Skip to main content

Home/ Future of the Web/ Group items tagged power

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Paul Merrell

Assange Keeps Warning Of AI Censorship, And It's Time We Started Listening - 0 views

  • Where power is not overtly totalitarian, wealthy elites have bought up all media, first in print, then radio, then television, and used it to advance narratives that are favorable to their interests. Not until humanity gained widespread access to the internet has our species had the ability to freely and easily share ideas and information on a large scale without regulation by the iron-fisted grip of power. This newfound ability arguably had a direct impact on the election for the most powerful elected office in the most powerful government in the world in 2016, as a leak publishing outlet combined with alternative and social media enabled ordinary Americans to tell one another their own stories about what they thought was going on in their country.This newly democratized narrative-generating power of the masses gave those in power an immense fright, and they’ve been working to restore the old order of power controlling information ever since. And the editor-in-chief of the aforementioned leak publishing outlet, WikiLeaks, has been repeatedly trying to warn us about this coming development.
  • In a statement that was recently read during the “Organising Resistance to Internet Censorship” webinar, sponsored by the World Socialist Web Site, Assange warned of how “digital super states” like Facebook and Google have been working to “re-establish discourse control”, giving authority over how ideas and information are shared back to those in power.Assange went on to say that the manipulative attempts of world power structures to regain control of discourse in the information age has been “operating at a scale, speed, and increasingly at a subtlety, that appears likely to eclipse human counter-measures.”What this means is that using increasingly more advanced forms of artificial intelligence, power structures are becoming more and more capable of controlling the ideas and information that people are able to access and share with one another, hide information which goes against the interests of those power structures and elevate narratives which support those interests, all of course while maintaining the illusion of freedom and lively debate.
  • To be clear, this is already happening. Due to a recent shift in Google’s “evaluation methods”, traffic to left-leaning and anti-establishment websites has plummeted, with sites like WikiLeaks, Alternet, Counterpunch, Global Research, Consortium News, Truthout, and WSWS losing up to 70 percent of the views they were getting prior to the changes. Powerful billionaire oligarchs Pierre Omidyar and George Soros are openly financing the development of “an automated fact-checking system” (AI) to hide “fake news” from the public.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • To make matters even worse, there’s no way to know the exact extent to which this is going on, because we know that we can absolutely count on the digital super states in question to lie about it. In the lead-up to the 2016 election, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was asked point-blank if Twitter was obstructing the #DNCLeaks from trending, a hashtag people were using to build awareness of the DNC emails which had just been published by WikiLeaks, and Dorsey flatly denied it. More than a year later, we learned from a prepared testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism by Twitter’s acting general counsel Sean J. Edgett that this was completely false and Twitter had indeed been doing exactly that to protect the interests of US political structures by sheltering the public from information allegedly gathered by Russian hackers.
  • Imagine going back to a world like the Middle Ages where you only knew the things your king wanted you to know, except you could still watch innocuous kitten videos on Youtube. That appears to be where we may be headed, and if that happens the possibility of any populist movement arising to hold power to account may be effectively locked out from the realm of possibility forever.To claim that these powerful new media corporations are just private companies practicing their freedom to determine what happens on their property is to bury your head in the sand and ignore the extent to which these digital super states are already inextricably interwoven with existing power structures. In a corporatist system of government, which America unquestionably has, corporate censorship is government censorship, of an even more pernicious strain than if Jeff Sessions were touring the country burning books. The more advanced artificial intelligence becomes, the more adept these power structures will become at manipulating us. Time to start paying very close attention to this.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Power in the Age of the Feudal Internet - CoLab - 0 views

  •  
    "Discussion Papers > Internet and Security > Proposition PROPOSITION Bruce Schneier, Cryptographer and Computer Security Specialist and Author of Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust Society Needs to Thrive We're in the middle of an epic battle for power in cyberspace. On one side are the nimble, unorganized, distributed powers such as dissident groups, criminals, and hackers. On the other side are the traditional, organized, institutional powers such as governments and large multinational corporations. During its early days, the Internet gave coordination and efficiency to the powerless. It made them powerful, and seem unbeatable. But now the more traditional institutional powers are winning, and winning big. How these two fare long-term, and the fate of the majority of us that don't fall into either group, is an open question - and one vitally important to the future of the Internet."
Paul Merrell

