Berkman Buzz: Week of July 27, 2009

July 31, 2009

BERKMAN BUZZ:  A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations.  If you'd like to receive this by email, sign up here.

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*Jonathan Zittrain: "Ma’am, the cloud is coming from inside your house"
*Citizen Media Law Project: "Rhode Island Judge Pokes Free Speech on Facebook"
*StopBadware: "How criminals make money from compromised websites"
*Internet & Democracy Project: "Iranians Attempt to Mourn Neda; Mousavi Turned Back"
*Dan Gillmor: "Needed: Real-Time Media Auction System"
*Doc Searls: "an Opportunity for the AP"
*MediaBerkman: "Video Killed the Video Star"
*Ethan Zuckerman: "Fun and Games with Human Misery"
*Weekly Global Voices: "Africa: The arrival of Seacom cable sparks debate"

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"There’s lots of talk, and confusion, about the 'cloud' and 'cloud computing.'  I’ve recently contributed to it (the discussion, at least, and possibly the confusion) with some of my worries, and in some technology and vendor circles that’s been seen as controversial. I wanted to share some thoughts about just what the cloud is – because for the purposes I care about, it covers much more than people think, and I’d hate for debates about this stuff to get hung up on semantics about what counts as cloud and what doesn’t. By understanding just how broadly the features we associate with cloud computing are entering our lives, we can see the importance of maintaining freedoms that it otherwise naturally tends to diminish."
From Jonathan Zittrain's blog post, “Ma’am, the cloud is coming from inside your house”

"The Newsroom Law Blog reports that Judge Michael Forte of Kent County Family Court enjoined Michelle Langlois from posting on the Internet any information about her brother's ongoing custody dispute with his ex-wife. The gag order came after the ex-wife filed a 'domestic abuse' petition against Langlois. The petition claimed that Langlois' posts on her Facebook page constituted harassment and might psychologically damage the children involved in the case..."
From Courtney French's blog post for the Citizen Media Law Project, "Rhode Island Judge Pokes Free Speech on Facebook"

"A couple weeks ago, I wrote about a trend of websites being compromised because the webmaster’s computer had a Trojan that was stealing FTP credentials for the site. The folks at Finjan recently released a report detailing the operations of a criminal enterprise, Golden Cash, that uses this approach as an integral part of its operations. From the report (emphasis added)..."
From Maxim Weinstien's blog post for StopBadware, "How criminals make money from compromised websites"

"News is starting to trickle out about the planned public mourning of Neda Agha-Soltan, whose death during election protests 40 days ago was broadcast around world on YouTube, turning her into an international symbol for the protest movement and the government’s heavy-handed response. Twitter’s #iranelection tag is the top trending topic. The LA Times reports that although Mousavi was turned back by security forces at Neda’s grave, that thousands, and possibly tens of thousands, of mourners have overwhelmed security forces who initially beat and arrested mourners at the cemetery..."
From Bruce Etling's blog post for the Internet & Democracy Project, "Iranians Attempt to Mourn Neda; Mousavi Turned Back"

"A fierce and fascinating debate has broken out over the cover photo on Time magazine’s April 27 print edition. Time paid a pittance for the picture — at least a pittance next to what big magazines normally pay for cover art — and that’s made a lot of professional photographers furious..."
From Dan Gillmor's blog post, "Needed: Real-Time Media Auction System"

"It helps to recognize that the Associated Press is exactly what its name denotes: an association of presses. Specifically, newspapers. Fifteen hundred of them. Needless to say, newspapers are having a hard time. (Hell, I gave them some, myself, yesterday.) So we might cut them a little slack for getting kinda testy and paranoid..."
From Doc Searls' blog post, "an Opportunity for the AP"

"Is the idea of a mainstream video culture dead? TV news anchors, sitcom stars, and A-list actors are losing ground to the groundswell of citizen journalists, independent web series creators, and the occasional cats falling off of pianos on YouTube. If everyone is a producer, what role will video play in our lives in the future..."
From the MediaBerkman blog post, "Video Killed the Video Star"

"Here’s a fun game to play with friends, particularly friends who work on social ventures or other world-changing projects. Ask each person what issues they’d work on if they were given $500 million, $50 million or $5 million dollars to spend. With thoughtful friends, you’ll get different answers for different funding levels. It’s not realistic to tackle huge global problems – curing malaria, building sewage and fresh water systems for villages worldwide – at the $5m level, but you often learn about fascinating problems that might be solvable with a small amount of concerted effort..."
From Ethan Zuckerman's blog post, "Fun and Games with Human Misery"

"Johannesburg, Nairobi and Kampala received their connections on Thursday, and Addis Ababa and Kigali are expected to follow. The cable's arrival was originally scheduled for early July, but pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia delayed operations. The undersea link is expected to lower the cost of bandwidth by up to 90 percent and to increase access to video conferencing, high definition television and high speed Internet along the eastern African coastline..."
From Rebekah Heacock's blog post for Global Voices, "Africa: The Arrival of Seacom Cable Sparks Debate"