In recent weeks, the International Relations Society hosted a conference on Hacktivism at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. Given the event’s focus on social action via the Internet, a few members from the Boler Research Team attended. Here is a quick summary of some of the highlights. How secure are weContinue reading “Event Summary: “Hacktivists, Cyberwarriors and International Relations””
Category Archives: Surveillance
AT&T: Thanks Dems!
Last night at DNC, AT&T threw a lavish thank-you party for the dems who let the telecom off the hook for working with the bush administration in helping them spy on people without warants. Salon’s Glen Greenwald tried to infiltrate the party and get some of the names of the dems who had blindly helpedContinue reading “AT&T: Thanks Dems!”
Watching Big Brother
Citizens have been using lo-fi digital technology to call into question police accounts and to government practices: Sous-veillance” will see video sharing sites such as YouTube used by citizens to shine a spotlight on things such as deadly hygiene lapses in hospital wards and uncollected rubbish, according to the European Information Society Group (Eurim). RecentlyContinue reading “Watching Big Brother”
Virgin plans to spy on users
Virgin Media plans to spy on users in order to curb illegal downloading. It will begin by sending letters to households suspected of hosting P2P files. This is a joint venture with the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), which has been pushing ISPs to implement a “three strikes and you’re out” rule when it comes toContinue reading “Virgin plans to spy on users”
House denies amnesty for telecoms
Wired: Democrats continued their defiance of President Bush on Friday over his secret wiretapping program, passing a spying bill that calls for a commission to investigate the program, and refusing to give amnesty to telecoms that collaborated with the warrantless surveillance.
NSA: Domestic Spying Increase
Wall Street Journal: “WASHINGTON, D.C. — Five years ago, Congress killed an experimental Pentagon antiterrorism program meant to vacuum up electronic data about people in the U.S. to search for suspicious patterns. Opponents called it too broad an intrusion on Americans’ privacy, even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But the data-sifting effort didn’t disappear.Continue reading “NSA: Domestic Spying Increase”
Proposal to Investigate Spying
House Democrats are proposing a bill to investigate the rampant spying by the gov’t since the 9/11 attacks: “Not only shouldn’t companies that helped the government’s warrantless spying on American citizens be given retroactive amnesty, the government should establish a national commission — similar to the 9/11 Commission –to subpoena documents and testimony in orderContinue reading “Proposal to Investigate Spying”
Mixi claims rights on all content
Japan’s hugely popular social networking site Mixi is in hot water this week after news [ja] that a proposed revision to its Terms of Use (ToU), to become effective as of April 1st, will force its users to agree to grant Mixi no-royalty, non-exclusive rights over all content published on the site, retroactively applicable toContinue reading “Mixi claims rights on all content”
Phorm
Open Rights Group: Over the last few weeks, the story that BT, Virgin and TalkTalk are signed up to trial a new technology called Phorm, which tracks users’ online surfing habits in order to target ads at them, has caused a storm all over the internet. Here’s what we’ve been told about the workings ofContinue reading “Phorm”