Theresa May to create new internet that would be controlled and regulated by government... - 1 views

  • Theresa May is planning to introduce huge regulations on the way the internet works, allowing the government to decide what is said online. Particular focus has been drawn to the end of the manifesto, which makes clear that the Tories want to introduce huge changes to the way the internet works. "Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet," it states. "We disagree." Senior Tories confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the phrasing indicates that the government intends to introduce huge restrictions on what people can post, share and publish online. The plans will allow Britain to become "the global leader in the regulation of the use of personal data and the internet", the manifesto claims. It comes just soon after the Investigatory Powers Act came into law. That legislation allowed the government to force internet companies to keep records on their customers' browsing histories, as well as giving ministers the power to break apps like WhatsApp so that messages can be read. The manifesto makes reference to those increased powers, saying that the government will work even harder to ensure there is no "safe space for terrorists to be able to communicate online". That is apparently a reference in part to its work to encourage technology companies to build backdoors into their encrypted messaging services – which gives the government the ability to read terrorists' messages, but also weakens the security of everyone else's messages, technology companies have warned.
  • The government now appears to be launching a similarly radical change in the way that social networks and internet companies work. While much of the internet is currently controlled by private businesses like Google and Facebook, Theresa May intends to allow government to decide what is and isn't published, the manifesto suggests. The new rules would include laws that make it harder than ever to access pornographic and other websites. The government will be able to place restrictions on seeing adult content and any exceptions would have to be justified to ministers, the manifesto suggests. The manifesto even suggests that the government might stop search engines like Google from directing people to pornographic websites. "We will put a responsibility on industry not to direct users – even unintentionally – to hate speech, pornography, or other sources of harm," the Conservatives write.
  • The laws would also force technology companies to delete anything that a person posted when they were under 18. But perhaps most unusually they would be forced to help controversial government schemes like its Prevent strategy, by promoting counter-extremist narratives. "In harnessing the digital revolution, we must take steps to protect the vulnerable and give people confidence to use the internet without fear of abuse, criminality or exposure to horrific content", the manifesto claims in a section called 'the safest place to be online'. The plans are in keeping with the Tories' commitment that the online world must be regulated as strongly as the offline one, and that the same rules should apply in both. "Our starting point is that online rules should reflect those that govern our lives offline," the Conservatives' manifesto says, explaining this justification for a new level of regulation. "It should be as unacceptable to bully online as it is in the playground, as difficult to groom a young child on the internet as it is in a community, as hard for children to access violent and degrading pornography online as it is in the high street, and as difficult to commit a crime digitally as it is physically."
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The manifesto also proposes that internet companies will have to pay a levy, like the one currently paid by gambling firms. Just like with gambling, that money will be used to pay for advertising schemes to tell people about the dangers of the internet, in particular being used to "support awareness and preventative activity to counter internet harms", according to the manifesto. The Conservatives will also seek to regulate the kind of news that is posted online and how companies are paid for it. If elected, Theresa May will "take steps to protect the reliability and objectivity of information that is essential to our democracy" – and crack down on Facebook and Google to ensure that news companies get enough advertising money. If internet companies refuse to comply with the rulings – a suggestion that some have already made about the powers in the Investigatory Powers Act – then there will be a strict and strong set of ways to punish them. "We will introduce a sanctions regime to ensure compliance, giving regulators the ability to fine or prosecute those companies that fail in their legal duties, and to order the removal of content where it clearly breaches UK law," the manifesto reads. In laying out its plan for increased regulation, the Tories anticipate and reject potential criticism that such rules could put people at risk.
  • "While we cannot create this framework alone, it is for government, not private companies, to protect the security of people and ensure the fairness of the rules by which people and businesses abide," the document reads. "Nor do we agree that the risks of such an approach outweigh the potential benefits."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

The Net vs. The Power of Narratives | TorrentFreak - 1 views

  •  
    " By Rick Falkvinge on April 29, 2012 C: 76 Opinion The net changes the world's power structures in a much more fundamental way than changing the way a few groups of entrepreneurs are able to make money. The net is the greatest equalizer that humankind has ever invented. It is either the greatest invention since the printing press, or the greatest invention since written language. The battles we see are not a result of loss of money; they are caused by a loss of the power of narratives."
Paul Merrell

