Of Rebellions, Green Apples 'n Anonymous Tor

The Interweb is a wonderful place, don't you think? Social Networking. Twittering. Blogging. Flickring. Vineoing. Then there is the wealth of content out there that is staggering and priceless!

Absolutely anything under the sun can be found on the InterWeb like all about The iPhone's Funny Price, The Past, Present and Future of the Justice League, and for those of you who haven't gotten it, Macbreak Weekly 39: Mayday, which featured the soviet anthem, teleporting, schoolhouse, the newton and a barrel of laughs.

In a post by Kara Swisher, she wrote that there may be hope for Old Media in the quest to Save the Cheerleader, Save the (old) World!

No matter what part of the world you live, soon you'll get to taste A Greener Apple:

"Today is the first time we have openly discussed our plans to become a greener Apple. It will not be the last. We will be providing updates of our efforts and accomplishments at least annually, most likely around this time of the year. And we plan to bring other environmental issues to the table as well, such as the energy efficiency of the products in our industry. We are also beginning to explore the overall carbon “footprint” of our products, and may have some interesting data and issues to share later this year.

I hope you are as delighted as I was when I first learned how far along Apple actually is in removing toxic chemicals from its products and recycling its older products. We apologize for leaving you in the dark for this long. Apple is already a leader in innovation and engineering, and we are applying these same talents to become an environmental leader. Based on our tangible actions and results over time, hopefully our customers, employees, shareholders and professional colleagues will all feel proud of our ongoing efforts to become a greener Apple."

Perhaps, what was more interesting in this latest blog by Steve Jobs was this reveal:

"We plan to introduce our first Macs with LED backlight technology in 2007."

(updated to add this) In case you didn't get all that PR-speak. Waffle has the translation! (yay!) Go see 'em here. Being a great site this is, we're going to give you a preview or (if you prefer) an "executive summary" of Waffle's excellent post:

Dear Greenpeace,

Fuck you.

Love,
Steve.

Moving on: the Digg Rebellion of 2007 on the other hand has been caught on not just by the Inquirer and netizens but also by the BBC in DVD DRM row sparks user rebellion. On the same issue, the New York Times wrote about How a Number Became the Latest Web Celebrity, songs sung on youtube even. Some people believe this is mob mentality, some democracy on the Interweb.

Speaking of revolutions, One Voice--- a Philippine organization advocating "speak up for real change" has this YouTube video (original link: here):

The insights we can gain in all this is simply these stories brings back emphasis on the fact that it is Content quality above all else that drives this wonderful engine of the InterWeb--- for anybody: news, blog, video, music. And Content that the masses think is good is rewarded. For all freedom loving nations around the world: how is that not democracy in action?

As much as all this is a good thing, we also live in a world where surveillance on the 'Net is the norm. This surveillance lets advertisers track user behavior and interest, for example. You can also inadvertently reveal your identity--- job, origin when going online simply by checking or sending mail all because of traffic analysis (which by the way also helps the good guys protect networks).

Why is going anonymous is good? For one thing it helps the good guys: police for instance can monitor websites they suspect have illicit activity. intelligence operatives can send information back anonymously. Women who are victims of violent crimes can protect their identity and seek anonymous help online, as do people with illnesses who would be uncomfortable discussing their condition. according to the tor website, journalists also go anonymous to communicate with "whistleblowers and dissidents".

Going Anonymous also helps those dissidents one of the myriad tools to fight off governments clinging to old school dinosaur notions of closed, controlled environments that stifle civil liberties, strangle innovation and creativity.

There has been a technology for sometime now called "onion routers". Onion routing as wikipedia calls it: "a technique for anonymous communication over a computer network." Its goal is to protect the privacy of the sender and recipient of the message during its journey from point a (you) to a target (recipient like a website).

image was taken from Tor: Overview

today this is accomplished through a solution called Tor. Simply put, Tor is distributed (like peer-to-peer file sharing) and anonymous network. the tor overview describes it as "a twisty, hard-to-follow route in order to throw off somebody who is tailing you". Tor allows you to hide stuff that you do like: web publishing, or your instant messaging server. At the same time, allows other users to connect to the same services anonymously.

Tor is multi-platform. there are tor solutions for Windows, Linux and OS X. Tor is perfectly legal. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has a Legal FAQ: here on Tor, if you're interested.

For Mac OS X users, Tor is simple to employ. It has a graphical user interface. The dmg is a bundle of tor, vidalia (the tor gui) and privoxy (a filtering web proxy) and is already pre-configured to work right as one would expect for a Mac App. Simply, download, mount and install this: dmg (for OSX 10.4.x, tiger) or this: dmg (for 10.3.x, panther).

