In this informative and also humorous TED lecture, Allesandro Acquisti, a researcher on the behavioural economics of privacy, talks about the current state of privacy online and why we should care about it. He concludes his talk with the following thought: “I do believe that one of the defining fights of our time will be the fight for the control over our personal information. The fight over whether big data will become a force for freedom rather than a force which will manipulate us. Right now, many of us do not even know that the fight is going on. But…
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The internet and mind-change (lecture by Susan Greenfield)
In this fascinating lecture, Susan Greenfield, a neuroscientist and professor of Pharmacology at Oxford University, talks about the effects of a digitized world on the human brain. She argues that the brain’s frontal cortex, the area responsible for abstract thought and analysis, is significantly altered in adolescents growing up with a high exposure to digital technologies. Many of the points made in this talk are consistent with Sherry Turkle’s findings on the happiness of contemporary “digital natives”. This is not only interesting material, it also has practical significance for every parent and every adolescent growing up today. On her website,…
Why we should care about government surveillance
In releasing information concerning the top-secret US and British government surveillance programs to the press, Edward Snowden initiated–at great personal cost–a much-needed discussion concerning the costs and benefits of, and ultimate justification for, these mass government surveillance programs. Some people, especially those in positions of power in the US and UK, have tried their best to conflate this important public discussion with a spurious debate over whether or not Snowden is a traitor. That Snowden is a hero, not a traitor, barely needs mentioning at this point, but what does need to be pointed out is that the debate over…
Another hero
A recently created Wikipedia entry on Edward Snowden read as follows: Edward Joseph Snowden (born 1984) is an American technical contractor, a former CIA employee, and a traitor. Snowden released classified material on top-secret United States National Security Agency (NSA) programs including the PRISM surveillance program to The Guardian and The Washington Post in June 2013. PRISM is a top-secret government surveillance program, in operation since 2007, that enables the NSA to access the servers of nine major Internet companies, including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo! and Facebook, to collect data on the emails, documents, audio and video chats, photographs, and connection logs of not only Americans but also billions of people around the world…
Aaron’s Law: law and justice in a digital age (lecture by Lawrence Lessig)
In his inaugural speech as the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, Lawrence Lessig, a cyber-law expert and self-described mentee of Aaron Swarts, talks about Aaron’s life, his activism, and his ideas for a better world. He also discusses copyright and the access to information–not in the sense of access to the latest entertainment products, but rather access to academic material, government data, and other important information.
Freedom and free software (interview with Eben Moglen)
Eben Moglen, founder and chairman of the Software Freedom Law Center, is the ideal mix of a law professor mix and a free-software technologist. In the following two-part interview with Slashdot – News for nerds he talks about free software, locked down information systems, and the importance of sharing. Here is a passage from the interview, which is well worth watching: “One of the things which everybody really now understands is that what makes the web a miracle also contains its dangerousness. The web was created for openness and power of construction. The browser made the web extremely easy to…
The internet revolution (lecture by Alexander Bard)
Alexander Bard’s provocative keynote speech at Next Berlin 2012 challenges the way history is taught, with industrialization presented as the climax of human history. He believes we need to contextualize history not in terms of the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Industrial Age, but rather in terms of information, such as spoken information, written information, printed information, broadcasted information and finally the Internet as participatory information. Trained in sociology, Bard examines technology in the context of the paradigm changes that are taking place in society. His observations on identity shifts in today’s youths is especially compelling. Young people are…
How wired is your life? (by Santiago Zabala)
AlJazeera recently featured an excellent article by Santiago Zabala, ICREA Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Barcelona in its opinion section. In his article Zabala emphasizes that in our digital world, in which the internet and social networks have become as common as “the air we breathe,” critical thinking is more important than ever. Some quotes from the full article: It is interesting to notice how often this question is answered simply by noting the amount of time we spend online (following the US presidential campaign or admiring MOMA‘s online collection) rather than by qualifying our ability to interpret the…
Sex, Lies and Julian Assange (documentary)
Julian Assange and Wikileaks continue to be popular topics for the media, although most of the media coverage is either biased or superficial. Sex, Lies and Julian Assange, reported by Andrew Fowler and presented by Kerry O’Brien, is an exception to this trend. In the brief space of 43 minutes, the investigative documentary revisits the advent of Wikileaks and the controversy surrounding its editor-in-chief, Julian Assange. Through well-selected interviews and detailed research, especially on the sexual offence allegations in Sweden, the documentary presents the story of Wikileaks and Julian Assange in a remarkably clear, unbiased way. It states what the mainstream…
Interview with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian Embassy
