politicalbs.com » DoWireFeeds

Feeds

243803 items (243803 unread) in 108 feeds

NewsPopular (136208 unread)

• CNN.com - Most Popular (15255 unread) [xml|www]
• BBC News | Most Popular Stories | World Edition (16971 unread) [xml|www]
• NPR Most Emailed: NPR Most Emailed Stories (16324 unread) [xml|www]
• MSNBC.com: Most Viewed (4662 unread) [xml|www]
• Yahoo! News: Most Viewed (30521 unread) [xml|www]
• Most Popular Stories: CBSNews.com (9134 unread) [xml|www]
• Reuters Video: Most Watched Videos (9118 unread) [xml|www]
• NEWS.com.au | Most Popular | Most Popular World Stories (7376 unread) [xml|www]
• NYT > Most E-Mailed (16904 unread) [xml|www]
• guardian.co.uk: Most viewed (7457 unread) [xml|www]
• ABC News Video: Top Videos (1260 unread) [xml|www]
• Yahoo! News: Most Popular Most Emailed (1226 unread) [xml|www]

DoWireFeeds (90913 unread)

• Steven Clift's Notes - Democracies Online (590 unread) [xml|www]
• Alexa Samuel's Otherwise Engaged (575 unread) [xml|www]
• Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth (13 unread) [xml|www]
• Beth Novek's Cairns Blog (20 unread) [xml|www]
• Center for Democracy and Technology (70 unread) [xml|www]
• ClickZ CyberStats (523 unread) [xml|www]
• CyberJournalist (792 unread) [xml|www]
• Dan Gilmor et al - Center for Citizen Media (69 unread) [xml|www]
• David Farber's Interesting People [xml|www]
• David Fletcher's Government and Technology (148 unread) [xml|www]
• David Wilcox's Designing for Civil Society (7 unread) [xml|www]
• Declan McCullagh's Politech [xml|www]
• Del.icio.us Links - e-democracy (2583 unread) [xml|www]
• Del.icio.us Links - ict4d - ICTs for Development (11091 unread) [xml|www]
• Del.icio.us Links - nptech - Non-Profit Technology (7826 unread) [xml|www]
• DevGateway - e-Government [xml|www]
• DevGateway - Governance [xml|www]
• DevGateway - ICTs for Development (10 unread) [xml|www]
• E-Media Tidbits [xml]
• eGovMonitor - UK (11605 unread) [xml|www]
• Electronic Frontier Foundation (1583 unread) [xml|www]
• EList - Nettime-l (90 unread) [xml|www]
• Global Voices - Cyber-Activism (5400 unread) [xml|www]
• Google News - Online campaigning (11356 unread) [xml|www]
• Google News for "e-democracy" (965 unread) [xml|www]
• Government 2.0 - James Scott [xml|www]
• Griff Wigley - Weblog Coach, ReadMyDay (99 unread) [xml|www]
• Harvard's Berkman Center (1070 unread) [xml|www]
• Ideal Government - UK (220 unread) [xml|www]
• Involve - UK Political Participation Organisation [xml|www]
• IP and Democracy - (Internet Protocal) (2 unread) [xml|www]
• Janet Haven - Open Society Institute [xml|www]
• Jason Kitcat - e-democracy posts (2 unread) [xml|www]
• John Gotze (27 unread) [xml|www]
• K-Government (533 unread) [xml|www]
• Keith Hampton - iNeighbors (11 unread) [xml|www]
• Media Giraffe (17 unread) [xml|www]
• Mikhail Doroshevich's Information Policy (5791 unread) [xml|www]
• Nancy White - Online Interaction (91 unread) [xml|www]
• Network-centric Advocacy (188 unread) [xml|www]
• Personal Democracy Forum (1663 unread) [xml|www]
• Phil Windley's Technometria (424 unread) [xml|www]
• Politics & Technology - Mandate Media (3 unread) [xml|www]
• Politics Online Blog (also see their Netpulse e-newletter) (133 unread) [xml|www]
• Potlach - Will Davies UK (258 unread) [xml|www]
• PublicTechnology.Net News - UK (5965 unread) [xml|www]
• Quick Links (1298 unread) [xml|www]
• ResearchBuzz (721 unread) [xml|www]
• Rik Panganiban's Click Heard Round the World (1202 unread) [xml|www]
• Slashdot - Your Rights Online (6660 unread) [xml|www]
• Stephen Hilton - Bristol Council ICT Guru [xml|www]
• Textually - SMS/Mobile Politics (5137 unread) [xml|www]
• The Register - Internet and Law (4049 unread) [xml|www]
• Wendy Selter's Legal Tags (33 unread) [xml|www]

CitizenMedia (10293 unread)

• MediaShift Idea Lab (949 unread) [xml|www]
• MediaShift (1341 unread) [xml|www]
• Gary Kebbel's Blog (15 unread) [xml|www]
• PressThink (20 unread) [xml|www]
• The EveryBlock Blog (100 unread) [xml|www]
• MIT Center for Future Civic Media (293 unread) [xml|www]
• Amy Gahran (800 unread) [xml|www]
• Citizen Media Law Project - (569 unread) [xml|www]
• Rising Voices (421 unread) [xml|www]
• Leslie Rule (8 unread) [xml|www]
• Paul Lamb (6 unread) [xml|www]
• E-Media Tidbits (434 unread) [xml|www]
• David Sasaki (738 unread) [xml|www]
• Online Journalism Review (405 unread) [xml|www]
• J.D. Lasica (639 unread) [xml|www]
• Chris O'Brien (97 unread) [xml]
• Chris O'Brien [xml|www]
• NewAssignment.Net (6 unread) [xml|www]
• The Wonkster (1806 unread) [xml|www]
• Gotham Gazette: New York City News and Public Policy (924 unread) [xml|www]
• Steven Clift (117 unread) [xml|www]
• Benjamin Melancon (74 unread) [xml|www]
• Benjamin Melancon (154 unread) [xml|www]
• Benjamin Melancon (2 unread) [xml|www]
• SignCasts - (215 unread) [xml|www]
• Everyone's Blog Posts - Printcasting (16 unread) [xml]
• Dan Pacheco (10 unread) [xml|www]
• Video Volunteers (134 unread) [xml|www]

Radio (6389 unread)

• CBC Radio: Editor's Choice (254 unread) [xml|www]
• CBC Radio: The Best of The Sunday Edition (182 unread) [xml|www]
• CBC Radio: Vinyl Cafe Stories (202 unread) [xml|www]
• CBC Radio: The Best of As It Happens (912 unread) [xml|www]
• CBC Radio: The Best of Ideas (190 unread) [xml|www]
• CBC Radio: Quirks & Quarks Segmented Show (756 unread) [xml|www]
• CBC Radio: Search Engine (73 unread) [xml|www]
• CBC Radio: Spark (407 unread) [xml|www]
• CBC Radio: Rewind (161 unread) [xml|www]
• Digital Planet (174 unread) [xml|www]
• Global News (1773 unread) [xml|www]
• RTÉ - Documentary On One (1064 unread) [xml|www]
• RTÉ - Playback (240 unread) [xml|www]
• PRX Playlist - Life Stories - Families: Fathers, Sons & Brothers (1 unread) [xml|www]

DoWireFeeds (200 unread)

• May 19, 2012
• 

  Citi’s Killer App Gives Hope to iPhone Sweatshops - Bloomberg

  Posted: May 19th, 2012, 12:31am CDT by lizard2000

  Citi’s Killer App Gives Hope to iPhone Sweatshops - Bloomberg

• 

  Parker on Politics: St. Cerny files to run for old seat - The News-Press

  Posted: May 19th, 2012, 12:21am CDT

  Parker on Politics: St. Cerny files to run for old seat The News-Press GOP congressional candidate Chauncey Goss grabbed two big endorsements this week: from former Gov. Jeb Bush, and from US Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Budget Committee. Ryan said Goss, a former staffer for Ryan's committee, ...

• May 18, 2012
• 

  Zabaّtak

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 8:40pm CDT by fromreaditlater

  Zabaّtak

• 

  Must Reads for May 18th

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 8:00pm CDT by Jonathan Dube

  Here are today’s must-read digital news stories from around the web:

  • Pinterest pins its hopes on e-commerce — GigaOM Pro

  
  

  

• 

  India Lurches Toward Internet Censorship

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 7:50pm CDT by timothy

  First time accepted submitter ixarux writes "India is at a crucial crossroad at the moment. Internet censorship laws are getting stricter as it begins to ban file-sharing and video-sharing websites. It started with Indian courts allowing censorship of Google, Facebook, etc. It has now gone one step ahead and decided to ask ISPs to block file-sharing sites. It is the movie industry which is again at the forefront of this. Anonymous retaliated, and targeted the websites of various Indian government websites in protest. What India lacks at this crucial juncture are debates in the public domain about this and citizens actually organizing protests as seen in the West."

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  Attorney wants to address senior citizen issues - Cincinnati.com

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 7:29pm CDT

  Attorney wants to address senior citizen issues Cincinnati.com This is part of a series profiling each candidate. Marc Carey has used Internet town hall meetings and blog posts instead of campaign funds for his congressional bid. Carey, 59, one of the seven Republican candidates seeking the nomination for ... and more »

• 

  Hey ITU Member States: No More Secrecy, Release the Treaty proposals

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 7:14pm CDT by katitza

  The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) will hold the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) in December in Dubai, an all-important treaty-writing event where ITU Member States will discuss the proposed revisions to the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITR). The ITU is a United Nations agency responsible for international telecom regulation, a bureaucratic, slow-moving, closed regulatory organization that issues treaty-level provisions for international telecommunication networks and services. The ITR, a legally binding international treaty signed by 178 countries, defines the boundaries of ITU’s regulatory authority and provides "general principles" on international telecommunications. The ITR represents one of four ITU treaties that were adopted in 1998 and came into force in 1990. However, media reports indicate that some proposed amendments to the ITR—a negotiation that is already well underway—could potentially expand the ITU’s mandate to encompass the Internet.

  In similar fashion to the secrecy surrounding ACTA and TPP, the ITR proposals are being negotiated in secret, with high barriers preventing access to any negotiating document. While aspiring to be a venue for Internet policy-making, the ITU does not appear to be very open to the idea of allowing all stakeholders (including civil society) to participate. The framework under which the ITU operates does not allow for any form of open participation. Mere access to documents and decision-makers is sold by the ITU to corporate “associate” members at prohibitively high rates. Indeed, the ITU’s business model appears to depend on revenue generation from those seeking to ‘participate’ in its policy-making processes. This revenue-based principle of policy-making is deeply troubling in and of itself, as the objective of policy making should be to reach the best possible outcome.

  Release the documents

  The ITU should urgently lift restrictions on sharing the preparatory materials and ITR amendments, and release the documents. The current preparatory process lacks the transparency, openness of process, and inclusiveness of all relevant stakeholders that is the hallmark of Internet policy-making. A truly multi-stakeholder participation model requires equal footing for each relevant stakeholders including civil society, the private sector, the technical community, and participating governments. These principles are the minimum that one could expect following commitments made at the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS). The ITU Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun I. Touré reiterated these commitments last year at the Internet Governance Forum in Kenya:

  In its own words, the "ITU remains firmly committed to the WSIS process," and it considers itself to have "made considerable progress in many areas in advancing the implementation of the WSIS outcomes."

  And in practice? Not likely. This is why EFF, European Digital Rights, CIPPIC and CDT and a coalition of civil society organizations from around the world are demanding that the ITU Secretary General, the  WCIT-12 Council Working Group, and ITU Member States open up the WCIT-12 and the Council working group negotiations, by immediately releasing all the preparatory materials and Treaty proposals. If it affects the digital rights of citizens across the globe, the public needs to know what is going on and deserves to have a say. The Council Working Group is responsible for the preparatory work towards WCIT-12, setting the agenda for and consolidating input from participating governments and Sector Members.

  We demand full and meaningful participation for civil society in its own right, and without cost, at the Council Working Group meetings and the WCIT on equal footing with all other stakeholders, including participating governments. A transparent, open process that is inclusive of civil society at every stage is crucial to creating sound policy.

  Respect the multi-stakeholder process

  Civil society has good reason to be concerned regarding an expanded ITU policy-making role. To begin with, the institution does not appear to have high regard for the distributed multi-stakeholder decision making model that has been integral to the development of an innovative, successful and open Internet. In spite of commitments at WSIS to ensure Internet policy is based on input from all relevant stakeholders, the ITU has consistently put the interests of one stakeholder—Governments—above all others. This is discouraging, as some government interests are inconsistent with an open, innovative network. Indeed, the conditions which have made the Internet the powerful tool it is today emerged in an environment where the interests of all stakeholders are given equal footing, and existing Internet policy-making institutions at least aspire, with varying success, to emulate this equal footing. This formula is enshrined in the Tunis Agenda, which was committed to at WSIS in 2005:

  83. Building an inclusive development-oriented Information Society will require unremitting multi-stakeholder effort. We thus commit ourselves to remain fully engaged—nationally, regionally and internationally—to ensure sustainable implementation and follow-up of the outcomes and commitments reached during the WSIS process and its Geneva and Tunis phases of the Summit. Taking into account the multifaceted nature of building the Information Society, effective cooperation among governments, private sector, civil society and the United Nations and other international organizations, according to their different roles and responsibilities and leveraging on their expertise, is essential.

  84. Governments and other stakeholders should identify those areas where further effort and resources are required, and jointly identify, and where appropriate develop, implementation strategies, mechanisms and processes for WSIS outcomes at international, regional, national and local levels, paying particular attention to people and groups that are still marginalized in their access to, and utilization of, ICTs.

  Indeed, the ITU’s current vision of Internet policy-making is less one of distributed decision-making, and more one of ‘taking control.’ For example, in an interview conducted last June with ITU Secretary General Hamadoun Touré, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin raised the suggestion that the union might take control of the Internet: “We are thankful to you for the ideas that you have proposed for discussion,” Putin told Touré in that conversation. “One of them is establishing international control over the Internet using the monitoring and supervisory capabilities of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).”

  Perhaps of greater concern are views espoused by the ITU regarding the nature of the Internet. Yesterday, at the World Summit of Information Society Forum, Mr. Alexander Ntoko, head of the Corporate Strategy Division of the ITU, explained the proposals made during the preparatory process for the WCIT, outlining a broad set of topics that can seriously impact people's rights. The categories include "security," "interoperability" and "quality of services," and the possibility that ITU recommendations and regulations will be not only binding on the world’s nations, but enforced.

  In this sense, it is somewhat concerning that the ITU appears to draw its inspiration for Internet reform from the earliest days of the network. For example, earlier this year, Ntoko zeroed in on online anonymity, which EFF has fought to protect in the past. Citing the early days of ARPAnet, when the Internet consisted of a number of academic institutions who could identify each other by IP address, Ntoko has expressed his view regarding the anonymous nature of the Internet as: "[it] wasn't always that way, and shouldn't be in the future."

  Rights to online expression are unlikely to fare much better than privacy under an ITU model. During last year’s IGF in Kenya, a voluntary code of conduct was issued to further restrict free expression online. A group of nations (including China, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) released a Resolution for the UN General Assembly titled, “International Code of Conduct for Information Security.”  The Code seems to be designed to preserve and protect national powers in information and communication. In it, governments pledge to curb “the dissemination of information that incites terrorism, secessionism or extremism or that undermines other countries’ political, economic and social stability, as well as their spiritual and cultural environment.” This overly broad provision accords any state the right to censor or block international communications, for almost any reason.

  Promote openness and transparency

  Currently, there are several organizations dealing with Internet Policy at the global and regional level. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe issued guidance on Internet governance in a Declaration on Internet Governance Principles. It emphasizes the need for openness and transparency:

  Multi-stakeholder governance

  The development and implementation of Internet governance arrangements should ensure, in an open, transparent and accountable manner, the full participation of governments, the private sector, civil society, the technical community and users, taking into account their specific roles and responsibilities. The development of international Internet-related public policies and Internet governance arrangements should enable full and equal participation of all stakeholders from all countries.

  Responsibilities of states

  States have rights and responsibilities with regard to international Internet-related public policy issues. In the exercise of their sovereignty rights, states should, subject to international law, refrain from any action that would directly or indirectly harm persons or entities outside of their territorial jurisdiction. Furthermore, any national decision or action amounting to a restriction of fundamental rights should comply with international obligations and in particular be based on law, be necessary in a democratic society and fully respect the principles of proportionality and the right of independent appeal, surrounded by appropriate legal and due process safeguards.

  Decentralised management

  The decentralised nature of the responsibility for the day-to-day management of the Internet should be preserved. The bodies responsible for the technical and management aspects of the Internet, as well as the private sector should retain their leading role in technical and operational matters while ensuring transparency and being accountable to the global community for those actions which have an impact on public policy.

  There are some factors in place that may insulate strong democracies such as the United States from the more harmful elements of the ITU proposal. As with all international policy-making venues, ITU outputs will not become law until enacted domestically by member states such as the United States, Canada o Sweden. This means that any ITU policies antithetical to a free and democratic society might not make it into domestic law.  Central to this will be the legitimacy of the institution, and the United States government, for example, has already stated that the ITU’s lack of adherence to multi-stakeholder principles is deeply problematic and a barrier to the institution’s legitimacy.

  In spite of this, a closed and expanded ITU policy-making role remains a threat to an already fragile public interest. Several governments have continuously sought to launder unpopular measures through international intergovernmental venues that would subvert democratic Internet principles or hard-won international human rights law protections. The Council of Europe’s Cybercrime Treaty is a good example of policy laundering at an international level. Similarly, multi-lateral or pluri-lateral agreements, like ACTA and TPP, are a way to bypass national and global inter-governmental institutions that are more transparent and open to civil society participation as well as democratic checks and balances.

  The ITU proposal will establish an ongoing source of international policy that does not have the interests and rights of Internet users in mind. Further, unlike other venues which recognize the importance of ongoing flexibility in Internet policy-making, the ITRs are a treaty, legally binding on its signatories. While the ITU’s refusal to commit to a multi-stakeholder model may act to safeguard strong democracies such as the United States, Europe and Canada from its more harmful policy outputs, countries with weaker internal democratic protections will find it more difficult to provide such insulation. Even countries with well-entrenched safeguards for human rights may be tempted to adopt laws that conflict with human rights where these align with powerful domestic interests, as was demonstrated by recent attempts to pass SOPA/PIPA and CISPA in the United States.

  We urge the ITU Secretary General et al to ensure that the outcomes of the WCIT and its preparatory process truly represent the common interests of all who hold a stake in the future of our information society. If your government is a member of ITU, demand transparency and tell them to open the process and disclose the WCIT preparatory documents and Treaty amendments. 

  Related Issues: InternationalCouncil of EuropeInternational Privacy StandardsInternet Governance ForumPolicy Analysis

• 

  Why 'Americans Elect' party failed - San Francisco Chronicle

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 6:42pm CDT

  Politico

  Why 'Americans Elect' party failed San Francisco Chronicle "Break the gridlock and change politics as usual," the group's Web site promised. "No special interest. No agenda. Country before party." Registered voters could sign on through the Internet and sift through a list of potential nominees. 'Americans Elect' Ends Online Primary After No Candidates Qualify To RunABC News (blog) First Online Presidential Primary Fails to Find CandidateMashable Americans Elect calls it quitsWashington Post (blog) U.S. News & World Report -Opposing Views all 121 news articles »

• 

  Swedish Telcom Giant Teliasonera Caught Helping Authoritarian Regimes Spy on Their Citizens

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 6:41pm CDT by eva

  According to a recent investigation by the Swedish news show Uppdrag Granskning, Sweden’s telecommunications giant Teliasonera is the latest Western country revealed to be colluding with authoritarian regimes by selling them hih-tech surveillance gear to spy on its citizens. Teliasonera has allegedly enabled the governments of Belarus, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Georgia and Kazakhstan to spy on journalists, union leaders, and members of the political opposition. One Teliasonera whistle-blower told the reporters, “The Arab Spring prompted the regimes to tighten their surveillance. ... There’s no limit to how much wiretapping is done, none at all.”

  The investigative report, titled “Black Boxes,” in reference to the black boxes Teliasonera allowed police and security services to install in their operation centers--which granted them the unrestricted capability to monitor all communications—including Internet traffic, phone calls, location data from cell phones, and text messages—in real-time. This has caused concern among Swedish citizens and Teliasonera shareholders, who had previously been assuaged by assurances from the telecommunications company that they follow the law in the countries in which they are operating. After a meeting with Peter Norman, Sweden’s Minister of Financial Markets, the chairman of Teliasonera’s board of directors issued a statement, announcing that they had launched “an action programme for handling issues related to protection of privacy and freedom of expression in non-democratic countries, in a better and more transparent way.”

  Teliasonera’s declaration of good intentions may be too little too late after the damning evidence of abuse compiled by Uppdrag Granskning. Documents obtained by their investigators showed an Azerbaijani had his phone tapped after he published a piece about being beaten at the hands of government security agents while covering a story. The report also found that black-box surveillance was used in Belarus to track down, arrest, and prosecute protesters who attended an anti-government protest rally following the 2010 Belarusian presidential election. One Azerbaijani citizen says he was interrogated solely due to the fact that he voted for the Armenian representative in the 2009 Eurovision song contest.

  In the post-Soviet state of Georgia, these recent revelations have prompted the Georgian Young Lawyers Association (GYLA) to challenge indiscriminate wiretapping in their country, alleging that far from complying with local statutes, Teliasonera was breaking Georgian law.

  GYLA points out that the Georgian criminal code and constitution protect personal information such as private phone calls. Police must obtain a court order before they can listen in to a citizen’s private phone conversations. GYLA attorney Maya Khutsishvili says that companies can only provide private information about a person to investigative bodies based on such a court order—and that a court’s ruling must indicate why the investigative body needs to listen to a specific person or receive other kinds of personal information.

  EFF believes that for Western countries providing telecommunications equipment or services, merely complying with the law is insufficient. Authoritarian regimes can interpret the law in ways that justify unlimited spying on journalists and political dissidents. Or, as is the case in Georgia, the laws on the books are not enforced—unrestricted surveillance is the order of the day. If tech companies want to avoid being repression’s little helper, they must know their customer and refrain from cooperating with governments that they believe will use their technology to facilitate human rights violations.

  Related Issues: Free SpeechAnonymityInternationalMass Surveillance TechnologiesPrivacyCell TrackingLocational PrivacySecurity

• 

  Video: Capacity Building in Rising Voices Media Training

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 6:31pm CDT by Juliana Rincón Parra

  In the border between Burma and Thailand, the Rising Voices grantee project Karen Border News has launched their audio podcast workshop. In this short film, the students of the radio journalism course speak about their experience.

  From their Blog post:

  During this first round of training, we focused on four topics: news writing, audio recording & editing, and broadcast. It’s been really exciting watching these students improve their skills, and learn entirely new ways to tell their stories. While KSNG’s media staff runs most of the trainings, we also invited two specialist, Aung Nai, who works for Internews and Jack Chance, an experienced radio producer and media trainer. In addition to the workshops, we are also distributing some media equipment to students, including notebooks, media guidebooks, and audio recorders.

  On a past blog entry, the Karen Border News blog explains the importance of their efforts in the context of the Ceasefire talks between the Myanmar government and the Karen National Union:

  Most Karen cautiously welcome the ceasefire agreement, but there is much concern for how reconciliation will affect the Karen population, especially with so many of our people now living outside of our traditional homeland in Karen State

  Rising Voices is an outreach initiative of Global Voices, aimed to helping to bring new voices from new communities and speaking new languages to the global conversations on the web by providing resources and funding to local groups working with underrepresented communities. The Karen Border News is one of the 2012 Rising Voices Grantees.

  Written by Juliana Rincón Parra · comments (0)
  Share: Donate · facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

• 

  Twitter to use Do Not Track

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 6:24pm CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  Twitter says it will honour requests from users who do not want their online behaviour tracked, the company said on Thursday, in contrast with web companies such Google and Facebook whose business models rely heavily on collecting user data. Twitter announced that it will officially support "Do Not Track," a standardised privacy initiative that has been heavily promoted by the US Federal Trade Commission, online privacy advocates and Mozilla, the non-profit developer of the Firefox web browser. But some commentators have pointed out that the support also indicates that the company presently does track where users go on the web through data collected from sites that have integrated Twitter "follow" buttons or widgets. Some browsers, including Firefox, Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Apple's Safari, include a Do Not Track option that sends a line of code to websites indicating the user does not want to be tracked. But under current regulations, it is up to the website to honour the requests. Google has said it will implement a Do Not Track feature in its Chrome browser later this year.

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/may/18/twitter-do-not-track

• 

  Why Digital Accelerates Political Change - Mashable

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 5:44pm CDT

  Why Digital Accelerates Political Change Mashable While this mindset is completely understandable, it seems we've forgotten the most important lesson from the past twenty years of Internet experience: Profound change is within our grasp if we are able to make the intellectual connection between the ...

• 

  Microsoft Wins US Import Ban On Motorola's Android Devices

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 5:38pm CDT by Soulskill

  jbrodkin writes "The U.S. International Trade Commission today ordered an import ban on Motorola Mobility Android products, agreeing with Microsoft that the devices infringe a Microsoft patent on 'generating meeting requests' from a mobile device. The import ban stems from a December ruling that the Motorola Atrix, Droid, and Xoom (among 18 total devices) infringed the patent, which Microsoft says is related to Exchange ActiveSync technology. Today, the ITC said in a 'final determination of violation' (PDF) that 'the appropriate form of relief in this investigation is a limited exclusion order prohibiting the unlicensed entry for consumption of mobile devices, associated software and components thereof covered by ... United States Patent No. 6,370,566 and that are manufactured abroad by or on behalf of, or imported by or on behalf of, Motorola.' Motorola (which is being acquired by Google) was the last major Android device maker not to pay off Microsoft in a patent licensing deal. Microsoft has already responded to the decision, saying it hopes Motorola will now reconsider."

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  bit.ly

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 5:20pm CDT by espelt

  bit.ly

• 

  Facebook Privacy Suit Seeks $15 Billion

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 4:57pm CDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "The folks at Facebook may be focusing on their IPO today, but a complaint filed in federal court has given them something else to think about. The filing consolidates 21 separate but similar cases and alleges Facebook invaded users privacy by tracking their browsing behavior even after they had logged out of the site. The claim seeks $15 billion in damages. 'If the claimants are successful in their case against Facebook, they could prevent Menlo Park from collecting the huge amount of data it collects about its users to serve ads back to them. Like the previous lawsuits, Facebook is once again being accused of violating the Federal Wiretap Act, which provides statutory damages per user of $100 per day per violation, up to a maximum per user of $10,000. The complaint also asserts claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Stored Communications Act, various California Statutes and California common law.'"

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  Caustic Comedian Alters Italy's Political Map - New York Times

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 4:27pm CDT

  New York Times

  Caustic Comedian Alters Italy's Political Map New York Times GARBAGNATE MILANESE — A rapt crowd gathered in this drab town in the Milanese hinterland one evening this week to hear the Italian comedian Beppe Grillo serve up his characteristically caustic take on Italian politics. And he did not disappoint them. and more »

• 

  Local Governments Have the Power to Restrict Drone Surveillance in the US

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 4:08pm CDT by trevor

  A series of events in the last two weeks have set the stage for how surveillance drones will be operated by local law enforcement in the United States and how citizens can demand privacy protections as domestic use escalates.

  As EFF has previously reported, Congress passed a bill in February mandating the FAA must open national airspace to drones, despite the extensive and unprecedented civil liberties dangers they pose to every American. The FAA, in new rules announced on Monday, made the authorization procedure easier, stating they have “streamlined the process” for “public agencies”—which includes local law enforcement—to legally operate drones in U.S. skies.

  We know that dozens of law enforcement agencies already have drones, based on information from EFF’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit over the FAA’s initial refusal to release the list of authorizations. And one of the biggest cities with a police department on the list was Seattle.

  It turned out Seattle’s city council—which oversees the police department—was just as surprised as many citizens to see Seattle Police Department’s name on the list. The city council learned about the drones through a reporter asking questions related to EFF’s lawsuit, not through official channels. After front page stories in the Seattle Times and an official apology from the Seattle police department, Seattle is now the first city to consider privacy safeguards for drone use by law enforcement.

  The ACLU of Washington has asked the city council to pass a legally binding ordinance detailing “what kind of information can be collected, who can collect it, how the information can be used, and how long it can be kept,” along with “an auditing process to make sure the policies are followed.”  The Seattle Times agreed. In an editorial written on May 6, the city’s largest paper urged city council to adopt “usage restrictions, image-retention limits, and regular audits and reviews of drones as a law-enforcement tool.”

