This Could be Big: Decentralized Web Standard Under Development by W3C https://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/his_could_be_big_decentralized_web_standard_under.php
http://www.w3.org/2011/04/webrtc-charter.html
Cf. http://newtechpost.com/2011/05/05/starfish-a-user-controlled-network
After botched child porn raid, judge sees the light on IP addresses http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/after-botched-child-porn-raid-judge-sees-the-light-on-ip-addresses.ars
Why We Need An Open Wireless Movement “[...] What Needs to be Done / EFF will be working with other organizations to launch an Open Wireless Movement in the near future. In the mean time, we’re keen to hear from technologists with wireless expertise who would like to help us work on the protocol engineering tasks that are needed to make network sharing easier from a privacy and bandwidth-sharing perspective. You can write to us at openwireless@eff.org.” https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/04/open-wireless-movement
NSA Document Admits ET Contact: “Recently a series of radio messages was heard coming from outer space. The transmission was not continuous but was cut by pauses into pieces which could be taken as units, for they were repeated over and over again. The pauses show here as punctuation. The various combinations have been represented by letters of the alphabet, so that the messages can be written down. Each message except the first is given here only once. The serial number of the message has been supplied for each reference”:
Original: https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ufo/et_intelligence.pdf
Key to the messages: https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ufo/key_to_et_messages.pdf
Html: http://agoragraphie.canalblog.com/archives/2008/10/27/11130768.html
History & wording:
It is curious, to say the least, that this document was cleared for release on October 21, 2004. Why was that? Because the NSA did not release it into public information until April 21, 2011. Though cleared for release, the NSA had been stonewalling it along with hundreds of other NSA documents about contact with UFOs and extraterrestrials until they lost the lawsuit brought by Peter Gersten, a lawyer from Arizona. When they well and truly lost, the judge’s order had to be carried out, and the documents had to be released. [...]
Dr. Campaigne’s presentation to the NSA on decoding the extraterrestrial messages was not a hypothetical exercise. I contacted someone who is formerly associated with the NSA and still has TS clearance, and asked him to view the document. I asked him to give me his take on it. There was no question about its authenticity since it was published in the NSA Journal, and was released by the NSA on their web site. What I wanted to know was whether this document had any particular impact or importance (other than its startling revelations) for someone familiar with the inner workings of the NSA. It did.
My contact told me that he was blown away by the wording of the document. He said that NSA communications are filled with words like “possibly” , “allegedly”, and “thought to be”.
He said, “This document has none of the normal NSA disclaimer words in it. They just come out and say ‘we received messages from outer space’ and this is the way to decode those messages.”
I asked, “What does that mean to you?”
His reply was instant.
“Disclosure, pure and simple. They aren’t making any fanfare about it, but there it is. They have just made open disclosure.” http://www.ufodigest.com/article/official-et-disclosure-nsa-document-admits-et-contact-kevin-w-smith
iPhone keeps record of everywhere you go http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-tracking-prompts-privacy-fears
iPad’s privacy sucks http://privacysucks.com/blog/2011/04/ipads-privacy-sucks/
Your privacy sucks: http://privacysucks.com/
Police Search Cell Phones During Traffic Stops http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/34/3458.asp
Cf. https://www.cellebrite.com/forensic-products/ufed-physical-pro.html
[Press release: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/en/pressroom/content/20110310IPR15259/html/Hungarian-media-needs-to-be-changed-further-says-European-Parliament ]
[Original:]
P7_TA-PROV(2011)0094
Media law in Hungary
European Parliament resolution of 10 March 2011 on media law in Hungary
The European Parliament,
– having regard to Articles 2, 3, 6 and 7 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), Articles 49, 56, 114, 167 and 258 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) relating to respect for and the promotion and protection of fundamental rights, in particular freedom of expression and information and the right to media pluralism,
– having regard to Directive 2010/13/EU of 10 March 2010 on the coordination of certain provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States concerning the provision of audiovisual media services (Audiovisual Media Services Directive – AVMSD),
– having regard to the European Charter on Freedom of the Press of 25 May 2009, to the Commission’s working document on media pluralism in EU Member States (SEC(2007)0032), to the ‘three-step approach to media pluralism’ defined by the Commission, and to the independent study carried out on behalf of the Commission and finalised in 2009,
