Links: 2013-08-09

The links post is brief again today. I apologize for the brevity but I have not been able to get more links sorted before the 11am newsletter deadline.

Edward

In China, a New City Attracts Few – WSJ.com

“Tieling symbolizes the enormous challenges Chinese Premier Li Keqiang faces as he touts urbanization—a process analysts expect will see 250 million people move from rural areas to cities over 20 years—as the force that will ensure his country’s economy keeps growing well into the future.

“Urbanization will not only drive tremendous consumption and investment demand, and create employment opportunities, but directly affect the well-being of the people,” Mr. Li said in March during his first news conference as Chinese premier.

Mr. Li has yet to present a detailed vision of how to achieve his economic goals. “

Edward Snowden’s Email Provider Shuts Down Amid Secret Court Battle | Threat Level | Wired.com

The NSA’s surveillance is a threat to the cloud computing models of many US companies.

“This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.”

Silent Circle sees ‘writing on the wall,’ shuts down secure email service | The Verge

“Silent Circle says it hadn’t yet received any government requests for data, but didn’t want to simply wait until the feds came calling for its customers’ emails. “We’d considered phasing the service out, continuing service for existing customers, and a variety of other things up until today. It is always better to be safe than sorry, and with your safety we decided that the worst decision is always no decision,” it said.”

Silent Circle Preemptively Shuts Down Encrypted Email Service To Prevent NSA Spying | TechCrunch

“Silent Circle reportedly had revenue increase 400% month-over-month in July after corporate enterprise customers switched to its services in hopes of avoiding surveillance. The company giddily told Forbes it planned to nearly double staff and significantly increase revenue this year in part thanks to the NSA’s practices coming to light. In light of those comments, today’s news about shutting down Silent Mail seems a bit sobering.” 

Reuters Next — NSA to cut system administrators by 90 percent to limit data access

“”What we’re in the process of doing – not fast enough – is reducing our system administrators by about 90 percent,” he said.

Using technology to automate much of the work now done by employees and contractors would make the NSA’s networks “more defensible and more secure,” as well as faster, he said at the conference, in which he did not mention Snowden by name.”

Contra Yglesias, newspapers have lost readers to the Web : Columbia Journalism Review

“What Yglesias misses with newspapers and online ads is the junk-traffic problem: Yes, papers reach more people online, but the vast majority of those unique visitors are essentially worthless. Some 86 percent of newspaper pageviews online come from the top 25 percent of their readers.

The New York Times, say, reaches far more readers than ever online. But of its 17 million unique visitors a month (in the US, where it’s far easier and more lucrative for the paper to sell ads), a sizable chunk click one story via Twitter or HuffPo or some such site and don’t return.”

More enterprises hopping onto clouds, despite PRISM gloom — Tech News and Analysis

“It looks like PRISM has at least prompted companies ask more questions about security as they consider the cloud, and that means companies will likely look at security products built for cloud deployments. This could be particularly true for cautious CIOs at enterprises who want to get a taste of the potential budgetary and agility advantages of the cloud.

We’ll have to sit tight until the next annual data center survey from the Uptime Institute to see whether PRISM is in fact dampening cloud adoption in the enterprise.”

Florida’s Next Voter Purge Might Work | TIME.com

“Opponents of the effort in 2012 claimed it targeted and intimidated minority voters, particularly Hispanics. According to a report by the Miami Herald, when the list was reduced to 2,600 people in May 2012, 58% of the identified noncitizens were Hispanic, though they make up 13% of the state’s 11.3 million registered voters.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, in partnership with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the Department of Justice filed separate lawsuits against the state, saying the purge violated the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act, respectively. However, after the Supreme Court decision that invalidated a key portion of the Voting Rights Act, the district court in Tampa dismissed the ACLU lawsuit, freeing the state to further pursue the effort to clear voter rolls of noncitizen voters.”

German minister: Drop US sites if you fear spying

“”Whoever fears their communication is being intercepted in any way should use services that don’t go through American servers,” German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said.”

Email service used by Snowden shuts itself down, warns against using US-based companies | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | theguardian.com

“Snowden: “Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, and the rest of our internet titans must ask themselves why they aren’t fighting for our interests the same way””

Battle over fed chairmanship adds new complexity to relationship of Larry Summers and Elizabeth Warren – Politics – The Boston Globe

“the relationship between Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Lawrence H. Summers, the former Obama economic adviser and treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, is more complicated than their resumes might suggest. And now, in the midst of a fierce personality and policy fight that has gripped Washington in recent weeks, a new chapter in their complex friend-and-foe relationship is being written.”

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