Since yesterday, a blog post I wrote about a Facebook privacy hoax has been getting a surprisingly large number of hits, so I assumed that the hoax was making the rounds. It is, but this is a slightly different version. This one is even more laughable than the old one: Read more…
Some years ago I accompanied a friend to a radio station, where he was going to get interviewed about a show. Just before the interview, we were asked by one of the producers if we wanted coffee, and I replied “Yes, can I have a black coffee please?” She looked Read more…
The European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) has released a report on the possible implementation of the right to be forgotten. “The right to be forgotten” is one of the elements of the new proposed regulation (January 2012) on data protection of the European Commission. The right allows people Read more…
This week I presented at an event organised by MEP Amelia Andersotter at the European Parliament. This was a screening of three short films produced by the Blender Foundation and released under a Creative Commons licence. I was already familiar with some of Blender’s work, the excellent Elephants Dream (the Read more…
Announcement of event taking place next week in Brussels.
I have always been a fan of 419 scams. The broken English. The promise of untold riches beyond your imagining coming from the wife of the late Prince of Persia, Khadaffi’s widow, or a soldier in Iraq. The random nature. The appeals to your deity of choice. What’s not to Read more…
I am attending the Free Culture Forum 2012 in Barcelona, where amongst other things there has been a lot of talk about 3D printing, and was able to see a MakerBot in action at a hacker lab. The future is here. The monumental change that 3D printing will create may Read more…
I have been reading an eye-opening paper by mathematicians Dorit Ron and Ami Shamir, looking at the entire transaction history of the Bitcoin network. For those unfamiliar with Bitcoin, it is a cryptographic currency that was created with the stated intention of generating a decentralised payment system for the Internet Read more…
The Internet is going through one of its cyclical soul-searching periods, prompted by a spat between popular websites Reddit and Gawker. A journalist for Gawker published an article in which the identity of a notorious troll on Reddit was doxxed, that is, his real identity was revealed. In real life, Read more…
Durante los últimos días hemos presenciado un lamentable ataque contra el Congreso y la Fuerza Pública por parte de elementos opuestos al veto presidencial de la Ley 17342 que reforma varios artículos de la legislación vigente de observancia de derechos de propiedad intelectual. El ataque ha sido propiciado por una Read more…