Thoughts on a Webby World Doug Bernard | Camden, Maine When in doubt, just stare at the clouds and keep your mouth shut. It’s earlier this afternoon; I’m sitting in the BWI airport, killing a few hours before boarding a flight to Portland, Maine, and the 16th annual PopTech conference. PopTech is a yearly gathering […]
This and That
Digital Frontiers editor Doug Bernard is away from his screen this week. In his absence, we invite you to follow some of the following DF-related items. Malware is certainly making its way to portable devices, and in particular, the Android platform is under attack. A fake application is sneaking onto Android devices, with what is […]
Robopocalypse!
Can A Computer Do Your Job – And Does It Want To? Doug Bernard | Washington DC In 1949, writer Kurt Vonnegut saw something that amazed him. Working at a General Electric plant, he noticed a large machine that cut the rotor blades for jet engines. “This was a very expensive thing for a machinist […]
The “Twitter Proletariat”
Some Thoughts on What Social Media Can – and Can’t – Accomplish There aren’t many things one can rely on these days. One of the few is finding something thoughtful, or provocative, or just plain interesting in Foreign Policy magazine. Now, before you discount this as little more than a plug from one journalist to […]
Got “Goggles”?
You Don’t Know What You Can’t See Once again, the morning headlines are bringing new – if slightly ominous – stories of increased hack attacks. In today’s case, two different stories: the first, a growing series of Internet hacks designed to fool people about the websites they’re actually visiting, and second, a troubling GPS hack […]
“Ethical” Hacking
When a “Hack” Becomes a Virtual Sit-In Protest Correction: Sept 5th, 2011 I mistakenly identified Aatif Khan as being a part of the group “Anonymous India.” He wrote my colleague Kate Woodsome to say that while he follows the activities of the group, “I am not a part of Anonymous India, And Moreover I do […]
Ending the Era of Jobs
What Steve Jobs has Meant for Apple, for Silicon Valley, and for Global Tech Steve jobs did not invent the portable stereo. Long before the iPod, there was ‘Pressman’ – a creation of Kozo Ohsone, then general manager of the Tape Recorder division of Sony. (‘Pressman’ became ‘Walkman in 1977.) Jobs also didn’t invent the […]
A Hole in the Great Firewall
…And Working to Close the Digital Divide It’s no surprise that as the Internet spreads, and mobile phones become more necessity rather than luxury, that coverage of these real life/digital world issues has been growing. And why not? Frankly, the stories have just been getting juicier – happily, for my colleagues just as elsewhere. While […]
Security in 60 Seconds
How to Fight Back Against Hackers and Protect Yourself on the Web Over the last few months we’ve discussed just a few of the many surfacing stories regarding breaches of computer or Internet security. Whether the threats are from organized crime, shadowy hacker groups like Anonymous or LulzSec, or coming with the alleged assistance of […]