NSA doesn’t need to tap the wires to see your passwords

I feel like I haven’t been doing much in the way of online consuming lately. I’ve been creating a lot, mostly writing; and most of my consumption has been in the form of good, old-fashioned literature. Still, here’s a few things that caught my eye!

• It’s ridiculously easy to expose saved passwords in Chrome. Other browsers aren’t much better, mind you. Use a password manager—I use LastPass and am very happy with it.
• The NSA scandals just keep getting weirder and more depressing. Now, apparently, evidence has come to light that other federal agencies are getting evidence from the NSA and lying about where it comes from. That’s not just a subversion of the justice system; it’s outright perversion.
• Even Daniel Ellsberg agrees Snowden should have fled the country.
• If you read anything about the NSA/Snowden debacle this week, read Bruce Sterling’s essay about how Snowden and Assange are redefining our ideas of activism.
• Here’s an excellent essay on why the pernicious belief in creationism matters by Laura Helmuth, on Slate.
• Still not sick of poiltics? OK, one more article: Sady Doyle on why Hilary Clinton terrifies the Republican Party.
• I’m quite stoked about About Time, a new time-travel movie from Richard Curtis (Love Actually, Pirate Radio). Check out the trailer here.
• Blooper reels from TV shows can be a lot of fun. Here’s a short compilation from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• This is a really neat, touching story about how a grandson stays connected to his grandfather’s writing through Dropbox:

Even though we’ve talked about it, my grandpa still doesn’t really know what Dropbox is, but there’s no better feeling than a quick chuckle he gives when I call him now and tell him that I noticed he saved an update, or ask him why he didn’t save one.

Sometimes you don’t have to understand a technology for it to make your life better.