– having regard to its resolutions of 22 April 2004 on the risks of violation in the European Union and particularly in Italy of freedom of expression and information [OJ C 104 E, 30.4.2004, p. 1026.], of 25 September 2008 on concentration and pluralism in the media in the European Union [Texts adopted, P6_TA(2008)0459.], and of 7 September 2010 on journalism and new media – creating a public sphere in Europe,
– having regard to the statements by the Commission, to the parliamentary questions tabled and debates held in the European Parliament on 8 October 2009, regarding freedom of information in Italy, and on 8 September 2010, and to the discussions held in the joint meeting of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE Committee) and the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT Committee) on 17 January 2011 regarding the Hungarian media law,
– having regard to the decision by the LIBE Committee to request the Fundamental Rights Agency to issue an annual comparative report on the situation with regard to media freedom, pluralism and independent governance in the EU Member States, including indicators,
– having regard to the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, in particular Articles 5(2), 7, and 11 thereof,
– having regard to Rule 110(2) of its Rules of Procedure,A. whereas the European Union is founded on the values of democracy and the rule of law, as stipulated in Article 2 TEU, and consequently guarantees and promotes freedom of expression and of information, as enshrined in Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and in Article 10 of the ECHR, and recognises the legal value of the rights, freedoms and principles as set out in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which it has also demonstrated by acceding to the ECHR, for which media freedom and pluralism are essential prerequisites, and whereas these rights include freedom to express opinions and freedom to receive and communicate information without control, interference or pressure from public authorities,
B. whereas media pluralism and freedom continue to be matters of grave concern in the EU and its Member States, notably in Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic and Estonia, as highlighted by the recent criticism of the media law and constitutional changes enacted in Hungary between June and December 2010 which has been voiced by international organisations, such as the OSCE and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, by a large number of international and national journalists’ organisations, by editors and publishers, by NGOs active in the areas of human rights and civil liberties, and by Member States and the Commission,
C. whereas the Commission raised concerns and requested information from the Hungarian Government regarding the conformity of the Hungarian media law with the AVMSD and the acquis communautaire in general, notably in relation to the obligation to offer balanced coverage applicable to all audiovisual media service providers, and also questioned whether that law complied with the principle of proportionality and respected the fundamental right to freedom of expression and information enshrined in Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the country-of-origin principle and registration requirements, and whereas the Hungarian Government responded by providing further information and by commencing the process of amending the law to address the points raised by the Commission,
D. whereas the OSCE expressed serious reservations regarding the scope of the Hungarian laws (material and territorial scope), freedom of expression and the regulation of content, the appointment of one person to act as the national media and telecommunications authority, and compliance with the principles governing public-service broadcasting [Analysis and assessment of a package of Hungarian legislation and draft legislation on media and telecommunications, prepared by Dr Karol Jakubowicz for the OSCE.], indicating that the new legislation undermined media pluralism, abolished the political and financial independence of the public-service media and cemented the negative features for the free media in the long term, and that the Media Authority and Media Council were politically homogeneous [Letter of 14 January 2010 from the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media to the Chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.] and exerted pervasive and centralised governmental and political control over all media; whereas further concerns included the disproportionate and extreme penalties imposed for debatable and undefined reasons, the lack of an automatic procedure for suspending penalties in the event of an appeal to the courts against a Media Authority ruling, the violation of the principle of the confidentiality of journalistic sources and the protection of family values,
E. sharing the serious reservations expressed by the OSCE in relation to the politically homogeneous composition of the Media Authority and Media Council, the timeframe, the exertion of a pervasive and centralised governmental, judicial and political control over all media, the fact that the most problematic features of the legislation contravene OSCE and international standards on freedom of expression, for example by doing away with the political and financial independence of public-service media, the scope of the regulation (material and territorial), and the decision not to define key terms, making it impossible for journalists to know when they may be breaking the law,
