Read more of this story at Slashdot.
More generally, Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee, criticized WikiLeaks as "not journalism." "It's data dissemination, and that worries me," she told Time magazine. "Journalists will go through a period of consultation before publishing sensitive material. WikiLeaks says it does the same thing. But traditional publishers can be held accountable. Aside from Julian Assange, no one knows who these people are."
"It's data dissemination, and that worries me," she told Time magazine. "Journalists will go through a period of consultation before publishing sensitive material. WikiLeaks says it does the same thing. But traditional publishers can be held accountable. Aside from Julian Assange, no one knows who these people are."
Trying to exclude WikiLeaks from shield law stinks (via /.)
For $5.99 you get a six-month subscription to the main body of fiction; $9.99 gets you a year (you retain access to the fiction after your subscription expires, but don't get any new material until you renew, which is a major plus in my view -- much fairer than most online "subscriptions" that lock you out once you let your sub lapse).
The first (paid) chapter went up yesterday, and I've just read it. The word here is epic, a swashbuckling swordplay novel with the sweep, charm and verve of the major Stephenson epics, such as System of the World. A very strong start and well worth the price of admission. This is a great experiment in new fiction business-models that welcome audience participation and work in a way that is native to the net.
These men were likely knights of the Shield Brethren--the ones she had been instructed to find. If there was anything to their reputation, they would have responded within days to the Khan's unlikely invitation. The Shield Brethren were scattered all about, but their closest branch was in Petraathen, an ancient crag-fort in the mountains south of Kraków, just a few days journey from here. Their instinct--the reverse of the Mongols--was to camp in the woods, and their scouts had spied this old monastery, long since abandoned. To her, it had the look of a converted pagan temple--perhaps Mithraic. Long ago, many of her people had been Mithraic. Now, it was an impromptu chapter house, a sanctuary where they could wait and train, while they reconnoitered the territory around the blood-soaked battlefield of Legnica and the great, stinking tent city that Onghwe had built there. A horseman emerged from behind the graveyard wall riding a big blue roan stallion. Cnán flinched at the sight of a Mongol-style bow, striped and jointed like the leg of an insect, held out in the man's hands. But this was no Mongol: his hair was brown, long and full, and below his sharp nose drooped a luxuriant moustache. He pivoted his mount and galloped along the curve of outbuildings, then pivoted again and rode back and forth through the grass. His apparently aimless movements made no sense until she understood that he was practicing archery. When his eye fell on something that looked like it might serve as a target, he loosed an arrow from the bow, sometimes galloping past, sometimes away, or jerking his horse up short and shooting from a standstill. She did not know these knights other than by reputation, but she saw the rider as one who had suffered under the power of the Mongols and had learned from them, adopting and adapting their weapons.
A horseman emerged from behind the graveyard wall riding a big blue roan stallion. Cnán flinched at the sight of a Mongol-style bow, striped and jointed like the leg of an insect, held out in the man's hands. But this was no Mongol: his hair was brown, long and full, and below his sharp nose drooped a luxuriant moustache. He pivoted his mount and galloped along the curve of outbuildings, then pivoted again and rode back and forth through the grass. His apparently aimless movements made no sense until she understood that he was practicing archery. When his eye fell on something that looked like it might serve as a target, he loosed an arrow from the bow, sometimes galloping past, sometimes away, or jerking his horse up short and shooting from a standstill.
She did not know these knights other than by reputation, but she saw the rider as one who had suffered under the power of the Mongols and had learned from them, adopting and adapting their weapons.
Mozilla, Hacks/Hackers, Medill School at Northwestern University, and The Media Consortium are collaborating to run a free online course for journalists and programmers on the Peer-to-peer University platform. This is an experimental six-week course exploring the ways that technology is changing news production and how professional journalists & programmers can work together to innovate around these changes. Here's the tentative course outline: + The fundamentals of journalism and coding + Project management + Edit it. Fork it. The art of collaboration and journalism + Big Ugly Datasets For Thumb-Fingered Journalists + Maps. Maps. Everywhere + Data journalism and government
+ The fundamentals of journalism and coding + Project management + Edit it. Fork it. The art of collaboration and journalism + Big Ugly Datasets For Thumb-Fingered Journalists + Maps. Maps. Everywhere + Data journalism and government
A bill that could undermine a new and important form of online activism has quietly worked its way through the California legislature. If signed by the governor, the new law would make it a crime to impersonate someone online in order to “harm” that person. In other words, it could be illegal to create a Facebook or Twitter account with someone else’s name, and then use that account to embarrass that person (including a corporate person like British Petroleum or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, or a public official).
Here’s the problem: temporarily "impersonating" corporations and public officials has become an important and powerful form of political activism, especially online. For example, the Yes Men, a group of artists and activists, pioneered “identity correction,” posing as business and government representatives and making statements on their behalf to raise popular awareness of the real effects of those entities’ activities, like the failure to Dow to adequately compensate victims of the Bhopal disaster and the U.S. government’s destruction of public housing units in New Orleans. These sorts of actions regularly receive widespread media coverage, sparking further public debate. Last year, the activists staged a thinly veiled hoax, presenting themselves at a press conference and on a website as the Chamber of Commerce and, in direct opposition to the Chamber’s actual position, promising to stop lobbying against strong climate change legislation. (Not amused, the Chamber promptly sued the Yes Men based on a trumped-up trademark complaint; EFF is defending the activists.)
