Tech Dirt notes that Trump’s Internet Brigades Are Shocked To Realize The Government Just Sold Them Out On Privacy. They just found out that he is more interested in what’s best for corporations than poor schlubs like them.

If you would like some privacy, you could use the Tor Browser, but that wouldn’t be a lot of help. The next step up would be a Tor-Powered Raspberry Pi HotSpot. This would provide you much more protection at a minimal cost.

A bit more expensive would be the Invizbox Go, which provides the ability to connect via Tor or a VPN with minimum fuss. It is about the size of a SmartPhone and battery powered, so you can take it with you and use it with free HotSpots or your home WiFi. The device looks interesting.

Keep in mind that most of these techniques are going to slow things down.

Next up Trump sets his sights on net neutrality – anything to deflect people from the ‘Moscow Connection’.

Today is World Backup Day.

I kid you not – it is a real thing that was noted when I booted my Win 10 box this morning. The calendar program on that machine includes “Geek Holidays”. The date was chosen to forestall problems caused by April Fool’s Day.

I’m about to get started. I was delayed because my blog backup plug-in that updated yesterday, updated again today and the damn thing is larger than WordPress. 😡

The KGB was split into two major parts after the fall of the Soviet Union: the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation (equivalent of the CIA) and the Federal Security Service (equivalent of the FBI). The Western media normally refers to them by their transliterated initials: SVR & FSB.

In Charlie Pierce’s coverage of the ‘Moscow Connection’ the Senate Intelligence Committee proves it has some by talking to Clinton Watts. Mr Watts introduces the concept of Active Measures, which, if you follow the link, you will find goes back a long way. Today many people refer to it as ‘fake news’.

Mr Watts also advised the Senators to follow the trail of Russian deaths, which caught my attention. The Independent confined itself to Russian diplomats, but CNN expanded the field, Five months, eight prominent Russians dead. There should be another one, as Russians like threes. To a Russian 2³ is not as good as 3².

Back when I was in the business there were reports that the KGB was funding the Turkish Grey Wolves. A lot of people downplayed the probability because the Wolves were anti-Communists and neo-Nazis. The KGB would do it just to cause instability. It didn’t make a difference if it directly helped the Soviet Union as long as it disrupted their enemies.