Toward a Technological Cage for the Masses

For about two decades, beginning roughly in 1995, the average resident of the developed nations was given a gift, an unprecedented opportunity for free speech. This opportunity was made possible by the personal computer and the ability it provided to access an open, relatively unregulated Internet. Never before had the common man or woman had opportunities to express his or her views to large audiences unhindered by gatekeepers--whether they be newspaper editors, book editors, television programming directors, judges, or other government officials. The fact that this situation lasted as long as it did is astounding. But now, the natural order of things is returning. Now, the brief window of free speech is closing, and it is closing quickly.

Not only is the Internet being increasingly regulated and sectioned off into separate Internets for each country, but the personal computer itself is being hobbled. We are told that our computers are being stripped of their functionality because they are just too insecure and too complicated for the average "normal" or "normie" to deal with. After all, the problem could not possibly be that the Windows operating system is an insecure piece of junk, reminiscent of a 40-year-old family minivan held together with chewing gum and bailing wire. It could not be that more money can be made by locking down the personal computer and moving most, or all, of its processing into the cloud, were giant companies, rather than the owner of the computer, will decide what software can run on it. Where a monthly fee can be charged for its use.

The truth is that companies and governments are in a secret war with general-purpose computing. The reason for the war is that companies want to protect their copyrighted intellectual property, and governments want to control their citizens.

👀 👉🏼 https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/techno-cage.html/

#technological #cage #internet #gatekeepers #doctorow #thinkabout
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Cloudflare and Internet Archive team up to make sure websites never fully go offline

Websites that use Cloudflare Always Online can have their URLs automatically archived with Wayback Machine.

Cloudflare and Internet Archive have joined forces to archive more of the public web, touting it would make the web more reliable.

As part of this joint effort, websites that use Cloudflare's Always Online service will be able to allow the web infrastructure company to share their hostname and URLs with Internet Archive's Wayback Machine so their website can be automatically archived.

When a site is down, Cloudflare will then be able to retrieve the most recently archived version from Internet Archive so that a site's content can be accessed by users.

"The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine has an impressive infrastructure that can archive the web at scale," Cloudflare CEO and co-founder Matthew Prince said.

"By working together, we can take another step toward making the internet more resilient by stopping server issues for our customers and in turn from interrupting businesses and users online."

According to Internet Archive, more than 468 billion web pages are available via the Wayback Machine to date.

"We archive URLs that are identified via a variety of different methods, such as 'crawling' from lists of millions of sites, as submitted by users via the Wayback Machine's 'Save Page Now' feature, added to Wikipedia articles, referenced in Tweets, and based on a number of other 'signals' and sources, such multiple feeds of 'news' stories. An additional source of URLs we will preserve now originates from customers of Cloudflare's Always Online service," Wayback Machine director Mark Graham wrote in a blog post.

👀 👉🏼 https://blog.archive.org/2020/09/17/internet-archive-partners-with-cloudflare-to-help-make-the-web-more-useful-and-reliable/

👀 👉🏼 https://www.zdnet.com/article/cloudflare-and-internet-archive-team-up-to-make-sure-websites-never-fully-go-offline

#cloudflare #internet #archive #wayback
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Unfck the Internet

We love it, we need it, and we can all feel the ways it’s fcked. Together we can unfck it. Start by choosing the only non-profit-backed, people-first browser.

👀 👉🏼 Let’s get started
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/unfck/

#unfck #internet #mozilla #thinkabout
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The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz

The Internet's Own Boy follows the story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz. From Swartz's help in the development of the basic internet protocol RSS to his co-founding of Reddit, his fingerprints are all over the internet. But it was Swartz's groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing combined with his aggressive approach to information access that ensnared him in a two-year legal nightmare. It was a battle that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26. Aaron's story touched a nerve with people far beyond the online communities in which he was a celebrity.

📺 👉🏼 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M85UvH0TRPc

#swartz #internet #socialjustice #activist #docu #video
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Internet history can be used for “reidentification” finds study by Mozilla

A recent research paper has reaffirmed that our internet history can be reliably used to identify us. The research was conducted by Sarah Bird, Ilana Segall, and Martin Lopatka from Mozilla and is titled: Replication: Why We Still Can’t Browse in Peace: On the Uniqueness and Reidentifiability of Web Browsing Histories. The paper was released at the Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security and is a continuation of a 2012 paper that highlighted the same reidentifiability problem.

‼️ Just your internet history can be used to reidentify you on the internet ‼️

Using data from 52,000 consenting Firefox users, the researchers were able to identify 48,919 distinct browsing profiles which had 99% uniqueness.

This is especially concerning because internet history is routinely sold by your internet service provider (ISP) and mobile data provider to third party advertising and marketing firms which are demonstrably able to tie a list of sites back to an individual they already have a profile on – even if the ISP claims to be “anonymizing” the data being sold. This is a legally sanctioned activity ever since 2017 when Congress voted to get rid of broadband privacy and allow the monetization of this type of data collection.

This type of “history-based profiling” is undoubtedly being used to build ad profiles on internet users around the world. Previous studies have shown that an IP address usually stays static for about a month – which the researchers noted: “is more than enough time to build reidentifiable browsing profiles.”

