Site asks social networkers to rethink revelations: "As more people reveal their whereabouts on social networks, a new site has sprung up to remind students and others that letting everyone know where you are — and, by extension, where you’re not — could leave you vulnerable to those with less-than-friendly intentions. ...technology has become so easy to use that people are sharing too much online without even realizing it."

January 2012

China's Cyber Thievery Is National Policy—And Must Be Challenged: "In fact, the Chinese are the world's most active and persistent practitioners of cyber espionage today. Evidence of China's economically devastating theft of proprietary technologies and other intellectual property from U.S. companies is growing. ...The threat of economic cyber espionage looms even more ominously....The report is a summation of the catastrophic impact cyber espionage could have on the U.S. economy and global competitiveness over the next decade....

     "China has a massive, inexpensive work force ravenous for economic growth. It is much more efficient for the Chinese to steal innovations and intellectual property—the source code of advanced economies—than to incur the cost and time of creating their own. They turn those stolen ideas directly into production..." See America's Perilous Partnership with China

How Google and Facebook Hide What You Like. "...showing us what it thinks we want to see, but not necessary what we need to see....You don't get to see what it filters out." And the filtering is based on its analysis of your personal, political and social values!

Facebook Gives Politico Deep Access to Users’ Political Sentiments: "A partnership between Facebook and Politico announced today is one of the more far-reaching efforts. It will consist of sentiment analysis reports and voting-age user surveys.... Most notably, the Facebook-Politico data set will include Facebook users’ private status messages and comments. While that may alarm some people, Facebook and Politico say the entire process is automated and no Facebook employees read the posts."

November 2011

US Government About to Control Internet: "Obama has been pushing for the federal government to take control of the Internet in the US....On Sunday, Nov. 20, ‘Net Neutrality’ will take effect.... Many believe the ultimate goal of net neutrality is to eliminate all private internet service providers resulting in the US government ending up as the only internet provider left. And as the only provider, [the government] would regulate who does and who doesn’t have access to the internet as well as regulate website content.... They refer to it as net neutrality when in fact it is anti-neutrality....It’s George Orwell’s ‘Big Brother’ becoming a reality."

The Net Neutrality Coup: "The Federal Communications Commission has voted to impose the controversial 'Net Neutrality' regulations on the Internet, by a vote of 3-2. It was a partisan vote, three Democrats against two Republicans."

September 2011

Some cartoons bad for kids' brains: "Some children's television shows may be bad for young kid's brains.... It appears that children may not concentrate and focus very well after watching fast-paced programming. ...The pre-schoolers who watched the fast-paced shows did much worse on the thinking tests than those in the two other groups, who scored about the same. " The Power of Suggestion

August 2011

Internet Control.  Beijing's Crash Course in News Censorship. "China's inability to control new media has emboldened the traditional press.... Beijing's failure to cover up the fatal collision of one high-speed train into another near the city of Wenzhou last month exposes the growing gap between government diktats and facts on the ground. ...as tens of millions of blogs poured on the criticism of the authorities, the Central Propaganda Department sent directives to the media to stop coverage. Journalists were told not to 'investigate the causes of the accident' or to 'question' the official account.... An infant was found alive after authorities called off the search for survivors....

     "The Central Propaganda Department sent the media a new order limiting coverage to 'positive news or information released by the authorities.'...Instead of following the order, journalists used their micro-blogging accounts to quote the directive: "All local media, including newspapers, magazines and websites, must rapidly cool down the reports of the incident."

July 2011

The Danger Of Making Facebook, LinkedIn, Google And Twitter Public Utilities: "Are social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and Twitter 'information monopolies' that should be regulated as public utilities? ...public utility regulation is the arch-enemy of innovation and competition." See Reinventing the World

Google is altering your brain: "...our growing dependence on the Internet has changed how -- and what -- our brains choose to remember. When we know where to find information, we're less likely to remember it -- an amnesia dubbed The Google Effect by a team led by psychologist Betsy Sparrow of Columbia University....Sparrow disagrees with Nicholas Carr, whose alarming 2008 article 'Is Google Making Us Stupid?' explains what he sees as the brain-corrosive side effects of digital devices."

