Monday, March 17, 2014

This was a slam dunk..I wonder if Japan could do this to Sakhalin island? Russia probably would not like giving back the oil fields.
Crimean Parliament Votes to Secede from Ukraine
A day after a contested referendum, legislators in Crimea moved swiftly on Monday to begin the process of splitting from Ukraine, with the regional Parliament declaring that Crimea is an independent state, with special status for the city of Sevastopol.
While the ballot on Sunday has been rejected in the West and by the government in Kiev, the legislators asserted that the laws of Ukraine no longer applied to Crimea and that state funds and all other state property of Ukraine in Crimea had been transferred to the new state. They also announced that the Ukrainian authorities had no power in Crimea.

(Related) Our big “or else” is, we'll ask Congress to come back from vacation?
U.S. warns Russia against annexing Crimea


Several interesting choke points in places I would not have guessed. (Think of this as a CyberWar target map.)
– there are many cables criss-crossing the oceans floors, more than you could possibly keep track of. This Cable Submarine Map details where a lot of them are. Zoom in for more details, or buy a print copy of the map.


IBM does not offer cellphone service nor do they run Internet search services. What information do they hold that the NSA would want?
Richard Chirgwin reports:
IBM has become the latest of the tech giants to deny handing over customer data to the NSA’s PRISM program.
In this open letter, Big Blue’s general counsel Robert Weber (also senior veep for legal and regulatory affairs) gives the “no way” message to the world at large.
Read more on The Register.


I'll have my students whip up an App to detect “trademark conflicts” for a mere $20 per hit.
Web Domain Name Revolution Could Hit Trademark Defense: UN
The mass expansion of Internet domain names could cause havoc for the defense of trademarks in cyberspace, the UN's intellectual property body warned on Monday.
There have long been just 22 generic top-level domains (gTLDs), of which .com and .net comprise the lion's share.
Around 1,400 new gTLDs are gradually being put up for grabs, with the first 160 already delegated to various Web registration firms.
"The opportunity for misuse of trademarks expands exponentially," said Gurry, noting that registering a domain name is a cheap, automatic procedure that takes a matter of seconds and does not have a filter to examine whether there is a trademark conflict.
"That brings with it the attendant inconvenience of a much greater burden of surveillance on the part of trademark owners," he said.


I want one!


For my students with minds. Both of them.
Ten Good Online Tools for Creating Mind Maps
Creating mind maps or webs is one of my favorite ways to organize ideas and information. I've often had my students create mind maps as an exercise in making visual connections between important concepts, events, and people in a unit of study. The following free tools offer good options for creating mind maps online.

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