The Tor page has a step-by-step instruction on how to configure Tor. It is located: here.

There is of course a firefox extension that you'll need: here.

Of course, Tor isn't a one stop solution as the download page warns, but it is one that adds a layer of protection. And a word of advice, Tor also comes with a price, turning it on makes browsing slow. you might want to use it only for specific instances.

In an Age of the Everyman, the InterWeb is a community, a living breathing sprawling place where content is the coin and being anonymous helps control that coin and saves you grief and like a lot of things on the InterWeb, it's greatest gift is giving users what they want, protecting yourself is fair game. The InterWeb is an unheralded power that at its heart is democracy in all its beauty and evil and we're still learning about everyday.

The Seeds of Five Years Gone

Did we make a wrong turn somewhere, or is this still five years gone? Big Brother looking over seems to be the name of the game by every government in the "free world".

"the front-lines of contemporary wars not on isolated battlefields but where people live."

James Nachtwey, stream, download

The Current is all about Squeeze the Virtual Turnip and quotes the unlawyer and the philippines' national telecommunications center:

If the proposed rules are approved, all firms in the loose VAS provider industry - from mom-and-pop ventures to those owned by large multinationals - would have to register with the regulator…

Services covered by the proposed rules include messaging, audio and video conferencing, voice mail, e-mail, information services such as road traffic and visa application data, gaming services except gambling, applications services such as mobile banking, content and program services such as music and ring tones, audio text, domain name hosting, fax, IP multicasting, virtual private networks, and PBX hosting.

i can't put it better than what mlq3 wrote: "Imagine Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez armed with such a list, and on a bad quote day. Jeepers Creepers."

Of course, this isn't just in a lowly 80+Million nation. In America, the New York Times writes on Spying on Americans:

Mr. Bush’s motivations for submitting this bill now seem obvious. The courts have rejected his claim that 9/11 gave him virtually unchecked powers, and he faces a Democratic majority in Congress that is willing to exercise its oversight responsibilities. That, presumably, is why his bill grants immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated in five years of illegal eavesdropping. It also strips the power to hear claims against the spying program from all courts except the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets in secret.

i wonder if there was ever a time, a government was never an idiot?

these people probably have never heard of twitter or skype (or maybe they did).

In an Age of the Everyman, a single point of failure arises when you stifle innovation, and kill dynamic discourse of matters of importance like the whole recent discussion on education in the philippines. that was democracy in action and far from the idiotic news of the day like matters of politics and the life of actors on television. how about technologies, best practices like this evangelization of test driven development in php, or philippine gps users, or blogs that talk about how great it is that dell goes ubuntu? Doesn't the Internet and access to it spreads knowledge and innovation?

just imagine the whole world of information people will be missing out of like why whale waste is extremely valuable!

are we just going to miss out on funny or die?!

The Landlord

How about this whole hoopla on digg and hd-dvd?

Seriously now, the sad part of all this is that Security Experts make get such idiotic ideas they don't think of it's consequences. The British bombers were home grown dissidents. They killed their countrymen, people who they grew up with, shared a nation with. Put in another way: they felt our differences divide us and are worth more than our diversity.

Does that explain terrorist cells in rich Singapore (Seeds of Terror, Maria A. Ressa, Chapter 8: Singapore Al-Qaeda's Plan A) for example?

Having cameras in banks, across street corners or other important places is one thing. these places are important because we need to know what is happening. These technologies allow us to monitor against threats in a passive way and not just terrorists but more importantly: crime. getting people to register for guns and being strict about who gets licenses are great for everyone. just as effective as a driver's license or a professional license like that for doctors and lawyers.

Some people believe that inspecting cars and shoppers entering malls protect us. Banning just about every item on an airplane, that is kinda idiotic too and a knee jerk reaction that doesn't really help. i say it creates the opposite: it creates a sense of panic, a shroud of fear and mistrust. when you think about it: if someone really wanted to kill off many people, suicide bombers have their creative ways. we'll never stop their likes playing defense.

The world has already invented The Perfect Weapon for the Meanest Wars. What else can we come up with next?

The battle that will win the war against terrorism will be the battle that wins hearts and minds. When we make a world where Child Soldiers don't exist, when every child gets an education, and enjoy childhood, when the strength of our diversity and not our differences makes us united: it won't be a perfect one but that'll be a more peaceful and just world.