Catch a Tiger by the App

National Geographic is interested in keeping track of the last 3160 tigers left in the world.  Tigers are very elusive and tracking the big cats is often slow work.  So they are now scanning millions of tiger photos online and comparing the stripes and spots to recognize a set of markings and therefore identifying individual tigers.

You can help?  Check out the Tiger App at wildsense.org.

FBI's fight with Apple to unlock a terrorists iPhone

Now that it's been a month since the controversy between the FBI and Apple was reported, and some of the rhetoric and grand standing is over, I thought this story from UM's Computer Dept summed things up pretty good.

It explains exactly what the FBI is asking for

It explains why Apple doesn't want to do it

What it doesn't explain is why the FBI doesn't employ smart enough computer scientists to do in-house what they are asking of Apple.  This is not rocket science or brain surgery, it's hotter!



But it does demonstrate the trade-offs between privacy and security.  How much privacy are you willing to give up to feel secure?