Group items tagged

Ridiculous to see that the 'control by confiscation' approach is being adopted by some schools. Refusing to allow kids to engage in technology by way of whatever device is a somewhat naive approach by educational facilities. Are these schools thinking that technology will just go away?!

Google blames Chinese-backed groups for attacking blogs of political critics. But who can stop this actions, who has the power to, within the current legal framework, do so?

Four US senators express concern about Facebook's recent changes which enable a user's friends to follow them to websites they've visited and know how they rated them. This is also enabling third parties to gain access to user data which was once private.

A mapping data base of bloggers who have been threatened, arrested or killed around the world. This initiative gives names, location, actual status and draw attention to the campaigns to free them. Until now it reports 230 cases of threatened or arrested bloggers.

This blog by Dan Yoder counts 10 reasons why you should can your Facebook account. The main reasons for this boycott are related issues of privacy and how they treat the information of members, for example not providing complete information on how they use your information.

Good article on the social and political uses of social media (sic.) in Indonesia. There have been attempts to filter/censor content, but so far they have been avoided. Uses of Twitter, Facebook by politicians is also described. 

The government has decided to accede to the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime (the only binding international treaty on cybercrime). It will require Australia to implement legislation dealing with offences against the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computer data; computer-related offences, including forgery and fraud; content-related offences, including child pornography; offences related to the infringement of copyright and other related rights. The decision could have some baring on Australia's position vis-a-vis the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement?

Apple is one of several companies being sued for an alleged iTunes patent breach of an idea which is an online store for music downloads, some of Apple's other applications are also being sued for other patent breaches. Apple's operating Systems & Safari are also being sued by a Monkeymedia for breaching patents which dictate ways of displaying varying amounts of data through user control.

Collecting web data, who is it helping and who is it hurting. Google Analytics is a prominent free to use service that allows everyone from micro bloggers to corporations to record the statistics for visitors to their sites. Analytics can tell you where visitors are from, what they searched for, and what time they visited. They receive this information from your IP address, and ultimately your visit could potentially be traced directly back to your comptuer. Google has created an add-on to help hid your IP address identity, in a likely effort to protect the company from privacy concerns.

This article discusses the online safety aspects of patients who share their experiences of disorders with others on websites like CureTogether.com and PatientsLikeMe.com, though the privacy does warn not to disclose too much personal detail to ensure online safety. The notion of crowd-sourcing is introduce in regards to shared expereiences can potentitally provide better control of the disorder, as details of the conditions, successes or failures of drug treatments are shared amongst the members. These websites offer early warning signs of drug and health safety problems, the user data is gathered from the member profiles and sold to scientific or marketing research organizations. Much like Facebook, users of any social networking site should enter with caution.

Cloud to take up 90% of IoT data by 2020, says IDC. IDC's FutureScape report reveals the latest findings and predictions on the Internet of Things (IoT) between 2015 and 2020. CBR highlights 10 need-to-know predictions from the report's findings. 1.