  Seattle’s Police Department has already pledged drones would not be used for surveillance, and only “for situations like crime scene photography, missing person searches, and barricaded person scenarios.” They’ve also indicated they would work with the FAA to develop privacy policies. But as the Seattle Times noted, privacy safeguards must be implemented by binding ordinance, “not by policy nods, promises and good intentions.”

  In a similar incident just yesterday, after the Shelby County Tennessee sheriff’s office requested two drones as part of a $400,000 Homeland Security grant, the Shelby county commission questioned the Sheriff’s Office on how they would be using the drone and asked them to draw up privacy guidelines. The sheriff’s office promptly withdrew its request for drones. But encouragingly, the commission is still pushing the sheriff’s office for privacy policies. As the Memphis Daily News reported, “several commissioners said they might still pursue setting some guidelines on the use of such surveillance through a memorandum of understanding with the sheriff’s office.”

  Responding to an EFF public records request, Miami-Dade County also released information about its drones earlier this week, which it bought using a grant from the Justice Department (DOJ).

  The FAA itself estimates that there may be as many as 30,000 drones in the US by the year 2020, and with the loosened restrictions coupled with the Department of Homeland Security and DOJ issuing grants for local police forces to buy drones, it’s imperative that local governments act swiftly to ban surveillance drones outright or institute robust safeguards for their citizens. Americans cannot afford to wait for the FAA or Congress to act.

  Does your local police department own and operate a drone? Check out our interactive map here to find out.

  EFF would also like your help. In the coming days, we’re going to announce a crowd-sourcing campaign aimed at finding out as much information as possible on each law enforcement agency’s use of drones and how citizens can voice their concerns to their local governments. Right now, if you have any information on how your local law enforcement plans to use drones, email dronesinfo@eff.org. You can get this information by calling your local police department.

  And stay tuned for more, as we plan on announcing a detailed campaign soon.

   

   

  Related Issues: Privacy

• 

  Berkman Buzz: May 18, 2012

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 3:34pm CDT by rheacock

  The Berkman Buzz is selected weekly from the posts of Berkman Center people and projects. To subscribe, click here. -—> Aaron Shaw explores the future of crowdwork While many moments of our conversation were energizing, the most compelling aspects derived from the group’s shared desire to imagine crowdwork and distributed online collaboration as potentially something more than the specter of alienated, de-humanized piece-work that it is frequently depicted to be. To spur our efforts, we used a provocative thought experiment: what it would take for crowdwork to facilitate fulfilling, creative, and sustainable livelihoods for us or our (hypothetical or real) children? From Aaron Shaw's blog post, "The Future of Crowdwork: CrowdCamp Workshop at CHI 2012" About Aaron Shaw | @aaronshaw Andrés Monroy-Hernández mentors crowd workers Traditional workplaces spend a fair amount of effort mentoring and training their workforce as a way to increase the quality of their work and their job satisfaction. Does mentoring crowd workers also increase the quality of their work? How can one mentor the crowd workforce? These were the question we tried to tackle this weekend at the Crowd Camp Workshop at CHI. From Andrés Monroy-Hernández's blog post, "Mentoring Crowd Workers" About Andrés Monroy-Hernández | @andresmh Academics: Passionate about Digital Media & Disruptive Publics? Workshop CFP: [bit.ly] (Global Voices Summit in Kenya) —danah boyd (@zephoria) Yochai Benkler discusses the online SOPA/PIPA debate at the Guardian Activate Summit Yochai Benkler, co-director, Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, addresses the Guardian Activate Summit with a talk titled 'the networked public sphere' which maps the public discourse of the SOPA/PIPA debate online. From The Guardian, "Yochai Benkler - 'The networked public sphere': framing the public discourse of the SOPA/PIPA debate" About Yochai Benkler Herdict reviews the UK's attempts to block The Pirate Bay Swedish website The Pirate Bay (TPB), the world’s largest BitTorrent site, has been in the news over the years for everything from copyright lawsuits and a raid by Swedish authorities, to tangles with powerful organizations like the Motion Picture Association of America. In February 2012, TPB was found guilty of sharing copyrighted material on a massive scale in a case brought by the British Phonographic Industry. Despite these setbacks and perhaps because of the attention, the peer-to-peer network has garnered millions of users (3.7 million in the UK alone) who use it to download and distribute copyrighted content (including music, films and television shows, games, and publications). From Alex Meriwether's blog post for Herdict, "Blocking the Pirate Bay" About Herdict | @herdict Justin Reich examines persistence and gaming in education For gamers of a certain age, the blocky pixels of the 8-bit Nintendo era bring back fond memories. In our own time, educators are fascinated by the learning potential of games: the way they engage us, challenge us, and test us. They teach, in compelling ways, all kinds of lessons, both pro- and anti-social. Some of the most powerful lessons of games are the rewards of exploration, persistence, patience, and determination. From Justin Reich's post for Ed Tech Researcher, "Persistence and Gaming in Education" About Justin Reich | @bjfr Viacom Joins Forces with Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation as its Lead Media Partner [shar.es] @btwfoundation @BerkmanCenter —John Palfrey (@jpalfrey) Cuba: Questioning Digital Expression within the Revolution The recent Encuentro de Blogueros Cubanos en Revolución [Meeting of Cuban Bloggers in Revolution] [es] brought together a group of “official” bloggers—chiefly journalists and communications professionals who are employed by the state and maintain their blogs as part of their work. These bloggers acknowledge explicitly that they write “within,” or in support of, the Cuban revolution. In contrast, many better-known Cuban bloggers, such as Yoani Sánchez and Laritza Diversent, make no such claim, calling for free speech and broader Internet access but seeking to avoid being categorized as dissidents or counterrevolutionaries. From Ellery Roberts Biddle's blog post for Global Voices, "Cuba: Questioning Digital Expression within the Revolution" About Global Voices Online | @globalvoices

  This Buzz was compiled by Rebekah Heacock. To manage your subscription preferences, please click here.

• 

  Is social media helping you meet your mission? It can!

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 2:55pm CDT by lage1004

  Is social media helping you meet your mission? It can!

• 

  Announcing: Third Annual Enterprise Summer School

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 2:54pm CDT by John Gøtze

  Week 31 is for students and researchers as well as practitioners in the field of enterprise architecture, who want to spend a pracademic week together and share and learn more about EA. 

  Dates: 30 July – 3 Aug 2012
  Location: IT University of Copenhagen

  REGISTER NOW

  Themes:

  • EA as a Discipline and a Profession
  • Trends in Enterprise Architecture Practice and Research
  • Selected Industry EA developments
  • The Common Approach to Federal Enterprise Architecture (US) and other recent developments in government EA

  Workshops on:

  • Enterprise Roadmapping
  • Collaborative Planning
  • The Social Enterprise
  • Out-of-the-box vs Boxes-and-Arrows: Innovation and Architecture
  • Documentation, Models and Artifacts: Common Meta Models?
  • Business and Information Systems Engineering Curriculum & Philosophy of Computer Science
  • … (suggest a workshop!)

  Read more at 2012.internationaleainstitute.org

  Related Posts:

  • Journal of Enterprise Architecture, February 2012
  • Enterprise architecture workshop
  • Enterprise Architecture for Connected E-Government
  • Journal of Enterprise Architecture February 2011
  • Studying enterprise architecture and a few other things

• 

  Grassroots Politics Makes Wisconsin's Recall Elections Local, and Personal - techPresident

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 2:08pm CDT

  Grassroots Politics Makes Wisconsin's Recall Elections Local, and Personal techPresident An introductory rate of just $75 a year gets you access to this and more, including teleconferences with movers, shakers, innovators and doers and in-depth feature reporting and analysis in online politics and advocacy. Learn More BY Sarah Lai Stirland ... and more »

• 

  Russia: The RuNet's Enduring Tomatoes & Tusovki

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 2:05pm CDT by Andrey Tselikov

  To a casual observer, the Russian protest movement seems current and contemporary. Undeniably, it is. The throngs of people. The charismatic young leaders and elder statesmen. The use of social media networks in their multitude to communicate, organize, and argue. The positioning of the protests within a global movement: from Occupy to Tahrir and the Arab Spring.

  Amidst all the excitement, it is easy to forget that the core of the protests — the professional revolutionaries, the leaders, young and old, the activists and the reporters, the analysts and the bloggers, the Russian political tusovka and its online extension — has now existed for almost a decade. Few bloggers last this long. Certainly, the entire Internet infrastructure has changed several times over during the period. Nevertheless, the tusovka endures, perhaps due to the peculiarity of the Russian blogosphere and its longtime sequestration at LiveJournal.

  That is not to say that the scene has ossified. On the contrary, relationships have changed, as have account names. Some figures lost prevalence; some have switched sides and opinions. But on the whole, the RuNet of the early oughts is a microcosm of modernity. Pick any recent protest organizer. Oleg Kashin has blogged on LiveJournal since 2002, the same as Sergei Parkhomenko. Ilya Yashin began in 2004 (and has been a promising young politician since). Alexey Navalny and Sergei Udaltsov’s wife, Anastasia, started blogging in 2006, a year after Ilya Ponomarev and Garry Kasparov.

  Or pick a critic: former Natsbol and current DemVybor functionary Stas Yakovlev started writing in 2004, while the unabashedly pro-Kremlin Maksim Kononenko (formerly known as Mr. Parker) and Konstantin Rykov have been prominent bloggers for over a decade (though both have since abandoned LiveJournal).

  Then, as now, they not only blogged on the same platform; they also argued and engaged each other in polemics. A snapshot taken seven years ago of these movers and shakers would today present many familiar faces and opinions (although notoriously flip-floppy Kashin has done his best to keep things interesting).

  

  Screenshot of Andrei Morozov's LiveJournal, 18 May 2012.

  Bearing this in mind, it is perhaps fitting that the man who last Sunday threw tomatoes at Ilya Yashin and journalist/writer Yulia Latynina was a man who did precisely the same thing seven years ago. Andrei Morozov (also known as “Murz,” who blogs at kenigtiger), wearing the same jacket he had on seven years earlier, approached a crowd of OccupyAbai protestors during the “Control Stroll” rally. He threw two tomatoes at the speakers (both missed), after which he was detained by the crowd, who mistook him for a Nashist. Oleg Kashin reported the small incident, lamenting a forgetful new crop of protestors.

  Indeed, during the summer of 2005, Morozov gained RuNet notoriety for what he called the “Red Blitzkrieg.” It was the heady summer after the success of the Orange Revolution — the summer of Russian youth politics, and the summer of tomatoes. “Red Blitzkrieg” was what Morozov named the tiny Stalinist-nationalist group he had founded around the time, but the phrase referred more visibly to his strategy of throwing tomatoes at political and ideological opponents.

  “Tomato terrorism,” as Morozov jokingly called it, claimed several victims that summer. The first was Yashin, then a leader of Young Yabloko and a memeber of Oborona (a youth organization modeled on Pora and Otpor). On June 20, 2005, Oleg Kashin wrote in his blog, “Today, at Kitai-Gorod, unknown parties threw tomatoes at the Oborona picket line (the tomatoes were good and fresh).” Yashin later posted the name of the assailant, identifying him a member of Dugin’s Eurasia group.

  Morozov, who spent a day under arrest for the incident, responded in his blog (vandalized and deleted in 2009; an archive exists on the alternative lj.rossia.org service), claiming full responsibility and denying membership in any political group:

  And in general, dear “orangists,” get used to the fact that someone can throw a tomato at you without it being some kind of political commission, but simply from the bottom of their heart, out of aesthetic considerations.

  Perhaps because of the gleeful response of Russian netizens to his actions, several days later he tomatoed (”otpomidoril”) the editor of the occasionally sensationalist newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, which had published an article about World War II with which Morozov disagreed (the author controversially wrote that the USSR should have surrendered to Germany, and was “ice-creamed” by another activist on the same day). Soon after came a failed attempt (Morozov missed) of tomatoing Yulia Latynina, whose revisionism of WWII orthodoxy also angered the Red Blitzkrieg.

  

  Ilia Yashin, a member of the Solidarity coalition, 23 November 2008, photo by Lena Lebedeva-Hooft, CC BY-SA 3.0; Wikimedia Commons.

  In the meantime, Morozov showed up at another Oborona action, and this time gifted Yashin the tomatoes, rather than throwing them. He followed a similar strategy at a book signing by Maksim Kononenko (whose book of Putin anecdotes was published by Parkhomenko). In August came the tomatoing of the Polish embassy (a response to a scandal involving children of Russian diplomats in Poland, for which Morozov and an accomplice spent three nights in jail), and in September the tomatoing of Echo Moskvy's offices (on general principle).

  Other noteworthy incidents included an October small-sword duel (described here by Morozov’s second) between Morozov and a defender of Latynina's honor (which thankfully led to no bloodshed), as well as a failed (and ill-conceived) attempt to throw mice at an opposition rally.

  In 2007, Morozov did something even crazier than usual. He had always claimed that his “tomato terrorism” was equal opportunity; that rather than singling out the liberal opposition in his actions, they just happened to be in the way. And so, one cold spring night, Morozov armed himself with a sawed-off shotgun, fired it at the Moscow office of United Russia, and blogged about it. As he had also managed to hit the FSB office located in the same building, this escapade did not end well. He was sentenced to three years in prison for the shotgun, and, under Article 280 of the Criminal Code, for extremist rhetoric in his blog (becoming one of the first Russian bloggers to serve time for extremist speech).

  By the time he was released in 2009, after serving eighteen months of his sentence, “Red Blitzkrieg” had fallen apart. Morozov himself states that he has quit public politics, calling it an ineffective waste, and that personal, not political, circumstances were behind his arrest. While it appears that he still has some connections to the nationalist underground, claiming membership in the so-called “Black Blitzkrieg,” he has dismissed his ‘tomato period' as childish, which makes the May 13, 2012, incident all the more surprising.

  Morozov described the impetus for his return to form in a May 12 post. “Fate itself,” he argued, brought together in one place his old opponents, Yashin and Latynina. He could “no longer stand” the concentration of “abomination” in the center of the city. ‘Action had to be taken.'

  After he went to prison in 2007, Morozov fell off the RuNet radar, though he has been writing regularly since his 2009 release. Most of the protestors present at his latest action had no idea who he was. The ones who did recognize him reacted with disbelief and nostalgia. “F…, the man who threw tomatoes at Yashin was the notorious Murz? Now that's f-ing something!” tweeted Kashin. “The very same?” sentimentally asked Rykov.

  There is definitely something romantic about Morozov's little acts of defiance. Of course, there are always questions. Is he a Kremlin project or his own man? Does he believe in what he says or is he just very good at “trolling”? These same questions were asked seven years ago, to no avail. Kashin later succinctly summed up the sentiment: “Today is the same day it was yesterday.“

  Written by Andrey Tselikov · comments (0)
  Share: Donate · facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

• 

  bit.ly

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 1:32pm CDT by gov20radio

  bit.ly

• 

  Cops' Warrantless Cell Phone Tracking Now Better Than GPS

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 12:42pm CDT by Soulskill

  Sparrowvsrevolution writes "On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing to discuss a proposed bill to limit location tracking of electronic devices without a warrant — what it's calling the Geolocational Privacy and Surveillance Act, or the GPS Act. Ahead of that hearing, University of Pennsylvania computer science professor Matt Blaze submitted written testimony (PDF) telling Congress that phone carriers, as well as the law enforcement agencies with which they share data, can now use phones' proximity to cell towers and other sources of cellular data to track their location as precisely or even more precisely than they can with global positioning satellites. Thanks to the growing density of cell towers and the proliferation of devices like picocells and femtocells that transmit cell signals indoors, even GPS-less phones can be tracked with a high degree of precision and can offer data that GPS can't, like the location of someone inside a building or what floor they're on. With the GPS Act, Congress is considering expanding the ban on warrantless tracking of cars with GPS devices that the Supreme Court decided on in January. Blaze's testimony suggests they need to include non-GPS tracking of cell phones in that ban, a measure law enforcement agencies are strongly resisting."

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  The Pirate Party fits the political gap - The Guardian

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 12:30pm CDT

  The Guardian

  The Pirate Party fits the political gap The Guardian The German press is bewildered and horrified by turns. The Pirates are a chaotic bunch, they say, a protest party without a real political agenda. A group of internet addicts, nerds who primarily want to download music and films for free. and more »

• 

  Facebook jumps then slumps in first few minutes day's trade

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 12:18pm CDT

  Round and round she goes, where she stops....

  Facebook's shares debuted on the Nasdaq today at $42 and immediately skidded downwards to the original IPO price of $38.…

• 

  Panel: Individual states likely to pass laws on online gambling - The Detroit News

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 11:42am CDT

  Panel: Individual states likely to pass laws on online gambling The Detroit News Speaking at the East Coast Gaming Congress, casino and political leaders predicted online gambling will become a reality on a state-by-state basis. New Jersey hopes to become the "Silicon Valley of Internet gambling," and its legislature is working on ... and more »

• 

  MOOC Learning Design: What does participatory design look like in open learning? « Michael Sean Gallagher

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 11:23am CDT by mlewis23

  MOOC Learning Design: What does participatory design look like in open learning? « Michael Sean Gallagher

• 

  Global Economy: UN officials ask for new measures to ensure economic recovery and growth

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 10:35am CDT

  
  Senior UN officials and stressed the importance of finding new models for global economic growth. They have announced the need for greater job creation, as well as increasing accountability in the financial sector to protect against another economic meltdown.

• 

  California judges must post financial info online - San Jose Mercury News

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 10:20am CDT

  California judges must post financial info online San Jose Mercury News By Howard Mintz In a unanimous decision, the state's Fair Political Practices Commission on Thursday approved a rule that requires California's more than 1700 judges to post their disclosure forms on the Internet, despite objections from judicial ... FPPC: No filing exemption for California judgesSacramento Bee all 33 news articles »

• 

  Opinion: What lessons does the rushed Work Programme have for us?

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 10:15am CDT by Gary Flood

  Enclosure: [download]

  Peter Osborne of LOC is convinced recent headlines about rushed implementation of the Work Programme has lessons for us all   Yet again a government scheme has been grabbing the headlines for failing to deliver a successful outcome down to poor project management.

  read more

  

• 

  Social Solutions: ETO Software, Services and Advocacy

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 9:57am CDT by dmuway

  Social Solutions: ETO Software, Services and Advocacy

• 

  Cuba: Questioning Digital Expression within the Revolution

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 9:57am CDT by Ellery Roberts Biddle

  The recent Encuentro de Blogueros Cubanos en Revolución [Meeting of Cuban Bloggers in Revolution] [es] brought together a group of “official” bloggers—chiefly journalists and communications professionals who are employed by the state and maintain their blogs as part of their work. These bloggers acknowledge explicitly that they write “within,” or in support of, the Cuban revolution. In contrast, many better-known Cuban bloggers, such as Yoani Sánchez and Laritza Diversent, make no such claim, calling for free speech and broader Internet access but seeking to avoid being categorized as dissidents or counterrevolutionaries.

  At the conclusion of the event, the group of bloggers drafted a set of principles [es] outlining their goals and commitments as Cuban bloggers. The third principle read:

  Respetamos y promovemos el pensamiento crítico, necesario y útil para preservar nuestra condición de revolucionarios, con la premisa de que no es posible ser revolucionario fuera de la Revolución.

  We respect and promote critical thinking, which is necessary and useful in preserving our revolutionary condition, based on the premise that it is not possible to be revolutionary outside of the Revolution. Here is a video from the Encuentro:

  While the principles acknowledged a need to increase ICT access on the island, they chiefly emphasized the role of bloggers in supporting the Cuban revolutionary project: they pledged to improve collaboration among bloggers “in Revolution” and to blog in the spirit of Cuban leaders of the past, such as Che Guevara. Invoking Fidel Castro’s famous 1961 address “Words to the Intellectuals,” they asserted that innovative or critical thinking should not exist “outside” of the revolution. In other words, any critique that is not formed with the goal of strengthening the revolution falls on the outside and thus necessarily becomes “counterrevolutionary.”

  This prompted Cuban blogger Yasmín Silvia Portales [es], who was not formally invited to the event, to ask:

  ¿y quién hace el examen de «revolucionario» para poder acceder a internet desde Cuba?

  And who conducts the “revolutionary” exam in order to access the Internet in Cuba?

  Since the meeting, bitter controversy has unfolded around this new iteration of a decades-old question: does the expression of criticism automatically put one “outside”  the revolution, especially when the criticism is  happening online?

  Global Voices author and blogger Elaine Díaz [es], also a communications professor at the University of Havana, criticized the meeting, noting the limited value in convening a group of bloggers who “basically think the same way.” She pointed out that bloggers from Observatorio Crítico [es] and Havana Times, both sites whose authors favor the socialist model, were not invited at all.

  El espacio plural, diverso, irreverente, altamente participativo, generoso y polémico…ha sido cruelmente caricaturizado [con este encuentro]. Queda, en su lugar, una blogosfera obediente y disciplinada.

  The heterogenous, diverse, irreverent, highly participatory, generous and controversial space…has been cruelly caricatured [by this meeting]. In its place is now an obedient and disciplined blogosphere.

  Diáz argued that, by excluding nearly all bloggers who are not “official” bloggers, the meeting had little value—the attendees did not represent the reality of the Cuban blogosphere. She also pointed to the unequal treatment of social media users on the island:

  Parece que muchos de los presentes parecen haber olvidado que mientras 60 representantes de la blogosfera nacional son recibidos con bombos y platillos en Matanzas, muchos más, estudiantes de universidades [por ejemplo] son condenados a 6 meses sin acceso a Internet por osar asomarse a Facebook, Twitter o cualquier variante 2.0.

  It seems that many of those present have forgotten that while 60 representatives of the national blogosphere are being received with drums and cymbals in Matanzas, many more, students at universities [for example] are condemned to 6 months without Internet access for using Facebook, Twitter, or any other iteration of 2.0.

  In response to her post, [es] Harold Cárdenas, a co-author of the blog La Joven Cuba and organizer of the event, lamented the fact that Díaz declined to attend the meeting.

  La habíamos invitado insistentemente…porque así podría defender sus posiciones y dar su opinión… Quizás si hubiera confiado un poco más en nosotros vería…que en el encuentro no todos pensaban “básicamente igual”
  […]
  Si alguien me pregunta le diría que hemos ganado mucho…que cuando alguien quiso que se le exigiera al Estado una Internet solo para “defender la Revolución”…dejamos claro que Internet es para mucho más que eso, para hablar de cocina, deporte, sexo o lo que quiera el bloguero de turno.

  We repeatedly invited her… because that way she could have defended her positions and given her opinion … Maybe if she trusted us more, she would have seen…that everyone at the meeting was not “basically the same.”
  […]
  If someone were to ask me, I’d say that we gained a lot…when someone wanted the State to require that the Internet be used only to “defend the Revolution”…we made it clear that the Internet is for much more than that, it’s for talking about cooking, sports, sex or whatever the blogger wants to say in the moment.

  Other responses were more aggressive. In a searing open letter [es], Eduardo, a University of Matanzas professor and blogger who helped organize the event, suggested that Díaz might be falling into the “counterrevolutionary” camp, espousing the idea that only “revolutionary” sentiment should be tolerated in the Cuban blogosphere and that nothing could exist in between this and counterrevolutionary ideas.

  [Es cobardía] jugar a bloguear nadando en las aguas embravecidas de un río, que en Cuba aunque usted no lo quiera reconocer, solo tiene “dos orillas”; los que defendemos el proyecto político social que nos independizó…de España, pero también de los Estados Unidos, y los que desean que Cuba sea la neocolonia que dejó de ser el Primero de Enero de 1959.

  It is cowardly to blog as if swimming in the raging waters of a river that in Cuba, even if you don’t want to recognize it, has only two sides; those who defend the socio-political project that brought us independence from Spain, but from the United States as well, and those who want Cuba to be the neocolony that it ceased to be on the First of January of 1959.

  A diverse range of other bloggers at sites including La Joven Cuba, Blogazoxcuba (official blog of the meeting), and Observatorio Crítico have commented on the event. An apt concluding thought appeared in a post by an anonymous author at Observatorio Crítico [es]. While just pre-dating the meeting, the author offered a constructive viewpoint on the question of criticism in Cuba, envisioning a world “where public space is the patrimony of all people, not a minority in power, as is true today throughout the world, including in Cuba.”

  No se teme la participación de una persona en un evento por el hecho de que piense distinto…Precisamente, la estimulación de la diversidad y las alternativas de enfoque y acción sobre los problemas es lo que conduce a posibilidades de enriquecimiento creativo de la realidad.
  […]
  Bloquear el acceso de determinadas opiniones a escenarios que presuntamente exploran la noción de lo público –como ha sucedido recientemente en más de un foro–, no tiene otro resultado que el de fundamentar las imputaciones de totalitarismo que se acostumbra realizar contra el orden social imperante en Cuba…

  One must not fear the participation of a person who thinks differently…Indeed, the stimulation of diversity and alternative approaches to the problems and action is what leads to opportunities for the creative enrichment of reality.
  […]
  Blocking access to certain opinions that allegedly explore the notion of that which is public—as happened recently in more than one forum—has no result other than to substantiate the charges of totalitarianism that are usually wielded against the social order in Cuba…

  Written by Ellery Roberts Biddle · comments (0)
  Share: Donate · facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

• 

  Best Practice: 3 tips on storage platform migration

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 9:45am CDT by Rachel Fielding

  Enclosure: [download]

  Serving more than 300,000 people across 700 square miles with a variety of public services, continuity of services at South Lanarkshire Council is high on the agenda. An on-going project to implement virtualised storage is not only reducing the cost of service delivery, but also ensuring IT systems remain highly available to safeguard that precious service continuity.   Supplier Computacenter has been delivering IT managed services to the council since 2004.

  read more

  

• 

  UK Economy: MPs urge employers to offer more apprenticeships

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 9:32am CDT

  MPs have called for more employers to offer apprenticeships so that England can catch up with similar programmes in other countries.

• 

  Newspapers, the Internet and Reaching New Voters - National Journal

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 9:22am CDT

  Comedy Central (blog)

  Newspapers, the Internet and Reaching New Voters National Journal Your best bets are through newspapers, the medium through which a slim plurality of undecided voters say they get their political news. That's the conclusion of a new survey from Mason-Dixon and Sachs Communications, which polled both which candidate ... Mason Dixon Poll: Internet Major Factor in 2012 ElectionNewsMax.com Mitt Romney's definition problemStandardNet CNN's GUT CHECK for May 18, 2012CNN (blog) Comedy Central (blog) -WIS -KVAL all 3,182 news articles »

• 

  Pinterest for Nonprofits? …. 5 Tips for Raising Money with “Pins” | NetWitsThinkTank.com

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 9:20am CDT by sheye

  Pinterest for Nonprofits? …. 5 Tips for Raising Money with “Pins” | NetWitsThinkTank.com

• 

  Impacte socieconòmic de les xarxes de nova generació a Catalunya http://t.co/BoFG4ctl #d #ict4d

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 9:10am CDT by espelt

  Impacte socieconòmic de les xarxes de nova generació a Catalunya http://t.co/BoFG4ctl #d #ict4d

• 

  Coming Out of the Closet by David Krumlauf of the Piece Family Foundation | Community Techknowledge

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 8:55am CDT by sheye

  Coming Out of the Closet by David Krumlauf of the Piece Family Foundation | Community Techknowledge

• 

  Gov't still thinking about how to improve ICT teaching in schools

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 8:55am CDT by Gary Flood

  Enclosure: [download]

  In one of those ‘how did you ever get that idea?’ moments, the government seems to be backtracking somewhat from its earlier strong statement that it wanted to drop ICT as currently taught from the national curriculum.   The Minister for schools and education, Nick Gibb, has just attempted to clarify the Coalition's actual position.   "Our proposal to disapply the existing Programmes of Study and associat

  read more

  

• 

  Beaconfire Consulting

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 8:38am CDT by julianwave

  Beaconfire Consulting

• 

  CloudStore 2.0 opens for business today

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 8:02am CDT by Gary Flood

  Enclosure: [download]

  The second iteration of the Government’s CloudStore has just gone live.   The Cabinet Office says this version is better to version 1, launched in February, because it has:

  • better functionality when it comes to searching, to comparing services and prices, and it has the ability to now purchase directly through the store if buyers are registered with the Government e-Marketplace
  • better for suppliers as "payments will be quicker and easier"
  • profiles can be edited more quickly and comparisons will lead to
    

    read more

    

• 

  UK Economy: Northern Rock rescue was best strategy despite losses to taxpayer of £480m, says NAO

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 7:58am CDT

  The National Audit Office (NAO) has revealed that the British taxpayers are expected to lose a staggering £480 million on the sale of Northern Rock Plc to Virgin Money Holdings.