High Court Rules UK's Surveillance Powers Violate Human Rights - 0 views

  • UK's High Court found the rushed Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA) to be illegal under the European Convention on Human Rights and EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, both of which require respect for private and family life, as well as protection of personal data in the case of the latter. DRIPA was challenged by two members of Parliament (MPs), Labor's Tom Watson and the Conservative David Davis, who argued that the surveillance of communications wasn't limited to serious crimes, that individual notices for data collection were kept secret, and that no provision existed to protect those who need professional confidentiality, such as lawyers and journalists. DRIPA was pushed through in three days last year after the European Court of Justice ruled that the EU data retention powers were disproportionate, which invalidated the previous data retention law in the UK. The UK High Court also ruled that sections 1 and 2 of DRIPA were unlawful based on the fact that they fail to provide precise policies to ensure that data is only accessed for the purpose of investigating serious crimes. Another major point against DRIPA was that it didn't require judicial approval, which could limit access to only the data that is strictly necessary for investigations.
  • DRIPA passed in only three days, but the Court allowed it to continue for another nine months, to give the UK government enough time to draft new legislation. Although this almost doubles the time in which this law will exist, it might be better in the long term, as it gives the members of Parliament enough time to debate its successor, without having to rush yet another law fearing that the government's surveillance powers will expire. This court ruling arrived at the right time, as the UK government is currently preparing the draft for the Investigative Powers Bill (also called Snooper's Charter by many), which further expands the government's surveillance powers and may even request encryption backdoors. It also joins other recent reviews of the government's surveillance laws that called for much stricter oversight done by judges rather than the government's own members. "Campaigners, MPs across the political spectrum, the Government's own reviewer of terrorism legislation are all calling for judicial oversight and clearer safeguards," said James Welch, Legal Director for Liberty, a human rights organization.
  •  
    The Dark State takes another hit.
Paul Merrell

What's Scarier: Terrorism, or Governments Blocking Websites in its Name? - The Intercept - 0 views

