Furthermore, social media must also “actively propagate core socialist values, and create an ever-more healthy environment for the mainstream public opinion”, states Reuters.
Gizmochina: Chinese Celebrity Gossip Clampdown In Social Media »
Archive | June, 2017
EU to move on Open Access?
In what European science chief Carlos Moedas calls a “life-changing” move, E.U. member states (…) agreed on an ambitious new open-access (OA) target. All scientific papers should be freely available by 2020, the Competitiveness Council—a gathering of ministers of science, innovation, trade, and industry—concluded after a 2-day meeting in Brussels. But some observers are warning that the goal will be difficult to achieve.
Really, how much surveillance is enough?
By HAX on June 12, 2017 in Big Brother, Big Government, Civil liberties, Civil rights, Deep State, Democracy, Human rights, Police state, Rule of law, surveillance
Imagine mass surveillance as a line from 0 to 100. Zero is total anarchy and no control at all. One hundred is total control and surveillance of all the people, in all places, all the time.
So, where are we today? At 45? 60? 75?
Second, in which direction are we moving? Right you are, towards 100.
At which point will this become dangerous, for real? Should we say stop? Can we say stop? Is it too late to say stop? Discuss.
There are international conventions for moments like this. They enshrine our fundamental human rights. One of them is the right to privacy. The right to be left alone.
However, we constantly hear Big Government say that we must compromise, that we must strike a »balance« between security, crime fighting, copyright protection, child protection, the war on drugs, the fight against tax evasion, trafficking, terror propaganda, hate speech, the occasional outburst of moral panic – and our fundamental rights.
The only way to strike such a »balance« is to restrain and undermine citizens rights. And that must not happen. This is the red line. This is why these fundamental rights are set down in very serious European, EU, and UN Conventions.
You simply do not fiddle around with fundamental human rights.
Still, this is exactly what governments all over are doing – striking a »balance«. Taking away our rights towards the ruling political class and our bureaucratic overlords. And this is always done formally correct, within our democratic parliamentarian systems. Because there are not enough people who say No.
Considering that our fundamental human rights are there to protect the people from the state – I really think that the people ought to defend and protect them better. Because our elected representatives will not. They are not on the peoples’ side on this one. They are the state, they are Big Government. They have a different agenda.
To be overly clear: This is about the state taking away your protections against… the whims of the state and its functionaries. This is very bad.
Furthermore, we can not know who might rule the state tomorrow. Please, learn from history. Don’t put dangerous tools of control and mass surveillance in the hands of dangerous people.
All of this must end now – or we will no doubt slide into a more authoritarian society.
/ HAX
Report: Private sector Big Brotherism
Report: How thousands of companies monitor, analyze, and influence the lives of billions. Who are the main players in today’s digital tracking? What can they infer from our purchases, phone calls, web searches, and Facebook likes? How do online platforms, tech companies, and data brokers collect, trade, and make use of personal data?
Cracked Labs: Corporate Surveillance in Everyday Life »
Encryption is not the problem, incompetence is
Techdirt: Strong Crypto Is Not The Problem: Manchester And London Attackers Were Known To The Authorities »
Big Brotherism in the UK: Business as usual
By HAX on June 12, 2017 in Big Brother, Civil liberties, Cryptography, Free Information, Privacy, surveillance, UK
Copyright vs. freedom of the arts, freedom of the press and freedom of information
By HAX on June 10, 2017 in Big Entertainment, Big Media, Censorship, Civil rights, Copyright, Democracy, ECJ, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Germany, Human rights, Intellectual Property
• What role the rights granted by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union plays: in particular, what is the relationship between copyright protection (Article 17(2)) and freedom of the arts (Article 13)?
• (C)can copyright protection be trumped by the need to safeguard freedom of the press and freedom of information? Or can fundamental rights be even directly invoked to prevent enforcement of copyright?
These two – rather fundamental – questions have been sent to the European Court of Justice from Germanys supreme court, undesgerichtshof (BGH).
Techdirt » Two Big Copyright Cases Sent To Top EU Court: One On Sampling, The Other On Freedom Of The Press »
Sundes gloomy look at the future of the Internet
By HAX on June 10, 2017 in Big Brother, Big Data, Data Protection, decentralization, EU, Hacktivism, Internet, Privacy, social media
At its inception, the internet was a beautifully idealistic and equal place. But the world sucks and we’ve continuously made it more and more centralized, taking power away from users and handing it over to big companies. And the worst thing is that we can’t fix it — we can only make it slightly less awful.
That was pretty much the core of Pirate Bay’s co-founder, Peter Sunde‘s talk at tech festival Brain Bar Budapest.
TNW » Pirate Bay founder: We’ve lost the internet, it’s all about damage control now »
Russia to make TOR and VPN illegal
By HAX on June 10, 2017 in Big Brother, Censorship, Civil liberties, Democracy, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, Internet, Russia, TOR, VPN
Yesterday, Friday, the Russian Duma held its first (of three) readings to adopt a law making use of TOR and VPN illegal.
The plan is to make access to sites blocked by net censor authority Roskomnadzor illegal. And there are plenty of them.
Facebook to use your face/webcam to tailor ads based on emotions?
A newly discovered patent application shows Facebook has come up with plans to potentially spy on its users through their phone or laptop cameras—even when they’re not turned on. This could allow it to send tailored advertisements to its nearly two billion members. The application, filed in 2014, says Facebook has thought of using “imaging components,” like a camera, to read the emotions of its users and send them catered content, like videos, photos, and ads.
The Daily Dot: Facebook patent application describes spying on users through their webcams »