• 

  Big Issue sellers could soon be flogging QR Codes

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 7:35am CDT

  Homeless move into digital downloads

  Glasgow-based INSP, which represents magazines distributed by the homeless, is planning to go digital - assuming it can raise enough cash to pay for some trials.…

• 

  EU Debt Crisis: Obama seeks to encourage softer measures towards the debt crisis

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 7:24am CDT

  US President Barack Obama has advised the EU against further austerity measures, instead promoting policies that will encourage growth. His comments come ahead of the G8 summit this weekend, which is expected to focus on the future of the Eurozone.

• 

  America's Cybersecurity Czar, Howard Schmidt, Steps Down

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 7:09am CDT by samzenpus

  wiredmikey writes "In December of 2009, after months of waiting, the Obama Administration named Howard Schmidt as the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator. After more than forty years in the IT community, the nation's first cyber czar will retire at the end of the month. Schmidt, after just over two years of government service, said he would retire in order to spend more time with his family and to entertain teaching opportunities in the cyber field. Schmidt was at the reins when the White House introduced its international strategy for cyberspace, and also helped create the controversial National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, an initiative that would allow people to obtain a single credential as a one-time password (on a token or mobile device) to do business on the Internet. Schmidt will be replaced by Michael Daniel, currently the head of the White House budget office's intelligence branch."

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  Iran threatens to chuck sueball at Google over missing gulf

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 7:01am CDT

  State unhappy that 'Persian Gulf' name is gone

  Iran's Foreign Ministry has threatened to take legal action against Google because the web firm removed the name Persian Gulf from its Maps and left the stretch of water nameless.…

• 

  Digital Economy: Security fears over personal data undermines ecosystem of new economy claims report

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 7:00am CDT

  Personal data can unlock huge economic value for governments, organizations and individuals, a new report by the World Economic Forum and the Boston Consulting Group has claimed.   However, Rethinking Personal Data: Strengthening Trust, argues that lack of confidence in personal data security is undermining the digital economy.

• 

  Web2forDev: Web 2.0 for Development Gateway

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 6:57am CDT by dtiskir99

  Web2forDev: Web 2.0 for Development Gateway

• 

  UK Health: 92% patients are being seen in the NHS within the stipulated 18 weeks new figures show

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 6:41am CDT

  The NHS has been meeting the new standard that 92 percent of patients are waiting no longer than 18 weeks before starting treatment ahead of time, according to figures published by the Department of Health yesterday.

• 

  Technical Briefing: Is the Cloud safe?

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 6:39am CDT by Gary Flood

  Enclosure: [download]

  Kate Craig-Wood of Cloud firm Memset addresse the key question: Is the Cloud safe?   In a way, the answer's simple. In the case of Cloud computing there are some additional questions to be asked but there's nothing really outside the remit of normal IT operations.   Thus, have you got satisfactory answers to these questions:   1) Will the data remain within the EU (for data protection)? 2) Who in the supplier organisation has access to my data and what control are placed upon them?

  read more

  

• 

  EU Debt Crisis: Spain’s bank crisis deepens with Moody’s downgrading

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 6:21am CDT

  Some 16 Spanish banks were downgraded by Moody’s Investors Service yesterday including Santander, the eurozone’s largest bank.

• 

  Private schools already seeing code as 'the new Latin'?

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 6:19am CDT by Gary Flood

  Enclosure: [download]

  Proposals to change the way ICT taught in schools have the most support... from educationalists probably least impacted by them; the private sector.   A survey out of the British Educational Suppliers Association, found that 62% of independent schools were broadly supportive of government IT policy, compared to just 26% of state schools.

  read more

  

• 

  Shoreditch's sparkle smokescreen leaves BBC journo 'tech-struck'

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 6:14am CDT

  Why is Auntie (literally, this time) in bed with Google?

  Analysis “I haven’t felt so good having spoken to a businessman for ten minutes in about 25 years. That’s not normally how I feel! So thanks very much!” And thanks to you, BBC presenter Fi Glover, for sharing the feel-good factor with us.…

  

• 

  New online support service for parents launched

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 5:54am CDT by Gary Flood

  Enclosure: [download]

  Number 10’s plans for support for better parenting, which include a significant online element have sparked some concerns about it being all a bit “nanny state”.   Specifically, the Prime Minister’s announced

  • a brand new digital service for parents-to-be and new parents, providing regular emails and texts with timely information as their pregnancy develops and their child grows
  • free parent
    

    read more

    

• 

  IPhone Investigation: An Undercover Documentary From Syria Made Using Phones | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 5:47am CDT by karlijnmuller

  IPhone Investigation: An Undercover Documentary From Syria Made Using Phones | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation

• 

  'Facebook ads are very boring and not very imaginative'

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 5:46am CDT

  Plus: 'IT boys, hiss it through your teeth – Shut up, bitch!'

  Quotw This was the week when investor interest hit ever higher feverish pitches as (not sure if you heard about this or not) Facebook prepares to go public.…

• 

  Viewpoint: Shared systems – the key to shared services success?

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 5:22am CDT by Gary Flood

  Enclosure: [download]

  For Dean Dickinson of Advanced Business Solutions, sharing IT is the foundation for success when it comes to shared services   Operating disparate finance, human resources, payroll and customer services systems in a shared environment, cannot effectively support the delivery of quality public services.

  read more

  

• 

  EU Commission; Overcoming Europe's sovereign debt crisis – the road to stability and growth

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 5:21am CDT

  Olli Rehn, Vice-President of the European Commission and Member responsible for Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Euro, speaks on Overcoming Europe's sovereign debt crisis.

• 

  Ireland Health: HIQA report reveals massive deficiencies in major hospitals

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 5:16am CDT

  A Heath watchdog has found that Tallaght Hospital in Ireland has shown shocking deficiencies in the way that it has been providing emergency care. Its study also found that most hospitals are failing to hit emergency room waiting time targets.

• 

  UK Localism: Sharing of business rates with councils will add £10 Billion to the economy claims Pickles

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 4:45am CDT

  The coalition government’s decision to allow English local councils retain 50% of their business rates would facilitate local economic growth and add £10 billion to the national GDP over the next seven years, the Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has claimed.

• 

  Best Practice: 3 ways print management can help your carbon footprint

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 4:25am CDT by Rachel Fielding

  Enclosure: [download]

  A Berkshire secondary school has transformed its print and copy facilities into what it describes as “highly efficient learning tools” while also slashing its print costs and reducing its carbon footprint.

  read more

  

• 

  UK Business: Comms industry employers anxious about hiring women of child-bearing age

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 4:02am CDT

  Nearly 10% of employers in the PR and communications industry have serious reservations about hiring women aged between 30-40 years old fearing they will, at some point, fall pregnant.

• 

  The race against technology will never cease

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 3:21am CDT

  There is incongruence between technology, which by its nature is changeable, dynamic and agile; and the law, which strives for certainty, stability and due process.

• 

  Early political spats suggest nothing off-limits - The Herald | HeraldOnline.com

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 3:03am CDT

  The Herald | HeraldOnline.com

  Early political spats suggest nothing off-limits The Herald | HeraldOnline.com That's thanks to a flood of new money into politics, the ease of spreading political attacks via the Internet and changing attitudes about what's an appropriate topic for discussion. Long gone are the days when candidates' extramarital escapades were ... and more »

• 

  Early political spats suggest nothing off-limits - WSET

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 2:56am CDT

  Early political spats suggest nothing off-limits WSET Jurors are set to begin deliberating the fate of John Edwards on Friday, weighing nearly four weeks of testimony and evidence from the former presidential candidate's corruption trial. Jurors were set to begin deliberating the fate of John Edwards on ... and more »

• 

  Accelerating Development Using the Web Empowering Poor and Marginalized Populations - Web Foundation

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 2:53am CDT by mamarais

  Accelerating Development Using the Web Empowering Poor and Marginalized Populations - Web Foundation

• 

  Smart Rickshaw Network: winner of world bank competition

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 2:41am CDT by emily

  

  India’s Aadhar Bhalinge is the winner of m2Work, a World Bank-sponsored online challenge seeking the best ideas for spurring the job-creation potential of mobile phones.

  The competition organized by Nokia and infoDev, a World Bank innovation and technology entrepreneurship program, drew a total of 939 ideas, 96% of which came from developing and emerging economies.

  Bhalinge convinced the high-level jury of World Bank, Nokia, UKaid, and other private sector representatives of the development impact, novelty, and feasibility of his “Smart Rickshaw Network” to take home the US$ 20,000 grand prize. His tool would crowdsource maps at a very low cost in developing nations by employing fleets of rickshaw drivers to feed live traffic updates into a subscription service.

  [via WorldBank press release. More here.]

  

• 

  What Social Media Ad Agencies Say About Facebook

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 2:20am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  By Sarah Frier

  When General Motors Co., the third-largest advertiser in the U.S., said it would pull ads from Facebook, it sparked a discussion about the effectiveness of marketing and advertising on social media sites. Here is what a handful of companies that manage brands on social media had to say:

  Effectiveness Is Measured Differently

  Adaptly, which handles social ads for PepsiCo Inc. and Kraft Foods Inc., said the ads and brand pages are for developing relationships and a network, which means that companies can’t measure them alongside the clicks and views they get on other sites.

  “Technically the ads are ineffective if you represent effectiveness in a traditional way,” said Nikhil Sethi, the chief executive officer of the New York-based company. “The whole notion of display advertising is real estate. Buy space on my website where people see it. And now there’s this whole model where the content has to be interesting in order for people to see it.”

  Challenge of Reaching Fans

  22Squared, which works with Baskin-Robbins ice cream and Florida’s Natural orange juice, said companies are having a harder time accessing the users who say they’re fans on a brand page. Since Facebook adjusted its algorithm to give users more relevant stories, only about 16 percent of a fan base sees the content unless companies pay to get in front of more of them or post content that will go viral, the agency said.

  “It’s a little bit frustrating, knowing that in order to reach the goals that we used to get naturally, it’s much more costly,” said Chris Tuff, head of earned and emerging media for the Atlanta-based company. Still, “clients have been looking to increase their spend.”

  What’s the Objective?

  AdParlor, a social ad buyer based in Toronto, said it’s more labor-intensive than traditional online display advertising for companies to get their money’s worth.

  “It is not easy for a brand to get Facebook advertising to work,” Chief Executive Officer Hussein Fazal said. “It’s not just about plastering the site with ads. Facebook advertising can only be effective if you have specific end goal in mind. Do they want to drive users to local dealerships? Or are they just trying to get people to ‘Like’ their brand page? There are different strategies for each.”

  Adam Isserlis, a spokesman for Facebook, declined to comment ahead of the company’s IPO.

  http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-deals/2012-05-17-what-social-media-ad-agencies-say-about-facebook/
• 

  Facebook frenzy: Social network launches on stock market today valued at $104 BILLION

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 2:15am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  PA

  Facebook shares will be available to trade on the stock market for $38 each today - valuing the social network at an whopping $104 BILLION.

  In one of the biggest ever US stock flotations, the company will launch on the Nasdaq Stock Market today with the share price is expected to rocket on the first day.

  Ahead of the public offering, insiders and early investors snapped up hundreds of millions of shares in the company.

  It was expected share prices would be between 34 and 38 US dollars, meaning demand from investors has been high.

  Those investors, such as U2 frontman Bono, stand to make huge sums when Facebook, founded in a Harvard dorm room just eight years ago, floats.

  In fact, music magazine NME predicts the investment will make the singer the richest rock star on the planet.

  Eight years after the concept of Facebook was dreamed up, Mark Zuckerberg has become one of the richest people in the US, with 55.8% voting control in the company.

  The site's revenue last year was 3.7 billion dollars, up from 153 million in 2007, with the majority earned through advertising.

  Predictions on how much the stock will rise on the first day of trading vary greatly.

  Shares of professional networking company LinkedIn Corp's doubled on their first day of trading.

  But despite the Facebook hype, scepticism remains in some quarters and there are murmurings that the stock is overvalued

  In a recent Bloomberg survey of 1,250 global investors, analysts and traders, 79% said Facebook's valuation was not justified, with only 7% deeming the valuation fair.

  Facebook's mobile phone platform is thought to need improvement, while its effectiveness as an advertising space has also been debated.

  These doubts were brought into sharp focus on Tuesday when General Motors, the US's largest car manufacturer, said it would stop advertising on the site.

  Facebook has more than 900 million users who log in at least once a month, but it makes only a few dollars per year from each one, chiefly through advertising.

   

  Got the t-shirt: Mark Zuckerberg addresses businessmen in Cannes Getty  

  Richard Hunter, head of equities at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers, noted that in addition to concerns about the valuation and the challenge Facebook faced on the mobile front, worries had also been expressed about corporate governance at the company - especially the power still resting with the founder.

  It needed to diversify and reduce its "almost pure reliance" on advertising income, and was exposed to changing social trends, he pointed out.

  He said: "Around a half of Facebook users access the site from their mobile phones.

  "Converting this traffic into income is perhaps one of the company's largest, and currently perplexing, challenges.

  "Facebook was not conceived in the smartphone era and therefore did not have it in mind as a platform.

  "It has catching up to do and, if possible, without cannibalising its own current income from the PC space."

  Meanwhile the company's global reach was "massive and growing" and it was already attempting to deal with the major risks and challenges it faces, he said.

  "There are extremely high expectations for the company's prospects and perhaps on that basis it deserves the punchy valuation it has been given," he added.

  Social media experts were also bullish.

  Ivor Kellock, a social media and digital marketing specialist, said: "Facebook is the dominant force in the western world and social networking is still in its infancy.

  "That's not to say there won't be more competition and it won't get more difficult for them but I don't think they're overvalued.

  "The only caveat is it depends what other new, innovative ideas come up that knock Facebook for six."

  Social gaming on Facebook was a big money-spinner and there was also potential for further exploitation of data on users to enable more targeted advertising, he added.

  Social media strategist Tiffany St James, founder of digital company Stimulation Ltd, agreed the site had the potential to expand its offerings still further.

  "Before, it was all about connecting with family and friends but now you can go on there for all your entertainment," she said.

  "It's not necessarily just the advertising that makes money, but the fact that people can build applications."

  Facebook is the latest in a series of online firms to sell shares to the public in recent months, following online voucher firm Groupon in November and online games maker Zynga in December.

  Key facts and figures

  :: 901 million monthly active users at the end of March 2012. Approximately 80% are outside the US and Canada.

  :: 526 million daily active users on average in March 2012.

  :: 488 million monthly active users used Facebook mobile products in March 2012, and more than 500 million mobile monthly active users as of April 20, 2012.

  :: During March 2012, 398 million users were active with Facebook on at least six out of seven days.

  :: More than 125 billion friend connections on Facebook at the end of March 2012.

  :: On average more than 300 million photos uploaded to Facebook per day in the three months ended March 31, 2012.

  :: An average of 3.2 billion Likes and Comments generated by Facebook users per day during the first quarter of 2012.

  :: Facebook is available in more than 70 languages.

  http://www.mirror.co.uk/money/city-news/facebook-launches-on-stock-market-today-838255

• 

  Syrian revolt running out of political slogans - Middle East Online

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 2:11am CDT

  Middle East Online

  Syrian revolt running out of political slogans Middle East Online Activists have been organising online polls on "The Syrian Revolution 2011" Facebook page since the beginning of the uprisings in March last year to pick slogans for demonstrations that usually take place after Friday prayers. But slogans like "victory ... and more »

• 

  Chinese 3G users top 150 million but most still on 2G

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 2:07am CDT by emily

  China now boasts over one billion mobile phone users, and just 370m mobile internet users, highlighting the vast number that are still on 2G or basic, non-internet connected devices.

  [via The Register]

  

• 

  UK Government Staff Caught Snooping On Citizen Data

  Posted: May 18th, 2012, 2:05am CDT by samzenpus

  An anonymous reader writes "More than 1,000 UK government staff have been caught snooping on citizen data — including criminal records, social security, and medical records. From the article: 'The U.K. government is haemorrhaging data — private and confidential citizen data — from medical records to social security details, and even criminal records, according to figures obtained through Freedom of Information requests. Just shy of 1,000 civil servants working at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), were disciplined for accessing personal social security records. The Department for Health (DoH), which operates the U.K.’s National Health Service and more importantly all U.K. medical records, saw more than 150 breaches occur over a 13-month period.'"

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• May 17, 2012
• 

  Panel: States approval of Internet gambling likely - BusinessWeek

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 11:43pm CDT

  Panel: States approval of Internet gambling likely BusinessWeek Speaking at the East Coast Gaming Congress, casino and political leaders predicted online gambling will become a reality on a state-by-state basis. New Jersey hopes to become the "Silicon Valley of Internet gambling," and its legislature is working on ... and more »

• 

  Judges' financial data to be posted online - San Jose Mercury News

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 11:24pm CDT

  Judges' financial data to be posted online San Jose Mercury News In a unanimous decision, the state's Fair Political Practices Commission on Thursday approved a rule that requires California's more than 1700 judges to post their disclosure forms on the Internet, despite objections from judicial leaders that it could ... FPPC: No filing exemption for California judgesSacramento Bee all 30 news articles »

• 

  Sparked.com

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 11:23pm CDT by jinnytrina

  Sparked.com

• 

  E-DEMOCRACY | Dayton's Bluff community housing forum on June 5 - Twin Cities Planet

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 10:30pm CDT

  E-DEMOCRACY | Dayton's Bluff community housing forum on June 5 Twin Cities Planet By Sherry Johnson, E-Democracy issues forums Hey, all! We're looking for anyone on this list who is passionate about quality housing and community stabilization in Dayton's Bluff. Dayton's Bluff Community Council has an upcoming forum that invites us ...

• 

  Don’t let this sticky wicket overshadow Internet freedom

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 8:29pm CDT by rbowe

  Civil Society Seeks Access to Planning Documents for Secret Negotiations Around Internet Regulation

  An upcoming treaty renegotiation process could prove to have dire implications for digital civil rights. As we have explained, the World Conference on International Telecommunications – "WCIT" for short, pronounced “wicket” by insiders – will be held in Dubai this coming December, and preparations for this important treaty-writing conference are in full swing. The forum is being organized by a secretive United Nations agency called the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

  The fear that’s been bouncing around the blogosphere amid civil society organizations this week is that the WCIT could be used to push through expansion of the ITU’s mandate beyond telecommunications, to encompass the Internet. 

  This does not bode well for the future of the Internet.

  At the WCIT, member states will hash out revisions to a set of regulations that make up a treaty called the International Telecommunication Regulations, or ITRs. Some proposed revisions to the ITRs have already been made, but they haven’t been made public. This renegotiation process could prove to have a serious impact on online civil liberties – yet the talks are being held in secret, without adequate input from the organizations that represent the public interest.

  If negotiations continue down this path, we could end up with a treaty that allows for greater governmental control over the Internet.  

  That’s why EFF and 30+ civil society organizations issued a letter May 17 demanding that the ITU ends its secrecy. We are calling for the immediate release of all the documents describing preparations for WCIT and proposed ITR revisions. Since it’s prohibitively expensive to obtain the planning documents that are being drafted in advance of the WCIT, it’s impossible for most public interest participants to review them and weigh in with informed opinions.

  Joe McNamee, Advocacy Coordinator, European Digital Rights (EDRi), a coalition of 32 privacy and civil rights organisations based in Europe, told EFF:

  Beyond the creaking bureaucracy, the undemocratic procedures and the fact that the ITU effectively sells access to decision-makers through exorbitant corporate membership fees, the single biggest practical problem with the ITU is that it moves extremely slowly and cannot readily remedy any mistakes that it makes. Any damaging policy adopted under this process burden global freedom of communications for years to come.

  Jérémie Zimmermann, co-founder and spokesperson of citizen advocacy group La Quadrature du Net, told EFF:
  

  “This trend by governments to increasingly use trade agreements and treaties to try to control a free, open and universal Internet is alarming. Citizens must take action and expose their governments' roles in these negotiations, in order to protect the networked public sphere that we all share as a common good.”

  The secrecy surrounding these talks brings to mind the closed-door negotiations that civil society has condemned throughout negotiations of ACTA and the TPP, as Milton Mueller of the Internet Governance Project pointed out in a recent blog. Mueller noted that ACTA was negotiated in secret to appease the copyright and intellectual property lobbies, but this tactic ultimately backfired because “the closed process … gave the resulting treaty a lack of legitimacy,” triggering organized opposition.

  It’s time for ITU to respect the multi-stakeholder process and let the sun shine in. All restrictions on sharing the preparatory materials and proposed ITR amendments should be lifted, and the documents should be released and subjected to public scrutiny.

  We demand transparency, and call upon the ITU to open the process and disclose the WCIT preparatory documents and treaty proposals.  The public should not be kept in the dark.

  Letter from Civil Society

  Civil society organizations and academics are invited to join this call to address deficiencies in the WCIT process. For more information, contact signon@cdt.org.

  17 May 2012

  To Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Touré, the Council Working Group to Prepare for the WCIT-12, and ITU Member States:

  The undersigned human rights advocates, academics, freedom of expression groups, and civil society organizations write to express our desire to participate in the preparatory process undertaken for the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT).  The current preparatory process lacks the transparency, openness of process, and inclusiveness of all relevant stakeholders that are imperative under commitments made at the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS).  We ask that the Secretary-General, the Council Working Group, and Member States work to resolve these process deficiencies in several concrete ways.  

  The continued success of the information society depends on the full, equal, and meaningful participation of civil society stakeholders (along side the private sector, the academic and technical community, and governments) in the management of information and communications technology, including both technical and public policy issues.  Indeed, WSIS outcome documents recognize the need for a multi-stakeholder approach in technical management and policy decision-making for ICTs.   The Tunis Agenda for the Information Society urges international organizations “to ensure that all stakeholders, particularly from developing countries, have the opportunity to participate in policy decision-making … and to promote and facilitate such participation.”   And such participation depends on transparency and openness of process at every stage of substantive and procedural dialogue.  

  Yet there has been scant participation by civil society in the Council Working Group’s preparatory process for the WCIT so far, even as media reports indicate that some Member States have proposed amending the International Telecommunication Regulations to address issues that could impact the exercise of human rights in the digital age, including freedom of expression, access to information, and privacy rights.  Under the current process, civil society participation is severely limited by restrictions on sharing of preparatory documents, high barriers for ITU membership (including cost), and lack of mechanisms for remote participation in preparatory meetings.  

  As an important step towards fulfilling WSIS commitments for building a more inclusive information society, the undersigned request that the Secretary-General, the Council Working Group, and Member States:

  • Remove restrictions on the sharing of WCIT documents and release all preparatory materials, including the Council Working Group’s final report, consolidated reports from all preparatory activity, and proposed revisions to the International Telecommunication Regulations; 
  • Open the preparatory process to meaningful participation by civil society in its own right and without cost at Council Working Group meetings and the WCIT itself, providing formal speaking opportunities and according civil society views an equal weight as those of other stakeholders.  Facilitate remote participation to the extent possible; and
  • For Member States, open public processes at the national level to solicit input on proposed amendments to the International Telecommunication Regulations from all relevant stakeholders, including civil society, and release individual proposals for public debate.  

  We welcome Secretary-General Touré’s commitment to creating a more inclusive information society and ensuring equitable access to ICT around the world.  Collectively and individually, the undersigned human rights advocates, academics, freedom of expression groups, and civil society organizations work to fulfill this vision through a range of national and global institutions and we call for the same opportunity to engage at the WCIT, consistent with WSIS commitments.  We urge you to ensure the outcomes of the WCIT and its preparatory process truly represent the common interests of all who have a stake in the future of our information society.  

  Sincerely,

  Access Article 19 Association for Progressive Communications (APC) Eduardo Bertoni, Centro de Estudios en Libertad de Expresión y Acceso a la  Información (CELE), Universidad de Palermo, Argentina Bytes for All, Pakistan Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) Center for Democracy & Technology Center for Technology and Society (CTS/FGV), Brazil Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), India Consumers International Digitale Gesellschaft e.V. Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights Electronic Frontier Foundation European Digital Rights Freedom House Global Partners & Associates Global Voices Advocacy Human Rights in China Human Rights Watch Internet Democracy Project, India Internet Governance Project (IGP) Kictanet, Kenya Rebecca MacKinnon MobileActive Corp New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute ONG Derechos Digitales, Chile Open Rights Group Panoptykon Foundation, Poland Public Knowledge Reporters sans frontières / Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Committee   (LIST IN FORMATION)

  
  

  Related Issues: International

• 

  US Justice Dept Defends Right To Record Police

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 7:09pm CDT by samzenpus

  Fluffeh writes "In recent times, it seems many Police Departments believe that recording them doing their work is an act of war with police officers, destroying the tapes, phones or cameras while arresting the folks doing it. But in a surprising twist, the U.S. Justice Department has sent letter (PDF) to attorneys for the Baltimore Police Department — who have been quite heavy handed in enforcing their 'Don't record me bro!' mantra. The letter contains an awful lot of lawyer babble and lists many court cases and the like, although some sections are surprisingly clear: 'Policies should prohibit officers from destroying recording devices or cameras and deleting recordings or photographs under any circumstances. In addition to violating the First Amendment, police officers violate the core requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process clause when they irrevocably deprived individuals of their recordings without first providing notice and an opportunity to object.' There is a lot more and it certainly seems like a firm foothold in the right direction."

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  How to set up a text-to-donate program for your nonprofit

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 6:50pm CDT by yamdivad13

  How to set up a text-to-donate program for your nonprofit

• 

  US Eases Myanmar Financial Sanctions - Wall Street Journal

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 6:38pm CDT

  US Eases Myanmar Financial Sanctions Wall Street Journal By JAY SOLOMON WASHINGTON—The Obama administration eased financial sanctions on Myanmar and nominated a new ambassador as part of Washington's latest effort to bolster political and economic reforms in the Southeast Asian nation. and more »

• 

  Anonymous Targets Indian Govt Websites Over Censorship

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 6:07pm CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  By Chloe Albanesius

  Anonymous has gone after and taken down Indian government websites over the country's Internet censorship plan, which has resulted in the blocking of websites like The Pirate Bay and Vimeo.

  "Namaste #India, your time has come to trash the current government and install a new one. Good luck," the @Anon_Central Twitter feed tweeted earlier today.

  Hackers have since targeted the websites of the Indian Supreme Court, the All India Congress Committee, Copyrightlabs.in, the country's Department of Telecommunications, the Ministry of Information Technology, and the Jammu & Kashmir Police, according to @Anon_Central.

  Anonymous is tagging its Twitter posts with calls to end censorship and save The Pirate Bay.

  As the Electronic Frontier Foundation noted in February, "India has been known to censor online content, typically under the guise of national security or obscenity." That same month, Google and Facebook were required to remove from their websites content the Indian government had deemed offensive. They were among 21 companies forced to take down photographs, videos, text, and other items officials consider anti-religious or anti-social.

  The Anonymous attacks started amidst reports that Internet crackdowns were blocking sites like The Pirate Bay, Vimeo, Daily Motion, and Pastebin in India.

  Leading the charge is @opindia_revenge, under the #OpIndia tag on Twitter. The feed encouraged Web users to "use tor or VPNs to access torrent sites. #DEFY #government. Tell them they cannot stop you."

  The @opindia_revenge feed promised continued attacks. "#India its a DDOS attack. We do not assure for how long we can keep down sites. But we are firing at them. They will face lags," it said earlier in the day.

  The move comes after The Pirate Bay was hit with a DDoS. It has not been revealed who carried out the attack, but The Pirate Bay said it was not Anonymous.

  Wikileaks.org has also been under attack for several days.

  [www.pcmag.com]

• 

  Vermont Bans Fracking

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 5:35pm CDT by samzenpus

  eldavojohn writes "Vermont is the first state to ban fracking (hydraulic fracturing), a process that was to revolutionize the United States' position into a major producer of natural gas. New York currently has a moratorium on fracking but it is not yet a statewide ban. Video of the signing indicates the concern over drinking water as the motivation for Vermont's measures (PDF draft of legislation). Slashdot has frequently encountered news debating the safety of such practices."

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  Armenia: Homophobic Firebombing Controversy Continues as Officials, MPs Promote Hate Crime

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 5:29pm CDT by Onnik Krikorian

  Controversy continues to surround the 8 May firebombing of D.I.Y., a gay friendly bar in Yerevan. At the beginning of the week, two MPs of the nationalist-leaning Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) not only surprised many by bailing the two suspected arsonists out of jail, but also by justifying the attack in what some consider to be little more than incitement to further violence against members of Armenia's LGBT community.

  The move has been criticized widely, and not least among other members of the ARF-D, most notably in or countries outside Armenia, who believe the MPs contradict the socialist nature of the party. Some ARF-D supporters on Facebook, for example, even created and changed their profile pictures in support of those targeted.

  

  Another voiced their opinion as a Facebook status update.

  […] the statements made by our Parliament member are unfortunate, and the acts of those two idiots are deplorable. […] I hope [the MP] will be removed from the party, simply because he clearly does not uphold the values of the ARF and therefore should not represent us in a position that should be held for our highest standard of leaders.