June 2011

Facebook Now Knows What You Look Like As It Rolls Out Facial Recognition Software Secretly: "Facebook is at the centre of another privacy row after bringing in facial recognition technology to automatically identify users in pictures. The world's leading social network has begun rolling out new technology that automatically identifies and 'tags' people in photos uploaded to the website....'Facebook users will rightly be alarmed.... This is yet another nail in the coffin for online privacy." See George Orwell's 1984

Writer urges Internet junkies to 'switch off' and think: "Like tens of millions of others, US technology writer Nicholas Carr found the lure of the worldwide web hard to resist -- until he noticed it was getting harder and harder to concentrate. He set out his concerns in a celebrated essay headlined 'Is Google making us stupid?' And his latest book 'The Shallows' explores in depth what he fears the Internet is doing to our brains. 'The seductions of technology are hard to resist,' Carr acknowledges..."

March 2011

Google Sets Role in Mobile Payment: "Google Inc. is teaming up with MasterCard Inc. and Citigroup Inc. to embed technology in Android mobile devices that would allow consumers to make purchases by waving their smartphones in front of a small reader at the checkout counter....The idea is to turn the phones into a kind of electronic wallet."

February 2011

Amendments passed to eliminate Obama Czars and defund FCC Net Neutrality rules: "In December, the FCC set controversial new regulations to empower itself to regulate private sector networks and companies. On Wednesday, Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee Fred Upton (R.-Mich.) introduced a resolution to overturn the FCC rules.... Upton said that he and Walden 'believe these rules will hurt innovation and the economy.'

      '"It’s not appropriate for the unelected FCC to regulate Internet services without any input from the United States Congress,' said Stearns.... 'So Congress must stop the FCC.” See Ban truth - Reap tyranny

Digital activists in Egypt being trained by internet experts in New York: "Training Central for digital activists is the Alliance for Youth Movement (AYM), a non-profit organizmoting, connecting, and supporting digital activists from around the world. ...the main mastermind behind the violent protests in Egypt has roots in the Alliance of AYM—tentacles of which reach all the way into the US State Department....

     "Jared Cohen, AYM’s co-founder... an Adjunct Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations...was a close adviser to both Condoleezza Rice and later Hillary Clinton....

     "AYM has already held three international conferences to arm the digital activists—including members of the Egyptian opposition. The US and British governments fund the groups....Generations indoctrinated by the US’s left-leaning public education system are now 30-year-old Internet executives who wield a power far more deadly than the globe’s most dreaded Armies."

January 2011

Social networking under fresh attack as tide of cyber-scepticism sweeps US: "...technology is threatening to dominate our lives and make us less human. Under the illusion of allowing us to communicate better, it is actually isolating us from real human interactions in a cyber-reality that is a poor imitation of the real world.....But [others]...point out that emails, Twitter and Facebook have led to more communication, not less..."

Facebook increasingly implicated in divorce: "One expert said she had dealt with 30 cases in the last nine months and Facebook had been implicated in them all." See Conforming to the culture, not to truth

Obama's Internet passport: "....Instead of logging onto Facebook or one's bank using separate passwords established with each individual company or website, the White House will take the lead in developing what it calls an 'identity ecosystem' that will centralize personal information and credentials. This government-approved system would issue a smart card or similar device that would confirm an individual's identity when making online credit-card purchases, accessing electronic health care records, posting 'anonymous' blog entries or even logging onto one's own home computer....They can not only improve security, but, if done properly, can enhance privacy as well.' Put another way, Mr. Locke is saying, 'Trust us, we're from the government, and we're here to help.'

