Links

Hope you all had a good holiday, and are ready to get back to whatever it is you’re up to. 7 days from now I’ll have had my viva and will be contemplating revision, most likely.

Not much in the links these past few weeks – it appears that the only thing going, really, has been SOPA. I wonder if anybody’s making money off of the circus that is the American Legislative System. Really: they’re such a farce with this, it’s unbelievable. Of course, that seems to be an underlying theme in US Politics these days.

Censorship:

1. EU to Give Secret Anti-Censorship Software to Human Rights Activists    15 December 2011, 5:11 am
2. European union – Online freedoms threatened by another step towards treaty’s adoption    15 December 2011, 6:22 am
3. Judge: Prosecution of Online Critic Under Anti-Stalking Law Is Unconstitutional    15 December 2011, 2:03 pm
4. Free Speech’s Weak Links Under Internet Blacklist Bills    15 December 2011, 4:21 pm
5. Judge Rules ‘Uncomfortable’ Tweets and Blog Posts Are Protected    20 December 2011, 4:23 am
6. Indian government drops plan to censor the internet    20 December 2011, 7:40 am
7. Hackers Plan Space Satellites to Combat Censorship    4 January 2012, 9:20 am
8. Companies Compete on Free Expression    4 January 2012, 9:28 am
9. Australian deported from Bahrain … due to Facebook posts    5 January 2012, 6:22 am

I’ve placed link 4 in this section because, although it relates to SOPA, I’m not sure that everyone understands just how far the legislation would go in terms of censoring free speech. It’s a good analysis, and worthy of a read.

Copyright / Patent:

1. Copyright Regime vs. Civil Liberties    12 December 2011, 4:53 am
2. Megaupload Sues Universal Over ‘Sham’ YouTube Takedown    13 December 2011, 2:39 pm
3. Megaupload: Pop Star’s Contract Proves YouTube Takedown Was Bogus    14 December 2011, 12:14 pm
4. Universal Says It Can’t Be Sued for Bogus Megaupload Video Takedown    15 December 2011, 8:13 pm
5. YouTube Says Universal Had No ‘Right’ to Take Down Megaupload Video    16 December 2011, 4:00 pm
6. US Threatened To Blacklist Spain For Not Implementing Site Blocking Law    5 January 2012, 9:29 am

The first 5 links pertain to the same issue: Universal issued a bogus DMCA takedown of a YouTube video, admits that it was bogus, and just doesn’t care. Link 6 really ought to pertain to WikiLeaks, but since it’s about how the US bullied Spain into implementing a SOPA-like blacklist in order to protect US copyright I thought it belonged here; once again, a leaked diplomatic cable demonstrates just how … well, illegal politicians can be in violating the sovereignty of other contries, I guess.

Education:

1. Teachers Don’t Like Creative Students    12 December 2011, 8:06 am
2. MIT Will Offer Certificates to Outside Students Who Take Its Online Courses    21 December 2011, 9:15 am
3. Visualizing citations in research literature    1 January 2012, 10:09 pm

If you’re at all a creative person, read link 1 and be afraid (and wonder just how many creative people have been pushed out of the educational system because it’s not really for them). Link 2 questions the nature of certification and education. Link 3 demonstrates (with some cool graphics) citations between different academic fields.

EFF:

1. 2011 in Review: The Year Secrecy Jumped the Shark    23 December 2011, 1:15 pm
2. 2011 in Review: Nymwars    26 December 2011, 6:32 am
3. 2011 in Review: Defending Location Privacy in Courts and Congress    27 December 2011, 10:37 am
4. 2011 in Review: Patents Misused to Stifle Innovation    31 December 2011, 12:44 pm

These 4 links are EFF’s Year In Review. I’m a big fan of EFF, in case you couldn’t tell. These nicely wrap up some of the major issues of 2011.

Law:

1. 96% of Congressmen Agree: Bad Legislation Is Easier To Craft In Secret    13 December 2011, 4:32 am
2. The Crystal Cox Case and Bloggers as Journalists    13 December 2011, 5:26 pm
3. Congress Authorizes Pentagon to Wage Internet War    14 December 2011, 3:16 pm
4. ‘Indefinite detention’ bill passed by Senate    15 December 2011, 10:00 pm
5. Irish Data Protection Commissioner rules that ISP cannot do “3 strikes”    19 December 2011, 4:39 am
6. When Computer Misuse Becomes a Crime    19 December 2011, 5:45 am
7. Bureau Recommends: Disparities in Presidential pardons    20 December 2011, 4:49 am
8. Sony sued over PSN “can’t sue us” clause    20 December 2011, 11:21 am
9. Jurors Need to Know That They Can Say No    22 December 2011, 10:46 am
10. European Firm Refuses To Go On the Microsoft Cloud Due to Patriot Act Concerns    27 December 2011, 4:36 am
11. Google Opts In to Legal Troubles    5 January 2012, 8:01 am

If you live in the US, read link 9. Please. I wish I’d read it before I sat on a jury, as I think the outcome would have been radically different. Link 2 didn’t go into the censorship bucket because, well, it turns out that she wouldn’t have been protected by a shield law in any event (although that’s what all the furor is about). It’s a good legal analysis.

