Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 222
December 6, 2013
US Secret Service: Media Advisory, National Christmas Tree Lighting, 2013
http://www.secretservice.gov/press/Me...
U.S Department of Homeland Security
United States Secret Service
Media Advisory
NATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTING
Entry Points, Street Closures, Security Screenings, and Prohibited Items
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – On Friday, December 6, 2013, the National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony will take place on the Ellipse at approximately 4:30 p.m. The gates will open to ticketed guests only at 3:00 p.m. and all ticket holders will enter from the west side (17th Street, NW) of the Ellipse.
The following security measures will be in place for the National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony:
Street Closures: The Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia and the U.S. Park Police will put the following street closures affecting vehicular traffic into effect on December 6, 2013 at 3:00 p.m. and will lift these street closures when this event has concluded:
o 15th Street, NW from Constitution Avenue, NW to E Street, NW o 15th Street, NW and New York Avenue, NW
o 15th Street, NW and G Street, NW
o 15th Street, NW and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
o 15th Street, NW and F Street, NW
o 15th Street, NW and Constitution Avenue, NW
o 17th Street, NW Northbound from Constitution Avenue, NW to State
Place/New York Avenue, NW
o 17th Street, NW from C Street, NW to E Street, NW
o 18th Street, NW Eastbound from D Street to E Street, NW
No Truck Zone: Constitution Avenue, NW between 14th Street, NW & 18th Street, NW
Security Screenings: All attendees will be subject to thorough security screening before entering the National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony. Please allow for additional time for this security screening, as it is expected that lines may be long.
December 5, 2013 Contact: 202-406-5708
www.secretservice.gov
Due to the expected inclement weather, the use of umbrellas is authorized for this event. Please dress accordingly.
Prohibited Items: As a security precaution, the following items will be prohibited from the National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony:
o Firearms
o Weapons of any type o Hazardous materials
o Chemical materials
o Radiological materials
o Biological materials
o Knives
o Toy guns/toy weapons
o Fireworks
o Pepper spray/mace
o Scissors
o Razor blades
o Needles
o Leatherman bran
December 5, 2013
Cave germs
*This story would have been meaningless without DNA sequencing. All the researchers would have seen was a bunch of damp, dark rocks.
*With the DNA, though, it’s otherworldly. The desert underground. Who knew?
“NEWS RELEASE
“Dec. 2, 2013
“A Living Desert Underground
“TUCSON, Ariz. – Hidden underneath the hilly grasslands studded with ocotillos and mesquite trees in southeastern Arizona lies a world shrouded in perpetual darkness: Kartchner Caverns, a limestone cave system renowned for its untouched cave formations, sculpted over millennia by groundwater dissolving the bedrock and carving out underground rooms, and passages that attract tourists from all over the world.
“Beyond the reaches of sunlight and seemingly devoid of life, the caves are in fact teeming with an unexpected diversity of microorganisms that rival microbial communities on the earth’s surface, according to a new study led by University of Arizona researchers that has been published in the journal of the International Society for Microbial Ecology. The discovery not only expands our understanding of how microbes manage to colonize every niche on the planet but also could lead to applications ranging from environmental cleanup solutions to drug development.
” “We discovered all the major players that make up a typical ecosystem,” said Julie Neilson, an associate research scientist in the UA’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “From producers to consumers, they’re all there, just not visible to the naked eye.”
“In a long-standing collaboration between Kartchner Caverns State Park and the UA, Neilson and her co-workers have spent years exploring the underground world and its inhabitants. For their latest study, they swabbed stalactites and other cave formations for DNA analysis. Based on the genes they found in their samples, they reconstructed the bacteria and archaea – single-celled microorganisms that lack a cell nucleus – living in the cave. Kept secret for 14 years after its discovery in 1974 by two UA graduate students who were hiking in the Whetstone Mountains just south of Benson, Ariz., Kartchner Caverns has been protected from human impact so that scientists can study the fragile environment and organisms inside the cave.
” “We didn’t expect to find such a thriving ecosystem feasting on the scraps dripping in from the world above,” Neilson said. “What is most interesting is that what we found mirrors the desert above: an extreme environment starved for nutrients, yet flourishing with organisms that have adapted in very unique ways to this type of habitat.”
“Unlike their counterparts on the surface, cave microbes can’t harness the energy in sunlight to build organic matter from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This process, known as photosynthesis, forms the basis of all life on Earth.
“In the absence of light, bacteria live off water runoff dripping into the cave through cracks in the overlying rock and harvest the energy locked in compounds leaching out from decaying organic matter in the soils above and minerals dissolved within the rock fissures, Neilson and her team discovered.
” “Kartchner is unique because it is a cave in a desert ecosystem,” Neilson explained. “It’s not like the caves in temperate areas such as in Kentucky or West Virginia, where the surface has forests, rivers and soil with thick organic layers, providing abundant organic carbon. Kartchner has about a thousand times less carbon coming in with the drip water.”
” “The cave microbes make a living off the extremely limited nutrients that are available,” Neilson said. “Instead of relying on organic carbon, which is a very scarce resource in the cave, they use the energy in nitrogen-containing compounds like ammonia and nitrite to convert carbon dioxide from the air into biomass.”
The researchers found evidence of cave microbes engaging in all six known pathways that organisms use to fix carbon from the atmosphere to make food and structural material.
“Neilson said although the nitrogen-driven pathway is probably the most dominant in the cave, there might be others. Some microbes even eat rock – to derive energy from chemical compounds such as manganese or pyrite.
“Raina Maier, a professor in the Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences – the study’s principal investigator – said the team expected to find the overall microbial diversity in the cave to be only a fraction of that found in the soil on the surface.
” “We expected the surface community many times more diverse than the cave,” said Maier, who is also a member of the UA’s BIO5 Institute. “Instead, we found the cave is about half as diverse as the terrestrial environment where there is sunlight and soil and vegetation. At the same time, the two ecosystems share only 16 percent of the microbial species. In other words, there is a difference of 84 percent between the two, which is amazing.”
