Collaborate Disseminate
Interesting essay about Amazon’s smart lock: When you add Amazon Key to your door, something more sneaky also happens: Amazon takes over. You can leave your keys at home and unlock your door with the Amazon Key app — but it’s really built for Amazon d… Continue reading Amazon’s Door Lock Is Amazon’s Bid to Control Your Home
Interesting essay about Amazon’s smart lock: When you add Amazon Key to your door, something more sneaky also happens: Amazon takes over. You can leave your keys at home and unlock your door with the Amazon Key app — but it’s really built for Amazon deliveries. To share online access with family and friends, I had to give them a… Continue reading Amazon’s Door Lock Is Amazon’s Bid to Control Your Home
There are two opposing models of how the Internet has changed protest movements. The first is that the Internet has made protesters mightier than ever. This comes from the successful revolutions in Tunisia (2010-11), Egypt (2011), and Ukraine (2013). The second is that it has made them more ineffectual. Derided as "slacktivism" or "clicktivism," the ease of action without commitment… Continue reading Book Review: Twitter and Tear Gas, by Zeynep Tufekci
As devastating as the latest widespread ransomware attacks have been, it’s a problem with a solution. If your copy of Windows is relatively current and you’ve kept it updated, your laptop is immune. It’s only older unpatched systems on your computer that are vulnerable. Patching is how the computer industry maintains security in the face of rampant Internet insecurity. Microsoft,… Continue reading Ransomware and the Internet of Things
Technological advances change the world. That’s partly because of what they are, but even more because of the social changes they enable. New technologies upend power balances. They give groups new capabilities, increased effectiveness, and new defenses. The Internet decades have been a never-ending series of these upendings. We’ve seen existing industries fall and new industries rise. We’ve seen governments… Continue reading The Quick vs. the Strong: Commentary on Cory Doctorow’s Walkaway
Interesting paper: Yochai Benkler, "Degrees of Freedom, Dimensions of Power," Daedelus, winter 2016: Abstract: The original Internet design combined technical, organizational, and cultural characteristics that decentralized power along diverse dimensions. Decentralized institutional, technical, and market power maximized freedom to operate and innovate at the expense of control. Market developments have introduced new points of control. Mobile and cloud computing, the… Continue reading Power on the Internet