Miscellany:

1. How Ignorance Could Improve Group Decisions    16 December 2011, 7:30 am
2. Paying to influence discussions in social media is big business in US and China    19 December 2011, 4:41 am
3. Computer Scientists Create Algorithm That Measures Human Pecking Order    24 December 2011, 12:04 pm
4. Institutional memory and reverse smuggling    25 December 2011, 3:17 am
5. Cheating Spreads Like Infections in Online Games    1 January 2012, 5:52 am

Links 1, 3, and 5 are about … well, people in groups; very interesting, really. I didn’t quite know where to put link 2 – probably should have called it Politics – but it’s disturbing, in any event. Link 4, though, is well worth a read.

Museum / Library / Archive:

1. Proposed DMCA Exemption Would Unchain Device Owners    12 December 2011, 5:12 am
2. Isaac Newton’s Personal Notebooks Go Digital    12 December 2011, 8:47 am
3. Iraq’s Garbage Holds Reminders of a U.S. Massacre    15 December 2011, 11:19 am
4. Institutional memory and reverse smuggling    25 December 2011, 3:17 am

Read link 4 (same as link 4 in the previous section) if you’re at all concerned with records or archives, and with intellectual property. It’s really an interesting tale, and one I think should be thought about and discussed by people who are interested in pursuing a career having to do with records / archives.

Open Source / Access:

1. EU mandates that public sector information be shared as open data    12 December 2011, 8:08 am
2. Mayor of Munich: “EU laptops should have LibreOffice or OpenOffice”    21 December 2011, 9:19 am
3. California State Senator Proposes Funding Open-Source Textbooks    5 January 2012, 9:30 am

Link 2: way to go, Munich! Why buy an “Office” package when there’s a good one out there which is free!? (And, incidentally, just plain works well.)

Privacy:

1. What Facebook knows about you    14 December 2011, 12:27 am
2. FBI admits to using Carrier IQ data    14 December 2011, 3:33 am
3. Carrier IQ Explains Secret Monitoring Software to FTC, FCC    14 December 2011, 3:55 pm
4. Mobile Carriers Claim Consumer Consent to Carrier IQ Spying    16 December 2011, 5:00 pm
5. Digital Records: When Your Criminal Past Isn’t Yours    17 December 2011, 10:27 am
6. When Banks Use Facebook Friends To Determine Your Credit Score    20 December 2011, 11:04 am
7. Protect Yourself from Intrusive Laptop and Phone Searches at the U.S. Border    20 December 2011, 2:59 pm
8. U.S. Holds On to Biometrics Database of 3 Million Iraqis    21 December 2011, 3:30 am
9. Facebook promises privacy changes after Irish audit    21 December 2011, 9:19 am
10. New Agreement Between the United States and Europe Will Compromise the Privacy Rights of International Travelers    21 December 2011, 5:13 pm
11. Data Protection Regulation and the Politics of Interoperability    22 December 2011, 3:29 pm
12. How Facebook Is Selling Your Timeline to Advertisers    24 December 2011, 12:22 pm
13. Time for Supreme Court to Weigh in on Forced DNA Collection    29 December 2011, 12:06 am
14. Appeals Court Revives EFF’s Challenge to Government’s Massive Spying Program    2 January 2012, 4:24 pm
15. No Warrant Needed for GPS Monitoring, Judge Rules    3 January 2012, 12:35 pm
16. N.D. Supreme Court Endorses Blocking of Some Electronic Records    4 January 2012, 5:01 am

Link 16 is about the only happy link in here: North Dakota Supreme Court has come down to say that if you weren’t convicted or if the case was never brought to trial, those electronic records shouldn’t be released to the public. Awesome judgment. After all, otherwise the records amount to hearsay or worse.

Security:

1. New Year’s Resolution: Full Disk Encryption on Every Computer You Own    31 December 2011, 12:47 pm
2. EFF Raises Concerns About the New AOL Instant Messenger    3 January 2012, 12:53 pm

Link 1: if we all encrypt, the world will be a better place. No? I think so, and could spend a long time discussing it, but give it some thought.

