“[...] the only way to get objective data is to have institutions that assume objectivity doesn’t exist. It’s not enough to force scientists and doctors to declare conflicts of interest, because our biases seep in anyway. Rather, we need to do a better job of funding truly independent studies and approaching with extra skepticism those that are not. We should also encourage researchers to make their raw data public, as Samuel Morton did, so that others can check it. As Stephen Jay Gould proved all too well, men are inveterate mismeasurers.” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303936704576397771567839728.html

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The Destruction of Economic Facts – Financial crisis wasn’t just about finance, but about the lack of knowledge http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/11_19/b4227060634112.htm
Cf. Reader comments http://app.businessweek.com/UserComments/combo_review;jsessionid=FA242695A0DC6ACABD095E9280C13911.ny04tls?action=all&style=wide&productId=127293&productCode=spec

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“[...] Data Retention Directive does not meet the requirements set out by the rights to privacy and data protection, for the following reasons:

• the necessity of data retention as provided for in the Data Retention Directive has not been sufficiently demonstrated;
• data retention could have been regulated in a less privacy-intrusive way;
• the Data Retention Directive lacks foreseeability.

86. The EDPS calls upon the Commission to consider seriously all options in the impact assessment including the possibility of repealing the Directive, either per se or combined with a proposal for an alternative, more targeted EU measure.

87. A future Data Retention Directive could be considered only if there were agreement on the need for EU rules from the perspective of the internal market and police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters and if, during the impact assessment, the necessity of data retention, supported and regulated by the EU, could be sufficiently demonstrated, which includes a careful consideration of alternative measures. Such an instrument should fulfil the following basic requirements:

• It should be comprehensive and genuinely harmonise rules on the obligation to retain data, as well as on the access and further use of the data by competent authorities.
• It should be exhaustive, which means that it has a clear and precise purpose and the legal loophole which exists with Article 15(1) of the ePrivacy Directive is closed.
• It should be proportionate and not go beyond what is necessary.” http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/Consultation/Opinions/2011/11-05-30_Evaluation_Report_DRD_EN.pdf

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An API for European Union legislation http://api.epdb.eu/

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social media bill of rights:

“Honesty: Honor your privacy policy and terms of service

Clarity: Make sure that policies, terms of service, and settings are easy to find and understand

Freedom of speech: Do not delete or modify my data without a clear policy and justification

Empowerment: Support assistive technologies and universal accessibility

Self-protection: Support privacy-enhancing technologies

Data minimization: Minimize the information I am required to provide and share with others

Control: Let me control my data, and don’t facilitate sharing it unless I agree first

Predictability: Obtain my prior consent before significantly changing who can see my data.

Data portability: Make it easy for me to obtain a copy of my data

Protection: Treat my data as securely as your own confidential data unless I choose to share it, and notify me if it is compromised

Right to know: Show me how you are using my data and allow me to see who and what has access to it.

Right to self-define: Let me create more than one identity and use pseudonyms. Do not link them without my permission.

Right to appeal: Allow me to appeal punitive actions

Right to withdraw: Allow me to delete my account, and remove my data” http://snubillofrights.com/

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Open data: an international comparison of strategies http://www.epractice.eu/files/European%20Journal%20epractice%20Volume%2012_1.pdf

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Identity and The Independent Web: “[...] Here’s one major architectural pattern I’ve noticed: the emergence of two distinct territories across the web landscape. One I’ll call the “Dependent Web,” the other is its converse: The “Independent Web.”

The Dependent Web is dominated by companies that deliver services, content and advertising based on who that service believes you to be: What you see on these sites “depends” on their proprietary model of your identity, including what you’ve done in the past, what you’re doing right now, what “cohorts” you might fall into based on third- or first-party data and algorithms, and any number of other robust signals.

The Independent Web, for the most part, does not shift its content or services based on who you are. However, in the past few years, a large group of these sites have begun to use Dependent Web algorithms and services to deliver advertising based on who you are. [...]

