Tag Archives | Internet

Anomalies, Prisons, and Geophysics: How Governments Use Data and How to Stop Them

By on March 5, 2013 in News 4

via chycho

A common definition of an anomaly is “a deviation from the common rule, type, arrangement, or form.” This definition, however, can be simplified by stating that an anomaly is a deviation from specific parameters. The defining characteristic of an anomaly is that it can only exist in a comparative setting, implying that it can only be detected within a certain data set. Once a data set is obtained then parameters can be specified to filter out so called anomalies for evaluation. Depending on the type of data collected, these parameters can be specified to be anything occurring in any combination. If there is no data set, then there are no anomalies.

A prison can be defined as “a place of seeming confinement.” It is a place to incarcerate people who have lawfully or unlawfully stepped outside the parameters set in their society. This implies that inmates are anomalies within a community.… Read the rest

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U.S. Department Of Justice Acknowledges Aaron Swartz Was Prosecuted Over His Political Views

By on March 2, 2013 in News 17

The decision to hound Swartz on flimsy charges with the possibility of decades in prison was in part because of an anti-copyright manifesto written by Swartz in 2008, reports the Huffington Post:

A Justice Department representative told congressional staffers during a recent briefing on the computer fraud prosecution of Internet activist Aaron Swartz that Swartz’s “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto” played a role in the prosecution.

The manifesto said sharing information was a “moral imperative” and advocated for “civil disobedience” against copyright laws pushed by corporations “blinded by greed” that led to the “privatization of knowledge.”

“We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world,” Swartz wrote in the manifesto.

Swartz was 26 when he killed himself in January. He had been indicted and faced a prison sentence for downloading millions of academic articles from the online database JSTOR, though he maintained he had permission to access them.

… Read the rest

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European Parliament Planning Cyber Propaganda Blitz Against Skepticism Of The European Union

By on February 21, 2013 in News 1

As the Telegraph reports, you never know whom you’re talking to online:

The Daily Telegraph has seen confidential spending proposals and internal documents planning an unprecedented propaganda blitz ahead of and during European elections in June 2014. The European Parliament is to spend almost £2 million on press monitoring and trawling [discussions] on the internet for “trolls” amid fears that hostility to the EU is growing.

Key to a new strategy will be “public opinion monitoring tools” to “identify at an early stage whether debates of political nature among followers in social media and blogs have the potential to attract media and citizens’ interest”.

A confidential document agreed last year said: “Parliament’s institutional communicators must monitor public conversation in real time, and have the capacity to react quickly, to join in and influence the conversation, for example, by providing facts and figures to deconstructing myths.” Training for parliament officials begins later this month.

… Read the rest

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Does The Internet Mean The End For Organized Religions?

By on February 10, 2013 in News 15

Tweets from the Pope aren’t going to help—mainstream organized religion requires closed systems of information, and will inevitably be destroyed by the Internet, Valerie Tarico argues via Alternet:

The biggest threat organized religion has ever faced [is] the Internet. A traditional religion, one built on “right belief,” requires a closed information system. That is why the Catholic Church put an official seal of approval on some ancient texts and banned or burned others. It is why some Christians are forbidden to marry nonbelievers, and moms home-school their kids with carefully screened textbooks.

Religions have spent eons honing defenses that keep outside information away from insiders. The innermost ring wall is a set of certainties and associated emotions like anxiety and disgust and righteous indignation that block curiosity. The outer wall is a set of behaviors aimed at insulating believers from contradictory evidence and from heretics who are potential transmitters of dangerous ideas.

… Read the rest

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Unraveling The Stuxnet Virus

By on February 9, 2013 in News 3

From Patrick Clair a year ago, a quick and excellent look at the troubling Stuxnet virus. It has since been confirmed that the United States and Israel were behind its use against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The question is now, what have we unleashed?

An infographic dissecting the nature and ramifications of Stuxnet, the first weapon made entirely out of code. This was produced for Australian TV program HungryBeat.