“Previous studies had shown that, to the cave microbes, the stalactite they live on is like an island: Restricted to the stalactite they happen to be on, there appears to be little mixing between populations, resulting in different assemblages from one cave formation to another.
“To analyze the DNA swabbed from the cave formations, Neilson and her team enlisted the help of the lab of Rod Wing, a professor in the UA’s Department of Plant Sciences and director of the Arizona Genomics Institute at BIO5.
” “When you work in extreme starving environments, you barely get enough DNA,” Neilson explained. “In some of our samples we got about half of what is considered the minimum amount for DNA sequence analysis. But, we said, let’s just try it. And the wonderful technicians in Rod Wing’s lab tried all those new techniques and they managed to get us a data set even from the dry rock, where there is no drip water and where there are very few microbes living to begin with.”
“In addition to encountering all the major players that make up a complex food web in the cave, the scientists discovered what likely are microbes yet unknown to science.
” “Twenty percent of the bacteria whose presence we inferred based on the DNA sequences were not similar enough to anything in the database for us to be able to identify them,” Neilson said. “On one stalactite, we found a rare organism in a microbial group called SBR1093 that comprised about 10 percent of the population on that stalactite, but it represented less than 0.5 percent of the microbes on any of the others.”
“According to Neilson, nobody has been able to culture that organism in the lab, and its DNA sequence has only ever been found three times in history: in a stromatolite – a special type of sedimentary rock involving microbial communities – in the hypersaline waters of Shark Bay in Australia; in a site contaminated with hydrocarbons in France; and in a sewage treatment plant in Brisbane, Australia. (((That sure is a credit to the database. Kudos to whoever is running that thing.)))
” “This suggests there are many microbes out there in the world that we know almost nothing about,” she said. “The fact that these organisms showed up in contaminated soil could mean they might have potential for applications such as environmental remediation. The most abundant microbe that we found in our taxonomic survey was closely related to a microbe that produces erythromycin, an antibiotic. That is not what it is doing in the cave, but it shows you that not only is there a potential to find microbes that are new to science, but studying them in those extreme and poorly studied environments could lead to new applications.”
The implications of the research reach far beyond Kartchner Caverns, as far as other planets, as the researchers point out.
” “There is a lot we have to learn about microbes and how they control processes of global importance, and by studying microbes in extreme ecosystems such as Kartchner Caverns or in the Atacama Desert in Chile, it helps us study some of the capabilities we don’t yet understand in rich ecosystems here on the surface,” Neilson said.
” “It shows the flexibility of microbes,” Neilson said. “They have conquered every niche on the planet.”
Maier added: “When you think about exploring Mars, for example, and you look at all those clever strategies that microbes have evolved and tweaked over the past 4 billion years, I wouldn’t be surprised if we found them elsewhere if we just keep looking.”
Funding for this work was provided by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Microbial Observatory grant and a UA NSF IGERT Genomics Initiative fellowship to first author Marianyoly Ortiz.
# # #
This story and photos are online: http://uanews.org/story/a-living-dese...
Link:
The research paper is published online at http://www.nature.com/ismej/journal/v...
Hair, bone and tissue regrown in aging mice
*I’m not too keen on standard tub-thumping life-extension issues, because I know it’s gonna work out in lab animals long before it works out in Google executives.
*On the other hand, when mice start doing seriously weird rejuvenation activities, I get really interested. I’ve suspected for a long time that aging would not be solved for organisms all at once. Instead, there would be various pathways of metabolic decline that were hacked through different methods.
*We’re seeing a strong hint of elderly one-percenters with wonderful hair and gorgeous skin here. Eyes still going, hearing is shot, but boy, not a wrinkle.
http://www.gizmag.com/tissue-regeneration-lin28/29744/
(…)
“Lin28 is a gene that is abundant in embryonic stem cells and which functions in all organisms. It is thought to regulate the self-renewal of stem cells with the researchers finding that by promoting the production of certain enzymes in mitochondria, it enhances the metabolism of these cellular power plants that found in most of the cells of living organisms. In this way, Lin28 helps generate the energy needed to stimulate the growth of new tissues.
” “We already know that accumulated defects in mitochondrial metabolism can lead to aging in many cells and tissues,” says Shyh-Chang Ng. “We are showing the converse – that enhancement of mitochondrial metabolism can boost tissue repair and regeneration, recapturing the remarkable repair capacity of juvenile animals”…”
http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674%2813%2901278-6
The latest EDRi-gram
*Once again, they’re full of news one doesn’t hear anywhere else.
======================================================================
EDRi-gram
biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe
Number 11.23, 4 December 2013
=======================================================================
Contents
=======================================================================
1. “Rebuilding Trust in EU – US Data Flows” – some lowlights
2. European Parliament will rule on Net Neutrality
3. Paris court orders search engines and ISPs to block websites
4. Google in breach of the Dutch data protection act
5. ECJ Advocate General: Forcing ISPs to block websites could be legal
6. Ireland: Google ordered to remove Knowledge Graph result
7. No warrant Internet spying by French authorities
8. Bits of Freedom presents policy package against mass surveillance
9. ENDitorial: Lessons from the failure of Licences for Europe
10. Recommended Action
11. Recommended Reading
12. Agenda
13. About
=======================================================================
1. “Rebuilding Trust in EU – US Data Flows” – some lowlights
=======================================================================
On 27 November 2013, the European Commission finally published its
Communication on the “Safe Harbor” agreement as part of a broader
package on EU/US data flows.
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the Communication was the
statement that the PNR agreement and other data sharing agreements work
without substantiating any of those claims. Simply asking the United
States if they breached the existing rules and blandly stating, in the
absence of any credible evidence, that the agreements on passenger name
records (PNR) and financial data tracking (TFTP) “meet the common
security interests of the EU and US, whilst providing a high level of
protection of personal data” provides no new information and offers no
new insights. Indeed, the only thing that is new is the apparent belief
of the European Commission that politely asking the US if they have been
breaking any rules constitutes an investigation.
