Group items tagged

An interesting interview with Austin Heap, a programmer from California who created 'Haystack', software that allows people to avoid the internet censorship imposed by governments. This software was created as a reaction to the increased censorship imposed by the Iranian Government during and after the elections. It allowed Iranians to skype, email and surf the net in relative safety. Other points of discussion include the apparent values of free speech embedded in the software, the relationship between Google and China, and Australia's proposal of censorship.

A transcript of a presentation given by Richard Stallman at the WSIS. He introduces in a fairly clear way the concept of free/open source software? He proceeds by explaining the concepts of freedom it relates to and how important this concept is in the developement of countries.

What happens when an institution that is supposed to be safe, violates your personal rights? This article discusses how a high school in Philadelphia installed software on their lap tops that would capture photos of the user of the lap top. Though the software was intended for recovery measures of stolen lap tops, it appears that the software goes beyond photos taken from the software contained images of chats, and content that the user was viewing, to the users themselves dressing., as it spies upon the user's interactions with peers. This brings to question whether or not to trust institutional technology, and whether or not they should stipulate that some software installed may violate the users right to privacy.

Licenses in open software have a double purpose: set conditions of use for end users and reflect the values of the community of developers working on open source model.

This report is about the errors the filtering software might make. Briefly, there are two kinds of misktakes, over-blocking and underblocking. The effects of each kind of errors are evaluated.

New Zealand is getting ready for a potential patent reform? Predominantly this bill includes an exclusion of patents on software which is a big development in a digital commercial industry which is rife with conflict over intellectual property. Personally, I feel it is a step in the right direction? But I guess that is the point of view of an end user.

GRI is the organisation that has pioneered the development of a sustainability reporting framework. Its aim is to make the disclosure on economic, environmental and social performance as commonplace and comparable as financial reporting. This seems to be a start towards making an industry standard in digital financial reporting, perhaps towards being compulsory one day. Currently, it's comply or explain, but businesses would be wise to get used to a digital system before it is standardised, and hopefully regulated.

Microsoft Corp and I-O Data Device have entered into an agreement that will provide I-O Data's customers with patent coverage for their use of I-O Data's products running Linux and other related open source software.

Find the whole idea vaguely repulsive. See Slashdot: "The Japanese computer manuracturer IO Data is the latest in line to license Microsoft's so-called 'Linux patents,' following the likes of Novell, Samsung, and Amazon. Yes, even the press releases use the word 'Linux' to describe these patents. From the press release: 'Specifically, the patent covenants apply to I-O Data's network-attached storage devices and its routers, which run Linux. Although the details of the agreement have not been disclosed, the parties indicated that Microsoft is being compensated by I-O Data.'" http://bit.ly/bmxIO4

Skype has put the SILK codec, the backbone of its software, freely available to the developers community in order to receive feedback to improve the codec.

Blog which writes about issues relating to open access media and links to actual open/free media. 

Steve Jobs (Apple) is using the architecture of the iPad and Apple's dominance when it comes to software to try maximize profits and crush competition.

This is a blog posting discussing the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) which recently added Indonesia, Brazil and India to its 'Special 301 Watchlist' which marks nations as a threat to intellectual property for encouraging their government departments and companies to use open source software

This is a story not so much about hackers bringing down an organisation's network, but about a virus software breaking down and attacking its own operating system. Just thought it would be interesting to share a story about what could go wrong even when you're trying to protect yourself against viruses. In this case, Coles was affected, with point of sale terminals shutting down as a result of the software bug.

2005 exhibition and edited collection curated by Bruno Latour "From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik - or How to Make Things Public" seems to be simultaneously critiquing and creating Habermas's 'bourgeois public sphere'. Amongst many, many other 'things', Dingpolitik references the work of Walter Lippmann "The Phantom Public" and John Dewey's "The Public and Its Problems". "What Is the Res of Res publica? By the German neologism Dingpolitik, we wish to designate a risky and tentative set of experiments in probing just what it could mean for political thought to turn "things" around and to become slightly more realistic than has been attempted up to now. A few years ago, computer scientists invented the marvelous expression of "object-oriented" software to describe a new way to program their computers. We wish to use this metaphor to ask the question: "What would an object-oriented democracy look like?"

A Brisbane based software company's CEO created a solution to manage his son's internet access which includes time limits and blocks chat and some social network applications. Although it's unlikely to stop the ban, it's great to see people advertising their disdain for the potential legislation and what can be done to protect children in a more efficient way.

Ofcom has conducted a survey in the UK on the handling of personal data online. The result: In the light of recent news about privacy issues online (Facebook for example) people have become more weary about Internet privacy. The Scottish are the least worried. Also interesting: "about a quarter of internet users say they 'lack confidence' in installing filerting software or security features."

Interview with Jason Lanierm, an apparent "digital guru" who has changed his view of open culture to that which promotes a "digital maoism". He proposes that we need to pay people for the brain work that they do instead of encouraging them to be labourers of sorts. 

Very interesting article on Hollywood vs. downloads and ISPs. 

Really enjoyed this article and its historical account of Hollywood on the defensive to any new emergence of technology is apt. Unlike the open source software movement, this industry fails to understand that the circulation of its content, whether licensed or not, eventually produces indirect benefits. Hollywood defends its position through laws created in a time when the internet was yet to be conceived. The obvious flow on discussion here is that the law simply can't stay abreast of rapid technology changes.

Firts post of my internet governance blog. Open source can be considered a positive externality, impacting on the spread of internet