      "Congress, the technology industry and the public need to run as far away as they can from this purported assistance. The government is no more capable of securing information than it is of protecting airports. Just look at the WikiLeaks case.... Civil-service employees, who can't be fired, have little reason to be careful with sensitive medical records, or even nuclear secrets." See Forging a New Global Consciousness

When Technology Turns Against Us: "...we are heading into a full-blown surveillance society. ...Obama is eyeing the Internet to ID all Americans....White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt says, 'This is the perfect spot in the U.S. government to centralize efforts toward creating an 'identity ecosystem' for the Internet."

Obama Eyeing Internet ID for Americans: "President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today. It's 'the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government' to centralize efforts toward creating an 'identity ecosystem' for the Internet."

December 2010

Global Management. Big Brother tightens choke hold on Internet: "The United Nations is now joining the Obama administration and Democratic commissioners on the FCC in an attempt to regulate the Internet.... 'The U.N. is reacting to concerns of member governments, including the United States, that the Internet has made companies like WikiLeaks possible, while the FCC is more concerned about conservative news outlets on the Internet...' Corsi wrote.

      "...the U.N. is considering whether to set up an inter-governmental working group to 'harmonize' global efforts by policymakers to regulate the Internet. The U.N. claims authority to regulate the Internet under a U.N. Economic and Social Council resolution passed in July that invited the U.N. secretary-general to begin discussions on coordinating government efforts to regulate the Internet on a global basis. 'Obviously, the U.N. is uncomfortable with anything like the Internet that the globalists cannot control.'"

Chavez defends plan for Internet regulations: "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez defended plans for a law that would impose broadcast-type regulations on the Internet....Chavez's congressional allies are considering extending the 'Social Responsibility Law' for broadcast media to the Internet, banning messages that 'disrespect public authorities'... or are aimed at creating 'anxiety' in the population."

Mind Control. Nothing neutral about this unholy scheme: "The fixers here [in America] are pursuing something called 'net neutrality'....'Net neutrality'....must be accomplished by a seizure of authority to do so, a seizure not by Congress...but by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

     "...this would be a first step toward revival of the so-called Fairness Doctrine, sought by Barack Obama and the Democrats since he first arrived in Washington. The Fairness Doctrine would require broadcasters, definitely including the cable-TV networks, to provide airtime for anyone criticized by someone else on the air....[No freedom to expose global, regional and national problems? No right to question the rising power of Islam and the persecution of Christians?]

     "The new 'net-neutrality' regulations here, which will have the force of law...."

Wave goodbye to Internet freedom: "The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is poised to add the Internet to its portfolio of regulated industries. The agency's chairman, Julius Genachowski, announced Wednesday that he circulated draft rules he says will 'preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet.' No statement could better reflect the gulf between the rhetoric and the reality of Obama administration policies....

      "Mr. Genachowski suggested that government red tape will increase the 'freedom' of online services that have flourished because bureaucratic busybodies have been blocked from tinkering with the Web....Mr. Genachowski's draft document has over 550 footnotes and is stamped 'non-public, for internal use only' to ensure nobody outside the agency sees it until the rules are approved in a scheduled Dec. 21 vote. So much for 'openness.'" See UNESCO's "Memory of the World"

August 2010

A Threat Worse Than 9/11: "Cyber attacks...are responsible for 'the biggest transfer of wealth through theft and piracy in the history of mankind,' according to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D.-R.I.). The senator also warns the nation’s total dependence on our automated infrastructure—electric grid, air traffic control, manufacturing, and business—and our national defense networks are dangerously vulnerable to this accelerating and insidious threat....

      "...the computer networks controlling our electric grid are plagued by widespread security flaws that allow our cyber enemies to manipulate the grid and steal critical data.... 'Malicious cyber activity is occurring on an unprecedented scale with extraordinary sophistication.'...

      "China is developing the ability to launch pre-emptive attacks against enemy computer networks....'”

June 2010

Swimming in the digital shallows -- What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains: "A modern child’s existence is all digital.... They have constant access to stimulation — on their laptops, on their iPods, on their cell phones.... Their brains are wired to expect more stimulation....

