Wikileaks, The Pirate Party, And The Future Of The Internet
How to save Julian Assange's movement from itself. American diplomacy seems to have survived Wikileaks’s “attack on the international community,” as Hillary Clinton so dramatically characterized it, unscathed. Save for a few diplomatic reshuffles, Foggy Bottom doesn’t seem to be deeply affected by what happened. Certainly, the U.S. government at large has not been paralyzed by the leaks—contrary to what Julian Assange had envisioned in one of his cryptic-cum-visionary essays, penned in 2006. In a fit of technological romanticism, Assange may have underestimated the indispensability of American power to the international system, the amount of cynicism that already permeates much of Washington’s political establishment, and the glaring lack of interest in foreign policy particulars outside the Beltway. Indeed, it’s not in the realms of diplomacy or even government secrecy where Wikileaks could have its biggest impact.
Why I Will Never, Ever Hire A "Social Media Expert"
stickybits / explore & score™
Le yoyo, le téléporteur, la carmagnole et le mammouth.
Internet Le yoyo, le téléporteur, la carmagnole et le mammouth. Internet est un yoyo. Quand la firme japonaise Bandaï décide de relancer la mode du yoyo, inutile de vouloir éviter la vague. Tout le monde se remet au yoyo, en sachant d'avance qu'on ne saura jamais faire les jolies figures que le démonstrateur nous a montré, mais quand même : pour être dans le coup il faut avoir son yoyo. Au point que certaines entreprises se sont reconverties, même temporairement, dans la fabrication et la vente exclusive de yoyos. Quand le commerce s'est emparé d'Internet, le réseau est devenu tout aussi incontournable que le yoyo. Est-ce à dire qu'Internet, comme le yoyo, est un objet de mode, inutile pour le commun des mortels mais rendu incontournable grâce au service marketing des fournisseurs de téléphonie ? J'avais tort. Ou bien est-ce le contraire ? En dehors, bien entendu, des (rares) cas où il souhaite faire savoir à son chauffeur de taxi qu'il est assis derrière lui. Internet est un téléporteur.
Wikileaks ISP Anonymizes All Customer Traffic To Beat Spying
In order to neutralize Sweden's incoming implementation of the European Data Retention Directive, Bahnhof, the Swedish ISP and host of Wikileaks, will run all customer traffic through an encrypted VPN service. Since not even Bahnhof will be able to see what its customers are doing, logging their activities will be impossible. With no logs available to complete their chain of investigation, anti-piracy companies will be very, very unhappy. In 2009, Sweden introduced the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED). The legislation gave rights holders the authority to request the personal details of alleged copyright infringers. This prompted Jon Karlung, CEO of ISP Bahnhof, to announce that he would take measures to protect the privacy of his customers. “In our case, we plan to let our traffic go through a VPN service, ” Bahnhof’s Jon Karlung told SR. Bahnhof Servers Since the service will encrypt user traffic, not even Bahnhof will know what their customers are doing online.
Explore Twitter's Evolution: 2006 to Present
Fresh off celebrating its 5th birthday in March, Twitter isn't slowing down any time soon. In fact, April turned out to be just as eventful as any for the social media powerhouse. In April, Twitter introduced a new version of its homepage with a sleeker design and revamped pitch to potential users; expanded its Local Trends feature to 70 more cities and countries; and updated its search tool to make it easier to find new people to follow. Meanwhile, talks about Twitter's future intensified as CNN reported UberMedia — the company behind UberSocial, Echofon and Twidroyd — is "outlining plans" to develop a Twitter-like competitor. But Twitter users, have no fear — Mashable's Chris Taylor says Twitter "is a lot more robust — and unrepeatable — than it may seem." This month has gotten off to a fast start as Twitter was abuzz on May 1 with speculation and subsequent confirmation of terrorist Osama bin Laden's death. Busy two month so far, eh? Twitter's Abridged Timeline
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Piratage des jeux vidéo : une déconstruction des chiffres
David Rosen, le fondateur du petit studio indépendant Wolfire Games, est à l'origine de l'initiative Humble Indie Bundle qui permet à ceux qui le veulent de télécharger cinq jeux sans DRM, et de payer la somme qu'ils souhaitent (à partager comme ils l'entendent entre les cinq producteurs des jeux et deux associations : Child's Play et l'Electronic Frontier Fondation). On le voit, bien qu'il vive de la vente de ses jeux, David Rosen n'est pas spécialement paniqué par les pirates. Aussi c'est avec un regard objectif qu'il a analysé les chiffres du piratage des jeux pour iPhone. Les chiffres sont difficiles à trouver, mais il utilise pour sa démonstration les estimations parmi les plus élevées : 80 % des jeux pour iPhone seraient piratés et utilisés sur des téléphones "jailbreakés". Encore une fois, l'argument prétendant que 1 jeu piraté fait 1 jeu perdu pour l'industrie ne tient pas. Les pirates achèteraient-ils des jeux s'ils n'avaient pas le choix ?
Vaizey's net neutrality knock-out
The FT World Telecoms Conference is an annual gathering of top management from telecoms carriers throughout the world. It isn’t a high profile event for the general public, yet this is the platform where minister Ed Vaizey announced the future of the internet in the UK. Mr Vaizey praised the UK’s grossly inadequate current investment in internet infrastructure - however, the key point in his speech was about the abandonment of net neutrality in the UK. What does net neutrality actually mean? According to Wikipedia, the principle also states that if a given user pays for a certain level of internet access, and another user pays for the same level of access, then the two users should be able to connect to each other at the subscribed level of access. Do we have net neutrality today? In some ways we don’t. Imagine to all intents and purposes, not being able to read Left Foot Forward (or even Guido Fawkes), yet managing to read the Daily Mail? Paid-for access A lack of transparency
