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Automattic, the company behind content management and blogging platform WordPress, has complained that it can't reveal the full extent of state intelligence agencies' requests to probe users' accounts.
The company's new National Security report reports that the company's recorded zero “national security requests” in 2015's first six months. But the report then offers this observation:
The post goes on to say “By preventing us from sharing a more precise number of requests, the current disclosure rules diminish the trust that our users place in us and our services. For now, we are disclosing the maximum amount of information allowed by law.”
Automattic's unhappy with that so has joined the Twitter-initiated effort (PDF) to get the US attorney-general to change the rules in order to allow more detailed reporting of intelligence agency requests.
That effort could take years to resolve, so until it does it seems safest to assume that even though companies list small quantities of intelligence agency action, the reality may be rather different. ®
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2015, @10:17AM
I hear the Japanese refer to their own language as the "devil's language". English is even worse for idioms and irregular forms. And did you ever notice that it is only English speaking nations that have "spelling bees"? Contests over spelling? For most sane languages this would be ridiculous! But for a language that is a bastard spawn of some ancient Briton Celt, Latin, Anglo-Saxon-Jute, French bastardized by Normans, and the Spice Girls, well, it is par for the course. How in the hell did English end up being the default language of the internets? Can we blame India? Or Canada? Or Tasmania?
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Wednesday July 29 2015, @03:06PM
I think it's reasonable to blame the Brits. They were the first imperialistic English speaking empire.
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(Score: 2) by Zinho on Wednesday July 29 2015, @04:30PM
And did you ever notice that it is only English speaking nations that have "spelling bees"?
This is not true: French-speaking countries have spelling bees as well.
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(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday August 01 2015, @03:30PM
The Japanese do not say that about their own language as far as I know, it is said that it was described that way by some Portuguese monk in Japan back in the 16th century because Japanese language sort of reverses the sentence structure (if only it was that easy lol) and in Christian mythology “satanic speech” is sometimes said to be spoken backwards.
It might be true but one doesn't get that impression when reading about some of the Portuguese who went to Japan [wikipedia.org], then again I haven't read it all or studied it.
The same monks are also said to be thought to be a possible source/inspiration for parts of the folklore and mythology surrounding the Japanese Kappa creatures/monsters/yōkai, not just their hair style (a circular fringe/border of hair forming a hairless and possibly shiny “bowl” on top) but possibly also the “buggery” (i.e. the thing about Kappa removing your “soul” out through your anus). Lots of other attributes (true or not, good or bad) of Kappa [wikipedia.org] fit various “expected” behaviour of the monks and this is likely stuff that was merged into an existing mythology whose main purpose was to warn/scare children to be careful when it came to streams and rivers etc.
Foreigners weren't particularly popular (both for good and bad reasons) and one shouldn't ignore the possibility that a myth was intentionally expanded to make people associate at least some of the foreigners with monsters, pain, and death.
Kappa is also Japanese for raincoat and in this meaning the specific word 合羽 is said to be a direct loanword from the Portuguese “capa” but the name Kappa 河童 for the creature is different.
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