Why You Should Be Getting Paid for Your Data | NYT Opinion Computer scientist and futurist Jaron Lanier has a plan to fix the internet. This Silicon Valley maverick has a radical vision for how we can all earn money from our data. Every time you click on a website — yes, even that ad … Read more
Large-scale cyberattack is spreading through Russia and Ukraine (updated) The Social Software Weblog A large-scale cyberattack is working its way through a number of Ukrainian and Russian targets today. So far, in Russia, oil producer Rosneft and metal company Evraz have been affected by the attack. In Ukraine, Boryspil airport, the banking system,… Massive ransomware attack is … Read more
Meet the woman who created a Google doc on how to tactical vote Mashable! by Liza Hearon The resistance is alive in Britain, and it’s armed with a spreadsheet. A super detailed, exquisitely crafted Google spreadsheet called “How to Vote to Stop the Tories” started doing the rounds on social media almost immediately after a snap … Read more
How Peter Thiel’s Palantir Helped the NSA Spy on the Whole World The Intercept by Sam Biddle Donald Trump has inherited the most powerful machine for spying ever devised. How this petty, vengeful man might wield and expand the sprawling American spy apparatus, already vulnerable to abuse, is disturbing enough on its own. But the outlook is … Read more
Finland Starts Handing Out a Basic Income MIT Technology Review A few unemployed Finns are receiving a monthly check with no strings attached—but it’s unlikely to tell us whether universal basic income is a good idea. Eurozone inflation surges to 1.1% in December BBC News | Europe | World Edition Eurozone inflation surges to 1.1%, … Read more
Those “final messages” from Aleppo Syria look more like a coordinated social media campaign than a cry for help@AnissaNow pic.twitter.com/GzASdXPwNU — IN THE NOW (@IntheNow_tweet) 14 Aralık 2016 Trump meets with tech leaders: Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Tesla, Intel Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin Photo: Donald Trump speaks as PayPal co-founder … Read more
The story of Snopes Boing Boing by David Pescovitz All lies lead to the truth. For over 20 years, Snopes.com has been the Web’s primary bullshit detector and debunker, from death by Pop Rocks to political lies. We need Snopes more than ever. For a Webby Awards exclusive feature, I commissioned talented journalist Rob Walker to … Read more
Gawker Media has filed for bankruptcy and is putting itself up for sale (possibly to Ziff Davis) Nieman Journalism Lab by Laura Hazard Owen Gawker Media filed for bankruptcy on Friday, after saying in Florida court that itcannot pay the $140.1 million awarded to actor Hulk Hogan in a case bankrolled by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter … Read more
Media Freedom on the Internet: An OSCE Guidebook OSCE – Mar 9 Written by Professor Yaman Akdeniz, commissioned by the Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media. The views, opinions, conclusions and other information expressed in this document are not given nor necessarily endorsed by the WhatsApp Encryption Said to Stymie … Read more
NSA and GCHQ’s crappy Big Data techniques may be killing thousands of innocents Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow Researchers have taken a second look at the NSA SKYNET leaks, as well as theGCHQ data-mining problem book first published on Boing Boing, and concluded that the spy agencies have made elementary errors in their machine-learning techniques, which … Read more
Twitter’s Policy Reboot: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly EFF.org Updates by Wafa Ben Hassine January 12, 2016 Update: It is important to note that some of the language that was added to the Twitter Rules on December 30, 2015 is not entirely new and was recycled from other Twitter Help pages, such as the … Read more
WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links on Android for some reason The Next Web by Napier Lopez There’s something funky going on at WhatsApp HQ. Android users are noticing that the app is now blocking any links to rival chat app Telegram. The odd behavior was first spotted by Telegram users over on Reddit. Links to the app … Read more
Head of Facebook in Europe to be investigated in Germany for allowing racist posts The Next Web by Ben Woods Facebook’s relationship with the content its users post and the balancing act it needs to pull off to allow free speech (but remove hate speech) is a tricky one. Today, it’s in hot water with German … Read more
CNN and the NYT Are Deliberately Obscuring Who Perpetrated the Afghan Hospital Attack The Intercept by Glenn Greenwald Much of the world spent the last 48 hours expressing revulsion at the U.S. airstrike on a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. It was quite clear early on that the perpetrator of the attack was the U.S., and many … Read more
Encrypting Ethnography: Digital Security for Researchers Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology (This invited post comes to us from Jonatan Kurzwelly. Jonatan is a a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of St. Andrews. You can email him atkurzwelly@mailbox.org . his PGP fingerprint is: 1B4B 89B4 DD31 B05E 949A E181 B51C CA99 2FD6 6382 -Rex) Imagine … Read more