internet

Can Your Twitter Account Get You Arrested?

Wed, 11/25/2009 - 12:30pm | posted by Brett Bittner

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that my use of 140 or fewer characters could result in seeing the inside of a jail cell. For most users, use of Twitter will not result in a blemished criminal record. For those who would not know a “tweet” from a “twestival,” Twitter is a micro-blogging service that has been the subject of a lot of attention in the last 2 years, from tech-addicted geeks (like me) to the politically obsessed (again, like me) to popular culture (and, so long as it has nothing to do with reality TV, I’m into it). For some, however, relaying police location information publicly available via scanning equipment to fellow anarchists protesting the G-20 economic summit or refusing to “tweet” upon commanded has led, in my opinion, to some questionable arrests for two men in New York.

Explaining Net Neutrality: Is it a Fairness Doctrine for the Internet?

Tue, 10/27/2009 - 10:03am | posted by Marcus Adams

Net neutrality is one of the newest buzzwords around the internet and is starting to gain attention of many computer users.

So, what is net neutrality? Before I answer that question, we need to first understand how the process of getting online works. When you subscribe to a cable or DSL connection, most people believe that you are buying a direct connection to the internet. However, this is not true in that your provider serves as your go-between to all of the servers and bandwidth that makes that connection. For that reason, your provider could (and does, to an extent) control what you can and cannot “see” and do on the internet because they have purchased and allocated bandwidth on your behalf.

Recently, various internet service providers such as Comcast and AT&T have started to suggest that they should begin to charge you for access to the most popular sites and services and this is where net neutrality comes into play. From your provider’s perspective, net neutrality is bad for business because they buy their bandwidth based on capacity–the more they need, the more it costs them.

Here’s an example: YouTube is by far the most popular site for watching and sharing videos. However, video on the internet requires a great deal of data to be transferred from one location to another. In response, the providers would like to start charging you for accessing those bandwidth heavy websites thereby reducing the load (and cost) of the bandwidth they provide and increasing their profits.

If these new fees were to be allowed under rules that could be proposed, issues of censorship arise where as a user you would be forced to pay for content you previously could access for free or lose access to that content. In addition, your provider would have the power to cut off access to sites not deemed cost effective or for any reason they feel appropriate.

Bill would allow president to take control of the internet during emergency

Fri, 08/28/2009 - 5:05pm | posted by Jason Pye

Legisation in the Senate, S.773, would give the president power to take control of the internet during a “cybersecurity emergency”:

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.
They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.
The new version would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for “cybersecurity professionals,” and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.
[…
The privacy implications of sweeping changes implemented before the legal review is finished worry Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. “As soon as you’re saying that the federal government is going to be exercising this kind of power over private networks, it’s going to be a really big issue,” he says.

Is Journalism Too Important To Fail?

Thu, 03/19/2009 - 2:17pm | posted by Michael Orion Powell

Steve Coll at the New Yorker argues that there is an irreplaceable good that is provided by newspaper journalism, and that that good is mostly an accident of history:

Obama Not In Favor Of Reinstating Fairness Doctrine

Fri, 02/20/2009 - 8:06am | posted by Michael Orion Powell

It looks as if Obama is taking the position against re-instatement of the Fairness Doctrine (which mandated that radio stations give alloted time towards differing viewpoints), according to Politico:

Until now, the Obama administration has remained mum when it comes to the Fairness Doctrine.

But now, White House spokesperson Ben LaBolt tells Fox News that “as the president stated during the campaign, he does not believe the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated.”

Indeed, that was candidate Obama’s position last June.

The article also mentions a very strange development:

UK Internet Regulatory Agency Blocks Wikipedia [Update]

Tue, 12/09/2008 - 11:42am | posted by Austin Wilkes

Over the weekend the United Kingdom’s internet regulatory agency, The Internet Watch Foundation, blacklisted Wikipedia over concerns of “indecent images” of minors under the age of 18. The image is of the album art for a 1976 Scorpions album titled “Virgin Killer”. Beyond the problem of a centralized authority having the fiat power to blacklist sites without court order, this particular case is quite intriguing because while the image itself is quite disgusting, according to Wikimedia Foundation-

“We have no reason to believe the article, or the image contained in the article, has been held to be illegal in any jurisdiction anywhere in the world,”

Think Good Thoughts When You Surf The Web

Wed, 12/03/2008 - 12:15pm | posted by Luke Brady

This article by the New York Times talks about how technology could be used track Flu movements, market down-turns and potentially deny insurance coverage. I’m about the biggest fan of Google out of everyone I’ve ever met, but Google’s success at

collective intelligence tools could create an Orwellian future on a level Big Brother could only dream of.

I’m not saying Google itself doesn’t treat it’s users privacy responsibly, but certainly some have viewed it as a case study which

has touched off a race to cash in on collective intelligence technologies.

GOP on the Right Path

Thu, 11/13/2008 - 12:00pm | posted by Shana Kluck

Did the Republican Party learn anything from their resounding defeat on November 4th? Perhaps so. According to TheCurrentAffairs.com, the GOP is not only reaching out to their members for ideas on how to improve the party and it’s message, but they are doing it via the internet.

“We are a party of principles and must regain our voice,” Republican National Committee chairman Robert Duncan said in a statement announcing the creation of the website, RepublicanForAReason.