http://www.sacbee.com/2011/02/20/3414813/the-revolution-is-here-thanks.html
Archive for 2011/02/20
Like or despise him, Assange has marked our globe. WikiLeaks is an idea that is virtually beyond the reach of governments. Historians will look back at this time as a turning point and speak of the world before and after WikiLeaks. If WikiLeaks gets shut down, if Assange is imprisoned for years, the specialization he pioneered will continue. Martyrdom will only carve his legacy in stone
Posted: 2011/02/20 in Education / AwarenessChina blocks websites like Facebook and Twitter, which were used by activists in Egypt, and keeps out other undesirable foreign content
Posted: 2011/02/20 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Public PolicyCall to Activists Unnerves China
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703498804576156203874160350.html
Anti-government activists in Morocco have marched to demand political reforms, answering a protest call issued on social networking site Facebook
Posted: 2011/02/20 in Education / AwarenessSee also:
Protests continue in Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria and Morocco
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/protests-continue-in-yemen-algeria-and-morocco-as-strikes-banned-in-egypt-2220133.html
Crysis 2 developer Nathan Camarillo pours his heart out over the anguish caused by the recent piracy of his game, and describes how you can show solidarity
Posted: 2011/02/20 in Education / Awareness, Illegal File SharingDigital piracy may be a fact of life these days, but it still hits those on the receiving end of it hard, as Camarillo recounts: “We were really high off the feeling that wow, we’ve got this really awesome game that came together, that we want to play and which will be a lot of fun. Then, getting that kind of news swings your emotions in completely the opposite direction. Our offices are generally really energetic, upbeat and excited but suddenly, everyone was deflated and walking around with their shoulders hunched. We’re normally very communicative at the office, but people just weren’t talking to each other like they normally do – it hit really, really hard. We went through all the phases that you do when you experience a loss – denial, anger and depression. That’s the one that sat in the longest.”
Libya blocks access to Facebook, Al Jazeera, others
Posted: 2011/02/20 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Public PolicyeBay to build its own private cloud
Posted: 2011/02/20 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech EvolutionHotfile Goes To War Against Copyright Infringers
Posted: 2011/02/20 in Education / Awareness, Illegal File Sharing, LitigationAlthough the MPAA and RIAA have named two of the market leaders – RapidShare and MegaUpload – as ‘rogue’, to date both sites have avoided becoming a target for litigation from the pair. The same cannot be said about Hotfile
More: http://torrentfreak.com/hotfile-goes-to-war-against-copyright-infringers-110219/
Anonymity is an important part of free speech for the citizenry, but it does not apply to a single Senator blocking legislation
Posted: 2011/02/20 in Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data Protection, Public PolicyThe Five Senators Who Refuse To Say If They Anonymously Killed The Whistleblower Bill
The Internet should be fair—not free—to everyone. The heaviest users comprise just two per cent of the total
Posted: 2011/02/20 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech EvolutionThe Internet is a many-splendoured thing. Among its countless and revolutionary contributions to 21st-century life has been the broad democratization of information and opinion. And this has given rise to the popular conceit that everything about the Internet should be free. Not so.
In spite of its many gifts, the Internet is certainly not costless. Billions of dollars of private capital have been invested in building and maintaining Canada’s high-speed Internet network. And more investment is continually required as demand and new services grow exponentially. Access to the Internet is thus like most other things in life: it has a real cost, and if you want more you should expect to pay more.
Much more: http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/02/18/the-internet-should-be-fair-not-free-to-everyone/#idc-cover
The US government’s custodian of cryptography standards has released two proposed changes to the SHA-2 hashing algorithm that are designed to boost performance on 64-bit systems
Posted: 2011/02/20 in Education / Awareness, Public Policy, Tech Evolutionhe tweaks, published this week (PDF) by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, would update the 512-bit version of SHA-2, which was formally approved in 2008. Short for secure hashing algorithm 2, SHA-2′s 224-, 256-, and 384-bit versions would remain unchanged. The public has until May 12 to comment on the proposal
More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/18/sha_2_tweaks_mulled/
“We have confirmed that Google’s webspam team is willing to take action manually – for example, if we get a spam report, off-topic porn, things like that,” Google’s Matt Cutts said in a video posted to the web
Posted: 2011/02/20 in Education / Awareness, GoogleHe also discussed algorithmic penalties, and he said that whereas site owners could appeal manual interventions, they could not appeal the algorithmic variety.
This was new information, and it provides some additional insight into the dispute under investigation by the EU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES01L4xjSXE
Much more: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/18/google_on_manual_search_penalties/
Navigating the US National Broadband Map
Posted: 2011/02/20 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reportsIt’s here. Commissioned by the Obama Administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (remember that?), the Department of Commerce rolled out its National Broadband Map right on deadline.
Much more: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/navigating-the-us-national-broadband-map.ars
Ask Ars: How should my organization approach the IPv6 transition?
Posted: 2011/02/20 in Education / Awareness, Tech EvolutionBlack ops: how HBGary wrote backdoors for the government
Posted: 2011/02/20 in Education / Awareness, Public Policy12 new file formats in the Google Docs Viewer
Posted: 2011/02/20 in Education / Awareness, Google, Tech EvolutionIntel Corp Chief Executive Paul Otellini will be named to a panel of experts advising President Barack Obama on jobs
Posted: 2011/02/20 in Education / Awareness, Public PolicyOtellini will join the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, created in January to focus on lifting hiring and promoting growth.
General Electric Co Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt was named last month to lead the new outside board advising the White House on economic policy. Other members of the Council will be named in the coming weeks, the White House said
