The Internet's Own Boy

The film follows the story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz. From Swartz's help in the development of the basic internet protocol RSS to his co-founding of Reddit, his fingerprints are all over the internet. But it was Swartz's groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing combined with his aggressive approach to information access that ensnared him in a two-year legal nightmare. It was a battle that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26. Aaron's story touched a nerve with people far beyond the online communities in which he was a celebrity. This film is a personal story about what we lose when we are tone deaf about technology and its relationship to our civil liberties.

Top Google executive predicts end of the internet

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Google guru Eric Schmidt gave an answer regarding the evolution of the web. “I will answer very simply that the internet will disappear,” Schmidt said on Thursday.

“There will be so many IP addresses, … so many devices, sensors, things that you are wearing, things that you are interacting with that you won’t even sense it, it will be part of your presence all the time,” he explained. “Imagine you walk into a room, and the room is dynamic. And with your permission and all of that, you are interacting with the things going on in the room. A highly personalized, highly interactive and very, very interesting world emerges,” Schmidt concluded.

More at RT News

Here’s How We Take Back the Internet

Here’s an extremely interesting, educational, and important video interview with Edward Snowden on the right to privacy. Appearing by telepresence robot, Edward Snowden speaks at TED2014 about surveillance and Internet freedom. The right to data privacy, he suggests, is not a partisan issue, but requires a fundamental rethink of the role of the internet in our lives — and the laws that protect it. “Your rights matter,” he say, “because you never know when you’re going to need them.”

HoweStreet.com

GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world's communications

Britain's spy agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world's phone calls and internet traffic and has started to process vast streams of sensitive personal information which it is sharing with its American partner, the National Security Agency (NSA).

The sheer scale of the agency's ambition is reflected in the titles of its two principal components: Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation, aimed at scooping up as much online and telephone traffic as possible. This is all being carried out without any form of public acknowledgement or debate.

One key innovation has been GCHQ's ability to tap into and store huge volumes of data drawn from fibre-optic cables for up to 30 days so that it can be sifted and analysed. That operation, codenamed Tempora, has been running for some 18 months. GCHQ and the NSA are consequently able to access and process vast quantities of communications between entirely innocent people, as well as targeted suspects. This includes recordings of phone calls, the content of email messages, entries on Facebook and the history of any internet user's access to websites – all of which is deemed legal, even though the warrant system was supposed to limit interception to a specified range of targets.

Full article on The Guardian

China aiding hacker attacks on west

The Chinese army has launched hundreds of cyber-attacks against western companies and defence groups from a nondescript office building in Shanghai, according to a report that warns hackers have stolen vast amounts of data from their targets.

Mandiant, a security company that has been investigating attacks against western organisations for over six years, said in a report (PDF) the attacks came from a 12-storey building belonging to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) general staff's department, also known as Unit 61398.

Mandiant said it believed a hacking network named the Comment Crew or the Shanghai Group was based inside the compound, in a rundown residential neighbourhood. Although the report fails directly to place the hackers inside the building, it argues there is no other logical reason why so many attacks have emanated from such a small area.

"It is time to acknowledge the threat is originating in China, and we wanted to do our part to arm and prepare security professionals to combat that threat effectively," said the report.

More on The Guardian

Aaron Swartz

Police found the body of the 26-year-old in his apartment in New York City borough of Brooklyn on Friday, said a spokeswoman for the city’s chief medical examiner. Brooklyn’s chief medical examiner ruled the death a suicide by hanging, but no further detail is available about the mysterious death.
Last year, Swartz openly criticized the US and the Israeli regime for launching joint cyber attacks against Iran. The blogger was also vocal in criticizing Obama’s so-called kill list and other policies.
Obama has been reportedly approving the names put on the “kill lists” used in the targeted killing operations carried out by US assassination drones.

Press TV

Aaron H. Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013) was an American computer programmer, writer, archivist, political organizer, and Internet activist. Swartz co-authored the "RSS 1.0" specification of RSS, and built the Web site framework web.py and the architecture for the Open Library. He also built Infogami, a company that merged with Reddit in its early days, through which he became an equal owner of the merged company.

Swartz also focused on sociology, civic awareness and activism. In 2010 he was a member of the Harvard University Center for Ethics. He cofounded the online group Demand Progress (best known recently for its campaign for Richard O'Dwyer) and later worked with US and international activist groups Rootstrikers and Avaaz.
On January 6, 2011, Swartz was arrested in connection with systematic downloading of academic journal articles from JSTOR, which became the subject of a federal investigation. JSTOR offended Swartz mainly for two reasons: it charged large fees for access to these articles but did not compensate the authors and it ensured that huge numbers of people are denied access to the scholarship produced by America's colleges and universities.
On January 11, 2013, Swartz was found dead in his Crown Heights, Brooklyn, apartment; where he had hanged himself.

Wikipedia - personal website - Official Statement from the family and partner of Aaron Swartz

China tightens internet controls and targets bloggers

China unveiled tighter internet controls on Friday, legalising the deletion of posts or pages which are deemed to contain “illegal” information and requiring service providers to hand over such information to the authorities for punishment.

