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ACLU: YouAreBeingWatched.US

You ARE being watched, US. Since 9/11 Homeland Security has pumped an enormous amount of money into public surveillance technologies (online and off). Yet, as most recent studies are showing, the presence of this surveillance does nothing to reduce crime or make people more safe. So, what is this surveillance ...

“what they want is an automatic feed”

Another sign of growing state interest in the semantic web… According to a recent article in the washington post, "the FBI has created a network of links between the nation's largest telephone and Internet firms and about 40 FBI offices and Quantico" as part of their Digital Collection System (also ...

(young) person of interest

What would it look like if we were to situate young people in the growing semantic web? A 2007 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) took a look at some of the data mining programs currently underway at the Department of Homeland Security. In their report, GAO offer ...

division of action

I was just reading through the Wired article on Facebook's role in the Burma protests. The marches, organized at a lightning pace by volunteers using Facebook, show the increasing power and reach of a social-networking site originally designed to help college students find drinking buddies. An interesting theme which runs through the ...

giuliani time: policing the internet

From the 10.09.07 Republican Primary Debate in Michigan: MATTHEWS: OK. Lets go to the police. How would you police the Internet culturally, Mr. Mayor? GIULIANI: Pardon me? MATTHEWS: How would you police the Internet culturally? You know, the whole question about the stuff that's going on, predators, that sort ...

field notes | union sq | 072707

I've finally gotten around to posting some footage from the Critical Mass at Union Square on 07.27.07. Below the fold you'll find two videos and a slide show of pictures. The first video documents the organization of Critical Mass in Union Square North from 6:45 PM (15 minutes prior to ...

mesh-networking

After reading David Pogue's review of the XO - a $200 laptop created by One Laptop Per Child (O.L.P.C.) - and spending time on O.L.P.C.'s website, I'm absolutely fixated on the mesh-networking feature of this computer (check out the "mesh demo" here). While the XO is light, durable and energy ...

privatizing txt

Its official - txt space is private space. From the ny times: Saying it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages, Verizon Wireless has rejected a request from NARAL Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program... legal experts said private ...

global privacy standards

While browsing washingpost.com I came across this gem: "Google Calls for International Standards on Internet Privacy." The article discusses Peter Fleischer's (Google's global privacy counsel) recent call for the development of international privacy standards. The article does a fairly good job at presenting the nuance of the privacy debate - ...

Geosniff (v.)

"To search the web by location, delivering regionally pertinent information to users and regionally pertinent users to advertisers." - Jonathon Keats, Wired 15.09 :: sent wirelessly via blackberry




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Berners-Lee on the “insidious” quality of vertical integration

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, on the "insidious" quality of vertical integration: The Web's infrastructure can be thought of as composed of four horizontal layers; from bottom to top, they are the transmission medium, the computer hardware, the software, and the content. ... I am more concerned about ...

piracy as creative practice?

arts technica has an interesting summary/critique of a working paper, titled "File-Sharing and Copyright" by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf. Since the genesis and intent of most copyright law is to stimulate creativity -- not to protect authors and publishers -- Oberholzer-Gee & Strumpf argue that while file-sharing might be ...
June 22nd 2009
Tags: education, governance, security No Comments

the great irony of informationalism

On May 29, 2009, Obama announced his intention to appoint a "cyber czar" to coordinate cybersecurity policy for private and government computer networks in the US. Obama also argued the importance of educating the public about cybersecurity while highlighting the dialectical reality of cyberspace: Cyberspace is real and so are ...

pirates win seat in EU parliament

According to Wired's Threat Level blog: Sweden’s Pirate Party won a seat in the European Union Parliament, swept in Sunday amid outrage over a new copyright law and the convictions of the four founders of The Pirate Bay. The party, formed to protest copyright law, took 7.1 percent of votes in Sweden ...
June 20th 2009
Tags: governance, idea/theme, quote No Comments

experience is the life of the law

from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr: The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. The felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow-men, have ...

cookie monsters published in cye

Cindi Katz and I just published an article in a special issue of Children, Youth and Environments that focuses on Children and Technological Environments. CYE is an open access journal so you can read our article for free through their website (FYI - they ask you to create an ...
February 7th 2009
Tags: CD, governance, youth No Comments

“disconnected youth”

Hat tip to Michael Oman-Reagan who brought this to my attention. Apparently, the current version of H.R.1, the stimulus bill being debated in the U.S. Senate, includes incentives for hiring "disconnected youth" which the bill defines as: ``(ii) DISCONNECTED YOUTH.--The term `disconnected youth' means any individual who is certified by the designated ...

ACLU: YouAreBeingWatched.US

You ARE being watched, US. Since 9/11 Homeland Security has pumped an enormous amount of money into public surveillance technologies (online and off). Yet, as most recent studies are showing, the presence of this surveillance does nothing to reduce crime or make people more safe. So, what is this surveillance ...
January 29th 2009
Tags: censorship, governance, surveillance, youth No Comments

good riddance COPA

F I N A L L Y. Via Daily Tech: After losing an appeals court challenge last July, proponents of 1998’s Child Online Protection Act received a final blow to their cause – this time from the United States Supreme Court, who quietly declined to review the law without comment. COPA – ...
December 16th 2008
Tags: security No Comments

stop the madness and just switch to an open-source browser

Yet another major security flaw found in Internet Explorer, Microsoft's proprietary web browser. Via the BBC: Users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer are being urged by experts to switch to a rival until a serious security flaw has been fixed. The flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer could allow criminals to take control of ...

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