Weekend Reads 10/31/15

Renewable Energy Is About To Boom In Africa

Some of the most cost-competitive photovoltaic projects worldwide are already in Africa. For example, the utility-scale solar in South Africa has a generation cost of $0.075 per kilowatt hour, and Gielen added that IRENA expects northern, eastern, and southern Africa to derive power from wind and hydro as well.

The Most Controversial Hacking Cases of the Past Decade

Because the law was so broadly written, creative prosecutors have stretched the interpretation of unauthorized access far beyond what lawmakers likely intended. For example, it was used to criminally prosecute Andrew Auernheimer for accessing unprotected data that was freely available on an AT&T website.

Charles Koch’s Frankenstein problem

The “lack of substance and civility” about which Charles complains began in earnest with the rise of the Tea Party between 2009 and 2010. To the extent that the Tea Party is a centralized movement, it is so because it has been mobilized by the groups Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works, both of which are Koch-financed.

The Doxing Trend

Someone, reportedly a teenager, hacked into CIA Director John O. Brennan's AOL account. He says he did so by posing as a Verizon employee to Verizon to get personal information about Brennan's account, as well as his bank card number and his AOL e-mail address. Then he called AOL and pretended to be Brennan. Armed with the information he got from Verizon, he convinced AOL customer service to reset his password.