Things worthy of note that I haven’t written posts on:

• A fun blow-by-blow of a security researcher warning a bunch of execs about their hackability - and then pwning them.
• WikiBooks is writing the textbook on cryptography. Learn or contribue!  h/t Schneier
• The Internet is radicalizing terrorists  in the United States, too
• Uncivil society flourishes on the Intertubes.
• Chavez is heading full steam ahead to censor the Internet. Apparently it is a home of *gasp* false information and rumors. I think he should correct it himself.
• The DOD isn’t too fond of Wikileaks. And their plan to try and discredit them was posted on… Wikileaks.
• DDOS interferes with vote counting in Columbia.  Yawn. I’ll be interested when we have an election demonstrably thrown by hacking.
• Today’s computing threats can’t be stopped, even with up-to-date software.
• People reveal little bits of information. Computers collect and combine information little bits of information. Privacy on the Internet is really, really hard.
• Given the massive size of botnets, they probably already control a computer inside your company. Hackers buy access to you through a botnet service provider. I love capitalism.
• The Feds are on Facebook - and the rules for them are a lot more lax.

There’s a new Global Internet Freedom caucus in Congress.

This is not necessarily a big deal - there are a lot of caucuses. Some are extremely active, and others, not so much. (Congressional Ski and Snowboard Caucus?)

Considering their name, this one will likely be focused on issues raised by the Global Internet Freedom Consortium, a group that got their start aiding Falun Gong practitioners avoid savage oppression from Chinese government. GIF software has been used successfully in China and Iran during recent protests. I met a leader of the group when he spoke at a Congressional briefing I arranged.

The group immediately introduced some legislation to create an Internet Freedom Foundation within the NSF to fund grants and competitions to build anti-censorship tech.

I expect Caucus members to aggressively push laws “encouraging” corporations to do the right thing when providing technology to bad boy regimes.

The unstoppable force and immovable object may have begun their tango: it looks like China and Google are heading for a collision.

Reports from the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal (sorry, lame-o subscription) say that talks between the Chinese government and the search giant are at an impasse. The Chinese, meanwhile, have insisted that Google is obligated to obey their laws. Whatever they might be, I suppose. (Oh, but the Chinese government notes that  if Google ever complains formally they will go after those pesky hackers.)

Now MSNBC suggests that Google has in fact dropped its search filters in the Middle Kingdom - despite denials from Mountain View, apparently the iconic Tank Man image is again available by searching for Tienanmen Square 1989.

The ball appears to be in China’s court. Booting Google out will be the sort of overt move that modern authoritarians attempt to remove. One never wants to really rub it in the face of your subjects that you are in fact preventing them from accessing what they want. Still, I simply can’t imagine them conceding on this point - it seems like it would mean giving in on information control entirely.

Of course, given a core of Internet users like this, the PRC doesn’t really need to worry about democratizing pressure.

Among its least important consequences: the kerfluffle has left advertisers at their wits’ end.

Historical footnote: the original pic was photoshopped by Iran to cover a misfire.

Bombshell from Iran, on a couple of metaphorical levels: the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, everyone’s favorite bad guys these days,  hacked a couple dozen web sites of human rights activists working in Iran, claiming they were agents for American intelligence services. In Farsi, “rights defender” apparently translates as “American spy”.

Then the regime’s increasingly brazen goons arrested 30 related citizens - names most likely taken from the compromised web sites.

The Iranian news agency is publicly bragging about their leet hax0r skillz.

If the report by ComputerWorldUK is correct - that http://hra-iran.org was one of the target sites - then things get veeery interesting. Let’s do some digging.

Hmm, if the current domain information was true a couple days ago - and it was updated today, so who knows - the site is owned by a guy out in Silver Spring, MD (Hi neighbor!) and is being hosted by SiteGround (”Multiple layers of network security!”) No, I haven’t heard of them either.

Well, SiteGround has their colocation facilities in a few locations - but all of them are definitely in the United States. Unless Texas managed to secede when I wasn’t paying attention.

