New Alarm Bells, And Old Questions, About The Flame Virus And Cyber-War Doug Bernard | Washington DC There’s a new Big Bad lurking out there on the Internet, and it goes by the name of “Flame.” But what we don’t know about it may be more important than what we do. Tuesday morning, computer security […]
UPDATE: Admitting To An Online Hit
Posted May 25th, 2012 at 11:33 am (UTC-4)
Co-Owner of a Pentagon Contracting Admits To Online Smear Doug Bernard | Washington DC Earlier this month we posted a story involving Leonie Industries, a private firm that’s been awarded around 120 million dollars in Pentagon contracts for services they call “information crafting,” but what most people would call propaganda. Leonie had become the target […]
Why Did Pakistan Shut Off Twitter?
Posted May 22nd, 2012 at 8:13 pm (UTC-4)
Debate And Rumors About Censorship Swirl Doug Bernard | Washington DC It only lasted for about 8 hours, but that was long enough to start a whole new round of Internet rumor and worry. On Sunday, May 20th, Pakistani telecommunications authorities suddenly blocked all access to the micro-blogging site Twitter, effectively shutting off the service […]
Iran’s Coming “Halal” Intranet
Posted May 16th, 2012 at 5:58 pm (UTC-4)
Is Tehran Turning Its Back On the World Wide Web? Doug Bernard | Washington DC For years, the Iranian government has been threatening to pull the plug on the world wide web, sealing the nation and its people off from the rest of the Internet. Officially, Tehran says it wants to create a “halal” Internet, […]
“Shading” The Truth In China
Posted May 11th, 2012 at 3:11 pm (UTC-4)
Weibo censorship in the Chen Guangcheng case Alice Xin Liu The twists and turns of the fate of blind lawyer and dissident Chen Guangcheng has had much of China’s online community in its thrall. On April 27 Chen arrived in the US embassy from his native Shandong, where he had escaped from house arrest. Despite […]
The Internet’s Archive
Posted May 8th, 2012 at 5:47 pm (UTC-4)
There’s More Free Stuff Out There Than You May Know Doug Bernard | Washington DC May 8, 1977. The setting was Ithaca, New York; Cornell University’s barn-like Barton field house, specifically. On that particular Sunday evening, for the princely sum of $7.50 – $6.50 for students – you could buy one general admission ticket (assuming […]
Call of the Weird
Posted May 6th, 2012 at 6:53 pm (UTC-4)
Thoughts On The Strange World Of Online Ads Doug Bernard | Washington DC I’ll admit it. As an organization, we here at VOA can be a rather starchy bunch. Which is usually fitting, given the very serious issues we cover on a daily basis. Still, in general there’s not a lot of laughs to be […]
“Infocrafting” or Propaganda Online?
Posted May 1st, 2012 at 4:57 pm (UTC-4)
Rogue “Info Ops” Agents Go After The Wrong Target Doug Bernard | Washington DC As many have learned the hard way, protecting your reputation online can be difficult. The way the web works, once just one person publishes something bad or inaccurate about you, it lives forever in the net’s cache. Should you be unfortunate […]
