SXSW 2011: The internet is over. If my grandchildren ever ask me where I was when I realised the internet was over – they won't, of course, because they'll be too busy playing with the teleportation console – I'll be able to be quite specific: I was in a Mexican restaurant opposite a cemetery in Austin, Texas, halfway through eating a taco. It was the end of day two of South by Southwest Interactive, the world's highest-profile gathering of geeks and the venture capitalists who love them, and I'd been pursuing a policy of asking those I met, perhaps a little too aggressively, what it was exactly that they did. What is "user experience", really? What the hell is "the gamification of healthcare"? Or "geofencing"? Or "design thinking"? Or "open source government"? The content strategist across the table took a sip of his orange-coloured cocktail.
This, for outsiders, is the fundamental obstacle to understanding where technology culture is heading: increasingly, it's about everything. Web 3.0 The game layer. ICO issues guidance on disclosing employee personal data under FOI. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said that public sector bodies must assess whether they could avoid disclosing some information about employees whilst still ensuring that "the legitimate interests" of those requesting the information are observed. "For example, could the legitimate interests be met by other means that interfere less with the employee’s rights and freedoms? " the ICO said in new guidance. (32-page / 155KB PDF) "Is it necessary to provide all of the information requested? If not, full disclosure is not necessary, and the additional information is thereby exempt.
" Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) individuals have a general ‘right to know’, which entitles them to be provided with information held by Government departments and public bodies. One absolute exemption in FOI laws allows public authorities to refuse to disclose information they hold when the information amounts to personal data and to do so would be a breach of the Data Protection Act (DPA). Java Considered Harmful. Turns out, most users don't need Java any more, yet people keep running it. Do not confuse Java with JavaScript: it's hard to use the web without JavaScript. But JavaScript has nothing to do with Java.
The risks of Java are nicely illustrated by the recent Java Rhino vulnerability (aka CVE-2011-3544). If you're running Java, but not the latest version, you're vulnerable. And the Java Rhino vulnerability is not theoretical: the most common exploit kits have incorporated this vulnerability in their default exploits, and it seems to be working very well for the online criminals.
Here's a sample screenshot from a Blackhole exploit kit control panel. So, ditch Java if you can. Do you need Java for a specific web application? Also note that Chrome has been doing a good job in sandboxing or otherwise securing risky add-ons and extensions. Tapping into Technology. Huge Win In GA Opinion From European Court Of Justice.
An opinion from the Advocate General (AG or GA) in the European Court of Justice today slams the door shut for the copyright industry’s strategy of suing people who share culture and knowledge. This is part of the long-running conflict with the copyright industry in Sweden suing an the Internet Service Provider ePhone for access to subscriber data under the Swedish grotesque over-implementation of the European IPRED directive. EPhone has won the case in the district court and the appeals court; the copyright industry has appealed it to the Swedish Supreme Court which, anticipating the request from the parties, asked the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for an opinion. (In the European Union, the ECJ is the highest court, above the national Supreme Courts.
To save time, the national Supreme Courts can ask the ECJ for a pre-verdict on some specific aspects in order to shave a couple of years off a case in the last step of appeal.) Now, there are a number of caveats with this. Human Rights Petition: Stop the internet control bill NOW. This Week in Internet Censorship: Egyptian Twitter User Faces Trial While Argentina and Pakistan Ratchet Up Censorship. Egyptian activist faces trial for Tweet In Egypt, an activist and blogger is facing trial for a Tweet. Asmaa Mahfouz, a prominent young activist, is facing trial by court martial for defaming the ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) by posting to Twitter: If the judiciary doesn't give us our rights, nobody should be surprised if militant groups appear and conduct a series of assassinations because there is no law and there is no judiciary.
According to a statement from Reporters without Borders, Mahfouz is also being charged with inciting violence, disturbing public order and spreading false information via her Twitter account. Mahfouz has defended her statements, saying "There is no truth in these accusations, I was only warning the military council that the absence of justice will lead to chaos. " EFF condemns the decision of the SCAF to prosecute Mahfouz and urges the Egyptian military to respect the right to free expression. Pakistani ISP blocks Wikipedia page. New Research: Internet Censorship To Stop Protests... Actually Increases Protests. We've been arguing for a while that attempts by various governments to shut down forms of communication during protests and riots only serves to make protesters and rioters angrier. Some new (quite timely) research, pointed out by Mathew Ingram, seems to agree that internet censorship tends to make such problems worse. The research is a quick read, and certainly goes further than efforts like L.
Gordon Crovitz's "it's okay if the world didn't end. " The key part of the research is that it models the behavior of protesters in various cases, using proven simulation techniques. The agent's behaviour is influenced by several variables, the first one being his/her personal level of political dissatisfaction ("grievance", indicated by lighter or darker shades of green colour in figure 1). From there, the researchers, Antonio Casilli and Paola Tubaro, model in internet censorship to see what impact it has. International hacktivists help Syrian citizens circumvent Internet censorship | Environment & Development | Deutsche Welle | 18.08.2011.
Human rights groups and the international community are calling for an arms embargo and an end to government repression in Syria, which has resulted in almost 2,000 deaths since March. Like in Egypt and Tunisia earlier this year, Syria has responded to the uprising not only with violence, but also by putting its citizens under surveillance and censoring the internet. What such regimes didn't count on was that international internet activists would step in and fight back. Since the Arab Spring began, hacktivists have been building ad hoc telecommunications systems all over the Middle East to help citizens get information on what's going on there out of these countries.
When the government shut down the Internet, Telecomix helped Egyptians by getting them access to dial-up modems. Tactics of 'Telecomix' online activists are less controversial than those of the group Anonymous Under Surveillance Safety Guidelines Stephan Urbach (left) and Jonatan Walck (right) of Telecomix Beyond the border Dr. England riots: Government mulls social media controls. 11 August 2011Last updated at 14:57 Curbs on social media and texting are being considered by the government The government is exploring whether to turn off social networks or stop people texting during times of social unrest.
