Revealed: the capitalist network that runs the world http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed–the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html & http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1107/1107.5728v2.pdf

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Policing the Police: Apps That Let You Spy on the Cops http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/06/policing-the-police-the-apps-that-let-you-spy-on-the-cops/240916/

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“[...] Bradley Manning, directly and indirectly, has probably done more for freedom than any single human being in years.

His exposure of war crimes by U.S. forces in Iraq, and his exposure of how the sausage of U.S. foreign policy is made, benefit freedom in their own right insofar as they undermine — to whatever extent — the global and domestic credibility of the United States government.

But more importantly, the cables Manning leaked — which were published on Wikileaks — played a central role in triggering the so-called Twitter revolution that started in Tunisia, spread to Egypt and much of the Middle East, and is now striking Qaddafi with hurricane-force winds of freedom. Among the cables which Wikileaks published were detailed descriptions of the Tunisian regime’s corruption, which galvanized local dissident groups into launching the movement that overthrew the government. [...]” http://c4ss.org/content/6386

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Roger Pilon

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Technology Neutral IT Procurement Decisions: U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy Dan Gordon and U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Cordinator Victoria Espinel issued a statement to Senior Procurement Executives and Chief Information Officers reminding them to select IT based on appropriate criteriawhile analyzing available alternatives including proprietary, open source and mixed source technologies. Click to enlarge.

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

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Bruce Sterling

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Write them here anonymously: http://pad.telecomix.org/kulcsszavak
and/or set up an alert to monitor them: http://cablesearch.org/?page_id=17 (Number of cables:
1477 Still to go in Wikileaks 99%)

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Respect:)

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Why the U.S. Has Launched a New Financial World War — and How the Rest of the World Will Fight Back http://www.alternet.org/economy/148481/why_the_u.s._has_launched_a_new_financial_world_war_–_and_how_the_rest_of_the_world_will_fight_back_?page=entire

What do you think?

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“Open is better than closed.
Transparent is better than opaque.
Simple is better than complex.
Accessible is better than inaccessible.
Sharing is better than hoarding.
Linked is more useful than isolated.
Fine grained is preferable to aggregated.
(Although there are legitimate privacy and security limitations.)
Optimise for machine readability — they can translate for humans.
Barriers prevent worthwhile things from happening.
“Flawed, but out there” is a million times better than “perfect, but unattainable”.
Opening data up to thousands of eyes makes the data better.
Iterate in response to demand.
There is no one true feed for all eternity — people need to maintain this stuff.”

http://sciblogs.co.nz/seeing-data/2010/10/12/the-zen-of-open-data/

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“US Trade Representative Ron Kirk, whose office negotiated the US side of the deal, issued a statement this morning about the “tremendous progress in the fight against counterfeiting and piracy,” but the real story here is the tremendous climbdown by US negotiators, who have largely failed in their attempts to push the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) onto the rest of the world.” http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/10/near-final-acta-text-arrives-big-failure-for-us.ars

Original as of 2 Oct: http://www.ustr.gov/webfm_send/2338

Compare versions: http://euwiki.org/ACTA/diffs

http://keionline.org/node/962

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5352/125/

Cf: http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/tag/ACTA

Mexico:
“it’s not clear exactly how much say the Mexican Senate has here. While the resolution claims that it needs to ratify any such agreements, I don’t know if that’s the case.” Comment: “Actually means a lot, even though is non-binding it was adopted by all every single senator and the final say on international treaties is on the Senate. The President can ratify if he wishes ACTA, but the Senate needs to approve it. And they are not very willing to.” http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101005/17320811304/mexican-senate-unanimously-votes-to-remove-mexico-from-acta-negotations.shtml

Original:
Spanish: http://www.senado.gob.mx/index.php?ver=sp&mn=2&sm=2&id=5264&lg=61
Translation: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http://www.senado.gob.mx/index.php%3Fver%3Dsp%26mn%3D2%26sm%3D2%26id%3D5264%26lg%3D61&hl=en&langpair=auto