Originally aired on GamaTV, August 30, 2012, Uruguayan journalist Jorge Gestoso interviews Julian Assange from within the Ecuadorian Embassy. In this wide-ranging and fascinating interview Gestoso asks Assange if the Wikileaks’ cause is worth dying for. Assange answers yes. The interview can be seen here:
Anonymous leaks alleged governmental surveillance data
The Anonymous collective recently released one million and one Apple UDIDs, the unique device identifiers used by Apple for its iPhones, iMacs, iPads, etc. Within their release-statement, Anonymous gave detailed information on the origin of these UDIDs, claiming that they came from an FBI computer. In fact the database they accessed had information on and from more than 12 million devices. Before publishing this information Anonymous edited out personal data such as names, cell numbers, addresses zip codes, etc. leaving only the data columns, which would enable users to look up whether their devices are listed or not. According to…
Applying the laws of robotics to smart phones
The Three Laws of Robotics are a set of rules devised by the visionary science fiction author Isaac Asimov. In his books and stories these rules were introduced to ensure robots would serve the goal to maximize human well-being, serving their direct masters in the first place and secondarily any other human being. These rules read as follows: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.A robot must…
Julian Assange interviews Cypherpunks (The World Tomorrow)
In the 8th and 9th episode of RT‘s The World Tomorrow, Julian Assange is joined by cypherpunks from the US, Germany, and France to discuss the future of our increasingly digitalized world. What is the ultimate purpose of Twitter, Facebook and other social media? What is the current state of online privacy and data protection? These are some the questions examined in this excellent two-part discussion with people who understand perhaps better than anyone else the challenges that cyberspace poses to human freedom. Part I: Part II:
Freedom of thought and open-source software (lecture by Eben Moglen)
Eben Moglen, professor of law and legal history at Columbia University, as well as founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center and long-term supporter of organizations like the Free Software Foundation, is a lecturer and free software/open-source advocate. Though the following lecture and interview only covers so much, they do serve as a good introduction to his extensive body of work. Why Freedom of Thought Requires Free Media and Why Free Media Require Free Technology This lecture was held during the Re:publica 2012 conference in Berlin. It describes in detail why the current societal model, in which proprietary…
Does Google censor the internet?
The answer is “yes.” The evidence for this comes from a report prepared by Google itself, which will be released next week. According to the Wall Street Journal, the report shows that: Google received more than 1,000 requests from governments around the world in the second half of last year to take down items such as YouTube videos and search listings, and it complied with them more than half the time, according to information provided by the company. One example of the sort of censorship Google engages in concerns a request by the Thai government to remove YouTube videos insulting the…
Augmented and bot-mediated reality
While Google’s Project Glass has recently generated quite a stir with the possibilities of augmented reality, the idea is not exactly new. In the 1990’s MIT Cyborgs carried around huge backpacks stuffed with computer hardware to remain connected to the digital world via their clunky screen-goggles. Sherry Turkle, an MIT researcher herself, discusses them in an article entitled “Always-on/Always-On-You: The Tethered Self,” which analyzes how augmented reality transforms human interaction into a world in which people are ensnared in round-the-clock digital social networks. Yet the official description for the Google’s Project Glass is just as optimistic as Turkle’s analysis is cynical: We believe technology…
Tracking the trackers (TED lecture by Gary Kovacs)
As you surf the internet, information is being collected about you. Web tracking is not 100% evil — personal data can make your browsing more efficient; cookies can help your favorite websites stay in business. But, says Gary Kovacs in this TED lecture, it is your right to know what data is being collected about you and how it affects your online life. He unveils a Firefox add-on to do just that. Gary Kovacs is the CEO of the Mozilla Corporation, where he directs the development of Firefox. [I am] not even two bites into breakfast, and there are already nearly…
The vision for Microsoft’s search engine
As we have previously written about the Internet Filter Bubble it is worth keeping an eye on its latest developments and notice that Microsoft is apparently determined to step up the game. A recently surfaced Microsoft patent application reveals its next generation search engine, equipped with advanced content and context comprehension capabilities to read Facebook status reports and Twitter tweets. Using tracking cookies, direct search engine entry pattern recognition, and so on, this system is capable of picking up advanced user information, such as mood, interests, and even the person’s education level and his or her comprehension of specific topics. The search…
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The description to this video reads “Journey into the world of contemporary online social interaction” and could be seen as a short, but compelling cinematic interpretation of many issues and concerns outlined in Sherry Turkle‘s groundbreaking “Together Alone: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other“. This video will resonate with many of the so-called “digital natives”. In light this video’s targeted viewers, it is very interesting to read some of the comments made by reddit users after it was posted there. The comments vary along the entire spectrum: Even without their devices, I’ve seen coworkers ignore…
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