The claim about a high level of protection of personal data rings
particularly hollow in the face of the revelations made public by Edward
Snowden. These revelations that show a level of data collection by US
agencies that has absolutely no regard for the fundamental principles of
necessity and proportionality as international law.
It does not get much better when we look at the Commission’s thirteen
recommendations for the implementation of Safe Harbor. They are nothing
more than recommendations. Instead of giving a clear signal on what must
change in order to make the Safe Harbor exception tenable and credible
in the light of the Commission’s legal duties to protect the fundamental
rights of EU citizens, the Commission leaves uncertainty on what may
happen next. This is not good for citizens and it is not good for business.
The Commission veers of in the surreal with its recommendations
regarding access to personal data by US authorities. It recommends that
privacy policies should include information on the extent to which US
law allows public authorities to collect and process data transferred
under the Safe Harbour. In light of the fact that, so far, several US
based human rights organisations have had to resort to courts (with
limited success) in order to get the US government to even disclose
exactly this, one can but wonder about the basis for the Commission’s
faith in the ability of corporate entities to provide such disclosure.
Equally detached from reality are the Commission’s recommendations on
enforcement: none of them mentions the possibility of a loss of
self-certification or wider implications for the Safe Harbour regimes in
case of structural failures to meet compliance to its already too
relaxed protections for EU citizens.
As it stands now, the US Safe Harbor regime is neither safe nor a
harbour – more of a jagged rock sticking out of a stormy sea. The
Commission’s recommendations can logically only lead to a continuation
of this charade. It has been said before: Safe Harbor is dead, so far we
have not got around burying it. Time for a burial at sea?
Restoring Trust in EU-US data flows – Frequently Asked Questions
(27.11.2013)
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_...
European Commission calls on the U.S. to restore trust in EU-U.S. data
flows (27.11.2013)
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_...
=======================================================================
2. European Parliament will rule on Net Neutrality
=======================================================================
EDRi has waited for years for concrete proposals to enshrine the net
neutrality principle in the European Union law. Since 2010, there has
also been an increasing number of calls from the European Parliament to
guarantee net neutrality. Finally, in September 2013, the European
Commission has proposed a draft Regulation which aims at protecting the
open internet in Europe. Vice President Neelie Kroes repeatedly stated
that this proposal would include the “right to net neutrality”.
Unfortunately, the draft Regulation proposed by Commissioner Kroes poses
a serious threat to the internet as we know it. EDRi has analysed the
three most important loopholes: specialised services, “freedom” of
end-users and “Prevent or impede serious crime”.
The good news is that it only takes a few modifications to turn the
Commission’s proposal into a meaningful means of protecting net
neutrality, thereby ensuring that the Internet remains a barrier-free
single market and a unique platform for social and cultural activity and
democratic discourse.
Read EDRi’s full analysis of the most important loopholes (26.11.2013)
EDRi’s amendments (21.11.2013)
http://www.edri.org/files/21112013-ED...
Booklet on net neutrality (26.11.2013)
http://www.edri.org/files/paper08_net...
Draft Regulation
http://ec.europa.eu/information_socie...
=======================================================================
3. Paris court orders search engines and ISPs to block websites
=======================================================================
In a case dating back from December 2011, brought to court by the French
Association of Cinema Producers, a group representing more than 120
companies including Paramount and Sony, together with other film
industry organisations, the High Court of Paris has decided, on 28
November 2013, to order Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to completely
de-list 16 video streaming sites from their search results.
The complaint targeted 16 domains connected to the popular
Allostreaming, Fifostream and DPstream video portals and had previously
received emergency interim measures. Last week the High Court of Paris
ruled that the film industry had clearly demonstrated that the sites in
question were “dedicated or virtually dedicated to the distribution of
audiovisual works without the consent of their creators,” thus violating
their copyrights.
Therefore, the search services of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and local
Orange were ordered to take all necessary measures to prevent the
occurrence on their services of any results referring to any of the
pages on the respective sites. Several ISPs, such as Free, Orange,
Bouygues Télécom, SFR, Numéricable and Darty Télécom, were also asked to
implement measures to prevent the access of their users to the
infringing sites, including blocking.
The defendants have tried to argue that blocking the illegal streaming
websites was inefficient as users can post mirror versions of the sites
under different names and use forums to communicate locations of pirated
content.
The court replied that “The impossibility of ensuring the complete and
perfect execution of the decisions should not lead courts to ignore the
content creators’ intellectual property rights.”
However, the costs incurred by the measures to be taken will not be
supported by the search engines and ISPs “The cost of the measures
ordered cannot be charged to the defendants who are required to
implement them,” the decision reads.
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and the ISPs have two weeks to implement the
measures which are to last for 12 months.
What actually the industry groups want is to give the Association for
the Fight Against Audiovisual Piracy (ALPA) the right to automatically
denounce the Internet intermediaries of the occurrence of “mirrors” of
the infringing sites, without going through a judge. ALPA has developed
some software that can trace the occurrence of a mirror of a legally
blocked site. The intention is to have the software recognised by the
court and to be able to deal with the issue and order directly the
blocking to the intermediaries. And all this on the basis of article
L336-2 of the French Intellectual Property Code which allows the
rightholders to ask any measure against anybody, in order to stop or
prevent damages to their interests.
The court decided however that in case of the re-occurrence of the
blocked sites, the parties involved would have to go through the judge
and not through the software. Yet, it left an open door to private
censorship, through “self regulation” by means of a cooperation between
Internet actors and rightholders to censure mirror sites.
”For the first time, Internet sites will be blocked by ISPs in the name
of copyright protection on the basis of vague provisions of HADOPI law
voted in 2009. This is very bad news as the blocking appears as a very
dangerous measure having in view especially the inevitable risk of
over-blocking perfectly licit sites. But the encouragement of a
cooperation between Internet actors and rightholders to censure mirror
sites susceptible to occur in the future is even more concerning. (…)
this ruling comes one more to endorse the private censorship forms that
develop everywhere on the Internet undermining fundamental rights. The
concerned Net actors must, from now on, clearly convey their refusal to
play justice missions and act as private police” said Félix Tréguer,
founding member of La Quadrature du Net.
