The phone rings late one evening. You answer it to hear the voice of a woman in distress: ‘I can’t keep this up any longer, they’re getting to close to the truth!’. She hangs up suddenly, but not before leaving you with a cryptic clue – a password to some online network that she had managed to get a hold of. Your next move, should you choose to take it, is to log onto that network and download the encrypted data hidden within.
What do we want to be?
Tag Archive: government
Corporate Ethics: To better the world, we must better ourselves
It’s a real cliché these days – ethics. Ever since the financial crisis, businesses and top-level management have been throwing around the word (and others such as values, integrity, sustainability) like rice at a wedding. All of a sudden, everybody’s got a conscience.
Staring into the Abyss of Social Media
We’re all having a great time, it seems – the world is a happy place, rejoicing in the mutual celebration of competitive sport, technological progress, and a Northern Hemisphere summer (and LOL cats…always with the bloody LOL cats). But hold on one moment…
Digital Economy Bill in the UK a totalitarian nightmare?
The fight to secure copyrights on the internet will always be an ongoing one, but the most recent dilemma is that being faced in the UK with the proposed Digital Economy Bill that has just recently seen a number of amendments that are cause for concern (to say the least).
Google conviction sparks debate over internet freedom
I’ve had a few posts recently that revolve around multi-national technology giant Google, both for positive and negative reasons, and today’s news has once again brought the company right into the ethical spotlight. An Italian judge has convicted three Google executives and given each a six-month suspended sentence because of a video of an autistic boy being bullied that was uploaded onto Google’s video service in 2006.
Should homeopathic treatments be state funded?
There’s been some recent controversy in the UK these past couple of days over whether or not homeopathic treatments should be eligible for payment through the National Health Service (NHS). As it currently stands, the government does acknowledge that there is no evidence backing the validity of such treatments; however at the same time allowing for them to be paid for through the state-backed NHS system.
Chip-and-PIN security flaw highlights blind faith in technology
This is an interesting type of story that we hear about in mainstream media every now and then – and that is the finding of security weaknesses in widespread technology, particularly those that deal with financial transactions of one kind or another. This time around, it’s flaws in the Chip-and-PIN technology that is widely used in credit and debit cards throughout Europe and particularly the UK.
Nanotechnology Education Act put to U.S. Congress
An interesting news update courtesy of Nanowerk News – House representative David Wu has introduced a Nanotechnology Education Act to US Congress that seeks to encourage U.S. students into the field of nanotechnology research and engineering.
Site of the Week: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Given the focus over the last few posts on internet censorship and freedom of expression, I wanted to highlight an organisation that has been at the forefront of the fight for liberty ever since the early days of the internet’s public use – the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
The Great Australian Internet Blackout
Continuing on with the internet censorship theme, this week marks The Great Australian Internet Blackout – a campaign orchestrated by activist Jeff Waugh and supported by the Electronic Frontiers Australia in protest against government plans to push forward legislation that will lead to blanket censorship of the internet for Australian users.