  

  http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/05/16/armenia-concerns-and-fears-after-nationalist-firebombers-released/

  Several articles and editorials in Armenian-American newspapers affiliated with the ARF-D agreed. Unzipped: Gay Armenia, for example, re-posts a comment left under one such opinion piece criticizing the actions of the two ARF-D MPs.

  There are won’t be any marches in Yerevan. No candle lights, no straight folks walking hand in hand with gays or bi’s in the streets of Yerevan claiming the governments disapproval of such hate crime.

  What are they waiting for? Do they need some dead bodies? A sensational crime scene decorated by bloodshed … what the hell the Armenian people are waiting for? Go out! Shout out, people! Say “we don’t want bigotery in this country! We had enough of it!

  What? This issue doesn’t concern you? What if you will be the next target and nobody will come out to stand up for you?

  Think about it!

  Even so, in its latest post, Unzipped: Gay Armenia comments on a video interview with two self-proclaimed fascists who say it was the ARF-D's own television channel that encouraged them to target sexual minorities in the country.

  In an interview with ARF Dashnaktsutyun affiliated Yerkir Media TV station, these underage “fascists” mentioned that they started targeting DIY after the report by Yerkir Media on DIY owner Tsomak participation in Istanbul Gay Pride. Interestingly, Yerkir Media didn't air this interview tonight.

  Nevertheless, while one small opposition party leader has come out in support of D.I.Y., senior government officials have now shocked liberal Armenians by also speaking out in support of those responsible for the firebombing.

  @unzippedblog: Exposed: Chief of staff of Public Council of #Armenia supports neo-nazi firebombers http://goo.gl/HbbYr #neonazi #hatecrime #scandal

  @unzippedblog: Disgusting! #Armenia ruling Republican party spokesman MP explicitly supports anti #gay #neonazi firebombers

  @HimaKaren: The spokesman of the rulling regime of #Armenia and the vice-speaker of the parliament Eduard Sharmazanov has spreaded a statement encouraging the individuals who has attacked the gay friendly DIY club, and blaming the people who condemn the #homophobic attacks. This means that the current regime is officially encouraging and supports the homophobic attacks and Armenia in-spite of the official #humanrights conventions it has sign[ed]

  Indeed, reports Unzipped: Gay Armenia, one government official even set up a homophobic Facebook page, now deleted, praising the arsonists.

  Hakob Barkhudaryan, chief of staff of Public Council of Republic of Armenia, a consultative body at Armenia president, created a Facebook page in praise of neo-nazi attackers on DIY bar: “In support of firebombers of DIY club”, calling for attackers to be freed of persecution.

  […]

  This is truly Scandal of the Day. We all know that this council is pretty much a formality, and there are quite a few openly homophobic members there. But support for terrorists? Unbelievable.

  What is the position of the president of Public Council re this matter? What is the position of Armenia president?

  We need urgent answers as the consequences of this could be enormously damaging for the reputation of Armenia, suggesting support for neo-nazi and firebombers in the very heart of state structures.

  

  Meanwhile, Le Retour in 3 Parts says that officials should instead be condemning the attack and not supporting it.

  If there was ever a time for state officials and public figures to speak out, it is now. And again, I say, you may consider us mentally ill (despite the fact that homosexuality is no longer considered a mental disorder […]), you may despise us, you may wish we never existed, but you must stand up and condemn such acts. I believe the authorities are obliged to respond — not by creating a page on Facebook praising the neo-nazi attackers on DIY bar, as one state official did, but by publicly stating that it is acceptable neither to take the law into your hands nor to terrorize, intimidate, vilify or otherwise harass another person or group for ANY reason. Period.

  Nevertheless, while some officials and politicians condone the attack, a discussion about the rights of the LGBT community in Armenia has at least started. And with the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) this week ranking Armenia as one of the most homophobic countries in Europe, that discussion is needed more than ever.

  Written by Onnik Krikorian · comments (2)
  Share: Donate · facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

• 

  The NHS is only part of CSC's problems, says new boss

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 5:02pm CDT by Stuart Lauchlan

  Enclosure: [download]

  Sometimes you just have to take it on the chin – and that seems to be what new CSC boss Mike Lawrie is doing when he declares: “Our results are very poor, and they are unacceptable to us at CSC.”

  He's not wrong. CSC just reported a net loss of $158 million for its latest quarter and a loss of $4.2 billion for the full year. Full year revenues were also down to $15.88 billion from $16.04 billion last year. 

  read more

  

• 

  Tenenbaum To SCOTUS: Let's Get This Debate Rolling

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 4:52pm CDT by timothy

  NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Joel Tenenbaum has filed a reply brief in support of his petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, trying to get the Court to take on the thorny issue of copyright statutory damages in the age of mp3 files and micropayments."

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  'Americans Elect' Ends Online Primary After No Candidates Qualify To Run - ABC News (blog)

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 4:46pm CDT

  U.S. News & World Report

  'Americans Elect' Ends Online Primary After No Candidates Qualify To Run ABC News (blog) Americans Elect, the group that aimed to nominate a third presidential candidate through an online primary, ended its nomination process today after no prospective candidates met their minimum requirements. To run in its online primary a candidate had ... First Online Presidential Primary Fails to Find CandidateMashable Americans Elect Shows How Third-Party Campaigns Have Hit a CeilingU.S. News & World Report Americans Elect calls it quitsWashington Post (blog) Opposing Views -Florida Times-Union all 116 news articles »

• 

  With New Privacy Policy, Twitter Commits to Respecting Do Not Track

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 3:56pm CDT by rainey

  Under a new policy announced today, Twitter will be suggesting accounts for Twitter users to follow based on data collected from an individual’s browsing habits on websites that have embedded Twitter buttons. While this is sure to garner scrutiny from the press and public, Twitter is also taking a pioneering step toward respecting users’ privacy choices: it has committed to respecting Do Not Track -- a simple browser setting users can turn on to tell website they don’t want to be tracked. Often framed as a signal from users to behavioral advertisers, Do Not Track isn’t actually about ads we see online; it’s about user control over tracking of our web usage that could be used to build an intimate portrait of our online lives. Twitter is showing an inventive way that websites other than behavioral advertisers can respect Do Not Track. We’re heartened to see this forward-thinking approach and hope other sites with embedded widgets will follow suit.

  If you haven’t done so already, this is a great reminder to turn on Do Not Track; Twitter has a tutorial for doing this on different browsers.

  Here’s how the suggested accounts will work under the new Twitter privacy policy: when you browse around the Internet to pages with embedded Twitter share buttons1, Twitter is able to collect a certain amount of information about you through a unique browser cookie. Then when you sign up for or log into Twitter, the site will be able to suggest that you follow the accounts of individuals who are popular among others who visited the same sites as you. Twitter calls this “tailoring” your Twitter experience based on your web browsing.

  For example, many of those who visit BoingBoing.net likely follow the account of @doctorow, the digital-rights-loving BoingBoing founder Cory Doctorow. If you sign up for Twitter and you’ve got a browser cookie from Twitter showing that you recently visited BoingBoing, you might see @doctorow listed as a suggested user even before you’ve started interacting with Twitter. Twitter will be relying on data collected about your browsing habits within the last 10 days (after 10 days, they start discarding data). When you start a Twitter account, you’ll have the option to turn off the tailored suggestions. Unchecking this box won’t just stop the suggestions from appearing – it’ll actually remove the unique cookie that Twitter uses to track your browsing habits and show you tailored user suggestions.2

  

  Established Twitter users may find suggested users under the "Who To Follow" sections of Home and Discover. Just like with new users, established users can uncheck the “tailor” Twitter box in their account settings to stop the data collection about their web browsing.

  Do Not Track makes this a lot simpler – no messing with account settings or unchecking any boxes to keep your privacy. If you’ve got Do Not Track selected in your browser settings, then Twitter assumes you just don’t want them collecting details of your online browsing habits in an identifiable way. Users who have turned on Do Not Track will find, upon signing up for Twitter, that the “tailor Twitter” button is unchecked by default. Similarly, established users who had Do Not Track already enabled in the days before the new policy took effect will also find the account personalization turned off by default. Users who enable Do Not Track must change their privacy settings if they want the “tailored” Twitter experience.

  

  As with Facebook, Twitter also treats users differently depending on whether or not they are logged out. If you’re a Twitter user wanting to protect your browsing privacy, then remember to log out when you leave the site so that Twitter won't associate your online browsing habits with your Twitter account.

  There’s sure to be a lot of discussion about Twitter’s decision to use data collected through social widgets for increased site personalization. If nothing else, this is a good opportunity for everyone to reconsider the nature of our highly trackable online lives, where corporations we do and don’t have relationships with can vacuum up highly sensitive data about what we do on the web and even a savvy user can’t win the arms race against online tracking. This is exactly the promise of Do Not Track: to make it easy for everyday Internet users to clearly indicate a preference not to be tracked around the web, whether it’s by a social network or an advertiser or another data-hungry corporate entity. 

  We’ve previously examined Facebook’s practices when it comes to collecting browsing data on users and urged it to respect the Do Not Track flag. So, in the wake of Twitter’s decision to respect Do Not Track, we’re calling on other social networking sites to start respecting user choice as well. The time has come for websites to start listening to users when it comes to privacy, and there’s no easier way for a user to tell companies “Don’t track me” than to turn on Do Not Track.

  Get started now by checking out the tutorial Twitter created for turning on Do Not Track.

  • 1. Eff.org has Twitter icons that allow visitors to share content from our site on Twitter but we have chosen not to embed Twitter code on our site, so visiting eff.org will not result in data about your visit going to Twitter.
  • 2. Note: this doesn’t mean Twitter will stop collecting all data on you. They’ll still be able to collect aggregate data about your browsing habits for analytics and security, but they won’t set a cookie and they won’t use data to suggest users to you or tailoring your Twitter experience.

• 

  Met Police set up 16 kiosks in London to extract suspects' mobile phone data

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 3:56pm CDT by emily

  

  UK's Metropolitan Police has implemented a system to extract mobile phone data from suspects held in custody, reports the BBC.

  The data includes call history, texts and contacts, and the BBC has learned that it will be retained regardless of whether any charges are brought.

  The technology is being used in 16 London boroughs, and could potentially be used by police across the UK.

  Campaign group Privacy International described the move as a "possible breach of human rights law".

  Until now, officers had to send mobiles off for forensic examination in order to gather and store data, a process which took several weeks.

  Under the new system, content will be extracted using purpose built terminals in police stations.

  It will allow officers to connect a suspect's mobile and produce a print out of data from the device, as well as saving digital records of the content.

  Read full article.

  Related articles on cell phones and forensics blogged by textually over the years.

  

• 

  Volunteering Kenya | Challenge Africa, Change Through Challenge

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 3:38pm CDT by meaton.2v

  Volunteering Kenya | Challenge Africa, Change Through Challenge

• 

  From MIT Inventor To Tea Party Leader

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 3:36pm CDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "In the midst of Congressional races around the country, one stands out to techies. Thomas Massie, an MIT whiz kid who pioneered touch-based interfaces and founded SensAble Technologies in the 1990s, is the favorite to win the Republican nomination in his Kentucky district next week. SensAble was recently sold on the cheap, but in a new exclusive, Massie explains why he left the haptics firm years ago to lead a simpler life of farming, family, and guns — lots of guns. Along the way he built a solar-powered, off-the-grid house and became a local hero of the Tea Party. Now Massie is leading the charge to get more engineers into politics, and if he wins, he could be a force to be reckoned with in Washington, DC."

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  ow.ly

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:41pm CDT by petecranston

  ow.ly
• 

  ow.ly

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:41pm CDT by petecranston

  ow.ly

• 

  EU research breakthrough will cut 4G / LTE mobile network energy use in half

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:40pm CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  In coming years, internet access will be dominated by wireless devices such as mobile phones and tablets. Today there are 1.2 billion mobile broadband users, and the figure is growing by hundreds of millions each year. Mobile video and other data services consume much more energy than calls and SMS. This creates additional costs for mobile operators – ultimately passed onto consumers – and means the carbon footprint of mobile communications could almost triple from 2007 to 2020, an increase equivalent to the annual carbon emissions of Luxembourg.

  [europa.eu]

• 

  Italian project harnesses e-democracy for education

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:17pm CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  An award-winning project from Italy that makes use of online discussion and debate techniques to teach young people about science is looking for local authority and other partners to develop the concept across Europe.

  "Active Science" was one of three to win a 'European Best Innovations in University Outreach and Public Engagement' award earlier this year from the Oxford Internet Institute. The project links panels of scientific researchers and experts with students and teachers, who can ask questions, share documents including videos and images, and engage in debate with each other.

  Over three years, 4,000 students have debated topics including energy and climate change; pollution; water use; nanoscience and stem cell research. Each year the work builds towards a final discussion in order to reach a common agreement and statement, followed by a formal vote.

  Active Science is run by the Centro Interuniversitario Agorà Scienza, a multidisciplinary collaboration between four universities in the Piedmont region of Italy. So far, it has received 95,000 euros of funding from the provincial council of Turin and the philanthropic Cariplo Foundation to run across five regions of Italy, but Andrea De Bortoli, Scientific Secretary at Agorà Scienza, says the scheme could easily be expanded across Europe, given the right partners.

  "The web platform is ready and is open source, so we just have to find the necessary funds, find international partners and establish a network of schools and panel of researchers in each country", she says.

  The project uses techniques more commonly associated with online politics and democracy in the educational sphere. "The combination of deliberative democracy and the web is a winning one because it allows us to engage a large number of participants at low cost," Bertoli says.

  The process is proven to develop students' ideas, she says: surveys before and after the year-long debate in 2010 on renewable and non-renewable energy found 16.8% of participants had changed their opinion about using these sources of energy in some way; 15.8% reported a changed intensity opinion; and 4% had changed from "uncertain" to "certain" about some view. "The process can move beliefs."

  Ultimately, there are broader social benefits as more people are engaged with debates about major new projects such as the particle physics work at CERN, she says.

  EngageU Awards www.engageawards.org

  http://www.ukauthority.com/Headlines/tabid/36/NewsArticle/tabid/64/Default.aspx?id=3655
• 

  Illegal file-sharing site The Pirate Bay goes offline after it is attacked by mystery hacker

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:16pm CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  By Tom Gardner

  An illegal file-sharing website has been taken off line after a cyber attack by a mystery hacker.

  The Pirate Bay, which enables people to download files, music and films without paying, was suddenly bombarded with internet traffic which overwhelmed its servers.

  The so-called Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack left the site largely inaccessible for the last 24 hours, with only intermittent service in the UK.

  The Pirate Bay took to its Facebook page to confirm the attack, saying that it did not know who was behind it, although it ‘had its suspicions’.

  A number of powerful industries have already called for the site to be blocked, but it is unlikely online anarchic hacking group Anonymous were behind the onslaught.

  ‘There will be further attacks, but what's significant about this whole story is that people think that it is the Anonymous attacking a site which is typically a type of site that they defend,’ said Andre Stewart of Corero Network Security told the BBC.

   

    More...

  • Ever wondered what would happen if those pop-up bollards hit your car? Well, this policeman found out…
  • BREAKING: Robert Kennedy's ex-wife Mary found dead in New York home in apparent suicide
  • Man, 24, bailed after seven years in jail for murder he always denied as judges consider if he is a victim of 'serious miscarriage of justice'

  ‘It could be the record labels, or a government somewhere that has had enough of not being able to catch The Pirate Bay, it could be just one person who had rented some cloud power from Amazon and is sitting in a cafe, and is able to launch an attack.’

  ’If they're losing money and seeing that the government is not being able to stop it, there's a real monetary value reason for them to try and bring it down,’ Mr Stewart added.
  

  In November the British Phonographic Industry, which represents music producer, called for The Pirate Bay to be blocked

  

  Convicted: Peter Sunde, left, and Gottfrid Warg have both been sentenced to jail and a £2.4m fine for running The Pirate Bay

  

  Pirate Bay defendant Fredrik Neij speaking at a demonstration in 2006. He has been sentenced to one year in jail for breaking Sweden'scopyright laws

  The Pirate Bay, launched in 2003 by a group of friends from Sweden, allows users to search for and access copyrighted content including movies, games and TV shows.

  In 2009, the Swedish courts found the site's four founders guilty of helping people circumvent copyright controls.

  The ruling was upheld after an appeal in 2010 but the site continues to function.

  A message on The Pirate Bay's blog said the move was an attempt by the music business to 'squeeze' it out of the market.

  It advised users to 'circumvent the block' and campaign against the move.

  The message said: 'Write to your ISP and tell them to appeal the case. Write to your local MPs and tell them that this is not allowed. Make sure your voice is heard.

  'Remember, we’re all the pirate bay, and we must stand united against the censorship from our opponents.'

  The Pirate Party UK, a spin-off from the political movement started in Sweden that backs copyright reform, said the latest move will 'not put any extra pennies into the pockets of artists'.

  'Unfortunately, the move to order blocking on The Pirate Bay comes as no surprise,' party leader Loz Kaye said.

   

  

  Enemies: The Pirate Bay has seen powerful industries align against it by calling on internet service providers to block the site

  'The truth is that we are on a slippery slope towards internet censorship here in the United Kingdom.'

  The director of Big Brother Watch, Nick Pickles, said web-blocking was 'a crude tool' and would not stop 'determined users'.

  He said: 'The broader consequences risk damaging legitimate businesses and undermining cyber-security while further perpetuating the myth that this is an easy technological solution to a complex problem.

  'Ultimately, the risk is that ISPs will be expected to monitor everything their customers do online to ensure they are not doing something they should not be. Indeed, it is almost inevitable certain groups will call for this when web blocking is exposed as the ineffective and easily-avoided instrument it is.

  'As the calls for greater surveillance of our online activity intensify, the long-term risk is that the state will take on the function of deciding what we are allowed to see online.'

  Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said: 'Blocking The Pirate Bay is pointless and dangerous. It will fuel calls for further, wider and even more drastic calls for internet censorship of many kinds, from pornography to extremism.

  'Internet censorship is growing in scope and becoming easier. Yet it never has the effect desired. It simply turns criminals into heroes.'

  [www.dailymail.co.uk]

• 

  The Pirate Bay Returns, Anonymous Hater Takes Credit For DDoS

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:12pm CDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "After being the victim of a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack by an unknown party, The Pirate Bay has returned. An Anonymous traitor who goes by the name AnonNyre has claimed responsibility for the DDoS attack that kept the site offline for days."

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  TechSoup - The Technology Place for Nonprofits

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:09pm CDT by labrydoors

  TechSoup - The Technology Place for Nonprofits

• 

  Facebook: Can Mark Zuckerberg crack the Chinese market?

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:05pm CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  By Puneet Pal Singh

  The numbers behind Facebook are staggering: more than 900 million users, 300 million photos uploaded everyday, available in more than 70 languages and a valuation of close to $100bn (£60bn).

  Here is one more to add to that list.

  Zero: which is its share of the world's biggest internet market, China.

  It is a statistic that Facebook may struggle to ignore, especially as it will be looking to expand to justify its valuation and China has some 500 million internet users.

  Analysts say the longer Facebook takes to enter China, the harder it will become for the firm to crack the market.

  "The point is that they have already missed out on it," Michael Clendenin of Red Tech Advisors in Beijing tells the BBC.

  "They will be naive to think that just because they are Facebook they will be able to come in and capture the market."

  'Extremely difficult'

  China already has a thriving and fast-growing social networking market and the sector is controlled by domestic players.

  The so-called Great Firewall of China means Facebook cannot be accessed from within the country.

  As a result, and in the absence of Facebook and micro blogging firm Twitter, local players such as Renren and Sina Weibo have been given a head start in the market.

  Renren which is often labelled "China's Facebook" has 154 million users while Sina Weibo, a local equivalent of Twitter, has 300 million, more than twice as many as Twitter.

  And while foreign companies may find it tough to catch up, there is another factor that may make it even more difficult for them to operate in China, and that is censorship.

  Currently, some internet users get around China's firewall by using virtual private networks. However, their numbers are negligible.

  The vast majority access social networking through the Chinese system and that means the companies and administrators need to censor the information that is uploaded.

  They are required by the authorities to block or remove any material that may be considered sensitive.

  Compromise?

  Analysts say that if Facebook wants China to allow access to its website it will have to abide by these censorship rules, something the US firm is wary of doing.

  "It is impossible to say that they will compromise on these issues. It will be a significant sacrifice they will be making," says Mr Clendenin.

  The success of local portals has seen China become one of the fastest-growing social networking markets

  "Even their users outside China may find it odious that they made these compromises just to get into the market.

  "They don't have any way to predict how that compromise may impact them down the road and irreparably damage their reputation."

  So is there a way for the Mark Zuckerberg-led firm to enter China?

  Some analysts say the way out may be for Facebook to launch a service specifically designed for China.

  "China is so big that it justifies having something different," Duncan Clark of consultancy firm BDA tells the BBC.

  "Being successful in China means, tailoring your product to fit the Chinese market and having decision making capabilities in China."

  The other option is for Facebook to join hands with a local partner and let them deal with the government authorities while it runs the overall operations.

  Political battles

  However, analysts say that in both the above cases it will still have to still follow the censorship rules, a move that may see the firm lose its appeal to consumers.

  Bill Bishop DigiCha

  "The real question is what would they be in China," says Jon Russell of The Next Web.

  "If they launched a dedicated service for China, would there be any incentive for local people to join in?"

  The fact that China is set to have a change of political leadership this year is likely to make it more difficult for the likes to Facebook to enter its market.

  Social networking sites played a key role in recent political upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa.

  Analysts say those developments have only made Beijing's resolve stronger to tighten the noose around such websites.

  They explain that the new leaders will like to stamp their authority and show that they mean business by ensuring that censorship guidelines are strictly followed.

  "It is highly unlikely that China will unblock Facebook anytime soon, given that the country is going through a leadership change and some politically sensitive times," says Mr Clark of BDA.

  Life without China?

  Some analysts say that given the situation in China and the fact that local players have already captured such a big share of the market, Facebook should channel its resources elsewhere.

  "I think they are better off investing their time in improving their mobile offering," says The Next Web's Mr Russell.

  The company has already listed the sector as a risk to its future growth saying that it does "not currently directly generate meaningful revenue" from its mobile products.

  And with more and more people accessing the site through smart phones, it is an area of concern.

  Analysts say Facebook may find it easier to increase its revenues from mobile subscribers, than to enter and be successful in the Chinese market.

  They say that a substantial jump in mobile revenue will also help it offset any lost opportunities in China.

  However, while Facebook may be able to financially make up for its lack of presence in China, its vision may remain unrealised.

  "Mark Zuckerberg wants to connect the world - that is his vision - if Facebook hasn't got China, he hasn't connected the world," says Beijing-based Bill Bishop of DigiCha.

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18082900

• 

  Senators To Unveil the 'Ex-Patriot Act' To Respond To Facebook's Saverin

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 1:27pm CDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has a status update for Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin: Stop attempting to dodge your taxes by renouncing your U.S. citizenship or never come to back to the U.S. again." See this earlier story on Saverin's plan to make the leap out of the U.S. tax system.

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  Mayo Clinic launches first free app specifically directed at patients

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 1:25pm CDT by emily

  Mayo Clinic has 14 apps for the iPad and 15 on the iPhone. Until Monday, none of the free mobile medical apps were specifically meant for patients. The three free ones were mainly for doctors, alumni and people interested in medical research). MedCity News reports.

  The new Mayo Clinic Patient app for iPhone aims to connect with patients from the time they are simply seeking for information about Mayo, to their first visit to any of the three campuses and finally when they become an established patient at Mayo.

  Dr. Sidna Tulledge-Scheitel of Mayo said that the app is meant to empower patients and “aligns with Mayo’s mission of trying to make our services accessible and affordable.”

  She noted that patients can view lab results in real time as they become available and can check blood work results, for instance, before they meet with the doctor.

  “That can help patients to fully engage in the conversation,” she said.

  Even after patients go home, they can use their iPad or iPhone to log in and view clinic notes if they want to review what the doctor said during an appointment. They can also send secure messages to their care team, although Currently that service only available for certain areas within Mayo – transplant, obstetrics and primary care.

  Read full article.

  Related: - Apple, the iPhone, and the future of healthcare

  

• 

  Ky. weighed politics, medicine in inmate's surgery - WIS

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 1:12pm CDT

  Ky. weighed politics, medicine in inmate's surgery WIS An infamous political rant starring state Sen. Jake Knotts that drew a strong rebuke from Gov. Nikki Haley, the state Republican Party, and the Lexington County Republican Party has leaked to the Internet.More >> An infamous political rant starring ... and more »

• 

  Brazil: New Access to Information Law becomes effective today

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 1:04pm CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  Brasília, Brazil: The new Brazilian Access to Information Law, approved by the Senate and ratified by President Dilma Roussef in November 2011, comes into force today (16 May 2012). It marks a key step towards greater transparency and involvement whilst providing a stronger framework to embrace access to information.

  The law was the result of at least eight years of advocacy by leading journalists, NGOs and some members of Congress and Government. Brazil has been trying to gain recognition as a promoter of transparency and open governments, while being one of the co-founders of the Open Government Partnership - OGP. The approval of the Brazilian law, together with the OGP, could see similar reforms introduced in neighbouring countries.  

  The first bill was proposed by Deputado Reginaldo Lopes in 2003 and later improved by a bill drafted by the Federal Executive and presented to the Lower House in 2009. After hearings and consultations with civil society, lawmakers made positive modifications to the bill before sending it to the Senate. It was then approved with minor changes despite a campaign by some Senators to block the text.
  
  

  The law regulates the right of access to public information already guaranteed by the Constitution since 1988. It provides good procedures for processing information requests and covers obligations concerning proactive disclosure and the duty to provide data in an open and non-proprietary format. This piece of legislation also provides sanctions for those who deny access to information not protected by law and outlines exceptions that generally comply with international standards of freedom of information. 

  The Law, however, is just the first step and its proper implementation is now the challenge. Difficulties are expected due to the need for proper financial and human resources, the lack of a dedicated and specialised promotional body and a system of appeals that is both confusing and lacking in independence.

   “The key now is to spread the word about the new law and its potential, demonstrating how instrumental the right of access to information is to human rights”, said Paula Martins, ARTICLE 19’s Director for South America.

  “This new Access to Information Law needs to go beyond words and become common practice amongst multiple stakeholders It requires openness from civil servants and willingness to engage by civil society. It is a task for all.”

  Many predict cultural challenges will be difficult to overcome. Not only is there a culture of secrecy within the public administration, but a lack of widespread knowledge and practice in the exercise of freedom of information among individuals, journalists and civil society organisations, remains. Despite such challenges, the new law has the potential to bring about welcomed cultural changes and many have already mobilised to ensure it.  ARTICLE 19 celebrates this as a mark in the consolidation of democracy in Brazil.

  [www.article19.org]

• 

  Women and Swing State Visitors Big on Facebook

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 12:39pm CDT

  Hitwise said 1 in every 5 page views in the U.S. happened on Facebook.

• 

  quehacenlosdiputados

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 12:04pm CDT by magnofiel

  quehacenlosdiputados

• 

  Who Is Still Using IE6? the UK Government

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 11:33am CDT by timothy

  strawberryshakes writes "The death knell for IE6 was sounded a couple of years ago, but seems like some people just can't let go. Many UK government departments are still using IE6, which is so old — 11 years old to be exact — it can't cope with social media — which the government is trying to get its staff to use more to engage with citizens."

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  Recap of TC105: Mobiles for International Development | TechChange | The Institute for Technology and Social Change

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 11:14am CDT by sturlington

  Recap of TC105: Mobiles for International Development | TechChange | The Institute for Technology and Social Change

• 

  Technology: The Cheapest Ways to Save the World

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 11:05am CDT

  Ask a bunch of the world's best economists—including four Nobel laureates—how to make the world a better place, and they don't just blurt out an answer. They take their time, weigh up impact-per-dollar and make careful decisions. And this is what they came up with.

• 

  IT consultancies to be brought in to advise departments?

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 11:03am CDT by Kate Phelon

  Enclosure: [download]

  IT consultancies stand to become policy makers as part of plans to cut 70% of Whitehall staff.

  The idea to outsource policy making has been floated by Steve Hilton, the Prime Minister's outgoing policy advisor. The move is intended to strengthen policy making in government following a number of blunders involving NHS reform and cuts to child benefit.

  read more

  

• 

  5 Web Reports Every Nonprofit Should Know - Google Analytics | NetWitsThinkTank.com

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 10:43am CDT by brailleinstitute

  5 Web Reports Every Nonprofit Should Know - Google Analytics | NetWitsThinkTank.com

• 

  Deadline crumbles for cookie consent

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 10:18am CDT by Kate Phelon

  Enclosure: [download]

  Most government websites are likely to miss a deadline for allowing visitors to opt out of receiving cookies in their browsers, it's emerged.

