@timhwang's social bot experiment #truthicon

Scathing and awesome.

There is a new group of gatekeepers in town, and this time, they’re not people, they’re code.

In awe.

(i.e., "what the hell are you guys doing over there?")

How usage-based billing throttles innovation.

net neutrality on broadband networks; not so much for wireless

users can submit edits for review through a "pending changes" system

The official website of State House was last evening pulled down after unknown people hacked into it and posted a picture of the Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler.

Way to go, Comcast.

This is fascinating. Also terrifying. Mob justice, online.

oh, god.

"the Obama administration will permit technology companies to export online services like instant messaging, chat and photo sharing to Iran, Cuba and Sudan"

Erik Hersman on how tech can address a host of election monitoring issues.

US wants to enforce a "three strikes" system on ISPs around the world, encouraging them to disconnect users who violate copyright law. WTF.

More info on the proposed three strikes law as part of the US Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

The fact is, Xinjiang represents a new and extremely troubling flavor of censorship: rather than some sites being blocked, some sites are allowed. The default is now “no”.

"So far, only government departments, the University of Kampala and some major companies, like the newspaper Monitor, are connected to broadband. The rest of the country must make do with a far slower connection, and for most Ugandans, internet cafés remain the only way to get online."

Google.cn is going to stop censoring search results!

"computer users are worried that Cyrillic domains will give rise to a hermetic Russian Web, a sort of cyberghetto, and that the push for Cyrillic amounts to a plot by the security services to restrict access to the Internet"

The history of the Internet. Illustrated!

what do Seacom and TEAMS mean for Uganda?

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, has confessed that the // in a web address were actually "unnecessary". oh, hindsight.

follow-up on this summer's SAT-3 cable outage

Appfrica Labs has been getting a lot of play in the NYT lately -- kudos to them

"Last week’s riots led to something of a phenomenon in Uganda. In a country that has only recently gotten access to a fibre-optic cable and where a tiny fraction of the population are online, the Internet, for the first time, played a central role in disseminating information."

Jon's thoughts on how to improve the flow of data during crisis, based on the Kampala riots.

a great overview

"It’s a small victory — everyone on both ends of FDLR cyberspace still has email, after all — but not an insignificant one."

The Web site of the Hutu militia known as the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) was shut down after complaints from a German online newspaper.

"Almost all government sites in Liberia fell for days. But when garbage covers the streets of the capital Monrovia, who cares of the Internet?"

correlation is almost perfect

Uganda's Independent newspaper site hacked; hacker posts "MUSEVENI IS DEAD" on front page

SAT-3, Seacom and SMS raise questions for Google and governments in Africa

the AP's new scheme to protect their news "has no bearing on someone's rights under US copyright law"

undersea cables your thing? this is for you.

REALLY should have used the "back up everything locally" tip when I was designing for NUPI/USAID

Big Brother cuts racist fight from TV, puts it on the Internet to draw in viewers/commentators. Ugh.

Clinton responds by talking about peanut butter

the Broadband USA project requires those vying for funding to follow the FCC’s fair Internet principles

a hospital blocks myspace, delays treatment for psych patient

summer reading.

"The European Commission is once again calling for the United States to let go of ICANN and place it under international supervision."

The basics, and elves.

"The creation of the cyberczar’s office inside the White House appears to be part of a significant expansion of the role of the national security apparatus there. A separate group overseeing domestic security, created by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks, now resides within the National Security Council. A senior White House official responsible for countering the proliferation of nuclear and unconventional weapons has been given broader authority. Now, cybersecurity will also rank as one of the key threats that Mr. Obama is seeking to coordinate from the White House."

Last year, Veoh, a video-sharing site operated from San Diego, decided to block its service from users in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, citing the dim prospects of making money and the high cost of delivering video there.

"There's an IP address deep in the bowels of iPhoto that points at a machine within a range of IP addresses controlled by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security....Apple had no comment on the discovery."

"I do not think it is such a terrible thing that your journalism students are entering an uncertain world. It's the kind of world that is ripe for enterprising journalists. It is the kind of world that needs to be reported on and explained."

Blogging for bad.

Crowdsourcing. In 1714.

Does anyone else find this creepy and potentially scary?

Totally creeped out by this.

Nietzsche: “...our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.”

"Wikipedia is an online community devoted not to last night’s party or to next season’s iPod but to a higher good."

thoughts on web 2.0 by Mike Welsch, a cultural anthro prof at Kansas State University

monitoring the time i spend on line for a class at SIPA. this will keep me brutally honest.

Good examination of digital vs. traditional literacy. Made me want to go pick up a couple of 1000+ page novels.