By GottaLaff
Looks like newly elected Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) still doesn't have a web site. Maybe the snow has slowed him down, but it's surprising given his campaign's strong Internet presence.Maybe someone should show Limpy McLimpington how to maintain a hard drive.
By GottaLaff
The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:There's more. Read it here.
* That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.
* That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet [...]
Truly the passing of an era. My first computer was very important to me, it took quite a while for me to save up and get over the nervousness to buy one. Second thing I did (after figuring out AOL was shite) was to set up a GeoCities page.
We always imagined how this might end: GeoCities would finally take down all of the animated "under construction" signs, and we'd hear one last Midi file to the tune of horns playing taps.
Instead, GeoCities will probably go down with a whimper today.
Time is up for Yahoo Inc.'s scheduled closing of perhaps the most significant virtual museum in recent history. Years ago a central meeting place for a massive chunk of American Web surfers, GeoCities will lock its doors and take millions of pages offline.
GeoCities allowed anyone to build a custom Web page for free and reserved a small amount of virtual storage to keep pictures and documents. It was perhaps the first mainstream example of an open, participatory and personal Internet.
By GottaLaff
Via The Motley Moose:
Arbor Networks provides a good view on Iran's connection to the Internet via the Internet Observatory. The fat healthy traffic to the left of the dropoff is what Iranian Internet traffic looks like at normal times, the cliff denotes the election and to the right of that you see traffic increasingly "leaking" past the imposed restrictions.A chart is worth a thousand words.
I think he's supposed to be speaking about this soon.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Obama is expected to announce Friday the creation of the position of cyber czar, a person who will coordinate the nation's efforts to protect government and private computer systems from hackers, criminal gangs, terrorists and spies, people familiar with the plan said Thursday.
The czar will report to both the national security adviser and the head of the National Economic Council, the sources said.
(snip)
In addition, the White House will release a 40-page report that sets broad goals for combating cyber intrusions, but does not spell out in detail how to do so, said the sources, who would not agree to be identified because the report has not been released.
By GottaLaff
News mogul believes media sites can’t survive failing business modelThe billionaire CEO of News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, is sounding the death knell for free Internet news delivery.
At least for Fox News and the many other online media outlets Murdoch controls.
Two things: 1) I rarely read anything Fox News posts, but 2) Rupert owns everything, so, potentially, there go some of my sleaziest, most unreliable sources.
The good news?Murdoch feels that, despite the global economic turndown, charging for access to news is not only the right thing to do, it’s the wave of the future. [...]
Murdoch is so bullish on the near future that he expects moves to charge readers at the websites of Fox News, The Times, The Sun and others within a year’s time. [...]
“The current days of the [free] Internet will soon be over.”
Some might argue that Murdoch is grasping at straws as his vast portfolio flounders.Good thing I don't frequent his floundering sites.
I doubt that any of this will be a surprise to our readers, but for a very good deeper look, go read FOB Greg Mitchell's analysis.
NEW YORK "The 2008 election was the first in which more than half the voting-age population used the internet for political purposes,” a new report by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, released late today, reveals. It also concludes, "Obama supporters were more active online than McCain supporters and online political users became more partisan in their information-seeking behavior."
Some 55% of all adults said they went online for news and information about the election or to communicate with others about the race. The percentage of Americans relying on the internet as a major source of campaign news more than doubled since the 2000 election (from 11% to 26%).
Obama backers took advantage of various emerging web activities – from text notifications to posting original content -- much more than McCain supporters, by roughly 3-2 or 2-1 margins. Fully 15% of Obama backers donated to his campaign online, compared with just 6% on the McCain side.
The survey, indeed, found that social media platforms and video-sharing sites “played a key role in 2008 as voters went online to share their views with others and try to mobilize them to their cause."
By GottaLaff
A Colorado Springs man who narrates the Bible in Spanish on CDs and works in the Spanish broadcasting department of Focus on the Family appeared in court Monday in Golden on two felony counts of using the Internet to lure a 15-year-old girl for sex, The Denver Post reports.Juan Alberto Ovalle, 42, was arrested Friday when he drove to Lakewood to meet the girl — who turned out to be an undercover officer — after discussing various sexual acts he wanted to perform with her, the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office said.
Ovalle, a native of the Dominican Republic, is listed as the “Voice Narrator/Artist” of the Spanish Reina Valera Biblia, available on 64 CDs, and can be heard here discussing an upcoming Focus on the Family conference with directors of the evangelical empire’s outreach to the Spanish-speaking community. [...]
Ovalle “came to know the Lord at the age of 14,” according to a Web site offering his Spanish Bible narration for sale, and founded Spanish Christian Audio in 2001 to “help Christian organizations with their audio needs.”