The association has drafted a legal note to point out that the measures
required by the rightholders are breaching the European law and to draw
attention on the lack of legal basis for such requests.
The websites in question have already took measures to announce their
visitors on the new domain names and other ways to access their content.
Court Orders Google, Microsoft & Yahoo to Make Pirate Sites Disappear
(29.11.2013)
http://torrentfreak.com/court-orders-...
The Court orders blocking Allostreaming galaxy (only in French, 28.11.2013)
http://www.pcinpact.com/news/84642-la...
Paris court orders blocking of 16 video streaming sites (30.11.2013)
http://au.news.yahoo.com/technology/a...
AlloStreaming: a first legal blocking of a streaming site, soon the
private censure? (only in French, 28.11.2013)
http://www.laquadrature.net/fr/allost...
DPstream organises its by-pass of ISP blocking (only in French, 3.12.2013)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/2769...
=======================================================================
4. Google in breach of the Dutch data protection act
=======================================================================
The Dutch Data Protection Authority has recently issued a report
concluding that Google is in breach of the Dutch Data Protection Act,
with its new privacy policy.
The report is a result of the investigations carried out at the
initiation of the French data protection authority (CNIL) on behalf of
all European data protection authorities united in the Article 29
Working Party, following the introduction of Google’s new privacy policy
on 1 March 2012. After this initial investigation the results of which
were published in October 2012, six national privacy authorities, in
France, Spain, Italy, Germany (Hamburg), the UK, and the Netherlands,
have decided to initiate national investigations, based on their own
national laws.
The Dutch legislation allows information to be gathered about
individuals only for a particular purpose or business goal. Google
gathers data, some of which are of a sensitive nature, such as banking
information, location data or surfing behaviour, for the purposes of
displaying personalised ads and to personalise services such as YouTube
and Search. These data can be combined through Google’s different
services, although these services serve entirely different purposes from
the point of view of users.
The Dutch DPA found that Google combines the personal data from internet
users, collected by its various services, without adequately providing
specific information about the data it collects and without obtaining
the users’ previous consent. “Google spins an invisible web of our
personal data, without our consent. And that is forbidden by law”, says
Jacob Kohnstamm, the chairman of the Dutch data protection authority. In
the authority’s opinion, Google should work harder to get “unambiguous”
consent from users to combine data. The consent for the combining of
personal data from different Google services cannot be obtained by
accepting general (privacy) terms of service.
In response, Google argued it did give users detailed information about
the data it was collecting and what would be done with it. “Our privacy
policy respects European law and allows us to create simpler, more
effective services. We have engaged fully with the Dutch DPA throughout
this process and will continue to do so going forward,” was Google’s
statement.
The Dutch DPA has invited Google to a hearing, before deciding whether
it would take enforcement measures.
Dutch DPA: privacy policy Google in breach of data protection law
(28.11.2013)
http://www.dutchdpa.nl/Pages/pb_20131...
Dutch Data Protection Authority – Investigation into the combining of
personal data by Google Report of Definitive Findings (English informal
translation, 11.2013)
http://www.dutchdpa.nl/downloads_over...
Dutch privacy watchdog says Google breaks data law (28.11.2013)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/1...
EDRi-gram 10.20: Google needs to improve its privacy practices (24.10.2012)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10...
Google violated Dutch data protection laws, says watchdog (29.11.2013)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-...
=======================================================================
5. ECJ Advocate General: Forcing ISPs to block websites could be legal
=======================================================================
The Austrian Supreme Court has sent a request to the European Court of
Justice to clarify whether an ISP providing Internet access to those
using an alleged illegal website was to be considered as an
intermediary. It also asked for an interpretation of the EU rules on the
content and procedure for the issuing of such an injunction.
The request comes in relation to a case initiated by Constantin Film
against the Austrian ISP UPC with the purpose to prohibit UPC from
allowing its customers to access a streaming site kino.to.
The complainants argued that the ISP was providing access to its
subscribers to Kino.to, thus enabling the users to access their
copyrighted material without permission.
In his legal advice to the European Court of Justice, Advocate General
Pedro Cruz Villalón stated that Internet service providers may be
ordered to block their customers from accessing known copyright
infringing sites, according to that EU law. In his opinion, the ISP of
the user of a website infringing copyright is also to be regarded as an
intermediary whose services are used by a third party – that is the
operator of the website – to infringe copyright and therefore also as a
person against whom an injunction can be granted. In his opinion, that
is apparent from the wording, context, spirit and purpose of the
provision of EU law.
Although he believes that “it is incompatible with the weighing of the
fundamental rights of the parties [freedom of information, freedom to do
business, copyright protection] to prohibit an internet service provider
generally and without ordering specific measures from allowing its
customers to access a particular website that infringes copyright “, he
however adds that “a specific blocking measure imposed on a provider
relating to a specific website is not, in principle, disproportionate
only because it entails not inconsiderable costs but can easily be
circumvented without any special technical knowledge.”
While he emphasizes that rightholders must, as much as possible, claim
directly against the operators of the illegal website or their
providers, he also warns that, when weighing the fundamental rights, it
must be taken into account that, in future, action could be taken in
numerous similar cases against any provider before the national courts:
“It is for the national courts, in the particular case, taking into
account all relevant circumstances, to weigh the fundamental rights of
the parties against each other and thus strike a fair balance between
those fundamental rights.”
The Advocate General’s advice is not binding for the court, which will
also rule on the case.
Court of Justice of the European Union PRESS RELEASE- Advocate General’s
Opinion in Case C-314/12 (26.11.2013)
http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/do...
ISPs Can Be Required to Block Access to Pirate Sites, EU Court Hears
(26.11.2013)
http://torrentfreak.com/isps-can-be-r...
Web blocking could be illegal, says top EU legal adviser (15.04.2011)
http://www.zdnet.com/web-blocking-cou...
EU Ruling Could Extend Internet Piracy Website Blocking to All ISPs
(27.11.2013)
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/...