👀 👉🏼 (PDF)
https://www.usenix.org/system/files/soups2020-bird.pdf

👀 👉🏼 https://www.cozyit.com/internet-history-can-be-used-for-reidentification-finds-study-by-mozilla/

#mozilla #study #research #internet #history #reidentification #thinkabout #pdf
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Leaked Documents Show How China’s Army of Paid Internet Trolls Helped Censor the Coronavirus

As the coronavirus spread in China, the government stage-managed what appeared on the domestic internet to make the virus look less severe and the authorities more capable, according to thousands of leaked directives and other files.

In the early hours of Feb. 7, #China’s powerful internet censors experienced an unfamiliar and deeply unsettling sensation. They felt they were losing control.

The news was spreading quickly that Li Wenliang, a doctor who had warned about a strange new viral outbreak only to be threatened by the police and accused of peddling rumors, had died of COVID-19. Grief and fury coursed through social media. To people at home and abroad, Li’s death showed the terrible cost of the Chinese government’s instinct to suppress inconvenient information.

https://www.propublica.org/article/leaked-documents-show-how-chinas-army-of-paid-internet-trolls-helped-censor-the-coronavirus

#internet #trolls

The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security

There's lots of innovation going on in security - we're inundated with a steady stream of new stuff and it all sounds like it works just great. Every couple of months I'm invited to a new computer security conference, or I'm asked to write a foreword for a new computer security book. And, thanks to the fact that it's a topic of public concern and a "safe issue" for politicians, we can expect a flood of computer security-related legislation from lawmakers. So: computer security is definitely still a "hot topic." But why are we spending all this time and money and still having problems?

Let me introduce you to the six dumbest ideas in computer security. What are they? They're the anti-good ideas. They're the braindamage that makes your $100,000 ASIC-based turbo-stateful packet-mulching firewall transparent to hackers. Where do anti-good ideas come from? They come from misguided attempts to do the impossible - which is another way of saying "trying to ignore reality." Frequently those misguided attempts are sincere efforts by well-meaning people or companies who just don't fully understand the situation, but other times it's just a bunch of savvy entrepreneurs with a well-marketed piece of junk they're selling to make a fast buck. In either case, these dumb ideas are the fundamental reason(s) why all that money you spend on information security is going to be wasted, unless you somehow manage to avoid them.

For your convenience, I've listed the dumb ideas in descending order from the most-frequently-seen. If you can avoid falling into the the trap of the first three, you're among the few true computer security elite.

#1) Default Permit
#2) Enumerating Badness
#3) Penetrate and Patch
#4) Hacking is Cool
#5) Educating Users
#6) Action is Better Than Inaction

https://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/

#dumb #ideas #internet #security
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Project Gemini

Gemini is a new, collaboratively designed internet protocol, which explores the space inbetween gopher and the web, striving to address (perceived) limitations of one while avoiding the (undeniable) pitfalls of the other.

This server hosts the official specification and other documentation for Gemini, as well as offering free personal Geminispace (managed via sftp) for those wanting to play with the protocol. The vast majority of this content is served via Gemini itself, so you'll need a suitable client to access it.

A small amount of the server's content is also available via HTTPS below, or via gopher.

https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

#gemini #internet #protocol #gopher

Myanmar: New internet blackout “heinous and reckless”

Responding to credible reports of a widespread mobile internet blackout underway in Myanmar, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Campaigns, Ming Yu Hah, said:

“To shut down the internet amid a volatile coup, a humanitarian crisis and a health pandemic is a heinous and reckless decision.

“Since the 1 February coup, people in Myanmar have been forced into a situation of abject uncertainty. An expanded internet shutdown will put them at greater risk of more egregious human rights violations at the hands of the military.

“The military must re-establish all telecommunications immediately and stop putting people’s rights in danger. All mobile operators and telecommunications providers in Myanmar must seek urgent clarification from the Myanmar authorities.”

On 6 February, the Myanmar military reportedly ordered telecommunications companies in the country to fully shut down internet and 4G services. According to information received by Amnesty International, the effective blackout will be in operation until Monday 8 February.

An earlier order, on 5 February, instructed telecommunications companies to block access to Twitter and Instagram.
On 4 February, the military had already announced that they were ordering telecoms operators to block access to Facebook until 7 February.

As the 1 February military coup was underway, internet and phone outages were reported in several parts of the country, including in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, the largest city, Yangon, as well as Shan and Kachin States and the Mandalay and Sagaing regions. Access was later reestablished.

There have also been mobile internet restrictions in conflict-affected areas of Rakhine and Chin States in the country for more than a year. 4G internet access in those areas was reportedly restored late in the evening on 2 February 2021.

Such restrictions pose a real danger to at-risk civilian populations, especially when access to information is so vital during the COVID-19 pandemic – and even more so when the situation on the ground is so tense amid the coup, and in conflict-affected areas.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/02/myanmar-new-internet-blackout/

#myanmar #internet #blackout #AmnestyInternational #thinkabout #why #HelpMyanmar
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The Great Firewall of...America? WTZ!

This past week on Feb 2 - Feb 7, 2021 a massive attack was conducted on encrypted services, particular VPN's. VPN traffic was throttled to near unusability.

Basically in 2021, the Great Firewall of the USA was turned on. And then abrubtly turned off.

Purpose of the action was unknown. No party stepped up to acknowledge and aside from me, no one has stepped up to call any Internet Provider of their egregious action against privacy minded people.

Why did this attack happen?
Why did the attack stop?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38za1LYj2XQ&t=1

#usa #greatfirewall #firewall #internet #attack #privacy #thinkabout #video
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