As a longstanding research interest of mine, I have a thesis about this topic, one which I expect to be controversial, and I would be very interested to hear whether other Wiki researchers have considered; it’s not one

… read the full story:

let’s talk about the real materiality of computation. not hard drives. not punch cards. not HTML.

let’s talk about what video games are really for/about. what they are training the most aggressive, testosterone-fueled, female-demeaning members of our society to become. WHAT THEY DO TO THE PEOPLE THEY ARE TARGETING, not to the rest of us–do you even understand what I am saying?

let’s talk about drones and the people who “fly” them.

let’s talk about the computer programmers who design them, operate them, print them directly from incredibly detailed high-tech materials printers.

let’s talk about why the worlds of critical theory and digital studies have virtually no interest in these phenomena, but a lot of interest in showing, via positive examples only, why ubiquitous computation is something we should promote in all our work and thought.

let’s talk about how many  of the hundreds of MLA… read the full story:

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 NOT trivial)

Internet firms co-opted for surveillance: experts

By Georgina Prodhan

NAIROBI | Fri Sep 30, 2011 11:12am EDT

(Reuters) – Internet companies such as Google, Twitter and Facebook are increasingly co-opted for surveillance work as the information they gather proves irresistible to law enforcement agencies, Web experts said this week.

Although such companies try to keep their users’ information private, their business models depend on exploiting it to sell targeted advertising, and when governments demand they hand it over, they have little choice but to comply.
Full story: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/30/us-internet-security-idUSTRE78T2GY20110930

no, that’s not all. members of the nettime-l “mailing list for networked cultures, politics, and tactics,” have also been paying close attention to the world of hackers.

on jul… read the full story:

Hacking at small businesses “is a prolific problem,” says Dean Kinsman, a special agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s cyber division, which has more than 400 active investigations into these crimes. “It’s going to get much worse before it gets better.”

In the time it takes to break into a major company like Citigroup Inc., a hacker could steal data from dozens of small businesses and not get detected, says Bryce Case Jr., a former hacker who broke into several government and corporate websites a decade ago and now runs an online message board for hackers called Digital Gangster. Now that small companies use computers, “the juice has become worth the squeeze,” he says. “Even a

… read the full story:

Michael, you are fighting the good fight here, and it’s a hard battle to take on. My diagnosis is that people who become deeply attached to memes (not specifically directed to PM-R in the quotations above, whom i don’t know from adam)–especially very simple ones like the word “open”–have typically invested very little in the interrogation of the terms out of which the memes are constructed.  “Open” is a wonderful word. It sounds so good. Who could argue with it? Out of context, that sounds good. But (1) get into the guts of real Constitutional law,

… read the full story:

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 now. the problem is that capital itself is evil, and so is the pursuit of power. even if once power and capital are attained they are used for good (relatively speaking). you can’t get there from here. of course google is a monopoly. and of course they will do everything in their power to defend their fundamentally evil (and fundamentally like every other evil concentration of capital) practices. where is the history of discussion of “how big should google get?” and the related, “how can we not maximize profit under contemporary rules of… read the full story:

then you might want to think very carefully about greedily signing on with the current star chamber. general note: when antonin scalia is on your side, question less your opponents and more why it is you are on that side.

Supreme Court sees video games as art

Maybe it helps for the nation’s highest court to say it, too?

Video games are art, and they deserve the exact same First Amendment protections as books, comics, plays and all the rest, the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday in a ruling about the sale of violent video games in California.

California had tried to argue that video games are inherently different from these other mediums because they are “interactive.” So if a kid has to pick up a controller and hit the B button

… read the full story: