Fully reproduced from Richard Stallman, sourced from the Guardian: “The Anonymous web protests over WikiLeaks are the internet equivalent of a mass demonstration. It’s a mistake to call them hacking (playful cleverness) or cracking (security breaking). The LOIC program that is being used by the group is prepackaged so no cleverness is needed to run… Continue reading
Date archives "December 2010"
What is Open Source Buddhism?
Explanation by Al Jigen Billings of the Open Buddha blog: “The moniker, “Open Source Buddhism,” has been used on this site for quite a while. What this actually means is easily open to question and it seems worthy of a longer discussion. “Open Source” is something that is generally applied to software. As Wikipedia states,… Continue reading
WikiLeaks: Networked Action for a Networked Age
There can be little doubt that for those of us interested in peer theory, the WikiLeaks story is a great interest. The WikiLeaks organisation is organised as a peer network, it now relies of peer action (mirroring) to keep it’s site up an running. It has inspired a host of peer-actions in response both against… Continue reading
Richard Stallman in support of collective licensing in Brazil
Richard Stallman proposes the instauration of an Internet Sharing License in a open letter to the new Brazilian president (elect) Rousseff and the Citizens of Brazil: “In Brazil’s debate over copyright law, a momentous improvement has been suggested: freedom to share published works, in exchange for a levy collected from Internet users over time. To… Continue reading
Profiles of the new generation of web radicals
A generation of political activists have been transformed by new tools developed on the internet. Here, a leading net commentator profiles seven young radicals from around the world. This is excerpted from the introduction, by Aleks Krotoski in the Guardian: “So is the web over-hyped? In the 90s, when it still was in its swaddling… Continue reading
Jeff Jarvis proposes 6 basic rights for cyberspace usage
we are passing from a world organized around power-to-power transactions to one based on peer-to-peer engagement. I’ll argue that we in the press, especially, must defend Wikileaks’ right to free speech as it speaks truth to power. I’ll say that we must make transparency government’s default. Still at draft state, here are a set of… Continue reading
The Oxcars 2010 free culture awards video
This video is a one hour summary of the fourth edition of the OXCARS, the t free cultural event in Barcelona that rewards expressions of free culture worldwide. At the Gala, with a total duration of four hours, participants include, among others: José Luis Sampedro, The Pinkertones, Belén Gopegui, Txaber Allué, Kate Madison Watch the… Continue reading
Empire against Republic: What explains the neocon rage against Wikileaks?
Based on Assange’s own writings Bady argues that he views powerful states as similar to, if not literally, criminal conspiracies. “…the most effective way to attack this kind of organization would be to make ‘leaks’ a fundamental part of the conspiracy’s information environment. …Wikileaks does not leak something like the “Collateral Murder” video as a… Continue reading
‘No Chains’ for the Thai ‘Dignity Returns’ sweat-free garment labour cooperative
Excerpted from Doris Lee, via the Asia Monitor Resource Centre in Hong Kong: (watch the videos on Dignity Returns here) “Manop Kaewpaka produces clothes at a garment factory called Dignity Returns in Bangkok, Thailand – she earns above a living wage, decides her workplace conditions with her colleagues, and whenever possible, she joins in the… Continue reading
P2P Theory vs. socialist theory: How does real change occur?
Republished from April 2009, and also recently republished in Unionbook, the facebook for labour activists, by Peter Waterman. I would of course have to strongly amend my interpretation of the Obama administration, as I didn’t anticipate he would be a mere Hooverite agent of Wall Street instead of the Rooseveltian reform agent we were expecting…. Continue reading
A p2p ecology for p2p learning: a Second Life presentation of P2P Foundation resources
Shamblesguru interviews Michel Bauwens about the ecology of online resources that the P2P Foundation community has collated about peer to peer learning, trends and resources. Produced by invitation of the “Always Already New” conference in Milano (December 16-18) and used for the keynote address on the 17th, also in collaboration with Adam Arvidsson, Massimo Menichelli,… Continue reading
Hilary Wainwright on the Big Society
Hilary Wainwright, co-editor of Red Pepper, was interviewed by OpenDemocracy on the subject of the Big Society project in the UK: “How far do you agree with Cameron’s presentation of the Big Society as radically new, and to what extent are ideas around the Big Society rooted in Britain’s political history? The idea of self-organisation… Continue reading
OpenLeaks as a more distributed version of Wikileaks?
Details are emerging about the spinoff of the former Wikileaks volunteer: Andy Greenberg: “The German Domscheit-Berg, along with several other former Wikileaks staffers, plans to launch a website they’re calling OpenLeaks as early as next week, Domscheit-Berg told Forbes in an interview. Like WikiLeaks, the new site will allow leakers to anonymously submit information to… Continue reading
Homebrew Industrial Revolution, Chapter Three: Babylon is Fallen (third installment)
[Michel Bauwens has kindly invited me to serialize excerpts from my recently published book The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low-Overhead Manifesto. Over the next several weeks, I will post two excerpts from each chapter. In this case I’m posting a third excerpt from Chapter Three, which is unusually long, and will post only one excerpt… Continue reading
How Commercial Social Networks Hinder Connective Learning
The advertising, tracking and analysis functions of commercial social media present, as Raymond Williams says, “a formula of communication, an intrinsic setting of priorities” [14]. The difference separating these priorities from those of education is clear in terms of the form of social networks, if not also in some aspects of its culture and content…. Continue reading
Why Amazon’s civil rights desertion has ominous implications for democracy
Another ‘right-on’ editorial by John Naughton, that is a must-read if you missed it in the Guardian: “One of the most interesting aspects of the WikiLeaks controversy is the light it has shed on the providers of cloud computing. One after another they have fallen over like dominoes when the going got rough. First, some… Continue reading