Some great stuff in my RSS feeds when I sat down after dinner tonight:

• Sean McGrath points to an interesting looking protocol launch: AMQP; an open-sourced (spec/protocol) for asynchronous message queueing.
• I bumped into rynsc.net’s philosophy for handling “gag order” secret warrants: the warrant canary. It’s a weekly cryptographically signed assertion that they’ve never been served a warrant, date stamped, and also including current event data, so they can’t be “pre-written” (clever, that). If they ever stop releasing them, though…
• The Brain Waves column noted that companies are beginning to offering lie detection services via fMRI. Holy 5th Amendment, Batman! How are you going to plead the 5th from your own brain? Suffice it to say that the privacy implications are worth discussing. I’m not even sure what side I’m on; I’d love to see it’s use on government officials, in addition to it’s use by them. If you’ve never considered the implications of such a device, James Halperin’s Truth Machine is a great story using that very hook. Recommended.