Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak shut down the country’s internet in 2011 in an effort to stop the uprising. But does Syria’s recent online blackout have a darker motive?
Mataparda
Syrian residents found themselves without the internet for some 19 hours on May 7 and 8, in what many see as a long-term government campaign to use the internet as method of state control.
According to…
Having trouble remembering all your passwords? Don’t expect respite any time soon.
Jonno Witts
By Philip Branch, Swinburne University of Technology
I just did a count of the systems I use that require a password and gave up at 40. I know I’m not alone; for many of us, it often seems we have too many passwords to manage.
They are, however, required…
Google might soon seal a deal with the European Commission regarding alleged abuses.
Jessica M. Cross
By Angela Daly, Swinburne University of Technology
It’s taken nearly three years, but the European Commission and Google last week reached some form of agreement regarding alleged abuses of the search engine’s dominant position in the European Union…
Speed limits were made to be broken – in internet terms, anyway.
JRFreemanJr
You may have read about Sony’s plan to install a fibre-based internet service in Japan which could reach download speeds of 2 gigabits a second (Gbps).
That’s 20 times faster than speeds offered by Labor…
Location-restricted services are becoming ever easier to access, wherever you live.
Daniel Dionne
So you sit down in front of your computer to catch the latest episode of Doctor Who directly from BBC’s iPlayer, and you are greeted by an error message informing you that the program will play only in…
“Quick and dirty” or “slow but consistent”? The policies are now on the table.
Dan Peled/AAP Image
Today in Australia, the Coalition released its policy on the National Broadband Network (NBN). So what is the proposal?
Amid rhetoric claiming Labor government inefficiency, cost blowouts and failure…
Facebook “slut shaming” pages reflect deeper problems with society’s discriminatory attitude towards women.
Flickr/Franco Bouly
“Slut shaming” may be the latest cause célèbre to sweep to our shores, but it just looks a lot like old-fashioned misogyny. From the US-based Salon and The Guardian in the UK, to the Canberra Times in…
Is it time to declare the NBN a “national disaster”?
MATEUS_27:24&25
The National Broadband Network (NBN) is in dire trouble and has reached the point where Julia Gillard should declare a national disaster.
By doing so the government would be able to utilise constitutional…
Victims of abuse and assault are using social media to name and shame.
Dean Lewins/AAP
A woman hacks her ex-boyfriend’s Facebook account to post a picture of herself in hospital after he attacked her with a baseball bat. A teenager protests against the lenient sentence given to her rapists…
With the US and UK refusing to sign a revised treaty, it’s unclear what will come out of the WCIT meeting in Dubai.
ITU Pictures
After 11 days of discussion and debate about the future of the internet, the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai appears to have collapsed.
On the meeting’s penultimate…
Nations from around the world are currently meeting in Dubai to discuss the future of the internet.
Ali Haider/EPA
And so the battle for the future of the internet rages on. The focus this time is not on WikiLeaks, cybercrime treaties, or privacy controls, but the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
The…
The imperative to remember information has been replaced with the imperative to remember where information is located.
parkieblues
When Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” hit newsstands in the July/August 2008 edition of The Atlantic, the reaction was predictably vociferous.
The essay itself – a 4,175 word editorial…
A Pandora’s box may have been opened, without a clear idea of how best to proceed.
smithi1
Good news. A decision made earlier this month by Australia’s Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Senator Stephen Conroy may have inadvertently opened the door for unlimited government…
Many of us feel that our internet use verges on problematic but this is different to addiction.
justingaynor
MATTERS OF THE MIND – a series which examines the clinician’s bible for diagnosing mental disorders, the DSM, and the controversy surrounding the forthcoming fifth edition.
The term “addiction” is conspicuously…
Are you motivated or do you need a social setting and role models to keep you driven?
Exercise bike image from www.shutterstock.com
FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: The rise of online and blended learning and the development of free online courses is set to transform the higher education sector. We’ve asked our authors how to remake the…
Academics freedom and university reputations are being tested online.
Academic image from www.shutterstock.com
Trying to control your reputation online is a bit like trying to clean up wee in a toddler pool. You are much more likely to get your hands dirty than achieve any kind of meaningful damage control.
Many…
Saying “trolling is bad” does little to solve the problem.
femenart.nl
Writing for Edge in 2007, Professor Martin Rees – then President of the Royal Society and ongoing Astronomer Royal – quipped: “The global village will have its village idiots.”
