Month: July 2013

Edward Snowden’s not the story. The fate of the internet is | Technology | The Guardian

The press has lost the plot over the Snowden revelations. The fact is that the net is finished as a global network, and that US firms’ cloud services cannot be trusted, writes John Naughton

Source: Edward Snowden’s not the story. The fate of the internet is | Technology | The Guardian

 

If businesses or governments think they might be spied on, they will have less reason to trust the cloud, and it will be cloud providers who ultimately miss out. Why would you pay someone else to hold your commercial or other secrets, if you suspect or know they are being shared against your wishes? Front or back door – it doesn’t matter – any smart person doesn’t want the information shared at all. Customers will act rationally and providers will miss out on a great opportunity.

— Neelie Kroes, vice-president of the European Commission

 

The real threat from terrorism is not the harm it inflicts directly but the over-reaction it provokes. We saw that with the invasion of Iraq. We’re seeing it with security-state overreach.

Source: Why NSA Surveillance Will Be More Damaging Than You Think | The Atlantic

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality | WIRED

In a dramatic about-face on a key internet issue yesterday, Google told the FCC that the network neutrality rules Google once championed don’t give citizens the right to run servers on their home broadband connections, and that the Google Fiber network is perfectly within its rights to prohibit customers from attaching the legal devices of their choice to its network.

the door is open for the FCC to show that it’s serious enough about the principle to take on its former corporate ally

Source: Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality | WIRED

Online Privacy: How Did We Get Here? | Off Book | PBS Digital Studios – YouTube

As technology has evolved over the past two centuries, so have our expectations about privacy. This new digital world allows us to connect with each other with increasing ease, but it has also left our personal information readily available, and our privacy vulnerable. Cultural norms have pushed us all online, seemingly at the mercy of whatever terms of service are put before us. Cookies and tracking allow companies to collect limitless amounts of information about us, often more than we’d share with family and friends. And in the push for national security, the government has collected vast amounts of information as well, often without our knowledge. With the NSA leak reigniting this important debate, we take a closer look at the state of privacy in the digital age.

Are the Feds Asking Tech Companies for User Passwords? – The Atlantic

The secrecy surrounding the tactic, alleged by CNET sources, is as alarming as the potential abuses.

Even as the Obama Administration avows that it welcomes a civic debate about the surveillance state, it preemptively short-circuits citizens’ ability to assess and debate policy. It’s disingenuous, illiberal, anti-democratic, and imprudent. The notion that self-government, secret policy, and secret law can coexist is Obama’s folly, and the folly of his predecessors.

Source: Are the Feds Asking Tech Companies for User Passwords? – The Atlantic

 

Secret policy and secret law make for secret police and dictators.

A Shuffle of Aluminum, but to Banks, Pure Gold – NYTimes.com

The maneuvering in markets for oil, wheat, cotton, coffee and more have brought billions in profits to investment banks like Goldman, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, while forcing consumers to pay more every time they fill up a gas tank, flick on a light switch, open a beer or buy a cellphone.

Source: A Shuffle of Aluminum, but to Banks, Pure Gold – NYTimes.com