Re-Reading Les Misérables

Thoughts and commentary on Victor Hugo’s masterpiece.

Barricade Day and Reset the Net

The band increased at every moment.June 5 is the day on which the June Rebellion began in 1832 – the two-day uprising that makes up so much of parts four and five of Les Misérables. Fans of the book and musical have started calling it Barricade Day. It took me six posts to cover my commentary on the barricade chapters, from the almost festive let’s-build-a-barricade atmosphere at the beginning to Enjolras and Grantaire facing a firing squad. And without even meaning to, I worked two X-Men titles into the series.

Coincidentally, today is also Reset the Net, a campaign by privacy advocates and some big names in internet technology and social media to protect online privacy. One of the key projects is to increase use of encryption beyond just passwords and commerce, to cut down on avenues for eavesdropping spying. I’d hoped to have at least this little corner of my site ready for HTTPS, but I still need to sort out plugins for related posts, putting HTTPS on the CDN, etc. It’s in progress, though, and you can at least see the blog on HTTPS now, though not everything works.

You should definitely look at the Privacy Pack, a collection of recommended software for secure browsing and communication. At the very least, make sure your most important accounts have unique passwords and look into the HTTPS Everywhere extension to make sure that your computer is actually using those protected channels to websites that offer them.