Today’s Tech Sightings: China Will Block All VPNs by February 2018 The Chinese government has notified internet carriers that they have until February 1, 2018 to block all Virtual Private Networks (VPN) connections and shut down unauthorized VPN operators. Thanks to the country’s Great Firewall, a lot of internet services, including Western social media networks […]
China Eyes VPN Ban; Wednesday Set as Net Neutrality Day of Action
Robot Joins Search for Loch Ness Monster; Facebook’s Bots Are Coming
Today’s Tech Sightings: Robot Finds ‘Monster’ Film Prop In Loch Ness Munin, an underwater robot, has been making an in-depth exploration of Scotland’s famous Loch Ness. Scientists undertook the mission to investigate an underwater trench said to house the nest of the fabled Loch Ness monster. So far, it has managed to find some film […]
Harassment Scrubs SXSW Panels; the Texting Generation
Today’s Tech Sightings: SXSW Cancels Panels on Gaming Harassment, Citing Threats After receiving threats of violence, the South By Southwest Festival Monday canceled two panel discussions focusing on video games and harassment in the gaming community. The festival, scheduled for March 2016, was set to feature panelists who have been publicly vocal about the #Gamergate controversy, […]
Online Harassment; Apps for the Blind; Bitcoin; iOS 9.1
Today’s Tech Sightings: Experts Address How Silicon Valley Can Solve Online Harassment Despite all the wonders of the Internet, it remains a playground for abusers looking to silence minority voices. Wired talks to six experts about what Silicon Valley can do to help put an end to online harassment. How One Woman is Using Instagram […]
Online Abuse Dilemma; Windows 10; Apple Apps; Hammer of Thor PC
Today’s Tech Sightings: The US Supreme Court Just Made the Web Even More Hostile for Women The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week that violent statements on social media websites and the Web in general are not enough to consider the perpetrator’s behavior threatening and that his state of mind at the time should be […]
Hacking to Aid Nepal; ‘Venom’ Bug; Unforgettable Searches; ‘Bleep’ Goes Live
Today’s Tech Sightings: Nepal’s Aid System Is Broken. So These Lifesavers Hacked It As Nepal’s government and NGOs struggle to cope with the devastation of the country’s second major earthquake in less than a month, a group of young people armed with Facebook, open source mapping technology and a lot of nerve have come together […]
Ebola Internet Access; Internet in Space; League of Legends Trojan
Tech Firms Extend Internet Access to Help Ebola Treatment in Africa San Francisco-based non-profit, Inveneo, has launched a three-month initiative to connect 100 West African locations to the Internet to help fight the spread of Ebola. The group teamed up with Facebook’s data-science team to determine how to deploy its equipment in Sierra Leone, Guinea […]
Law Enforcement Still Playing Catch-Up on Cyberharassment
A recent spike in cyberharassment that in some cases included threats of violence has raised questions about the effectiveness of law enforcement in cyberspace, where the abusers’ trail is often harder to follow. The absence of a direct line of contact makes it “a little more difficult” for law enforcement to track online harassers, said […]
Have You Been Harassed Online?
There are a lot of behaviors from the real world that we wish weren’t be duplicated in the digital world. But unfortunately harassment, especially for many women, is a reality in both worlds. Given recent, ugly episodes of online harassment, TECHtonics will feature a three-part series on the subject in coming weeks. If you have […]