  • Forcibly taking down websites deemed to be supportive of terrorism, or criminalizing speech deemed to “advocate” terrorism, is a major trend in both Europe and the West generally. Last month in Brussels, the European Union’s counter-terrorism coordinator issued a memo proclaiming that “Europe is facing an unprecedented, diverse and serious terrorist threat,” and argued that increased state control over the Internet is crucial to combating it. The memo noted that “the EU and its Member States have developed several initiatives related to countering radicalisation and terrorism on the Internet,” yet argued that more must be done. It argued that the focus should be on “working with the main players in the Internet industry [a]s the best way to limit the circulation of terrorist material online.” It specifically hailed the tactics of the U.K. Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU), which has succeeded in causing the removal of large amounts of material it deems “extremist”:
  • In addition to recommending the dissemination of “counter-narratives” by governments, the memo also urged EU member states to “examine the legal and technical possibilities to remove illegal content.” Exploiting terrorism fears to control speech has been a common practice in the West since 9/11, but it is becoming increasingly popular even in countries that have experienced exceedingly few attacks. A new extremist bill advocated by the right-wing Harper government in Canada (also supported by Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau even as he recognizes its dangers) would create new crimes for “advocating terrorism”; specifically: “every person who, by communicating statements, knowingly advocates or promotes the commission of terrorism offences in general” would be a guilty and can be sent to prison for five years for each offense. In justifying the new proposal, the Canadian government admits that “under the current criminal law, it is [already] a crime to counsel or actively encourage others to commit a specific terrorism offence.” This new proposal is about criminalizing ideas and opinions. In the government’s words, it “prohibits the intentional advocacy or promotion of terrorism, knowing or reckless as to whether it would result in terrorism.”
  • If someone argues that continuous Western violence and interference in the Muslim world for decades justifies violence being returned to the West, or even advocates that governments arm various insurgents considered by some to be “terrorists,” such speech could easily be viewed as constituting a crime. To calm concerns, Canadian authorities point out that “the proposed new offence is similar to one recently enacted by Australia, that prohibits advocating a terrorist act or the commission of a terrorism offence-all while being reckless as to whether another person will engage in this kind of activity.” Indeed, Australia enacted a new law late last year that indisputably targets political speech and ideas, as well as criminalizing journalism considered threatening by the government. Punishing people for their speech deemed extremist or dangerous has been a vibrant practice in both the U.K. and U.S. for some time now, as I detailed (coincidentally) just a couple days before free speech marches broke out in the West after the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Those criminalization-of-speech attacks overwhelmingly target Muslims, and have resulted in the punishment of such classic free speech activities as posting anti-war commentary on Facebook, tweeting links to “extremist” videos, translating and posting “radicalizing” videos to the Internet, writing scholarly articles in defense of Palestinian groups and expressing harsh criticism of Israel, and even including a Hezbollah channel in a cable package.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Beyond the technical issues, trying to legislate ideas out of existence is a fool’s game: those sufficiently determined will always find ways to make themselves heard. Indeed, as U.S. pop star Barbra Streisand famously learned, attempts to suppress ideas usually result in the greatest publicity possible for their advocates and/or elevate them by turning fringe ideas into martyrs for free speech (I have zero doubt that all five of the targeted sites enjoyed among their highest traffic dates ever today as a result of the French targeting). But the comical futility of these efforts is exceeded by their profound dangers. Who wants governments to be able to unilaterally block websites? Isn’t the exercise of this website-blocking power what has long been cited as reasons we should regard the Bad Countries — such as China and Iran — as tyrannies (which also usually cite “counterterrorism” to justify their censorship efforts)?
  • s those and countless other examples prove, the concepts of “extremism” and “radicalizing” (like “terrorism” itself) are incredibly vague and elastic, and in the hands of those who wield power, almost always expand far beyond what you think it should mean (plotting to blow up innocent people) to mean: anyone who disseminates ideas that are threatening to the exercise of our power. That’s why powers justified in the name of combating “radicalism” or “extremism” are invariably — not often or usually, but invariably — applied to activists, dissidents, protesters and those who challenge prevailing orthodoxies and power centers. My arguments for distrusting governments to exercise powers of censorship are set forth here (in the context of a prior attempt by a different French minister to control the content of Twitter). In sum, far more damage has been inflicted historically by efforts to censor and criminalize political ideas than by the kind of “terrorism” these governments are invoking to justify these censorship powers. And whatever else may be true, few things are more inimical to, or threatening of, Internet freedom than allowing functionaries inside governments to unilaterally block websites from functioning on the ground that the ideas those sites advocate are objectionable or “dangerous.” That’s every bit as true when the censors are in Paris, London, and Ottawa, and Washington as when they are in Tehran, Moscow or Beijing.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

WordPress now powers 25% of the Web | VentureBeat | Apps | by Emil Protalinski - 1 views

  •  
    "One in four websites is now powered by WordPress. Today is a big day for the free and open-source content management system (CMS). To be perfectly clear, the milestone figure doesn't represent a fraction of all websites that have a CMS: WordPress now powers 25 percent of the Web."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

5 Linux Laptops for Small Business - 0 views

  •  
    "A Linux laptop makes all kinds of sense for a small business. Not only is Linux the most secure computing platform, it's highly efficient, which means that computing power goes toward doing actual work instead of powering a bloated operating system."
  •  
    "A Linux laptop makes all kinds of sense for a small business. Not only is Linux the most secure computing platform, it's highly efficient, which means that computing power goes toward doing actual work instead of powering a bloated operating system."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

BitTorrent Inc Works on P2P Powered Browser | TorrentFreak - 0 views

  •  
    " Ernesto on December 10, 2014 C: 16 News BitTorrent Inc, the company behind the popular file-sharing client uTorrent, is working on a P2P powered browser. Dubbed Project Maelstrom, the browser will be able to "keep the Internet open" by serving websites with help from other users."
  •  
    " Ernesto on December 10, 2014 C: 16 News BitTorrent Inc, the company behind the popular file-sharing client uTorrent, is working on a P2P powered browser. Dubbed Project Maelstrom, the browser will be able to "keep the Internet open" by serving websites with help from other users."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

'Freedom of expression' anti-snooping campaign launched over Ripa changes | Politics | ... - 0 views

  •  
    "Senior editors and lawyers condemned as "wholly inadequate" safeguards put forward in a code of practice by the home secretary, Theresa May, to meet concerns over the police use of surveillance powers linked to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa)."
  •  
    "Senior editors and lawyers condemned as "wholly inadequate" safeguards put forward in a code of practice by the home secretary, Theresa May, to meet concerns over the police use of surveillance powers linked to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa)."
Paul Merrell