F. whereas the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights called on the Hungarian authorities, when reviewing the media law, to take account of Council of Europe standards on freedom of expression and media pluralism, the relevant recommendations of the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and, in particular, the binding standards set out in the ECHR and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights; whereas he referred to the use of unclear definitions which are open to misinterpretation, the establishment of politically unbalanced regulatory machinery with disproportionate powers which is not subject to full judicial supervision, threats to the independence of public-service broadcast media, and erosion of the protection of journalists’ sources; whereas he also stressed the need for all relevant stakeholders, including opposition parties and civil society, to be able to participate in a meaningful manner in the review of this legislation, which regulates such a fundamental aspect of the functioning of a democratic society [ http://www.coe.int/t/commissioner/News/2011/110201Hungary_en.asp ],
G. whereas, in a second opinion issued on 25 February 2011, the Commissioner for Human Rights recommends a ‘wholesale review’ of the Hungarian media law package, with the objectives, inter alia, of reinstating precise legislation promoting a pluralistic and independent media, and strengthening the guarantees that media regulatory mechanisms will be immune from political influence [ https://wcd.coe.int/wcd/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1751289 ]; whereas he further states that the media in Hungary must be able to perform their role as watchdog in a pluralistic democratic society and that in order to achieve this, Hungary should abide by its commitments as a member state of the Council of Europe and make the most of that organisation’s expertise in the fields of freedom of expression and media independence and pluralism,
H. whereas the Hungarian media law should consequently be suspended as a matter of urgency and reviewed on the basis of the Commission’s, OSCE’s and Council of Europe’s comments and proposals, in order to ensure that it is fully in conformity with EU law and European values and standards on media freedom, pluralism and independent media governance,
I. whereas, despite repeated calls by Parliament for a directive on media freedom, pluralism and independent governance, the Commission has up to now delayed this proposal, which has become increasingly necessary and urgent,
J. whereas the Copenhagen criteria for EU membership, as established in June 1993 at the Copenhagen European Council, relating to freedom of the press and freedom of expression should be upheld by all EU Member States and enforced through relevant EU legislation,
K. whereas, in paragraphs 45 and 46 of its judgment in joined Cases C-39/05 P and C-52/05 P, the Court of Justice has held that access to information enables citizens to participate more closely in the decision-making process and guarantees that the administration enjoys greater legitimacy and is more effective and more accountable to the citizen in a democratic system and that it ‘is a precondition for the effective exercise of citizens’ democratic rights’,
1. Calls on the Hungarian authorities to restore the independence of media governance and halt state interference with freedom of expression and ‘balanced coverage’, and believes that over-regulation of the media is counterproductive, jeopardising effective pluralism in the public sphere;
2. Welcomes the Commission’s cooperation with the Hungarian authorities to bring Hungarian media law into conformity with EU Treaties and law, and the commencement of the amending process at national level;
3. Deplores the Commission’s decision to target only three points in connection with the implementation of the acquis communautaire by Hungary and the lack of any reference to Article 30 of the AVMSD, which has the effect of limiting the Commission’s own competence to scrutinise Hungary’s compliance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights when implementing EU law; urges the Commission to examine Hungary’s compliance with the liability arrangements laid down in Directive 2000/31/EC on electronic commerce and Hungary’s transposition of the EU framework decisions on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law (2008/913/JHA) and on combating terrorism (2008/919/JHA), which include references to freedom of expression and circumventions of the rules on media freedom;
4. Calls on the Commission to continue the close monitoring and assessment of the conformity of Hungarian media law as amended in accordance with European legislation, particularly with the Charter on Fundamental Rights;
5. Calls on the Hungarian authorities to involve all stakeholders in the revision of the media law and of the Constitution, which is the basis for a democratic society founded on the rule of law, with appropriate checks and balances to safeguard the fundamental rights of the minority against the risk of the tyranny of the majority;
