Don’t you hate it when your hair gets all messed up whenever you wear a hat? Well, apparently this guy doesn’t seem to mind it at all:

I’ve had the giggles non stop for about 30 minutes now just looking at this picture before I posted it. LOL!!!

I can’t explain why watching a squirrel eat a Ritz cracker to Huey Lewis’ “If This Is It” is funny. But, for some reason, it is:

Just last week it looked like RIM was ready to had over its Blackberry message encryption to the Indian authorities. Now, it seems as if, to quote singer/songwriter Tom Petty, RIM has had a Change of Heart.

From the chorus:

There’s been a change, Yeah there’s been a change of heart, Said there’s been a change, You push just a little too far, You make it just a little too hard, There’s been a change of heart

That’s a change from last week, when it was reported that RIM would hand over the crypto keys for its “non-business enterprise customers.”

According to a RIM statement, its encryption architecture doesn’t allow for anyone, not even RIM itself, to break open ciphered messages.

“The Blackberry security architecture for enterprise customers is purposefully designed to exclude the capability for Research in Motion or any third party to read encrypted information under any circumstances,”

Source: Indian Express Newspaper

If this is true, and I really hope it is, there is no way RIM can fulfill the Indian government’s request for the keys so they’d be able to read messages for certain investigations. Though, I’m quite confident, the government will find a way.

If they don’t, let’s see if the government ups the ante to a “don’t come around here no more” threat to RIM.

If you’ve dreamed of starting your own Web site, Google has made it easier than ever. It has expanded the availability of its Google Sites service — originally only for Google Apps users — to everyone. There’s no limit on the number of pages you can create, nor what you can share with the WWW.

When Google first made sites available to Apps users, I took it for a spin. It was fairly easy to register a site and use Google’s tools to crease some basic Web pages. No advanced knowledge of HTML or other Web technologies is required.

I also was able to set up user accounts, e-mail accounts, and make it really official. At the time, it was only for registered businesses with Google Apps accounts. Now every Jane and Joe can have at it.

Google writes in its blog:

“We’ve made it easy for anyone to set up a website to share all types of information — team projects, company intranets, community groups, classrooms, clubs, family updates, you name it — in one place, for a few people, a group or the world.”

Sites isn’t just for one person to set up and manage a Web site. It’s a collaborative tool that lets anyone (who you’ve invited) view or edit content. Setting up access for others is as simple as e-mailing them.

In the spirit of Web 2.0, the ability for many to contribute, change, and collectively alter Web documents can be truly powerful … or utterly annoying. Either way, launching your own Web site just got a little bit simpler.

Apparently, the Indian government can’t crack 256-bit encryption to read protected e-mails on Research In Motion BlackBerrys. It appears RIM is willing to lend a hand, by handing over its (your) keys.

According to this story, which ran in The Economic Times, there’s been somewhat of a riff between the Indian Department of Telecom and RIM over BlackBerry’s inherently robust (until now) encryption.

Apparently, the Indian government can only break crypto if it’s 40 bits, or less. So they asked RIM to fork over the keys that make it possible to decrypt the messages or reduce BlackBerry crypto to 49 bits.

From the story:

According to officials close to the development, Canadian High Commissioner David Malone and RIM officials met telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura on May 7. “It was explained by RIM that it should be possible for the government to monitor e-mails to nonbusiness enterprise customers,” sources told ET. “RIM is considering giving access to individual users’ e-mail to the government. Details on this will be provided in two or three weeks,” sources said.

So it appears, for now, that corporate users don’t have as much to be concerned with.

RIM doesn’t have much more to say on the issue:

A RIM spokesperson said: “RIM operates in more than 135 countries around the world and respects the regulatory requirements of governments. RIM does not comment on confidential regulatory matters or speculation on such matters in any given country.”

I hope RIM grows more of a backbone and “respects” the privacy and security needs of its customers.

Once the keys are public, how long before the cryptography scheme is broken? How long before they’re sold to criminals? And where does this stop? Are keys going to be made available to any government that asks?

Google’s only goal: Improve user experience. How does it do that?

According to Udi Manber, VP of engineering at Google, Search Quality, it is a heck of a lot of work. Google improves its search algorithms an average of nine times per week. Here’s why.

Google’s Udi Manber published a massive blog post about what exactly is going on behind Google’s closed doors. It is an interesting read. I invite you to check the entire post out here.

Below are some points I thought were most interesting. Read the rest of this entry…