Surveillance State, CIA Senate Spying, NSA, Data Privacy, Your Rights Online; Tech Cases; World TB Day

Surveillance State

• Jimmy Carter believes U.S. is spying on him—"I believe if I send an email, it will be monitored." Also, he says that Snowden's leaks "good for Americans to know."
• Sen. Ron Wyden scorches senior CIA and NSA officials and their 'pattern of deception'
• Spy Agencies, Not Politicians, Hold the Cards in Washington—"The CIA and NSA routinely ignore the Constitution, yet want the Justice Department to protect them from an over-reaching Congress."
• Government must stop requesting broad email search warrants, judge says—"District court says it will reject future broad requests." A federal judge says it's "repugnant to the Fourth Amendment."
• How Much Microsoft Charges the FBI for User Data
• Police keep quiet about cell-tracking technology—"Police across the country may be intercepting phone calls or text messages to find suspects using a technology tool known as Stingray. But they're refusing to turn over details about its use or heavily censoring files when they do."
• Navy database tracks civilians' parking tickets, fender-benders, raising fears of domestic spying
• America's Creepy, Surveillance-Endorsing Love of NCIS—"By featuring warrantless agents who thwart domestic terrorists with fantastical technology, shows like NCIS essentially ask Americans to root for Big Brother."
• Former US intelligence contractor speaks on 1975 Australian coup—"Boyce, now 61, confirmed his previous statements that the CIA was centrally involved in the dismissal of the Whitlam government."

CIA Senate Spying

• Terror Report Release May Fuel The Spat Between Congress And The CIA
• CIA chief vows fast review of declassifying interrogation report—Declassifying or destructifying?
• Nancy Pelosi: When Legislators Take on the CIA, 'They Come After You'
• How the CIA Blew It—"America's spooks aren't going rogue. They just picked a fight they couldn't possibly win." Politico
• False Equivalence and the Feud Between the CIA and the Senate—"The outbreak of open hostilities between Dianne Feinstein and the spy agency she oversees is not a problem—it is a glimmer of hope."

NSA

• Greenwald: Some Facts About How NSA Stories Are Reported
• This Is How the NSA Is Trying to Win Over the Media—"[T]he latest step in the NSA's PR campaign is perhaps its boldest and most bizarre yet: A glossy, full-color "media kit" sent to news organizations."
• Was FISC judge misled by gov't lawyers in evidence-destruction spat?—"And a CA judge makes clear: Spying data must be kept to resolve activist suits."
• Targeting Huawei: NSA Spied on Chinese Government and Networking Firm—Ruh-roh.
• SPIEGEL Interview with Former NSA Director Michael Hayden—"In a SPIEGEL interview, former NSA director Michael Hayden, 69, discusses revelations of US spying on Germany made public in documents leaked by Edward Snowden, surveillance against German leaders and tensions between Berlin and Washington."
• Google's Larry Page: We can't Have NSA Spying and a Functioning Democracy
• NSA hacker in residence dishes on how to 'hunt' system admins—"Latest Snowden docs offer lulz from NSA's internal hacker how-to board."

Data Privacy

• The White House wants to know how worried you are about data privacy
• How Microsoft tracked down a spy who leaked its secrets—Was the "sniffing" justified on Hotmail, which Microsoft owns?
• It's not just Microsoft: Apple and Google can also read your emails
• Google Under Fire for Data-Mining Student Email Messages
• Now Gmail Encrypts Messages Sent to Google Servers
• Twitter gives up on encrypting direct messages, at least for now
• Facebook's DeepFace Project Nears Human Accuracy In Identifying Faces
• Fighting Against Phony Location Privacy Protections in the States
• Yahoo forces fantasy sports users to divulge phone numbers

Your Rights Online

• Michelle Obama tells Chinese students internet freedom's a universal right
• The Trans-Pacific Partnership Will "Significantly" Restrict Online Freedoms
• Twitter website 'blocked' in Turkey—So far not so much.
• Orange Gives All Of Its Data To France's NSA
• The Australian Law that Would Force Suspects to Hand Over their Passwords

Tech Cases

• "Weev" prosecutor admits: I don't understand what the hacker did—""Andrew "weev" Auernheimer gets his day in appellate court."
• MIT faulted over its support for students—"School counters it is 'eager' to help 4 facing N.J. fraud charges." Here they go again.
• British man Lauri Love charged with hacking US Federal Reserve servers—"US indictment includes hacking and aggravated identity theft charges that carry a maximum prison sentence of 12 years."

World TB Day

Digital Life; Net Neutrality; Copyfight; Broadband; Phone; Law and Disorder; @N, Haxx0red; Codemonkeys; RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman

Digital Life

• Pope Francis says the internet is a 'gift from God'—Al Gore is God?
• China Declares Internet Addiction a Disorder, Opens a Boot Camp to Treat Teenagers
• Don’t Blame Social Media if Your Teen Is Unsocial. It's Your Fault
• Facebook Hilariously Debunks Princeton Study Saying It Will Lose 80% Of Users
• Blast from the Past: Why Nigerian Email Scams Work

Net Neutrality

• Obama on net neutrality: I wouldn’t be president without an open Internet
• The Internet You Know and Love is in Danger
• The Fight to Save Net Neutrality: 1 Million Signatures and Counting
• FCC Chief Outlines Case-By-Case Net-Neutrality Enforcement
• AT&T Patents Concept to Detect & Charge More For Certain Traffic

Copyfight

• Harry Reid rejects President Obama's trade push Politico
• HBO screws Australia over Game of Thrones
• Prince drops his $22 million lawsuit against online bootleggers
• Judge Understands BitTorrent, Kills Mass Piracy Lawsuits
• Pirate Bay ban lifted in Netherlands as blocking torrent sites ruled 'ineffective'
• Copyright Troll Perfect 10 Loses Once Again, Setting More Good Precedents For Copyright Law
• Google Refuses to Remove Links to Tarantino's Leaked Script—"Of the 29 URLs Tarantino wants to have removed, Google took action for only a handful. The links that were disabled include copies of the leaked script on torrent sites and the file-hosting site Anonfiles. The news articles, blog posts and forum threads, however, remained online."