The dominant platforms of the US web – Facebook, Google, and increasingly Twitter- all have several things in common, but the one that comes first to my mind is their sophisticated ability to track your declarations of intent and interpret them in ways that execute, in the main, two things.

First, they add value to your experience of that service. [...]

Secondly, these services match their model of your identity to an extraordinary machinery of marketing dollars, serving up marketing in much the same way as the service itself. [...]

What happens when the Independent Web starts leveraging the services of the Dependent Web? [...]

If I alight on a post about a cool new mountain bike, for example, I might chose to reveal that I’m a fan of the Blur XC, a bike made by the Santa Cruz company. But I don’t necessarily want that information to presumptively pass to the owner of that site until I read the post and consider the consequences of revealing that data. [...]

Let’s take that last bike scenario and play it out in the “real world.” Instead of alighting on a post on some random web site I’ve stumbled across, let’s say I’m having a coffee at a local bakery, and I overhear a group of guys talking about a bike one of them recently purchased. I don’t know these guys, but I find their conversation (the equivalent of a “post”) engaging, and I lean in. The guys notice me listening, and given they’re talking in a public place, they don’t mind. They check me out, reading me, correctly, as a potential member of their tribe – I look like a biker (tribes can recognize potential members by sight pretty easily). At some point in the conversation – based on whether I feel the group would welcome the interjection, for example – I might decide to reveal that I’ve got a Blur XC. That might get a shrug from the leader of the conversation, or it might lead to a spirited debate about the merits of Santa Cruz bikes versus, say, Marin. That in turn may lead to an invitation to join them on a ride, and a true connection could well be made.

But until I engage, and offer new information, I’m just the dude at the next table who’s interested in what the folks next to me are talking about. In web parlance, I’m a lurker. As I lurk, I might realize the guys at the next table are sort of wankers, and I’m not interested in riding with them. I have the sense that this model of information sharing is, at its core, the way identity in what I’m calling “The Independent Web” should probably work. [...]

I think it’s worth defining a portion of the web as a place where one can visit and be part of a conversation without the data created by that conversation being presumptively sucked into a sophisticated response platform – whether that platform is Google, Blue Kai, Doubleclick, Twitter, or any other scaled web service. Now, I’m all for engaging with that platform, to be sure, but I’m also interested in the parts of society where one can wander about free of identity presumption, a place where one can chose to engage knowing that you are in control of how your identity is presented, and when it is revealed. [...]

I think how we manage these questions will define who we are at a very core level in the coming years. As Lessig has written, code becomes law. It took tens of thousands of years for homo sapiens to develop the elaborate social code which defines how we interact with each other in the real world. I’m fascinated with the question of how we translate that code online.” http://battellemedia.com/archives/2010/10/identity_and_the_independent_web_.php

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http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2010/12/putin-orders-russian-move-to-gnulinux.html

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“The following principles should govern the dissemination of primary legal materials in the United States:

1. Direct fees for dissemination of primary legal materials should be avoided.

2. Limitations on access through terms of use or the assertion of copyright on primary legal materials is contrary to long-standing public policy and core democratic principles and is misleading to citizens.

3. Primary legal materials should be made available using bulk access mechanisms so they may be downloaded by anyone.

4. The primary legal materials, and the methods used to access them, should be authenticated so people can trust in the integrity of these materials.

5. Historical archives should be made available online and in a static location to the extent possible.

6. Vendor- and media-neutral citation mechanisms should be employed.

7. Technical standards for document structure, identifiers, and metadata should be developed and applied as extensively as possible.

8. Data should be distributed in a computer-processable, non-proprietary form in a manner that meets best current practices for the distribution of open government data. That data should represent the definitive documents, not just aggregate, preliminary, or modified forms.

9. An active program of research and development should be sponsored by governmental bodies that issue primary legal materials to develop new standards and solutions to challenges presented by the electronic distribution of definitive primary legal materials. Examples include the automated detection and redaction of private personal information in documents.

