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Watch out! Internet connections worldwide may have been slower past weekend! Last weekend hundreds of hackers, programmers, designers and anti-corruption experts and activists in Bogotá, Budapest, Casablanca, Jakarta, Moscow and Vilnius gathered last weekend to develop new ICT tools that can help citizens monitor government and report corruption. Websites like ipaidabribe.com in India and use of twitter in events like the Arab Spring have shown that technology can be a powerful vehicle for people power. Hacks Against Corruption (HAC) is Transparency International's first attempt to bring together technology and anti-corruption specialists to use technology to come up with some of the challenges we face in fighting corruption: visualising the cost of corruption, monitoring complex, massive public budgets and allowing citizens to safely report corruption in their life.

Slashdot editor Jeff Boehm visted Maker Works in Ann Arbor, MI, where they not only have an Epilog Helix Laser Cutter/Engraver, but let him use it. Which, of course, he happily did, just as you or I would have done if somebody said, "Here. Borrow my laser cutter and engraving machine." The sound in the video is a little rough, since it was recorded live in a room full of loud machines -- like laser cutters. But it's still fascinating to watch (and hear) the process. The only downside is the "Ooh! I want one of those!" effect. There are used units available out there, but they cost as much as a pretty good used car. Maybe that's why there are so many Maker Spaces, also called Hacker Spaces, out there. Here's a global Hacker Space list. Hopefully, you'll find one near you, so you can do a little laser cutting (and lots of other neat stuff) yourself. Note: Slashdot accepts reader video submissions. Email robin at roblimo dot com for details.

Attention all innovators, entrepreneurs, hackers, thinkers and people of open mind: the time has come to reinvent your city. Reinvent it not in the image of the city we are all familiar with, but as something altogether new: something intelligent, efficient and open, something livable and sustainable, something that not only works, but works better than we've ever imagined.

Theft of trade secrets was long the work of insiders - corporate moles or disgruntled employees. But it has become easier to steal information remotely because of the Internet, the proliferation of smartphones and the inclination of employees to plug their personal devices into workplace networks and cart proprietary information around. Hackers' preferred modus operandi, security experts say, is to break into employees' portable devices and leapfrog into employers' networks - stealing secrets while leaving nary a trace.

Inside the civic digital space, anyone can download a public dataset, build an app, share it with others. There are no permit fees, no regulations to research, no paperwork to file. You don't have to trudge to City Hall. Everything is (or at least, it should be) open. In this way, the digital world is vastly different from the physical one. Want to make use of a transit dataset at a hackathon? Have at it. But want to hack the physical space at the actual train station, maybe plant a few flowers, throw up a bike rack? Well, good luck with that.

"The open-source Arduino micro-controller is a very useful piece of kit which has been implemented by hackers to power countless endeavors from Musical Umbrellas to Angry Birds Slingshot Controllers. For some projects however, the flexibility of the Arduino can be overkill and it's this issue which prompted Digispark to create a simpler, cheaper alternative - a tiny Arduino-compatible developmental circuit board that costs as little as US$12."

Des drones fabriqués en Bretagne pour équiper les opposants syriens, les aider à communiquer entre eux et témoigner des exactions du régime de Bachar el Assad. C'est le projet du collectif de hackers Telecomix. Ce week-end ils rencontraient des ONG pour se concerter sur cette opération en Syrie.

What data can and cannot do Jonathan Gray argues that aspiring data journalists and civic data hackers should strive to cut back on data-driven hype and to cultivate a more critical literacy towards their subject matter

Les signaux s'accumulent. L'industrie « traditionnelle » serait de plus en plus tentée par l'open source. C'était déjà le cas dans l'électronique, avec notamment la carte Arduino. La santé et l'automobile y trouveraient aussi aujourd'hui un relais d'innovation crédible, voir incontournable. Un article de The Economist intitulé « When code can kill or cure » (dans le cahier spécial technologie du N° du 2 juin 2012) explique qu'utiliser un modèle « open source » à la conception des équipements médicaux promet d'accroître la sécurité et l'innovation. Basés aujourd'hui sur des systèmes ultra-propriétaires, les équipements médicaux, défibrillateurs, pompes à insulines sont parfois soumis à des défaillances bien plus graves qu'un simple plantage d'ordinateur. Sans parler des tentations des hackers de prouver la vulnérabilité de ces systèmes au piratage.

Un projet de directive européenne prévoit de pénaliser la possession et la distribution d'outils de hacking pour lutter contre la cybercriminalité. Une disposition aberrante y compris aux yeux de plusieurs communautés d'experts en sécurité informatique.