Broadband

• Kansas Legislature Wants To Stop Any Other Kansas Cities From Getting Google Fiber—Cable companies don't want competition.
• Small Alberta town gets massive 1,000 Mbps broadband boost
• 'Fastest ever' broadband passes speed test—"Alcatel-Lucent and BT said speeds of 1.4 terabits per second were achieved during their joint test - enough to send 44 uncompressed HD films a second."
• South Korea to spend $1.5 billion on 5G 'movie-in-a-second' service
• Two-thirds of Americans surf the Web at less than 10Mbps
• Google can now say if your internet connection is quick enough for YouTube
• Verizon CEO: "Eventually, Unlimited has to Go Away"
• Verizon Has Been Quietly Increasing FiOS Fees

Phone

• Everything from 1991 Radio Shack ad I now do with my phone
• South Korea rules pre-installed phone bloatware must be deletable
• Belgium: Apple faces fines for blocking LTE on the iPhone
• iOS vs. Android vs. Windows Phone Market Share in 2013:
• AT&T plan to shut off Public Switched Telephone Network moves ahead at FCC

Law and Disorder

• Man shares post seeking his arrest on Facebook, is arrested within the hour
• Can a Tweet Put You in Prison? It Certainly Will in the UK
• EFF Fights Patent Troll Demand For Save Podcasting Campaign Donor Information

@N

• How I lost my $50,000 Twitter username
• GoDaddy Admits Hacker's Social Engineering Led It To Divulge Info In @N Twitter Account Hack
• GoDaddy Updates Its User Protection Policies In Wake Of Infamous Twitter Account Extortion
• PayPal denies providing payment information to hacker who hijacked $50,000 Twitter username
• PayPal and GoDaddy respond to Twitter hacking controversy, sidestep blame
• Why Hasn’t Twitter Just Given @N His Name Back?
• The moral of the Twitter-GoDaddy breach: People are the easiest thing to hack

Haxx0red

• How I almost lost my $500,000 Twitter user name @jb… and my startup—"Handle is coveted by hackers and Bieber fans alike. One hacker almost got much more."
• Java-based malware driving DDoS botnet infects Windows, Mac, Linux devices
• Syrian Electronic Army: We Hacked eBay and PayPal
• Yahoo mail hacked: What to do if you’ve been affected WaPo
• Hackers leak tens of thousands of Bell customer records

Codemonkeys

• Computers Are The Future, But Does Everyone Need To Code?
• Out in the Open: These Hackers Want to Give You Coding Superpowers
• Children's Book 'Hello Ruby' Teaches 4- to 7-Year-Olds How to Code
• California Cracking Down On Coding Bootcamps For Teaching Coding Without A License
• Computer programming would satisfy foreign-language requirement under Kentucky bill

RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967–2014)

Aaron Swartz; Stifling Reviews, Astroturfing, Social Engineering, Rotten Apples; Net Neutrality, Trouble with Telcos, Cable Wars, Mobile Phones; NSA Spying

Aaron Swartz

• Aaron Swartz's Father Blasts MIT Report, Says School Wasn't Neutral
• Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman: MIT report is a whitewash. My statement in response.
• The four lamest excuses in MIT's report on Aaron Swartz
• Prominent Security Researchers, Academics, and Lawyers Demand Congress Reform the CFAA and Support Aaron's Law
• Bradley Manning case stretches credibility of US computer fraud law—"The sentence facing the soldier who passed material to WikiLeaks shows that the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is in dire need of reform."

Stifling Reviews

• Popehat Signal: Vengeful AIDS Denialist Sues Critic In Texas
• Dentist who used copyright to silence her patients is on the run
• DMCA Abuse Will Cause Censored Product Review to Go Viral—"According to Den, Rotolight didn't appreciate the fact that the review wasn't as glowing as they might have liked."

Astroturfing

• How Online Reviews Are Being Manipulated By Manufacturers
• Mpact Magic Issues Warning About Solicited and Fake Reviews
• Online reviews full of fakes—"As online reviews flood Internet, it’s tough for consumers to sort out which ones are phony."
• Edmunds.com sues company for fake reviews of car dealerships
• Fake Nautical Restaurant On Tripadvisor Gets Glowing Reviews

Social Engineering

• 'Click farms': how some businesses manipulate social media - Channel 4 Dispatches video trailer
• Fake Twitter accounts generate big bucks for underground economy
• Fake Social Media Accounts Deployed in Fight Over Dallas Building Blinding Piano's Nasher
• Hackers create fake Facebook likes for cash
• Hackers hijacking Twitter, Facebook and Google+ accounts with Chrome and Firefox add-ons

Rotten Apples

• Chinese scalpers booking up all Genius Bar appointments & selling online
• Woman buys two iPhones for $1,300, gets only apples (really)
• Apple fixing bug that allows fake charging stations to hack iPhones

Net Neutrality

• Now That It's in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality
• Why YouTube buffers: The secret deals that make—and break—online video—"When ISPs and video providers fight over money, Internet users suffer."
• EU to abandon net neutrality on Internet speed