 

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Ordering A Pizza In The Panopticon

By on February 8, 2013 in News 3

How much of the ACLU’s prescient 2004 short film Ordering Pizza, which envisions ordering a pizza online in a future dystopian electronic surveillance state, has is already starting to come true? Getting takeout has never been so traumatic:

We are facing a flood of powerful new technologies that expand the potential for centralized monitoring, an executive branch aggressively seeking new powers to spy on citizens, a docile Congress and courts, as well as a cadre of mega-corporations that are willing to become extensions of the surveillance state. We confront the possibility of a dark future where our every move, our every transaction, our every communication is recorded, compiled, and stored away, ready for access by the authorities whenever they want.

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Workers Spend 60 to 80 Percent Of Work Time ‘Cyberloafing’

By on February 6, 2013 in News 15

FEMA - 32323 - FEMA photographer Mark Wolfe working at a computer in Findlay, OH JFO“They” are on to you, disinfonauts … via Newswise:

Businesses must deal with weary-eyed office workers who are sitting behind computer screens and watching cat videos, shopping online and updating their Facebook statuses.

A Kansas State University researcher studied cyberloafing — wasting time at work on the Internet — and the effects of Internet use policies and punishment on reducing cyberloafing.

Joseph Ugrin, assistant professor of accounting at Kansas State University, and John Pearson, associate professor of management at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, found that company policies are not enough to stop workers from wasting time at work and that sanctions with policies must be consistently enforced for policies to be effective.

The study will be published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.

Cyberloafing results in lost productivity and could put companies in legal trouble when workers conduct illegal activity or unacceptable behavior like viewing pornography on work computers.

… Read the rest

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Warrantless Government Requests For Your Twitter And Google Data Continue To Increase

By on February 4, 2013 in News 4

It seems that using email or social networks, nothing is actually private. The Atlantic Wire reports:

Twitter has released its second biannual Transparency Report and — what do you know? — Twitter is still giving away more user information requested by the U.S. government than ever, and without a warrant.

Twitter got 815 total requests in the last six months, and more than 80 percent of the U.S. government’s asks on user data came without a warrant. Google, too, has seen an uptick in government requests, reporting a total 21,389 requests for information in 2012.

U.S. officials are asking for more of what we’re doing from more of our daily Internet activities — typically without getting a court’s permission. Google, however, is lobbying [for better privacy protection], and this year the Senate will vote on an updated version of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act that requires a warrant for all email and private communication stored over the cloud.

… Read the rest

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Internet Connection Is Civil Right, German Court Rules

By on January 28, 2013 in News 3

In the near future, in certain regions of the world, denying someone internet will be considered a barbaric, criminal act. Computer World UK reports:

Internet access is crucial to everyday life and the loss of connectivity is deserving of financial compensation, the German Federal Court of Justice has ruled. Because having an internet connection is so significant for a large part of the German population, a customer whose service provider failed to provide connectivity between December 2008 and February 2009 is entitled to compensation.

The plaintiff was erroneously disconnected and demanded that the unnamed telecommunications company pay for costs that incurred in switching to a new provider. The plaintiff also demanded compensation of €50 per day for the period his was unable to use his DSL service.

… Read the rest

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Did The Government Target Aaron Swartz Over His Role In Defeating SOPA?

By on January 28, 2013 in News 5

Did U.S. authorities hound Reddit co-founder and internet freedom activist Aaron Swartz to his death due to his role in the defeat of the Stop Online Piracy Act, and his possible connections to WikiLeaks? Russia Today writes:

Aaron Swartz became a political target, and that is what led to his tragic death, believes web tycoon Kim Dotcom, the founder of the now-defunct file-storage site Megaupload. “There is no reasonable cause behind going after a young genius like him in the fashion they did,” says Dotcom.

Swartz’s death in suicide on January 11 has resonated in the media across the world. It became known that in 2011, US federal prosecutors charged Swartz with a series of counts under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, crimes that could have sent him away to prison for upwards of 35 years if convicted…

… Read the rest

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