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Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Nov 12, 2013

The NSA's war on terror is more than just a 'neat' hacking game

Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy. And then there's Edward Snowden, who was a spy and then became something else. Nobody is neutral about him. The other day I heard a senior military officer describe him unambiguously as "a thief." In Washington he seems to be universally regarded as a traitor. Many people...
EDITORIALS
Nov 4, 2013

Preventing information leaks

The three-year statute of limitations has expired on indictments of suspects in the online streaming of terror probe documents. Police made no arrests, but the case spurred a dangerous anti-leaks bill.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 11, 2013

Crashes, sticker shock mark Obamacare shopping

Last week I spent six hours shopping for Obamacare on New York State's health care marketplace website. Officials had estimated that it would take the average person seven minutes. Either because I am not an average person or because the Obamacare people are idiots, I spent six hours setting up an account....
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN WEB WATCH
Sep 17, 2013

Accidental leak IDs over 30,000 'anonymous' 2channel users

Japan's most popular online bulletin-board service, 2channel (pronounced ni-chaneru), recently experienced what is probably the biggest problem in its 14-year history when its promise to keep users' anonymity was severely broken by an information breach.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 14, 2013

The desperate search for online privacy is over

Privacy in the traditional sense is most certainly dead. But the killer isn't the NSA. It's the Internet itself — or, more to the point, our entire reliance on it
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KANPAI CULTURE
Sep 12, 2013

Tasting Kirin's beer of many colors

Morbid curiosity had prompted me to order a Two-Tone beer cocktail at the branch of Kirin Ichiban Shibori Garden in Tokyo's Akasaka district. I had read, with no small measure of disbelief, that Tokyo's latest summer beer fad was lager mixed with fruit juice or sweet syrup, and I had to see it with my...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 31, 2013

Fascinating glimpse into world of hacking

It is perhaps a little hard to remember now, but in 2010, there seemed to be a new global superpower. A superpower that acted in unorthodox ways, which was unaccountable and yet of the people, and that was above all nameless, faceless and, as it styled itself, Anonymous.
EDITORIALS
Aug 22, 2013

Plugging international tax loopholes

An international effort has started to prevent multinational corporations from avoiding their fair share of taxes in the respective countries where they do business.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies / FOCUS
Aug 7, 2013

Can Amazon's Bezos save the newspaper business?

Amazon.com founder Jeffrey Bezos' purchase of The Washington Post promises not just an ownership change for the 135-year-old institution but a potential transformation of the fusty mechanics of the newspaper business.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 22, 2013

Apple shuts down developer site after hacking

Apple Inc.'s developer site has been unavailable for software engineers after a hacker tried to steal personal information, the company said Sunday.
WORLD
Jun 28, 2013

Snowden had contempt for leakers

When he was working in the intelligence community in 2009, Edward Snowden, the U.S. National Security Agency contractor who passed top-secret documents to journalists, appears to have had nothing but disdain for those who leaked classified information, the newspapers that printed their revelations and...
LIFE / Digital
Jun 19, 2013

The NSA has us all trapped

Watching British Foreign Secretary William Hague doing his avuncular routine in the Commons on June 10, I was reminded of the way establishment figures in the 1950s used to reassure hoi polloi that they had nothing to worry about. Everything was in order. The Right Chaps were in charge. Citizens who...
CULTURE / Music
May 30, 2013

Is the stream less green than CDs, albums?

Technology changes everything, but it seems to change music the most. Four or five generations of recorded music technology have passed in my lifetime. As a child, I listened to Marlo Thomas's "Free to Be You and Me" on vinyl. During middle school, I bought Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock on cassette. Then...
BUSINESS / Tech
May 21, 2013

China tapped Google server secrets

Chinese hackers who breached Google's servers several years ago gained access to a sensitive database with years' worth of information about U.S. surveillance targets, according to current and former government officials.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 15, 2013

China's cyberspies outwit model for James Bond's Q

Among defense contractors, QinetiQ North America is known for spy-world connections and an eye-popping product line. Its contributions to national security include secret satellites, drones and software used by U.S. special forces in Afghanistan and the Middle East.
BUSINESS / Tech
Apr 30, 2013

U.S. seeks to expand wiretaps for Web use

A government task force is preparing legislation that would pressure companies such as Facebook and Google to enable law enforcement officials to intercept online communications as they occur, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the effort.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 30, 2013

Anniversaries, talk shows showcase division in Russia

Opposition critics, left and right, of Russian President Vladimir Putin seem to be loud but toothless opportunists. In many cases, they are nostalgic for Josef Stalin.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Feb 24, 2013

Spring training in Mukojima

It's hard to think of February as springlike, what with snowfalls, freezing winds and a dusting of dead leaves everywhere. But I know from experience that the intrepid Prunus mume, or plum tree, blooms this month, and a trek to see some blossoms seems de rigueur. From the Tobu Isesaki Line, I get off...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 31, 2013

Firm seeking to conquer world with translation app

For non-Japanese speakers, services like Google Translate and NTT DoCoMo Inc.'s phones that provide automated translation by speaking into the devices may have made it easier to communicate while in Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 22, 2012

Santa-san is coming to town — it's going to be different this year

Christmas is going to be different this year. Oh, you haven't heard? Read on.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / Japan Pulse
Oct 12, 2012

Today's J-blip: Mister Softee in Tokyo

Grab your ice cream money —Mister Softee has arrived in Tokyo.
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 30, 2012

Teleworking: Home sweet ... office

On March 13, 2011, just two days after the Great East Japan Earthquake, as massive aftershocks rocked the capital and fears of a radioactive cloud spreading over the country seemed all-too real, Yasuyuki Higuchi, president of a Tokyo-based software company, sat down and typed an email to his 2,200 staff....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 7, 2012

'Yume Uru Futari (Dreams for Sale)'

Ever since her 2003 directorial debut "Hebi Ichigo (Wild Berries)," a black comedy about a dysfunctional family, Miwa Nishikawa has been exploring the infinite human capacity for duplicity and the elusiveness of truth.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 8, 2012

95-minute glitch halts TSE derivatives trading

Tokyo Stock Exchange Group Inc. said a computer error Tuesday halted trading of Topix index futures, Japanese government bond futures and options trading for about 95 minutes, the second time in seven months a malfunction has forced a shutdown.
COMMENTARY
Aug 6, 2012

Fat chance of war over the Arctic's resources

Russian television contacted me the other night asking me to go on a program about the race for Arctic resources. The ice is melting fast, and it was all the usual stuff about how there will be big strategic conflicts over the seabed resources — especially oil and gas — that become accessible when...

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.