10. An active program of education, training, and documentation should be undertaken to help governmental bodies that issue primary legal materials learn and use best current practices.”

http://public.resource.org/law.gov/

Legal Bug Tracker: http://bugs.resource.org/

Cf.: http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/12/help-us-debug-the-legal-bug-tr.html

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CONCLUSION: LONE WOLF PATTERNS OF RADICALIZATION: “Tim McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski, and Eric Rudolph’s lives followed similar paths as they journeyed toward a vocation of domestic lone wolf terrorism. Their individual stories are different; however, a common set of circumstances and events unfolded along an analogous chronological path. The conditions surrounding their childhood and adolescent years yielded loners and isolationists. They spent a lot of time by themselves and as a result did not acquire adequate social skills necessary to establish close human relationships. They could not find female companionship, which abated their reasons to stay peaceful and lead normal lives. They yearned to be a member of a group, failed in each attempt, but never stopped trying to attain group status.

McVeigh, Kaczynski, and Rudolph designated themselves survivalists. When they found they did not fit into any groups, they adopted the one thing they had left that no one could take away from them, their ideologies. They poured their hearts and souls into their ideologies. Nothing else mattered to them. An ideology could not reject or abandon them. They all had definable turning points in their lives during which it became no longer acceptable to explain their ideologies through discussion. They isolated themselves, cut off contact with their families and began to stew. Once in isolation, their ideologies would take shape and slowly inch them closer to the line of direct action, violence in the name of their ideologies. From that definable turning point, it would take McVeigh over four years, Kaczynski nine years, and Rudolph eight years to strike.

McVeigh, Kaczynski, and Rudolph believed they were important. They would be the men to take the blinders off the bourgeois American citizens. They would ensure their individual safety and not risk injury like they would to their innocent but expendable victims. They would deliver their agenda’s to the American people, through the media after violence, manifestos, and personal biographies. In the end, none would accomplish his objectives. The American public would not join their cause or adopt their rigid ideologies.

Each domestic lone wolf terrorist would eventually fall into oblivion, his story largely forgotten. Timothy McVeigh would be executed while Ted Kaczynski and Eric Rudolph would spend the rest of their lives sharing a lonely hallway in isolation in prison. In the end, their only legacy would be found in providing suitable case studies to help answer the question of what makes individuals radicalize into domestic lone wolf terrorists. The next lone wolf domestic terrorist lurks in our midst, and could be following the same chronological pattern that we saw with McVeigh, Kaczynski, and Rudolph. Apply the chronological pattern of radicalization demonstrated to us by the three most prolific lone wolf domestic terrorists this country has ever seen to future radicalization and we could catch it upstream, before it happens.” http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA514419&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

(via http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/12/profiling_lone.html )

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“Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences, prescriptive checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favour with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. However, such ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists are usually developed independently, from within particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and tracking their evolution is non-trivial; they are also inevitably partially-redundant one against another, and where they overlap arbitrary decisions on wording and substructuring make integration difficult. This presents significant difficulties for the users of checklists; for example, in the area of systems biology, where data from multiple biological domains and technology platforms are routinely combined. We offer a common portal to such MI checklists; to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant projects, foster collaborative development and ultimately promote gradual integration.” http://mibbi.org/index.php/About_us

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Google Refine is a power tool for working with messy data, cleaning it up, transforming it from one format into another, extending it with web services, and linking it to databases like Freebase.

https://code.google.com/p/google-refine/

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http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/10/542

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Which rich countries are doing the most to help poor ones? Rich and poor nations are linked in many ways—by foreign aid, commerce, the environment, and more. Each year, the CDI rates rich-country governments on how much they are helping poor countries via seven key linkages: aid, trade, investment, migration, environment, security, and technology. The CDI then takes the average for an overall score.

To see if countries live up to their potential to help, scoring adjusts for size. So small countries can beat big ones. Scores are on a standard scale and 5 = average.

http://www.cgdev.org/section/initiatives/_active/cdi/

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