Expect Resistance & Library Autonomous Zone

Here is a dilemma: lots of information is online, but it is
hard to find. Here’s another: search engine technology based
on keywords has trouble finding the information you need because of
the inherent ambiguity of human languages. Here’s a third: systems
that help us find what we need based on our personal preferences
expose more of our personal information to others who may or may not
care about our privacy.

Researchers
developing precise search software,
By Greg Kline Sunday (News-Gazette.com (Champaign, IL),
February 26, 2006) reports on some research being done at the University
of Illinois into new ways of thinking about searching and finding
information and addressing issues of privacy. The article describes
“Data mining” in
the humanities, genomic research, new ways to catalog and search non-textual
materials such as images and more.

What about privacy? This is particularly relevant in light of recent
reports that, when Congress thought it killed John Poindexter’s
“Total Information Awareness” program, most of the privacy-invading
programs survived, but the privacy protecting part of the program
was killed. (See:
TIA Lives On, By Shane Harris, National Journal, Feb. 23, 2006, and
Taking
Spying to Higher Level, Agencies Look for More Ways to Mine
Data, By John Markoff, New York Times,
February 25, 2006).

John Unsworth, the dean of the UI Graduate School of Library and
Information Science believes that this particular dilemma might
be solved by a professional class of trained, bonded, “trusted
stewards of information,” which library and information science schools
like his could be put to work producing.

Have you heard of Scroogle? This is a search interface — created by the non-profit org google-watch. Put in your search term into the “google scraper” (there’s also one available for yahoo!), scroogle searches google, and returns google results WITHOUT ads, WITHOUT cookies and WITHOUT search term records (their access log is deleted within 48 hours whereas google keeps this information FOREVER!). Check it out!

As a side note, there’s been a lot of talk lately about google and the ethics of their aiding in Chinese censorship. See the boingboing story for more background.

Since 2000, Google has recorded your search terms, the date-time of each search, the globally-unique ID in your cookie (it expires in 2038), and your IP address. This information is available to governments on request. (From the Scroogle Web site)

What was once private is now under Google’s domain
San Jose Mercury News Editorial, Feb. 06, 2006.

This time, the government wasn’t looking for information that could be traced to specific people. But next time, it could, and the effects on personal privacy could be devastating.

Search engine companies and other Internet firms are amassing unprecedented amounts of very personal information about every one of us. If the information were revealed — whether by government order, inadvertent exposure, malicious hackers or deliberate misuse by the companies that collected it — we would be digitally naked in the public eye.

Memography and the Memetic Web,
By Bob Doyle. EContentmag.com
(January/February 2006 Issue).

The new “Memetic Web” lets you add your own machine-readable meaning to a page, with a link to the meme aboutness page, so inference engines could also discover something about your meaning.

Keeping Secrets - A simple prescription for keeping Google’s records out of government hands, By Tim Wu, Slate, Jan. 23, 2006.

With all the recent press about the subpoena
of records from search engines (e.g.,
Google subpoena roils the Web, By Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe, January 21, 2006), this article puts the underlying issues in perspective.

Imagine we were to find out one day that Starbucks had been recording everyone’s conversations for the purpose of figuring out whether cappuccino is more popular than macchiato. Sure, the result, on the margin, might be a better coffee product. And, yes, we all know, or should, that our conversations at Starbucks aren’t truly private. But we’d prefer a coffee shop that wasn’t listeningÑand especially one that won’t later be able to identify the macchiato lovers by name. We need to start to think about search engines the same way and demand the same freedoms.

Headlines | Benton Foundation

This month’s Blog-of-the-month (BOTM) highlights the Benton Foundation’s Communications-Related Headlines.

Their mission is to, “articulate a public interest vision for the digital age and to demonstrate the value of communications for solving social problems. Current priorities include: promoting a vision and policy alternatives for the digital age in which the benefit to the public is paramount; raising awareness among funders and nonprofits on their stake in critical policy issues; enabling communities and nonprofits to produce diverse and locally responsive media content.”

In addition to their blog, they have a library of important and interesting studies about the digital divide, e-government, broadband services, digital inclusion of low-income communities and more.

You can keep up to date by visiting the blog, subscribing to their daily e-mail or pasting their RSS feed into your favorite RSS reader.

Tech firms blasted over China policies on Capitol Hill

Tech companies are starting to (rightfully!) catch a lot of flack over their complicity to restrict speech and other human rights in China. But now the rabble is aroused! See boingboing for the whole story. The coolest action vs google is by the organization Students for a Free Tibet which has launched NoLuv4Google.com to help people “break up” with google on Valentine’s day. I especially like their script to hack the google homepage (See the image).

(news.com) …Politicians on Wednesday attacked Google, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Yahoo for declining to appear at a briefing about China’s Internet censorship and called for a new law to outlaw compliance with such requirements.

The four technology companies said earlier this week that they were not able to schedule an appearance with short notice but would testify at a similar House of Representatives hearing scheduled for Feb. 15.

“These massively successful high-tech companies, which couldn’t bring themselves to send their representatives to this meeting today, should be ashamed,” said Rep. Tom Lantos, the California Democrat who is co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, which organized the briefing.

“With all their power and influence, wealth and high visibility, they neglected to commit to the kind of positive action that human rights activists in China take every day,” Lantos went on. “They caved in to Beijing’s demands for the sake of profits, or whatever else they choose to call it.”

[Thanks BoingBoing!]

Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection: An Open Letter to Myra Borshoff Cook, Tour Organizer for Jack Kerouac’s On the Road Manuscript Scroll

Jack Kerouac’s famous “On the Road” manuscript is currently on display at the San Francisco Public Library through March 19, 2006. The manuscript is a 120-foot long scroll of single-spaced, typed 12-foot long rolls of paper taped together. Really quite stunning!

There is, however, a growing controversy. Thomas Hawk has written an open letter to Myra Borshoff Cook, the tour organizer for the manuscript, asking her to explain her “no photography” rule — a rule she says is in place because of copyright. He points out the flaws in her argument and hopes that she will change that rule so that photos of the scroll can be taken and shown online. I wonder if I can videotape it or if that’s considered “photography”? Read on.