Trouble with Telcos

• Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book
• Don't Blame Big Cable. It's Local Governments That Choke Broadband Competition.
• Comcast Starts Tinkering With 5 GB Usage Caps

Cable Wars

• Time Warner Can Blame ESPN for Much of That Cord Cutting
• Time Warner Cable Jacking Up Modem Fees
• Time Warner Cable drops CBS in New York, Los Angeles

Mobile Phones

• AT&T's Next phone upgrade plans are a huge ripoff
• Why are US cell carriers suddenly pushing you to upgrade faster? For the money
• Good Luck Leaving Your Wireless Phone Plan—"Only about 1% of contract customers switch from top wireless carriers; 'It kind of feels like a trap.'" WSJ
• Finland Tops Mobile Phone Throwing Charts
• xkcd: Annoying Ringtone Champion

NSA Spying

• The sneaky switch that set the stage for the NSA's call records program—"The wording of Section 215 of the Patriot Act was modified at the last minute in 2005."
• Members of Congress denied access to basic information about NSA—"Documents provided by two House members demonstrate how they are blocked from exercising any oversight over domestic surveillance."
• Other Agencies Clamor for Data N.S.A. Compiles—"The National Security Agency's dominant role as the nation's spy warehouse has prompted turf fights with other federal agencies that want to use its surveillance tools for their own investigations." NYT
• Activists stage second national day of protest against NSA's domestic spying—"Campaigners say mood has shifted in their favour since 4 July demonstrations against government surveillance."
• Snowden slip: Grand jury probe firm that vetted NSA leaker
• Terror threat opens new front in NSA debate—Claimed to be "directly responsible for uncovering a potential terrorist attack."
• Stop Bashing the NSA

Tech History, iPhones, Ogooglebar, Law and Disorder, Streisand Effect, Tech Culture, Pr0n, Broadband, Online Streaming; Trayvon Martin; NSA Spying, Surveillance and Privacy

Tech History

• What Doug Engelbart really achieved—He's the man behind the mouse (no, not Walt).
• A Map of the Entire Internet, 1977
• End of an era: India's 160-yr-old telegram to close
• Telephone companies to abandon land lines—"AT&T aims to disable its entire network by the end of the decade." Salon
• Verizon would end "century of regulation" by killing wireline phone, says NY AG—"AG thinks Verizon should be fined $100,000 per day for pushing wireless plans."

iPhones

• Apple iPhone 6 Release Date Nears: 11 Alleged Photos (And One Video) Of The Budget iPhone 5
• iPhones Stuck to Windshields Threaten Dashboard Maps
• Apple's iPhone loses its allure
• Apple adding 'kill switch' to iPhones—How long before some other entity can override this 'feature'?
• Stewardess electrocuted while on iPhone 5—Speaking of kill switches.

Ogooglebar

• A year after Google acquisition, Meebo bar will be killed, as team settles in with Google+
• Google to retire Chrome Frame for Microsoft's Internet Explorer, cease support and updates in January 2014
• Say Goodbye to Google Latitude, Service to be Shut Down August 9

Law and Disorder

• State Department bureau spent $630,000 on Facebook 'likes'
• US agency baffled by modern technology, destroys mice to get rid of viruses—"$170,000 of PCs, printers, keyboards, cameras, and mice destroyed in gross overreaction."
• Florida Accidentally Banned All Computers, Smart Phones In The State Through Internet Cafe Ban: Lawsuit
• Judge Orders U.S. to Release Aaron Swartz's Secret Service File
• In 'Chilling' Ruling, Chevron Granted Access to Activists' Private Internet Data
• New Argument in Forced-Decryption Case: Defendant's Memory Is Ticking Clock
• Revealed! Why the IRS is Targeting Open Source Software Groups
• Patent troll that sues public transit systems gets hauled into court
• Judge orders rapper to get Twitter etiquette lessons
• Fugitive tweets taunt to D.A., then gets caught in Mexico

Streisand Effect

• Bus company that threatened redditor with lawsuit tries to reopen suits—"Owner also sent university FOIA request to 'dox' reddit user."
• Dentist Threatens Patient Who Left Yelp Criticism With Criminal Charges
• Golden Corral Can Thank Reddit for This Bad PR Buffet

Tech Culture

• Scrubbed—"I watched online as a college classmate went from disgrace to redemption in months. That’s when I found myself deep in the world of black-ops reputation management."
• John McAfee's (insane, NSFW) tips for uninstalling McAfee—"McAfee mocks himself and his antivirus software mercilessly in a new viral video."
• The Reddit sleuths who brought down a meme empire

Pr0n

• Apple sued because its devices display porn—"A possibly optimistic lawsuit brought by a Nashville lawyer insists that all Apple products should have an antiporn filter."
• Porn blockers — not just for kids—"Adults beg Web-filtering companies to protect them from themselves, giving new meaning to 'parental controls.'" Salon
• Porn: do we really want internet providers to be our censors?—"The only way to stop online porn is to force service providers to block it – but we should be careful what we wish for."
• New site hopes to be Kickstarter for porn—"What does the launch of yet another adult crowdsourcing site mean for the porn industry?" Salon
• Why America's Outdated Morals Won't Let Porn into Mainstream Business—"A generation of innovators want to change the way we have sex and consume porn, but Google, Apple, and Amazon won't let them."
• Google bans porn on Google Glass
• Google provokes ire of 'adult' bloggers with letter threatening to delete blogs—"Search giant struggles to reassure bloggers after ambiguous letter warns it will delete some 'adult' blogs on Blogger network."

