Also,
being able to control every computer in the country makes for a
formidable Cyber Weapon...
"ASIO, Australia's spy agency,
is pushing
for the ability to lawfully hijack peoples' computers — even if
they are not under suspicion of any crime. They
seek the ability to gain access to a third party's computer in order
to facilitate gaining access to the real target —
essentially using any person's personal computer as a proxy for their
hacking attempts. The current legislation prohibits any action by
ASIO that, among other things, interferes with a person's legitimate
use of their computer. Conceivably,
over-turning this restriction would give ASIO the ability to build
their own bot-net of compromised machines. Perhaps
inevitably, they say these changes are required to help them catch
terrorists."
If
it's on the Internet, it must be true! (Except when it's true
fiction) Of course there are other way to “pay” bloggers. You
could send me free stuff to review (computers, books, cars?)
or perhaps other perks like a night in the Lincoln bedroom (probably
not with this President.)
"BBC News reports the
Vietnamese Communist Party is approaching its internet image in a
more sophisticated manner by hiring
shill bloggers to argue its case. From the article: 'Hanoi
Propaganda and Education Department head Ho Quang Loi said that the
authorities had hired hundreds of so-called "internet polemists"
in the fight against "online hostile forces." While the
exact number of these activists is unknown, Mr Loi revealed that his
organisation is running at least 400 online accounts and 20
microblogs. Regular visitors on popular social media networks in
Vietnam such as Facebook have long noticed the existence of a number
of pro-regime bloggers, who frequently post comments and articles
supportive of the Communist Party. The bloggers also take part in
online discussions, where they fiercely attack anybody who they see
as critical of the regime.'"
Of course, there are other ways to
reward supporters (as in campaign contributors)
Video
game industry emerges from White House meetings unscathed
… While Biden said he called the
meeting in part to examine whether the U.S. was undergoing a
"coarsening of our culture," that wasn't the main thrust of
the behind-closed-doors meeting.
Instead, the meeting seemed centered
around exploring a deeper knowledge of existing research into the
impact of gaming on youth and how the industry can take proactive,
positive steps to improve its image among the broader, non-gamer
population. [You should tell everyone you're
“Educational” and “Non-fattening” and “Good for the
environment!” Bob]
All
taxing authorities (all governments) want moer tax revenue. This
type of thing comes up whenever pressure to raise revenue occurs at
the same time as the gullibility of lawmakers is high. Do you really
believe spending billions to replace cash registers and billions to
maintain (and audit) them will result in a net gain in revenue? If
you pay me in cash and I never go near the register, what tax do you
get? More importantly, what happens if small businesses NEED to
cheat a bit on taxes to survive?
"The Norwegian Ministry of
Finance seems to be taking a bit of stick at the moment. It wants
all
the existing cash registers in the country thrown out and replaced
with new ones. Not surprisingly, this massive upgrade is not
popular. But it is apparently being pushed through in an attempt to
prevent cash registers' figures being massaged downwards in use so as
to reduce tax. The Norwegian association of tax auditors said: 'The
source code must be opened.' 'Without source code it is not
possible to determine whether or "hidden" functionality
exists or not. Just knowing that the tax
authorities have access to the source code of the application, will
reduce the effort to implement hidden functionality in the
software.'"
Do we
have the same rights sex offenders do?
Judge
Halts California Internet Sex-Offender Law
A federal judge late Friday blocked
enforcement of a California voter-approved measure that would have
dramatically curtailed the online, First Amendment rights of
registered sex offenders.
Proposition 35, which passed with 81
percent of the vote in November, would have required anyone who is a
registered sex offender — including people with misdemeanor
offenses such as indecent exposure and whose offenses were not
related to activity on the internet — to turn over
to law enforcement a list of all identifiers they use online as well
as a list of service providers they use.
See?
You can be Social and still make money, but anti-social makes it
faster.
Find out how your favorite sites on the
web make money. “How Do They Make Money” is an
interactive site that lets you quickly find your favorite tech
companies, and you should check it out.
… Head to How
Do They Make Money to get started.
For
my students... Has the RIAA learned that customers like this kind of
freedom or does Amazon have really good lawyers?
"Amazon just debuted a new
service called Autorip, which grants
you MP3 copies of music when you purchase the CD version. This
is a technology people have been trying to introduce since 1999, but
only recently have the record labels — and
the courts — seen fit to allow it. 'Robertson's first company,
MP3.com was one of the hottest startups in Silicon Valley when it
launched what we would now call a cloud music service, My.MP3.com, in
1999. The service included a feature called "Beam-It" that
allowed users to instantly stock their online lockers with music from
their personal CD collections. ... Licensed services like iTunes
were still years in the future, largely because labels were skittish
about selling music online. But Robertson
believed he didn't need a license because the service was permitted
by copyright's fair use doctrine. If a user can
rip his legally purchased CD to his computer, why can't he also store
a copy of it online? ... the labels simply weren't interested in
Robertson's vision of convenient and flexible music lockers. So
MP3.com was driven into bankruptcy, and the "buy a CD, get an
MP3" concept fell by the wayside.'"
Better than nothing? More likely,
sticking a toe into a much wider market than the $500-$10,000 per
year subscription market.
January 12, 2013
JSTOR
opens free access to limited number of articles
Via Meredith
Schwartz: "The archives of more than 1,200 journals are now
available for limited free reading by the public, JSTOR
announced [January 9, 2013]. Anyone can sign up for
a JSTOR account and read up to three
articles for free every two weeks."
This has long been predicted as the
path to real global education. Not necessairily the best expert in
the field, but the best teacher in the field can teach a
global audience. 100,000 student MOOCs are already heading in that
direction.
Could the future of education be taught
by industry experts in an online setting? Udemy is trying to find
out thanks to their new Teach2013
tool. It’s basically a call for experts and thought leaders to
teach their own online courses.
They’re hoping a crowd of people will
encourage people like Bill Gates, Michelle Obama, Richard Branson,
and Biz Stone to answer the call. Udemy would of course stand to
benefit from getting these big names, but it’s an interesting
approach and it may not work. Only time will tell.
Udemy, the leading online education
marketplace, today launched Teach2013,
a campaign designed to empower and encourage industry experts
worldwide to create online courses and deliver them to people around
the globe in 2013.
… Once experts express interest in
teaching online, Udemy will provide an array of tools and resources
to help them build and deliver courses that meet Udemy’s standards
for course quality. Those resources and tools include access to
Udemy’s proprietary Course Creation Platform and an invitation to
Udemy’s online instructor community, “The Udemy Studio”, where
experts can interact and discuss best practices for building a
Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). Some experts will also receive
production assistance from Udemy.
Wadda
you say we start a KickStarter project to fund the minting of a
limited number of Trillion Dollar coins (not US currancy) just to
show the world that we could have done it if we wanted to. $10 (in
real US currancy) gets you a coin, $25 gets a coin and a T-Shirt that
says “Let me show you how I can solve the debt crisis!”
Treasury:
We won’t mint a platinum coin to sidestep the debt ceiling
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