Archive for February, 2012
How long do we spend on social media sites?
Posted: 2012/02/29 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reportsEU Censorship Plan With A Cheesy Name: The Clean IT Project
Posted: 2012/02/29 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Filtering, Public PolicyThe Pirate Bay, Now Without Torrents
Posted: 2012/02/29 in Education / Awareness, Illegal File Sharing, Tech EvolutionToday marks the end of an era for The Pirate Bay. The largest torrent site on the Internet has just removed all popular torrent files and made the switch to magnet links. The Pirate Bay team believes the move is needed to make the site future proof, and is confident that it won’t cause much trouble among users. “Just click the red button instead of the green one and all will be fine,” they say.
“The new site will be better protected from outside attacks. It uses less bandwidth, less servers, and can even run off a decent home connection,” The Pirate Bay team said.
“It’s the future.”
http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-dumps-torrents-120228/
Game Devs Want Warez Pirates To Switch Sides
Posted: 2012/02/29 in Education / Awareness, Illegal File SharingGoogle’s new privacy policy raises deep concerns about data protection and the respect of the European law
Posted: 2012/02/29 in Education / Awareness, Google, Privacy / Data Protection, Public PolicyThe Article 29 Working Party invited the CNIL to take the lead in the analysis of Google’s new privacy policy. Preliminary findings show that Google’s new policy fails to meet the requirements of the European Data Protection Directive (95/46/CE) regarding the information that must be provided to data subjects. Moreover, the CNIL and the EU data protection authorities are deeply concerned about the combination of data across services and will continue their investigations with Google’s representatives. The CNIL reiterated its request to Google to postpone the application of the new policy, on behalf of the Article 29 Working Party.
Neelie Kroes tells Vodafone’s Colao more regulation is good for customers, good for him
Posted: 2012/02/29 in Education / Awareness, Mobile tech, Public PolicyDigital Agenda Commissioner, Neelie Kroes, said that she would not be threatened.
“Message to Vittorio and Vodafone: I call your bluff. I take the side of the Vodafone customer. Remember, if consumers lose their fear of using their smartphones and tablets when traveling across Europe, operators will benefit as well,” said Kroes.
Vodafone boss calls for moratorium on mobile phone regulation
Posted: 2012/02/29 in Education / Awareness, Mobile tech, Public PolicyCarrier IQ hopes customers will come back after scandal
Posted: 2012/02/29 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Privacy / Data ProtectionThe company said it has implemented new policies to ensure that its software doesn’t collect keystrokes
With Access To The Fastest Network In The World, It’s Very Inviting To Distribute Illegal Content, The Dutch University Of Twente Noticed
Posted: 2012/02/28 in Education / Awareness, File Sharing, Illegal File Sharing, Stats / reports, Tech EvolutionAnd that’s why their students with access to the University’s 1 Gigabit per second network, are ‘only’ allowed to upload 50 Gigabytes per week
Stanford University does have a network that achieves similar speeds, but that has been set up by Google, the University argues. This network has been built by the students themselves.
Dutch language news article:
http://www.nu.nl/internet/2751450/internet-campus-twente-snelste-wereld.html
WikiLeaks + Anonymous = powerful partnership? Or one and the same team?
Posted: 2012/02/28 in Education / AwarenessWikiLeaks has not said where it got the e-mails. Anonymous, an amorphous group of hackers worldwide, is claiming on Twitter and on other social media that they gave it to the site. Numerous media outlets such as the Washington Post and Wired are reporting the partnership.
http://www.local10.com/news/WikiLeaks-Anonymous-A-powerful-partnership/-/1717324/9140224/-/15mtxqn/-/
Today, the media is significantly more hesitant to publish scoops that deal with Anon activity. Unless a journalist is willing to deeply embed herself into the underground culture of Anonymous (a process that would take months of serious research and relationship building), she really has no way of confirming the validity of any Anonymous attack until it’s been reported by the victim.
http://www.alternet.org/media/154320/wikileaks_2.0%3A_how_julian_assange’s_partnership_with_anonymous_could_change_the_landscape_of_hacktivism/
Previously:
What journalists around the world have failed to narrate is the tale of a network that increasingly challenges, bypasses and outcompetes the global corporate-government complex. Although the idea of two parallel worlds sets the stage, it is really the oversimplification of a fuzzy, ambiguous and entangled field.
http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/commentary/a-tale-of-two-worlds-2
Google offers $1 million reward to hackers who exploit Chrome, but only if they tell all
Posted: 2012/02/28 in Education / Awareness, Google, Network Security, Privacy / Data ProtectionGoogle has pledged cash prizes totaling $1 million to people who successfully hack its Chrome browser at next week’s CanSecWest security conference.
Secondly, Google was withdrawing as a sponsor of the Pwn2Own contest after discovering rule changes allowing hackers to collect prizes without always revealing the full details of the vulnerabilities to browser makers.
Linux computer the size of a thumb drive now available for preorder
Posted: 2012/02/28 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech EvolutionThe device, which can run either Ubuntu or Android 4.0, has a dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a Mali 400MP GPU that allows it to decode high-definition video.
It has a USB plug on one side, which is used to power the system, and an HDMI plug on the other side, which allows it to be plugged into a display. It also has built-in WiFi and Bluetooth radios for connectivity and supporting input devices. The system can boot standalone and operate as a complete computer when plugged into a display.
More:
Dutch Supreme Court: Websites And Phone Services Of Foreign Gambling Companies Have To Be Blocked In The Netherlands
Posted: 2012/02/28 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Filtering, Jurisprudence, New Business Models, Public PolicyState run monopoly now fully protected. No issues in relation to innovation, no issues in relation to freedom of information or censorship. No online protests announced as of yet
Supreme Court argues that the most important ground for blocking is the prevention of gambling addiction (Dutch whistleblower: State-owned Holland Casino causes massive gambling addiction: http://vrritti.com/2012/01/26/dutch-whistleblower-state-owned-holland-casino-causes-massive-gambling-addiction/ )
The Supreme Court also argues that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has previously determined that States are allowed to implement such a ban which, according to the ECJ, is not necessarily in conflict with the right to free movement of goods within the EU.
This court case, which dealt with a conflict between Dutch State run monopoly Lotto and the British Ladbrokes, started 10 years ago.
Dutch language article and verdict:
http://www.nu.nl/internet/2751248/buitenlandse-goksites-in-nederland-zwart.html
http://www.rechtspraak.nl/Actualiteiten/Nieuws/Pages/Internet-en-telefoon-taboe-voor-Ladbrokes.aspx
Americans were once enthusiastic pirates. The company that eventually became HarperCollins made a fortune pirating the work of Charles Dickens and other British authors
Posted: 2012/02/28 in Copyright, Education / AwarenessHow piracy built the U.S. publishing industry
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-57386069-261/how-piracy-built-the-u.s-publishing-industry/
Previously:
Piracy and Privateering in the Golden Age – Netherlands
http://vrritti.com/2012/01/28/piracy-and-privateering-in-the-golden-age-netherlands/
The growing boycott of academics, refusing to publish papers in any Reed Elsevier journal, has caused the company to back down
Posted: 2012/02/28 in Education / Awareness, Legislation, Public PolicyIt has now announced that it no longer supports the Research Works Act. That’s the bill — for which Elsevier was a major backer — that would bar the government from requiring open and free access (after a period of time) to government-funded research
The internet has become such a key part of our lives that anyone who is trying to regulate it without understanding it doesn’t deserve to be in office
Posted: 2012/02/28 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Legislation, New Business Models, Public PolicyOf course, there are some politicians who really do want to do the right thing, and it’s time to help them out
