Internet

Google really did capture those scenes when it sent a car equipped with cameras down Pittsburgh’s Sampsonia Way in May to take photographs for its online maps. But these images and most of the other scenes caught on Sampsonia were staged by artists Ben Kinsley and Robin Hewlett. The Google feature provides panoramic street-level photographs online so users can get a feel for wherever they might be heading - a virtual reconnaissance mission of sorts.
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Separately, in Senate question time today, Greens senator Scott Ludlam accused the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, of misleading the public by falsely claiming his mandatory censorship plan was similar to that already in place in Sweden, Britain, Canada and New Zealand.  

  Grilled by a Senate Estimates committee in October, Senator Conroy said Britain, Sweden, Canada and New Zealand had all implemented similar filtering systems.

theage.com.au

Former US vice president Al Gore said an internet revolution carrying Barack Obama to the White House should now focus its power on stopping Earth’s climate crisis.  

  The internet’s critical role in Democrat Obama’s victory in the presidential race against Republican John McCain was a “great blow for victory” in addressing a “democracy crisis” stifling action against climate change, Gore said.   [click to continue...]

The report was compiled using data derived from public sources (newspaper articles, blog entries, submissions to government inquiries, privacy policies etc), information provided by present and former company staff, technical analysis and interviews with company representatives.  

Interim results are available here in PDF format: Interim Rankings

 PI is based in London, and has an office in Washington, D.C. Together with members in 40 countries, PI has conducted campaigns throughout the world on issues ranging from wiretapping and national security activities, to ID cards, video surveillance, data matching, police information systems and medical privacy, and works with a wide range of NGO’s, academic institutions and inter-governmental organizations.

  Campaigning against corporate privacy practices, e.g. Amazon  Identifying the problems in technology design, e.g.problems with advertising in Gmail  Monitoring and campaigning against the disclosure of data from companies to governments, e.g. EU-US PNR, SWIFT, Telecommunications companies  Founding and running the Big Brother Awards, now held annually in over 15 countries, that identify ‘worst corporate invaders’,  Campaigning against bad practice in account management, for instance preventing users from deleting accounts, e.g. against Amazon and eBay  Ranking countries for their privacy protection and surveillance levels,  Building particularly from our work on companies’ practices on customer account management and our expertise developed in the country rankings we are now positioned to develop rankings for companies.
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“You aren’t going to turn passive consumers into active trollers on the Internet.”

The planet-sized “Web” computer is already more complex than a human brain and has surpassed the 20-petahertz threshold for potential intelligence as calculated by Ray Kurzweil.

  Ten years ago, Netscape’s explosive IPO ignited huge piles of money.

 The brilliant flash revealed what had been invisible only a moment before: the World Wide Web. As Eric Schmidt (then at Sun, now at Google) noted, the day before the IPO, nothing about the Web;

  At the suggestion of a computer-savvy friend, I got in touch with Nelson in 1984, a decade before Netscape.

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The security researcher was using his knowledge of Internet infrastructure to come up with a better way to stream videos to users.

Kaminsky’s expertise is in the Internet’s domain name system (DNS), the protocol responsible for matching websites’ URLs with the numeric addresses of the servers that host them.

It was only later, after talking casually about the idea with a friend, that Kaminsky realized his “trick” could completely break the security of the domain name system and, therefore, of the Internet itself.
But the danger is even worse: protocols such as those used to deliver e-mail or for secure communications over the Internet ultimately rely on DNS. A creative attacker could use Kaminsky’s technique to intercept sensitive e-mail, or to create forged versions of the certificates that ensure secure transactions between users and banking websites.
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(Bloomberg) — Google Inc., owner of the most popular Internet search engine, said third-quarter profit climbed 26 percent as more customers used Web search ads to spur sales in a slowing economy, sending the shares higher. The Internet will account for 8.7 percent of the $284 billion in U.S. ad spending this year, up from 7.2 percent in 2007, according to Barclays Capital. 

Capital expenditures fell to $452 million, down 18 percent from a year earlier, as Google made more efficient use of its computing centers, Brin said.

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A Kentucky Circuit Court judge has dismissed all objections brought by representatives of as many as 141 Internet domain names subject to seizure and forfeiture to the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the result of an order issued by the same court late last month.

  In his decision to affirm the forfeiture, Judge Wingate dismissed serious counterpoints about Kentucky’s jurisdictional reach while defining within his opinion that an Internet domain name is a “device” used in gambling, thereby making it illegal under Kentucky law.

  A more serious challenge under Judge Wingate’s consideration was the matter of Kentucky’s jurisdictional reach, in seizing domain names that are neither housed nor serviced in Kentucky, yet remain generally accessible via the Internet.

  The decision by Judge Wingate gives the affected domains 30 days to institute geoblocking to be removed from the forfeiture portion of the case, with a final hearing set for November 17th, 2008.

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