  All websites in the UK were given until May 26 to introduce privacy procedures that would allow users to give their consent to being recognised and tracked by cookies.

  read more

  

• 

  WhatCanI.Do - Mobile/iPhone Donation Service for Non Profits

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 10:10am CDT by coreypud

  WhatCanI.Do - Mobile/iPhone Donation Service for Non Profits

• 

  UK Health Policy: ICO attacks NHS Risk Register veto in new report

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 10:01am CDT

  
  A “significant step change” for freedom of information has been reached according to the Information Commissioner Christopher Graham.

• 

  From Poverty to Power by Duncan Green » Blog Archive » What’s the connection between power, development and social media?

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 9:59am CDT by joe_edelman

  From Poverty to Power by Duncan Green » Blog Archive » What’s the connection between power, development and social media?

• 

  Must Reads for May 16th

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 9:57am CDT by Jonathan Dube

  Here are today’s must-read digital news stories from around the web:

  • Flipboard + public radio could be a killer combo » Nieman Journalism Lab
  • Why Mobile Content Is So Hard to Get Right – SAY Media – SAY Media – MediaBizBloggers – Jack Myers
  • Transparent HDTV Loewe Invisio Is The Future, But It’s Not The Apple iTV (PHOTOS)
  • This Is the Kind of Advertising David Karp Likes | Betabeat
  • News Discovery Site Prismatic Gets More Social With User Profiles | TechCrunch
  • Journalism Reloaded – What journalists need for the future | Online Journalism Blog
  • Roundtable: The Future of the App Economy – SocialTimes
  • Will Facebook adapt to mobile or will mobile adapt to Facebook? — Mobile Technology News
  • Flipboard Editorial Director Josh Quittner Speaks At Internet Week | Adweek
  • Is Turner’s Funny or Die deal the start of a trend? — paidContent

  
  

  

• 

  Traveling Through Timeline with Jim Hanas #501TechNYC

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 9:56am CDT by beckyisha

  Traveling Through Timeline with Jim Hanas #501TechNYC

• 

  Child maintenance hit by glitches in two key systems

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 9:48am CDT by John Lamb

  Enclosure: [download]

  Child maintenance payments have been hit by IT problems that have prevented the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (CMEC) from calculating the amounts owed accurately and keeping track of arrears.

  The failings are catalogued in a National Audit Office report that blames glitches in the child support IT systems - the Child Support Computer System and Child Support 2 - that used to be run by CMEC's predecessor, the Child Support Agency.

  read more

  

• 

  Federal Court Rejects NDAA's Indefinite Detention, Issues Injunction

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 9:45am CDT by timothy

  First time accepted submitter Arker writes "A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction late Wednesday to block provisions of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act that would allow the military to indefinitely detain anyone it accuses of knowingly or unknowingly supporting terrorism. The Obama administration had argued, inter alia, that the plaintiffs, including whistleblower and transparency advocate Daniel Ellsberg and Icelandic Member of Parliament Birgitta Jonsdottir lacked standing, but Judge Katherine Forrest didnt buy it. Given recent statements from the administration, it seems safe to say this will be the start of a long court battle."

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  Read free books online: Sustainability First, by Harsha Liyanage, Ph.D.

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 9:43am CDT by mamarais

  Read free books online: Sustainability First, by Harsha Liyanage, Ph.D.

• 

  Best Practice: 4 ways to get e-rostering paying at your council

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 9:01am CDT by Rachel Fielding

  Enclosure: [download]

  A mobile working solution for frontline home carers is reaping benefits for Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, allowing it to improve its service to vulnerable users and their families, transform the way that home care workers operate, and all by working to reduced headcounts and budgets.

  read more

  
• 

  Cabinet Office issues guidance on social media

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 8:56am CDT by jackfilose

  Enclosure: [download]

  Out of date browsers, low bandwidth and legacy mobile devices are hobbling efforts to get civil servants tweeting, according to a Cabinet Office guide on the use of social media.

  The publication, produced by the Government Digital Service and the Home Office, advises civil servants on how use social media and explains what government departments should do to overcome technical barriers.

  read more

  

• 

  Technology: The Best of Twitter in Your Inbox

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 8:55am CDT

  Starting today, you can discover the best of Twitter in a weekly email digest delivered to your inbox. This summary features the most relevant Tweets and stories shared by the people you’re connected to on Twitter.

• 

  Girls In ICT | Expanding horizons and changing attitudes

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 8:35am CDT by annamaciel

  Girls In ICT | Expanding horizons and changing attitudes

• 

  Move to Open Source G-Cloud hit by delay

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 8:31am CDT by John Lamb

  Enclosure: [download]

  The latest version of G-Cloud, the government’s CloudStore, will be rolled out at the end of June -  a month later than planned.

  An updated version of the framework service, which is expected to cut the cost of public sector IT by spurring the use of Cloud solutions, was expected in May, but has slipped according to the new Programme Director Denise McDonagh.

  read more

  

• 

  3 keys to nonprofits’ success: Strategy, prioritization, dedicated staff

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 8:30am CDT by sheye

  3 keys to nonprofits’ success: Strategy, prioritization, dedicated staff

• 

  UK Governance: Home Secretary Theresa May stands firm on police reforms

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 8:27am CDT

  Despite being heckled and booed while speaking at the Police Federation conference yesterday, Home Secretary Theresa May stood her ground and explained why the police force had to suffer cuts with the rest of the public sector.

• 

  Most CCTV Systems Come With Trivial Exploits

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 8:25am CDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "The use of CCTV cameras for physical surveillance of all kinds of environments has become so pervasive that most of us don't give the devices a second thought anymore. But, those individuals and organizations who actually use and control them should be aware that most of them come with default settings that make them vulnerable to outside attacks. According to Gotham Digital Science researcher Justin Cacak, standalone CCTV video surveillance systems by MicroDigital, HIVISION, CTRing, and many other rebranded devices are not only shipped with remote access enabled by default, but also with preconfigured default accounts and passwords that are banal and easy to guess."

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  EU Debt Crisis: Cameron warns of ‘make or break’ time for the eurozone

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 7:47am CDT

  Amid increasing concerns over the eurozone, the Prime Minister David Cameron highlighted two starkly different scenarios for the region in the Commons yesterday, to make up or break up.

• 

  Close the Gap - Bridging the Digital Divide

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 7:43am CDT by artisticfibre

  Close the Gap - Bridging the Digital Divide

• 

  France tops TV connection rates, UK lowest

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 7:24am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  By Julian Clover

  A study of more than 4,000 consumers in the United States, UK, France and Germany, and their attitudes to connected TVs, smartphones, tablets and eBooks/eReaders has found UK viewers least likely to connect their sets to the internet.

  Futuresource Consulting’s ‘Living with Digital’ consumer research survey says that at 71%, French viewers are the most likely to connect their smart TVs to the internet. However, the 56% registered in the UK is the lowest of the four countries.

  The consultancy predicts the figure will rise as more Wi-Fi enabled TVs are made available – conversely it could be argued that the percentage falls when early adopters are taken out of the equation.

  According to the study, TV and movies and playing games on the move have all become commonplace, while online shopping, web surfing and social networking have become significantly more popular as the range and ownership of connected devices has expanded.

  The survey shows that the most popular uses for connected TVs are watching catch-up TV and YouTube videos and streaming films via online channels including Lovefilm and Netflix. Though at 40%, 24% and 23% respectively, social networking sites, streaming music and personal media libraries are found to be used frequently.

  62% of respondents said they interact with additional electronic devices while watching TV.

  http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2012/05/17/france-tops-tv-connection-rates-uk-lowest/
• 

  Private: some search engines make money by not tracking users

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 7:16am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  by Cyrus Farivar

  In the United States, two out of every three searches go through Google, which serves up a total of three billion search queries per day. "Googling" has become so ubiquitous that the company has become a verb in English (and in other languages, too).

  Given that most of us use Google several times a day and may also use it to send e-mail, to plan our calendar, and to make phone calls, questions commonly arise about how all of that data is used. Google has said that it needs access to such large amounts of data as a way to “make it useful” and to sell personalized ads against it—and to profit substantially in the process.

  However, a March 2012 study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that two-thirds of Americans view a personalized search as a “bad thing,” with 73 percent of those surveyed saying that they were “not OK” with personalized searches on privacy grounds. Another recent poll of California voters recently reached similar results, as “78 percent of voters—including 71 percent of voters age 18-29—said the collection of personal information online is an invasion of privacy.”

  Short of masking your online trail with a VPN or going through Tor all the time, it’s hard to avoid the watchful eye of Sergey and Larry. What's a privacy-conscious Web searcher to do? For those who worry about such issues, privacy-minded search alternatives in various stages of development do exist—even if they're only taking the tiniest bite out of Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo’s search engine market share.

  One of the top privacy search engines has a name reminiscent of a children’s game: DuckDuckGo. The site was founded two years ago but has recently taken off; just last month, it hit an all-time record of 1.5 million searches per day and its daily search traffic has grown by 227 percent in three months.

  So what does DuckDuckGo do differently, besides putting up cheeky billboards in San Francisco? DuckDuckGo works by using both its own Web crawler and data from other search engines, including Yahoo, Bing, and Blekko—but not Google. The company claims not to log IP addresses or user agents, and “no cookies are used by default." It also uses default encryption modeled after HTTPS Everywhere.

  “Not really knowing about [what the other guys do], we independently made the decision that we wanted to go down this route of not storing this data,” explained Gabriel Weinberg, the site’s founder, in an interview with Ars this month.

  “Search engines have a history of getting subpoenas, and Google has been more and more open to the requests that they were responding to," he said. "It seemed inevitable that search engines would get requests from law enforcement—I don’t like that idea of handing over data.”

  Beyond that, the company started operating a Tor exit enclave not long after it launched, allowing traffic headed for the DuckDuckGo search engine to exit the Tor network.

  “That makes it easier for people on Tor to hit our search engine and it means that we don’t store stuff and you can ensure that it exits through us. You can be end-to-end anonymous on Tor,” Weinberg added.

  How does a site that makes a point of not tracking its users make money? Through contextualized search ads that generate “sponsored links.” Not that Google's money machine should start to worry yet; Weinberg says that his for-profit company earned around $115,000 in revenue in 2011—with three employees and a handful of other contractors.

  But Weinberg says he's patient. He believes that users will ultimately come to DuckDuckGo because it’s a “better search experience,” not just because of privacy.

  “The problem is that [people] have never had a choice,” he said. “They don’t perceive that they have a choice. If you say: yes, you can go to this privacy search engine, they feel that they’re sacrificing something for that. But I don’t want to hamper my search experience. We’ve been trying to offer high privacy and a comparable or better search experience [than Google].”

  Weinberg’s not the only one saying it. Search Engine Land wrote last month that in terms of user experience and interface, DuckDuckGo “has begun to beat Google at its own game.”

  Beyond search watchers, privacy watchers have also taken notice. Nicole Ozer, the technology and civil liberties policy director at the Northern California office of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in San Francisco, told Ars that she’s been watching DuckDuckGo for some time.

  “Our position is that [the public] shouldn't have to choose between using new technology and keeping control of our personal information,” she said.

  Privacy-conscious Internet users may wonder about the verifiability of DuckDuckGo's claims. The short answer is that there isn’t any good way to know if DuckDuckGo (or any other company) does what it says, short of the company releasing its source code. Weinberg has not submitted DuckDuckGo to an outside security audit, as he argues it would not add much in terms of convincing skeptics, but he notes in an online post that a company breaching its own privacy policy can lead to prosecution or sanctions from the Federal Trade Commission.

  For many users, this is enough. “DuckDuckGo would be pretty dumb to breach their own privacy policy; their privacy policy is clear and unambiguous and leaves them little wiggle room,” a user called D.W. posted in an online security forum a month ago.

   

  DuckDuckGo isn’t the first player in the private search game. Founded in the US back in 1998, Ixquick claims that it’s the “world’s most private search engine." In 2000, it was acquired by a Dutch company.

  Like DuckDuckGo, Ixquick says that it does not use any tracking cookies and that it does not record IP addresses. As of May 10, 2012, the company also says it has stopped recording user agents entirely and has deleted all previous user agent records. The company generates results using search data from multiple other engines, rather than using its own Web crawler.

  “The only information we log are total search numbers conducted per language and the general browser type used,” wrote Katherine Albrecht, the spokesperson for Ixquick, in an e-mail to Ars.

  The company says that it has been certified and audited by Certified Secure and by the Dutch data protection authority. In 2008, Ixquick received the first European Privacy Seal (Europrise), awarded by the organization of the same name, which bases its extensive criteria (read the 60 page document [PDF]) on the privacy protections in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein.

  Ixquick says that it serves two million searches per day, a bit higher than DuckDuckGo (but if the latter continues its rise, it may soon overtake Ixquick). Like DuckDuckGo, Ixquick earns revenue by selling contextual ads at the top of the search results page, but Ixquick’s spokesperson declined to disclose the company’s annual revenue.

  Both companies sell sponsored links, which are generated based on an automated scanning of search terms (and which is not logged). So, for example, a search for "iPhone" on both sites yields a paid link (marked as such) near the top of the search.

  “We can report that we are fiscally sound and have been profitable since 2004," Albrecht said. "Ninety-nine percent of the money we earn comes from the ads we show on our results pages. While serving non-personal ads is less profitable than serving ads based on tracking customers' search history and personal interests, we feel it is a far more ethical model on which to build a company. Our income not only lets us pay the bills, but it has also allowed us to pursue ambitious plans to expand our privacy product offerings.”

  Minnows before the whale

  Other privacy-focused, non-commercial, and for-profit companies and search projects exist, but most are small (see, notably, Constant Crawl and the forthcoming Gooey Search) and still in development.

  One interesting project out of France, the Seeks Project, seems to have the most fully verifiable solution, as it releases all of its source code under the AGPLv3 license. The site takes a client-based solution to locally personalize search results obfuscated through a peer-to-peer network.

  “The client is also a proxy, which means that all your Web traffic goes through this before it hits the Internet,” explained Emmanuel Benazera, the project's creator, to Ars. “Whatever comes back to your browser is witnessed by the local client. We’re moving the software closer to you, then we can do more by working locally.”

  Given that the Seeks Project doesn’t log its traffic, developers don't know for certain how many people are using the service so far. However, Benazera said that on its French site, the project serves about 12,000 searches per day.

  Still, all of these companies and projects are going to have a tough time competing on a financial or search volume level with Google—which still serves more than three orders of magnitude more searches than DuckDuckGo or Ixquick.

  “It’s a tiny, tiny amount,” Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Land, told us when asked about the relative volumes. "I’m far more concerned about the quality of search results, but I’m glad that we have those alternatives out there. Some people want to feel like they have the ability to do a private search and so it’s nice to have those alternatives.”

   

  http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/05/private-the-search-engines-that-make-money-by-not-tracking-users/

• 

  Global Economy: OECD report urges governments to combat youth unemployment

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 7:01am CDT

  The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has urged developed economies to make ”decisive and concrete action” towards solving the problem of youth unemployment.

• 

  Public sector has growing interest in Big Data - Nucleus

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 6:55am CDT by jackfilose

  Enclosure: [download]

  The public sector is turning to increasingly sophisticated analytical tools in a bid to exploit big data, according to US research firm Nucleus Research.

  National and local government, as well as not-for-profit organisations are becoming increasingly sophisticated at using core analytics capabilities to improve decision making.

  read more

  
• 

  Viewpoint: Are your BYOD plans sparking a Peasant's Revolt?

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 6:54am CDT by Gary Flood

  Enclosure: [download]

  Capgemini's Jonathan Mills wonders if Bring Your Own Device has the makings of a modern day 'Peasants Revolt'...

  read more

  

• 

  UK Governance: Senior Civil Servant Ian Watmore resigns from government service

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 5:30am CDT

  Ian Watmore, a senior mandarin at the Cabinet Office, is to leave his Cabinet Office post after 8 years in the civil service. He has resigned to spend more time with his family.

• 

  UK Localism: Government advisers urge local councils to make cuts in emissions

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 4:44am CDT

  Government advisers have announced that local authorities should have a binding obligation to combat carbon emissions. The Committee on Climate Change has released a report urging councils to make cuts in greenhouse emissions in traffic, housing, and waste management.

• 

  Insights Africa: Statistics and media habits of consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 4:43am CDT by jsheardy

  Insights Africa: Statistics and media habits of consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa

• 

  Video: The Case for Independent Local Government

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 4:43am CDT

  The Information Daily explores whether local government is secure in its relationship with the centre so that it can deliver improved public services and local economic growth.

• 

  Italian project harnesses e-democracy for education - UKauthorITy.com

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 4:41am CDT

  Italian project harnesses e-democracy for education UKauthorITy.com An award-winning project from Italy that makes use of online discussion and debate techniques to teach young people about science is looking for local authority and other partners to develop the concept across Europe. "Active Science" was one of three ...

• 

  A Russian magnate's Facebook bet pays off big

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 3:52am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  With his droopy eyeglasses and boxy suits, Alisher B. Usmanov is at no risk of being mistaken for a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. But the Russian steel tycoon is poised to make billions of dollars from the initial public stock offering of Facebook this week -- in the same league as many of that social networking company's early backers.
  
  Mr. Usmanov, an industrial and media magnate who has demonstrated a keen ability to take advantage of the opportunities that appear in a financial disaster, is reaping the rewards of an ambitious bet on Facebook made amid the global economic recession in 2009.
  
  As other investors were demanding tough terms, he said in an interview this week, he and his Russian business associates were willing to buy almost 10 percent of the company while giving up the voting rights on those shares to Facebook's founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg.
  
  Now the Russian-led investments of less than $900 million, made through two entities, Mail.ru and Digital Sky Technologies, will be worth more than $6 billion, based on the midpoint of the $34 to $38 price range that Facebook's bankers have set for the stock.
  
  Mr. Usmanov, 58, who got his start in the plastic bag business and was reared in a remote part of the Soviet Union, said he learned the benefits of acting boldly during the ruble crisis of 1998.
  
  "I have a theory of crisis that you must employ crisis to create additional margin," he said this week in a telephone interview. "You need to understand when the moment of growth is coming, and invest just before that."
  
  Mr. Zuckerberg turned to the Russian investors in 2009 at a meeting quietly brokered by Goldman Sachs. Other sources of financing had slowed because of the crisis. And, because of the popularity of online social games in Russia, investors here had a keen sense of the value of social networking sites and were willing to pay more than others for a stake in Facebook.
  
  The Russians were also willing to accept another condition important to Mr. Zuckerberg. Despite owning 10 percent of Facebook, they would get no voting rights or seat on the board. They would also have no say in the site's policies on privacy or political organizing -- preserving independence that has become especially important as Facebook has played a major role in domestic politics in Russia.
  
  Mr. Usmanov, who is close to the Kremlin, has not hesitated to use his media properties to support the government. Last December, he fired the publisher and editor at one of Russia's most respected newsmagazines, Kommersant Vlast, after it published detailed accounts of bald falsification in national elections. Mr. Usmanov said he fired the executive not for the political coverage per se, but for printing a picture of a ballot defaced with an obscenity insulting Vladimir V. Putin, then prime minister of Russia and now president.
  
  But Mr. Usmanov said the Russian venture into Facebook was purely commercial. "Americans started investing abroad after 100 years of capitalism at home," he said. "We are doing it after 20 years."
  
  The precise details of the Russian ownership in Facebook are difficult to assess. The investments were made over two years though the Russian Internet company Mail.ru and the investment fund Digital Sky Technologies, also known as D.S.T., which is run by the venture capitalist Yuri Milner. Although Mr. Usmanov was the leading backer, other investors were involved.
  
  Mr. Milner met with Zuckerberg in 2009 before the first investment, though Mr. Usmanov has never met him.
  
  Mr. Milner said his focus on social networking reflected insights gained from watching the Russian Internet market develop in the last few years. In 2005, D.S.T. began investing in Internet companies in Russia and Eastern Europe, where, as in parts of Asia, people took to social games and the trading of virtual goods faster than in the United States.
  
  The print media market was already weak, a legacy of the Soviet breakup and political controls on national newspapers, leaving a freer space for crowdsourced media like social networks.
  
  Mr. Milner said that this led to an understanding that social networking business models involving tiny payments from large numbers of users had vast potential in emerging markets.
  
  "At the time, I was probably the best-informed person in the world about social networking monetization," he said.
  
  Russia remains one of the few major markets today where Facebook does not dominate social networking, because of the strength of local companies like VKontakte and Moi Mir. (Other markets where Facebook is weak include South Korea, where it is gaining, and China, where government firewalls block the site because of its potential to be used in organizing dissent.)
  
  Mr. Usmanov said that, after the series of investments from 2009 until 2011, he and Mr. Milner owned about 9 percent of Facebook at one point, but now own about 6 percent and will hold about 4.5 percent after the initial public offering. The other shares they originally controlled have gone to other investors, clients of D.S.T. and corporate entities.
  
  Mr. Usmanov earned his billions in the post-Soviet business world, managing steel mill subsidiaries for Gazprom before they were spun off as his own businesses, Gazmetal, later renamed Metalloinvest. Mr. Usmanov has said he took on debt in this transaction and others acquiring iron ore mines in Russia.
  
  He said he would use money from investors who buy his shares in the Facebook I.P.O. to invest and pay down debt at his other Russian businesses.
  
  This year, Russia's second-largest cellphone company, MegaFon, which Mr. Usmanov partly owns, is expected to issue shares in London in its own I.P.O.
  
  From his work with Gazprom, Mr. Usmanov is said to be close to Russia's former president and current prime minister, Dmitri A. Medvedev, a former chairman of the Gazprom board. His ties to the Kremlin and Facebook have stirred concerns that he might influence the company's policies in subtle ways to appease governments in markets where Facebook is also an important tool of political dissent, such as Russia.
  
  Because he does not vote Facebook shares, however, Mr. Usmanov has no direct influence on policies for the site in Russia.
  
  A native of Uzbekistan, Mr. Usmanov spent six years in an Uzbek prison after being convicted of fraud and embezzlement in the 1980s, charges he contends were politically inspired and the result of a power struggle among the Uzbek elite. Mr. Usmanov's father was a prosecutor. He was sent to a remote prison camp where many men his father had convicted were serving time, apparently an intentional decision so he would be abused or killed.
  
  Soviet courts later exonerated Mr. Usmanov and expunged his record. The Supreme Court of Uzbekistan in 2000 ruled that the K.G.B. had fabricated evidence against him and other children of top Uzbek officials in that period.
  
  "I survived only because I loved my wife, and wanted to return to her, and because I wanted to prove I was innocent," he said. "I am an example to innocent people in jail. A man like that can achieve something. I dedicated 25 years of my life to this idea."

  http://gadgets.ndtv.com/shownews.aspx?id=GADEN20120203362

• 

  Manchester councils all of a twitter over new content management system

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 3:21am CDT by jackfilose

  Enclosure: [download]

  The Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA) has signed a framework agreement with Contensis that could see up to 18 councils and other local authorities using the supplier’s web content management system (CMS).

  Wigan and Trafford Councils are the first AGMA councils to sign up to the system, which is being sold to the Manchester authorities at a discounted price. The latest version of the CMS sports a redesigned dashboard and a new social media module that allows organisations to post to Twitter and moderate the traffic.

  read more

  
• 

  Government plans for special educational needs miss tech benefits, say experts

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 3:14am CDT by jackfilose

  Enclosure: [download]

  The government has missed a chance to ensure children with special educational needs (SEN) benefit from assistive technology in plans for the biggest shake-up of the SEN system for 30 years, according to the British Assistive Technology Association (BATA).

  Under reforms announced by children’s minister Sarah Teather, parents are to get a new legal right to buy in specialist SEN and disabled care for their children. They will be given the option to control their own personal budgets for their disabled children, rather than local authorities.

  read more

  

• 

  CH: eGovernment action plan - First phase ready to launch

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:57am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  The Steering Committee of the Swiss eGovernment programme has approved the first phase of the eGovernment action plan which promotes specific projects, from the geographic map of Swiss eGovernment to procedures for filing tax returns or notifying a change of address.

  At its session of 5 April 2012, the Steering Committee also took stock of progress in the implementation of the Swiss eGovernment Strategy which is well on the way; the Steering Committee acknowledged two new priority projects (listed in the catalogue of priority projects of the Strategy) as 'implemented'. These are: 

  1. Execution of customs formalities (import, export and transit): All customs declarations must be made online, regardless of the type of goods and destinations - Lead agency: Federal Customs Administration (AFD);
  2. Services aimed at allowing the processing of electronic documents: Open eGov, the information and exchange platform for eGovernment services - Lead agency: Federal Justice Office (OFJ). 

  Moreover, three new projects were also added to the catalogue on this occasion namely: 

  1. Swiss ePolice: harmonisation of the IT infrastructure of police bodies;
  2. National map of Swiss eGovernment: a geographical map providing an overview of all eGovernment services for citizens and businesses in Switzerland; and
  3. Open government data: creation of open government databases. 

  The renewed framework agreement regulating the cooperation between the Swiss Confederation, cantons and municipalities in the field of eGovernment for the years 2007-2015 has been in force since 1 January 2012. The eGovernment action plan is a key element of the framework agreement that is aimed at boosting the implementation of the Strategy. 

  The action plan lays down short-, middle- and long-term actions in the frame of several priority projects. Such projects are funded by means of yearly contributions of up to CHF2.4 million (approx. €2 million), provided jointly by the Swiss Confederation and the cantons. The dispatch of funds for 2012 and the action plan implementation concept for 2012-2015 were submitted to the Steering Committee. 

  The first instalment will be allocated to project leader organisations responsible for the implementation of the following projects: 

  • National map of Swiss eGovernment (new project) - Project leader organisation: IT Steering unit of the Confederation (UPIC);
  • Building permits applications - Project leader organisation: Swiss Conference of Directors of Public. Works, Planning and Environmental Protection (DTAP);
  • Arrival in / departure from a municipality, change of address notification - Project leader organisation: Swiss association of services for residents (ASCH);
  • Identification and access rights management services for accessing eGovernment - Project leader organisation: eGH Group specialised into 'Identity and access management';
  • eInvoicing and ePayments - Project leader organisation: Federal Finance Administration (AFF);
  • Procedure for filing profits and capital tax returns / income tax returns - Project leader organisation: Swiss taxation conference (CSI);
  • Lost and found objects - Project leader organisation: Swiss IT conference (CSI).

  
  The project leader organisations worked together with the Programme Office of Swiss eGovernment to define clear goals for the aforementioned projects. Both the responsible project leader organisations and the Programme Office will ensure their follow-up, while results will be assessed by means of an audit. The actual assessment procedure is defined in the concept for the implementation of the action plan. 

  The second instalment will be allocated to the implementation of other projects in June 2012. The action plan will be reviewed and updated each year (continuous planning) by the Steering Committee.

  http://www.epractice.eu/en/news/5363301
• 

  Report slams mobile Internet censorship in UK

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:36am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  by James Delahunty

  Report details widespread over-blocking. Mobile Internet services in the UK are subject to child protection filters that block pornographic websites. The Open Rights Group (ORG) and the LSE Media Policy Project released a report which shows widespread over-blocking as a result of such filters.
  
  The groups found that the filters led to the incorrect blocking of political commentaries, personal blogs, restaurants' sites and community websites. The report calls on mobile operators to give parents an 'active choice' to turn filters on, and to be far more transparent about how their systems work.
  
  It also warns against proposals to make such filtering systems the default on fixed-line broadband. The proposal is heavily backed by Claire Perry MP, and the rights' groups claim it will have the same damning consequences as it does for mobile Internet.

  "This report shows how child protection filters can actually affect many more users than intended and block many more sites than they should. These blunt blocks effectively add up to a system of censorship across UK networks," said Peter Bradwell of Open Rights Group, and author of the report.
  
  "The lessons for 'porn filter' proposals are clear. Default-on blocks can have significant harmful and unintended consequences for everybody?s access to information. To help protect children online, the Government should reject 'default on' network filtering and work to give parents simpler choices and better, device-based tools."
  
  The full report is available from ORG in PDF.

  [www.afterdawn.com]
• 

  Rural ICT in Uganda

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:33am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  by Michelle Tongo

  NAIROBI: The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has funded a rural ICT program that was aimed at impacting the local community with ICT skills for self- sustainability and economic progress in Arua secondary.

  Armando Angulibo, Training Coordinator commented on the exercise saying it was projected towards community empowering through the use of ICT.

  The training took 10 days where a total of 200 people in Arua municipality acquired skills in ICT such as networking, internet, hardware and management of ICT amenities.

