When the California “high speed” rail was approved, I was quite disappointed, as I know many others were too. How could it be that the home of Silicon Valley and JPL – doing incredible things like indexing all the world’s knowledge and putting rovers on Mars – would build a bullet train that is both one of the most expensive per mile and one of the slowest in the world? 

There’s a place lurking beneath the Internet you use every day. It’s a hidden underbelly, home to both rogues and political activists, and accessed only with the help of specially designed anonymizing software. It’s a secretive place, where Arab Spring dissidents can hide their digital tracks, a place where whistleblowers can reach out safely to scoop-seeking media outlets. And, yes, it’s also a dangerous place, where a lot of illicit, underground nastiness occurs. (​Of course, keep in mind TOR was developed by the Government, [archived link] in the first place, just like the internet.)