Broadband

• Gigabit Seattle priced at $80 per month, just over what Google Fiber costs
• Gigabit Internet and phone service for $48 a month? It really exists
• $20 for 768Kbps Internet? AT&T "deal" shows sad state of US broadband—"And did I mention the fees?"
• Vermont ISP delivers Google Fiber speeds for half the price
• Canadian startup OneGigabit to offer Google Fiber-like internet speeds for $45 to $65 a month

Online Streaming

• Verizon accused of intentionally slowing Netflix video streaming—"Why would Verizon intentionally disrupt Netflix video streaming for its customers? Many are pointing to the fact that Verizon owns a 50% stake in Redbox, the video rental service that contributed to the demise of Blockbuster." Verizon pooh-poohs the accusations.
• Twitch working with Time Warner Cable to improve service—"Twitch, the live-video network for gamers, has said it is currently working with US-based ISP Time Warner Cable to improve service to the site. At the same time, Time Warner Cable is assuring customers that they "don't throttle traffic."
• Cable TV execs start pushing for nationwide duopoly

Trayvon Martin

• Thousands Protest Zimmerman Verdict Across U.S NYT
• Analysis: The race factor in George Zimmerman's trial
• Attorney: Things would have been different if Zimmerman was black
• George Zimmerman trial: activists urge US officials to pursue civil rights case—"'Outraged and heartbroken' NAACP chief says death of Trayvon Martin meets benchmark for inquiry by Department of Justice."
• After Zimmerman verdict, can nation heal racial rift?
• David "The Wire" Simon on Trayvon
• Racism is every American's problem—"It's an easy punchline to blame Florida or the South for this horrible verdict. But the problem goes much deeper." Salon

NSA Spying

• Greenwald: Snowden Docs Contain NSA 'Blueprint'
• Bush-Cheney began illegal NSA spying before 9/11, says telcom CEO—"Contradicting a statement by ex-vice president Dick Cheney on Sunday that warrantless domestic surveillance might have prevented 9/11, 2007 court records indicate that the Bush-Cheney administration began such surveillance at least 7 months prior to 9/11."
• The crux of the NSA story in one phrase: 'collect it all'—"The actual story that matters is not hard to see: the NSA is attempting to collect, monitor and store all forms of human communication."
• The Snowden case, and the U.S. media: The Lockstep Followers—The self-proclaimed mainstream media has been continually trying to divert attention away from the illegal surveillance by taking personal pot-shots at Snowden and Greenwald.
• Bizarre MSNBC Open Letter to Edward Snowden: Turn Yourself In, Obama Will Treat You Well in Prison—Go fuck yourselves, MSNBC.

Surveillance and Privacy

• Control+Freedom+Delete: Do Americans realize their privacy rights have been obliterated?
• FISA court process must be unveiled
• Bills Introduced by Congress Fail to Fix Unconstitutional NSA Spying
• EU Commissioner: We Don’t Want U.S. Reading Our Mail and Listening to Our Phone Calls
• Travellers' mobile phone data seized by police at border—"Thousands of innocent holidaymakers and travellers are having their phones seized and personal data downloaded and stored by the police, The Telegraph can disclose." Here come the terrorist tourists!
• Southern Europe Is Becoming One Big Surveillance State
• Researchers hack Verizon device, turn it into mobile spy station

Follow-Ups; On the Road; Bitcoins; Social Media; AAPL and PRC; iCloud; Gouging; Broadband; "Always On"

Follow-Ups

• French Intelligence Agency Forces Wikipedia Volunteer to Delete Article; Re-Instated, It Becomes Most-Read Page On French Wikipedia
• Supporters Say All The Wrong Things to Try and Pass CISPA
• Today, we save the Internet (again): fix the CFAA!
• Hypocritical amendment to employee social media password bill pulled
• News Corp. COO: If we lose Aereo lawsuit, Fox may stop broadcasting

On the Road

• Busted! Adults text-and-drive more than teens—And the number of teens doing this has doubled since 2010.
• California Court Rules It Illegal To Check Maps On Your Phone While Driving
• Why Cell Phone Bans Don't Work

Bitcoins

• Why Bitcoin scares banks and governments—"Bitcoin offers an alternative to the conventional, state-sanctioned banking system. Maybe that's why powerful institutions are so wary of it."
• Bitcoin and the End of Money
• The Bitcoin Bubble and the Future of Currency
• NYC Bar To Allow Patrons To Buy Drinks With Bitcoins
• Blast from the Past: The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin

Social Media

• Home Turf—"Facebook Home is a trojan horse designed to steal the Android experience, and the Android user base, right out of Google's hands."
• Facebook users to be charged for messaging 'non-friends'
• Budge: Facing up to Facebook scams
• Fake Twitter Followers Become Multimillion-Dollar Business NYT
• IRS collecting tax payer information from Facebook and Twitter
• Twitter Is Building A Gateway To The "Web" Of Mobile Apps
• Internet confused by "Nowthatchersdead" hashtag on Twitter—It's ExpertSexChange.com all over again. Salon

AAPL and PRC

• Why Apple's China Disaster Is Worse Than You Think
• Apple CEO apologizes to China
• Apple has to think different about China

iCloud

• Apple's broken promise: why doesn't iCloud 'just work'?
• Frustrated with iCloud, Apple's developer community speaks up en masse
• Why Developers Shouldn't Use iCloud Syncing, Even If It Worked

Gouging

• Apple responds to Australian 'price gouging' allegations, blames markup on content owners
• 'We'd love cheaper prices': Apple defends high costs
• 'Evasive': Microsoft, Adobe fail to justify prices

Broadband

• Video: The First Honest Cable Company
• Time Warner Pays Empty Lip Service to 1 Gbps in North Carolina—"After Passing Laws to Keep State in Broadband Dark Ages."
• Careening Toward Telecom Dystopia (But Can We Stop It?)
• Cable Angry About Higher 6 Mbps FCC Broadband Definition
• Spoof Time Warner Cable Site And Video Asks Customers 'What Can We Do Worse?'
• Broadband consultant's report a secret—"The reason: At least one of the consultant's documents might be 'embarrassing to some people,' according to Commerce Secretary Keith Burdette." That's enough to defy an FOIA?
• Google Fiber coming to Austin—And apparently so is AT&T.