6. Calls on the Commission to act, on the basis of Article 265 TFEU, by proposing a legislative initiative pursuant to Article 225 TFEU on media freedom, pluralism and independent governance before the end of the year, thereby overcoming the inadequacies of the EU’s legislative framework on the media, making use of its competences in the fields of the internal market, audiovisual policy, competition, telecommunications, State subsidies, the public-service obligation and the fundamental rights of every person resident on EU territory, with a view to defining at least the minimum essential standards that all Member States must meet and respect in national legislation in order to ensure, guarantee and promote freedom of information and an adequate level of media pluralism and independent media governance;
7. Calls on the Hungarian authorities to review the media law further on the basis of the comments and proposals made by the European Parliament, the Commission, the OSCE and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, the recommendations of the Committee of Ministers and Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and the case law of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights and, in the event that it is found to be incompatible with the letter or spirit of the Treaties or EU law, the Charter of Fundamental Rights or the ECHR, to repeal and not to apply the law or those elements thereof that are found to be incompatible;
8. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Council of Europe, the governments and parliaments of Member States, the Fundamental Rights Agency, the OSCE and the Council of Europe.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?language=EN&type=TA&reference=20110310&secondRef=TOC
Avoid News. Table of contents:
News is to the mind what sugar is to the body
No 1 – News misleads us systematically
No 2 – News is irrelevant
No 3 – News limits understanding
No 4 – News is toxic to your body
No 5 – News massively increases cognitive errors
No 6 – News inhibits thinking
No 7 – News changes the structure of your brain
No 8 – News is costly
No 9 – News sunders the relationship between reputation and achievement
No 10 – News is produced by journalists
No 11 – Reported facts are sometimes wrong, forecasts always
No 12 – News is manipulative
No 13 – News makes us passive
No 14 – News gives us the illusion of caring
No 15 – News kills creativity
What to do instead
Good News
Disclaimer
http://dobelli.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Avoid_News_Part1_TEXT.pdf
“Over 40 organizations endorse *The Declaration and “How-to” guide to new models of sustainability in the digital era* that are released today by the Free/Libre Culture Forum after4 months work.”
Sustainable Models for Creativity in the Digital Age: http://fcforum.net/sustainable-models-for-creativity
Piracy is the Future of Television:
The convergence of television and the Internet is in its early stages, and the two media will increasingly
interconnect over the coming years. A number of services are currently competing to become the
dominant protocol for consumption of TV content via the Internet. This paper examines the major
services that are currently available for downloading or streaming television programs online, both
legal and illegal. We propose that, of the options now available to media users, illegal downloading is
the most usable and feature-rich, and bears the greatest potential for pioneering new modes of audience
engagement, as well as new global revenue streams, related to television products.This paper will recommend that legitimate services facilitating the online downloading/streaming of
TV adopt some of the protocols innovated by online pirates in order to improve the quality of their
offerings. Although Internet piracy has been regarded in many circles as a threat to television’s present
economic models, we argue that piracy can also be a boon to media corporations invested in shaping
TV’s evolution in the Internet era. Contemporary online piracy may prove to contain the seeds of
television’s future. http://convergenceculture.org/research/c3-piracy_future_television-full.pdf
Short leash: how they track your mobile? http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-vorratsdaten
“[...]what looks like a Great Stagnation in the traditional market economy is to a significant extent a product of a vast growth in economic value that has occurred on the Internet and largely outside of the traditional market economy, and a corresponding cannibalization of and brain drain from traditional market businesses.
Most of the economic growth during the Internet era has been largely unmonetized, i.e. external to the measurable market. This is most obvious for completely free services like Craig’s List, Wikipedia, many blogs, open source software, and many other services based on content input by users. But ad-funded Internet services also usually create a much greater value than is captured by the advertising revenues. These include search, social networking, many online games, broadcast messaging, and many other services. Only a small fraction of the Internet’s overall value has been monetized. In other words, the vast majority of the Internet’s value is what economists call an externality: it is external to the measurable prices of the market. Of course, since this value is unmeasured, this thesis is extremely hard to prove or disprove, and can hardly be called scientific; mainly it just strikes me as subjectively obvious. [...]
