Great presentation by Eli Pariser at PDF 2010 on the Filter Bubble. What’s the filter bubble? Well, you’re living in it. In the Internet Age, we’re used to seeing many, many results for any search. “Why Am I Lonely?”: 150,000 hits. “Why Am I Happy?”: 141,000 hits. (Not as bad as I expected.) A huge, colossal amount of information. […]
I’m writing from the Personal Democracy Forum, a big yearly conference on the intersection of politics, governance, technology and activism. Great set of speakers – Eli Pariser of MoveOn, Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia, and even Newt Gingrich. Things got off to an exciting (if technically flawed) start with a conversation between Daniel Ellsberg, leaker of the Pentagon […]
Time for another roundup of great stories I’m not great enough to get to. The immediate response mechanism of Twitter and other instant tech systems can be good for our altruistic side, too, whatever it might cost when… I’m sorry, what were we talking about? Some great old tech commercials. Ah, those were the days. […]
Big news from the FCC, America’s telecom regulator. Their feisty and energetic chair Julius Genachowski is planning to put some serious teeth back into Internet regulations. A while ago the Supreme Court shot down the primary foundation for FCC regulation of broadband technologies. One of the most visible likely casualties of unfettered ISPs pursuing unlimited profit guided […]
Dystopic near-future sci-fi is one of my favorite genres. Gattaca, Blade Runner, The Matrix, Twelve Monkeys – some intriguing ideas there, and always beautifully shot. Today we take a wander down that path – not things to be Deeply Offended™ about today, but to consider for the future. Given the technological power at the disposal of […]
For the love of the FSM this kind of language annoys me. Rockefeller pledges to work with tech leaders to avert “cyber 9/11, cyber Katrina” Can we be realistic about the very serious threats that the Internet poses without going off into hysterical language? Yes, I’m looking at you, Ms. Bachmann. After I stopped choking […]
China’s ratcheting up their state secrets laws. That’s never a good sign. NYT article. There is an amusingly awful definition of state secrets being promulgated: they are “information that, if disclosed, would damage China’s security or interests in political, economic, defense and other realms.” Presumably the story that the Chinese had 14 year olds on their […]
At the 14o Characters (tee hee) Conference some peeps were talking about using Twitter to monitor elections. Yes yes, we’ve been over that before. Shenanigans in authoritarian regimes, blah blah. Ah, but they were talking about America. The WSJ wrote it up. “This is something we can do without running to the lawyers on election […]
Sec. Clinton is off in Estonia for a High Muckamuck level confab to talk about what NATO should be doing with itself. I think the biggest military alliance the world has ever seen has been managing to keep busy just fine, but every few years they seem to have these angsty existential crises. NATO’s core […]
The Fog of War is particularly foggy in cyberspace. Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, NSA director and the new nominee to head up Cyber Command, produced 32 pages of answers to Senators’ questions leading up to his nomination hearings. AP wrote a piece on one aspect: the Pentagon’s plan to counter any Internet-delivered attacks “swiftly and strongly.” […]
Hold on to your hats. In my last post I mentioned that the US and Russia were in complete agreement over one of the core problems of the Internet. From the same Times story: During a panel discussion on computer crime, Col. Gen. Boris N. Miroshnikov, an official with the Russian Interior Ministry, and Stewart […]
Governmental cyber officials from around the world met up in Germany this week to discuss international Internet security. The US hasn’t played a significant role in this hootenanny in the past. There are some huge differences between the US and Russia on the role of the Internet. We’re concerned about online crime, espionage and hacker […]
The Internet sure is good at misinformation. The saints at Snopes fix it one debunking at a time. Cyberwar Bingo! An awesome tongue-in-cheek look at CyberAlarmism. Michelle Bachmann (R-NUT) thinks the United States should keep the option of nuking nations who hit us with a cyber attack. The Guys with the Cool Robes in the […]
Looks like Bakiev’s government is out in Kyrgyzstan. Opposition Claims Control in Kyrgyzstan – NYTimes.com. This is wild and unexpected – your humble blogger spent a summer over there working with Internews, an independent free media advocate. It’s 5 years since they overthrew their last autocrat, but turned out to be a bummer of a […]
A bill by Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and co-sponsored by Olympia Snowe (R-ME) called the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (yes, I know, but remember the Senate is, well, a bit slow) just dropped out of committee and may see floor action soon.* It’s an interesting piece of work, and only 50 pages, so I’m actually going […]