The rules signal that the new leadership headed by Communist Party chief Xi Jinping will continue muzzling the often scathing, raucous online chatter in a country where the internet offers a rare opportunity for debate.

The new regulations, announced by the official Xinhua news agency, also require internet users to register with their real names when signing up with network providers, though, in reality, this already happens.

Chinese authorities and internet companies such as Sina Corp have long since closely monitored and censored what people say online, but the government has now put measures such as deleting posts into law.

“Service providers are required to instantly stop the transmission of illegal information once it is spotted and take relevant measures, including removing the information and saving records, before reporting to supervisory authorities,” the rules state.

South China Morning Post

How the ITU could put the internet behind closed doors

Russia’s leap in Internet control

The Russian government this month began implementing a new Internet filtering policy, including a blacklist of banned Web sites. The policy is supposedly about protecting Russian minors from material about suicide, drugs or child pornography. But human rights advocates warn that the policy is intended to silence legitimate, independent speech in one of the last venues Russians have for it. Russian investigative journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan reported on Wired.com that the technology required to enforce the blacklist would give the government the infrastructure it needs to monitor Russian Internet activity on a massive scale, “spying on millions of Russians.” This is a leap in Internet control; not merely bullying Internet service providers or shutting down Web sites, the authorities appear to be moving to dig deeply into the data stream.

Reporters Without Borders points out that the blacklist is only one of many new policies in a broader rollback of Russians’ freedom. The state is curbing the use of technologies to evade Internet censorship and may soon further restrict “blasphemy.” Libel has become a crime. Leaders of the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, promise more to come. Most disturbing, the legislature has voted to redefine “high treason” in a way that would vastly expand the universe of people whom the state could charge, possibly including journalists, activists and others who may be a danger to Mr. Putin’s regime but are no danger to Russia itself.

The Washington Post

Google report reveals sharp increase in government requests for users' data

Government surveillance of citizens' online lives is rising sharply around the world, according to Google's latest report on requests to remove content and hand over user data to official agencies.

In the first six months of this year, authorities worldwide made 20,939 requests for access to personal data from Google users, including search results, access to Gmail accounts and removal of YouTube videos. Requests have risen steeply from a low of 12,539 in the last six months of 2009, when Google first published its Transparency Report.

Authorities made 1,791 requests for Google to remove 17,746 pieces of content in the first half of 2012, almost twice as many as the 949 requests made in the same period last year, and up from 1,048 requests made in the last six months of 2011.

"This is the sixth time we've released this data, and one trend has become clear: government surveillance is on the rise," Google said in a blogpost.

One of the sharpest rises came in requests from Turkey, which held an election on 12 June 2011. Google reported a 1,013% rise in requests from Turkish authorities in the latest reporting period, including 148 requests to remove 426 YouTube videos, Blogger blogs, one Google document and one search result. The contested items allegedly criticised Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (the first president of Turkey), the government or "national identity and values". Google restricted Turkish users from accessing 63% of the YouTube videos. It did not remove the other content.

The US accounted for the most requests, as it has consistently since the report was launched. US authorities asked for private details of Google users on 7,969 occasions, up from 6,321 in the last reporting period. The number is more than a third of the 20,938 requests for users' details worldwide. Google fully or partially complied with 90% of those requests.

Over the six months, Google was asked to remove seven YouTube videos that criticised local and state agencies, police and other public officials. It did not comply with these requests.

The Guardian

The Kremlin's New Internet Surveillance Plan Goes Live

On the surface, it’s all about protecting Russian kids from internet pedophiles. In reality, the Kremlin’s new “Single Register” of banned websites, which goes into effect today, will wind up blocking all kinds of online political speech. And, thanks to the spread of new internet-monitoring technologies, the Register could well become a tool for spying on millions of Russians.

Signed into law by Vladimir Putin on July 28, the internet-filtering measure contains a single, innocuous-sounding paragraph that allows those compiling the Register to draw on court decisions relating to the banning of websites. The problem is, the courts have ruled to block more than child pornographers’ sites. The judges have also agreed to online bans on political extremists and opponents of the Putin regime.

The principle of internet censorship is not a new one to the Russian authorities. For five years, regional prosecutors have been busy implementing regional court decisions requiring providers to block access to banned sites. To date this has not been done systematically: Sites blocked in one region remained accessible in others. The Register removes this problem.

Wired.com

Would you dare to upload the truth?

Would you dare to upload the truth, if it costs you your freedom...? See what happens in this interactive video. Help her choose.
Pick your weapons for Internet freedom at http://www.deletecontrol.nl.

Mr President

Kim Dotcom - The war on Internet freedom was declared on Obama's watch. Download the song & Join the movement on http://www.kim.com

U.N. calls for 'anti-terror' Internet surveillance

The United Nations is calling for more surveillance of Internet users, saying it would help to investigate and prosecute terrorists. A 148-page report (PDF) released today titled "The Use of the Internet for Terrorist Purposes" warns that terrorists are using social networks and other sharing sites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Dropbox, to spread "propaganda."

