Category Archives: Poetry

Poetry, Security

How the Dutch WiFi Hacker Escaped Conviction

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Technically he was convicted on a separate charge so he did not go free, but he charges against him for hacking into a WiFi network were dismissed. PC World gives the following explanation:

A computer in The Netherlands is defined as a machine that is used for three things: the storage, processing and transmission of data. A router can therefore not be described as a computer because it is only used to transfer or process data and not for storing bits and bytes. Hacking a device that is no computer by law is not illegal, and can not be prosecuted, the court concluded.

The prosecution had to prove the wireless router was used for storage, processing and transmission of data. That sounds not terribly hard to do (a router is used to store logs and route data, packets are processed and transmitted), but apparently they proved only one or two, not all three. Also, if the law had used the word “or” instead of “and” (storage, processing or transmission of data) the judge might have found a different result. The ruling was appealed.

Poetry, Security

Tuareg Rebel Music

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Ansari is a beautiful poem and song by Tartit, a Tuareg group from Mali.

Hopefully I will find time soon to transcribe and translate it. I thought I would post it in advance of translation because it’s been stuck in my head lately as I read the news about Libya.

I mentioned the Tuareg rebels in 2007. Interviews from 2009 with a Tuareg group called Tinariwen give more insight into their struggle, including time spent training in Libya; it showed up in the Music of Resistance series.

History, Poetry, Security

A Brief History of the Bohemian

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The BBC, in an investigation called “What is bohemian?”, quotes Puccini’s character Rodolfo in La Boheme

I am a poet!

What’s my employment? Writing.

Is that a living? Hardly.

I’ve wit though wealth be wanting,

Ladies of rank and fashion

All inspire me with passion;

In dreams and fond illusions,

Or castles in the air,

Richer is none on earth than I.

Those who embrace the identity of the bohemian may in fact be capturing the essence of “outsider”, which has the most profound effect on fashion and fad, or other industries that favor constant change:

“Everyone has a view of what the bohemian is,” says [writer Virginia] Nicholson. “The bohemian is an outsider, defines themselves as an outsider and is defined by the world as an outsider… A lot of people regard them as subversive, elitist and possibly just a little bit immature.”

In other words, they are less likely to follow tradition and may express an ability or a want to live beyond the confines of localized control. That could be seen as immature if a viewer associates the ability to easily change and adapt around standards to a lack of maturity. The OED is also quoted. It emphasizes a male identity and uses the terms “irregular” and “vagabond” instead of “immature”, which reveal that the terms to emphasize an outsider may be dated.

The Oxford English Dictionary’s definition mentions someone “especially an artist, literary man, or actor, who leads a free, vagabond, or irregular life, not being particular as to the society he frequents, and despising conventionalities generally”.