SOPA:

1. Fight the Blacklist: A Toolkit for Anti-SOPA Activism    11 December 2011, 12:38 pm
2. Lawmaker Waters Down His Online Blacklisting Bill    12 December 2011, 4:08 pm
3. Wikipedia Considers Total Blackout to Oppose SOPA    13 December 2011, 2:54 am
4. Prof. of Constitutional Law at Harvard says that SOPA violates First Amendment    13 December 2011, 7:39 am
5. Setting the Record Straight on SOPA: Some Evidence-Based Analysis    13 December 2011, 9:59 am
6. SOPA Manager’s Amendment: It’s Still A Blacklist and It’s Still A Disaster    13 December 2011, 11:00 am
7. How SOPA Affects Students, Educators, and Libraries    14 December 2011, 10:34 am
8. The Internet Blacklist vs. The Constitution    14 December 2011, 1:28 pm
9. SOPA Undermines the U.S. in Its Negotiations for a Free, Open Internet    14 December 2011, 6:39 pm
10. An Open Letter From Internet Engineers to the U.S. Congress    15 December 2011, 12:42 am
11. Vint Cerf: SOPA Means ‘Unprecedented Censorship’ of the Web    17 December 2011, 1:25 pm
12. SOPA creator received half a million dollars from the TV/Film/Music lobby    19 December 2011, 4:38 am
13. This Week in Internet Censorship: DRC, Kazakhstan, and pro-SOPA ‘research’    19 December 2011, 4:17 pm
14. Don’t Break the Internet – Stanford Law Review    20 December 2011, 8:00 am
15. RIAA and DHS are hives of depraved piracy    20 December 2011, 8:14 am
16. Writers Guild Realizes That SOPA Goes Too Far    20 December 2011, 10:56 am
17. DeSopa: a Firefox addon to easily bypass SOPA DNS blocking    20 December 2011, 11:20 am
18. GoDaddy supports SOPA, redditor proposes “Move your Domain Day”    22 December 2011, 10:30 am
19. Scribd Protests SOPA By Making A Billion Pages On The Web Disappear    22 December 2011, 10:42 am
20. Killing the Internet to save Hollywood    22 December 2011, 11:37 am
21. GoDaddy’s SOPA Support Sparks Calls for Boycotts and Domain Transfers    22 December 2011, 11:40 am
22. SOPA could ban TOR    22 December 2011, 11:40 am
23. The Great SOPA Conspiracy Theory    24 December 2011, 12:11 pm
24. Wikipedia will be leaving GoDaddy    24 December 2011, 12:16 pm
25. Law Firms Removing Their Name From SOPA Supporters’ List    24 December 2011, 12:16 pm
26. Desperation: Go Daddy calling customers, begging them to stay    24 December 2011, 12:18 pm
27. Anonymous threatens net blackout over SOPA    24 December 2011, 12:18 pm
28. GoDaddy has not withdrawn its official congressional support for SOPA    24 December 2011, 2:26 pm
29. GoDaddy loses 72,354 domains this week alone    25 December 2011, 3:19 am
30. An illustrated guide to SOPA, PIPA, and why the Internet needs saving.    26 December 2011, 2:13 am
31. GoDaddy: A glimpse of the Internet under SOPA    26 December 2011, 10:50 am
32. GoDaddy not only helped write SOPA they are also exempt from it    26 December 2011, 10:58 am
33. MoveYourDomain to Protest the Internet Blacklist Bills    28 December 2011, 7:04 pm
34. Go Daddy Races to Extract Itself From SOPA Mess    4 January 2012, 4:56 am
35. Web Giants Consider ‘Nuclear Option’ Blackout to Fight SOPA    5 January 2012, 9:29 am

This past month has been all about SOPA. GoDaddy has been battered because they support it. Wikipedia (link 3) and all manner of other sites (link 35) are saying that they’ll basically shut down their operations if SOPA go through, because it’s an evil and wrongheaded piece of legislation. Have a look at link 30 to get an idea of why this is such a terrible idea. Of course, the politicians are being paid lots and lots to push it through (link 12).

Technology:

1. The Sharing Economy    12 December 2011, 3:33 am
2. IPhones vs. the Police    12 December 2011, 4:52 am
3. Patriot Act and privacy laws take a bite out of US cloud business    19 December 2011, 9:53 am
4. An Office Designed To Keep Employees Working From Home    22 December 2011, 3:21 pm
5. High-resolution maps of science    2 January 2012, 9:57 am

I really like link 4, and think that more companies should realize that the technology is here to allow people to work from wherever they happen to be, rather than to drag themselves into an office where they’ll be forced to endure all manner of misery just so they can be watched over.

-D