=======================================================================
6. Ireland: Google ordered to remove Knowledge Graph result
=======================================================================
On 28 November 2013, Google received an ex-parte interim order from an
Irish court to block the publication of a photo image of convicted
solicitor Thomas Byrne which appears as a search result alongside the
profile of Irish Senator Thomas Byrne, a solicitor himself.
Google considers it cannot be held liable for what comes up in its
search results, as it only creates a snapshot of content that is
elsewhere on the internet and this so-called “caching defence” is
covered by the EU’s e-commerce directive law, allowing ISPs to not be
held liable for being a mere conduit for information.
However, Google is no longer a mere provider of search results
reflecting the content of websites elsewhere on the internet as it
currently offers a range of products and services that bring additional
information to users, such as the “Knowledge Graph” that brings together
a number of information sources on the internet, assembling them for
search results, allowing users to provide feedback on each result,
including the option to cite specific pieces of information and
including images as “wrong”.
Thus, associated to Mr. Byrne’s biographical information, mainly from
Wikipedia, there was a photo of convicted solicitor Thomas Byrne,
resulted from Google’s “Image Search” facility which ranked pictures of
the latter first, and did not differentiate between him and the politician.
Although, Mr. Byrnes considered that the publication had been done
without malicious intention, he went to court as he had made three
attempts to contact Google to have the photograph removed, without
success. He also stated that he had also tried to use the
self-correcting mechanism on the Google site to remove the material but
had been unsuccessful as well.
Mr Justice Paul Gilligan granted the interim order under Section 33 of
the Irish Defamation Act 2009, restraining the publication of the image
of convicted solicitor Thomas Byrne’s image “as a photo and description”
of the Senator, considering the publication was clearly defamatory and
that Google Ireland Ltd had no defence to the claim.
There are critical voices that believe Google’s facility is gathering
content from thousands of websites republishing it as their own, “for
improved user experience” and that, although for the time being, Google
isn’t running ads against Knowledge Graph results, there is no guarantee
that it will not do that in the future.
Google has ended up in courts also for its autocomplete facility and
lost cases in Ireland, Germany, Italy and France where courts have held
the search engine responsible for algorithmic results presented in its
autocomplete facility.
Following the ex parte injunction ordered by the court, the photograph
of the convicted Thomas Byrne disappeared from Google’s Knowledge Graph
result. Google could have avoided a legal action if it had reacted to
the senator’s direct requests.
Not the result Google was searching for (30.11.2013)
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/techno...
FF’s Thomas Byrne blocks Google’s use of namesake’s image (28.11.2013)
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-...
Giving Google More Data for Knowledge Graphs May Not Be Optimal (9.10.2013)
http://www.seo-theory.com/2013/10/09/...
=======================================================================
7. No warrant Internet spying by French authorities
=======================================================================
On 26 November 2013, the French National Assembly discussed the draft of
the military programming law which could give the authorities the power
to collect, without a judge warrant and in real time, telecom users’
data as a result of an amendment introduced by the Senate in first reading.
Presently the internal security code stipulates that the interception of
electronic communications can be authorized in exceptional cases of
investigations related to the national security and other serious crimes.
The draft proposes to complete the internal security code to explicitly
authorize the gathering, from electronic communications providers, but
also from hosting companies and Internet editors, any information or
documents treated or kept by their electronic communications networks or
services, including (but not limited) to data related to telephone
numbers, IP address, geolocalisation of smartphones, the detailed
information of a subscriber’s communications such as date, duration and
phone numbers called.
Moreover, the draft eliminates any intervention of an independent judge
leaving the authority to validate the interception requests to “a
qualified person” designated by CNCIS (National Commission for the
control of security interceptions) under the proposition of the Prime
Minister.
Article 13 of the draft gives the possibility, under the Prime
Minister’s authorization, to collect the data in real time, directly
from the networks or operators for 30-day renewable periods.
And, as if this was not enough, the draft also extends the types of
entities to which the authorities may require the interceptions to the
content hosting companies as well, such as Google or Dailymotion.
On 20 November 2013, the Association of Internet Community Services
(ASIC), denounced these new provisions and expressed concern regarding
“the dirty race in the domain of Internet surveillance,” and asked the
Government to stop this text.
“It is time that the French government sets up a moratorium on any
adoption of new access powers to the Internet users’ data that would not
be subject to any control or authorization by a judge. Faced with CNIL’s
inaction, it is urgent that the Ministry of Justice itself launches
immediately a complete audit of the current legal framework, of the
manner in which this legal framework is pun into force by the
authorities and of the extent of the respect of the individual rights
and freedoms”, stated ASIC members.
Real time data collection by the State, illegal but cleared (update,
only in French, 25.11.2013)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/2760...
Internet Surveillance Internet : concerns over the military programming
law (only in French, 27.11.2013)
http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/ar...
Internet Surveillance, access to the users’ data: for a moratorium on
the regime of exceptions! (only in French, 21.11.2013)
Military programming law : enlarged and institutionalised digital spying
(only in French, 26.11.2013)
http://www.lemondeinformatique.fr/act...
The Assembly adopts the real-time collection of data by the state (only
in French, 29.11.2013)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/2765...
A Move Towards Generalised Internet Surveillance in France? (4.12.2013)
https://www.laquadrature.net/en/a-mov...
=======================================================================
8. Bits of Freedom presents policy package against mass surveillance
=======================================================================
On 4 December 2013 the EDRi member Dutch digital rights organisation Bits of Freedom launched a website petitioning the Dutch government to take numerous concrete measures to end mass surveillance. It officially presented the policy package to the Minister of Interior Affairs the day before.
On the campaign website, bespied-ons-niet.nl (translated as: ‘don’t
spy on us’), a wide-ranging package of policy measures is set out.
These range from diplomatic measures, to stopping plans to provide the
Dutch secret services with the authority to intercept internet traffic
on a broad scale. In addition, the organisation asks the government to
invest heavily in defensive technologies, such as encryption and
anonimisation technologies, making sure that these tools can be used
by a broad public. On a European level, the Dutch government should
advocate for measures such as termination of all data sharing
agreements with the United States and suspension of negotiations over
TAFTA.
