Group items tagged

"How American-Made Tech Helped Middle Eastern Governments Censor the Internet" A new Harvard University study details how American and Canadian companies provided Internet filtering and monitoring software to the Iranian government, Mubarak's Egypt and other repressive states. It's still going on.

Internet censorship, Internet free? This is a good representation of internet censorship and the motives behind them that is a good visual presentation

The tight controls over the internet in Egypt, and especially the internet blackouts, have caused rebellion thoughout the country and outrage throughout the world. Despite the government's attempts at complete internet control some Egyptians are getting messages out via social media networks in particular twitter.

Target Analytics, a Blackbaud (Nasdaq: BLKB) company, today released the 2008 donorCentrics™ Internet Giving Benchmarking Analysis. Key findings from the Analysis indicate that over the past few years, online giving has become an increasingly significant source of new donor acquisition, and integrating online and offline fundraising channels is key to long term success.

Describes how impossible it is to shutdown internet service. I'm actually quite unconvinced that it isn't possible but would the creator give up the switch?

This one was more out of curiosity

A governmental style press release on the official website of the "United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs".  A response to the Mubarak government's shut down of the Internet in Egypt.

"In an effort to crack down on child pornography, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the seizure of 10 domains as a part of a new initiative called "Operation Protect Our Children" but they also shut down 84,000 seemingly innocent sites in the process."   A clear example of how attempting to exercise government control over the Internet in the United States on a even a small scale can present problems that were not the intent of the US gov. officials & decision makers!!!!!

I think Egypt may have been a trend setter in Africa. It seems that many dictatorship regimes are getting nervous when it comes to an uprising from the grassroots. I think it is fair to say that the internet, especially social media, is playing a huge role in the peoples ability to overthrow their governments. Technology has become such an important part of the culture in the world that something that previously required wars and months of planning can happen so quickly nearly overnight. Perhaps it is this very idea that leads Libya's government to make the decision that this article explains.

Interesting for all Americans

I choose to bookmark this article because The online procurement (e-procurement) has been identified as the most important element of e-business operational excellence for large corporations' (Barua et al., 2001). An e-procurement technology is defined as any technology designed to facilitate the acquisition of goods by a commercial or a government organization over the Internet

Wikipedia turns ten years old this month. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is open to anyone with an internet connection to write on any topic that they see fit. IT is more of a starting place for research on things because of its open user format, but those dedicated to Wikipedia usually come in and remove any nonsense that a person, place, or event may accumulate. The founders of Wikipedia could have easily made a fortune, but in turn decided to make Wikipedia a non-profit, charitable business.

Social media tools, such as twitter and facebook, played a significant part of the overthrowing of Mubarak. With two-thirds of Egypt's population under the age of 30, it's no surprise that internet-savvy, educated, young Egyptians used such tools to break barriers in a country that has been ruled under unjust dictatorship throughout their lives. These tools helped organize and gather the millions of protestors that have sparked revolution in Egypt. Social media and sharing information online has played an almost unimaginable role in this process and certainly poses a threat to governments around the world with dictatorships and a significant proportion of the population who is educated and able to use these tools.

This video and the two that follow discusses the issue further. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2011/01/29/levs.protest.technology.cnn

New domain names are coming....