What’s worse for the traditional market (as opposed to this recent tsunami of unmonetized voluntary information exchange), this tidal wave of value has greatly reduced the revenues of certain industries. The direct connection the Internet provides between authors and the readers put out of business many bookstores. Online classifieds and free news sources have cannibalized newspapers and magazines. Wikipedia is destroying demand for the traditional encyclopedia. Free and cut-price music has caused a substantial decline in music industry revenues. So the overall effect is a great increase in value combined with a perhaps small, but I’d guess significant reduction in what GDP growth would have been without the Internet. [...]
Cowen suggests that external gains of similar magnitude occurred in prior productivity revolutions, but I’m skeptical of this claim. A physical widget can be far more completely monetized than a piece of information, because it is excludable: if you don’t pay, you don’t get the widget. As opposed to information that computers readily copy. (The most underappreciated function of computers is that they are far better copy machines than the paper copiers). [...]” http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2011/02/great-stagnation-or-external-growth.html
Censorship law, Hungary: Letter to Neelie Kroes, European Digital Agenda Commissioner
The HCLU [Hungarian Civil Liberties Union] wrote a letter to Neelie Kroes to express our grave concern about the amendment proposed to the Hungarian Press and Media Act and the Media Services and Mass Media Act by the Hungarian government which it has been said is supported by Commissioner Kroes.
The HCLU’s position is that Hungarian media laws constitute violations of European Directives in many details as well as that of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Furthermore some points of the proposed amendments are even more restrictive on freedom of the press than the earlier versions. http://tasz.hu/en/freedom-of-speech/letter-neelie-kroes-european-digital-agenda-commissioner
Letter to Neelie Kroes download: http://tasz.hu/files/tasz/imce/kroes_letter_0223.pdf
Why exactly can nothing go faster than the speed of light? http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/fjwkh/why_exactly_can_nothing_go_faster_than_the_speed/ (Cf. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2244304 )
Cf. http://www.amazon.com/Fabric-Cosmos-Space-Texture-Reality/dp/0375727205 Index: ‘speed of light’, p. 564.
Creating illusion of consensus: HB Gary Email That Should Concern Us All http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/16/945768/-UPDATED:-The-HB-Gary-Email-That-Should-Concern-Us-All
How 1researcher helped US beat China’s censors http://venturebeat.com/2011/02/05/how-one-researcher-enabled-the-u-s-government-to-slip-news-through-chinas-censors/
Policy Analysis with Incredible Certitude “Abstract – Analyses of public policy regularly express certitude about the consequences of alternative policy choices. Yet policy predictions often are fragile, with conclusions resting on critical unsupported assumptions or leaps of logic. Then the certitude of policy analysis is not credible. I develop a typology of incredible analytical practices and gives illustrative cases. I call these practices conventional certitude, dueling certitudes, conflating science and advocacy, wishful extrapolation, illogical certitude, and media overreach.” http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~cfm754/policy_certitude.pdf
iPhone Users Are About to Be Screwed Over: “There has been a lot of talk about the addition of an NFC (near field communication) chip to the next-gen iPhone. This will allow the phone to be used as a swipe-it-yourself credit card. I consider this technology to be the most onerous ever. [...]
If you think your banker is a gouger with dubious fees and no-leeway, what do you think the phone company will be like? Yes, let AT&T handle all your money for you, and see how that works out in the end.
I’m immediately reminded of the online scams that took place during the modem era of communications. You’d be given a number to call, and it would actually be some sort of scam. The local number would connect to a BBS of some sort which would send a code back to the modem to turn off the speaker, so you couldn’t hear the modem disconnect and then redial a number in Bulgaria or some obscure island. You’d then be connected to a phone service that charged $100/minute for the connection. After racking up thousands and thousand of dollars in phone costs, you’d get the bill from your phone company for $30,000.
You’d bitterly complain about the bill—these stories were all over the news during this era—but the phone companies said they couldn’t do anything about the charges. The rates were protected by some U.S. treaty scammed together by the phone companies and signed into law. There was nothing they could do! So, you had to pay or lose your phone service and be sued in court.
