ACH2.0 Download Page Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH) Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH) is a simple model for how to think about a complex problem when the available information is incomplete or ambiguous, as typically happens in intelligence analysis. The software downloadable here takes an analyst through a process for making a well-reasoned, analytical judgment. It is particularly useful for issues that require careful weighing of alternative explanations of what has happened, is happening, or is likely to happen in the future. It helps the analyst overcome, or at least minimize, some of the cognitive limitations that make prescient intelligence analysis so difficult. Install ACH Software To install ACH, follow the instructions below or in the README file: To run ACH, you will need version 1.4.2 or later of Java. ** March 29, 2010 - Note that as of version 2.0.4, ACH is now able to run without administrator access. About this Software ACH is available under this license. Point of contact
An inch closer to the end of privacy (thanks Facebook!) — Scoble If the end of privacy is so evil, so awful, so unthinkable, then why am I liking the new Pandora so much? See, in the past three days since Facebook announced major new changes to its social contract with all of us, I’ve been able to study my friends’ personal musical tastes in a way I couldn’t just four days ago. Here, come on over to the new Pandora on my screen. I click on “Friends’ Music” and now let’s look through what I can see. I see that Aaron Roe Fulkerson, MindTouch’s Inc founder and CEO, listened to Toad the Wet Sprocket. I see that Adrian Otto, chief of research at the Rackspace Cloud (where I work at), listens to Kenny G. I see that Alan Cooper, father of Visual Basic, and head of a famous software design studio that bears his name, listens to the Barenaked Ladies. Should I keep going? To me this is freaking awesome. Oh, yeah, and you can see my own account and see how my musical tastes are changing thanks to this new feature. First, what has been my public stance? 1.
Global study stresses importance of public Internet access July 10, 2013 Computer users in Bogota, Colombia.New research shows that millions in low-income countries still depend on public computer and Internet access venues despite the global proliferation of mobile phones and home computers.Joe Sullivan Millions of people in low-income countries still depend on public computer and Internet access venues despite the global proliferation of mobile phones and home computers. However, interest in providing such public access has waned in recent years, especially among development agencies, as new technologies become available. But a five-year, eight-country study recently concluded by the Technology & Social Change Group at the University of Washington Information School has found that community access to computer and Internet technology remains a crucial resource for connecting people to the information and skills they need in an increasingly digital world. The researchers’ findings include:
Is It Better to Buy or Rent? - Interactive Graphic CISPA is Back: FAQ on What it is and Why it's Still Dangerous UPDATE (4/22/13): The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) has passed the House of Representatives with amendments. This FAQ reflects the bill prior to the amendments. We will be updating this post as we review the bill. In the meantime, please refer to the version of the bill (PDF) that passed the House. The privacy-invasive bill known as CISPA—the so-called “cybersecurity” bill—was reintroduced in February 2013. What is “CISPA”? CISPA stands for The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, a network and Internet security bill written by Rep. Under CISPA, what can a private company do? Under CISPA, any company can “use cybersecurity systems to identify and obtain cyber threat information to protect the rights and property” of the company, and then share that information with third parties, including the government, so long as it is for “cybersecurity purposes.” Does CISPA do enough to prevent abuse of the law for copyright enforcement? No. Almost nothing. No. Yes.
La fin de la vie privée sur facebook Enfin ! la vie privée devient sujets d’actualité et d’inquiétudes, dans un monde où chacun est suivi continuellement par des entreprises et par l’État. Avec une interconnexion croissante et l’échange d’information par les réseaux qui s’étend, nous pouvons potentiellement partager avec le monde entier, en toute transparence et instantanément, nos moindres faits et gestes. Alors, forcément, ça crée des ruptures. Est-ce vraiment le cas ? Peut être pas, car en dépit de ces nouvelles pratiques sociales sur le Web, la vie privée reste au centre des préoccupations. Ainsi, beaucoup s’insurgent contre la nouvelle politique de Facebook concernant la confidentialité. The Age of Privacy is OverReadWriteWeb Alors, sur Facebook, point de vie privée. Remettons-nous donc un peu dans le contexte. Oui, ça veut dire les photos de soirées que vous avez publiées, maintenant votre patron, votre professeur ou votre oncle les verront. Alors comment en est-on arrivé là ? Et il faut accepter les règles du jeu.
Facebook unethical experiment: It made news feeds happier or sadder to manipulate people’s emotions. Photo by Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images Facebook has been experimenting on us. A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that Facebook intentionally manipulated the news feeds of almost 700,000 users in order to study “emotional contagion through social networks.” Katy Waldman is Slate’s words correspondent. The researchers, who are affiliated with Facebook, Cornell, and the University of California–San Francisco, tested whether reducing the number of positive messages people saw made those people less likely to post positive content themselves. The same went for negative messages: Would scrubbing posts with sad or angry words from someone’s Facebook feed make that person write fewer gloomy updates? They tweaked the algorithm by which Facebook sweeps posts into members’ news feeds, using a program to analyze whether any given textual snippet contained positive or negative words. The upshot? Facebook’s methodology raises serious ethical questions.
Anonymous calls for internet blackout to protest CISPA : technology Pourquoi je n’utiliserai plus Facebook Jusqu’à présent, Facebook était un « réseau social » qui permettait à ses utilisateurs de se relier entre eux en « devenant amis » pour ainsi partager et publier des informations, des liens et des contenus. Certes, si on publiait sa vie privée sur facebook, on pouvait ensuite s’en mordre les doigts et commencer à se poser des questions : « ma vie privée est-elle menacée par facebook ? », « faut-il instaurer un droit à l’oubli pour protéger les jeunes de leur utilisation de facebook ? » J’ai déjà décrit ce que j’en pensais. J’ai trouvé jusque là qu’il n’y avait pas grand mal à être inscrit sur facebook. En somme, le calcul des avantages moins les inconvénients était positif, surtout si, comme moi, on est soucieux de garder le contrôle de ses publications et que donc on n’a ni souscrit à n’importe quoi, ni publié quoique ce soit qui n’ait été un minimum réfléchi. Mais voilà, cette semaine, facebook a annoncé ses plans et les changements qu’ils venaient de mettre en place. Que faire ?
Are We Becoming too Dependent on the Internet? | Austin & Williams Unplugged The Internet as we know it today really came into its own in 1997, and even then most Internet sites were crude. In the last decade or so, broadband has become commonplace and mobile devices are now highly integrated with the Internet. That's changed everything. And this is a huge risk we are taking. It seems very plausible that one day there may indeed be a catastrophic failure of the Internet, and it may be one that we cannot recover from quickly. Given this, our culture really needs to reassess our dependence on the Internet and the rush to put everything in the cloud. It's distinctly possible that we could, in one fell swoop, lose all services like the electric grid, water and sewer and almost all communications (telephone and television). Everyone understands the concept of backing up and knows how important is, but where are our backups for the Internet? I suggest we all rethink just a bit and remember that we do need backups. Care to comment?
After denouncing SOPA and PIPA, how can Facebook support CISPA? Update - Facebook says it has 'no intention' to abuse CISPA When the Internet erupted earlier this year to rally against the U.S. anti-piracy legislation Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), Facebook joined in. Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and Facebook VP Elliot Schrage all posted their criticisms of the bills. Zuckerberg even tweeted about it – a very rare occurrence. Now, Facebook is supporting the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which was written to "provide for the sharing of certain cyber threat intelligence and cyber threat information between the intelligence community and cybersecurity entities, and for other purposes." SOPA and PIPA were about intellectual property, and allowed courts to remove DNS listings for any website hosting pirated content. As with many bills, CISPA has room for abuse.