    "My current household technological battle involves making certain the kids turn off Facebook and cell phones when studying. They believe this to be not only unnecessary but rude: In an age where no one is ever really out of contact, how could they possibly be inaccessible to their friends?

    "And then there is the disturbing question of how the era of virtual communications affects friendships and personality. Kids prefer text over talk.... But the inability to discern tone and inflection enhances the possibilities of misunderstanding, and...lowers the barrier for hurtful speech. ...college students today are about 40 percent lower in empathy... than their counterparts 20 and 30 years ago." See Reinventing the World

May 2010

Computers taught to sort opinion from fact: "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is funding a research project designed to teach computers to scan text and then sort opinion from fact. The project involves Cornell University Professor of Computer Science Claire Cardie and associate professors of computer science Janyce Wiebe of the University of Pittsburgh and Ellen Riloff of the University of Utah. ...The scientists will use machine-learning algorithms to give computers examples of text expressing both fact and opinion and then teach them to tell the difference."

     Do you wonder who will teach these computers what qualifies as fact? Or what to dismiss as mere opinon? See UNESCO's "Memory of the World"

July 2006

 India bloggers angry at net ban: "The country's 153 internet service providers (ISP) have blocked 17 websites since last week on federal government orders.... Indian bloggers say that the decision is an attack on freedom of speech.... Bloggers say the ban has meant that people do not even have access to blogs like the one set up to help the relatives of the victims of the recent train bombings in Mumbai (Bombay)."

January 2006

Don't Take Our Internet Away: "Giant companies, like AT&T and Verizon, that offer high-speed Internet service want the right to decide what web sites, services, and applications you can get on the Internet....

    "A few big telephone and cable companies own the lines that connect you to the Internet. That gives them the ability to control whether and how fast you can get to what you want on the Web." See Reinventing the World

November 2005

US Retains Control of Internet - for Now: "...the issue has been kicked into the future rather than settled permanently.... Gross has taken the lead in resisting moves by a number of nations -- some of them among the world's most egregious abusers of human rights -- to internationalize what is known as 'Internet governance.' Critics of this push worry about the implications of allowing countries which censor and rigorously control the Internet, such as China and Iran, to have a say in how it operates. ...

     "E.U. information commissioner Viviane Reding said the agreement would 'pave the way for a progressive internationalization of Internet governance.'"

 

War for the World Wide Web: "Apparently oblivious to the deep irony involved with hosting a conference on digital freedom in a country where such freedom is suppressed, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan describes the main goals... in lofty terms: 'The main objective of the World Summit on the Information Society to be held this month in Tunisia is to ensure that poor countries get the full benefits that new information and communication technologies -- including the Internet -- can bring to economic and social development.'...

     "In the past, the U.N. has allowed notorious human rights violators like Libya and Zimbabwe to serve on its Commission on Human Rights. Now it is allowing information-repressive regimes like Cuba and Iran to influence the outcome of a conference on Internet governance and freedom. It also hosted the conference in a country where free speech is an oxymoron, proof positive that U.N. bureaucrats, and those who put stock in them over the U.S., must never be allowed to govern the World Wide Web."

August 2005

A World Wide Web of Oppression: "'At issue for the world body is who runs the Internet and how it can better serve the world.'  ...the UN's real stake in the issue is not how the Internet can better serve the world, but how it can better serve world government. For an Internet effectively controlled by the UN is an Internet effectively controlled by government. That the UN-appointed panel was called the Working Group on Internet Governance gives this away.

     "To see what an Internet effectively controlled by government looks like, one need look no further than to a permanent member in good standing of the UN Security Council, Communist China. Through both technology and regulation, Communist China has severely limited access to the Internet from within its borders, creating what has been called the Great Fire Wall of China. Yet the building of this Great Fire Wall has not disqualified China from membership in the highest ranks of the United Nations. How will it serve the world to turn over the Internet to a body that tolerates such tyranny?" See The UN Plan for Your Mental Health

June 2005

Black Market in Stolen Credit Card Data Thrives on Internet (Registration required): "...what Zo0mer is peddling is stolen account information - name, billing address, phone - for Gold Visa cards and MasterCards at $100 apiece. It is not clear whether any data stolen from CardSystems Solutions, the payment processor reported on Friday to have exposed 40 million credit card accounts to possible theft, has entered this black market. But law enforcement officials and security experts say it is a safe bet that the data will eventually be peddled at sites like iaaca.com ...a swaggering shorthand for International Association for the Advancement of Criminal Activity....

