A Longitudinal Measurement Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and its Effect on the Web – Bentham’s Gaze

A Longitudinal Measurement Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and its Effect on the Web – Bentham’s Gaze: "Ultimately, 4chan and /pol/ are continuously evolving.  Over the past year, the sale of 4chan to Hiroyuki Nishimura, recent rumors of the site struggling with monetization, the introduction of very mild moderation by so-called janitors, or other controversial events like the #GamerGate incident, naturally create shifts in topics and activities, as well as users moving to other, somewhat similar sites (e.g. 8chan). But as the world increasingly looks at 4chan, 4chan will not so silently be looking back — a fact that we can personally attest to." 'via Blog this'

Populism and Privacy - UN Special Rapporteur on Privacy

2015-2017 have seen agrowing tendency, especially though not exclusively in Europe, to indulge in “gesture-politics”. In other words, the past eighteen months have seen politicians who wish to be seen to be doing something about security, legislating privacy-intrusive powers into being – or legalise existing practices – without in any way demonstrating that this is either a proportionate or indeed an effective way to tackle terrorism.

b.      The new laws introduced are predicated on the psychology of fear: the disproportionate though understandable fear that electorates may have in the face of the threat of terrorism. The level of the fear prevents the electorate from objectively assessing the effectiveness of the privacy-intrusive measures proposed.

c.       There is little or no evidence to persuade the SRP of either the efficacy or the proportionality of some of the extremely privacy-intrusive measures that have been introduced by new surveillance laws in France, Germany, the UK and the USA. Like Judge Robart in the recent case on the immigration ban in the USA, the SRP must seek evidence for the proportionality of the measures provided for by law[1]s. In the same way as Judge Robart asked as to precisely how many cases of terrorism were carried out since 2001 by nationals of the states subjected to the immigration ban, the SRP must ask as to whether it would not be much more proportional, never mind more cost-effective and less privacy-intrusive if more money was spent on the human resources required to carry out targeted surveillance and infiltration and if less effort were expended on electronic surveillance. This, in a time when the vast majority of all terrorist attacks were carried out by suspects already known to the authorities prior to the attacks.

d.      There is also growing evidence that the information held by states, including that collected through bulk acquisition or “mass surveillance” is increasingly vulnerable to being hacked by hostile governments or organised crime. The risk created by the collection of such data has nowhere been demonstrated to be proportional to the reduction of risk achieved by bulk acquisition.

e.       Furthermore, the abuse of data collected by bulk acquisition remains a primary source of concern. Without necessarily casting aspersions on the incoming US administration, the concerns expressed in that context by a senior HRW researcher are worth reproducing: “In the US, the National Security Agency continues its information dragnet on millions of people every day, despite modest reforms in 2015. Now the keys to the world’s most sophisticated surveillance apparatus have been handed over to a candidate (who) threatened to imprison his political opponent, register and ban Muslims, deport millions of immigrants, and menace the free press.”[2] While the checks and balances existing in the USA or indeed the ethical standards of the Executive itself may hopefully push the US away from the realisation of such risks, the point being made here by the SRP is that once the data sets produced by mass surveillance or bulk acquisition exist and a new unscrupulous administration comes into power anywhere in the world, the potential for abuse of such data is such so as to preclude its very collection in the first place.

f.       RECOMMENDATION: Desist from playing the fear card, and improve security through proportionate and effective measures not with unduly disproportionate privacy-intrusive laws “I don’t believe that any form of leadership is best exercised by using fear. True political leadership does not play the fear card” [3]

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                    ^[1]   http://www.npr.org/2017/02/04/513446463/who-is-judge-james-l-robart-and-why-did-he-block-trumps-immigration-order

                    [2]   Cynthia Wong, Surveillance in the age of populism” Human Rights Watch last accessed on 12^th Feb 2017 at https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/02/07/surveillance-age-populism

                    [3]   Cardinal Vincent Nichols speaking to the BBC on Sunday 05 February 2017 –Westminster hour website 

Europe will fine Twitter, Facebook, Google etc unless they rip up T&Cs • The Register

Europe will fine Twitter, Facebook, Google etc unless they rip up T&Cs • The Register: "An official from the EC's consumer protection authorities confirmed it intends to "take action to make sure social media companies comply with EU consumer rules."

 Today's crackdown follows a letter sent to tech giants at the end of last year pointing out that the rules users sign up to when they use their services are not consistent with European law and need to be changed.

Those letters resulted in a flurry of activity by the US-based companies, introducing new policies and processes in an effort to head off a formal investigation.

But, as the German government made clear earlier this week when it announced plans to fine them up to €50m for not taking down illegal content within 24 hours, those efforts were not sufficient.