"Always On"

• Microsoft Exec on Always Online Consoles: "Deal With it"
• Report: Xbox 360 successor can tolerate only brief Internet interruptions—"Games/apps will reportedly suspend if connection is dropped for three minutes
• PlayStation 4 does not require an internet connection
• Witcher 3 DRM-free—"The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will not feature always-online digital rights management (DRM). Developer CD Projekt Red told Kotaku that the studio is trying to move away from DRM altogether."
• Editorial: The Internet in the U.S. isn't built for an "always on" game console

Google's April Fool's; Swartz; Copyfight; Surveillance and Privacy; Tech Tracking; Your Rights Online; Censorship

Google's April Fool's

• Introducing Google Fiber to the Pole
• Gmail Blue
• Google Nose

Swartz

• Three Things You May Not Get About the Aaron Swartz Case
• Congress' New CFAA Draft Could Have Put Aaron Swartz in Jail For Decades Longer Than the Original Charges
• Entire library journal editorial board resigns, citing 'crisis of conscience' after death of Aaron Swartz—"Publishers demanded $2,995 for each open-access article."

Copyfight

• America's top copyright cop wants to make it a felony to stream songs without permission
• Justin Timberlake Made a Fortune Giving His Album Away
• Don Rosa: The Epilogue

Surveillance and Privacy

• Fusion center director: We don't spy on Americans, just anti-government Americans
• New e-mails reveal Feds not "forthright" about fake cell tower devices
• Canada: Police need wiretaps, not just warrants, to search text messages

Tech Tracking

• Letting Down Our Guard With Web Privacy—"Consumers insist that they treasure their online privacy. But their mouse clicks tell a far different tale, as the experiments of a behavioral economist show." NYT
• Mobile location data 'present anonymity risk'—"A study of mobile phone data - used by advertisers or even released publicly - reveals that individuals can be identified using only four location points."
• In your face, Facebook style—"You won't be able to ignore ads on Facebook any longer, and that's going to thrill advertisers and Wall Street -- unless users are like me and hate it."
• Amazon.com is clever in its use of tracking and follow-up e-mails—"[V]irtually everything you do online can be tracked, if someone wants to track you."
• Mozilla Collusion demo—Shows you who's tracking you online.

Your Rights Online

• Florida Homeowner's Association Sues Resident For Critical Blog Comments, Seeks Identity Of Other Commenters
• Saudi Arabia may try to end anonymity for Twitter users: paper
• Why the collision of big data and privacy will require a new realpolitik—"People's movements are highly predictable, researchers say, making it easy to identify most individuals from supposedly anonymized location datasets. As these datasets have valid uses, this is yet another reason why we need better regulation."

Censorship

• The astonishing speed of Chinese censorship
• Twitter Caves to Vladimir Putin, Censors Content Within Russia
• Georgia Court Censorship Order Threatens Message Boards Everywhere

Broadband, Net, Google Fiber; Apple; Social Media; Patent Trolls; Malware and Hacking

Broadband

• Faster, Sooner: Why The U.S. Needs 'Gigabit Communities'
• The real Gigabit Challenge is getting ISPs to think like tech firms
• Big Surprise: Former FCC Chairman admits data caps aren't about preventing network congestion
• TimeWarner, net neutrality foes cry foul over Netflix requirements for Super HD
• Verizon Charging You More, As Bandwidth Costs Them Less

Net

• No, free Wi-Fi isn't coming to every US city—"When bad journalism strikes: the big story of the day was completely false."
• The Internet Is A 21st Century Utility And We Deserve Better
• German court rules internet "essential"—"[P]eople have the right to claim compensation from service providers if their Internet access is disrupted..."

Google Fiber

• Google Fiber 'not a hobby,' could expand, tech giant's execs say
• Google Fiber provides faster Internet and, cities hope, business growth
• Time Warner Boosts My Speed, Cuts My Bill: I Just Happen To Live Near Google Fiber

Apple

• Core Rot at Apple
• US appeals court to Apple: No cutting in line—"Apple won't get to leapfrog the three-judge panel in its renewed request for a permanent injunction against Samsung's products. ... Meanwhile, Samsung gets to continue selling its devices in the US...."
• Mountain Lion users: Don't type these 8 characters

Social Media

• Game Over: Twitter Mentioned In 50% Of Super Bowl Commercials, Facebook Only 8%, Google+ Shut Out
• Investigative Journalist Claims Her Public Tweets Aren't 'Publishable;' Threatens To Sue Blogger Who Does Exactly That—Reminds me of the useless legal crap in e-mail
• MySpace Squandered the Only Thing It Had Left

Patent Trolls

• Mark Cuban's Awesome Justification For Endowing A Chair To 'Eliminate Stupid Patents'
• Creator Of The X-Plane Flight Simulator Seeks Help Fighting A Patent Troll
• Patent Trolls Eat Startups First. Here’s What You Can Do About It

