Editor Alan Rusbridger starts this interesting article by summarizing the recent censorship incident in the UK, and how Guardian readers helped the newspaper circumvent it: “Recently, I was confronted with a legal obstacle that—possibly for the first time since we were founded in 1821—prevented The Guardian from reporting something that had happened in Parliament. We… Continue reading
Date archives "October 2009"
Where Freeloading Fails
When it comes to the commons, freedloading can be a major issue. Freeloaders are those who benefit from the shared resource and yet put nothing back in to the commons. There have been a number of methods and ideas implemented to try and avoid the growth of freeloaders; for example the 4i method. Now an… Continue reading
Openmoko: Open Phone, Open Software
There is an intriguing project I heard about recently; Openmoko – the project is interesting as it combines the development of open source software alongside open source hardware and aim together to make an open mobile phone. The project has produced one handset thus far, the Neo FreeRunner (you can see it in3D here). The… Continue reading
Controversy about Kiva’s P2P Microlending model
Via Tactical Philanthropy) David Roodman wrote a post on his Microfinance Open Book Blog titled “Kiva Is Not Quite What It Seems“: the person-to-person donor-to-borrower connections created by Kiva are partly fictional. I suspect that most Kiva users do not realize this. Yet Kiva prides itself on transparency. Roodman argues that while Kiva is misleading… Continue reading
Freedom of Speech: Peer-Style
There are been a number of recent developments around the issue of freedom of speech that should be noted. First off was the victory against a secret injunction against the media by oil traders Trafigura. The UK press could not report on any of the details of the case – including the company in question… Continue reading
Open Sourcing Progressive Campaigns through Data Portability
Both data portability and open source software are essential to guaranteeing user freedom with cloud based services A very important appeal and proposal by Jason Lantz. Read it in full here. “How does this relate to political campaigns? The current thinking about data ownership in campaigns is that the campaign owns all the data produced… Continue reading
Debating Transparency: The Perils of Openness in Government
Full public transparency is not all good, argues Lawrence Lessig in a substantial critique of what he calls the “naked transparency movement”. It’s a must read for all openness advocates, and published in the New Republic. In short, Lessig’s argument is that transparency have many ill-considered side effects, and that transparency reformers should take responsibility… Continue reading
Open BitTorrent Trackers
A contribution by Sepp Hasslberger: BitTorrent is a method of file transfer that allows the division of large files into manageable pieces, which can be individually downloaded from “seeders”, i.e. those users that publish (or ‘seed’) such files for others to download. BitTorrent trackers are sites that track who is currently on line, offering which… Continue reading
Overlooked economic undercurrents in the U.S.
Over the past few decades, thousands of alternatives to the standard, top-down corporate model have sprouted up – worker-owned companies and co-operatives, neighborhood corporations and trusts, community-owned technology centers and municipally owned enterprises. In fact, today, involvement in these alternative models of business outnumber union membership as the means by which private-sector workers and community… Continue reading
Creatives for Net Neutrality: launch of European campaign
The Italian digital rights movement Scambioetico launches an important political campaign against the threats by European legislation against internet freedoms and network neutrality, i.e. Creatives 4NN: “A few hours after the cancellation by the Telecoms Package amendment 138, REFF and Scambioetico movement start off to “Creatives for Net Neutrality – Creatives 4NN. The amendment was… Continue reading
1Mb Broadband Access Becomes Legal Right In Finland
(Via Paul Fernhout) Slashdot reports that: “Starting next July, every person in Finland will have the right to a one-megabit broadband connection, according to the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Finland is the world’s first country to create laws guaranteeing broadband access. The Finnish people are also legally guaranteed a 100Mb broadband connection by the… Continue reading
Pyramid version of Open Everything visualization, by Purin Phanichphant
No comment, except that I’m very happy with this new version: (many thanks to our designer friend Purin Phanichphant) See: http://www.flickr.com/photos/purincess/3998063911/sizes/o/
Deep Packet Inspection and Internet Censorship
Deep packet inspection, frequently described as “drilling down” or “opening up the payload” to determine the actual content of a data packet, is the capability of looking at the content, rather than just the header, of data packets in transit on the internet. The capability, although it originally evolved for security reasons, opens the door to censorship and control… Continue reading
The death of the market state, the commons and integral capital
I will certainly come back with more excerpts and discussion on this important essay by James Quilligan in Kosmos Journal, entitled The Commons and Integral Capital. The full pdf version is here. Abstract: “The global economic crash is very big news. But what the media headlines and reports do not mention is how deeply this… Continue reading
The Three Laws of Open Government Data
Proposed by David Eaves: “The Three Laws of Open Government Data: * If it can’t be spidered or indexed, it doesn’t exist * If it isn’t available in open and machine readable format, it can’t engage * If a legal framework doesn’t allow it to be repurposed, it doesn’t empower” “To explain, (1) basically means:… Continue reading
Design aid and sharing: from South to North?
From an interesting commentary by sustainability designer John Thackara: “New approaches to development are more about exchange and distribution than blue-sky invention. Among the elements of a sustainable world that already exist, many are social practices — some of them very old ones — already learned by other societies and in other times. From this… Continue reading