Rees, of course, was referring…
Australians love shopping online: so retailers must get to grips with the concept.
AAP
By Scott Ewing, Swinburne University of Technology and Julian Thomas, Swinburne University of Technology
Australians are among the most enthusiastic online shoppers in the world.
Our most recent survey, published in the CCi Digital Futures report, The Internet in Australia 2012, has found a quarter of Australian…
The internet of the future could consume 10% of the world’s electricity supply.
rachel_titiriga
Despite its new economy sheen, the internet represents a surprisingly large old economy drain on energy resources. Industry and academia must work together to ensure the internet is a positive contributor…
Australia’s place in the online world is changing, with significant consequences.
lintmachine
Yesterday afternoon the Australian Senate passed the Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 following amendments suggested by the Labor Party.
It’s been more than a year since the bill was first introduced…
Is it breaking the law to bypass criminally poor broadcasting?
sp3ccylad
Reports of people the world over watching coverage of the Olympics via BBC’s online streaming portal abound. The reasons for this behaviour vary in the detail, but the common feature is: local coverage…
People need to take responsibility for what is visible on their screens in public.
flickr/agarth
My first ever time on an aeroplane, the mid 1980s, and the in-flight film was Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Equally suitable fare for my younger brother seated to my left and my grandma to my right.
Flash…
Does Western media jump on Chinese “censorship” stories with a little too much zeal?
Thomas Hawk
Last week, Chinese internet users noticed the two Mandarin characters for “truth” could not be searched on Sina Weibo, the most popular microblogging platform in China.
On July 12,Tom Philips, Shanghai…
Memes will play an important role – and provide some fun – during the London Olympics.
Facebook.com/TheOlympicMemes
London 2012 is already seeing fierce competition for meme supremacy.
Memes, especially in the form of captioned images – or image macros – are an increasingly mainstream form by which people comment on…
Much like the development of the railway in the 19th century, the National Broadband Network (NBN) will transform our society.
Wikimedia Commons
When I grew up in Canada there was a famous painting on the wall of nearly every primary school classroom. It was called “The Last Spike” and it depicted the final railway track connection being hammered…
Thinking you know every trick in the book doesn’t mean you really do.
Don Hawkins
Crimes of confidence, known as scams, are on the rise. You probably know the basics. The way the most common type of scam works involves you being presented with an offer, product or service for which…
Within hours of launching, the New York Times Sina Weibo account was suspended.
cn.nytimes.com
The New York Times' (NYT) entry into the Chinese media market is off to a seemingly rocky start. Two days ago, the company launched its Chinese website – cn.nytimes.com – and a corresponding Sina Weibo…
Information gleaned from data mining is a prized delicacy in certain circles.
Philippe Put
Telstra representatives have this week admitted to collecting data for a new internet filtering product and sending this data to the USA office of Netsweeper Inc.
Netsweeper Inc, based near Toronto, Canada…
Access to the internet is becoming less of a problem – but does society have the structures to support free exchange of information?
Howard Stateman
In part six of our multi-disciplinary Millennium Project series, Jake Wallis argues that the infrastructure of global communication networks is inherently political and calls for a switched-on populace…
China’s citizens are catching up to the government-monitored web.
Mike Licht
In part four of our multi-disciplinary Millennium Project series, John Keane takes a look at the Chinese regime’s troubled relationship with the cyber world.
Global challenge 4: How can genuine democracy…
How can consumers get what they want on an NBN-enabled Australia without getting wires crossed?
NBNCO
Unless you’ve been boycotting all forms of media in the past five years, you’ll be aware that the National Broadband Network (NBN) is well and truly on its way.
For some of us the NBN is already here…
Semantic search is about recognising the meaning of words, not just the words themselves.
Chris P Jobling
Late last week, Google representatives unveiled a significant enhancement to the company’s ubiquitous search engine. They’re calling it the “Knowledge Graph” and claiming it will support “more intelligent…
Syria crisis: the violence mapped by the UN.
FreedomHouse
Web 2.0 tools and mobile technologies have lowered the barriers not just for people to access the internet but to create and share content. Through open-source, collaborative programs such as wikis, the…
Short urls serve a purpose for users and their creators alike.
Mexicanwave
With each passing day commercial interests seem to find new ways to harness the tools on which the web was built.
Policy initiatives such as the US’s now-defunct SOPA and in-progress CISPA now involve…
Your movements online are of great value and interest to many people – you just don’t know what they plan to do with it.