David Cameron said the intelligence services and the police were exploring whether it was "right and possible" to cut off those plotting violence. Texting and Blackberry Messenger are said to have been used by some during this week's riots. Rights groups said such a measure would be abused and hit the civil liberties of people who have done nothing wrong. The prime minister told MPs the government was exploring the turn-off in a statement made to the House of Commons during an emergency recall of Parliament. Mr Cameron said anyone watching the riots would be "struck by how they were organised via social media". Under social media, Mr Cameron includes Facebook, Twitter and specific technologies such as text messaging.
Civil liberty implications. U.K. Riots, Possible Social Network Blockage - Video. British Prime Minister Does a 180 on Internet Censorship. After several days of destructive riots throughout the UK, British Prime Minister David Cameron is practically tripping over himself in his eagerness to sacrifice liberty for security. In a speech before an emergency session of Parliament today, Cameron highlighted concern over rioters’ use of social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter: ...when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them.
So we are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality. I have also asked the police if they need any other new powers. Exactly what kind of government censorship of social media Cameron has in mind is unclear, but he went on to urge Twitter, Facebook, and Blackberry to remove messages that might incite further unrest across the country. Cameron: UK will seek anti-gang ideas from US | nola.com. One Google Books To Rule Them All? Hellzapoppin' in the world of intellectual property rights these days. Lawsuits, corporate flim-flamming, the claims of far-sighted academics and developers, furious authors and artists and the conflicting demands of a sprawling Internet culture have created a gargantuan, multi-directional tug-of-war that will inevitably affect what and how we will be able to read online in the future.
Recent developments indicate, amazingly, that there are grounds for hope that the public will in time benefit from the results of this epic tussle. In 2002, Google began scanning the world's 130 million or so books in preparation for the "secret 'books' project" that eventually became Google Books.
In 2004, they began offering access to these scans, displaying the irritatingly-named "snippets" of books in their search results. And in no time at all, they were getting sued by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers for copyright infringement. (Prof. Prof. Media Matters for America. The deep roots of conservative radicalism. New York, NY - Long before Ron Suskind tangled with the media and the White House for telling truths or tales about the Obama administration, he was the hero of liberals.
For it was Suskind, in the course of exploring the Bush presidency for the New York Times Magazine, who stumbled upon the Rosetta Stone of the contemporary conservative mind. In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend - but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community", which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality". To wit: this recent column by Paul Krugman. Giving up liberty in the pursuit of security. Hosting a reception for members of New York City's Muslim communities in his mansion on Tuesday night, Mayor Michael Bloomberg eloquently described Muslims as an inalienable part of our great city's fabric.
By Wednesday morning, however, many of us who attended that reception would have been forgiven for thinking that we actually lived in a nightmarish American avatar of Kim Jong-Il's Korea. Indeed, an extensive investigation by the Associated Press raises alarming questions about the NYPD and CIA, hand in hand, breaching some of the most important bulwarks of an open and free society. While "mosque crawlers" monitored religious sermons, so-called "rakers" engaged in "human mapping" of minority communities, neighbourhoods, cafes, bars, nightclubs, and bookstores. Police indiscriminately scrutinised taxi drivers and food cart vendors, because Muslims are well represented in these professions.
The limits our laws place on our government are there for a reason. How to participate in IRC communication. Background Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is an online system of communication. It is a form of instant communication over the Internet. It is mainly designed for group (many-to-many) communication in discussion forums called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication. The basic means of communication in an established IRC session is a channel. The GRASS community uses the dedicated channel (#grass on irc.freenode.net), feel free to join. People interested in being involved in the Debian GIS project can join a dedicated channel (#debian-gis on irc.oftc.net). Logs of communication Thanks to Gary Sherman (QGIS project) and his friendly 'sigq' IRC bot, the communication is archived: How to do it the first time Get a IRC client software (see software list). Web based alternatives to join a channel (don't forget to select a reasonable nick name): Join a channel /join #grass Now you will see (depends on your client) the list of people lurking in the channel.
Some useful hints TAB extension. Web censorship moves West. For a long time, the dominant conversation around internet censorship has focused on two of the practice's giants: Iran and China. Arguably owners of the most sophisticated filtering methods, the criticism levied against these two countries has been deserved. And yet, the focus on them has largely been at the exclusion of other countries that also censor the web to varying degrees - including an increasing number of democracies. In recent weeks, Turkey, Tunisia, and Australia have all made headlines for their various plans to introduce new filtering schemes. Though each country's plan differs, they all have similar focus: curbing access to obscene content. But while blocking obscenity may reflect the will of the people, such filters nonetheless have implications for freedom of expression. Australian ISPs 'aim to curb child sexual abuse' Such errors raise questions amongst free expression advocates about the lack of transparency in the process of determining which sites will be banned.
Protect IP Could Have Far-reaching Impact on Digital Freedom | Technology. Nintendo, EA, Sony sponsor Internet censorship bill. 40+ Ways To Access Your Computer Remotely. Six Ways To Keep Your Search History Private. Tell ISPs: Don't Cut Off Your Users. April 2012, the State of Do Not Track: Lead Up to Tracking Protecting Working Group Negotiations in Washington, DC. US Centcom targets online violent propaganda. Tweeting About Election Results Could Get You in Trouble in Canada. ACS:Law brought "legal profession into disrepute" - File sharing epic nears its end. Linux falls to patent troll - Bedrock manages where SCO failed. British government presses ahead with web filter plans - Even if they don't think it will work. Are governments closing the net around web freedom?