Honest question: is using a capital ‘G’ instead of a capital ‘K’ to represent ‘thousand’ a Canadianism?
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Via the New Yorker:
This morning, The New Yorker launched Strongbox, an online place where people can send documents and messages to the magazine, and we, in turn, can offer them a reasonable amount of anonymity. It was put together by Aaron Swartz, who died in January, and Kevin Poulsen.
This has lots of interesting promise, though it’ll be *more* interesting when a non-US group of journalists use the system (the code will be open sourced). Frankly, given the history of American courts, I don’t think that leaking to a US publication is a terribly good idea at the moment if you want to remain anonymous.
Dissertation pieces are now being stitched together in the über-document that conforms with grad studies’ style guide. By this time next week, the first 6/8 chapters will be assembled and sent to my committee. It should total in the vicinity of 65,000-70,000 words at that point.
A little over a month after that, the last 2/8 chapters should be written and added to the über-document. And, god willing, everything defended by the end of August/very beginning of September.
Finishing is starting to feel real, and possible.
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How to Fight Revenge Porn
Via The Atlantic:
For those whose privately shared photos have made their way to the web, an argument of implied confidentiality may be a good bet.
(…)
We should have a better national dialogue about a romantic partner’s obligations of confidentiality. Salient norms of confidentiality would strengthen our relationships as well as the legal remedies for those whose trust has been betrayed. Notably, confidentiality law is not as problematic under the First Amendment as legislation or other tort remedies. Instead of prohibiting a certain kind of speech, confidentially law enforces express or implied promises and shared expectations. The tort of breach of confidentiality is currently very limited in scope, but could be made much more robust to sit alongside the more commonly asserted privacy torts. Under an “inducement to breach confidentiality” theory, it is even possible that certain websites would not be able to take full advantage of the immunity typically provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
This is an interesting approach, and one that might undermine some of the protections used to shield truly abhorrent websites.
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IT Crowd to Return
Via The Tyee:
Last September I filed FOIs that got me blacklisted for a time, depriving voters of facts they deserve.
You should read Bob’s article in case you’re curious about why the press, academics, and active citizens laugh at the ‘transparency’ into government operations made possible by access to information, or freedom of information and access, laws.
I would note: one of my colleagues has had a federal access request open for seven years at this point. Our work on license place recognition equipment, at the federal level, has been open almost two years, with no end in sight. There have been repeated ‘inappropriate’ (read: illegal, except it’s not illegal if the police do it, right?) closures of our file, and personal involvement by the federal information commissioner.
ATIP and FOI laws are a joke, and a bad ones at that.
For anyone curious about (some of) the absurdity concerning policing in BC, this is a must read. Rob continues to do excellent work investigating the lack of accountability in the governance of BC authorities, this time showing how the police continue to do end-runs around access requests pertaining to their lobbying activities.
If you’re invested in post-secondary education, the letter from the Philosophy department at San Jose State is one of the best articulations of why the MOOC-phenomenon could seriously threaten the quality of education provided by Universities.
Excited Pixels 