This was unbelievable.
I’ve always been convinced this was test marketing to show the banks and everyone that the phone companies were the best collection agencies and should be in charge of your credit card and other transactions. After all, you can stall the bank, and what can they really do, anyway? You stall the phone company and you are disconnected from the world.
Do not let AT&T or Verizon or any phone company anywhere near your day-to-day financial transaction business!
You’ve been warned.” http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376702,00.asp
Whole ISPs & telecoms behind VPN: “Soon the decision of Parliament to impose new requirements on telecommunications companies to store information about their customers, but there are telephone companies that have decided to oppose the law.
Internet operator Bahnhof for example, will do everything it can to make the law as toothless as possible. [...]
Cf.: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/01/27/0320209/Swedish-ISPs-To-Thwart-EU-Data-Retention-Law
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/01/29/0417208/UK-ISPs-Consider-VPN-To-Avoid-Piracy-Crackdown
“[...] The world needs more people seriously engaged with improving the lot of activists who make use of the net (that is, all activists). We need to have a serious debate about tactics such as the Distributed Denial of Service – flooding computers with bogus requests so that they can’t be reached – which some have compared to sit-in demonstrations. As someone who’s been arrested at sit-ins, I think this is just wrong. A sit-in derives its efficacy not from merely blocking the door to some objectionable place, but from the public willingness to stand before your neighbours and risk arrest and bodily harm in service of a moral cause, which is itself a force for moral suasion. As a tactic, DDoS has more in common with filling a business’s locks with super glue, or cutting its phone lines – risky, to be sure, but closer to vandalism and thus less apt to convince your neighbours to look sympathetically on your cause.
We need to fix the mobile internet, which – thanks to closed networks and devices – is more amenable to surveillance and control than the fixed-line variety. We need to fight the move – driven by entertainment companies and IT giants such as Apple and Microsoft – to design devices to work covertly and without the consent of their owners in the name of protecting copyright.
We need to pay heed to Jonathan Zittrain (another scholar whom Morozov both dismisses and then later inadvertently agrees vigorously with), whose The Future of the Internet warns that the increase in crime, sleaze and fraud on the net will cause user fatigue and make people more willing to accept locked-down devices and networks that can be used to control, as well as protect them.
We need all of this, and a serious critique and roadmap for the future of net activism, because the world’s oppressive regimes (including supposedly free governments in the west) are availing themselves of new technology at speed, and the only way for activism to be effective in that environment is to use the same tools.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jan/25/net-activism-delusion
Guardian: Orban was threatening the EU “Orbán made clear he would cause maximum embarrassment if Brussels insisted on meddling in his domestic policies. “If you mix up the two, obviously I am ready to fight … It won’t just be detrimental or damaging to Hungary alone but … to the EU as a whole,” he said in Strasbourg. It was an extraordinary statement: in effect, the EU’s standard-bearer was threatening the EU. [...]
The impact of Orbán’s behaviour on EU influence in the world is another worrying issue. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, has warned Europe’s collective authority in dealing with abusive regimes could be undermined. If Hungary’s flouting of EU standards goes unpunished, other EU states with questionable human rights and civil liberties practices may feel encouraged to persist. And what is EU candidate Turkey, often accused of curtailing media freedoms, to make of it all? [...]