Norma Desmond
Your friend Kate answers the phone. You remind her you’re meeting at 10am tomorrow for breakfast. You tell her your fractured wrist is healing but the doctor said there’s still some way to go. Your mum…
Reckon you know a lot about your online friends? Are you sure?
Stian Eikeland
Whenever the press covers a story about hackers, a great deal of the discussion concerns the nature of online identity, the cohesiveness of hacking groups, and the individuals that identify with these…
Treats are great to share, provided you have the owner’s permission.
Kalexanderson
A new version of the peer-to-peer sharing application Tribler has created a buzz online following claims by the software’s lead developer that the app is impervious to attack.
In a recent interview with…
Stopping the internet isn’t impossible, but it’s unlikely any time soon.
iNKMan
By Philip Branch, Swinburne University of Technology
In a statement posted online last month, hacker collective Anonymous announced plans to shut down the internet. Yes, you read that right.
Operation Global Blackout, planned for March 31, is apparently…
Broadcast rights have turned two giant telcos into sporting rivals.
Judy **
Telecommunications giant Optus managed to convince the Federal Court in Sydney this week that there’s a legal blindspot in relation to its download pay-per-view service.
Telstra – given its business relationship…
US authorities have seized the file-sharing website.
johntrainor
The big copyright news overnight was not the continuing protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), but the shutdown and seizure of Megaupload.com, a popular “cyberlocker…
Wikipedia, reddit and Google are among those protesting against proposed changes.
Clara Zamith
The fight against potential internet censorship will reach a milestone this evening (AEST) when some of the most popular destinations on the web – including the English language version of Wikipedia…
Who really knows what you want – the search engine or you?
Ste fan
In what has been labelled a “bad day for the internet”, Google last week changed its search engine to include personalised results from Google+.
The introduction of Google Search plus Your World has led…
A custom domain name could help your website stand out from crowd … if you’re willing to pay.
hdzimmerman
At 11 o'clock this morning (Melbourne time), the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) started accepting applications for custom top-level domain (TLD) names.
Simply put, this means…
Telstra left the door open to its customers' information.
topcat_angel
At approximately 1pm on Friday, a customer of Telstra BigPond – Australia’s largest internet service provider – posted on a forum that:
“If you do a Google search for that number [the number for Telstra…
It can be difficult to find accurate health information on the web if you don’t know where to look.
Chilcy
If you typed “pins and needles” into Google, what kind of results would you expect to find? According to a recent study from Bupa Health, the search engine could diagnose you with anything from a completely…
What if there were an algorithm that could guarantee marketing success?
Hanga Girl
Creating a 30 second YouTube movie that goes viral is the holy grail of marketing. So how is it done?
Ensuring the success of a viral-produced movie is still largely hit-and-miss. Some of the more well…
The “scorched-earth” tactics espoused by SOPA are raising serious concerns.
Abode of Chaos
A pair of bills currently making their way through US legislature has set off alarm bells among internet technologists and users worldwide. The aim of PROTECT-IP, in the Senate, and SOPA (Stop Online Piracy…
We need to make sure quality is more important than quantity in our online engagement.
Flickr/joshfassbind.com
Social media provokes some of the most voluminous and heated responses in two key areas of contemporary society – democracy and privacy. Promoting the first and threatening the second, social media is…
A fully regulated internet may have come another step closer.
Horia Varlan
Last week, the English High Court ordered British Telecom (BT) to block access to a members-only website that offers links to pirated films.
NewzBin2, the site in question, offers links to pirated films…
In one vision of the future, every “thing” is connected to the internet. This “Internet of Things” will bring about revolutionary change in how we interact with our environment and, more importantly, how…
Technology reinforces traditional power structures.
Jared Rodriguez/Truthout
Last night, SBS screened the first instalment of a three-part documentary by Adam Curtis, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. The program attracted intense debate when broadcast in the UK earlier…
4,000 scientists and dodgy internet – what can possibly be done?
Todor Lolovski/Australian Antarctic Division
The information revolution is hurtling towards Antarctica in the shape of a 20 centimetre cube weighing less than 10 kilograms.
It can’t come soon enough. Not because Antarctic scientists (numbering more…
Creators of a new “red light” suffix hope to put porn in its proper place.
Julian Smith/AAP
This month’s launch of the .xxx internet domain, a new section of the internet dedicated to pornography and erotica, is getting people hot and bothered.
