One of the most dangerous canards of the digital revolution is the one according to which distribution, decentralization, and democratization are the characteristic hallmarks of contemporary mass computerization. To writers of earlier ages (Huxley, Orwell, Lem, Weizenbaum, Wiener, Mumford, Ellul, Roszak, just to name a few), such sentiments would seem shocking, because what they understood […]
In case you were wondering whether all these sites are under heavy and constant surveillance? All these sites are under heavy and constant surveillance. In fact, as a working hypothesis and algorithm for daily activity, presume the surveillance is much more extensive, especially when it comes to information that right now seems trivial (it is […]
It’s not just creepy. It’s part of the evil that Google is now chartered to do. See, when they put that thing together, they may have forgotten how evil is almost always done in the US: under cover of saying what’s being done is not evil. We have an entire political party/movement based around it […]
So if he says it will you believe it? i may have asked this question before, rhetorically. (No sign so far of him discussing how this tracks with his own promotion of the Facebook philosophy; see below.) http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/05/03/wikileaks-founder-assange-blasts-facebook-appalling-spying-machine/ WikiLeaks Founder Assange Blasts Facebook as ‘Most Appalling Spying Machine’ “Here we have the world’s most comprehensive […]
The brilliant Christian Fuchs reflects on Google buzz in a posting distributed today on nettime-l and [idc] titled “Google Buzz: Economic Surveillance – Buzz Off! The Problem of Online Surveillance and the Need for an Alternative Internet.” Among the more interesting observations including what is becoming for me one of many indications that Eric Schmidt […]
The following hour-long satirical Chinese machinima video quickly garnered 10 million or more viewers. “New York City based trends research and innovation company” PSFK quotes this description from Chinese media blog DigiCha: The film tracks the fight between The9 and Netease over the renewal rights to Activision Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, the requirement that skulls […]
A nice retrospective of new technology in recent Iranian politics on the BBC this week was advertised on radio in triumphalist terms, evidenced in the story’s first and second sentences. Follow the story to its end, though, and discover that it’s the repressive and invasive powers of computers that are most apparent, while the democratic […]