A 'political hit job'? Why the alt-right is accusing big tech of censorship; Guardian, March 4, 2018

Jason Wilson, Guardian; A 'political hit job'? Why the alt-right is accusing big tech of censorship

"The cases help illustrate big tech’s current dilemma. While politicians and anti-racist campaigners are asking them to act more like publishers, and show some discernment about what they allow to be published, from the right, many are accusing them of censorious liberal bias, and demanding they wind back the few standards they have implemented. These protests have taken many forms, including the launch of alternative, rightwing social media platforms."

Trump risks US being seen as 'kleptocracy', says ex-ethics chief Walter Shaub; Guardian, July 31, 2017

David Smith, Guardian; Trump risks US being seen as 'kleptocracy', says ex-ethics chief Walter Shaub

"The former head of the US government ethics watchdog has warned that Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest put the country at risk of being seen as a “kleptocracy”.

Speaking to the Guardian, Walter Shaub, who quit this month as director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), condemned the president for using his hotels and other properties for government business in what is in effect a free advertising campaign.

“His actions create the appearance of profiting from the presidency, and the appearance here is everything because the demand I’m making is so much more than ‘have a clean heart’. It’s ‘Have a clean heart and act appropriately,’” Shaub said.

“The fact that we’re having to ask questions about whether he’s intentionally using the presidency for profit is bad enough because the appearance itself undermines confidence in government.”

He added: “It certainly risks people starting to refer to us as a kleptocracy. That’s a term people throw around fairly freely when they’re talking about Russia, fairly or unfairly, and we run the risk of getting branded the same way. America really should stand for more than that.”"

Watching America lose its moral authority in real time; Washington Post, July 14, 2017

Dana Milbank, Washington Post; Watching America lose its moral authority in real time

"I traveled with my family in Australia for three weeks as a guest of the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne, invited to explain what’s happening in President Trump’s America.

As if there were an explanation.

Of more interest was what I learned from the Australians. To visit this stalwart ally and talk with its people was to see how the United States, in the space of just a few months, has utterly lost its moral authority."

U.S. Withdrawal from TPP Impact on Intellectual Property; Inside Counsel, March 3, 2017

Amanda Ciccatelli, Inside Counsel; 

U.S. Withdrawal from TPP Impact on Intellectual Property

"Further, the U.S. withdrawal from the TPP may have major global implications for IP rights. As the TPP was being negotiated, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was slowly progressing in the background. The RCEP is a Chinese- and Indian-led alternative to TPP that includes all seven of the Asian and Oceanic states in TPP, plus South Korea, Laos, Myanmar, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Cambodia. 

“But the RCEP is almost certain to provide less protection for IP rights – especially pharmaceutical patent rights – than the TPP would have,” Rich said. “India and China are traditionally hostile to strong pharmaceutical patent protections of the type found under U.S. law, calling such patent protections ‘evergreening.’ “So, the rejection of the TPP is likely to allow an alternative, less protective paradigm for international IP rights to arise in its place.”"

Russia Heats Up Its Infowar With the West; Daily Beast, March 3, 2017

Ilan Berman, Daily Beast; Russia Heats Up Its Infowar With the West

"[Russia's information operations] objective is clear and unequivocal: to obscure objective facts through a veritable “firehose of falsehood,” thereby creating doubt in Western governments, undermining trust in democratic institutions, and garnering greater sympathy for the Russian government (or, at least, greater freedom of action) for its actions abroad.

Last month, in a presentation before the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu formally unveiled the establishment of a new military unit designed to conduct “information operations” against the country’s adversaries. The goal of the new initiative, according to Vladimir Shamanov, head of the Duma’s defense committee, is to “protect the national defense interests and engage in information warfare.”"

'This is the new reality': Panelists speak for Pitt cyber security institute; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2/3/17

Chris Potter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; 

'This is the new reality': Panelists speak for Pitt cyber security institute:

[Kip Currier: This was a fascinating and informative panel at the University of Pittsburgh on February 2, 2017, discussing cyberhacking, efforts to identify hackers and hacker-sanctioning actors/nation states, and responses to hacking threats and incidents.

Two comments (which I'll paraphrase below, without benefit of a transcript) by panelist and Russian journalist Andrei Soldatov, stood out for me:

1. Vladimir Putin's Russia has deftly understood and exploited the distinction between "cybersecurity" and "information security" (the West, Soldatov contends, has focused more on the former).

2. Under Stalin, technical training in Soviet universities and technical institutes did not include study of ethics and the humanities (largely relegated to those in medical professions).]

"The precise identity and motivations of the hackers who leaked sensitive Democratic emails during last year’s presidential election may never be known. But they left fingerprints that were familiar to Andrei Soldatov, a journalist who has written about Russia’s security state for the past 20 years.