The global body coordinating internet addresses…
We’ve come to view operating securely online as a given, but it’s not.
shellygrrl
Two recent hacking incidents have highlighted the increasing fragility of the internet’s core infrastructure. They serve as a stark reminder that online security is somewhat illusory.
The weaknesses have…
Is the internet free – or a bird on the wire?
David Fraiz
Net neutrality was succinctly described in a recent study as “the belief that ISPs [internet service providers] must treat all internet content equally”.
Without net neutrality we see situations such…
Graphene may have humble beginnings, but it’s becoming a major draw.
qwertyuiop
It inspired the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics.
It’s the best thermal conductor we know of.
It’s a crystal stiffer than diamond, but able to stretch by 20% of its length, and can carry a current density…
There is currently around US$63.6 million of Bitcoin in circulation.
Craig A Rodway
On July 19, Doctor Nefario, founder of the Global Bitcoin Stock Exchange, arrived at Seattle airport and was asked if he had enough money to cover his stay in the US.
He replied that he did, but that…
Apple chief steve Jobs exits, but his grip on the company is likely to remain.
“God dammit, Gil,” shouted Bill Gates. “Why are you spending $400 million on this junk? Steve knows nothing about technology. He’s just a kind of super salesman. Virtually everything he thinks and says…
Google CEO Eric Schmidt will discuss collaboration at the Edinburgh TV Festival.
Peter Parks/AFP
Google chairman Eric Schmidt will make history tomorrow as the first IT/internet executive to deliver the MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival.
In doing so, he will face…
AES-256 is used widely in personal banking and other online services.
panguy100
It was announced overnight that cryptography researchers have found a “vulnerability” in the encryption scheme used in the vast majority of secure online transactions – a scheme known as AES-256.
Every…
Website designers want to woo you, and will use every trick in the book.
EF Photography
Beautiful women make great con people, as do handsome men.
Why? Because, for better or worse, we are predisposed to trust beautiful people more than normal-looking folks.
But what if we take it one step…
Internet comment culture signals the rise of an active public voice.
Alongside serious reportage of bad news, you’ve probably come across at least one crisis meme that treats that bad news with a dose of ghoulish humour.
Just hours after the Daily Mail printed the image…
Broadband-enabled technologies can ensure a more comfortable ageing process.
sparktography
Welcome to If I had a blank cheque … a series in which leading researchers reveal what they could (and would) do in their discipline if money were no object.
Today we hear from Dr Kate Cornick, Executive…
Hacktivists remove choice from consumers – and in their own way lay down the law.
anonmunich
As you’ll know by now, hacktivist group Anonymous has vandalised the home page of the Syrian Ministry of Defense, posting a message which started: “To the Syrian people: the world stands with you against…
What would Hunter S. Thompson have made of DefCon 2011?
Profound Whatever
Las Vegas has a long association with people on the fringe of society but even Hunter S. Thompson’s characters Raoul Duke and his drug-soaked Samoan lawyer would have found visitors to the DefCon hacker…
A successful attack on PayPal could cause havoc.
[!!!] Sweet Peas Photography [!!!]
In a joint statement published earlier this week, hacking groups Anonymous and LulzSec urged readers to boycott e-commerce giant PayPal, claiming:
“PayPal continues to withhold funds from WikiLeaks, a…
Increased intelligence data adds more noise, but not always more useful information.
ssoosay
Commentary from some sections of the IT community on the recent killings in Norway reminds us national security is still haunted by two visions:
1) With enough data it will be possible to comprehensively…
Great headlines … shame about the reality.
Australian Federal Police/AAP
By Philip Branch, Swinburne University of Technology
Another day, another hacking exploit makes headlines.
This time it’s a “self-taught, lone hacker”, David Cecil, apparently known online as “Evil”, who allegedly broke into Platform Networks' site, one…
Search engines can flag up “dubious” searches on request.
ssoosay
We know the self-confessed perpetrator of the Norway killings Anders Breivik purchased six tonnes of fertiliser, a key ingredient of explosives, in recent months.
We know he was under surveillance by…
Some users have been automatically suspended from all Google services.
halilgokdal
A fresh storm has blown into Google’s new Google+ service. The company has been suspending accounts because they contravene Google’s Community Standards – ostensibly to stop fake or spam accounts being…
Who are middle-men in the global spam network?
freezelight
Spam is everywhere. Its persistence is attributable to gullible internet users, to well-known software giants and, ultimately, to money.
Unfortunately, spam is not going to be vanquished through use of…
Cyber crime is a growth industry, if you have the head for it.
