Two I like so far:

This story is about transactive memory which is an old issue and an old story, but I think is an interesting issue. I am curious to think about how that system of memory storage can be manipulated, or at least the implications of relying on a corporation as a place of storage.

Also, this I really like: copyright capitalism is eating itself you guys!

-- LizzieOShea - 14 Oct 2015

Sorry for the delay of my reaction to this initiative (I've been trying to figure out my login details for a week or so... woops.) Thanks Lizzie, I think this is a very good idea.

I've been trying to educate myself in programming using the following website: https://www.codecademy.com/learn - maybe this is useful for other code illiterates in our seminar, too. I think the code academy people are doing a great job at delivering free, and 'as-painless-as-it-can-get' classes in coding.

-- MariaJoseSchmidtKessen - 28 Oct 2015

Also - you now how we were discussing anarchist production of functional goods? Here is some anarchist production of non-functional goods and I think its better than the original, amirite? http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/24/arts/music/drake-rapper-actor-meme.html

-- LizzieOShea - 28 Oct 2015

The irony: You try to click on any of the links of the meme clips of drake hotline and you get the non-amused-youtube-smiley with the message "Drake Hotline..." This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by IFPI."

-- MariaJoseSchmidtKessen - 29 Oct 2015

OMG. That's terrible. Drake is no way as cool as he thinks he is.

-- LizzieOShea - 29 Oct 2015

I learned today that Whatsapp is using Open Whisper Systems' TextSecrue (now called Signal) (Thanks Merel for teaching me about this) to encrypt Whatsapp messages end-to-end on Android devices. After the start of our seminar, I got increasingly nervous about using Whatsapp, so I was all the happier when I read this : Whatsapp is 'the' app for messages in Europe (I have the feeling it's not as popular in the US). I found the company's commitment to secrecy was more credible because Whatsapp's founder grew up in Ukraine during Soviet times... but maybe I'm just being naive here.

-- MariaJoseSchmidtKessen - 04 Nov 2015

I thought this was interesting following a conversation LizzieOShea? and I had during office hours.

U.K.Seeks to Boost Its Spying Powers http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-k-government-to-unveil-proposals-for-new-spying-powers-1446563133

-- BriannaCummings - 04 Nov 2015

This is just totally depressing, because these powers already exist in Australia. Despite the best efforts of a number of activists, lawyers, politicians etc spooks can hack our computers and our metadata must be retained for 2 years. It's a goddam disgrace. I wrote up a pretty cursory analysis here - cursory in part because the reforms were so massive, it was hard to do them justice without writing War and Peace.

It does make me think: is law meaningful or not at all? If they are already doing all these things (ASIO, GCHQ, NSA) why bother making it lawful? But then they are bothering because there must be some esteem they place in the system? Sometimes I think being a lawyer involves spending a huge amount of time linguistically dancing around the truth.

-- LizzieOShea - 06 Nov 2015

I recently started using an email service,ProtonMail, which offers end-to-end encryption for emails between users and even to external mail addresses. It has been designed by some smart physics cookies at CERN.

The theme of who might be 'the villain' attacking our privacy has come up several times during our discussions in class. Well, I have not been able to use my ProtonMail? account for the last two days due to a DDOS attack, as reported in this ars technica article. This is my first first-hand experience that there are some powerful people out there that hate privacy. But when it comes to their own identity, it seems that these powerful bad guys very much like to protect their own privacy, too.

-- MariaJoseSchmidtKessen - 06 Nov 2015