Others have taken a similar approach, using spoof sites and identity correction to raise awareness about community issues, environmental threats, and, most recently, the historical roots of Haiti’s economic problems. Unfortunately, the targets of the criticism, like the Chamber, have responded with improper legal threats and lawsuits. It would be a shame if Senator Simitian’s bill added another tool to their anti-speech arsenal.
Proponents of the bill insist that there is no free speech problem because the new law would only apply to “credible” impersonations. That argument misses the point – identity correction depends on initial credibility, just as it also depends on prompt exposure.
What is worse, the bill is not needed. Sponsors of the bill say that victims of online harassment and defamation have little legal recourse. That’s simply not true. Laws against fraud and defamation are already on the books, and they apply online as well as offline. Moreover, judges and juries applying those laws have the benefit of an extensive body of jurisprudence aimed at limiting their impact on legitimate free speech.
We urge Governor Schwarzenegger not to sign this dangerous bill.
From the files of the Sad but Totally Expected Dept.: The FCC is out with a new report (direct PDF link) that suggests that the average consumer gets a good deal less bandwidth than nearly every broadband provider advertises as their "up to" speed—as in , "Get up to 10 Mbps downloads!" (You can see the average percentages for each broadband speed tier above). This initial study used mass network data, but the agency is now installing boxes in homes to get a better look at what consumers really get, versus what's advertised. Is your own connection a far cry from your advertised speed? What kind of variation do you see in network speeds throughout the day? [Ars Technica]
Just like you've suspected/known all along, the "up to" broadband speeds providers offer - "up to 10 mbs!" - are nigh unattainable. A new FCC report finds that broadband users are, on average, only getting half of the advertised "up to" speeds.
Your fears confirmed: "up to" broadband speeds are bogus [Ars Technica] Broadband Performance OBI Technical Paper No. 4 (PDF) [FCC]
[PHOTO: "One Wilshire," a CC-licensed image by Xeni Jardin]
If you have been following the recent Google/Verizon moves regarding net neutrality, there's even more wonktastic action this week as an interesting Hollywood showdown is developing. This past Thursday, four major creative guilds and the MPAA submitted a joint reply comment to the Federal Communications Commission.
This show of solidarity is rare as everyone in Hollywood tries to figure out how to deal with massive revenue losses in the face of copyright infringement. The WGAw then issued their own competing statement taking the opposite position.
In the words of Double Rainbow Guy, what does this meeeeeaaann?
The fun started in 2007 when it was learned that Comcast had been quietly blocking/throttling BitTorrent traffic on their network. This led to a long legal fight, and ultimately, the proposed changes put together by the FCC.
In a nutshell, MPAA, AFTRA, SAG, DGA and IATSE essentially advocate the telco position that reclassifying broadband as a communications service is a bad idea. They believe the telcos will be under less obligation to help in the trade groups' fights against online copyright infringement.
The WGAw asserts that loss of net neutrality will potentially reduce the choices consumers have for enjoying the creative output of their guild, ergo, fewer long-term revenue opportunities. A lot of studio execs and producers in town, as well as some members of other unions, are still pretty upset with the WGAw for their striking activities over the past few years, but I'm surprised this has broken down along these lines.
Both comments acknowledge the need to deal with infringement, but the WGAw seems to be taking a more balanced stance. The whole issue brings several absolutist positions into conflict.
MPAA: Joint Filing to FCC Regarding Internet Theft
WGAw: Protecting an Open Internet and Intellectual Property
Disclosure: my production company is a SAG signatory, though I agree more with the WGAw position in this matter.
"The United States has the cyber capabilities to prevent WikiLeaks from disseminating those materials. Will President Obama order the military to deploy those capabilities?"
There is no "off" switch for the internet in America. But even that reactionary fantasy misses a critical point: the encrypted "insurance" file which was posted earlier this month by Wikileaks pre-emptively negates any draconian, linear response that the state might consider: unlock the file with a key (or keys) that could easily be tweeted, emailed, or otherwise shared by Assange and colleagues, and the next Big Dump would be laid bare for all to read.
As nutty as Thiessen is, his rant reminds me of something I've heard friends and folks I follow ask aloud lately: could "The Wikileaks Problem" be the excuse our government needs to rally support for new curbs on 'net freedom? Just as child porn was the internet menace no one could argue against in earlier decades, perhaps the national security panic sparked by Wikileaks will be the bogeyman, this time around. (via)
Update: Kevin Poulsen at Wired News on the "cyberwar against Wikileaks" crazytalk: good luck with that.
Open-source mapping tool Crowdmap creates interactive maps for visualizing location-based data on a map and timeline. The tool crowdsources information via a web form, mobile phone, or Twitter, though it also uses news sources to document and verify incidents.
The webapp was created by non-profit Ushahidi, an African tech company specializing in data collection and visualization. First used to document Kenya's 2008 post-election fallout, the Ushahidi platform has also been used to monitor the Haitian earthquake aftermath, crime in Atlanta, and violence and protests in Gaza. Crowdmap, which promises a basic setup in five minutes, was designed to be less technical and quicker to launch than Ushahidi. Be it civil unrest, a natural disaster, a public nuisance, or even something less important (and more fun), Crowdmap looks like an excellent tool for the right job.