My new book, The Politics of Bitcoin, is not directly about electoral politics, but rather the political and political-economic theories that inform the development of Bitcoin and its underlying blockchain software. My argument does not require that there be direct connections between promoting Bitcoin and supporting one candidate or party or another. Rather, what concerns […]
In many ways, the most surprising thing about Yasha Levine’s powerful reporting on US government funding of Tor at Pando Daily has been the response to it. From the trolling attacks and ad hominem insults by apparently respectable, senior digital privacy activists and journalists, to repeated, climate-denialist-style “I’m rubber you’re glue”-type (or, as I like […]
Bitcoin is touted, publicized and promoted as an innovation in financial technology. Usually those doing the promoting have very little experience with finance in general or with financial technology in particular–a huge, booming industry mostly made up of proprietary technologies that those of us who don’t work for major banks or trading firms know very […]
There may be no more pernicious and dishonest doctrine among Silicon Valley’s avatars than the one they call “permissionless innovation.” The phrase entails the view that entrepreneurs and “innovators” are the lifeblood of society, and must be allowed to push forward without needing to ask for “permission” from government, for the good of society. The […]
Among the digital elite, one of the more common reactions to the recent shocking disclosures about intelligence surveillance programs has been to suggest that the way to prevent government snooping is to encrypt all of our communications. While I think encryption might be an important part of a solution to the total surveillance problem, it […]
From Jeffrey Warren via nettime-l CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–SPSS, an IBM (NYSE: IBM) Company, today announced that the Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice selected IBM predictive analytics software to reduce recidivism by determining which juveniles are likely to reoffend. Identified at-risk youth can then be placed in programs specific to the best course of treatment to […]
In the latest skirmish in the Google-China information war–but is really more like a US-China war, it seems to me, in which we have been drafted by a private corporation with what I can’t see as consent–Google has shut off its mainland china servers and redirected traffic to google.hk. It’s another remarkable example of the […]
First published on Harvard University Press blog, Jun 24 2009. Few words have been heard more often lately than revolution. The word occurs in two ways, but the connection between them is at best fuzzy. First, commentators wonder if Iran is going through a political revolution. Second, they speculate about an “internet revolution”—not merely a […]
Original reportage by Michael Holden of Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL2658640020071106 Experts Say West Can’t Stop Web Radicalization Tues, Nov 6, 2007 By Michael Holden 19 minutes ago LONDON (Reuters) – From behind a computer keyboard at his London home, student Younes Tsouli used the Internet to spread al Qaeda propaganda, recruit suicide bombers and promote Web sites […]