Dios mio! Apparently, those weren't the only needs he wanted to help with.
Ew Factor: Officially off the charts. Say "adios, " Juan. "Adios, Juan":
After first encountering the officer who was posing as a 15-year-old girl in a chat room last week, Orvalle made “sexually graphic statements in a chat room to a person he believed to be an underage teen,” the district attorney’s office said. When the undercover officer said her mom wouldn’t be home the next day, Orvalle said he was “horny” and made arrangements to come to her house, according to an arrest affidavit cited by The Post.
Those good old Focus on the Family values. Always thinking of the children.
They've obviously fallen apart since Dobson abandoned them. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
H/t: Oliver
UPDATE: More, including the affidavit, here, at Pam's.
By GottaLaff
Old and older:
Michael Wolff: "The dirty little secret of conservative talk radio is that the average age of listeners is 67 and rising... What's more, it's the Internet that is the fast-growing and arguably more powerful political medium -- and it is the province of the young and liberal. The only sensible market view of conservative talk is that it will contract and be reduced, in the coming years, to a much more rarefied format."
By GottaLaff
Internet and phone communications between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia have been seriously disrupted after submarine cables were severed. It is thought the FLAG FEA, SMW4, and SMW3 lines, near the Alexandria cable station in Egypt, have all been cut. A fault was also reported on the GO submarine cable 130km off Sicily. Experts warned that it may be days before the fault is fixed.Jonathan Wright - director of wholesale products at Interoute which manages part of the optical fibre network:
I blame Time-Warner."This will grind economies to a halt for a short space of time," he said "If you look at, say, local financial markets who trade with European and US markets, the speed at which they get live data will be compromised."
"If you think how quickly trades can be placed, if they are suffering from bad latency times, then by the time a trade is placed, the market may well have moved on."
The cause of the break is as yet unknown, although some seismic activity was reported near Malta shortly before the cut was detected. [...]
It is thought that 65% of traffic to India was down, while services to Singapore, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Taiwan and Pakistan have also been severely affected. [...]
"We've lost three out of four lines. If the fourth cable breaks, we're looking at a total blackout in the Middle East," said Mr Wright.
"These three circuits account for 90% of the traffic and we're going to see more international phone calls dropping and a huge degradation in the quality of local internet," he added.
"Normally you would expect to see one major break per cable per year. With four you should have an insurance policy. For this to happen twice in one year, on the same cable, is a serious cause for concern."
Bloody morons. "Too accessible"?
He used the Internet to break fundraising records and win the White House, and now President-elect Barack Obama is expected to expand his reach via a greatly enhanced Whitehouse.gov website. But before he makes any big moves, former White House press aides to several presidents have a warning: Don't become so Web-accessible that it devalues the president's message making. "There is a real challenge and risk," says Don Baer, a former Clinton-era communications boss and former U.S. News staffer.
The risk: "Cheapen the president's message."
(snip)
Baer, for example, suggested that using blogs, Web chats, and video conferences is a good idea, but he said that the White House has to make sure not to overdo it and thus make the president too accessible.
Former Clinton aide Don Baer, former Ford spokesman Ron Nessen, former newsman Marvin Kalb, Brookings Institution author Stephen Hess, and former Bush spokesman Scott McClellan.Oh now I understand.
Finally, the natural order of the intertubes has been restored. Adolescent boys missed you Brit!!
Barack Obama will make history by becoming the first black US president, but in the world of internet search he trails the singer, Britney Spears.
Of the billions of searches carried out on the portal, Yahoo.com, over the last year, Mr Obama was third behind Spears and World Wrestling Entertainment.
Mr Obama was, however, the most searched-for politician during 2008.
The subjects of the most sought-after news stories were hurricanes, Caylee and Casey Anthony, and election 2008.
By GottaLaff
![[internet_addicts.gif]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhII3nIj9AHf1YwUvhloiRK71aiRXUJQvl9bWMDdFs18qIJUMpoQzoh4OAzllHGWmdoQ5DIKEgrfOd5eSgFgFm0fJ8kopj7zdMcRxrsyk7OBGeMaJ1JalGN-CNqkMt5CsUkt-Vkd0rIiL16/s1600/internet_addicts.gif)
Sorry, Mr. President. Please surrender your BlackBerry.I bet he says he can quit any time he wants to. They all do.Those are seven words President-elect Barack Obama is dreading but expecting to hear, friends and advisers say, when he takes office in 65 days.
For years, like legions of other professionals, Mr. Obama has been all but addicted to his BlackBerry. The device has rarely been far from his side — on most days, it was fastened to his belt — to provide a singular conduit to the outside world as the bubble around him grew tighter and tighter throughout his campaign.
