I was also honoured to be able to attend the Sam Adams Associates’ award ceremony in Oxford, United Kingdom last month, and Chelsea Manning is a truly worthy recipient of the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence. Her leaking of the Collateral Murder video to WikiLeaks (a video showing how U.S. Air Force personnel… Continue reading Persecution of whistleblowers and journalists
Gave Privacy By Design Talk At eth0
I gave my talk about privacy by design last Saturday at eth0 2014 winter edition, a small hacker get-together which was organised in Lievelde, The Netherlands this year. eth0 organizes conferences that aim at bringing people with different computer-related interests together. They organise two events per year, one during winter. I’ve previously given a very… Continue reading Gave Privacy By Design Talk At eth0
Privacy in danger, but there’s light at end of the tunnel
Note: This article is also available in Portuguese, translated by Anders Bateva. Last week I read an article about the plan by the National Police of the Netherlands to connect all CCTV cameras to the national camera network which is operated by the police. The upper echelon of the Dutch police is currently secretly writing… Continue reading Privacy in danger, but there’s light at end of the tunnel
The Rising Trend of Criminalizing Hackers & Tinkerers
Note: This article is also available in Portuguese, translated by Anders Bateva. There seems to be a rising trend of criminalizing hackers & tinkerers. More and more, people who explore the limits of the equipment, hardware and software they own and use, whether they tinker with it, re-purpose it, or expand its functionalities, are met… Continue reading The Rising Trend of Criminalizing Hackers & Tinkerers
NSA is coming to town!
I just stumbled upon this funny video made by the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). It fits perfectly, and it’s funny to see that when invasions of privacy gets really personal (Santa photographing your face, recording your conversations and rifling through your smartphone), people really don’t like this and some respond strongly, but when the… Continue reading NSA is coming to town!
Facebook records self-censorship
Recently I came across an article about Facebook, more specifically, that Facebook wants to know why you self-censor, in other words, why you didn’t click Publish on that status update you just wrote, but decided not to publish instead. It turns out Facebook is sending everything you type in the Post textarea box (the one… Continue reading Facebook records self-censorship
Economic Consequences of NSA Surveillance
Note: This article is also available in Portuguese, translated by Anders Bateva. (Note: A version of this article also got published on Consortium News) In the last 6 months or so, Edward Snowden, former NSA contractor, came forward with revelations about the NSA, disclosing quite a few of the agency’s surveillance programs, and revealing that… Continue reading Economic Consequences of NSA Surveillance
Security Measures against Terrorism: Costs v. Benefits
Note: This article is also available in Portuguese, translated by Anders Bateva. A few days ago, the Dutch Home Office Minister Ronald Plasterk said in a debate in parliament that he’s apparently OK with the American intelligence community, the NSA among others, to spy on the Netherlands. His reasoning is flawed from the get-go, and went… Continue reading Security Measures against Terrorism: Costs v. Benefits
Choose Your Friends Wisely: Tracking & Profiling on the Web
Note: This article is also available in Portuguese, translated by Anders Bateva. A lot of data about you and your Internet behavior gets collected when you simply surf the Internet ‘unprotected’. We are currently living in a time when data profiling and getting to know your customers is getting more and more important. In this… Continue reading Choose Your Friends Wisely: Tracking & Profiling on the Web
At the Crossroads: Surveillance State or Freedom?
When I went to OHM2013 last week, it was great to see such increased political activism from the hackers and geeks at the festival. I truly believe we are currently at a very important crossroads: either let governments the world over get away with crimes against the people’s interests, with programs like PRISM, ECHELON, TEMPORA… Continue reading At the Crossroads: Surveillance State or Freedom?