, dis­graced ini­tia­tive pro­mot­er Tim Eyman today sent a large list of Demo­c­ra­t­ic activists a copy of his lat­est email appeal, which is for the most part a rehashed ver­sion of what he sent on Mon­day announc­ing his lat­est scheme to dev­as­tate pub­lic ser­vices, I‑1550. We know […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Technology, World Commmunity

Obama administration strikes back at Putin regime for interfering in 2016 U.S. elections

by Andrew Villeneuve

It’s a start: Pres­i­dent Oba­ma struck back at Rus­sia on Thurs­day for its efforts to influ­ence the 2016 elec­tion, eject­ing 35 sus­pect­ed Russ­ian intel­li­gence oper­a­tives from the Unit­ed States and impos­ing sanc­tions on Russia’s two lead­ing intel­li­gence ser­vices. The admin­is­tra­tion also penal­ized four top offi­cers of one of those ser­vices, the pow­er­ful mil­i­tary intel­li­gence unit […]

Posted inElections, Policy Topics, Technology

Washington’s incumbent Secretary of State could be doing more to lead on cybersecurity

by Andrew Villeneuve

Respond­ing to Don­ald Trump’s absurd recent alle­ga­tions about elec­tion rig­ging, incum­bent Repub­li­can Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman today pub­lished a stern­­ly-word­ed state­ment rebuk­ing her par­ty’s nom­i­nee (though not by name) and express­ing full con­fi­dence in Wash­ing­ton State’s own elec­tions sys­tems. Said Wyman: In recent days, we have heard heat­ed cam­paign rhetoric about Amer­i­can elec­tions being […]

Posted inElections, Policy Topics, Technology

Donald Trump praises Russia’s DNC hacking and urges Putin’s regime to keep it up

by Andrew Villeneuve

Clown. Char­la­tan. Big­ot. Pho­ny. Fraud. Don­ald Trump has been called all these things and more (and fit­ting­ly), but now we can add more descrip­tor to the list: Trai­tor. Only a man who puts him­self and his own thirst for polit­i­cal pow­er above his coun­try would make such unpa­tri­ot­ic, reck­less, and irre­spon­si­ble com­ments: Don­ald J. Trump […]

Posted inMedia & Culture, Policy Topics, Technology

No, tablets aren’t dead

by Andrew Villeneuve

Every so often, AOL-owned tech­nol­o­gy blog TechCrunch pub­lish­es a piece writ­ten by a con­trib­u­tor that bizarrely declares some­thing that remains in wide­spread usage to be dead. MG Siegler infa­mous­ly pro­claimed the mouse to be dead in 2010, and lat­er that same year, in the span of a sin­gle week, TechCrunch writ­ers aston­ish­ing­ly pro­claimed that the […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Policy Topics, Technology

Browse with confidence: Permanent Defense and Pacific NW Portal have gone HTTPS-only

by Andrew Villeneuve

Last spring, we embarked on an ambi­tious project to strength­en the secu­ri­ty of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s net­work of web­sites by mak­ing them avail­able only over HTTPS, begin­ning with this domain, nwprogressive.org, and all the pub­li­ca­tions housed under it, like the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate. Today, we are pleased to announce that we have done the same […]

Posted inLive Coverage, Technology, World Commmunity

NN15 Panel: People Power: Energy, Electricity, & Climate Justice

by Rennie Sawade

Dirty fos­sil fuel util­i­ties are oppos­ing pro­gres­sive change, rais­ing rates and killing the plan­et, but peo­ple across the coun­try, led by youth and First Nations activism, are tak­ing back pow­er. Cli­mate hawks and eco­nom­ic jus­tice activists are work­ing togeth­er to make our pow­er grid and pol­i­tics clean­er, and fight­ing for more afford­able and equi­table energy […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Technology

Comcast suffers major DNS outage; affected areas include Puget Sound and Bay Area

by Andrew Villeneuve

A large num­ber of cus­tomers of telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions giant Com­cast are report­ing tonight that they can­not con­nect to the Inter­net, report­ed­ly because of a wide­spread DNS (domain name sys­tem) serv­er out­age. Affect­ed areas include Puget Sound and the Bay Area. The Domain Name Sys­tem, for read­ers who don’t know, is like the Inter­net’s phone book. It […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, Technology

U.S. Senate adjourns after failing to take any action to reform or renew the unPatriot Act

by Andrew Villeneuve

Well, that was real­ly some­thing. Just min­utes ago, the Unit­ed States Sen­ate adjourned for an extend­ed Memo­r­i­al Day week­end recess after hav­ing failed to pass any leg­is­la­tion to reform or renew expir­ing pro­vi­sions of the (un)Patriot Act — which means that the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency and Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion will need to start winding […]

Posted inCelebrating Free Software, Policy Topics, Technology

Ubuntu and Kubuntu 15.04 “Vivid Vervet” released; Debian 8 “Jessie” due Saturday

by Andrew Villeneuve

Edi­tor’s note: If the terms GNU and Lin­ux don’t mean any­thing to you, this post is prob­a­bly going to read like a bunch of gib­ber­ish. Sor­ry. But do read on if you’re inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about the won­der­ful world of free soft­ware.  Free soft­ware enthu­si­asts, it’s time to rev up your Advanced Pack­ag­ing Tool […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Meta, Policy Topics, Technology

Browse with confidence: NPI’s core network now encrypting all visits by default

by Andrew Villeneuve

It seems like hard­ly a week goes by these days when we don’t hear about yet anoth­er data breach or new­­ly-dis­­­cov­­ered exploit in wide­ly used soft­ware. Bad neigh­bor­hoods have exist­ed on the Inter­net for a long time, but dan­ger now seems to present itself at every turn. There’s mal­ware lurk­ing all over the place, email […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Technology, Views & Reviews

NPI to Comcast: Stop spamming us with unsolicited offers for service we don’t want

by Andrew Villeneuve

Edi­tor’s note: The fol­low­ing is an open let­ter to Com­cast CEO, Pres­i­dent, and Chair­man Bri­an Roberts from the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute. Dear Bri­an: I am writ­ing to ask that Com­cast cease and desist from send­ing us fur­ther “lim­it­ed-time sav­ings vouch­ers” or oth­er solic­i­ta­tions for Com­cast Busi­ness ser­vice. Since last sum­mer, we have received dozens of […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Technology

VICTORY!!! FCC votes to adopt strong Net Neutrality rules to protect the Internet

by Andrew Villeneuve

Orga­nized mon­ey may be an increas­ing­ly pow­er­ful force in Amer­i­ca and Amer­i­can pol­i­tics, but today, orga­nized peo­ple beat orga­nized mon­ey to secure a his­toric, vital vic­to­ry for Inter­net free­dom in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. Just min­utes ago, the Fed­er­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty vot­ed to adopt strong net neu­tral­i­ty rules that will keep the […]