If this is true, it looks like the Iranian cyber command is bragging that they hacked the servers of human rights activists hosted on computers based in the United States, managed by a fellow residing in the United States, and used the info to lock up political prisoners.

Huh.

Online criminals stole waaay more money from e-banking accounts than they did from brick-and-mortar analogues.

As more and more of our life is online, keep expecting to see somewhat shocking statistics like this. For instance, the iTunes store became the largest music vendor in the world years ago.

(’Cuz that’s where the money is, right?)

"Other points of view?*LALALALALALA* I can't hear you!"

Birds of a political feather flock together. That’s the takeaway from a political science study that shows that people with a partisan slant get their news from partisan sources that reinforce their pre-existing views - e.g., moonbats follow DailyKos and the Huffington Post, wingnuts read Free Republic and the Drudge Report while watching Fox.

As Evgeny Morozov has argued, the Internet does not necessarily lead us to a universal socratic dialogue on the role of politics. If you always surround yourself with others that agree with you, the echo chamber effect means other ideas and points of view have a hard time getting in.

For most Internet users under thuggish governments, this suggests that even if they can go forth and find subversive information, they are not particularly likely to want to since they will tend to seek out information that reinforces their existing world view.

Wired reports that China and Google are close to wrapping up talks over the search giant’s threat to withdraw from the country if it is forced to continuing censorship of results.

In the piece our old friend Mr. Anonymous Source suggests that Google would be willing to step up censorship of gambling and porn if they were allowed complete freedom on political search results.

If China agrees, it would be a very positive signal after a lot of really bad signs. But color me dubious - the idea that the PRC is throwing the towel in on thought control would mean they are toying with political pluralism.

“Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” may imply full-blown robber baron capitalism, but it definitely doesn’t have much room for democracy.

Anonymity on social networks is difficult. Sounds like a contradiction in terms, right? But what you choose to share with some is not what should be available to all. If you’re posting your Federalist Papers, you might want an alias. If you are planning a high school reunion, you’ll need your real name.

Thanks to some clever browser tricks, it can be possible to strip away the mask. A writeup in Dark Reading; Here’s the paper, for those interested in reading the academic prose of computer scientists. *shudder*

The great news? You can’t really patch against this attack. It is a feature, not a bug, in the way your browser is constructed.

No need to panic, yet. But another example of how difficult it is to keep secrets in the Internet age.

Social networking is a true double-edged sword for activists in authoritarian countries. A lot of organization for social change couldn’t possibly happen in meatspace - but if the thugs get access to your Facebook friends list they don’t even need to go to the bother of torturing you to get the names of all your associates.

Below the jump I’ll explain how it works. I’m not going to bore the rest of you.

…..click here to read more

• Americans are getting a majority of their news online - and have a much more dynamic relationship with their information sources.
• Bad guys are taking over your computer in ways you don’t expect. Adobe, please get on the ball, will ya?
• Congress is putting tech firms in the hot seat for undermining human rights online.
• That devestating “Aurora” attack? Pretty damn hard to counter.
• Cheesiest op-ed title ever. Bonus: also poorly reasoned! The US should bow to Chinese demands and censor Google, but also support Twitter in developing new technology to avoid censorship. Erm?
• Google is a useful service in China, and it would be missed. No simple options to blocking content.
• Our benevolent overlords in Mountain View would also like to personally apologize for their privacy violations.

A hilarious example of new media blowing up entirely fictional stories into a feeding frenzy which then is debunked, becomes the butt of jokes, and now lives on as a cautionary tale - in under an hour.

I give you the 35-Minute John Roberts Retirement. Clearly the Feiler Faster Thesis is only getting, er, faster.

Erroneous rumors (or, for that matter, the truth) spreading like wildfire end up whipping up hysterical mobs. Gotta be a concern for authoritarian governments - if people don’t trust the media, they’re going to give that much more credence to whatever whispers they hear.