Senate narrowly rejects new FBI surveillance | TheHill - 0 views

  • The Senate narrowly rejected expanding the FBI's surveillance powers Wednesday in the wake of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.  Senators voted 58-38 on a procedural hurdle, with 60 votes needed to move forward. Majority Leader Mitch McConnellMitch McConnellOvernight Finance: Wall Street awaits Brexit result | Clinton touts biz support | New threat to Puerto Rico bill? | Dodd, Frank hit back The Trail 2016: Berning embers McConnell quashes Senate effort on guns MORE, who initially voted "yes," switched his vote, which allows him to potentially bring the measure back up. 
  • The Senate GOP proposal—being offered as an amendment to the Commerce, Justice and Science appropriations bill—would allow the FBI to use "national security letters" to obtain people's internet browsing history and other information without a warrant during a terrorism or federal intelligence probe.  It would also permanently extend a Patriot Act provision — currently set to expire in 2019 — meant to monitor "lone wolf" extremists.  Senate Republicans said they would likely be able to get enough votes if McConnell schedules a redo.
  • Asked if he anticipates supporters will be able to get 60 votes, Sen. John CornynJohn CornynSenate to vote on two gun bills Senate Dems rip GOP on immigration ruling Post Orlando, hawks make a power play MORE (R-Texas) separately told reporters "that's certainly my expectation." McConnell urged support for the proposal earlier Wednesday, saying it would give the FBI to "connect the dots" in terrorist investigations.  "We can focus on defeating [the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria] or we can focus on partisan politics. Some of our colleagues many think this is all some game," he said. "I believe this is a serious moment that calls for serious solutions."  But Democrats—and some Republicans—raised concerns that the changes didn't go far enough to ensure Americans' privacy.  Sen. Ron WydenRon WydenPost Orlando, hawks make a power play Democrats seize spotlight with sit-in on guns Democrats stage sit-in on House floor to push for gun vote MORE (D-Ore.) blasted his colleagues for "hypocrisy" after a gunman killed 49 people and injured dozens more during the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla. "Due process ought to apply as it relates to guns, but due process wouldn't apply as it relates to the internet activity of millions of Americans," he said ahead of Wednesday's vote. "Supporters of this amendment...have suggested that Americans need to choose between protecting our security and protecting our constitutional right to privacy." 
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also came out in opposition the Senate GOP proposal on Tuesday, warning it would urge lawmakers to vote against it. 
  •  
    Too close for comfort and coming around the bernd again. 
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

The many tricks Intel Skylake uses to go faster and use less power | Ars Technica - 0 views

  •  
    "Smarter power management, smaller packages, and bigger buffers."
Gary Edwards

Salesforce.com Aims to Grow Into a Utility Computing Power - 0 views

  • Gundotra said Google “believes in the vision of software as a service.” But the barrier to enabling enterprises to use cloud computing on an even greater scale is that the browsers have to become more powerful to have the full client computing capability of the PC platform. He noted that this is already starting to happen. Google, he said, is “thrilled” with the new features built into the Mozilla Firefox 3.0 browsers. Google said this is a sign that the next generation of browsers, including Internet Explorer, “will have very significant improvements” that will give the features they need for cloud computing.
  •  
    Google's Gundota comments on cloud-computing challenges stating tha tthe browser is not yet capable of delivering the power of the PC desktop
  •  
    Most quality online stores. Know whether you are a trusted online retailer in the world. Whatever we can buy very good quality. and do not hesitate. Everything is very high quality. Including clothes, accessories, bags, cups. Highly recommended. This is one of the trusted online store in the world. View now www.retrostyler.com
Paul Merrell