     "The players come from all over the world, but most of the Web sites where they meet are run from computer servers in the former Soviet Union.... Alongside advertisements for cobs are pitches from malicious-code writers, who sell their services to the con artists, known as phishers, who contract with spammers to send out millions of increasingly sophisticated phony e-mails designed to lure victims into revealing their account information." (NYT, 6-21-05)  

 

Info on 3.9M Citigroup customers lost: "Citigroup said Monday that personal information on 3.9 million consumer lending customers of its CitiFinancial subsidiary was lost by UPS while in transit to a credit bureau -- the biggest breach of customer or employee data reported so far."

 

Security Breach Could Expose 40M to Fraud: "A security breach of customer information at a credit card transaction company could expose to fraud up to 40 million cardholders of multiple brands, MasterCard International Inc. said Friday. ... The credit card giant said its security division detected multiple instances of fraud that tracked back to CardSystems Solutions Inc., which processes credit card and other payments for banks and merchants. ...

      "A flurry of disclosures of breaches affecting high-profile companies including Citigroup Inc. (C), Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and DSW Shoe Warehouse has prompted federal lawmakers to draw up legislation designed to better protect consumer privacy. CardSystems was hit by a virus-like computer script that captured customer data for the purpose of fraud...."

 

Microsoft under fire for censoring China blogs: "Microsoft Corp.'s new MSN China Internet venture is censoring words such as 'freedom,' 'democracy' and 'human rights' on its free online journals.... The world's largest software maker said that its 'MSN Spaces' service operated out of China, which allows users to set up their own blogs, or online journals, was acting in accordance with local laws....

    "The move comes as the Chinese government attempts to tighten control over the Internet. Last week, a media watchdog group said China would close unregistered China-based domestic web sites and blogs. ...

    "Words and phrases banned in the subject line of entries for Microsoft's MSN Spaces on Tuesday also included 'Taiwan independence' and 'demonstration,' which returned an error message saying 'prohibited language, please remove.'" See Persecution

The World According To Google: "...with power comes scrutiny. Many of us feel a touch of discomfort at Google's ability to unearth long-forgotten facts about ourselves, preserving them in an Internet time warp. And disappointed entrepreneurs aren't alone in asking how Google decides what to display and what to leave out. 'Google essentially determines what exists on the Internet and what doesn't,' says Harvard law Prof. Jonathan Zittrain....

     "Google's largely secret criteria may not always serve up what is most important on the Web but what is most popular. They are calling on Google and other search engines to be more open about how they rank sites. Otherwise, those critics say, we are entrusting what amounts to our biggest public library to pure market forces--forces that are sure to intensify." See the next link:

 

EU Fears U.S.--Google World Dominance: "Europeans have long bemoaned the influence of Hollywood movies on their culture. Now plans by Google Inc. to create a massive digital library have triggered such strong fears in Europe about Anglo-American cultural dominance that one critic is warning of a 'unilateral command of the thought of the world.' ...

     "The project, announced in December, involves scanning millions of books at the libraries of four universities - Oxford, Harvard, Stanford and the University of Michigan - as well as the New York Public Library and putting them online....

     "So great is the concern that six European leaders have jointly proposed creating a 'European digital library' to counter the project by Google Print....Failing to digitalize - declared the heads of state in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland and Hungary in an appeal to the European Union - is to risk that 'this heritage could, tomorrow, not fill its just place in the future geography of knowledge.'" Unesco planned such a digital library years ago. See UNESCO's Memory of the World

---

Return to Today's News