  Ibrahim Abiriga, District Commissioner of Arua assured that he would negotiate with the Ministry of ICT in Uganda so that they can get more aid in computers as this would benefit the residents.

  Raymond Ombere, Arua municipality inspector of schools added that the beneficiaries should use the skills gained to improve themselves and other communities at large.

  The use of ICTs in Uganda has progressively risen as people are more engaged in the use of mobile phones, smart-phones, internet connections and so on.

  In a forum conducted last year in Uganda based on Internet Governance standards, Gloria Katuuku, an official of the ICT Ministry confirmed that the Ugandan Government identified ICT as a major lead in socioeconomic development.

  Thus drives such as Rural ICT projects are better geared at promoting socioeconomic development in Uganda.

  http://bikyamasr.com/69082/rural-ict-in-uganda/

• 

  home | Tactical Technology Collective

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:32am CDT by demartin

  home | Tactical Technology Collective

• 

  Russia: Open Government to digitize governance, popularity unclear

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:32am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  by Peter Lekarev

  Welcome to .Ru! As usual we'll be looking at all things online, blogs, websites and social networks and everything that takes the minds of the online public in Russia and worldwide. Driverless cars, Wi-Fi transmitters in pavement slabs, oh my! Whatever you do, you'll be still be connected to the cyberspace. You can walk the streets or you can sit in the backseat of your own car and still maintain a connection to the world wide web, if you have the relevant devices, of course. This sort of need to always be online is understandable for countries that have the overwhelming population aggressively using the internet. Sadly, this is not the case in Russia. Actually, I’ve recently stumbled upon an interesting reading on the subject of quantifying Russian web-going population, but I’ll cover it a bit later. For now, I would like to focus on those that don’t have reliable and affordable internet access. Well, maybe soon these citizens will be able to sue their realtors and landlords unless their homes have broadband internet access installed and ready to use. The final report on the “Open Government” project that is addressed to the President has suggestions on broadband internet access in newly-constructed buildings – namely, make it mandatory. The document was adopted May 10th during a session of the Russian Government, chaired once again by Dmitry Medvedev. But wait, there’s more! Mandatory access to high-speed internet is but one of the aspects of digitizing life of the Russian citizen, or at least the government interaction part. Apparently, it’s one of the several basic standards relating to “providing electronic government and socially important services” that is part of the technical platform section of the grand project “Open Government”. According to the report, by 2014 60% of Russian households are to be connected to the international cyberspace with a speed of no less than 10megabits per second – the standard is double that for large cities. But that’s just a stepping stone – by 2017 95% of Russian households must have high-speed internet.

  So what’s this “Open Government” project? Well, it is what it sounds like – a government open to its citizens and welcoming constructive interaction. The most obvious choice for implementing such a project is, of course, information technology – basically, ‘open government’ could be called an expansion of the ‘e-government’ service system with citizens not just requesting services, but taking part in governmental processes. The aforementioned report actually provides the official definition of the “Open Government” – a fundamentally new mechanism of developing and implementing governmental policies as well as of control over adherence to them. The initiative has been put forward a while ago and finally it became tangible when an according decree was signed by President Dmitry Medvedev in February of 2012.

  The motivation behind the project is quite simple and understandable for anyone who tried doing anything bureaucratically significant in Russia, and the document admits the need for something drastically new – the state machine is simply unable to timely process and act accordingly to the information and requests submitted by the citizens. There’s even more aspects of the state of things that led to the concept of “Open Government” . They hint at a far wider scope than a simple state services web portal – according to the text, “events of the past year and a half” which include “rapid decline of the ruling party’s popularity, mass protests and massive capital outflow” will have to addressed by “Open Government”.  Experts behind the project hope to implement it with appropriately-designed feedback through which citizens will be able to submit suggestions and opinions on operation of various governmental entities. Well, to me this sounds a little bit… underwhelming. Hey, the people are apparently less happy then we would like them to be and foreigners even decide to take their money elsewhere! What should we do? How about we re-invent emails or guestbooks or whatetever it is people use to leave feedback these days! Sorry for sounding snide, but this is the impression the project makes with passages like the aforementioned one. But thankfully, there’s more. Well, I’ve already mentioned the plan to equip 95% of households with broadband internet in the next 5 years. Then there’s the initiative to legally define a citizen’s passport number as a unique identifier through which one would access governmental and municipal services, either offline or online. It’s kind of important as currently people often have to carry their passports or even copies of their passports when interacting with various governmental entities – and, online, either a pension id number is used or a special unique id that was granted during a complicated registration process. If that sounds kind of cluttered and unclear that’s because it is – when I need to access e-government services I surround myself with various documents and personal ids and hope I won’t have to get up and rummage through my drawers if I’m asked some obscure number – which is a possibility. This leads to another sub-project highlighted in the “Open Government” initiative report – a database that would store all the citizen’s documents in digital format.

  ////////////////

  The authors hope this would reduce the number of quote “personally stored documents” and simplify provision of state services. Probably “duh” is the word I would say to these people.  Another idea raised my eyebrow – “official state-provided personal electronic mailboxes for Russian citizens” – that’s legalese for “government emails”. This may be sort of logical if we’re talking about mass switching from offline to online interaction – I can already envision free workshops for the internet-unsavvy population that explain they already have an email account and that all governmental interaction will be conducted through it. This may work for less technologically-developed regions of Russia. But in the case of metropolises where most people have at least one personal email and one corporate, having a governmental one can seem like overkill; not to mention this may be interpreted as monopolization of e-services. But if one would be easily able to connect an existing email to the state-provided one, we could have the best of two worlds, I guess.

  Apart from implementing this sort of a broad interpretation of e-government, experts who provided the report also mentioned the general state of the IT infrastructure in governmental entities which, is, well, not the best. Remember when I talked about the Multiagency Cooperation System? The system provides seamless flow of information between various offices – say, you need to prove that you have no criminal record and that you live in a particular region. Traditionally you’d run around collecting papers and spending hours, if not days, of your time. The new system makes anything that one entity has available to every other entity – meaning that there’s no more running around and human queues and angry bureaucrats and all that. The system is not being implemented as quickly as everyone hoped – and the reason for that was mentioned in this report – the high degree of software fragmentation – each governmental entity has a particular software solution and more often than not they’re incompatible, making developing seamless document flow painstaking. 

  Now, returning back to what I've mentioned earlier today - the number of web-going Russians. With 95% of household having high-speed internet in 5 short years, there will still be this issue - how many Russians will actually use them? Coincidentally, I stumbled upon an article on the Research&Trends website. It's a Russian analytical website where the team does not just link to some researches or compiles articles out of them, they actually analyze various data on a single subject and try to get to the bottom of things. For example, as they justly point it, there's a number of different ways to calculate the number of people that go online. The media quote these numbers, then other resources link to them and eventually no one can figure out where the quoted numbers come from or if they're even applicable. I've mentioned my own frustration with surveys, polls and traffic data that allegedly illustrate interaction of Russians with the world wide web. Thankfully, the recent conference RIF+KIB had representatives of all the companies that provide such estimates - TNS Russia, The Public Opinion Foundation, All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center, Gemius, MASMI and the "Video International" Analytical Center. Their presentations were full of proprietary data, which they used to give the audiences a quantifiable representation of the state of the Russian cyberspace. If you were there, paying attention, you'd notice right away that even when giving base values, such as "number of Russians online", presentations had widely diverging figures. This was overlooked during the conference and no one even asked "why do you guys give different values for the same indices?" But guys over at Research&Trends did!

  For example, they pointed out that according to TNS Russia 41 million Russians visit the internet at least once a month and the total internet penetration is 65%. The public opinion foundation believes the number to be 57.8 million people with national internet penetration at 50%. And there's the answer - TNS looked at citizens over 12 years of age living in cities with population over 100,000. The Fondation polled only adults and did not choose location, meaning that there's probably a lot of villagers in their sample.  After playing around with numbers, Research&Trends comes to the conclusion that a little over 60 million Russians over 12 years of age are internet users that go online at least once a month or 63 million if we are to include those that are familiar with the subject but rarely use it. But will they actually use internet if it’s always available to them? Unfortunately, there’s no firm answer.

   

  Thank you for listening to the Voice of Russia. This was .Ru and your host, Peter Lekarev. You can drop me a line, check out the links and leave your feedback at our page on the Voice of Russia website, english.ruvr.ru.  You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter. Stay safe and stay online!

  http://english.ruvr.ru/radio_broadcast/36172287/74696213.html

• 

  Funcionarios de una empresa en quiebra

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:30am CDT by Carlos Guadián Orta

  

  La incertidumbre laboral hace ya unos meses que ha llegado a buena parte del sector público. No sólo sueldos congelados, también recortes salariales, cobrar menos por estar de baja y para muchos trabajadores públicos, que no funcionarios, despidos sin contemplaciones. Parece que todo lo inamovible que se pensaba que podía ser un puesto en la administración pública, ya no lo es. Las privatizaciones de las pocas empresas públicas rentables, el cierre de las que no lo son, la no renovación de personal público en determinados servicios, recortes en servicios básicos acumulando más y más trabajo por funcionario pueden provocar desánimo, sobre todo, porque como cualquier otro hijo de vecino no se ve el final de un camino que parece llevarnos a los sótanos de una sociedad que parece ya no correspondernos.

• 

  Sergey Brin, co founder of Google fights for an open internet

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:27am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  Written by Frankie Mullin

   

  In April 2012, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, spoke out against an increasing lack of freedom and openness on the internet, saying that “powerful forces” are at work which threaten the open internet like never before. In particular, Brin focused his wrath on government censorship, over-zealous entertainment companies in their battle against web-piracy and the ‘walled gardens’ created by Facebook and Apple.

  In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, Brin said that five years ago he would not have believed countries such as China could effectively restrict access to the internet. However, he said that recent developments had proved him wrong and he now fears the determination of countries including China, Saudi Arabia and Iran to censor and restrict their citizens’ use of the internet.

  Brin also launched a scathing attack on Facebook, suggesting that if the social networking giant had been in existence in 1998, he and co-founder Larry Page would not have been able to get Google off the ground. Brin warned that the hegemony of Facebook and Apple, which have their own platforms and block access to information about their users, will hinder innovation and create a divided internet.

  “Very powerful forces that have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world,” Brin said. “I am more worried than I have been in the past. It's scary.”

  Brin has already attracted criticism for his comments, with many suggesting that Facebook rival Google+ is also a “walled garden” equally proprietary about the information of its users.

  Much like Facebook, Google began life as a university project when Brin met “intellectual soul mate” Page while at Stanford University on a post-graduate computer science course.  The pair soon dropped out of the Ph.D. program to move a nascent Google from their dorm rooms into a rented garage.

  From its humble beginnings and an initial investment of $1 million, Google grew to process more than one billion search requests every day. Brin himself has amassed a personal fortune of close to £12 billion.

  The 38-year-old’s early life was marked by academic achievement rather than privilege. The son of a Soviet mathematician economist father and a research scientist mother, Brin and his family emigrated to the U.S when he was six. The move was precipitated by his family’s desire to escape the Soviet oppression of Jews which Brin’s father felt had thwarted his career. Brin has been open about how grateful he is to his family for taking him out of Russia.

  Encouraged to pursue maths by his father, Brin studied computer science and mathematics at Maryland University, before beginning graduate study at Stanford.

  As well as developing Google well beyond the original search engine via an ever-expanding portfolio of brands and acquisitions, Brin’s personal projects have included the development of an offshore wind farm ­- part of Google’s non-profit ventures - and an investment in Space Adventures, a U.S-based space tourism company. In 2007, he married biotech analyst Anne Wojcicki.

  From its inception, Brin stated that the aim of Google was to make “the world's information universally accessible and useful." To this end, he publicly fought the corner of internet freedom in 2010, when he was credited with being behind Google’s withdrawal from China after the company refused to allow the contents of Google searches to be censored. At the time, the move was hailed by proponents of the open internet.

  Brin’s latest comments have been taken by some to be a continuation of Google’s open internet ethos, but his critics may disagree.

  http://www.businessrevieweurope.eu/business_leaders/sergey-brin-co-founder-of-google-fights-for-an-open-internet
• 

  UN websites and social media have long-neglected security, privacy and legal issues

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:26am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  By George Russell

  As it rushed headlong into the brave new world of social media, the United Nations Secretariat for years apparently kept its legal department out of the loop in signing up for services like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Flickr, resulting in potential leaks of delicate internal information, among other things, according to an internal auditors’ report.

  Among the serious risks produced by the U.N.’s haphazard methods of using web-based media were compromised user privacy, possible copyright infringements and potential legal exposures despite U.N. legal immunities, as well as other undefined security concerns.

  Many of those problems apparently still have not been fixed, and powerful portions of the U.N. bureaucracy were apparently opposed to getting the U.N.’s lawyers to help fix them.

  In an unusual display of bureaucratic defiance, the U.N.’s 700-member Department of Public Information (DPI) rejected as “unrealistic” a formal recommendation from the auditors that the U.N. lawyers be involved in advance before the world body signed any more such media deals.

  Click for the audit report.

  Details of the risky way that the U.N. rushed to join the digital universe are not spelled out in the auditors’ report, which spanned a decade of U.N. activity and was presented to top officials last October. But in some cases, at least, the breaches may have been—and still may be—sizeable.

  In a number of cases, the report says, “minimum security requirements for the development of [U.N.] websites were not defined, and risk assessment, security and encryption procedures were not implemented.”

  A number of U.N. websites were also apparently developed by external consultants, without proper coordination with the U.N.’s own Office of Information and Communications Technology (OICT), which reports directly to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and which lists “social networking and collaboration” as one of the major initiatives of its Orwellian-sounding Knowledge Management Program.

  Moreover, the report says, service contracts “were not always in place” for internal U.N. sites hosted by OICT itself, as well as the U.N.’s Department of Field Support, which is the mainstay of peacekeeping operations, as well as those of the U.N.’s $180 million Department of Public Information.

  The lurch of the U.N. into the world of social media and the Internet has apparently been so rapid and spontaneous—in contrast to the sluggishness for which it is otherwise notorious-- that Ban’s office could not even say how many websites are operating in its New York based Secretariat, how much money it had spent on them, or the number of staffers involved in producing them. 

  That is a remarkable degree of fogginess considering that the U.N.’s 2012-2013 budget is still being discussed in the U.N.’s powerful finance committee. Some 30 staffers employed in the U.N.’s central Web Services Section are only the tip of the iceberg, the U.N. spokesman indicated.

  So helter-skelter has the effort been, the audit report says, that U.N. domain names don’t even follow a coherent pattern.

  The importance the U.N. places on the web effort, however, is underlined on OICT’s website, where it says that “the impact that the United Nations is able to make on the world is critically dependent upon the quality of the information it collects, collates and publishes, as well as the knowledge of its staff; these variables are further dependent on new working methods that are required to support the development of innovative products and services.”

  All the more reason, one might think, for the world body to be especially scrupulous about the ways that it subsequently disseminated that knowledge via the Web. Yet the data privacy concerns outlined in the auditors’ report apparently still have not been allayed.

  In many cases, the U.N. apparently relied on “click-through” agreements basically similar to those endorsed by ordinary users of social media when they sign up on the web. In going over those agreements the U.N. auditors from the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) noted that they exposed the organization to “serious legal risks, e.g., by subjecting the United Nations to local law and to the jurisdiction of the local courts,” beyond the protection of normal U.N. diplomatic immunity.

  They noted that “there was also no documented evidence” that lawyers had been consulted on such issues as “staff use of social media; privacy issues related to the use of Google analytics and discovery; and use of cloud computing services within the Organization.”

  Copyright issues are a special mess. According to the report, the kind of “click-through” deals may U.N. departments have signed "usually provide websites with a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, transmit and display the user’s content in any and all media distribution methods known or later developed by the sites.” In other words, the U.N.’s brand is at risk.

  Furthermore, “the licenses usually allow the site to collect web site usage information whether with the assistance of 'cookies' which track individual usage of the site or with the assistance of third-parties such as 'Google, Analytics,' which in turn imposes its own terms and conditions on the user.” (Questioned about the issue by Fox News, Google declined to comment.)

  The auditors concluded that “it may be extremely difficult to negotiate different terms/conditions at this stage.”

  That is, even if the U.N. thought it was a high enough priority to do so. In response to questions from Fox News about the audit, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon confirmed that a full-fledged data privacy program for U.N. social media that the auditors recommended was not included in the organization’s 2012-2013 budget, because of a “severely constrained budget environment.”

  What that meant about the security of U.N. information—or the data privacy of those who access U.N. social information sites—was not clear. When asked if U.N. social media providers were able to access any of the data of site visitors, the spokesman said only that “Like any other organization, the U.N. is using those social media tools it feels are the most appropriate. We [meaning the U.N. itself] do not harvest, store or access our followers’ personal information.”

  Even so, the U.N. now appears to be reversing field at least in some respects. The spokesman told Fox News that U.N. was now “in active discussions with various social media providers to establish overall contracts with the organization that reflect the particular status of the United Nations.”

  Those discussions, the spokesman said, have the “support of DPI.” Nonetheless, the spokesman’s phrasing seemed to indicate that whatever contracts were involved had not been finalized, or perhaps even drafted.

  The U.N.’s claim to be hot on the trail of a solution might be taken with a grain or two of salt. The U.N. audit relates that the world organization spent at least the two previous years without addressing similar warnings about its data protection policies that were presented to top brass by the self-same auditing watchdog, in May 2009.

  Yet another report issued in December, 2009, further underlined that adequate controls to protect data privacy for U.N. staffers and diplomats who used the U.N. system were also not in place.

  In the May 2009 report on DPI’s role in “information dissemination through the Internet,” the current auditors relate, they recommended that the U.N.’s public information arm “develop a comprehensive and coherent web communications strategy and establish web governance architecture for the United Nations Secretariat.”

  Neither recommendation is anywhere near complete. Yet another inter-departmental U.N. organization has been formed, known as the Internet Governance Group, or IGG. It has been laboring away since 2009 to develop “a web communication strategy to provide guidelines on how the Secretariat should be portrayed over the web,” but so far hasn’t come up with any such strategy, the auditors said.

  And so far as the “governance structure” goes, it is “still being defined,” and isn’t expected to be finished until December 31, 2012.

  http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/05/16/un-websites-and-social-media-have-long-neglected-security-privacy-and-legal/
• 

  The Real Reasons Why Brands Like GM Still Don't Like Facebook Advertising

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:24am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  by Robert Hof

  There’s a curious disconnect plaguing Facebook in the run-up to its initial public offering this week: Just about every marketer knows she or he has to be on Facebook to reach its nearly 1 billion users, which is why ad spending on the social network nearly doubled last year. But even as they write Facebook checks, those same marketers invariably confess that they’re unsure what they’re getting from all that spending–in particular whether Facebook ads ultimately push more products off store shelves.

  Today, that disconnect hit home with General Motors’ decision to stop advertising on Facebook. The $10 million it was spending is a drop in Facebook’s revenue bucket, but the symbolism was hard to escape: One of the leading brand advertisers in the world thinks advertising on Facebook doesn’t work. And while marketers have voiced such uncertainties for some time, both in the Wall Street Journal recently and earlier in Forbes stories and posts, the exit of an iconic advertiser like an automaker is particularly worrisome.

  The news comes as a survey also shows more than half of Facebook users don’t feel safe buying on Facebook. Both developments threaten to mute investor interest in Facebook’s IPO, for which reports so far had indicated strong demand. And that IPO is just a couple of days away.

  A lot of pundits are quick to blame Facebook for what they assume is a failed ad platform. Well, some $5 billion in revenues this year is a “failure” nearly every other website and publisher would love to have. And some marketers (truth be told, many, even automakers) still like what they’re getting on Facebook. At the same time, though, Facebook’s ad offerings still leave much to be desired, especially for brand marketers, and so do its methods of measuring the impact of those ads.

  But the biggest challenge is one that is as old as media itself: Social media is, well, a new medium. Television ads that consisted of video of people reading radio ads didn’t work too well, but the 30-second image ad sure did. Magazine ads plastered on websites didn’t work too well either, but Google‘s search ads sure do.

  Likewise, Facebook, and others in social media such as Twitter, Pinterest, StumbleUpon and even Google with its YouTube service, have yet to come up with the 21st century equivalent of the 30-second TV ad. Indeed, they haven’t come up with anything to rival the search ad, a click on which remains the most powerful statement in advertising history of a consumer’s intent to buy. “There is still a fundamental disconnect between what people are doing on Facebook and what marketers want from them,” says Kurt Abrahamson, CEO of ShareThis, which helps advertisers reach target audiences through content sharing buttons on many websites. “Whether Facebook can become the brand mecca they want to be remains to be seen.”

  Facebook’s Sponsored Stories, which are existing posts about a brand that advertisers pay to spread more widely on Facebook, are a first attempt at an ad format more suited to social media. And they’ve apparently done well so far. As I wrote in my Forbes story last December:

  It’s … converting the primary gesture of social media—sharing—into something potentially even better for branding than TV ads: a supercharged version of word of mouth. It’s the most valuable form of marketing but tough to build quickly and even tougher to control.

  Facebook demolishes those limitations. People have an average of 130 Facebook friends, so when they “Like” a brand that endorsement spreads instantly to the news feeds of many of those friends—who then may spread it further to their friends, potentially building to millions of people in a flash. Mars Chocolate North America, for instance, seeded demand before last year’s launch of M&M’s Pretzel by offering samples through a virtual vending machine to 40,000 fans, who each could spread the offer to two of their friends. In less than 48 hours 120,000 samples flew out the door.

  Still, the impact of such campaigns is relatively small next to TV ad campaigns that can reach far more people at a single shot, often with much more emotional resonance. Indeed, marketers say Facebook ad units still leave little room to establish an emotional connection with consumers. Despite some findings that Facebook’s ads do just that through social connections rather than glitz, many marketers want both capabilities in Facebook ads. “Facebook needs to come up with something more beautiful,” Cory Treffiletti, cofounder of digital marketing firm Amplify Social, said in the same story.

  The other issue for Facebook is providing better measures of the impact of its advertising–especially as it gets more expensive. It has made some strides there, leading an initiative with Nielsen to provide metrics similar to the Gross Ratings Points used in television. But the effort is early, and marketers still want more. “Brands are experimenting on social media to see what’s most effective, and what metrics best measure that,” says Jonathan Weitz, a partner with the boutique media consulting firm Interactive Broadband Consulting Group.

  In particular, it’s harder for marketers to track the impact of an ad through to an actual sale than with other websites. That’s because Facebook limits how they can track people’s activities on Facebook, and they can’t directly track those users when they leave Facebook, as they can with other websites, with browser software called cookies. “Brands are looking at their investment in Facebook and seeing if they’re getting ahead of themselves,” says ShareThis’ Abrahamson. “They’re having trouble tracking it to economic results.”

  Not least, marketers themselves may need to change how they operate on social networks, just as they had to adapt their messaging to television and the Web. As I wrote during Facebook’s Marketing Conference in February:

  Marketers brought up onstage to support Facebook’s vision couldn’t help but mention challenges. Nigel Morris, CEO of Aegis Media North America, noted that there’s a “dramatic” shortage of talent to carry out the new marketing, and a lack of understanding by management as well.

  The problem, notes Bryan Wiener, CEO of digital agency 360i, is that much of the marketing industry is separated into distinct siloes for advertising, public relations, and Web site creation and operations. “The industry is not set up to support the new world order,” he says. “Facebook is making it incredibly difficult for these companies” as a result. Facebook’s vision, he adds, is going to require big disruptions in the way marketers and their agencies work.

  So it’s likely that if Facebook is to fulfill the huge expectations inherent in its $105 billion IPO, it will have to market itself to the marketers better as well. After all, Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the online ad trade group Interactive Advertising Bureau, noted at a marketing conference today, “95% of brand dollars are staying out of digital advertising” because it’s mainly aimed at eliciting a direct sale rather than improving brand metrics like brand lift and intent to buy. His prescription: Come up with “better space and places and opportunities for brand expression,” in particular ad units that are more standardized across social sites, not specific just to Facebook.

  For all these challenges, Facebook has a lot of ways it can turbocharge its ad business: serve ads to other websites like Google does with its multibillion-dollar AdSense system, move quickly into mobile ads, or simply run more ads on its pages. The $15 billion it raises from the IPO will go a long way to providing the means to do all that. And in the end, an audience of a billion is one that no brand, including GM, can ignore. ”GM will surely regret this and it wouldn’t surprise me if they soon changed their mind,” says Simon Mansell, CEO of Facebook ad management firm TBG Digital.

  But as I wrote a few months ago, Facebook’s IPO, like most IPOs for tech companies, won’t solve its problems. It will simply shine a light on how much further it has to go:

  Every company reaches a chasm they have to cross. Getting marketers to embrace the new world of marketing will be the chasm that Zuckerberg and his executives will face. They’ll probably make it, especially with the new IPO riches to pave the way. But make no mistake: That chasm is right in front of them.

  [www.forbes.com]

• 

  Gemalto secures eGovernment services for Oman

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:16am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  French smartcard group Gemalto said it has been selected by the Oman Information Technology Authority (ITA) as a prime contractor to secure the country's 3Government services. The full systems encompasses strong authentication and digital signature using the eID card, as well as mobile authentication using a mobile handset. The system will allow citizens and residents of Oman to securely access eGovernment services, with the authentication method of their choice. Acting as a turn-key system provider, Gemalto is delivering the complete Coesys eGov2.0 software together with the associated services including training, support and maintenance. The solution doesn't require any additional software installation from the end user and works on any personal computer.

  http://www.telecompaper.com/news/gemalto-secures-egovernment-services-for-oman
• 

  U.S. Social-Media Ad Spending to Jump to $9.8 Billion in 2016

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:15am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  U.S. social-media advertising spending may rise to $9.8 billion in 2016 from $3.8 billion last year, as companies seek to harness new tools that help reach people who interact online, researcher BIA/Kelsey said.

  Higher ad spending at Google Inc. (GOOG)’s YouTube and LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD) boosted BIA/Kelsey’s forecast from six months ago. In November, BIA/Kelsey projected 2011 social-media advertising revenues would reach $3.4 billion -- $400 million less than the figure released today.

  “We’ve slightly accelerated our numbers for 2012 and 2013 because of the growth we’ve seen with social video, with YouTube as a driver,” said Jed Williams, an analyst and program director at Chantilly, Virginia-based BIA/Kelsey. “YouTube will play an increasingly important role.”

  The researcher bumped up its 2012 social-media advertising spending estimate by $200 million to $4.8 billion, Williams said in a phone interview. Next year’s spending will reach $5.9 billion, up from the $5.8 billion BIA/Kelsey expected in November, he said.

  The increased forecast comes as the world’s largest social- networking site, Facebook Inc. (FB), prepares to sell shares to the public. Facebook is poised to surpass United Parcel Service Inc. as the most valuable company in history to go public in the U.S., based on market capitalization, data compiled by Bloomberg and Dealogic show.

  “Better performance, coupled with richer formats and creative elements, like video, will be the principal social-ad market-growth drivers,” Williams said in a statement.

  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-15/social-media-ad-spending-to-jump-to-9-8-billion-in-2016.html
• 

  Dubai eGovernment enhances Dubai.ae

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:14am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  Dubai eGovernment Department (DeG) has recently enhanced and upgraded Dubai.ae - the official portal of Dubai Government with new interactive features to ease the lives of its customers and enable different sections of society including citizens, residents, businesses and visitors to have an easy and quick access to eServices.

  Enhancements to Dubai.ae include a text-to voice reader for both English and Arabic users who prefer to have the website read to them, this being useful in the first place for users with visual impairments.

  Social media enhancements include a live Twitter wall for promoting eTransformation in general and government entities’ eServices in particular, as well as a social media sharing option to share any page of the content via Facebook, Twitter, Google + and more than 300 other social media applications.

  With Dubai being such a dynamic city with so many events happening, Dubai eGovernment worked closely with Dubai Events & Promotions Establishment to have a live Dubai Calendar available on Dubai.ae. Many other tweaks and enhancements have been made to ensure a smoother and easier browsing and sharing experience for users.

  Commenting on the enhancements to Dubai.ae, Ahmed Bin Humaidan, Director-General, Dubai eGovernment, said: “We take our cue from the visions of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, who keeps reminding us that in the race for excellence, there is no finish line. We therefore interacted with many key stakeholders including conducting surveys with our users to understand their needs. We found that some potential users could not use Dubai.ae due to visual impairments or poor reading ability and were therefore reliant on another human being to read the content to them. The new text-to-voice technology on Dubai.ae allows English and Arabic listeners to automatically get any page on Dubai.ae read to them, while allowing customization of speed. Such enhancements are typical of our use of the modern technology to provide appropriate solutions to our customers and we will continue to improve and enhance Dubai.ae based on our users’ needs and requirements.”

