Why won't these children think of the children?! From the BBC:
Filters put in place by
parents to stop children viewing inappropriate content are easily
bypassed by the youngsters themselves, according to a nreport from regulator Ofcom.
It found that 18% of 12-15-year-olds know how to disable internet filters.
Almost half of children aged 12-15 know how to delete their
browsing history and 29% can amend settings to mask their browser
activity. Some 83% of eight to 11 year-olds said they knew how to stay safe online. . . .
According to the report, many parents feel their computing skills are far inferior to their children's. Almost half (44%) of parents with children aged between eight
and 11 say their child knows more about the internet than they do. That
rises to 63% for parents of 12-15-year-olds.
In other words, hysterical helicopter parents and safety fetishists have succeeded only in preventing themselves and their technophobic peers from accessing "objectionable" content online.
A group of Amazon warehouse workers in Delaware will decide Wednesday
on whether to create a union. The vote covers just a tiny sub-set of
the retail giant’s workforce but has heavy symbolic significance at a
time when Amazon faces ongoing criticism over its labor practices.
The vote comes after the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers filed a petition
on December 6 on behalf of 30 equipment maintenance and repair
technicians in Middletown, Delaware. If a majority of the workers vote
in favor, it will be the first Amazon union shop in the U.S.
Mozilla has one critical advantage over all other browser vendors.
Our products are truly open source . . . As Anthony Jones from our New Zealand office pointed out the other month, security researchers can use this fact to verify the executable bits
contained in the browsers Mozilla is distributing, by building Firefox
from source and comparing the built bits with our official distribution . . .
To ensure that no one can inject undetected surveillance code into Firefox, security researchers and organizations should:
regularly audit Mozilla source and verified builds by all effective means;
establish automated systems to verify official Mozilla builds from source;
raise an alert if the verified bits differ from official bits.
In the best case, we will establish such a verification system at a
global scale, with participants from many different geographic regions
and political and strategic interests and affiliations.
Security is never “done” — it is a process, not a final rest-state. No silver bullets. All methods have limits. However, open-source auditability cleanly beats the lack of ability to audit source vs. binary.
Through international collaboration of independent entities we can give
users the confidence that Firefox cannot be subverted without the world
noticing, and offer a browser that verifiably meets users’ privacy
expectations.
In January 2012 we defeated the SOPA and PIPA censorship legislation
with the largest Internet protest in history. A year ago this month one
of that movement's leaders, Aaron Swartz, tragically passed away.
Today we face a different threat, one that undermines the Internet,
and the notion that any of us live in a genuinely free society: mass
surveillance.
If Aaron were alive, he'd be on the front lines, fighting against a
world in which governments observe, collect, and analyze our every
digital action.
Now, on the eve of the anniversary of Aaron's passing, and in
celebration of the win against SOPA and PIPA that he helped make
possible, we are announcing a day of protest against mass surveillance,
to take place this February 11th.
Press release:
A broad coalition of activist groups, companies, and online platforms
will hold a worldwide day of activism in opposition to the NSA's mass
spying regime on February 11th. Dubbed "The Day We Fight Back", the day
of activism was announced on the eve of the anniversary of the tragic
passing of activist and technologist Aaron Swartz. The protest is both
in his honor and in celebration of the victory over the Stop Online
Piracy Act two years ago this month, which he helped spur.
Participants including Access, Demand Progress, the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Free Press, BoingBoing,
Reddit, Mozilla, ThoughtWorks, and more to come, will join potentially
millions of Internet users to pressure lawmakers to end mass
surveillance -- of both Americans and the citizens of the whole world. . . .
HOW INTERNET USERS CAN HELP:
Visit TheDayWeFightBack.org
Sign up to indicate that you'll participate and receive updates.
Sign up to install widgets on websites encouraging its visitors to
fight back against surveillance. (These are being finalized in coming
days.)
Use the social media tools on the site to announce your participation.
Develop memes, tools, websites, and do whatever else you can to participate -- and encourage others to do the same.
Make sure you have your masks and makeup handy if you want to keep your online profile separate from your person. From CNET:
Soon your face could be your calling card. An upcoming app for
Android,
iOS, and Google Glass called NameTag will allow you to photograph
strangers and find out who they are -- complete with social networking
and online dating profiles.
Spot someone out and about that you want to identify, and you
can capture their face using your device's camera. The app will send the
photo wirelessly to NameTag's server, where it will compare the photo
to millions of online records and return with a name, more photos, and
social-media profiles, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, where
the person (or their friends) might have publicly posted photos of
themselves.
And, if you're interested in that person in a more-than-passing
fashion, the app's creator -- FacialNetwork -- is working on technology
that will allow scanning of profile pictures on online dating sites,
such as Plenty of Fish, OKCupid, and Match.com.
When Texas Rep. Steve Stockman announced recently that he'll accept donations in bitcoins, he raised some eyebrows. . . . Stockman appeared in a Dec. 31 expressing support for the virtual
currency: "I really think digital money is more about freedom,Business Insider, he said his Senate campaign would show support by accepting Bitcoin donations.
" he said,
adding that bitcoin is "a fixed amount of currency at a fixed rate, so
very good for the markets." According to
Setting
aside the question of Stockman's longshot candidacy, his announcement
raised a question that has rarely been asked before: In political
campaigns, what are bitcoins worth?
An increasing number of cars are at risk from computer hackers
because of the advanced Internet enabled systems they offer – and the
problem could be potentially life-threatening. That’s the warning from
technology firm Harman at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
Modern cars have a number of electronic control units (ECUs), which
not only control infotainment services, but also the operation of the
engine, transmission and safety features such as stability control and
anti-lock brakes.
If someone can hack into the connectivity system, they then have
access to all the car’s other ECUs because there is currently no
physical or electronic barrier between them.
