In response to their children’s online activity, many parents have joined social networking sites and are actively engaging with their children online. “Teens, in turn, have mixed feelings about being friends with their parents on social networking sites like Facebook,” said Sandra Cortesi, director of the Youth and Media Project at the Berkman Center.
via Berkman Center releases report on teens, parents and online privacy.
Rob Faris, Research Director at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, told The Huffington Post that the “most likely” method used by Syrian authorities to conduct this blackout was to “tweak the routing tables,” essentially blocking the transference of information by sending it all into a cyber “blackhole.”
via How Was Syria’s Internet Shut Down? Experts Explain Online Blackout.
Most of the innovations that leverage Kenya’s telecoms infrastructure aren’t oriented towards Nairobi techies, but towards the rural poor. M-Kopa is building solar lighting that allows families to power an LED light and charge a phone. What’s innovative about their product is its financial model. Families make a small payment when the system is installed, then pay via M-Pesa to keep it running. Once they’ve made the payments, about the cost of ten weeks’ supply of kerosene, they own it. Because the system can be shut off remotely, M-Kopa bets that it will have to reclaim very few systems.
via Ethan Zuckerman: ‘Africa’s hackers are today’s world-class tech innovators’ (Wired UK).
For staring down the Internet’s enemies.
Law professor | Cambridge, Mass.
Such a broad-based attack on individuals is unwise and uncalled for, even as the injury that inspires it is mortifying. The problem is that what appears to be a trivial, momentary action – retweeting something of interest – can now create or magnify a falsehood as powerfully as if it had aired on national television. If a television station can be held responsible for what it broadcasts, why not the individuals whose collective megaphone rivals that of the BBC?
“We live in a quicksilver tech environment, and user behavior in the digital age is relatively fluid, too,” said Sandra Cortesi, one of the report’s authors and a fellow at the Berkman Center. “Actually, I would be surprised if the numbers would not change over time.”
The study, conducted by the Pew Internet Center and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, may increase arguments for shielding children from targeted advertising online. Four out of five parents surveyed said they were concerned about how much information advertisers could learn about their children’s online browsing.
The study, done in collaboration with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, noted that 80 percent of parents whose teens use social networks are themselves users of social media.
via Parents, teens uneasy Facebook ‘friends’: study – Times LIVE.
At the moment, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) is attempting to legally bar Congress and the FCC from exerting any authority over its networks, claiming that the First Amendment protects the company’s “editorial discretion.” (I am among a large group of current and former government officials who this week filed a brief opposing that startling argument.)
via Why Cell Phones Went Dead After Hurricane Sandy – Bloomberg.
The letter to Mr. Cuomo was also signed by a founder of Meetup, Scott Heiferman; the scholars Yochai Benkler, Lawrence Lessig and Clay Shirky; and the founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, Andrew Rasiej, who is the chairman of the New York Tech Meetup.
via Technology Leaders Endorse Effort to Overhaul Campaign Finance – NYTimes.com.