Cf: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/10/06/2321203/Mexican-Senate-Votes-To-Drop-Out-of-ACTA

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> We just reached the 369 signatures of Members of the European Parliament
> required for WD12 to be adopted!!!
>
> Completion of WD12 shows that alltogether we can weight in making the
> European Parliament take care of our fundamental freedoms. With WD12,
> the European Parliament rejects both the un-democratic process of ACTA
> – -whatever the final content of the agreement will be- and its content,
> harmful for fundamental freedoms.
>
> WD12 is a strong political signal sent by the EP to the Commission that
> ACTA is not tolerable as a way of bypassing democratic process; that
> legislation related to Internet, freedom of speech and privacy cannot be
> traded off in secrecy and under full influence of entertainment industry
> lobbies. Whatever the content of the final agreement, ACTA will remain
> an illegitimate circumvention of democracy and should be opposed as such.
>
> Let’s hope that WD12 announces the “consent” vote that the EP will have
> to take in order to accept or reject ACTA when it is finalized. Then
> again, citizens will need to act to make sure that their Internet and
> their fundamental freedoms are properly defended, by a full rejection of
> ACTA.
>
>
> Thanks to everyone who participated in that great effort!
[On Tue, Sep 07, 2010 at 05:10:47PM +0200, Jérémie ZIMMERMANN - La Quadrature du Net wrote]

Cf. http://www.laquadrature.net/en/european-parliament-vs-acta-rejection-is-the-only-option

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“ACTA: Partial transparency isn’t legitimacy – The release of the public draft of ACTA [ http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2010/april/tradoc_146029.pdf ] is a milestone in the long opposition to this illegitimate agreement, which aims at tackling trademark, copyright and patent infringements. Now, citizens, NGOs and parliaments all around the world must continue to act together to expose ACTA and its dangers. This whole policy laundering is incompatible with democracy and the ideals of preserving fundamental rights, Internet, public health and innovation at large. [...]

Today’s release of the text does not legitimize the content of ACTA, as transparency is no excuse for political laundering and the circumvention of democratic processes.”

http://www.laquadrature.net/en/acta-partial-transparency-isnt-legitimacy

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Hacking Business Models: “This weekend, Monty and I got together for a different kind of hacking session.

“Instead of developing software, we were working on developing a set of rough principles and rules for running a Free Software/Open Source business. We both have a good amount of experience working with various FLOSS projects (like Mozilla, MySQL, PHP, etc.) and FLOSS companies (like eZ Systems, Mozilla, MySQL, Zend, etc.) and hope that we can put this experience to good use. [...]

“Purpose

* Create a sustainable business model that can be adopted and adapted by others.
* Create a fair and democratic company that is owned by the workers.
* Have long-term, trustworthy and meaningful relationships with our staff and customers.

“Principles

* Egalitarian: The belief that all people should be treated equally. This includes equality, non-discrimination and inclusivity.
* Sustainable: We have a long-term view on our business. We watch our profits & spend wisely, we take care of each other, we support the things we depend on.
* Transparent: We communicate in an honest and genuine way. Any information or process that can be made open, will be made open.
* Fun: Create a workplace where people can have fun and want to work.
* Agile: Be flexible, receptive & adaptive, especially when dealing with staff and customers.

“Methods

“Concrete tools for helping us live according to our principles, including:

* Consensus-based decision making.
* Corporate transparency – any information or process that can be made open, should be made open.
* Licensing that helps benefit our company, our staff, our customers, our partners and society at large.
* Profit-sharing with staff, contributors and worthy causes.
* Don’t try to change people. Focus on getting the best from their strengths. Develop ways to work around their weaknesses.
* Prefer to work with people who share our values.
* Work against patents and other legislation that harms individual rights.

“Monty’s amendments

• Subscribe to the Open Source philosophy and support the Open Source community.
• Be a virtual company, networking with others.
• The company or its individual business units should not grow until they are

unmanagable by the chosen methods. If this happens, then the company needs to
be split up or re-organized into largely independent business units.

“Default Employee Rules: [...]”

http://zak.greant.com/hacking-business-models

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