  Bin Humaidan added: “Based on Dubai eGovernment website guidelines and standards, we have to constantly upgrade and enhance the official portal of Dubai Government as a benchmark of excellence while also highlighting and promoting the eServices of our government partners through easy to read and now hear spoken content. Our new enhancements will also allow our users to keep abreast with the latest happenings in our dynamic city as well as interact with us and even share our content easily.”

  Work is under way in many more such improvements, which would be ready for users shortly, Bin Humaidan said, adding that this shows that Dubai eGovernment is carrying on its journey towards making Dubai.ae a real and practical destination for all seekers of electronic services in Dubai.

  In 2009, Dubai eGovernment became one of the first eGovernments around the world to restructure its content using a new strategic approach called ‘life events’ where information and services were packaged based on the various life stages of individuals, businesses and visitors. Dubai eGovernment will continue to employ multiple information and communication technology channels and features to provide services to all sections in line with its vision of improving the lives of people and businesses in Dubai and its slogan “Together to ease your life”.

  http://www.khaleejtimes.com/nation/inside.asp?xfile=/data/government/2012/May/government_May37.xml&section=government
• 

  The danger in service operators’ censorship filters

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:13am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  Yesterday we reported that the German Pirate Party had been ‘accidentally’ blocked by an automatic content filtering system used by many German schools. And yesterday the Open Rights Group and the LSE Media Policy Unit published a new report: Mobile Internet censorship: What’s happening and what we can do about it.

  This report follows the publication of an Independent Parliamentary Inquiry into Online Child Protection, led by Conservative MP Claire Perry and published 17 April. The BBC subsequently reported that prime minister David Cameron would ‘consult’ on the issue: "I want to fully explore every option that might help make children safer - including whether internet filters should be switched on as the default, so that adult content is blocked unless you decide otherwise."

  The Claire Perry report makes eight specific recommendations, including tasking the ISPs to roll out “single account network filters for domestic broadband customers”, and supporting this with “backstop legal powers to intervene should the ISPs fail to implement an appropriate solution.”

  The new report from the Open Rights Group and the LSE points out that something similar is already in place with mobile providers. While it stresses that the mobile operators haven’t got it all wrong, it points to and discusses four specific problems: some sites are incorrectly classified; the operators are not transparent in how their systems work; it is often unclear on how to report mistakes; and it can be difficult to turn the filtering off. (Your author has personal experience of T-Mobile blocking the blog of James Firth, CEO of the Open Digital Policy Organization, and the website of an international packaging company – possibly because the filter didn’t like talk of its large package.)

  The Open Rights Group and the LSE investigated 60 incidents of what it terms “incorrectly blocked sites between 1st January and 31st March 2012.” It gives a sample list of ten, in which the political danger in allowing censorship is immediately clear: four of these ten sites are Tor (the project designed to provide anonymity on the web), La Quadrature du Net (a French civil liberties group currently taking a lead against ACTA), Septicisle.info (a blog of political opinions), and Biased-BBC (a site that challenges the BBC’s impartiality). None of these sites contain ‘adult’ content.

  The absurdity that can arise is further detailed in a case study involving the website of a Sheffield church. This was blocked by O2 “throughout the second half of 2011, claiming it features adult content.” When a church member noticed the block and reported it, all he could achieve was the removal of the block on his own phone. He received “a text informing him he could ‘now access 18-rated content’. He was told that the church website itself could not be removed from the filter.”

  The Open Rights Group is not against filtering per se, but makes three ‘asks’ of the operators. Firstly, the choice should be simple and straightforward. It advocates ‘active choice’ rather than either opting in or opting out, and quotes last year’s Bailey Review: “...when a new device or service is purchased or contract entered into, customers would be asked to make an active choice about whether filters should be switched off or on...”.

  Secondly, it asks for greater transparency from the operators on what kind of content might be blocked, who provides any filtering that might be used, in the information available to website operators, and for greater ease in methods to complain about errors.

  Thirdly, there should be greater effort put into ‘redress and review’: for website operators to be able to challenge a refusal to remove a block, and for the operators to review the performance of the filter.

  “What mobile filtering already helps to demonstrate,” concludes the report, “is that seemingly simple, laudable goals such as protecting children through technical intervention may have significant harmful and unintended consequences for everybody’s access to information.”

  http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/view/25767/the-danger-in-service-operators-censorship-filters
• 

  New threat to internet freedom

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:12am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  By Willemien Groot

  Out of public view, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN agency, is working on a proposal to give governments more control over the internet. The effort is supported by a number of countries including Russia, Brazil and China, and if it’s successful it could mean the end of internet freedom.

  After the WikiLeaks-affair and the Arab Spring, an increasing number of countries would like to ‘democratise’ the internet. China India, Brazil and South Africa all use the ITU as a platform to advance their plans, says Dieuwertje Kuijpers from the Telders Foundation, a research agency connected with the pro-market VVD party.

  “It’s a useful platform for them, enabling them to set rules about what is and is not allowed on the internet.” That includes rules for both acceptable behaviour and internet regulation.

  Trivial
  Russia and China were the first UN members to propose setting up the International Code of Conduct for Information Security. The code lists the rights and responsibilities of states when it comes to the web. The rules also make it possible to fight internet criminals and extremists attempting to undermine the ‘economic and political stability of the state’ - in other words, bring order to the chaos. The first thing was to get rid of ‘trivial’ aspects like the right to anonymity and privacy on the web. The proposal was considered somewhat laughable in US and Europe but the controversial code of conduct is now getting a second chance.

  India, Brazil and South Africa are calling for the creation of a new UN organisation to monitor and protect equal access to the internet. The UN Committee for Internet-Related Policies (CIRP) would consist of 50 member states, along with four advisors from the business world and society. Many people don’t realise that this committee would mean the end of the so-called multi-stakeholder principle that everyone has a say in the internet. The 50 countries represented would decide how around 6 billion people are allowed to use the internet.

  Control 
  Dutch Green Left MP Arjan El Fassed believes that restraint is necessary:

  "The growth and development of the internet is possible precisely because it belongs to everyone and no one. Many different groups would like to control aspects of the internet, from the entertainment industry to governments. The danger is that regulation will be used to disguise attempts to take control. That’s bad for everyone.”

  The United Nations is the last body that should be dealing with this issue, according to Dieuwertje Kuijpers: "The UN is too bureaucratic and opaque. That makes it almost creepy.” It’s also impossible to make this kind of agreement on the basis of consensus.

  The ITU has proven its usefulness in the past. The agency facilitated the liberalisation of the internet in the late eighties, guaranteeing access for everyone without restrictive international frameworks. National governments are responsible for the rules of usage. Independent organisations such as ICANN ensure the technical standards and stability of the internet.

  Radical
  It’s unclear exactly what the proponents of government control actually wish to accomplish. Clearly, cyber security, privacy and data storage concerns are part of their agenda, but so far the draft text has not been released to the public. Given the radical nature of the proposal, the public has a right to know more about the plan.

  Arjan El Fassed thinks the Netherlands should refuse to continue negotiating until the ITU proposal is made public:

  "The majority of users will benefit from an open internet, not from more control. The problem with these proposals is that civil society has almost no say. The Netherlands should have the courage to stand up for those users, like other European countries.”

  "Member States shouldn’t wait for ratification, they must have a say now,” says Dieuwertje Kuijpers. "This process started back in 2005. There is no earthly reason to be taken by surprise if the proposal is presented at the end of this year at the telecom conference in Dubai.”

  Picnic
  The ratification of the controversial anti-piracy law ACTA has already demonstrated that politicians have little idea what these agreements entail. Specialists in the field of civil rights and internet freedom had to explain what ACTA means to computer illiterate MPs and civil servants. They cannot afford to be that ignorant this time around, says Kuijpers:

  "ACTA was a picnic compared to what the ITU is planning.”

  http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/new-threat-internet-freedom
• 

  More Trouble for Merkel as Pirate Party Raids Its Fourth State Parliament

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:02am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  By William Lee Adams

  Germany’s Pirate Party, which campaigns on a platform of Internet freedom and political transparency, has entered the state parliament in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) — Germany’s most populous state. The party earned 7.8% of the vote, exceeding the 5% required to enter parliament. That showing puts it on par with the Free Democrats, Angela Merkel’s coalition partners, who nabbed 8.6% of the vote, and the Green Party, which managed 11.3%. Speaking at Düsseldorf’s Zakk discotheque after the results came in, biochemical engineer-turned-Pirate Joachim Paul glimpsed even more success on the horizon.”The Pirates in North Rhine-Westphalia are in the state parliament!” he shouted as supporters waved swords fashioned from orange balloons. “Tomorrow, it’s on to the federal Parliament!”

  He may be on to something. North Rhine-Westphalia — which includes cities like Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund and Essen — is seen as an important bellwether for national elections, which take place in late 2013. Success in NRW, where nearly 1 in 4 German lives, suggests the Pirates could hoist their flag at the federal level too. It’s a reality that mainstream politicians have largely refused to accept until now. Back in September, when the party stormed into the Berlin parliament with 8.9% of the vote, the competition wrote it off as a fluke that could be attributed to the anything-goes attitude of Berlin. “Berlin is a special place in Germany, and there are a lot of rebellious people and youngsters,” Helga Trüpel, a member of the European Parliament with the Green Party, told TIME at the time. “It’s different in the countryside.”

   

  (MORE: Politics, Ahoy! German’s Pirate Party Scores Another Election Win)

  Apparently not. At the end of March the political buccaneers once again scored a victory by earning 7.4% of the vote in Saarland, Germany’s smallest state (excluding the city-states of Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg). “They have their strongholds among young people in cities with universities, with an academic environment,” says Lothar Probst, a political scientist at the University of Bremen. “One of the amazing points in Saarland is that it only has one or two universities. The Pirates were still pretty successful in the countryside.” Their ship came in yet again on May 6 when they earned 8% of the vote in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein. Entering parliament in NRW makes them 4 for 4.

  While the Pirates partied with vodka tonics and their laptops on Sunday evening, members of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) were left licking their wounds. The party’s share of the vote dropped from 35% to 26% — its worst performance ever in the state. Merkel described it as “a bitter, painful defeat.” And Peter Altmaier, the party’s chief whip in the Bundestag, said the result “exceeds our worst fears.”

  Some commentators have rushed to attribute the CDU losses to Merkel’s calls for austerity across the continent, and it’s certainly in vogue to draw comparisons to François Hollande’s successful antiausterity platform in France. But in reality the CDU’s losses probably came down more to the inept campaign run by Norbert Röttgen, the German environment minister and the party’s chief candidate in NRW. He caused outrage among CDU colleagues when he claimed on the campaign trail that the vote was a referendum on Merkel’s management of the euro-zone crisis. Berlin censured him almost immediately. The CDU’s stumbling means that the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which earned 39.1% of the vote, will once again run the state in coalition with the Greens.

  Whether established parties were left celebrating or commiserating, all will have talked about the Pirates. Campaigning for free public transportation and a basic income guarantee, they managed to attract 30,000 first-time voters, according to research from Infratest dimap/ARD. The Greens could only attract 20,000. And they also coaxed 70,000 nonvoters to the polls, compared with 50,000 for the Greens. But Germany’s mainstream parties will be most worried about the direct hits they sustained in NRW. The Pirates marauded voters from all major parties, stealing 60,000 from Merkel’s CDU, 80,000 from the Greens and 90,000 from the SPD. “Germany’s party system lacks a party that is young, modern, progressive and representative of the 21st century’s information society,” says Alexander Hensel, a political scientist who studies the Pirates at Germany’s Goettingen Institute for Democracy Research. “The Greens had this role, but they are too old now.”

  For a party named after sea bandits, the Pirate Party had to campaign with remarkably little treasure. Their election budget was a mere $150,000. Compare that with the millions spent by the SPD and CDU. As an upstart party, the Pirates had to borrow office space from a supporter to create their regional headquarters. They only set it up six weeks ago (it’s located above the Freak Show Rock ‘n’ Roll Bar in Essen). Campaigning presented other challenges. Election officials limit the number of posters each party can hang around the region based on their success during previous elections. Because the Pirates earned only 1.6% of the vote during state elections in 2010, the committee allowed them to hang just 400 posters, compared with the thousands awarded to their more established rivals. During an 11-minute cab ride from the Essen train station to the party’s headquarters at the end of April, I counted 82 posters for rival parties like the CDU and SPD. The Pirate Party tally was zero.

  But it doesn’t matter. Pirate supporters tend to be young and tech-savvy, and live and share their lives on the Internet. Naturally that includes information about their political beliefs and activities. “We don’t advertise online. Our whole online campaign is our members being active within their networks on the Internet,” says Michele Marsching, chairman of the state chapter of the Pirates and now an elected parliamentarian. “There’s no campaign. There’s no plan about how to get to the voters on the Internet. It’s all about being self-made.”

  TIME visited the NRW Pirates ahead of their election win and will be reporting on their campaign strategy and beliefs in the international editions of TIME in the coming weeks

  [globalspin.blogs.time.com]
• 

  Cambogia: Internet Use Grows to Nearly Half a Million: Monitor

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 2:00am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  Internet penetration in Cambodia more than doubled last year, according to a monitoring website.

  The proliferation of smart phones and data plans helped boost usage from about 1.3 percent of the population to 3.1 percent, according to the Internet World Stats website, which monitors global usage.

  The country had nearly 450,000 Internet users at the end of 2011, according to the Internet World Stats website, which monitors global usage. But that number continues to grow. The number of Facebook users at the end of March more than 490,000, according to the website.

   

  “The first thing that attracts them into using the Internet is entertainment,” said Bun Tharum, a technology reporter and regular contributor to VOA Khmer. “At the same time, they realize that it’s more convenient for them to study, do more research and get information.”

  Most users are in their late teens or twenties, he said. The growth shows promise for private companies, he said, but it does not mean the Internet is near supplanting radio and television as the main sources of news and information for most people.

  “The Internet has enabled users, especially the young, to access information and entertainment,” he said. “But it is not a substitute.”

  http://www.voanews.com/khmer-english/news/Internet-Use-Grows-to-Nearly-Half-a-Million-Monitor-151395275.html
• 

  The German Pirate Party fights censorship, but is it being censored?

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 1:59am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  While the Pirate Party wins seats in the German North Rhine-Westphalia state elections, a "shitstorm" about automated filtering starts to brew.

  Headlines will show that the German Pirate Party is continuing its recent growth in German elections. At the time of writing this, the latest exit polls for North Rhine-Westphalia (the most populous of Germany’s 16 states) suggest that the party will achieve approximately 7.5% of the votes. Under the German proportional representation voting system, a party needs a minimum of 5% before it can gain any seats. 7.5% would translate into 18 seats in the state parliament. 

  Put simplistically, the Pirate Party grew out of the same movement that created The Pirate Bay in Sweden. The primary plank of its purpose is to fight internet censorship.

  Meanwhile and ironically, however, Monica Horten at IPtegrity has discussed German internet censorship of the Pirate Party itself. A student in a North Rhine-Westphalia school attempted to access the German Pirate Party’s website from a school computer to find it was blocked under the ‘illegal drugs’ classification. Horten does not suggest this was genuine censorship, but more likely a failure of automated filtering systems. The system itself, operated by an organization called Time for Kids, is developed by IBM. It, says Horten, “crawls the web and categorises webpages according to its own internal algorithms.”

  The assumption is that when these web crawlers found the Pirate Party’s pledge to legalize cannabis (the purpose is to eliminate the thriving black market in more powerful and dangerous adulterated cannabis), the word ‘cannabis’ tripped the filters and caused the site to be blacklisted.

  Netzpolitik.org, a German blog that comments on internet issues, reported the event. “In North Rhine-Westphalia, some schools block the election program of the country's pirate party.” Time for Kids reacted angrily to this and subsequent blog commentaries. Writes Horten, “Time for Kids gave a hostile response to the Netzpolitik story. In a press release, they attacked Netzpolitik and other bloggers for fear-mongering. At least, that is the best translation I can do. The word they actually  used  is rather colourful, but untranslateable. They said that the blogs are full of “shitstorm-verdächtige Kommentare”.   Verdächtig means suspicious.”

  The issue, however, is not whether this was an accidental ‘block’. The reality is that the Pirate Party was blocked and that this filtering system “is blocking political debate, and is contravening the right to freedom of expression.” Horten points out that it is wrongful categorisation that will happen all the time in automated filtering. “And, even worse, it opens the door to so much potential abuse.” Potential abuse is a danger for both automated and human filtering systems.

  http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/view/25743/the-german-pirate-party-fights-censorship-but-is-it-being-censored
• 

  India Parenting founder Nirali Sanghi launches social network YippeeClubs

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 1:58am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  BANGALORE: The success of Facebook continues to inspire other entrepreneurs, who are jumping on to the social network bandwagon despite such high profile failures like MySpace and Orkut.

  Nirali Sanghi, founder of online parenting site India Parenting, is the latest entrepreneur to launch a social network. Hers is called YippeeClubs and will be focused on common interests.

  Unlike other social networks, users on YippeeClubs can choose to become members of clubs based on their interest right when they join. The network claims to have 600 clubs in categories like lifestyle, love and relationships, parenting, health and hobbies.

  "In other networks like Facebook it is difficult to find groups that a user might be interested in joining and groups get defunct quickly. In our case the interest group is at the core of the network," said Sanghi, who founded India Parenting in 1999. YippeeClubs has such intriguing groups like, mother-in-law issues, married yet lonely, premature graying in kids and gem therapy.

  Users can simultaneously be part of multiple clubs, said Sanghi, who added that the 7 lakh registered users of India Parenting is a ready audience for the new network.

  Sanghi admits that social media is a touch space to be in, as success depends on user adoption. "I have faith in the strength of the product and I am sure users will find it useful."

  Bangalore-based Nagarjun Palavalli launched a social network for students and educational institutions, called Eduora, in April this year. The network was in pilot mode for over a year and creates hubs for various campuses, where students, teachers and management can interact.

  http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-05-14/news/31701317_1_social-network-new-network-users
• 

  Ghana: Over 360 dormant post offices to be turned into ICT centres

  Posted: May 17th, 2012, 1:56am CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  by Ohemeng Tawiah, Nhyira Fm-Kumasi, Ghana

  The Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications has reached an agreement with Ghana Post to convert over 360 dormant post offices nationwide into information technology centers.
  
  The move is seen as one of the best efforts to breathe life into the once active postal services.
  
  Thirteen post offices in Brong Ahafo, Eastern, Greater Accra and Western Regions have already been connected to internet on a pilot program.
  
  Chief Executive of GIFEC, Kofi Attoh, announced this at a training program in Kumasi for 34-military personnel drawn from various barracks countrywide.
  
  He says the initiative will increase rural connectivity to ICT because of the strategic location of the post offices.
  
  GIFEC has, since the beginning of this year, introduced intervention programs to make internet facilities accessible especially to education institutions.
  
  Rural communities especially in underserved areas are expected to benefit from GIFEC with projects like Community Information Centers, Rural Communication and Library Connectivity.
  
  Mr. Attoh announced 20 libraries in the regional capitals and other places have been connected to the internet, with all military barracks next in line.
  
  “These Post Offices that would turn into ICT centers would belong to Ghana Post so that when they want to do their money transfer and other things again, they already have the facilities”.
  
  According to Mr. Attoh, the move will not only revive the Ghana Post but will also benefit those who will be using the facilities.
  
  “You can even pay your bills - electricity, water and other things can be paid and cued-in and messaged directly to Accra; this will rather expand the scope of Ghana Post because this time people don’t post letters”, he explained.
  
  Director of Communications at Ghana Armed Forces, Colonel Mathew Essien, was full of praise for GIFEC for the training.
  
  He says beneficiaries will be deployed to man 30-centers nationwide.

  http://business.myjoyonline.com/pages/news/201205/86470.php

• May 16, 2012
• 

  UK Police Roll Out On-the-Spot Mobile Data Extraction System

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 11:34pm CDT by samzenpus

  Qedward writes "The Metropolitan Police has rolled out a mobile device data extraction system to allow officers to extract data 'within minutes' from suspects' phones while they are in custody. 'Ostensibly, the system has been deployed to target phones that are suspected of having actually been used in criminal activity, although data privacy campaigners may focus on potentially wider use.'"

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  RIP Chuck Brown (1936-2012)

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 11:05pm CDT by rikomatic

   

  Chuck Brown, the King of Go-Go, has died at the age of 75.

  I was lucky enough to catch him performing a rare concert in NYC in 2008.  Here's a short clip.

  More about Chuck Brown, and many more clips on BoingBoing.

• 

  India's Proposal For Government Control of Internet To Be Discussed In Geneva

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 9:07pm CDT by samzenpus

  First time accepted submitter cvenky writes "The Indian Government is proposing to create an intergovernmental body 'to develop internet policies, oversee all internet standards bodies and policy organizations, negotiate internet-related treaties and sit in judgment when internet-related disputes come up.' This committee will be funded and staffed by the UN and will report to the UN General Assembly which effectively means the control of the internet passes on to World Governments directly."

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  Don’t miss paidContent 2012 – special discount

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 8:56pm CDT by Jonathan Dube

  paidContent’s annual conference is next week in NYC and a must-attend event. CyberJournalist.net readers can get a 15% discount. Register here and use the code CYBER15.

  Featuring interviews, research findings, and fast-paced panels, the program is jam-packed with hot topics, such as:

  • The New Publishers—The huge transformations in publishing require leaders who excel at making things happen, and the ability to regroup and change direction mid-stream. What are the most innovative leaders doing to map out the future of publishing? Featuring Jim Bankoff, Vox Media; John Paton, Digital First Media; and Larry Kramer, Founder of MarketWatch.

  • The New Publishing Landscape—The battle for digital readers is transforming the publishing landscape. As newspapers and magazines increasingly morph into the digital space, and the cloud becomes an ever-more viable content outlet, who will win the battle for readers? Featuring Liz Schimel, Meredith National Media Group; Nick Bogaty, Adobe Systems Incorporated; and Jonathan Shar, Barnes & Noble.
  • Paying the Way—Once a question of “will they/won’t they,” consumer online content payments appear to have a rosier future. How do you effectively price your content when there are few comparisons and free alternatives elsewhere? Featuring Tomas Bella, Piano Media and Rob Grimshaw, FT.com.

  
  

  
  

  

• 

  Wil Wheaton: BitTorrent Isn't Only For Piracy

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 6:35pm CDT by samzenpus

  itwbennett writes "Geek advocate Wil Wheaton has written a blog post on the (legal) usefulness of BitTorrent, saying that the speed of his recent download of Ubuntu 12.04 should serve as a reminder that BitTorrent fills an important niche. Wheaton compares blocking BitTorrent to closing freeways because bank robbers could get away."

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  Gemius scores victory in Hungarian internet tender

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 6:29pm CDT by Mikhail Doroshevich

  Gemius, the leading digital research agency in the EMEA region, in cooperation with Ipsos, has been selected the provider of the next wave of internet audience measurement in Hungary.

  IAB Hungary together with the Association of Hungarian Communication Agencies (MAKSZ) has declared Gemius, in cooperation with Ipsos as the winner of the Digital Audience Measurement Tender (Digitális Közönségmérési Tender - DKT13 in Hungary). For the winning pair of companies this victory means a continuation of providing online audience measurement in the country.

  The new wave of audience measurement is set to begin on 2^nd January 2013 and last until 2017. The tender marks a great step for one of the most developed CEE online markets, as for the first time the measurement will include not only online metrics (gemius/Ipsos Audience), but also mobile audience insights (gemiusMobile) and online video data (gemiusStream). These novelties in the study are a response to a rapid development of Hungarian interactive advertising market in the recent years and a substantial increase in attention from advertisers, agencies and publishers.

  We are delighted in the decision of IAB Hungary and MAKSZ, enabling us, together with Ipsos, to provide such an exceptionally interesting market as Hungary with thorough insight into the local internet reality – comment Filip Pieczyński, Vice President of Gemius and Head of gemiusAudience product in the company. At the same time, this very decision is a confirmation of our online audience measurement tool appreciation. Keeping pace with the latest trends, we have decided to broaden the scope of the gemius/Ipsos Audience study by the measurement of mobile internet and video content. These new features in our research make it the best answer to all the needs of the online professionals, helping them to operate in the internet reality in their daily duties.

   

• 

  Political whodunit surrounds leak of Knotts video - WIS

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 5:25pm CDT

  WLTX.com

  Political whodunit surrounds leak of Knotts video WIS Knotts' words were carried on what was at the time, a new Internet political show called Pub Politics. Few people saw the show on the web or in person, but the controversy that followed forced Knotts to apologize. He was censured by Lexington County ... Infamous Knotts "raghead" video leaks to the InternetLive 5 News all 84 news articles »

• 

  Canada's Internet Surveillance Bill: Not Dead After All

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 5:10pm CDT by samzenpus

  First time accepted submitter Maow writes "Despite a recent story claiming that Canada's Bill C-30, covering internet surveillance, has died a 'lonely' death, the minister responsible claims otherwise. 'Public Safety Minister Vic Toews is denying reports that the Harper government intends to quietly shelve its controversial online surveillance bill, C-30.' Speaking to reporters on Wednesday morning, Toews insisted the legislation was moving ahead. He has previously stated this is the bill that you either support, 'or you stand with the child pornographers.'"

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  Russia: State TV Justifies May 6 Police Violence, Cites Spanish Bill Criminalizing Online Protest Organization as Example

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 4:42pm CDT by Veronica Khokhlova

  In the final segment of the report [ru] on the May 6 protest in Moscow, which ended in clashes with riot police, the Russian state-owned Channel 1 mentioned, among other things, a Spanish draft law [en] criminalizing online organization of public protests, as an example of the “much tougher” treatment of protesters by the “colleagues” of the Russian law enforcement officials “in the countries with the so-called established democracy.”

  Written by Veronica Khokhlova · comments (0)
  Share: Donate · facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

• 

  Video: Anatomy of a Good Advocacy Video by WITNESS

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 4:28pm CDT by Juliana Rincón Parra

  WITNESS, a site advocating for Human Rights Issues has produced a nice analysis of what makes a good Advocacy video, using Aristotle's' Poetic regarding story arcs.

  Written by Juliana Rincón Parra · comments (0)
  Share: Donate · facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

• 

  Why The Internet Doesn't Make Us Care More About Politics - TechCrunch

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 3:39pm CDT

  Why The Internet Doesn't Make Us Care More About Politics TechCrunch American politics used to be fun: frequent political carnivals in the 19th century would mix parties, parades, and political speeches in an endless stream of local civic life. As a result, America had an astonishingly high turnout, between 70-90%, ... and more »

• 

  24 best practices for nonprofits using Twitter

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 3:31pm CDT by norman_carder

  24 best practices for nonprofits using Twitter

• 

  U.S. Law Professors Cast Further Doubt on ACTA's Constitutionality - State Department Confirms No ACTA Pre-Review

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 3:07pm CDT by maira

  Fifty leading U.S. legal scholars cast fresh doubt on the constitutionality of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in an open letter to the Senate Finance Committee today. (Press Release). At issue is whether the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) had authority to enter into the controversial IP enforcement agreement on behalf of the United States when the Deputy U.S. Trade Ambassador signed ACTA in October 2011. The law professors say no, and call on the Senators to “exercise your constitutional responsibility to ensure that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is submitted to the Senate for approval as an Article II treaty, or to the Congress as an ex-post Congressional-Executive Agreement.”  

  We, too, have wondered about the USTR’s authority to enter into this agreement. That’s why we made a request under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act to the State Department in February for key documents that set out the State Department’s analysis of the constitutional basis for ACTA – the “Circular 175” memorandum, and the accompanying Memorandum of Law.

  As the State Department’s website states, the Circular 175 procedure is the way that the State Department “seeks to confirm that the making of treaties and other international agreements by the United States is carried out within constitutional and other legal limitations, with due consideration of the agreement's foreign policy implications, and with appropriate involvement by the State Department.”  Circular 175 memoranda must be accompanied by a Memorandum of Law prepared by the Office of the Legal Advisor in the State Department, which generally includes a discussion of the appropriate legal analysis underlying implementation of the treaty at issue.

  The State Department is required to prepare these documents for all treaties and other international instruments that bind the United States as a matter of international law under 22 CFR Part 181.  No agencies can conclude an international agreement in the name of the United States without first consulting with the State Department, and the determination of whether an agreement is an international agreement for this purpose must be made by the Office of the Legal Advisor to the State Department.

  We have now received the State Department’s response. It’s short:  the State Department has not created a Circular 175 memorandum and accompanying Memorandum of Law for ACTA:

  “Based on the subject matter of your request, we consulted with subject matter experts in the Office of the Legal Advisor. These officials advised us that no Circular 175 Memorandum or Memorandum of Law were ever issued for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The officials also told us that USTR has lead within the U.S. Government for this issue.”
  