The controversy has sparked an overdue discussion about maintaining common standards, Dennison said. “Until recently EU governments and the Commission have found it inappropriate to discuss domestic affairs at a European level, and certainly not in public … Instead they operate a gentlemen’s club …” she said in an ECFR analysis. But now, outrage over Orbán’s antics suggested “the long-standing civil society message [is] finally being heard: that breaches of the EU’s fundamental values, even in only one member state, are still a source of collective shame.” ”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/20/hungary-eu-media-law
Android Trojan captures credit card details – Spoken or typed http://www.thinq.co.uk/2011/1/20/android-trojan-captures-credit-card-details
Why you should always encrypt your smartphone http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/guides/2011/01/why-you-should-always-encrypt-your-smartphone.ars
Separating Terror from Terrorism: “Nineteenth-century anarchists promoted what they called the “propaganda of the deed,” that is, the use of violence as a symbolic action to make a larger point, such as inspiring the masses to undertake revolutionary action. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, modern terrorist organizations began to conduct operations designed to serve as terrorist theater, an undertaking greatly aided by the advent and spread of broadcast media. Examples of attacks designed to grab international media attention are the September 1972 kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and the December 1975 raid on OPEC headquarters in Vienna. Aircraft hijackings followed suit, changing from relatively brief endeavors to long, drawn-out and dramatic media events often spanning multiple continents.
Today, the proliferation of 24-hour television news networks and the Internet have allowed the media to broadcast such attacks live and in their entirety. This development allowed vast numbers of people to watch live as the World Trade Center towers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001, and as teams of gunmen ran amok in Mumbai in November 2008.
This exposure not only allows people to be informed about unfolding events, it also permits them to become secondary victims of the violence they have watched unfold before them. As the word indicates, the intent of “terrorism” is to create terror in a targeted audience, and the media allow that audience to become far larger than just those in the immediate vicinity of a terrorist attack. I am not a psychologist, but even I can understand that on 9/11, watching the second aircraft strike the South Tower, seeing people leap to their deaths from the windows of the World Trade Center Towers in order to escape the ensuing fire and then watching the towers collapse live on television had a profound impact on many people. A large portion of the United State was, in effect, victimized, as were a large number of people living abroad, judging from the statements of foreign citizens and leaders in the wake of 9/11 that “We are all Americans.” ” http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20101229-separating-terror-terrorism
(via Scneier)
http://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/article11825311/Europa-darf-Ungarn-jetzt-nicht-isolieren.html
GSM eavesdrop: $15 phone, 3 minutes all that’s needed: “Speaking at the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) Congress in Berlin on Tuesday, a pair of researchers demonstrated a start-to-finish means of eavesdropping on encrypted GSM cellphone calls and text messages, using only four sub-$15 telephones as network “sniffers,” a laptop computer, and a variety of open source software. [...]“: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/12/15-phone-3-minutes-all-thats-needed-to-eavesdrop-on-gsm-call.ars
merely informing people about indirect effects is far from enough to get more consideration of indirect effects in policy. Creating near-common knowledge about such effects might be sufficient if our fear was looking bad to those ignorant of indirect effects. But if the issue is showing that we feel, this won’t work either. Instead we’ll need to find ways to frame indirect effects so that strong emotional responses seem appropriate, to allow people to signal feelings via considering indirect effects. Easier said than done, I know.
Robin Hanson
Your iPhone/Android Apps Are Watching You – The Wall Street Journal analyzed 50 popular applications, or “apps,” on each of the iPhone and Android operating systems to see what information about the phones, their users and their locations the apps send to themselves and to outsiders. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704694004576020083703574602.html
“Defending Open Standards: FSFE refutes BSA’s false claims to European Commission”:
“[...] 1. Royalty-free patent licensing opens up participation and promotes innovation
2. The BSA’s example standards are irrelevant to the software field
3. (F)RAND licensing in software standards is unfair and discriminatory
4. BSA not representative of even its own membership, much less of software industry as a whole
5. (F)RAND incompatible with most Free Software licenses
6. Recommended preference for Open Standards is entirely unrelated to EU’s negotiating position vis-a-vis China
7. Restriction-free specifications will promote standardisation, competition and interoperability
8. Recommendations [...]”
http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/bsa-letter-analysis.html
Cf. http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/bsa-vs-eu
FYI: European Parliament Swallows the RAND Poison Pill http://techrights.org/2010/10/08/european-parliament-amendments-and-rand/
This site is protected with Urban Giraffe's plugin 'HTML Purified' and Edward Z. Yang's 
. 66558 items have been purified.
admin is discussing.
Cf. https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9206998/How_Apple_and_Google_will_kill_the_password_