Germany – which remains the most powerful member of the European Union – promised it would also push its efforts to make Facebook, Twitter and friends more accountable in Europe. The decision to push for changes to their terms and conditions appears to be the first stage of that.

 As for the changes requested by the EC, they appear to be focused on pulling out the legal language that the companies use to avoid liability as far as possible.

In particular, the requirement for any user of the services worldwide to sue the company in the state of California – where most of the companies are based and which has a tech-friendly legal system – is top of the list, with the EC saying it needs to be changed so users can sue the company in their home country.

 There is also a push to remove or reform language over consumers waiving their rights, including the ability to cancel a contract – something that would likely change social media companies' ability to claim that anything posted to their networks is their property. And changes have been requested over how the companies determine what is suitable content submitted by users." 'via Blog this'

European Parliament offers scathing criticism of EU-US Privacy Shield

European Parliament offers scathing criticism of EU-US Privacy Shield: "Af­ter the vote, Claude Moraes, the Civil Lib­er­ties Com­mit­tee Chair­man, said that “the Civil Lib­er­ties Com­mit­tee res­o­lu­tion adopted to­day sends a clear mes­sage that, while the Pri­vacy Shield con­tains sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ments com­pared to the for­mer EU-US Safe Har­bour, key de­fi­cien­cies re­main to be ur­gently re­solved”.

The par­lia­ment res­o­lu­tion thus ac­knowl­edges sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ments along with of­fer­ing scathing crit­i­cism of the new agree­ment. The lack of ef­fec­tive ju­di­cial re­dress for EU cit­i­zens in the US is among the is­sues high­lighted. Specif­i­cally, the res­o­lu­tion states that “nei­ther the Pri­vacy Shield Prin­ci­ples nor the let­ters of the U.S. ad­min­is­tra­tion pro­vid­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tions and as­sur­ances demon­strate the ex­is­tence of ef­fec­tive ju­di­cial re­dress rights for in­di­vid­u­als in the EU whose per­sonal data are trans­ferred to an U.S. or­gan­i­sa­tion un­der the Pri­vacy Shield Prin­ci­ples”.

The res­o­lu­tion also crit­i­cises the fact that “the Om­budsper­son mech­a­nism set up by the U.S. De­part­ment of State is not suf­fi­ciently in­de­pen­dent”." 'via Blog this'

Senate votes to let ISPs sell your Web browsing history to advertisers | Ars Technica

Senate votes to let ISPs sell your Web browsing history to advertisers | Ars Technica: "The rules were approved in October 2016 by the Federal Communications Commission's then-Democratic leadership, but are opposed by the FCC's new Republican majority and Republicans in Congress. The Senate today used its power under the Congressional Review Act to ensure that the FCC rulemaking "shall have no force or effect" and to prevent the FCC from issuing similar regulations in the future.

 The House, also controlled by Republicans, would need to vote on the measure before the privacy rules are officially eliminated. President Trump could also preserve the privacy rules by issuing a veto. If the House and Trump agree with the Senate's action, ISPs won't have to seek customer approval before sharing their browsing histories and other private information with advertisers." 'via Blog this'

Free Speech and Protected Privacy: Balancing Two Human Rights 5 April 1pm

Free Speech and Protected Privacy: Balancing Two Human Rights : News and events : ... : Law : University of Sussex: "Free Speech and Protected Privacy: Balancing Two Human Rights
Wednesday 5 April 13:00 until 14:30
Ashdown House, Room 101

Speaker: Hugh Tomlinson QC, Matrix Chambers

Part of the series: Sussex Centre for Human Rights Research

Hugh Tomlinson QC, a member of Matrix Chambers, is a noted specialist in media and information law including defamation, confidence, privacy and data protection. " 'via Blog this'

Thank heavens the wrangling over BT's Openreach separation has ended • The Register

Thank heavens the wrangling over BT's Openreach separation has ended • The Register: "What hasn’t changed under the legal separation, as opposed to a structural one, is where Openreach’s profits go, with Shurmer noting they "will flow back to the BT Group”. The group's budget will also be controlled by BT.  In terms of investment, the announcement will make no difference to BT’s current broadband roll-out plans. “This agreement is based on the guidance we have already given the city around our investment plans, so there is no change there."

The biz is currently connecting 10 million customers to its ultrafast hybrid fibre and copper G.Fast and 2 million "pure fibre" connections by 2020. Critics have said the biz is relying too much on G.Fast over full fibre.

 However, Shurmer hinted the new structure could help boost further investment. "But what we do have now with this new consultation process is this new approach to developing a business case for future network investment." 'via Blog this'