Today on Boing Boing tv, a conversation with
Ethan Zuckerman, co-founder of
Global Voices, about videoblogging culture in the North African nation of
Tunisia.
Despite intense restrictions on freedom of speech there, and extreme risks for critics of the political status quo, bloggers there are finding innovative uses for video online, as a method of cultural commentary and activism. Using tools like Tor and SipPhone to ensure anonymity, they have proven themselves to be several steps ahead of their US counterparts -- as evidenced by a story Zuckerman shares about an Apple ad remix.
Sites and organizations referenced in or related to this BBtv episode include:
* advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org
* Reporters Without Borders
* Committee for the Protection of Journalists
* Amnesty International.
Related previous Boing Boing posts:
Tunisia jails, reportedly tortures popular blogger and online journo
Liveblogging WSIS in Tunisia, continued.
Liveblogging WSIS in Tunisia, continued.
Report: Journalists, others at WSIS attacked by authorities
BoB award noms for world "freedom of expression" blogs
Today on
Boing Boing tv, a vlog from
Mark about
Socialbomb, a real-world tech game that explores social circles and ways to measure interpersonal reputation.
The current version is designed to accommodate 30 players. Each player is awarded points for being near players with higher reputations, and penalized for being near players with lower reputations. Bonuses and penalties are applied according to overall social promiscuity and status. The player with the worst reputation score is the 'Socialbomb.' Their score will have the most negative impact on a social circle.
Shot on location at the
O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference.
Posted on March 19, 2008 12:20 AM
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A number of credit card companies now issue credit cards with embedded RFIDs (radio frequency ID tags), with promises of enhanced security and speedy transactions.
But on today's episode of Boing Boing tv, hacker and inventor Pablos Holman shows Xeni how you can use about $8 worth of gear bought on eBay to read personal data from those credit cards -- cardholder name, credit card number, and whatever else your bank embeds in this manner.
Fears over data leaks from RFID-enabled cards aren't new, and some argue they're overblown -- but this demo shows just how cheap and easy the "sniffing" can be.
This episode is part of our ongoing series of interviews with some of the thinkers, hackers, and tinkerers at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology conference this year.
Today on
Boing Boing tv, Xeni speaks with defense technology journalist
Noah Shachtman about the role technology plays in the Iraq war. This episode is part of our ongoing series of interviews with some of the thinkers, hackers, and tinkerers at the O'Reilly
Emerging Technology conference this year.
Noah is a contributor to Wired, and the editor of Wired's defense tech blog Danger Room. Don't miss his recent Wired magazine feature, "How Technology Almost Lost the War: In Iraq, the Critical Networks Are Social — Not Electronic."
Xeni speaks with
author and
Wired editor in chief Chris Anderson, and "airplane geek"
Jordi Munoz, about the quest to create the ultimate
sub-$100 aerial drone. One design involved the use of a Nintendo Wii controller. UAVs are often associated with military combat or police surveillance, but what "friendlier" uses might we put them to, in civilian hands? Shot at the
O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego, California.
Here's more on their Minimum Blimp.
Posted on March 11, 2008 12:00 AM
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Please to be watching. BBtv's invizibul Soviet bureau telexes report:
Soviet Unterzögersdorf is last existing republic of USSR. The enclave maintains no diplomatic relationship with surrounding so-called "Republic of Austria" or with the Fortress "European Union." The downfall of her motherland -- the Soviet Union -- in the early 1990s had a particularly bad effect on the country’s economic situation. It is a great challenge to secure survival for the small but proud confederation. External reactionary forces put the country in danger.
His Excellency Ambassador of Soviet Unterzoegersdorf, Nikita Chrusov, is entering the Marriott Hotel in San Diego, during O'Reilly ETech conference, to attend a corporate afterparty sponsored by Disney.com.
After four weeks of sea travel on a cargo ship and two weeks of journey in a Greyhound bus, the Ambassador is eagerly awaiting a meeting. He wants to confront Disney executives with a couple of questions, especially talking to them about their "sugar-coated bullets", that threaten the very existence of his country by brutal cultural force.
But then -- he is forcibly ejected from party, like cosmonaut from spaceship escape hatch. Commissar Chrusov calls this act "an unbelievable act of political shortsightness" and complains about mysterious green "poisoned pudding."
Special thanks to
Johnannes and monochrom, who had absolutely nothing to do with this, and to cameo guests
Eddie Codel of
Geek Entertainment TV; Scott Beale of
Laughing Squid (who
covered this incident here); and
John Perry Barlow,
EFF co-founder.
Shot by BBtv segment producer Russ Gooberman.
Update: Soviet Unterzoegersdorf is not amused.
In 2005,
Mark Klein, a former
AT&T technician,
brought to public attention documents which showed that
the
National Security Agency had obtained copies of Internet traffic flowing through an AT&T facility in San Francisco and through several other AT&T locations across the country.
This led to public outcry over the US government's
warrantless wiretapping program, and a lawsuit
against AT&T by the Electronic Frontier Foundation .
At the 2008 EFF Pioneer Awards ceremony
during the O'Reilly ETech conference,
the EFF honored Klein's whistleblowing efforts.
In this interview at the awards ceremony,
Klein and EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn speak with us about efforts to persuade
lawmakers not to grant legal immunity to telecoms
that may have broken the law while helping
the government in anti-terrorism efforts.
On March 6, 2008, another whistleblower came forward
with similar claims. Computer security consultant
Babak Pasdar said he'd discovered a mysterious
"Quantico Circuit" while working for
an unnamed major wireless carrier.
He believes this circuit gives the U.S. government
direct, high-speed access to
customers' voice and data transmissions.
For more information: EFF.org.
Update: Wired's Threat Level blog posted about this BBtv episode just now, and reminds us...
And just to toot our own horn, although Wired wasn't the first to write about the Klein documents, we did acquire them while they were under court seal (from a party not subject to the gag order) and publish them for geeks of the world to analyze. (Explanation here.)
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