Technology Review: Expanding the Mobile Web - 0 views

  • Today, in an effort to bring more of the Web to mobile devices, Adobe and microchip maker ARM, which powers 90 percent of mobile phones worldwide, have announced a collaboration to ensure that Adobe's software runs well on future ARM devices. Specifically, the companies say that Adobe's Flash Player 10 and AIR (a platform for building complex Web applications) will be compatible and optimized for the ARM chips available in 2009. While ARM is used in a huge number of mobile phones, the announcement has broader implications: the chips are also used in set-top boxes, mobile Internet devices, personal media players, and automotive platforms.
  •  
    Adobe positioning AIR for a move into embedded systems? E.g., from Wikipedia: "Because of their power saving features, ARM CPUs are dominant in the mobile electronics market, where low power consumption is a critical design goal. Today, the ARM family accounts for approximately 75% of all embedded 32-bit RISC CPUs, making it one of the most widely used 32-bit architectures. ARM CPUs are found in most corners of consumer electronics, from portable devices (PDAs, mobile phones, media players, handheld gaming units, and calculators)." Don't miss page two of the linked article.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Who Gives the Most Trusted Recommendations? - eMarketer - 1 views

  •  
    [ FEBRUARY 18, 2011 "People like me" vs. the experts Social media has put power in the hands of the consumer, giving everyone a publishing platform to push out their thoughts and feelings to the world at large. This has given great power to word-of-mouth, typically considered the most trustworthy form of marketing. But social behavior is changing as it matures. ]
  •  
    *We Do. 'They' Recognize It. Let's Realize The Power we Have and Use It. :)
Gary Edwards

Should you buy enterprise applications from a startup? - 0 views

  • The biggest advantage of startups, in Mueller's opinion? "They have no technical historical burden, and they don't care about many technical dependencies. They deliver easy-to-use technology with relatively simple but powerful integration options."
  • "The model we've used to buy on-premises software for 20-plus years is shifting," insists Laping. "There are new ways of selecting and vetting partners."
  • Part of that shift is simple: The business side sees what technology can do, and it's banging on IT's door, demanding ... what? Not new drop-down menus in the same-old ERP application, but rather state-of-the-art, cutting-edge, ain't-that-cool innovation. The landscape is wide open: Innovation can come in the form of new technologies, such as the Internet of Things, or from mobility, the cloud, virtualization -- in fact, from anywhere an enterprise vendor isn't filling a need. The easiest place to find that? Startups.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • "The number one reason to consider a startup is that the current landscape of Magic Quadrant vendors is not serving a critical need. That's a problem."
  • Ravi Belani is managing partner at Alchemist Accelerator, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based venture-backed initiative focused on accelerating startups whose revenue comes from enterprises rather than consumers. He says, "The innovation that used to come out of big software houses isn't there anymore, while the pace of innovation in technology is accelerating."
  • He acknowledges that there has been a longtime concern with startups about the ability of their applications to scale, but given startups' ability to build their software on robust infrastructure platforms using IaaS or PaaS, and then deploy them via SaaS, "scalability isn't as big a deal as it used it be. It costs $50,000 today to do what you needed $50 million to do ten years ago. That means it takes less capital today to create the same innovation. Ten years ago, that was a moat, a barrier to entry, but software vendors don't own that moat anymore."
  • he confluence of offshore programming, open source technologies and cloud-based infrastructures has significantly lowered the barriers to entry of launching a new venture -- not to mention all those newly minted tech millionaires willing to be angel investors.
  • "In the new paradigm, [most software] implementations are so much shorter, you don't have to think about that risk. You're not talking about three years and $20 million. You're talking about 75 days and $50,000. You implement little modules and get big wins along the way."
  •  
    "The idea of buying an enterprise application from a startup company might sound like anathema to a CIO. But Chris Laping, CIO of restaurant chain Red Robin, based in Greenwood Village, Colo., disagrees. He believes we're in the middle of a significant shift that favors startups -- moving from huge applications with extensive features to task-based activities, inspired by the apps running on mobile devices. Featured Resource Presented by Scribe Software 10 Best Practices for Integrating Data Data integration is often underestimated and poorly implemented, taking time and resources. Yet it Learn More Mirco Mueller concurs. He is an IT architect for St. Gallen, Switzerland-based Helvetia Swiss Life Insurance Co., which -- having been founded in 1858 -- is about as far from a startup as possible. He recently chose a SaaS tool from an unnamed startup over what he calls "a much more powerful but much more complex alternative. Its list of features is shorter than the feature list of the big companies, but in terms of agility, flexibility, ease of use and adjustable business model, it beat" all of its competitors. The biggest advantage of startups, in Mueller's opinion? "They have no technical historical burden, and they don't care about many technical dependencies. They deliver easy-to-use technology with relatively simple but powerful integration options." There's certainly no lack of applications available from new players. At a recent conference focusing on innovation, Microsoft Ventures principal Daniel Sumner noted that every month for the last 88 months, there's been a $1 billion valuation for one startup or another. That's seven years and counting. But as Silicon Valley skeptics like to point out, those are the ones you hear about. For every successful startup, there are at least three that fail, according to 2012 research by Harvard Business School professor Shikhar Ghosh. So why, then, would CIOs in their right mind take the risk of buying enterprise applic
Paul Merrell

