"'m ashamed to admit it. But considering the events of late, I feel I have to fully cop to my own dubious transgression. I was a teenage flash-mobber."

"The events are organized through Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites, "The fact they you can get on the internet for 20 minutes and all of a sudden have 600 people for a pillow fight its amazing" said student Ryan Muldoon."

""One group sends a Facebook message to another group to tell them to meet them there, and then they tell everybody else to come," the student added. Not surprisingly, teens say there are a lot of adult misconceptions about the flash mob. For one thing, none of the teens involved used that terminology. "Well, so far as I know, we get these mass text, or Facebooks or tweets telling us all come meet down South Street. But it's not for, you know, mobbing; it's to like have fun," said Kiki Adams, a Philadelphia high school senior who was at the mayhem on South Street. "But you know teenagers," she added. "They get out of control. One person start actin' up so everybody else feel like OK we can do it." The senior confirmed what other teens have also been saying, that the groups involved in the mob incidents have been previously unknown neighborhood party groups with names like AAS - All Adidas S---, or A.B.M. - All About Money - or the Platter Boyz. The groups, which have their own hoodies and post videos on YouTube.com, compete to see who can have the biggest parties or quarrel over boasts or taunts posted online, or "cyber chatting.""

2003 "''Flash mobs'' consist of dozens or even hundreds of well-wired folks who gather suddenly, perform some specific but innocuous act, then promptly scatter. A few weeks ago, for instance, a mob formed at a Toys ''R'' Us in Times Square, stared at an animatronic Tyrannosaurus rex, then fell to the floor with screams and a waving of hands before quickly dispersing. Such events, which have also taken place in San Francisco, Minneapolis, London and Berlin, are getting attention partly because they're weird and partly because the ''mobs'' organize by way of mobile phones and pagers and Web sites. Some observers have written off the phenomenon as a slightly annoying fad, the techno equivalent of streaking. Others detect a ''social revolution'' in the offing. "

"It started innocently enough seven years ago as an act of performance art where people linked through social-networking Web sites and text messaging suddenly gathered on the streets for impromptu pillow fights in New York, group disco routines in London, and even a huge snowball fight in Washington. Enlarge This Image Laurence Kesterson/The Philadephia Inquirer Young people filled South Street in Philadelphia on Saturday in what officials said was the latest flash mob to turn dangerous. Enlarge This Image Mustafah Abdulaziz for The New York Times Seth Kaufman was injured in the flash mob Saturday, which he called "a tsunami of kids." But these so-called flash mobs have taken a more aggressive and raucous turn here as hundreds of teenagers have been converging downtown for a ritual that is part bullying, part running of the bulls: sprinting down the block, the teenagers sometimes pause to brawl with one another, assault pedestrians or vandalize property. "

"In a talk about privacy given to the American Library Association, EFF Fellow Cory Doctorow highlights the error in logic that leads to short-sighted conceptions of privacy like Schmidt's: We have an unfortunate tendency to conflate personal and private with secret and we say, "Well, given that this information isn't a secret, given that it's known by other people, how can you say that it's private?" And we can in fact say that there are a lot of things that are [not] in secret that are in private. Every one of us does something private and not secret when we go to the bathroom. Every one of us has parents who did at least one private thing that's not a secret, otherwise we wouldn't be here. "

"Schneier on Security A blog covering security and security technology."

How can we determine the authority of this blogger?

"The show features 19-year-old Ally, who was 16 when she sent a nude picture to an ex-boyfriend who said he'd get back together with her if she did so. The boy, in Ally's words, "ended up sending it to everybody in his contact list" and soon Ally's picture was all over school. Ally said she sent the photo because "having him ask me for the picture made me feel wanted again." "

"Two studies released this week shed some light on the issue of bullying and, by implication, cyberbullying. One found that bullying is actually on the decline while the other determined that talking with an adult or a friend was most likely to "make things better." Both of these studies were about physical bullying, but there is a very strong link between bullying in the "real world" and cyberbullying. Though there are cases of teens using the Internet or cell phones to harass or bully people they've never met, most cyberbullying cases involve kids who know each from the real world, typically from school."

"But a study aggregating results from 130 research reports on more than 130,000 subjects worldwide has more breadth than most of its predecessors regarding the effects of violent video games on youths (though there is, of course, already a growing chorus of skeptics)."

"A recent Iowa State University study surveyed 444 youth ages 11 to 22, including 350 self-identified non-heterosexual subjects and 94 people who identify sympathetically with LGBT youth, often called straight allies. The study found that 54 percent of these youths report being cyberbullied "

"The truth about privacy is counter-intuitive: less of it can lead to a more virtuous society. "

"We tend to think of hacking as bad, and hackers as evil. But as well as the ones wearing white hats, ie the ones who are on our side and checking out vulnerabilities that others might exploit, there are the techno-geeks who are all dressed up and with nowhere to go. Until now. On the 11th March, the UK's Home Office, Cabinet Office and Ministry of Justice opened their doors to 10 technical experts from http://www.rewiredstate.com who used data.gov.uk and the web to develop tools and services that help people."

"Rewired State runs hackdays to let developers show government what is possible and government to show developers what is needed. "

There is an UNEQUAL amount of good and bad in most things, the trick is to work out the ratio and act accordingly… The Jester Infosec Island has once again gained exclusive access to a video demonstration of the XerXeS DoS attack recently developed by the infamous patriot-hacker known only as The Jester (th3j35t3r).

" By Anthony M. Freed, Director of Business Development at Infosec Island Recently we have witnessed the emergence of international hactivist and vigilante "the Jester" through his crusade against jihadi and militant Islamic networks, and some third party networks that contain evidence of having been infiltrated by rogue elements. Jester's activities raise an important question: Where do cyber vigilantes fall on the infosec ethics spectrum?"

"African entrepreneurs have successfully capitalised on cascading prices of digital technologies and brought widespread use of mobile phones, internet applications and media products to the doorsteps of many Africans. Local entrepreneurs have built services and infrastructure based on ordinary people's ability to pay. Productivity gains and higher incomes resulting from these services mean that people can afford them. The profitability of these companies invites competition, which lowers costs for consumers and leads to even greater innovations as competitors try to outdo one another. And competition prevents abuses."

"18-20 March 2009, New York, UN Headquarters, Milan, European Parliament Office Infopoverty is a common platform aiming at fighting poverty through the innovative use of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), able to provide broadband services such as telemedicine, e-learning, e-government, etc. to disadvantaged communities. Infopoverty is a Programme born in the ambit of the United Nations and coordinated by OCCAM, the Observatory for Cultural and Audiovisual Communication created by UNESCO in 1997. The Infopoverty Programme involves more than 100 international institutions that have taken part, in various forms, in the Infopoverty World Conference."

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