Twitter / Facebook Revolutions?

There are a series of articles on this issue discussed in this article in the Guardian, "The truth about Twitter, Facebook and the uprisings in the Arab world" by Peter Beaumont. Beaumont goes to sources close to the streets to try to assess the impact of social media and its role in the events.
Jay Rosen dissects the kind of thinking behind "The 'Twitter Can't Topple Dictators' Article" and points out the typical strategies and shortcoming.

Is Email a dying form?

Beyond The Beyond

*Digital media aren’t “media” in the sense that, say, semaphore flags were a medium. They’re skeuomorphic formats imposed on a polymorphic stream of ones and zeros. Modern young people dislike email because of the ritual activities needed to deal with it — time-consuming etiquette from an era of analog paper. They dislike email for many of the same instinctive reasons they dislike newspapers – it’s a clumsy hassle that doesn’t get to the point.

But to what extent are the "ritual activities"--the context--a vital part of the communications process? Can all information, news, promotion, bad news, &c. be tweeted? No, because communications is not just information. Communications is fundamentally about maintaining relationships with other people.

Donald Norman's pessimism

I Have Seen the Future and I Am Opposed - Core77

More and more of our open, universal networks are becoming locked down, available only from within the walls erected by corporate interests. This is how a number of our early communication services started: they were walled gardens with all news, entertainment and information locked away inside, accessible only to members. This is the model being followed in today's television world of cable and satellite delivery -- it threatens to be the model of all service and content providers.

History of the past/future

One on One: Tim Wu, Author of The Master Switch - NYTimes.com

Talk a little bit about your discussion of AT&T in the book.
In the 1910s, AT&T promised the American public that they would do no evil. Their president, Theodore Vail, turned to the government and the American public and he said we are a public utility and our duty is to the American people before profit. In there was the grand bargain that we keep making between the great information monopolists and the American nation. AT&T was the 1910 counterpart to Google’s pledge to do no evil.

When did AT&T become “evil”?
Most monopolists create a golden age that lasts a decade or more, and then slowly they became more interested in being in power. AT&T became dangerous when they began to suppress technologies that might threaten their rule.

Which technologies did AT&T suppress?
In the book I tell the story of tape recording technology, which AT&T itself invented in the late 1920s, and then suppressed because they believed that the recording technology would lead to the abandonment of the telephone.

Copyright and Creativity

Would the Bard Have Survived the Web? - NYTimes.com

At day’s end, actors and theater owners smashed open the earthenware moneyboxes and divided the daily take. From those proceeds dramatists were paid to write new plays. For the first time ever, it was possible to earn a living writing for the public.

Money changed everything. Almost overnight, a wave of brilliant dramatists emerged, including Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Ben Jonson and Shakespeare. These talents and many comparable and lesser lights had found the opportunity, the conditions and the money to pursue their craft.

The stark findings of this experiment? As with much else, literary talent often remains undeveloped unless markets reward it.

More about Apple's supply chain

Apple report reveals child labour increase | Technology | The Guardian

 

Apple usually refuses to comment on which firms make its goods, but came under increased scrutiny last year following multiple suicides at electronics giant Foxconn, one of its main suppliers.

Last month, anti-pollution activists accused the firm of being more secretive about its supply chain in China than almost all of its rivals.

 

Data intelligence firms proposed a systematic attack against WikiLeaks - Security

Data intelligence firms proposed a systematic attack against WikiLeaks - Security:

The tip from Crowdleaks.org is directly related to the highly public attack on HBGary, after Anonymous responded to research performed by HBGary Federal COO, Aaron Barr. Part of Anonymous’ response included releasing more than 50,000 internal emails to the public. For more information, the initial coverage is here.

What was pointed out by Crowdleaks is a proposal titled “The WikiLeaks Threat” and an email chain between three data intelligence firms. The proposal was quickly developed by Palantir Technologies, HBGary Federal, and Berico Technologies, after a request from Hunton and Williams, a law firm that currently counts Bank of America as a client.

The law firm had a meeting with Bank of America on December 3. To prepare, the firm emailed Palantir and the others asking for “…five to six slides on Wikileaks - who they are, how they operate and how this group may help this bank.”

Chinese hackers infiltrated five energy firms: McAfee | Reuters

Chinese hackers infiltrated five energy firms: McAfee | Reuters:

During the last two years -- and up to four years -- the hackers had access to the computer networks, focusing on financial documents related to oil and gas field exploration and bidding contracts, said Alperovitch.

They also copied proprietary industrial processes.

"That information is tremendously sensitive and would be worth a huge amount of money to competitors," said Alperovitch.

WikiLeaks: Tunisia knew its rulers were debauched. But leaks still had impact | Media | The Guardian

WikiLeaks: Tunisia knew its rulers were debauched. But leaks still had impact | Media | The Guardian

Assange may have regarded the US as his enemy, but in this case he had unwittingly helped restore American influence in a place where it had lost credibility. It was ironic. By increasing the amount of information in the system, WikiLeaks had generated unpredictable effects.

Piracy Nearly A Quarter Of Global Internet Traffic, Says Study | paidContent

Piracy Nearly A Quarter Of Global Internet Traffic, Says Study | paidContent

Of the 23.8 percent found to be copyright-infringing material, bittorrents led the way as the most plentiful source, accounting for nearly half that amount (11.4 percent). Coming in second was so-called “cyberlockers,” otherwise known as file-sharing sites like RapidShare (5.1 percent), followed by video-streaming sites i.e. Megavideo (1.4 percent) and finally, Usenet and other lesser utilized P2P sites (0.86 percent).