Tag Archives: iran

Stuxnet Redux, or, Computational Power, the State, and Propaganda (and Flame)

We were first alerted to the existence of the Stuxnet worm in 2010, due to some interesting security breaches and reporting in the New York Times making it clear that a nation-state–by direct implication and what may have been deliberate misdirection at that time, Israel–must have been behind the worm. Soon after we were alerted […]

Posted in "hacking", materality of computation, we are building big brother, what are computers for | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Real Thoughts on WikiLeaks; or, How Howard Roark Became a Hero of the Left

<rant name=”my real thoughts about wikileaks” sentiment=”please don’t hate me” causeofdelay=”trying not to get into flame war” >In recent interviews (e.g., with Time, Forbes, and The New Yorker), Julian Assange demonstrates repeatedly how little he knows about world politics, about the open-source information already available regarding the topics he claims to be “revealing,” or even […]

Posted in "hacking", cyberlibertarianism, google, information doesn't want to be free, privacy, revolution, rhetoric of computation, we are building big brother | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Response

Morozov on the “Digital Dictatorship”

Sometimes, the truth is just out there. I’ve been learning a lot from Evgeny Morozov for a while and i’d like to think that his work fits with a slightly disturbing clarity with my recent book The Cultural Logic of Computation and the recent work of a number of other second (third?) wave digital theorists […]

Posted in "social media", cyberlibertarianism, google, rhetoric of computation | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“They Called It the ‘Twitter Revolution'”

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 […]

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