Malware and Hacking

• Viruses, Trojans, and worms, oh my: The basics on malware
• Twitter hacked; 250,000 accounts affected
• Oracle Issues Emergency Java Security Update—Wonder how many of the Mac apps I use still rely on Java. Hmmm...
• Android malware emerges on Google Play which installs a trojan on your PC, uses your microphone to record you
• How to not get hacked by China

Free Speech, Surveillance & Privacy, Copyfight, Canada, DRM, Trouble with Telcos, Google, Digital Justice or Digi-lantes?, Trolling

Free Speech

• New Law Criminalizing Online Student Speech Takes Effect Dec. 1
• China arrests blogger for Twitter joke
• Court bans Pussy Riot video clips
• New York Times parody account restored to Twitter after outcry
• The Internet's most hated lawyer finally gets served in free speech lawsuit--"For months, Charles Carreon has delayed case brought by 'Satirical Charles.'"
• How Ordinary Chinese Are Talking And Fighting Back--"Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter, is changing the way the Chinese communicate and has become a major source of news. Its more than 300 million users are, among other things, using it to criticize government policies, stop official injustice and help ordinary people — but only up to a point."
• Cop Protects First Amendment of Journalist Against Airport Official.

Surveillance & Privacy

• Raided for running a Tor exit - Accepting donations for legal expenses
• Email Privacy Bill On Hold Till 2013--The Senate Panel has passed it but it's won't be up for a full vote yet.
• Why email is and must remain private--"Private communication, if monitored, will damage trust between individuals, making it harder to form relationships."
• Britons! Stop the Snoopers' Charter, end the government's spying plan!
• Citing hunt for pedophiles, Dutch government to make refusing to help decrypt computer a crime
• Jones Meant What it Said: EFF Urges Court to Stop Warrantless GPS Tracking
• Long Island cops probe how secret information became NYC confetti
• Does Using Certain Privacy Tools Expose You to Warrantless NSA Surveillance? ACLU Files FOIA to Find Out
• New data on privacy policies shows 20 percent of sites may sell data
• Please stop posting that fake Facebook privacy notice--Even Facebook calls it shit. Salon

Copyfight

• U.K. student strikes deal to avoid extradition in copyright case--"Richard O'Dwyer of TV-Shack fame will not be extradited to the United States to face copyright infringement charges, and will pay compensation instead."
• Members Of The Republican Study Committee Do Twitter Q&A, Ignore Every Single Question About Fixing Copyright
• "Six strikes" copyright enforcement postponed until 2013
• Verizon and Time Warner will throttle speeds and limit browsing under new Copyright Alert System
• Police Raid 9-Year-Old Pirate Bay Girl, Confiscate Winnie The Pooh Laptop--This has the makings of a PR nightmare.

Canada

• Canadian Copyright Reform In Force: Expanded User Rights Now the Law
• Canada prepares for crackdown on BitTorrent movie pirates
• Why Liability Is Limited: A Primer on New Copyright Damages as File Sharing Lawsuits Head To Canada

DRM

• DRM error causes problems for legitimate Game Maker users--"Popular development tool overwrites user-made assets with a skull and crossbones."
• Barnes & Noble Decides That Purchased Ebooks Are Only Yours Until Your Credit Card Expires
• When a mouse requires an internet connection, you're doing the "cloud" wrong

Trouble with Telcos

• Bad Connections: It's time — once again — to bust up the telecom trusts--"The result of having such sweeping control of the communications terrain, naturally, is that there is little incentive for either player to lower prices, make improvements to service or significantly invest in new technologies and infrastructure. And that, in turn, leaves American consumers with a major disadvantage compared with their counterparts in the rest of the world." NYT
• Free Market Failure: Telcos Charge More For Sending A Text Next Door Than Cost Of Sending Data From Mars
• Consumer Reports carrier rankings 2012: AT&T worst, Verizon best
• Dear Google Fiber: Please, please, please come to Boston and rescue me from Comcast--More and more people are realizing they've been bamboozled into paying more for bad service.
• BT website lets anyone upgrade your phone package

Google

• Google promotes Speak2Tweet initiative to give disconnected Syrians a voice online
• Australia: Google Must Pay For Libelous Search Result, Says Court
• Google won't be prosecuted over Street View in Germany
• Google's 'Defend your Net' campaign asks Germans to resist copyright changes
• Trolling Android app reviews now requires your real name--I have got to wean myself off the Google eco-system.

Digital Justice or Digi-lantes?

• 'Anonymous' turns in hacker who targeted children's charity
• What Happens When You Taunt 4Chan: The Story of Lacey Vicich
• Vigilantism and hate-shaming on the web – who’s the bully?

Trolling

• Don't Feed the Troll, and Other Dumb Advice
• Fend Off Trolls, Bots and Jerks With 'Empathy' Test
• The Story Of An Internet Troll With A Surprising Twist

Protect Internet Freedom, Free Speech, Facebook, UK, Surveillance, Tech Tracking, Copyfight, Piracy, Megaupload, Telcos, Billing

Protect Internet Freedom--Google invites you to take action.

Free Speech

• Senator Wyden Puts Hold On Intelligence Authorization Act Over Free Speech Concerns
• For the first time ever, Twitter censored a controversial account run by neo-Nazis--The slipping continues.
• NYT tries to shoot down Twitter critic who tweaked its T logo--Squealching parody.

Facebook

• Thailand: Netizens warned against 'liking' photo
• Two arrested in India for Facebook comment--"The pair were due to appear in court on Monday 'charged for hurting religious sentiments.'"
• Philippines: Militants slam arrest for 'libelous' Facebook post--"Youth group Anakbayan lambasted the arrest of an anti-mining activist in Cagayan province... over an allegedly libelous statement on Facebook amid the halted Cybercrime Prevention Law."