Facebook Says It Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the U.S. and Israeli Governments - 0 views

  • In September of last year, we noted that Facebook representatives were meeting with the Israeli government to determine which Facebook accounts of Palestinians should be deleted on the ground that they constituted “incitement.” The meetings — called for and presided over by one of the most extremist and authoritarian Israeli officials, pro-settlement Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked — came after Israel threatened Facebook that its failure to voluntarily comply with Israeli deletion orders would result in the enactment of laws requiring Facebook to do so, upon pain of being severely fined or even blocked in the country. The predictable results of those meetings are now clear and well-documented. Ever since, Facebook has been on a censorship rampage against Palestinian activists who protest the decades-long, illegal Israeli occupation, all directed and determined by Israeli officials. Indeed, Israeli officials have been publicly boasting about how obedient Facebook is when it comes to Israeli censorship orders
  • Facebook now seems to be explicitly admitting that it also intends to follow the censorship orders of the U.S. government.
  • What this means is obvious: that the U.S. government — meaning, at the moment, the Trump administration — has the unilateral and unchecked power to force the removal of anyone it wants from Facebook and Instagram by simply including them on a sanctions list. Does anyone think this is a good outcome? Does anyone trust the Trump administration — or any other government — to compel social media platforms to delete and block anyone it wants to be silenced? As the ACLU’s Jennifer Granick told the Times: It’s not a law that appears to be written or designed to deal with the special situations where it’s lawful or appropriate to repress speech. … This sanctions law is being used to suppress speech with little consideration of the free expression values and the special risks of blocking speech, as opposed to blocking commerce or funds as the sanctions was designed to do. That’s really problematic.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • As is always true of censorship, there is one, and only one, principle driving all of this: power. Facebook will submit to and obey the censorship demands of governments and officials who actually wield power over it, while ignoring those who do not. That’s why declared enemies of the U.S. and Israeli governments are vulnerable to censorship measures by Facebook, whereas U.S and Israeli officials (and their most tyrannical and repressive allies) are not
  • All of this illustrates that the same severe dangers from state censorship are raised at least as much by the pleas for Silicon Valley giants to more actively censor “bad speech.” Calls for state censorship may often be well-intentioned — a desire to protect marginalized groups from damaging “hate speech” — yet, predictably, they are far more often used against marginalized groups: to censor them rather than protect them. One need merely look at how hate speech laws are used in Europe, or on U.S. college campuses, to see that the censorship victims are often critics of European wars, or activists against Israeli occupation, or advocates for minority rights.
  • It’s hard to believe that anyone’s ideal view of the internet entails vesting power in the U.S. government, the Israeli government, and other world powers to decide who may be heard on it and who must be suppressed. But increasingly, in the name of pleading with internet companies to protect us, that’s exactly what is happening.
Gary Edwards

Skynet rising: Google acquires 512-qubit quantum computer; NSA surveillance to be turne... - 0 views

