'Technology & Society' Category
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Bizarre attempt at internet censorship
January 16, 2006Web Censorship for Dummies. Annalee Newitz, AlterNet. Posted January 3, 2006. Here’s an interesting story about CP80, a lobbying group pushing the “Internet Channel Initiative,” a “technology solution” designed to limit pornography. Their idea is to put all pornography on one “channel” (i.e., port) and so be able to limit access to that port. However, [...]
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GPL version 3 draft released
January 16, 2006Free Software Foundation GPLv3 draft The first draft of version 3 of the General Public License was released today. I haven’t read through the whole thing, or compared it to earlier versions, but DID notice this interesting little section on DRM: Some countries have adopted laws prohibiting software that enables users to escape from Digital [...]
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More on Network Neutrality
January 13, 2006Why we should care about network neutrality, now. Free Government Information, January 13, 2006. My latest update on network neutrality is on FreeGovInfo.info. It includes cites to Jeff Pulver, The Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times.
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Data Mining 101
January 7, 2006Data Mining 101: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists | Applefritter The Electronic Frontier Foundation points to this article that describes in detail how data mining works. It uses the Amazon.com “wish lists” (which many people make public), open source tools, and a little ingenuity to locate people who want to read “subversive” books. It even [...]
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Will ISPs dictate what you can access?
January 2, 2006Open Access, Closed Debate, By Roy Mark, Commentary, Internet News, December 30, 2005. Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy calls it “walled gardens.” Now we call it a debate over “open access” vs “net neutrality.” With recent FCC decisions, “Network operators have the right to manipulate traffic with the goal of steering consumers [...]
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Yahoo.licio.us?
December 11, 2005Tag It: Acqusition, Yahoo Acquires del.icio.us Yahoo.licio.us? That’s right, Yahoo has acquired del.icio.us the social bookmarking, social software web service for storing and sharing web bookmarks.
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Wireless Cities Update
December 5, 2005Cities Explore Wireless Possibilities, by Chloe Albanesius, National Journal’s Technology Daily [subscription required] Issue Of The Week: Monday, December 05, 2005. In the wake of Philadelphia’s decision to build its own wireless network, cities large and small have explored similar projects to boost competition and tourism.
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World Summit on the information society underway
November 16, 2005World Summit on the Information Society WSIS is underway in Tunis, Tunisia. The big discussion is over the governance of the internet. Check out the live webcast. I see alot of government officials and Jean-Philippe Courtois, the president of Microsoft International, but there’s nobody on the slate from activist and non-profit organizations interested in open [...]
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Network Neutrality and Monopoly Control
November 13, 2005“Network neutrality” is an important concept that librarians should understand. The issue arises because broadband network service providers (e.g., cable and telephone companies) have the technical ability to filter, slow, encumber, and block users’ access to the web, web sites, individual web pages, particular kinds of services or files. If the FCC mandated “network neutrality” [...]
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Word processor Blues [MS Word version]: Do we need word processors anymore?
November 13, 2005ongoing á Word Processing Blues Tim relates his problems with an old MS Word file and how he solved it with Emacs (an open-source multi-platform text editor [and much more] that has been around since 1976] and CSS. He concludes: [A]ssuming you had a Web editor with a good change tracker, why would anyone want [...]