UK

• Rowan Atkinson: we must be allowed to insult each other--"Rowan Atkinson has launched a campaign for a change in the law that bans 'insulting words and behaviour.'"
• Sticks and stones! Push to reform notorious UK 'insult' law gains momentum
• Britain's High-Tech Thought Police--"British authorities target bloggers, tweeters, and t-shirt wearers for speech crimes."

Surveillance

• Leahy scuttles his warrantless e-mail surveillance bill--I thought they were looking into increasing e-mail privacy in the wake of the Petreus scandal.
• Canada: Supreme Court rules employees have right to privacy on work computers--"The court said an individual's Internet browsing history alone is capable of exposing his or her most intimate likes, dislikes, activities and thoughts."
• You're Not Paranoid, That Department Store Mannequin Really Is Watching You

Tech Tracking

• How to Commit Internet Suicide and Disappear from the Web Forever
• Why big data could sink Europe's 'right to be forgotten'
• Zuckerberg: In 10 years, folks will share 1,000 times what they do now
• Online Analytics Firm Settles Suit Over Unstoppable User Tracking
• Australia: Backdown on internet filter plan

Copyfight

• Influential GOP group releases, pulls shockingly sensible copyright memo--Big Content no likey.
• TorrentFreak Trolls a Copyright Troll--Site turns law firm's scare tactics into educational opportunity.
• Congresswoman Crowdsourcing Domain-Seizure Bill on Reddit

Piracy

• Germany: Parents off the hook for kids' illegal downloads
• iOS apps hijack Twitter accounts, post false "confessions" of piracy
• Two sentenced to prison for online copyright infringement--"According to court documents, Lambert and Lovelady went to theaters and recorded the audio of the films."
• New Zealand: Accused student prevails in first "three strikes" copyright case
• 'Six Strikes' programs from ISPs & MPAA: Here’s what you need to know

Megaupload

• Megaupload Is Dead. Long Live Mega!
• Megaupload Assisted U.S. Prosecution of Smaller File-Sharing Service
• Obama discusses fate of Megaupload's Kim Dotcom with New Zealand prime minister

Telcos

• Google's Internet Service Might Actually Bring the U.S. Up to Speed
• AT&T bandwidth cap controversy: refuses to explain bandwidth meters
• Verizon called hypocritical for equating net neutrality to censorship

Billing

• Upper Darby T-Mobile customer stabbed while disputing bill
• Frenchwoman receives phone bill for 11,721,000,000,000,000 euros--At first the company "told her they could not amend the computer-generated statement or stop the balance from being debited from her bank account," which was "nearly 6000 times the country's annual economic output."
• Cell phone "bill shock" nearly eradicated, FCC declares

Your Rights Online, Censorship, Surveillance, UK, Tech Tracking, Facebook and Your Privacy, Net Neutrality

Your Rights Online

• Tech Giants Form Internet-Freedom Lobby to Counter MPAA, RIAA Clout
• The Future Of The Internet Is Meshnet: Decentralized Internet Being Built to Thwart Censorship
• The Internet Is Not Free: We're In The Filter Bubble--"This is about technology-more specifically about the Internet. And how it's now it's turning into an undemocratic place, without you even realising."
• Why Twitter Caved and Handed an "Occupy" Protester’s Data to the Government--"I can’t put Twitter or the little blue bird in jail, so the only way to punish is monetarily."
• Why is the UN Trying to Take over the Internet?

Censorship

• UK Online Safety Bill Prompts Iceland ISPs to Consider Options for Questionable Sites
• New Internet censorship rules take effect in Gaza
• Indian Government now mulls over Cyber Surveillance Agency to monitor web
• Malaysia's New Internet Law
• New Philippine law outlaws cybersex

Surveillance

• Freedom Not Fear: Creating a Surveillance-Free Internet
• EU funding 'Orwellian' artificial intelligence plan to monitor public for "abnormal behaviour"
• EU Officials Propose Internet Cops On Patrol, No Anonymity & No Obscure Languages (Because Terrorism!)--They want to Clean IT.
• Watch Your Tongue: Law Enforcement Speech Recognition System Stores Millions of Voices
• House Approves Sweeping, Warrantless Electronic Spy Powers--And the news was swept under the rug.
• Cops might finally need a warrant to read your Gmail
• xkcd: License Plate

UK

• Sir Tim Berners-Lee accuses government of 'draconian' internet snooping--"The inventor of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has accused the government of invading the privacy by monitoring internet use."
• Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales attacks government's 'snooper's charter'--"Jimmy Wales says his website would encrypt all connections with Britain, and called the plans 'technologically incompetent.'"
• Google engineer finds British spyware on PCs and smartphones--"FinSpy turning up in dictatorships across the world."

Tech Tracking

• How the top 100 most-visited websites in the United States track your every move online (and how you can opt out, if it's possible)
• Google Finally Adds Do-Not-Track Support in Latest Test Version of Chrome
• Wajam's Clever Workaround Inserts Its Content in iOS Apps
• Don't Be LAZY! when it comes to your online privacy
• WhatsApp is using IMEI numbers as passwords
• "Log in to unsubscribe from this e-mail": annoying, possibly illegal
• Privacy over profanity: Survey reveals annoying online habits

Facebook and Your Privacy

• This Is How Facebook Is Tracking Your Internet Activity
• Demanding A Student's Facebook Password A Violation Of First Amendment Rights, Judge Says
• Facebook Confirms Surveying Users About Friends' Fake Usernames
• Facebook suspends photo tag tool in Europe
• Facebook to start keeping track of track of your searches