The campaign was launched hot on the heels of the publication of a
governmental report on the Dutch Secret Service Act (the Wet op de
inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten). In the so-called
Dessens-report, it is concluded that the Act should be amended so as
to give Dutch secret services the power to mass intercept internet
traffic. It is simply incomprehensible that the Dutch government even
considers such expansion after months of publications evidencing
global mass surveillance based on documents provided by whistleblower
Edward Snowden.
The campaign site
Bits of Freedom’s reaction to the Dessens-report (02.12.2013)
https://www.bof.nl/2013/12/02/onbegre...
(Contribution by Ot van Daalen – Bits of Freedom)
=======================================================================
9. ENDitorial: Lessons from the failure of Licences for Europe
=======================================================================
Now that the Licences for Europe has failed so comprehensively, it is
time to reflect on what types of voluntary or self-regulatory
initiatives are likely to work and which are likely to fail.
Last May, at the Stockholm Internet Forum, EDRi ran an “unconference”
session, which brainstormed about what characteristics a self-regulatory
initiative would need to have in order to be likely to succeed.
Participants produced eight criteria. To avoid failures or
counterproductive outcomes of such projects in the future, it would be
valuable for the Commission to develop a comprehensive methodology for
analysing the context and potential for success. Looking at the Licences
for Europe framework through the prism of the “Stockholm Internet Forum”
criteria, we can see that even these basic principles could have been
valuable.
Criterion 1: Is the process internal or external to the intermediary?
This criterion was met to varying degrees by the different industry
stakeholders. The ability to grant licences is clearly an internal
process for rightsholders. However, for the users of content for various
processes (text and data mining, video hosting, etc), the process issue
is entirely external. So, we can say that the criterion is partly
respected, but does clearly raise concerns
Criterion 2: Are there vested interests on the part of the intermediary?
There is an obvious vested interest for rightsholders to demand
licensing of content in all available situations – or at least have the
right to do so – because that allows them more control. There are also
vested interests for the users of protected content to use special deals
and market dominance to exploit voluntary arrangements. If the
Commission had used this methodology, therefore, it would have raised a
warning flag.
Criterion 3: How competitive is the market?
This varies widely. However, we know that there is major consolidation
and dominance in certain major markets that were covered by the
discussions. These competition problems range from the music industry to
the video hosting industry (where YouTube is part of Google’s very wide
online activities). Another red flag.
Criterion 4: What is the (public) policy objective being pursued?
Even though the Commission launched the project and chaired it (i.e. it
was clearly a Commission project), it insisted on maintaining a fiction
that it was simply a facilitator and could not set the agenda or specify
what problems needed to be addressed. Consequently, the public policy
objective for the four working groups was not set in advance. Another
red flag.
Criterion 5: Whose law is being implemented?
The point of the exercise was to move away from the limits of the
existing chaotic legal framework. If we take protected content that is
used for parody purposes, for example, there are four EU countries that
have a specific copyright exception for this purpose and twenty-four
that do not. A “voluntary” agreement between hosting providers and
content providers to ask the latter to licence such activities (and a
licence can always be revoked), would effectively negate the legal
rights of citizens in the four countries that have implemented the
exception. So, the law would be replace by a system where the citizens
of those four countries would lose their rights. Another red flag.
Criterion 6: Are there regional variations of the impact of the measures?
This criterion is only relevant to the extent that it is covered by the
previous point. The criterion covers situations where a voluntary
measure would have different “real-world” outcomes in different world
regions. No red flag.
Criterion 7: What is the responsibility of the intermediary for its
interventions and does the citizen have a right of redress?
If we take the example of “user-generated content”, the intermediaries
would restrict the rights of the individual through their terms of
service (such as in the parody example in point 5 above) and thereby
avoid responsibility for restrictions of legally “guaranteed” rights.
Criterion 8: What is the collateral damage for liability exceptions?
This criterion is not relevant.
So, in conclusion, of the eight criteria, points 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 raise
concerns, point 1 is partly relevant and only points 6 and 8 are not
relevant.
While this methodology is quite crude, it is still more sophisticated
than anything produced by the European Commission over the entire
history of its support for “self-regulation” in the online environment.
The fact that even this simple methodology could have helped to predict
and avoid the problems of licences for Europe shows that a more
structured and analytical approach to the issue of self-regulation in
the online world is badly needed. There is an open question however – is
the lack of an appropriate methodology from the European Commission due
to a simple oversight or is the Commission afraid that such a
methodology would prevent it from proposing self-regulation in
circumstances that are politically appealing but impractical or damaging
in the real world?
SIF Unconference: Enforcement through “self-”Regulation – who ever
thought this was a good idea? (27.05.2013)
(Contribution by Joe McNamee – EDRi)
=======================================================================
10. Recommended Action
=======================================================================
EDRi looks for a Community and Communications Manager
Deadline for applications: 6 December 2013
http://www.edri.org/Community-Communi...
=======================================================================
11. Recommended Reading
=======================================================================
Swiss ISPs Condemn “Useless” Blocking Proposals From Secret Piracy Talks
(25.11.2013)
http://torrentfreak.com/isps-condemn-...
Third Committee Approves Text Titled ‘Right to Privacy in the Digital
Age’, as It Takes Action on 18 Draft Resolutions
https://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2...
International Olympic Committee Demands 2014 Olympics Piracy Takedowns &
Blocks “Within Minutes” (21.11.2013)
http://torrentfreak.com/ioc-demands-2...
Vodafone Iceland hacked: 70k client accounts made available on p2p
networks (30.11.2013)
http://www.cyberwarnews.info/reports/...
Facebook trashes its “principles” as it blocks human rights pages in
Pakistan (28.11.2013)
http://www.privacysurgeon.org/blog/in...
Supreme Court of Belgium Orders ISPs to Police the Internet for Pirate
Bay Proxies (20.11.2013)
http://torrentfreak.com/court-orders-...
=======================================================================
12. Agenda
=======================================================================
27–30 December 2013, Hamburg, Germany
30C3 – 30th Chaos Communication Congress
https://events.ccc.de/congress/2013/w...