Truthout.org
By Philip Branch, Swinburne University of Technology
The hacking stories just keep on coming. Of course, The News of the World is the big one at the moment, matched, for the moment at least, by the hacking of The Sun’s website by celebrity – and proficient…
Google+ faces an uphill struggle to win hearts and minds.
Google
Google is hoping that the saying “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again” will work out for them with Google+.
Launched as a private beta version on Tuesday, Google+ is the search giant’s latest…
Imagine a world where spam didn’t exist. It isn’t hard to do.
AJC1
We’ve all received them: emails offering special prices on Viagra, offering fortunes we didn’t know we had, offering links to fantastic websites we simply must visit right away.
Annoying as! But the technology…
In the fight against cyber crime, a winning move is proving hard to find.
dlkinney
Cyber security has been in the news a lot lately. Corporate giants have had their data stolen, intelligence agencies have had their websites taken down and hacker groups have become household names.
Closer…
Tearing your hair out? You might be suffering from cognitive overload.
BrittneyBush
Workers in high-pressure, safety-critical jobs – such as air traffic controllers or traffic incident operators – need high levels of concentration and focus to do their jobs effectively.
When concentration…
When it comes to top-level domains, anything goes.
pntphoto
We’re all familiar with web address suffixes such as .com and .org but from January next year, we could see the emergence of a whole host of different address endings.
In a meeting in Singapore yesterday…
Tom MacMaster was revealed as the author of the Gay Girl in Damascus blog.
AAP
Unlike politics, unlike sport, literature doesn’t appear an obvious candidate for scandal. Most literary controversies can’t be easily packaged along the Camillagate, Zippergate, Weinergate lines; can…
Are traditional telephony services looking down the barrel of a gun?
Grace
If you use services such as Skype, you’ll already know about Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). This is what makes your video calls with loved ones possible, and – not least with the advent of the NBN…
Steve Jobs is banking on cloud computing having a silver lining.
EPA/Monica M. Davey
Apple CEO Steve Jobs emerged briefly from medical leave to introduce iCloud at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco yesterday (2am Australian EST).
So how was it?
In previous…
There’s every chance your computer has been compromised.
TTC Press Images
Today, Australia’s Labor Government announced it had started working on a national cyber security strategy, to be released as a white paper in the first half of next year.
This comes amid growing concern…
NBN Co chief Mike Quigley and Stephen Conroy still face many tough tasks.
AAP
The news that NBN Co has found a way to move forward from the crucial cost-of-construction issue must have surely lifted the Gillard Government’s spirits.
NBN Co, the government-owned corporation in charge…
Is the NBN a “perfect answer” to Australia’s broadband needs?
Mozzer502/Flickr
A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Radio 2GB commentator Alan Jones demonstrated this adage last week when commentating on a recent technology breakthrough by a group of international…
Is LinkIn’s successful float a harbinger of a looming tech bubble?
AAP
LinkedIn’s highly successful share market debut on Wall Street overnight will have no doubt delighted the social networking site’s founders and investors, with the stock’s price more than doubling during…
Cloud computing could completely change the game.
sharmili r/Flickr
Google’s so-called Chromebook will be launched next month in the US and much of Europe, and, not unusually, “some time later” in Australia …
The move was announced at the company’s flasghip I/O conference…
When it comes to illegal downloading, are we all expendable?
Claudio Onorati/EPA
Ever downloaded a Hollywood flick from the internet?
If the answer is “yes” then you could be next on Rambo’s hit list. As reported recently, an American federal judge has agreed to allow the U.S. Copyright…
Is it time to get tougher on hackers, whatever their motivations?
Philippe Huguen/AFP
PRIVACY – Who are hackers and what do they want from you?
Pop culture would have us believe they live in dank basements, wear black leather from head to toe and have pseudonyms such as Warlock or Neo…
Routers have helped to slow the worldwide exhaustion of IPv4 addresses.
AAP
If you’re the sort of person who relies on the internet every day, you’ll maybe have twitched slightly on hearing rumours that the world is running out of internet addresses.
Is this true? Well, yes and…
The NBN could give all Australians access to online services.
iStockphoto
The big picture
Australia’s plan for a National Broadband Network (NBN) represents one of the largest infrastructure projects in the world at present.
The estimated $43 billion price tag has stirred…
Chrome is heralded as the fastest browser, but are the others catching up?
Until a few years ago, there was only one name in the world of web browsing: Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. But now, in 2011, users have more choice than ever when it comes to searching online.
Before…
