Archive
Category: Weblog
Random assortments, selected for semantic content.
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Survey finds free internet downloads primary music source for teenagers
A survey of 47 000 teenage internet users has found found that 33 per cent nominated ”downloading from the internet without paying” as their primary source of music. While this doesn’t necessarily imply piracy, it looks pretty grim for the content industries, and lends weight to previous surveys suggesting that a majority of adults had engaged… Read more →
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British ISPs to face regulatory pressure over internet pornography
Representatives of the Her Majesty’s government will meet with ISPs and lobbyists to discuss whether, and how, access to internet pornography should be controlled. The meeting comes days after Tory backbencher Claire Perry said the availability of such materials is like ‘a fire is burning out of control’. The Member wants mandatory access controls on… Read more →
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The Great Cyberheist: Inside the life of an identity thief
The New York Times has a fantastic writeup of the criminal activities and investigation of Alberto Gonzalez, a black-hat hacker who masterminded the TJX and Heartland Payment Systems credit card data breaches and who was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment earlier this year. The story has a cinematic, but slightly tragic quality: At the same… Read more →
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Ed Vaizey clarifies UK government’s position on net neutrality
The recent controversy about Ed Vaizey’s purported abandonment of network neutrality was probably overhyped. In Parliament today, Andrew Smith (Labor MP, East Oxford) asked the following question: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills if he will make it his policy to ensure that internet service providers do not discriminate against… Read more →
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The blocking barb in today’s Pirate Bay appeal
As has been widely reported, the three co-founders of file-sharing website The Pirate Bay have lost their appeal before the Stockholm Court of Appeal against criminal convictions imposed in April 2009. The Court upheld the trio’s convictions for contributory copyright infringement and increased the collective financial sanctions from $2m to 46 million kroner (USD$6.5m), largely… Read more →
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Bankers as intermediaries and the tension between regulation and profit
Financial intermediaries are little more than rent seekers, says a thought-provoking article in this week’s New Yorker magazine: One is the role of financial intermediaries, such as banks. Rather than seeking the most productive outlet for the money that depositors and investors entrust to them, they may follow trends and surf bubbles. These activities shift… Read more →
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Network neutrality dead in the UK?
Ed Vaizey, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, has made comments in a speech which suggest that he favours abandonment of the neutrality (non-discrimination) principle in internet traffic management. The comments have, perhaps rightly, triggered an avalanche of vitriolic abuse. It is worth setting out the Minister’s remarks in full: The issues… Read more →
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Information monopolists as cyclic products of network effects: Tim Wu
Tim Wu’s excellent new book, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, chronicles a history of communications policy and the long-term behaviour of firms in information industries. His basic thesis is that such firms acquire market power by a combination of network effects and industry consolidation, then exert a form of regulatory… Read more →
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Romantic intermediaries and algorithmic normativity
Unsurprisingly, it turns out that online dating websites make algorithmic choices that strongly influence influence (and are tailored to) their users’ behaviour. But are they better? I asked Yagan whether OkCupid might try tailoring its algorithm to surface more statistically successful racial combinations. Such a measure wasn’t out of the question, he said. “Imagine we… Read more →
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Saudi Arabia blocks Facebook
First Pakistan, then Bangladesh, Iran and — if anecdotal reports are to be believed — China. Now Saudi Arabia has reportedly blocked Facebook, on the basis that the website “crossed a line” in not conforming to the “values” of the country. It could turn out to be just another Mohammed-cartoon incident, but this raises a… Read more →