22-24 January 2014, Brussels, Belgium
CPDP 2014: Reforming data protection: The Global Perspective
http://www.cpdpconferences.org/
1-2 February 2014, Brussels, Belgium
FOSDEM 2014
3-5 March 2014, San Francisco, California, USA
RightsCon: Silicon Valley
19-20 March 2014, Athens, Greece
European Data Forum 2014 (EDF2014)
CfP by 10 December 2013
24-25 April 2014, Barcelona, Spain
SSN 2014: Surveillance Ambiguities & Asymmetries
28-29 April 2014, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
OER14: building communities of open practice
3-4 July 2014, Barcelona, Spain
10th International Conference on Internet Law & Politics: Big Data: A
decade of transformations.
Abstracts deadline: 10 December 2013
http://edcp.uoc.edu/symposia/idp2014/...
============================================================
13. About
============================================================
EDRi-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe.
Currently EDRi has 35 members based or with offices in 21 different
countries in Europe. European Digital Rights takes an active interest in
developments in the EU accession countries and wants to share knowledge
and awareness through the EDRi-gram.
All contributions, suggestions for content, corrections or agenda-tips
are most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and are
visible on the EDRi website.
This EDRi-gram has been published with financial support from the EU’s
Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Programme.
Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. See the full text at
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea
Information about EDRi and its members:
European Digital Rights needs your help in upholding digital rights in
the EU. If you wish to help us promote digital rights, please consider
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EDRI-gram is also available in German, with delay. Translations are
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First International Conference on Multimedia, Scientific Information and Visualization for Information Systems and Metrics
*I always enjoy these lists of conference topics. This one is particularly extensive and out-there.
***************************************************************************************************
Call for Papers :: First International Conference on MSIVISM 2014 :: Maribor, Slovenia :: January, 29 – 31, 2014
::
ALAIPO :: Latin Association of Human-Computer Interaction (Asociacion Latina de Interaccion Persona Ordenador) :: www.alaipo.com
AInCI :: International Association of Interactive Communication (Asociacion Internacional de la Comunicacion Interactiva) :: www.ainci.com
::
First International Conference on Multimedia, Scientific Information and Visualization for Information Systems and Metrics (MSIVISM 2014) :: Maribor – Slovenia :: January 29 – 31, 2014
http://www.ainci.com/MSIVISM/MSIVISM....
MSIVISM 2013 will be composed of research presentations, keynote lectures, invited presentations, workshops, doctoral consortium, demo session and poster presentations.
Papers must be submitted following the instructions found on the submission of papers section. All accepted papers will be published in the respective conference proceedings (in printed book form, CD/DVD and magazine) by international and prestigious publishing houses in America and Europe:
1) Post-conference publishing book: ‘Advanced Research and Trends in New Technologies, Software, Human-Computer Interaction and Communicability’. IGI Global: Hershey, Pennsylvania – USA
*** Publications have been indexed in a number of prestigious indices such as Thomson Reuters, DBLP, ACM Digital Library, ERIC, and the Australian Education Index ***
2) An academic CD proceedings version -not commercial (distribution in the room), with ISBN 978.88.96.471.24.1 :: DOI 10.978.8896471/241
3) The papers are will be submitted for indexation by EI COMPENDEX, INSPEC, THOMSON REUTERS and DBLP.UNI-TRIE.DE
4) Magazine in America / EU (i.e., IEEE, ACM, etc.)
Very Important: The authors can present more than one paper with only one registration (maximum 3 papers).
All contributions should be of high quality, originality, clarity, significance, impact and not published elsewhere or submitted for publication during the review period. In the current international conference it is demonstrated how with a correct integration among professionals of formal and factual sciences interesting research lines in the following subjects advances in new technologies, interactive interfaces and communicability and other computational areas are solicited on, but not limited to:
:: Adaptive Interfaces
:: Auditory Contents of Multimedia
:: Bioinformatics
:: Cloud Computing
:: Cognitive modeling
:: Communicability
:: Complexity and Software Metrics
:: Computer Graphics and Animation
:: Computer Vision
:: Computational Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
:: Cultural and Natural Heritage Online
:: Cyber Behaviour and Cyber Attacks
:: Data Management and Mining
:: Data Science and Digital Repositories
:: Digital Signal Processing and Software Simulation
:: Domotics
:: e-Book: Literature and Virtual Art
:: e-Bussiness, e-Commerce, and e-Payment Systems
:: e-Government
:: e-Job
:: e-Science in the Cloud
:: Embedded Systems Design
:: Emerging Trends and Technologies for Mobile Scientific Visualization
:: Ergonomics
:: Ethics and Aesthetics for Interactive Contents Online
:: Games for Learning
:: Globalization and ICT
:: Human and Social Factors in Scientific Journalism
:: Human-Computer Interaction and Human-Computer Communication
:: Hypertext, Multimedia and Hypermedia Systems
:: ICT Sustainability
:: Image Processing
:: Information Management
:: Information Systems Design
:: Intelligent Systems
:: Interaction in VR and MR
:: Interface Metaphors
:: Interfaces for Collaborative Work
:: Knowledge Management
:: Languages and Middleware
:: Legislation for New Technologies
:: Linguistics and Semiotics for Interactive Design
:: Local and Global Users
:: Machine Learning
:: Management of Communications in Hypermedia Systems
:: Medical Informatics
:: Methodologies for the Quality Evaluation of Communication
:: Methods and Techniques for Assessment of Multimedia Systems
:: Mobile APIs and Services
:: Mobile Interaction Design
:: Mobile Social Network Interaction
:: Mobile Training, Teaching, and Learning
:: Models of Design for Interactive Systems
:: Natural Language Processing
:: Networking and Connectivity
:: Ontology and the Semantic Web
:: Open Source Software
:: Outsourcing in Information Systems
:: Parallel and Distributed Algorithms
:: Pervasive and Mobile Computing
:: Quality Attributes in the Interactive Systems
:: Quality Metrics
:: Robotic Systems
:: Science Journalism
:: Scientific Information and Free Accesibility
:: Scientific Information for Social Development
:: Scientific Publications and Informatics
:: Scientific Reputation and Public Opinion in Virtual Communities
:: Security, Cryptography and Applied Mathematics
:: Social Impacts of Nanotechnology
:: Soft Computing
:: Software and Technologies for e-Learning
:: Software Architecture
:: Synthetic Characters and Behaviour Computer Animation
:: Tangible and Embodied Interaction for Creativity and Cognition
:: Technological and Scientific Information through New Media
:: Telecommunications
:: Teleducation and Computer Aided Education
:: Ubiquitous Multimedia
:: Usability Engineering
:: Videogames
:: Virtual Societies
:: Web Engineering
:: Web Privacy
:: Wireless and Mobile Computing
All submitted papers will be reviewed by a double-blind (at least three reviewers), non-blind, and participative peer review.