But before he arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.I can see it now: He'll go cold turkey, because he's strong like that. He'll get the shakes... have cravings... suffer from extreme anxiety. And delirium tremens. One must never forget the DTs.
Mr. Obama has not sent a farewell dispatch from the personal e-mail account he uses — he has not changed his address in years — but friends say the frequency of correspondence has diminished. In recent days, though, he has been seen typing his thoughts on transition matters and other items on his BlackBerry, bypassing, at least temporarily, the bureaucracy that is quickly encircling him.You can do it, Barack! Will power!
Mr. Obama used e-mail to stay in constant touch with friends from the lonely confines of the road, often sending messages like “Sox!” when the Chicago White Sox won a game. He also relied on e-mail to keep abreast of the rapid whirl of events on a given campaign day.He only goes for the pure stuff. He's hard core:
His messages to advisers and friends, they say, are generally crisp, properly spelled and free of symbols or emoticons.How will he ever break the habit? Dealers are everywhere, ready to pounce:
He received a scaled-down list of news clippings, with his advisers wanting to keep him from reading blogs and news updates all day long, yet aides said he still seemed to hear about nearly everything in real time. A network of friends — some from college, others from Chicago and various chapters in his life — promised to keep him plugged in.Even the strongest of us have weak moments:
Mr. Obama has, for at least brief moments, been forced offline. As he sat down with a small circle of advisers to prepare for debates with Senator John McCain, one rule was quickly established: No BlackBerrys. Mr. Axelrod ordered everyone to put their devices in the center of a table during work sessions. Mr. Obama, who was known to sneak a peek at his, was no exception.It starts with sneaking a peek. Then right to typing a phrase. Then whole paragraphs... with punctuation. Before he knows it, Obama will have fallen right back into that deep, dark e-pit called Blackberrry Hell.
As his team prepares a final judgment on whether he can keep using e-mail, perhaps even in a read-only fashion, several authorities in presidential communication said they believed it was highly unlikely that he would be able to do so.Tragic. So what's the answer? How will President Obama break free? Diana Owen, who leads the American Studies program at Georgetown University,, who has studied how presidents communicate in the Internet era:
“It’s a time burner. It might be easier for him to say, ‘I can’t be on e-mail.’ ”Say it, Barack: "I can't be on e-mail." Say it, believe it, own it. Yes. You. Can.
By GottaLaff
Cyber community organizing? By Republicans? They must be socialists, and from the looks of their message, scared ones who are adopting some of Obama's strategies:
Tonight, they're launching a website, www.rebuildtheparty.com, and will ask RNC chairman candidates to support their platform, which puts a premium on Internet organizing and technology. [...]Would that be anything like spreading the wealth?
All of them are under 40; they have affiliations with different prospective 2012 presidential candidates; they had different opinions of Sarah Palin; they're interested in building a permanent grassroots volunteer infrastructure (apart from state parties if necessary) and candidate recruitment.The challenge is daunting, but if we adopt a strongly anti-Washington message and charge hard against Obama and the Democrats, we will energize our grassroots base. Among other benefits, this will create real demand for new ways to organize and route around existing power structures that favor the Democrats. And, you will soon discover, online organizing is by far the most efficient way to transform our party structures to be able to compete against what is likely to be a $1 billion Obama re-election campaign in 2012.
Our near loss in the 2000 election sparked the 72 Hour program, after a brutal realization that we were being out-hustled in GOTV activities in the final days. Our partial success in the 2000 election didn't blind us to the need for change, and our eyes must be wide open now. Barack Obama and the Democrats' ability to build their entire fundraising, GOTV, and communications machine from the Internet is the #1 existential challenge to our existing party model.[...]
This goal seems daunting, but it forces us to think creatively about creating the sharpest, most compelling messages that will make people want to join us by the millions. If Newt Gingrich and T. Boone Pickens could each build an army of 1.4 million activists around energy, and Barack Obama could recruit 3 million to receive his VP selection by text message, then we know this is possible. If anything, given where the Internet will be in 2 or 4 years, we are low-balling the potential to create a new Republican online army.Hold campaigns and local parties accountable. As important as it is that we invest in new technology at the national level, we must remember that the RNC's primary objective is to win races state by state and district by district, not build up its own brand.
[...]As much high-level attention must be paid to candidates' online strategy as with the number of voter contacts made into a particular district or if the right media strategist is working the race. We must end a sense of dependence on the RNC at all levels -- in which the RNC simply turns over its lists -- and set goals that the campaigns must find creative and aggressive ways to meet:
In target 2010 Congressional races, we recommend setting a standard of at least 5,000 in-district online activists recruited, and a minimum of $100,000 raised online.
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