Like much of the propaganda back home, Mr. Soldatov said at a University of Pittsburgh panel discussion Thursday, “It’s not about building the positive narrative, it’s about building the negative narrative. … To say everyone is corrupt and no one can be trusted — people will accept this.”

Mr. Soldatov was one of four panelists convened by Pitt’s fledgling Institute of Cyber Law, Policy, and Security and its new director, former U.S. Attorney David Hickton. The discussion drew a few hundred people to the first public event for the center, which focuses on cybercrime and cybersecurity."

Russia’s radical new strategy for information warfare; Washington Post, 1/18/17

David Ignatius, Washington Post; Russia’s radical new strategy for information warfare

"Krutskikh’s comments may have been a precursor of a new doctrine for information operations announced publicly by the Kremlin in December. The senior administration official described the Russian strategy: “They think of information space as a domain of warfare. In the U.S, we tend to have a binary view of conflict — we’re at peace or at war. The Russian doctrine is more of a continuum. You can be at different levels of conflict, along a sliding scale.”...

In Russia’s view, America is pushing just as aggressively in the information space, but denies it. “Things we perceive as free speech, they perceive as aggressive behavior from the West,” noted the senior U.S. official."

From Julia Gillard to Hillary Clinton: online abuse of politicians around the world; Guardian, 6/26/16

Elle Hunt, Nick Evershed and Ri Liu, Guardian; From Julia Gillard to Hillary Clinton: online abuse of politicians around the world:

"Hillary Clinton received almost twice as much abuse as Bernie Sanders on Twitter this year, according to a wide-ranging analysis provided to the Guardian that compared the treatment of politicians in the US, UK and Australia.

The abuse of politicians online, particularly women, is perceived by some to come with the territory. But as high-profile cases flag the urgent need to clean up the web, the scope of the problem is now revealed in greater detail in work by a Brisbane-based social data company, Max Kelsen.

The analysis looked at leadership contests involving both male and female politicians, with the aim of examining if abuse differed between politicians at similar levels in their parties...

As recently as in the past six months, there has been a growing intolerance of online abuse of public figures, spurred on by high-profile cases across the world, reflected in the Guardian’s The web we want series."

Asia On The Heels Of US And Europe In Patent Applications At WIPO; Developing Countries Lagging; Intellectual Property Watch, 3/16/16

Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch; Asia On The Heels Of US And Europe In Patent Applications At WIPO; Developing Countries Lagging:

"China, Japan and South Korea are among the top five countries filing international patent applications at the World Intellectual Property Organization, while the United States continues to lead in patent and trademark applications. Far behind, developing countries seem to be having a hard time catching up...

The top 10 countries filing under the PCT in 2015 were the US (57,385), Japan (44,235), and China (29,846), followed by Germany, South Korea, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden.

According to a WIPO press release, the US has filed the largest annual number of international patent applications for 38 years running. Patent-filing activity by China-based innovators accounted for much of the overall growth in applications, according to the release.

Computer technology and digital communication saw the largest numbers of filing in 2015, each exceeding 16,000, according to the release."

U.S. and Europe in ‘Safe Harbor’ Data Deal, but Legal Fight May Await; New York Times, 2/2/16

Mark Scott, New York Times; U.S. and Europe in ‘Safe Harbor’ Data Deal, but Legal Fight May Await:

"European officials on Tuesday agreed to a deal with the United States that would let Google, Amazon and thousands of other businesses continue moving people’s digital data, including social media posts and financial information, back and forth across the Atlantic.

With billions of dollars of business potentially at stake, the data-transfer deal was the result of more than three months of often tense negotiations between United States and European Union policy makers, who have clashed over what level of privacy individuals can expect when companies and government agencies follow ever-expanding digital footprints.

Part of the challenge is balancing individuals’ privacy concerns with national security obligations, particularly in light of mounting fears about international terrorism.

The agreement announced on Tuesday aims to address those privacy concerns and strike that balance by including written guarantees by the United States — to be reviewed annually — that American intelligence agencies would not have indiscriminate access to Europeans’ digital data when it is sent across the Atlantic. Whether that provision will reassure privacy-rights groups remains to be seen."

Government Requests to Remove Online Material Increase at Google; New York Times, 12/19/13

Claire Cain Miller, New York Times; Government Requests to Remove Online Material Increase at Google: "Governments, led by the United States, are increasingly demanding that Google remove information from the Web... Often, the requests come from judges, police officers and politicians trying to hide information that is critical of them. The most common request cites defamation, often of officials... Government requests to remove information increased most significantly in Turkey and Russia because of online censorship laws, according to Google... Google also said officials were resorting to new legal methods to demand that Google remove content, such as citing copyright law to take down transcripts of political speeches or government news releases."