Net Neutrality

• Libertarians make the case: net neutrality is unconstitutional
• FCC Defends Net Neutrality, Says Verizon Is No Internet Editor
• Why Monopolistic Telecoms Threaten Internet Equality

Talk Like a Pirate Day, Language, Tech Effect, Curses, Irony, Cleverest Letdowns Barbarise, Penny Arcade

Talk Like a Pirate Day: 10th Anniversary

Language

• Vanishing Languages--"One language dies every 14 days. By the next century nearly half of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken on Earth will likely disappear, as communities abandon native tongues in favor of English, Mandarin, or Spanish. What is lost when a language goes silent?"
• English language 'originated in Turkey'
• Language X is essentially language Y under conditions Z
• Vowel Movement--"How Americans near the Great Lakes are radically changing the sound of English."
• xkcd: Cautionary Ghost

Tech Effect

• Using YouTube comments, tweets and IMs to teach English composition
• Tu and Twitter: Is it the end for 'vous' in French?
• Google Translate vs. Latin Dummy Text

Curses

• Behind the killing of a pregnant woman--"We have yet to be convinced that the policeman was really trying to stop a citizen from using indecent language and that upholding the law in this case was of such paramount interest to him that not even her state of defenceless and of advanced pregnancy could have deterred him."
• F-bomb makes it into mainstream dictionary
• How America Swears: Here's a Heatmap Tracking Twitter Profanity
• Dear Apple, please will you let me say s***?
• Sex, violence and swearing on film: 100 years of the BBFC--"From counting f-words to examining hours of graphic gore, the British Board of Film Classification reveals the secrets of a century of rating, cutting and occasionally banning movies."

Irony

• Isn't It Ironic? Probably Not
• Americans don't appear to have a clue about irony
• Ed Byrne slates Alanis Morissette

Cleverest Letdowns Barbarise

• Group: Scrabble Player Caught Cheating at US Event--"One of the top young Scrabble players in the country has been kicked out of the game's national championship tournament in Florida after he was caught hiding blank letter tiles..." Scrabble is sirius bizness.
• Poem which uses all 100 Scrabble tiles
• With Or Without U - IS THAT A WORD?--Sesame Street-worthy.

Penny Arcade

• The Globfather
• The Brute Force Method
• Adjudicator

Apple vs. Samsung, Patents, Twitter, Facebook, Windows 8, Open Source, Tech Death

Apple vs. Samsung

• Jury awards Apple $1.049 billion in Samsung patent dispute ruling
• Legal analysts suggest Apple-Samsung verdict may not be safe
• Why The Apple vs Samsung Verdict Is A Big Mistake
• Apple vs. Samsung verdict: It doesn't matter
• Counterintuitive: Did Samsung emerge a winner?--"Observers like Robert Scoble and Jeremiah Owyang said Samsung may not be a loser in its patent fight with Apple despite a $1 billion verdict to the contrary, Samsung may have come out ahead even with the court loss."

Patents

• Bill would force patent trolls to pay defendants' legal bills
• Can You Get A Patent On Being A Patent Troll?
• Malaria is no excuse for patent trolling, Mr. Myhrvold--"The CEO of Intellectual Ventures says his company's philanthropy means he is doing more good for the world than GigaOM. The claim fails to account for the harm to innovation he is causing through ruinous patent suits." Are they the the most hated company in tech?

Twitter

• Twitter sets max user caps for 3rd party clients, tightens API rules to direct users to official apps
• What Twitter's API Announcement Could Have Said--Certainly didn't need this cockamamie graph.
• Twitter app makers trying to figure out the future
• Black Widow
• Twitter cuts off "find friends" access to Tumblr, too
• How Twitter Became a Tyrant
• The Twitter Tragedy--"To become a successful company, it'll have to kill the openness that makes it great."

Facebook

• Startup Claims 80% Of Its Facebook Ad Clicks Are Coming From Bots
• Facebook has more than 83 million illegitimate accounts
• With Three Key Exits, Facebook’s Top Talent Departures Continue
• Facebook stock slides 6% as insiders get chance to sell
• How Instagram Could Have Cut a Better Deal--"When negotiating a sale, Instagram's founders could have protected themselves from a decline in Faceook's share value if they had used some common merger tools." NYT
• "No, Mark Zuckerberg, you can't buy my startup."
• Facebook accused of deceiving developers over security

Windows 8

• Windows 8 Pro to be priced at $199 following $69.99 promotional pricing--Guess I'll stick to XP for a little longer before upgrading to Windows 7.
• Microsoft Eliminates 30-Day Activation Grace Period with Windows 8
• Why I’m uninstalling Windows 8

Open Source

• Disney anti-open-source propaganda--What a load of mouse shit, and that's just the show.
• Pixar open sources production animation code, patents--Glad to see Disney hasn't infected them.
• Microsoft Blocks FSF Donation Website as a 'Gambling Site'
• Oracle gives up on OpenOffice after community forks the project
• Blast from the Past: VLC App Pulled From The App Store In Response To Nokia Employee's GPL Crusade

Tech Death

• The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing
• HTC criticism 2012: Apple, Samsung competition has HTC in Hell--The CEO blames "long pointless meetings."
• The fall of Angry Birds--"Angry birds is slowly slipping from the charts and there is a new style of game firmly in place, so what's next?"
• Best Buy founder: C'mon, folks, my takeover plan will work
• Flash for Android dies today, long live the 'full web experience'
• Our favorite "forgotten tech"—from BeOS to Zip Drives--"Our ride-or-die gadgets of yesteryear didn't all achieve market success."
• Blast from the Past: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?