"Potential terrorists use advanced communications technology often involving the Internet to reach a worldwide audience with relative anonymity and at a low cost," said Yury Fedotov, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The report, released at a conference in Vienna convened by UNODC, concludes that "one of the major problems confronting all law enforcement agencies is the lack of an internationally agreed framework for retention of data held by ISPs."

CNET News

Burn Your iPhones

Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, who of Israel’s pre-eminent haredi rabbis, issued a public notice on Sunday urging owners of iPhones to burn their devices, comparing the popular cell phones to weapons of war.

The ban on iPhone products was published on the front page of the popular haredi paper Yated Ne’eman.  The edict stated that not only is it forbidden for Jews to possess an iPhone, but that it is also not permitted to sell the phone to non-Jews, citing a Jewish law forbidding the sale of weapons to non-Jews.  The only solution – burning the device.

Rabbi Kanievsky’s ruling came after he was approached by businessman asking his opinion about the phones.  The Eda Haredit has also condemned iPhones and all other smart phones. Smartphone devices have been condemned by many hareidi rabbis due to the ease of using the internet privately, taking part in social media, and accessing pornography sites.

JewishPress

Russia to censor the internet

The Russian Parliament has voted in favour of a Bill that will see illegal sites blacklisted. Similar to Australia's ACMA blacklist, the Bill will see material deemed illegal by the Russian Government blocked from the internet. This includes pornographic materials; material that promotes suicide, drug use or child abuse; and any other "extremist" content.

The lower Russian House of Parliament, the State Duma, and the Russian courts will reserve the right to add websites to the list. The approval comes just days after the Russian-language Wikipedia, LiveJournal and other websites blacked out in protest of the Bill.

But according to Russian news service Ria Novosti, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev believes that not everything should be free. "The basic principle is that the internet should be free," he said, before the Bill's hearing. "But it should also observe people's basic rights and laws, including the right to information, but also the right to protection from harmful content."

cnet.com.au

Ultra-Orthodox Jews Hold Rally on Internet

It was an incongruous sight for a baseball stadium: tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men, all dressed in black suits and white shirts, filing through the gates of Citi Field on Sunday, wearing not blue-and-orange Mets caps but tall, big-brim black hats.

There was no ballgame scheduled, only a religious rally to discuss the dangers of the Internet.

The organizers had allowed only men to buy tickets, in keeping with ultra-Orthodox tradition of separating the sexes. Viewing parties had been arranged in Orthodox neighborhoods of Brooklyn and New Jersey so that women could watch, too. For the attendees, many of whom said they came at the instructions of their rabbis, it was a chance to hear about a moral topic considered gravely important in their community: the potential problems that can stem from access to pornography and other explicit content on the uncensored, often incendiary Web.

NYTimes.com – Vital, pointless, sexist, hilarious? New York’s ultra-Orthodox battle-the-Internet gathering goes viral (Times of Israel)

Chinese websites 'defaced in Anonymous attack'

The Anonymous hacking group claims to have defaced almost 500 websites in China. Targets hit in the mass defacement included government sites, its official agencies, trade groups and many others. A message put on the hacked sites said the attack was carried out to protest against the Chinese government's strict control of its citizens. It urged Chinese people to join Anonymous and stage their own protests against the regime.

The announcement about the defacements was made via an Anonymous China account that was established in March. A list of the 485 sites affected was put on the Pastebin website. Separate Pastebin messages posted email addresses and other personal details stolen when sites were penetrated. Sites defaced had the same message posted to them that chided the nation's government for its repressive policies.

It read: "Dear Chinese government, you are not infallible, today websites are hacked, tomorrow it will be your vile regime that will fall."

BBC News

Warning on RnBXclusive.com threatens users with jail

Music-sharing site RnBXclusive.com has been shut down by the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency and a man has been arrested.

The site's home page has been replaced by a message saying, 'If you have downloaded music using this website you may have committed a criminal offence which carries a maximum penalty of up to 10 years imprisonment and an unlimited fine under UK law.' The site had been used by two million people a month, and was a leading file-sharing destination for R 'n' B and hip hop fans.

Mail Online

Shut Down the Internet

The BBC News website is showing an article which recommends we should shut down the Internet . According to Professor Alan Woodward who is from the Department of Computing at the University of Surrey in England, the cyber-security situation has got so bad we should close it down and start again . This time it should be properly regulated and surprise, surprise he says “global governance” is needed.

From the article:

Last year, the level and ferocity of cyber-attacks on the internet reached such a horrendous level that some are now thinking the unthinkable: to let the internet wither on the vine and start up a new more robust one instead.

While not a popular view, I think that the current internet can only survive if adequate global governance is applied and that single, secure technology is mandated. This is obviously fraught with the much rehashed arguments about control of the internet, free speech, and so on.

Just a few observations .

Firstly, if the BBC has allowed this article on its website, then ‘someone’ is considering shutting the Internet down and that ‘someone’ normally is connected to government, big business and the military . I don’t know anyone who thinks the Internet should be closed down .

Secondly, the phrase ‘global’ is now being used for all sorts of repressive measures . From the austerity measures in Greece and the rest of Europe to Global Law, we are being asked to hand over power and control to organisations far, far away .

Merovee