Ugandan Minister accuses opposition of staging “Twitter insurrection”
The BBC reports that Ugandan Security Minister Muruli Mukasa has accused the opposition Forum for Democratic Change party in Uganda of using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to prepare Ugandan youth for insurrection. The accusation comes amid widespread protests against the rising cost of living in Uganda.
BART “pulls a Mubarak” in San Francisco
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reports that operators of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) shut down mobile phone service at four stations in central San Francisco on the weekend in response to a planned protest against the police.
Argentinean court blocks access to whistle-blowing websites
The Argentinean National Criminal Court has issued an order to all ISPs in the country to block the websites leakymails.com and leakymails.blogspot.com, Global Voices reports. Leakymails is a project which publishes the email correspondence of political officials, among other documents, in order to expose corruption. The interim blocking order follows a complaint from the Argentinean Ministry of Security.
California legislators at crossroads over learning resources
A battle is heating up in California over legislation designed to legitimise new fees being charged by commercial publishers for online community college courses. The debate has left legislators conflicted over whether to encourage commercial publishers to charge students for online courses or instead promote open educational resources.
OpenLeaks founder’s integrity questioned following expulsion from hacker collective
The Chaos Computer Club (CCC), Germany’s oldest hacker collective, has voted to expel Daniel Domscheit-Berg after he falsely claimed that his new whistleblowing website, OpenLeaks, had been vetted by the CCC. Domscheit-Berg worked with Julian Assange on the WikiLeaks project, but left last summer citing irreconcilable differences. A spokesperson for the CCC said he now doubted Domscheit-Berg’s integrity.
Report | Interview with CCC spokesperson
“Repressing the internet, Western style”
Evgeny Morozov argues in the Wall Street Journal that repressive regimes are closely watching Western responses to social media-fuelled uprisings like the UK riots: “Such regimes are eager to see what kind of precedents will be set by Western officials as they wrestle with these evolving technologies. They hope for at least partial vindication of their own repressive policies”.
Auto-BAHN
Auto-BAHN is a smartphone application based around Bluetooth and wi-fi that provides users with a method to quickly communicate with others during an emergency situation when telecommunication systems are down.
The Public Domain Review
The Public Domain Review is an irreverent online cultural almanac that specialises in works in the public domain: “By providing a curated collection of exotic scraps and marvellous rarities and linking to freely distributable copies of works in online archives and from far flung corners of the web, we hope to encourage readers to further utilise and explore public domain works by themselves”.
Video: How to improve your podcasting
This short video from the BBC gives some great tips for podcasters.
The Barefoot Technologist 