These three kinds of review will support the selection process of those that will be accepted for their presentation at the international conference.
Authors of accepted papers who registered in the conference can have access to the evaluations and possible feedback provided by the reviewers who recommended the acceptance of their papers, so they can accordingly improve the final version of their papers.
::
—————-
Important Dates
—————-
::
Papers Submissions: January, 7 :: 23:59 – local time in Hawaiian Islands
Authors Notification: 7 days, after the submission
Camera-ready, full papers: January, 21
::
Invited Session Papers, Technical Demo and Poster Session
Submission of Papers: Set by Session Chair
Notification of Acceptance: Set by Sessions Chair
Upload of Final Publication Files: January, 21
::
International Conference
January, 29 – 31
::
———————-
Important information
———————-
::
Keynote Speakers: 6.
::
—————-
Cultural Events
—————-
::
Free for all participants.
::
P.S. In case you are not interested for this international conference, we would be grateful if you can pass on this information/email to another interested person you see fit (thank you very much). If you wish to be removed from this mailing list, please send an email to info[at]ainci.com with “remove” in the subject line.
December 4, 2013
Design Fiction: NanoSupermarket Call for Products
*If you somehow win this, you’ll be part of a rare elite who actually got paid real money to do a design fiction commission.
*It’s a shame they’re not offering Bitcoins, as Bitcoins are the diegetic prototype of some kind of workable currency.
http://www.nanosupermarket.org/contribute
CALL FOR PRODUCTS
DESIGN A DEBATE PROVOKING NANO PRODUCT AND WIN € 2500
We call upon designers, technologists and artists to translate current nanotech trends into speculative yet visionary products that stimulate debate on our nanotech future. We are searching for well thought-out and designed proposals that take technological, economical, political and societal trends into consideration: Science faction rather than science fiction.
A selection of the entries will be presented in the Nano Supermarket and the accompanying publication. Entries are judged by an international jury of nanotech and design experts upon originality, design quality, visual presentation, technological feasibility and the extent to which your design stimulates debate. For more info, read Juryreport 2010 and Juryreport 2012.
You can submit your product in two different categories: As a photoshop model or as a physical model. A selection of the best photoshop models will be displayed in the catalogue and on the website. A selection of the best physical models will also be displayed in the physical supermarket.
The winning submission is awarded € 2500. Deadline 15 May 2014.
YOUR SUBMISSION CONSISTS OF:
1. A short product pitch.
2. A description of the technological feasability of your product. Which principles allow your product to function, and how and when do you expect it to be produced?
3. A reflection on the socio-cultural implications of your product. What are the promises and fears of the underlying technology and how do you expect your product will change everyday life?
4. A photograph and a technical description of your physical model, OR a photoshop model (depending on the category you want to submit to).
DOWNLOAD SUBMISSION FORM
Dead Media Beat: historical video games
*Maybe, in the future, they’ll be like the Eleusinian Mysteries. Famous to period historians, but entirely obscure and forever lost to comprehension.
“Since their birth as a science-fair curiosity at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the late 1950s, video games have moved inexorably towards higher and more central cultural ground, much like film did in the first half of the 20th century.
“Games were confined at first to the lowbrow carnival of the arcade, but they soon spread to the middlebrow sphere of the living room, overran this private space, and burst out and upwards into the public spheres of art and academia. With prestigious universities like NYU and USC now offering graduate-level programs in game design, and major museums like MoMA, MAD, and SF MoMA beginning to acquire games and curate game exhibitions, preserving the early history of the medium appears more important than ever. But what exactly does it mean to preserve a digital game?
“The answer is surprisingly simple: It means, first and foremost, preserving a record of how it was played and what it meant to its player community. Ensuring continued access to a playable version of the game through maintenance of the original hardware or emulation is less important—if it matters at all.
” “It’s impossible to save the culture of a game, which is really the most important part.”
That, at least, was the provocative argument Henry Lowood made at Pressing Restart, which recently brought preservationists, teachers, academics, and curators together at the NYU Poly MAGNET center for a day of “community discussions on video game preservation.” Lowood is no contrarian whippersnapper; as a curator at the Stanford Libraries, he has been professionally involved in game preservation efforts for well over a decade.
” In his talk, part of a panel on collection criteria for collecting institutions, Lowood decried the fallacy of the executable—the idea that game librarians in 2100 can sleep easy feeling they’ve done their job well so long as they can brainsync their patrons with fresh working copies of Diablo III, Bejeweled, or any other canonical game. The problem with this attitude, Lowood argued, is that a game is not simply a piece of software, but rather a historically specific site of shared experience….”
December 3, 2013
Design Fiction: Tobias Revell, “Critical Design / Design Fiction”
*Gosh, what a swell lecture that is. It’s as crammed with good stuff as a walnut. Anyone with an interest in design fiction should read this, and anyone with a serious interest should read it three times and take notes.
http://blog.tobiasrevell.com/2013/12/critical-design-design-fiction-lecture.html
Web Semantics: banned Android Kitkat words
*Those are interesting.
*If Google hired people to red-pencil words on mobile devices, there would be an uproar, but since it’s just an algorithm and a data bank, it scarcely feels like censorship at all.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/12/banned-android-words/
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