  This suggests that ACTA was not submitted to the normal State Department review process to determine its constitutionality before it was signed by the Deputy Trade Ambassador.

  Since the State Department’s Legal Office must decide whether a proposed instrument is an “international agreement” for this process, it’s possible that the State Department was consulted but decided that ACTA was not an “international agreement”.  If so, where is the Memorandum explaining why ACTA should not be considered an “international agreement” despite all appearances to the contrary?

  Given that, the FOIA response appears to confirm what we’ve long suspected – that USTR was acting on a folly when it negotiated and signed ACTA, in the absence of Trade Promotion Authority which had expired on July 1, 2007, and without consulting the US government agency that is entrusted with ensuring that international agreements abide by appropriate constitutional process.

  It is important to understand that the way that ACTA was negotiated and subsequently signed by the USTR raises fundamental questions about the separation of powers set out in the U.S. Constitution. ACTA deals with powers over subject matter – intellectual property and foreign trade –that the Constitution’s Article I gives exclusively to Congress. Specifically, there are three ways that the U.S. can bind itself to international agreements dealing with Article 1 subject matter. First, an agreement can be ratified under the Treaty Clause, which requires a vote by two-thirds of the Senate. Second, Congress can pass a law that authorizes the negotiation of an international agreement (ex ante authorization). Third, Congress can approve an agreement that has been negotiated by the Executive Branch after the fact, or “ex post”, by passing the agreement, subject to amendment, through both houses of Congress and having the President sign it into law. These agreements are known as ex-post Congressional-Executive Agreements.

  As we’ve reported before, during the ACTA negotiations, the USTR consistently maintained that it was a Sole Executive Agreement dealing with matters delegated to the President and, on that basis, did not need Congressional review and approval. Then, in a surprising about-face, the Executive changed its explanation of the constitutional basis for ACTA in March 2012. In a letter responding to a request from the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee's Trade Subcommittee, Senator Wyden, on March 6, the Legal Advisor to the State Department, Howard Koh, implied that Congress had authorized the Executive to negotiate ACTA in response to the 2008 Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act (PRO-IP Act).  On March 7, the U.S. Trade Ambassador followed that line, and testified in a Senate hearing that ACTA was negotiated with the authorization of Congress, quoting directly from Koh’s letter.

  As we noted at the time, it seemed implausible that Congressional authorization was granted in legislation that was enacted the year after ACTA negotiations were announced, on October 23, 2007. In addition, as the legal scholars’ letter notes, the provision cited in the State Department Legal Advisor’s letter – section 8113(a)(6) of the PRO-IP Act  – does not actually direct the USTR to negotiate an international agreement, let alone one with ACTA’s far-reaching characteristics. ACTA requires creation of an unelected ACTA Committee that has the final say on ACTA implementation in U.S. law, ousting any role for Congress. If Congress had intended to grant ex ante authorization to the USTR to negotiate an international agreement that would limit Congress’ role and impede its ability to legislate, it seems more likely that it would have chosen to do so expressly.

  The legal scholars conclude that:

  “..the Administration currently lacks a means to constitutionally enter ACTA without ex post Congressional approval. The present issue reaches far beyond the topical matters covered by ACTA, into the fundamental Constitutional issue of separation of powers. If Congress allows the executive to claim that ACTA was authorized by language that clearly does not authorize the agreement, it will be ceding unprecedented power to the executive."

  We agree.

  The legal scholars also call on the members of the Senate Finance Committee to act, noting that:

  “Remedying this state of affairs is uniquely within Congress’s province. Congress, and specifically the Senate as the Constitutionally recognized chamber with responsibilities for the approval of treaties, should secure from the administration a public pledge to send ACTA to the Senate as a treaty, or to the Congress as an ex-post Congressional-executive Agreement. Absent a pledge to this effect, we encourage the Committee to hold hearings and to pass legislation that would prevent the United States from binding itself to ACTA without express Congressional consent.”

  Now it’s up to the members of the Senate Finance Committee to rectify this unconstitutional power grab by an unaccountable Executive Branch agency, and protect the fundamental separation of powers embodied in the U.S. Constitution.

  Meanwhile, the process of ratifying ACTA has noticeably slowed down in the rest of the world.  As Sean Flynn from American University’s Program on Information Justice and the Public Interest notes, the fresh doubt about ACTA’s constitutionality under U.S. law is “one component of the larger context casting increasing doubt that ACTA can ever go into force.” In recent months we’ve witnessed growing concerns about ACTA’s impact that have led to delays in the signing and ratification of ACTA in the EU, Switzerland, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand. Let's hope that the members of the Senate Finance Committee heed the law professors' call to action and ensure that the U.S. undertakes the same rigorous public process that is underway in other countries.
  

  ~

  For more about the broader implications of the constitutional problems with ACTA, check out this insightful op-ed from Margot Kaminski, Executive Director of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.

  Related Issues: Intellectual PropertyInternationalAnti-Counterfeiting Trade AgreementFOIA

• 

  Facebook Adds 96 Million Shares, Will Privacy Get Worse After IPO?

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 3:00pm CDT by samzenpus

  AlistairCharlton writes "Facebook has made yet another amendment to its S-1 filing, adding a further 96 million shares, pushing its initial public offering up to a potential maximum of $18.4bn (£11.5bn). In what is the eighth amendment to its S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Facebook has also increased the number of shares allowed for over allotment, up from 50.6 million to 63.2 million." Facebook will have a lot of pressure to increase revenue after it goes public. jfruh writes in with a story about how that will impact their privacy policies. "There's been a steady drumbeat of panics over the past few years involving how Facebook uses the personal information you give it; nevertheless, someday you'll look back at 2012 as the golden age of Facebook privacy. That's because, once Facebook has its IPO, it'll come under huge pressure from the markets to extract more revenue from its business. And with display advertising not generating game-changing amounts of money, Facebook has only one valuable resource: your data, which is going to be monetized as hard as possible."

  

  Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  
  

  

• 

  Video: The Case for Independent Local Government

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 2:32pm CDT

  The Information Daily explores whether local government is secure in its relationship with the centre so that it can deliver improved public services and local economic growth.

• 

  Australian passengers flouting mobile phone ban in the skies

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 2:32pm CDT by emily

  Australian passengers are repeatedly ignoring safety bans on mobile phones and using their devices mid-flight, the national air safety investigator has found, reports News.com.au.

  Passengers have been caught using their mobile phones more than 500 times since the beginning of last year on just one airline, a report by the Australian Transportation Safety Bureau (ATSB) says.

  The ATSB investigation stemmed from a passenger complaint made through its confidential reporting scheme, REPCON, about others texting and using the internet on their mobiles during flights from Sydney to Melbourne.

  Concern was raised that cabin crew may not be taking the safety matter seriously and had failed to adequately warn passengers to turn off electrical devices or put them in flight mode.

  The airline responded, saying the “hundreds of reports that come through each year” from their staff showed cabin crew and members of the public took the issue seriously.

  ATSB: Using mobile devices during flight - REPCON report

  
• 

  Shocker: Texting ups truthfulness, new study suggests

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 2:09pm CDT by emily

  Text messaging is a surprisingly good way to get candid responses to sensitive questions, according to a new study to be presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

  The preliminary results of our study suggest that people are more likely to disclose sensitive information via text messages than in voice interviews," says Fred Conrad, a cognitive psychologist and Director of the Program in Survey Methodology at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR).

  "This is sort of surprising," says Conrad, "since many people thought that texting would decrease the likelihood of disclosing sensitive information because it creates a persistent, visual record of questions and answers that others might see on your phone and in the cloud."

  With text, the researchers also found that people were less likely to engage in 'satisficing' – a survey industry term referring to the common practice of giving good enough, easy answers, like rounding to multiples of 10 in numerical responses, for example. "We believe people give more precise answers via texting because there's just not the time pressure in a largely asynchronous mode like text that there is in phone interviews," says Conrad. "As a result, respondents are able to take longer to arrive at more accurate answers.

  Via Phys.org.

  

• 

  Pirate Bay struggling to get on feet after DDoS to the knee

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 1:29pm CDT

  Anonymous says 'not us, dude'

  The Pirate Bay claimed to be “getting back up! Stronger than ever!” this evening after crumpling under a DDoS attack for most of today.…

• 

  When to Stop and When to Keep Going with Your Social Media Strategy

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 12:30pm CDT by Alexandra Samuel

  Read the original post at When to Stop and When to Keep Going with Your Social Media Strategy.

  This post originally appeared on the Harvard Business Review.

  Push through the discomfort: It’s tempting to stop (or never start) using social media when you realize that you are opening yourself up to the world in a new way: “you mean people can write whatever they want on our wall?” But, often rewards await those who push through the discomfort of the unknown. You can always change your settings if you encounter a problem, but in the mean time you may be surprised at the trust that is built with your customer base if you are open and willing to talk about the good and bad sides of your businesses. Where else are you able to hear what people are really thinking? Use it to your advantage to build better products and better service.

  This gem comes from Mike Knutson in Lessons Learned: Using Social Media to Support Entrepreneurship in Rural Communities on the Canadian Rural Research Network site. And it describes probably the most important success factor in any social media effort.

  Mike’s post reminded me of a physical therapy session I was in the other day. I exercising for my shoulders when a muscle in my head started to hurt. “If it’s just uncomfortable, let’s keep going,” the physio said. “But if it’s painful, you should stop.”

  A physiotherapist would call what I felt in my head “referred pain” — the parts of your body that hurt are the weak parts that can’t cope with knots, tension or dysfunction elsewhere (e.g. the pain in your neck caused by the tension in your mousing shoulder).

  Your social media “pain” is similar: it’s caused by knots in your customer service, operations, HR or other area. Social media is just the place you feel it. If you’re getting smacked down publicly for your missteps, taken to task on YouTube for your poor products or lousy customer service, suffering organizational implosion from the overtime hours that are going into your Twitter presence, then maybe it’s time to stop what you’re doing.

  Any of those pain points signal that you are not just going too hard too fast, but that you may be using the wrong muscles. Your social media relations team can’t overcome an outdated brand or tone-deaf advertising; your clever blog posts can’t disguise a fundamentally flawed value offering; your tweeting won’t be sustainable unless you’re prepared to expand or reallocate your staff resources. Most of the actual pain that organizations suffer from entering social media isn’t from social media: it’s from all the other organizational problems that social media simply begins to reveal.

  But all that just speaks to pain. Mike talks about a different creature: social media discomfort. You will feel discomfort when you talk in a personal voice on your company blog, rather than The Official Voice found in press releases, and when you let your customer publicly declare their dissatisfaction with you. The Facebook wall, as Mike points out, is an invitation to discomfort.

  For most of us, this discomfort often boils down to one question: “What if people say mean things about me?” Forget “what if.” People will say mean things about you, and it will be annoying and uncomfortable. But you should do what my physical therapist said I should do: Keep going. Respond to the substance of those comments (if they’re offered with anything other than violent or profane hostility); ask a colleague or two to read your response before you post, to make sure your discomfort isn’t leaking in and making you sound hostile. Then step back and see what happens: I’ll bet that after three or four cycles of responding to negative comments, you’ll discover that the discomfort doesn’t cause pain. You’ll probably even find that living with it, and responding to it, makes you more accessible to — and more liked by — your key audiences.

  Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between discomfort and pain. In my physio session this morning, I decided to keep going; the discomfort was tolerable, and working through it helped my muscles get a little stronger. Tomorrow I’ll know that I can handle the uncomfortable sensation, and I’ll stand just a little bit taller. Work through your social media discomfort, and your organization can stand taller, too.

  

  

  Read more about better living with social media by visiting Love your life online

  

• 

  Bangladesh: Bloggers March for Murdered Journalist Couple

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 12:06pm CDT by Aparna Ray

  Three months have passed since the murder of the journalist couple Sagar Sarwar and his wife Meherun Runi. Till date, the police have been unsuccessful in discovering any clues or leads that would help them to solve the case. In the early hours of 11 February, 2012, the couple was found brutally murdered in their West Rajabajar apartment in Dhaka.

  The Bangladesh High Court has expressed dissatisfaction with the progress (or lack of it) of the Detective Branch (DB) of police investigating the murder. The case has since then been transferred to the anti-crime and anti-terrorism unit - Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). The bodies have already been exhumed for a repeat postmortem. However, till date, there has been little progress in the investigation.

  Bloggers have once again taken to the street, demanding justice for the murdered couple. On 11 May, they organized a protest in front of the public library in Shahbagh, Dhaka. This was their fourth protest gathering. In the video below, bloggers can be seen singing a protest song:

  Another video shows bloggers holding a candle light protest, demanding justice in the Sagar-Runi murder case:

  In the beginning, the police tried to prevent the protest rally by bloggers by parking their vehicles at the protest site and not giving permission for electricity connection at the venue. Later the bloggers conducted the protest by singing without the use of microphones. Sohel Mahmood informs us [bn] about the day's programme:

  নানা বাধা ডিঙিয়ে হয়ে গেলো বাংলাভাষার ব্লগারদের প্রতিবাদী সংগীতের আয়োজন। পুলিশের “কমিশনারের অনুমতি লাগবে” টাইপের বক্তব্য, বিদ্যুতের লাইন টানায় বাধা আর সন্ধ্যার কিছু ভাগে “হঠাৎ বৃষ্টি”। তবে, সব বাধা ডিঙিয়ে প্রতিবাদী এই সংগীতে যোগ দেন ব্লগার, সাংবাদিক, ছাত্র-ছাত্রী আর সাধারণ মানুষ।

  Crossing various hurdles, the Bangla bloggers conducted their programme of singing protest songs in public. Comments by the police commissioner that “permissions will be required”, not allowing the required temporary electricity connection at the protest venue, and even sudden rains during part of the evening, nothing could stop the bloggers, journalists, students and ordinary citizens from showing solidarity and participating in singing the protest songs Police using barricades to prevent journalists from entering the Home Ministry premises. Image by Firoz Ahmed. Copyright Demotix (15/05/2012)

  Demanding the immediate arrest of the murderers of Sagar and Runi, journalist associations announced a gherao program to be held at the Home Ministry premises on 15th May. Bloggers too joined this protest programme. The police cracked down on the protesters. Quite a few photographs of police preventing the protesters from approaching the Home Ministry premises have been uploaded on the We Demand Justice for Sagar-Runi Facebook Page. At the end of the day's event, the next steps and upcoming protest programmes were announced. Among the future protests being planned by journalists and bloggers are the following:

  ১. ২০ মে থেকে ১৫ জুন পর্যন্ত সবগুলো মিডিয়া হাউসে সভা-সমাবেশ।

  ২. ৫ জুন জাতীয় সংসদে গিয়ে স্পিকারের কাছে সাগর-রুনি হত্যাকারীদের গ্রেফতার ও বিচার দাবিতে স্মারকলিপি প্রদান।

  ৩.  ২৬ জুন প্রধানমন্ত্রীর কার্যালয় অভিমুখে পদযাত্রা।

  ৪. এরপরও সাগর-রুনির হত্যাকারীদের গ্রেফতার ও বিচার না করা হলেও দেশের সব সাংবাদিক কর্মবিরতি কর্মসূচি পালন।

  1. 20th May to 15th June - Public meetings at all the media houses
  2. 5th June - March to the Parliament and submit a memorandum to the Speaker of the House, demanding arrest and trial of the killers of Sagar-Runi
  3. 26th June - Protest march towards the Prime Minister's Office.
  4. If the administration still fails to deliver justice, all journalists across the country will stop work and undertake a ‘pen down' programme.

  Written by পান্থ রহমান রেজা (Pantha) · Translated by Aparna Ray · View original post [bn] · comments (0)
  Share: Donate · facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

• 

  #CommBuild chat with @MichaelDeLongSF of @TechSoup - Engaging Community Ambassadors & Evangalists · techsoup · Storify

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 11:39am CDT by suzboop

  #CommBuild chat with @MichaelDeLongSF of @TechSoup - Engaging Community Ambassadors & Evangalists · techsoup · Storify

• 

  Watmore retires from Efficiency Reform Group - and government

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 11:30am CDT by Stuart Lauchlan

  Enclosure: [download]

  The turnover at the top of public sector ICT has continued with the decision by Ian Watmore to leave his post as permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, responsible for the Efficiency and Reform Group.

  read more

  

• 

  :: CitizenBridge.org ::

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 11:22am CDT by jacoutofthebox

  :: CitizenBridge.org ::

• 

  Is there life after ads for St Zuck?

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 10:48am CDT

  Facebook credits, and what they might buy

  Analysis As we reported today, the third-largest advertiser in the United States says it's going to stop advertising on Facebook, citing lack of engagement. General Motors is taking the $10m it spunks on Facebook ads somewhere else. This is a tiny proportion of GM's $1.1bn annual advertising budget, but it's hardly a vote of confidence from major brands in boy-child St Zuck's burgeoning global empire.…

• 

  Paisaje Transversal

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 10:28am CDT by leptavar

  Paisaje Transversal

• 

  Britain has 10 million twits, tweets Twitter

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 10:17am CDT

  Why shout at the TV when you can yell at the web instead?

  There are ten million active Twitter accounts in Blighty, the microblogging wunderkind announced on, er, Twitter this morning. And 80 per cent of UK twits access the site on their mobiles.…

  

• 

  UK Health: NICE makes u-turn on late stage prostate cancer drug

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 10:05am CDT

  The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), has reversed its decision on the prostate drug abiraterone. The drug was previously rejected as it was not deemed to be cost effective.

• 

  Must Reads for May 15th

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 9:57am CDT by Jonathan Dube

  Here are today’s must-read digital news stories from around the web:

  • Microsoft’s Bing Search Engine Gets More Social – Katherine Boehret – The Digital Solution – AllThingsD
  • Engagio Gives the Web a ‘Context’ Button
  • An era of ‘spiky attention’ means live TV needs to be social (Wired UK)
  • Panel Discusses Facebook’s Ability to Target Ads Externally | Adweek
  • Facebook and Twitter Ad Spending to Double by 2016 [REPORT]
  • Twitter and ESPN Plan Branded Campaigns Around TV Sports | Spark Capital
  • Ross Levinsohn Lays Out His Vision for Yahoo (Before He Became CEO) | Digital – Advertising Age
  • The Paradox of Twitter – Robert Wright – Technology – The Atlantic
  • How to Recognize Disruptive Opportunities [VIDEO]
  • New USA Today publisher Larry Kramer gets to apply his theories about newsroom evolution | Poynter.
  • Adobe’s Updated Digital Publishing Suite Means More Magazines For The iPhone | TechCrunch
  • ESPN’s Upfront Presentation Goes Long on Digital | Special Report: TV Upfront – Advertising Age
  • Can Quora build a for-profit version of Wikipedia? — Tech News and Analysis
  • Is Facebook a Passing Fad? Nearly Half of Americans Think So [STUDY]
  • BBC’s Olympics will deliver an ‘online legacy’ – :: Future of Journalism
  • Brad Garlinghouse Becomes CEO Of Booming File Sharing Site YouSendIt | TechCrunch
  • Mayor Bloomberg Unveils New Map to Chart the Locations and Job Openings of NYC Tech Companies | Betabeat
  • Video reveal: BBC super-sizing “the first truly digital Olympics” — paidContent

  
  

  

• 

  Press Freedom in an Age of Networked Journalism; Making large volunteer-driven projects sustainable; Interop Book Launch

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 9:51am CDT by ashar

  Berkman Events Newsletter Template

  Upcoming Events and Digital Media May 16th, 2012

  Remember to load images if you have trouble seeing parts of this email. Or click here to view the web version of this newsletter. Below you will find upcoming Berkman Center events, interesting digital media we have produced, and other events of note. berkman luncheon series A Public Right to Hear and Press Freedom in an Age of Networked Journalism Tuesday, May 22, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, Cambridge, MA. This event will be webcast live. What does a public right to hear mean in networked environments and why does it matter? In this talk I’ll describe how a public right to hear has historically and implicitly underpinned the U.S. press’s claims to freedom and, more fundamentally, what we want democracy to be. I’ll trace how this right appears in contemporary news production, show how three networked press organizations have used Application Programming Interfaces to both depend upon and distance themselves from readers, and describe how my research program joins questions of free speech with media infrastructure design. I will argue that a contemporary public right to hear partly depends upon how the press’s technologies and practices mediate among networked actors who construct and contest what Bowker and Star (1999) call “boundary infrastructures.” It is by studying these technosocial, journalistic systems—powerful yet often invisible systems that I call “newsware" — that we might understand how a public right to hear emerges from networked, institutionally situated communication cultures like the online press. Mike Ananny is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Microsoft Research New England, a Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and, starting August 2012, will be an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. RSVP Required. more information on our website> berkman luncheon series Making large volunteer-driven projects sustainable. Lessons learned from Drupal Tuesday, May 29, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, Cambridge, MA. This event will be webcast live. In this talk, Dries shares his experiences on how he grew the Drupal community from just one person to over 800,000 members over the past 10 years. Today, the Drupal community is one of the largest and most active Open Source projects in the world, powering 1 out of 50 websites in the world. The concept of major projects growing out of a volunteer, community-based model is not new to the world. Volunteer networks and communities exist in many shapes and sizes. Throughout history there are examples of pure volunteer organizations that were instrumental in the founding and formation of many projects. For example, the first trade routes were ancient trackways which citizens later developed on their own into roads suited for wheeled vehicles in order to improve commerce. Transportation was improved for all citizens, driven by the commercial interest of some. Today, we certainly appreciate that our governments maintain the roads. However, we still see road signs stating that a particular section of a highway is kept clean and trim by volunteers -- at least in some countries. When new ground needs to be broken, it's often volunteer communities that do it. But a full-time, paid infrastructure can be necessary for the preservation and protection of what communities begin. In this presentation, Dries wants to brainstorm about how large communities evolve and how to sustain them over time. Dries Buytaert is the original creator and project lead for the Drupal open source web publishing and collaboration platform. RSVP Required. more information on our website> special event Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems Wednesday, May 30, 6:00pm ET, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA. Reception to follow. Co-sponsored by the Harvard Law School Library and the Harvard Book Store. Free and open to the public. The practice of standardization has been facilitating innovation and economic growth for centuries. The standardization of the railroad gauge revolutionized the flow of commodities, the standardization of money revolutionized debt markets and simplified trade, and the standardization of credit networks has allowed for the purchase of goods using money deposited in a bank half a world away. These advancements did not eradicate the different systems they affected; instead, each system has been transformed so that it can interoperate with systems all over the world, while still preserving local diversity. As Palfrey and Gasser show, interoperability is a critical aspect of any successful system—and now it is more important than ever. John Palfrey is Henry N. Ess Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School. Dr. Urs Gasser is the Berkman Center for Internet & Society's Executive Director. RSVP Required. more information on our website> video/audio James Gleick on "The Information" James Gleick — author of a half-dozen books on science, technology, and culture — discusses his latest book "The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood", with Jonathan Zittrain. His latest bestseller, translated into 20 languages, is "The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood", which the NY Times called "ambitious, illuminating, and sexily theoretical." Whatever they meant by that. They also said "Don't make the mistake of reading it quickly." video/audio on our website> video/audio Matthew Battles on Going Feral on the Net: the Qualities of Survival in a Wild, Wired World How do we balance the empowering possibilities of the networked public sphere with the dark, unsettling, and even dangerous energies of cyberspace? Matthew Battles — author, cofounder of the blog HiLobrow.com, and program fellow with metaLAB (at) Harvard — blends a deep-historical perspective on the internet with storytelling that reaches into its weird, uncanny depths. The feral is a metaphor — and maybe more than just a metaphor — for thriving in cyberspace, a habitat that changes too rapidly for anyone truly to be native. This talk weaves critical and reflective discussion of online experience with a short story from Battles' new collection, "The Sovereignties of Invention". video/audio on our website>

  Other Events of Note Events that may be of interest to the Berkman community: 5/16: Knowledge and Innovation: Understanding Public Access to Research (Brookings) 5/16: Second Annual Conference on Competition, Search, and Social Media (George Mason) 5/17: Citizens Fighting Corruption: Roles and Challenges for Civic Media (MIT Center for Civic Media) 5/18: Yahoo! Business & Human Rights Summit: Women, Technology and Social/Digital Media (Washington, DC) 5/19: International Legislation Unhackathon (San Francisco) 5/21: What the Bank's Open Access Policy Means for Development - Liveblog & webcast, featuring Berkman Fellow Peter Suber 5/21-22: F2C: Freedom to Connect (Washington, DC) 6/11-12: Personal Democracy Forum 2012 (NYC) 6/22-24: Web Science 2012 (Evanston, IL) 7/2-3: Global Voices Citizen Media Summit (Nairobi, Kenya) 7/12-15: Wikimania Conference (George Washington University)

  You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the Berkman Center's Weekly Events Newsletter. Sign up to receive this newsletter if this email was forwarded to you. To manage your subscription preferences, please click here. Connect & get involved: Jobs, internships, and more See our events calendar if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.

  The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University was founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. For more information, visit [cyber.law.harvard.edu].

• 

  BBC deletes Blue Peter from BBC One

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 9:38am CDT

  Children's TV staple sent away to digital

  Blue Peter - home to four-legged rascal Shep, the coat-hanger advent crown and school-boy favourite Janet Ellis, is being turfed out of its home on BBC One.…

• 

  Maude faces pressure for decision to veto NHS document

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 8:52am CDT by Gary Flood

  Enclosure: [download]

  Ministers due to appear before the Justice Select Committee today and may face pressure over the government’s decision this week to veto publication of a sensitive document on NHS risks. 

  read more

  
• 

  Hundreds of civil servants sacked for snooping personal details

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 8:42am CDT by Gary Flood

  Enclosure: [download]

  At least 120 civil servants have been fired by for illegally accessing a confidential database of personal details at work. 

  read more

  
• 

  Service Birmingham contract to be 'reviewed' by incoming administration

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 8:28am CDT by Gary Flood

  Enclosure: [download]

  The billion pound flagship Service Birmingham outsourcing contract between Birmingham City Council and Capita is to be reviewed by the new political administration in the Second City.   The new Labour group says it wants an independent third party to carry out a value for money check.   It is stressing that it believes Brum has benefited from the deal with Capita, which started six years ago, it still says it wants to see what service improvements have resulted.   "The description of value for mone

  read more

  

• 

  Social Network scribe to turn hefty Steve Jobs tome to popcorn-fodder

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 8:26am CDT

  Plus: Aston Kutcher grows creepy beard for role in the OTHER Jobs film

  The screenwriter who brought a bratty young Mark Zuckerberg to life in the film The Social Network has been appointed as the writer of new Steve Jobs biopic.…

• 

  Nielsen: US smartphones have an average of 41 apps installed, up from 32 last year

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 8:23am CDT by emily

  The growing ubiquity of smartphones in the US is helping to drive the surge in app downloads, but as Nielsen reports the average number of apps per device has also increased significantly over the past year, reports TheNextWeb.

  Nielsen notes that this time last year, 38% of US mobile subscribers had a smartphone, whereas that figure sits at 50% today. And Nielsen says that Android and iOS users accounted for 88% of people who downloaded an app in the past 30 days.

  Interestingly, however, in the past twelve months the average number of apps per smartphone has risen to 41 from 32, representing a 28% rise.

  Read more.

  Related: - It's not just Instagram. The 'app economy' is taking off

  

• 

  Cabinet Office publishes details of Information Assurance plans

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 8:16am CDT by Gary Flood

  Enclosure: [download]

  The Cabinet Office has just published details of its Information Assurance Programme, something it says is a core element of the ‘digital by default’ policy pursued by the Government Digital Service.   “Being able to prove your identity online easily, quickly and safely is recognised as a key enabler of internet use by the government, its agencies and its citizens,” it says.   Providers of

  read more

  
• 

  Public sector ICT leaders sceptical on G-Cloud

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 8:06am CDT by Gary Flood

  Enclosure: [download]

  A majority (63%) of senior public sector ICT staff are “unconvinced” the government will hit its target of 50% of new IT spending via the Cloud.   The number comes from new research from virtualization specialist VMware, which surveyed 189 tech leaders in the sector but found just 19% felt the government had done a good job of communicating its G-Cloud plans to the public sector.   Another 17% said they did not fully understand the plans because they had not yet taken the time to examine them.  

  read more

  
• 

  CSC backs away from compulsory redundancy plan

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 7:49am CDT by Gary Flood

  Enclosure: [download]

   CSC has allegedly bowed to union pressure on its controversial UK redundancy programme. 

  read more

  

• 

  Why GM slammed the brakes on its $10m Facebook ads

  Posted: May 16th, 2012, 7:38am CDT

  Wheels fell off 'boring inefficient' car adverts

  Analysis In the week that Facebook finally went public, General Motors has axed its paid-for advertising on Mark Zuckerberg's social network.…