@anarchyroll has created a podcast for AnarchyJC.com! A short, sweet, simple, and to the point podcast (less than five minutes) on a topic/issue of importance that effects all of us whether we are aware of it or not.
Episode #1 is on Bit Rot which threatens our ability to have and rely on digital archives.
Links:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_rot
america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/…aordoesit.html
My original article on Bit Rot can be found by clicking HERE
Enjoy!
by @anarchyroll
5/7/2014
The last year has been full of vindication for all those paranoid schizophrenics out there.
We now know that not only has the NSA essentially been getting all the data on the internet and storing it, which is bad enough, but it came out this week that they weren’t using a back door but rather have the keys to the front of anything and everything Google. Which is basically everything that isn’t Apple.
The paranoia about what is done with our information is done online is spreading, and why wouldn’t it? It has also been found that our search engine uses and habits have changed in the wake of the NSA leaks.
I suppose I should think that unlawful spying is unlawful spying regardless. But something, and I’m not sure what exactly bothers me more than Google has been in on it the whole time. Call it naivety, and you’d probably be right or the other thing to call it is a natural reaction to massive trust violation.
This is why those agreements we have to sign before signing up for anything for free online is so long and in such small print I suppose. Fill it with loopholes so there is no legal obligation to not sell the information of every customer to a data broker or give it to Uncle Sam. What about the moral obligation? Oh, there’s that naivety again. It’s business, who has time for morals? After all, what could be more moral than listening to one’s government?
It is sad how much Google is able to justify what they did to themselves. I suppose that there is a strong correlation with trust violation and monetary profit, not just these days, but basically since currency became the currency of the world. The amount of flagrant Big Brother going on with the NSA and telcoms physically weakens me. It makes me feel like not writing. All the more reason to write. The quality may not be on par, but if anyone learns about what is going on through my writing then it’s worth it.
Great news sources that stay on top of the NSA are: The Intercept, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, and The Verge.
by @anarchyroll
5/8/2014
The most influential protest movement this side of the 1960s has now had it’s overly wide net cast over the battle for net neutrality. Although not formally part of the movement, an Occupy Wall Street style protest camp has emerged outside of the FCC headquarters.
You may be wondering or assuming that this is a case of David vs Goliath. That Verizon, Comcast, AT&T and the other internet providers are going to steamroll over the little guys (aka 99% of the population) and get everything that they want. However, in the battle against the ISP Godzilla, the little guys have a Mothra on their side. Yesterday a coalition of companies whose entire business model and fortunes have been made on the back of the open internet let their voice and lobbyists be heard to try to protect net neutrality.
Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, Amazon, Reddit and Google sent a letter to the FCC voicing their collective, formal support for net neutrality to remain the law of the land. They also backed the call of the common person, to change how broadband ISP’s like telecomm companies which would give the FCC more regulatory control.
You know a bill or potential law is bad if billionaires are on the same side as college students and common folk. The fact that all of these billion dollar companies think tiered internet is a bad idea, then there is likely fire behind that smoke. Net neutrality has allowed the internet to evolve into what it has become. Broadband providers trying to take net neutrality away is nothing more than a despicable money grab. Billionaires who wish to be trillionaires. The battle against net neutrality is greed at it’s worst. Contrary to what middle class white people use the internet for, an open internet is about more than cat videos, selfies, memes, and gifs.
The internet is a necessity at a level just under that of water, food, clothing, and shelter.
Forget the concept of the internet as an entertainment tool and time waster. Forget about social networks, You Tube, torrent sites, and porn. The fight for net neutrality has nothing to do with those. The fight for an open internet is about the internet as the greatest communication tool in the history of humanity. How many people NEED the internet to make a living? How many businesses rely on e-commerce? How big of a role is email in business and education? How many kids do their homework online? How many people around the world lift themselves out of poverty through the internet? How many inventions have been invented because of the internet?
The answer is to all of those is none. It’s not just the “internet” it is an OPEN INTERNET. The internet without network neutrality is not the internet. The death of network neutrality would fundamentally change the way the majority of human beings are able to access the internet. The end of network neutrality is the end of the internet as we know it. The internet will still exist, but in a new form that favors the rich and the powerful. A form that is detrimental to the common person. Ask yourself, who would want to do this to the internet and why?
by @anarchyroll
5/7/2014
I guess I’ll be old enough to say that I remember when the effects of climate change and global warming were futuristic threats.
But that was so 1990s and early 2000s. Climate change is here. Climate change is now. Climate change is an immediate and direct threat to the human race.
Global warming has become the paradigm with which we view the majority of the large-scale problems of the world. Why is that? Because the effects of global warming can no longer be ignored. It is touching every corner of the world in one way or another. Droughts here, hurricanes there, typhoons on this side of the planet, wildfires on the other. These natural disasters have existed for a long time, but because of climate change, all of the above are stronger and more devastating.
We are entering no turning back territory and things like fracking and the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan certainly aren’t helping anything. Nuclear power and fracking are putting climate change on fast forward.
Although that seems to be what the climate change deniers want. They seem to think the planet is going to hell anyway so why bother trying to save it? I have also noticed a very strong correlation between climate change deniers and those who are religious. After all, if there is an all being, all-knowing creator living above the clouds, it will save the planet before we run out of drinkable water right? Before the seas rise up and wipe away all life, we’ll all be saved right? Maybe just the ones who build an arc. Human beings are tribal people. The human mind is quite the labyrinth. But it is time to realize that we are all in this together whether we want to be or not. That whether one believes in science or in religion, that we are tasked with saving ourselves, not waiting for a hand to swat away rising CO2 emissions.
What we need is more than just compost heaps, organic farming, and hybrid vehicles. We need those in power, those with money, those in charge to set forth very large-scale changes. We need the leaders to lead. We can bicker at each other all we want about using reusable shopping bags and air conditioning, but when those who we have elected set a green agenda for the masses to follow, then and only then will we as a race be able to see a light at the end of the tunnel that isn’t from a 10,000 mile wide wildfire.
by @anarchyroll
5/4/2014
I am not old enough to remember a time when Washington DC wasn’t all smoke and mirrors for the elite to create the illusion of freedom. A great example of this is the current effort by the Obama Administration seeking legal immunity for the major telecommunication companies for complying with the NSA’s bulk metadata collection programs. Why is this typical Washington BS? Because the telcomms already have immunity because they were following the law when they complied with FISA court requests. The White House feels the need to request immunity for telcomms because of the multiple NSA reforms that are currently making their way through Congress. But if the Bush Administration wasn’t prosecuted, Gitmo is still open, and no one from Wall Street went to jail after 2008; is formal immunity really needed from Verizon, Comcast, and the gang?
So a sarcastic blog paragraph, is that it? NO. The real story here is in the earmarks. Both supporters and defenders of the NSA are trying to attach hidden bills, add ons, amendments, etc to the various bills to advance their agenda through the back doors of democracy.
This is a problem not just because of how shady earmarks are in principle, but the fact that both sides are doing it threatens to undo any and all NSA reform. Both sides are saying all the right things but are doing very different things when the doors are closed and the cameras are off, what else is new? So keep an eye and an ear on the legislation that eventually makes it to a vote that reforms and repeals the NSA’s various Big Brother programs. Will they do nothing? Go too far? Not far enough? One will have to go beyond the headline and seek out whether there are earmarks and if so what they entail to know the validity and likely the fate of any changes to the NSA’s ability quest to destroy private lives as we know it.
Anarchy Journal Constitutional 