My Thoughts

emergentfutures: Met Police uses ‘quick’ mobile data extraction system against suspects The Metropolitan Police has rolled out a mobile device data extraction system to allow officers to extract data “within minutes” from suspects’ phones while they are in custody. Paul Higgins: What is the bet that there will be an immediate technology response from users and activists and the police will never keep up with the change Full Story: ComputerWorld

emergentfutures:

Met Police uses ‘quick’ mobile data extraction system against suspects

The Metropolitan Police has rolled out a mobile device data extraction system to allow officers to extract data “within minutes” from suspects’ phones while they are in custody.


Paul Higgins: What is the bet that there will be an immediate technology response from users and activists and the police will never keep up with the change


Full Story: ComputerWorld

smarterplanet: The Faculty Project The best Professors from the world’s leading Universities are coming together to teach online FOR FREE! The Faculty Project brings academia’s most outstanding professors to the computers, tablets and smartphones of people all over the world. All courses will be free with open enrollment for anyone with an Internet connection.

smarterplanet:

The Faculty Project

The best Professors from the world’s leading Universities are coming together to teach online FOR FREE!

The Faculty Project brings academia’s most outstanding professors to the computers, tablets and smartphones of people all over the world.

All courses will be free with open enrollment for anyone with an Internet connection.

(via emergentfutures)

emergentfutures: Why Anonymous Is Not a Threat to National Security Paul Higgins - a thoughtful piece in Foreign Affairs Over the past year, the U.S. government has begun to think of Anonymous, the online network phenomenon, as a threat to national security. According to The Wall Street Journal, Keith Alexander, the general in charge of the U.S. Cyber Command and the director of the National Security Agency, warned earlier this year that “the hacking group Anonymous could have the ability within the next year or two to bring about a limited power outage through a cyberattack.” ……………This is the wrong approach. Seeing Anonymous primarily as a cybersecurity threat is like analyzing the breadth of the antiwar movement and 1960s counterculture by focusing only on the Weathermen. Anonymous is not an organization. It is an idea, a zeitgeist, coupled with a set of social and technical practices. Diffuse and leaderless, its driving force is “lulz” — irreverence, playfulness, and spectacle. It is also a protest movement, inspiring action both on and off the Internet, that seeks to contest the abuse of power by governments and corporations and promote transparency in politics and business. Just as the antiwar movement had its bomb-throwing radicals, online hacktivists organizing under the banner of Anonymous sometimes cross the boundaries of legitimate protest. But a fearful overreaction to Anonymous poses a greater threat to freedom of expression, creativity, and innovation than any threat posed by the disruptions themselves. Full Story: Foreign Affairs

emergentfutures:

Why Anonymous Is Not a Threat to National Security


Paul Higgins - a thoughtful piece in Foreign Affairs


Over the past year, the U.S. government has begun to think of Anonymous, the online network phenomenon, as a threat to national security. According to The Wall Street Journal, Keith Alexander, the general in charge of the U.S. Cyber Command and the director of the National Security Agency, warned earlier this year that “the hacking group Anonymous could have the ability within the next year or two to bring about a limited power outage through a cyberattack.” ……………This is the wrong approach. Seeing Anonymous primarily as a cybersecurity threat is like analyzing the breadth of the antiwar movement and 1960s counterculture by focusing only on the Weathermen. Anonymous is not an organization. It is an idea, a zeitgeist, coupled with a set of social and technical practices. Diffuse and leaderless, its driving force is “lulz” — irreverence, playfulness, and spectacle. It is also a protest movement, inspiring action both on and off the Internet, that seeks to contest the abuse of power by governments and corporations and promote transparency in politics and business. Just as the antiwar movement had its bomb-throwing radicals, online hacktivists organizing under the banner of Anonymous sometimes cross the boundaries of legitimate protest. But a fearful overreaction to Anonymous poses a greater threat to freedom of expression, creativity, and innovation than any threat posed by the disruptions themselves.


Full Story: Foreign Affairs

Right now, the biggest oil companies are raking in record profits—profits that go up every time folks pull up into a gas station. But on top of these record profits, oil companies are also getting billions a year—billions a year in taxpayer subsidies—a subsidy that they’ve enjoyed year after year for the last century.

Think about that. It’s like hitting the American people twice. You’re already paying a premium at the pump right now. And on top of that, Congress, up until this point, has thought it was a good idea to send billions of dollars more in tax dollars to the oil industry.

—President Obama this morning on why we’ve got to end subsidies for Big Oil (via barackobama)

Gas strike April 15th

(via emergentfutures)

this is me, neglected and obsolete, i am incomplete. this is me returning to my stability. this is me giving up and learning not to feel a thing. we all work, eat, sleep, repeat. every one is a machine. this is me preparing my grave in the shade, learning that everyone loses their place under the sun eventually. this is me dealing with my discontentment and deficiency. i am handing in my registration and vulnerability. my guts have been hollowed out. there is nothing left for me to spill. i’m covered in dust because my life has been sat on the shelf. i’m a machine. i don’t feel a thing. this is me going back to bed, destroying all my intents. this is me going back to bed, abandoning all of my friends.

I feel as though my life could be summed up in the thought process of someone whose dream is to to win the lottery but they never buy a ticket.

Student loan debt now stands around $1 trillion. Education is often a great investment – but the proposition is more in question every day. Higher education prices increased 440% over the last 25 years – four times the rate of inflation, and twice as bad as health care. Elementary and secondary ed prices have skyrocketed, too, with not even adequate outcomes. On the other side of the ledger is the Moore’s law ecosystem, the most ruthless force in technology and the world economy. Last quarter Netflix streamed two billion hours worth of video – or 228,000 years worth in three months. In just the last week of December, smartphone and tablet owners gobbled up 1.2 billion apps – 43% by Americans. Twenty years ago, a terabyte hard drive, if such a thing had existed, might have cost $5 million. Today, you can pick one up for $69. The price of information plummets. Yet the price of education soars. These two trends cannot both continue. Guess which will crack first.

If you judge prepare to be judged welcome to don’t judge a book by its cover via me.