The Arab Spring hasn’t been kind to countless Middle East dictatorships. Internet censorship has been a key plank of trying to maintain order in the face of a massive popular uprising. At least in Egypt we’ve now seen former Mubarak ministers and the former President himself being fined for daring to cut internet connections and…
Showing all posts tagged internet
Encouraging shoots of change in Egypt
A welcome development: A judge fined former President Hosni Mubarak and two officials about $91 million Saturday for cutting cellphone and Internet services during the protests this winter that forced Mubarak to step down. It was the first court ruling against Mubarak since he was ousted Feb. 11. Egyptian state television reported late Saturday that…
Our tax dollars used to back Facebook pages urging war and liberation
How much money is spent by our governments to support the noble wars fought in our name? Michael Hastings is a leading American investigative journalist who likes nothing more than uncovering the lies and spin told by US officials to back conflicts globally. In a recent interview with US magazine Guernica, he further uncovers these…
My book news for those who still like to read anything longer than an article
My first book, the best-selling My Israel Question, has just been released as an e-book and is available via the Kindle, iBook and other formats. The title is currently being updated and translated into Arabic and Indonesian and will be released in various nations over the coming 12 months. My second book, The Blogging Revolution,…
Just how many Western “security” firms helping repressive regimes?
In my book The Blogging Revolution I document a range of companies that sell equipment and software to dictatorships to help them monitor mobile phone calls, text messages and web traffic. I’m currently updating the book in light of the recent Arab revolutions – it’ll be released in Australia and a new overseas edition later…
Breaking news; Facebook didn’t bring down Mubarak
Pew shames a Western media that routinely praises the internet for bringing revolutions to Egypt and beyond (thanks to The Angry Arab): Role of Social Networking: Nearly a quarter of Egyptians (23%) say they… have used social networking sites such as… Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to obtain news… about their country’s political situation; 6%… access these sites but have…
Would you like an arms dealer to manage your cloud, sir?
New York Times: The largest single customer for computing goods and services, the United States government, endorsed the cloud model this year. Vivek Kundra, the White House chief information officer, wrote a “Federal Cloud Computing Strategy” report, and identified $20 billion, or one quarter of the government’s total spending on information technology, as “a potential…
How Wikileaks has opened our eyes to the world
My following review appeared in this week’s Sydney Sun Herald: Underground Suelette Dreyfus and Julian Assange (Random House, $24.95) Inside Wikileaks Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Scribe, $29.95) During a rare public appearance in March, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange told a packed audience at Cambridge University that the internet is the “greatest spying machine the world has ever…
Tahrir tweeting reflects spirit of the times
I recently mentioned a newly released book, Tweets from Tahrir, on the Twitter coverage of Egypt’s revolution. This is a very fast turn-around book and should be welcomed. In terms of insights, in 140 characters, it’s a strong addition that shows the power of social media in times of upheaval (via Mondoweiss): Chapter18 –