  •  
    "The ultimate code breakers" If you know anything about encryption, you probably also realize that quantum computers are the secret KEY to unlocking all encrypted files. As I wrote about last year here on Natural News, once quantum computers go into widespread use by the NSA, the CIA, Google, etc., there will be no more secrets kept from the government. All your files - even encrypted files - will be easily opened and read. Until now, most people believed this day was far away. Quantum computing is an "impractical pipe dream," we've been told by scowling scientists and "flat Earth" computer engineers. "It's not possible to build a 512-qubit quantum computer that actually works," they insisted. Don't tell that to Eric Ladizinsky, co-founder and chief scientist of a company called D-Wave. Because Ladizinsky's team has already built a 512-qubit quantum computer. And they're already selling them to wealthy corporations, too. DARPA, Northrup Grumman and Goldman Sachs In case you're wondering where Ladizinsky came from, he's a former employee of Northrup Grumman Space Technology (yes, a weapons manufacturer) where he ran a multi-million-dollar quantum computing research project for none other than DARPA - the same group working on AI-driven armed assault vehicles and battlefield robots to replace human soldiers. .... When groundbreaking new technology is developed by smart people, it almost immediately gets turned into a weapon. Quantum computing will be no different. This technology grants God-like powers to police state governments that seek to dominate and oppress the People.  ..... Google acquires "Skynet" quantum computers from D-Wave According to an article published in Scientific American, Google and NASA have now teamed up to purchase a 512-qubit quantum computer from D-Wave. The computer is called "D-Wave Two" because it's the second generation of the system. The first system was a 128-qubit computer. Gen two
  •  
    Normally, I'd be suspicious of anything published by Infowars because its editors are willing to publish really over the top stuff, but: [i] this is subject matter I've maintained an interest in over the years and I was aware that working quantum computers were imminent; and [ii] the pedigree on this particular information does not trace to Scientific American, as stated in the article. I've known Scientific American to publish at least one soothing and lengthy article on the subject of chlorinated dioxin hazard -- my specialty as a lawyer was litigating against chemical companies that generated dioxin pollution -- that was generated by known closet chemical industry advocates long since discredited and was totally lacking in scientific validity and contrary to established scientific knowledge. So publication in Scientific American doesn't pack a lot of weight with me. But checking the Scientific American linked article, notes that it was reprinted by permission from Nature, a peer-reviewed scientific journal and news organization that I trust much more. That said, the InfoWars version is a rewrite that contains lots of information not in the Nature/Scientific American version of a sensationalist nature, so heightened caution is still in order. Check the reprinted Nature version before getting too excited: "The D-Wave computer is not a 'universal' computer that can be programmed to tackle any kind of problem. But scientists have found they can usefully frame questions in machine-learning research as optimisation problems. "D-Wave has battled to prove that its computer really operates on a quantum level, and that it is better or faster than a conventional computer. Before striking the latest deal, the prospective customers set a series of tests for the quantum computer. D-Wave hired an outside expert in algorithm-racing, who concluded that the speed of the D-Wave Two was above average overall, and that it was 3,600 times faster than a leading conventional comput
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Configuring WINE with Winetricks - 0 views

  •  
    "If winecfg is a screwdriver, winetricks is a power drill. They both have their place, but winetricks is just a much more powerful tool. Actually, it even has the ability to launch winecfg. While winecfg gives you the ability to change the settings of WINE itself, winetricks gives you the ability to modify the actual Windows layer. It allows you to install important components like .dlls and system fonts as well as giving you the capability to edit the Windows registry. It also has a task manager, an uninstall utility, and file browser. Even though winetricks can do all of this, the majority of the time, you're going to be using it to manage dlls and Windows components."
Paul Merrell

In Cryptography, Advances in Program Obfuscation | Simons Foundation - 0 views

  • “A program obfuscator would be a powerful tool for finding plausible constructions for just about any cryptographic task you could conceive of,” said Yuval Ishai, of the Technion in Haifa, Israel. Precisely because of obfuscation’s power, many computer scientists, including Sahai and his colleagues, thought it was impossible. “We were convinced it was too powerful to exist,” he said. Their earliest research findings seemed to confirm this, showing that the most natural form of obfuscation is indeed impossible to achieve for all programs. Then, on July 20, 2013, Sahai and five co-authors posted a paper on the Cryptology ePrint Archive demonstrating a candidate protocol for a kind of obfuscation known as “indistinguishability obfuscation.” Two days later, Sahai and one of his co-authors, Brent Waters, of the University of Texas, Austin, posted a second paper that suggested, together with the first paper, that this somewhat arcane form of obfuscation may possess much of the power cryptographers have dreamed of. “This is the first serious positive result” when it comes to trying to find a universal obfuscator, said Boaz Barak, of Microsoft Research in Cambridge, Mass. “The cryptography community is very excited.” In the six months since the original paper was posted, more papers have appeared on the ePrint archive with “obfuscation” in the title than in the previous 17 years.
1 - 20 of 322 Next › Last »
Showing 20 items per page