In the cat and mouse game between the prying eyes of oppressive states and anti surveillance technology designers, there’s a new paradigm.  But it’s not the technology itself, it’s the way it’s being designed - everything from the funding to the code is available for everyone to see.  Sascha Meinrath, founder of Commotion Wireless, explains to Bob the paradox that the more information they reveal about their privacy software, the more secret it is. 

JD Samson and MEN - Life's Half Price

Internet technologist Bruce Schneier argues that there's been no epidemic of hacking in the last few months, only an epidemic of hacking coverage. The media have gone looking for a pattern, he says, in just the same way they do with shark attacks every summer and are distracting us from the real issues of cyber-security.

A company called The US Copyright Group have started targeting illegal movie downloading, picking up where the RIAA left off in 2008. Ars Technica senior editor Nate Anderson says that these lawsuits could be an attempt to create a new revenue stream for the movie industry ...

Facebook changed their privacy settings this week after much vocal criticism. The settings are easier to control and more people will presumably change their settings to private. The media unanimously decided that this was a good thing, but Bob asks whether it's that simple.

The RIAA and MPAA often warn of the devastating economic effects of internet piracy. But a new government study says...not so fast. The Government Accountability Office found recently that it's impossible to quantify just how bad piracy is for the economy. Plus, they found ...

Last year the buzz on Twitter was that it was a mind-bogglingly important tech innovation, the only catch being that nobody could figure out what exactly it was for. This year, the geekerati say they've finally answered that question. Bob headed over to the Twitter-centric 140 Character Conference to learn ...

As a practical matter, who controls the internet is whoever enables you to access it -- and in the U.S. that would be service providers like Comcast, Verizon and Time Warner. The only check on their power has been the Federal Communications Commission. That is, until this week when a ...

A SLAPP, or “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” is a little known but widespread threat to the First Amendment. SLAPPs are meritless suits brought by companies, individuals and sometimes the government, not to win, but to silence critics. Congress is now considering federal

The Cleveland Plain Dealer sparked an ethical controversy when a front-page story alleged that one of its legions of anonymous online commenters was a local judge, and that the judge had posted controversial comments about at least three cases over which she presided. Plain Dealer editor Susan Goldberg talks about ...

In China, it's hard to be anonymous online in part due to a phenomenon known as the human-flesh search engine. It's not really a search engine at all. Rather, it's a community of message board users that seek out and punish in the real world people they find ...

It's called "A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter." It is a black eight-inch cube, made from acrylic, with a computer inside. You can buy it at auction on eBay, though doing so comes with a catch. Artist Caleb Larsen explains.

On March 18th, a public auction will be held in Midtown Manhattan. On the block? Sex.com, one of the most coveted pieces of internet real estate, ever. But be warned. Sex dot com comes with a long and troubled past. It’s all chronicled by Kieren McCarthy in

This week, an Italian court handed out half-year prison sentences to three Google executives. Their crime? Violating privacy law by hosting a video. UV Media Studies and Law professor Siva Vaidhyanathan says it’s a decision that challenges basic assumptions about whether internet companies can be liable for their ...

Do we want our government to have access to the many electronic records and footprints we leave scattered across computer systems every day? Reporter Shane Harris argues in his new book, The Watchers, that a battle over this question has been going on since long before ...

Companies are using software that analyzes our typing patterns and helps them figure out if we are who we say we are online. But is it a privacy violation? Should we be very afraid? Scout Analytics' Matt Shanahan discusses the uses and potential abuses of the ...

Who controls the internet? Well, at the moment a trade agreement known as ACTA is being negotiated by the U.S., Japan, the European Union, Canada and more than a dozen other countries, and, if ratified, would significantly regulate what you can and can’t do online. ACTA’s ...

South Koreans were among the first to truly embrace the internet. Perhaps that’s why the country has also become one of the first to treat internet addiction as a psychiatric disorder. Author Douglas Rushkoff traveled to South Korea for an upcoming series that will air on ...

Suddenly it seems, after years of teeth-clenched tolerance, corporate and political entities here in the U.S. – including Google and the State Department – are intent on confronting China over suppression of speech on the Internet. Chinese media analyst Jeremy Goldkorn says that the Chinese government ...

With 1.2 billion people, India is the world’s largest democracy and a potentially vast population of internet users. But for Google, with its hugely popular Orkut social networking site, it’s become a minefield of subtle censorship issues. The Wall Street Journal’s Jessica Vascellaro explains how in India, Google ...

For a few hours on Monday the strict controls that China exerts over domestic access to the internet – known as ‘the great firewall’- disappeared. Chinese internet users could twitter, Facebook, read about Tibet - you name it. But was it a harbinger or a glitch? Chinese media ...