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Comment Bruce Schneier (Score 5, Interesting) 330

by david_a_eaves (#45204149) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Can Bruce Schneier Be Trusted?
I am sitting next (or at least across) from Bruce right now. He is definitely interested (and humoured) in this conversation. As he notes, he's written a book on it. I'd say that a conversation about Bruce's trustworthiness is definitely worthwhile. One should have it about everybody. Of course, it means we should also have it about the people who are most interested in trying to attack Bruce's trustworthiness.
Government

Open Data and a Critical Citizenry 50

Posted by Soulskill from the next-step-in-literacy dept.
Last week we discussed news that the UK government had released a treasure trove of public spending data. Charles Arthur, the Guardian's technology editor, wrote at the time how crucial it was for citizens to find ways to examine and interpret the data; otherwise it would be useless. Now, an anonymous reader sends in a response from open data activist David Eaves, who takes it a step further. He writes, "We need a data-literate citizenry, not just a small elite of hackers and policy wonks. And the best way to cultivate that broad-based literacy is not to release in small or measured quantities, but to flood us with data. To provide thousands of niches that will interest people in learning, playing and working with open data. ... It is worth remembering: We didn’t build libraries for an already literate citizenry. We built libraries to help citizens become literate. Today we build open data portals not because we have a data or public policy literate citizenry, we build them so that citizens may become literate in data, visualization, coding and public policy."

Submission + - Open Data and a critical citizenry (eaves.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a complimentary response to Arthur's Guardian's piece on open data open data activist David Eaves points out that:

"We didn't build libraries for a literate citizenry. We built libraries to help citizens become literate. Today we build open data portals not because we have public policy literate citizens, we build them so that citizens may become literate in public policy."

He makes the case that people need to think of a supporting infrastructure for open data to help foster a more data literate citizenry composed not just of a developer elite, but of a broader swath of society.
Security

Is China Creating the World's Largest Botnet Army? 195

Posted by timothy from the economies-of-scale dept.
david_a_eaves writes "The Chinese government is mandating that all computers sold in China come with Internet blocking software. Rob Cottingham writes an excellent piece noting how the censorship application of this software should be the least of our concerns. This new software may create an opportunity for the Chinese Government to appropriate these computers and use them to create the worlds largest botnet army." Update: 06/11 21:26 GMT by T : J. Alex Halderman writes "My students and I have been examining the Green Dam censorware software. We've found serious vulnerabilities that can be exploited by any web site a user visits with the software installed. We also found that some of the blacklists seems to have been taken from the American-made filtering program CyberSitter. We've posted a report and demo."
Security

Submission + - Is China creating the world's largest botnet army? (socialsignal.com)

Submitted by
david_a_eaves
david_a_eaves writes: "The Chinese government is mandating that all computers sold in China come with Internet blocking software. Rob Cottingham writes an excellent piece noting how the censorship application of this software should be the least of our concerns. This new software may create an opportunity for the Chinese Government to appropriate these computers and use them to create the worlds largest botnet army."

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