The Worlds Most Notorious Micronation Has the Secret to Protecting Your Data From the NSA

Having just finished Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson this summer I find this fascinating…

The Worlds Most Notorious Micronation Has the Secret to Protecting Your Data From the NSA | Mother Jones.

A few months ago, internet entrepreneur Avi Freedman received an unexpected email from a prince. A decade earlier, Freedman had been part of an effort to create a data haven—a safe place where information could be stashed far from the reach of prying eyes and nosy governments—on the world’s smallest and most notorious micronation, Sealand, a 120-by-50-foot anti-aircraft platform seven miles off the British coast and 60 feet above the waters of the cold North Sea. Now Freedman’s ex-partners, the self-proclaimed royal family of Sealand, wanted to try again.

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Artists using physical computing and processing from today’s class

Artists from today’s class:

Immaterials: Light painting WiFi by Timo Arnall, Jørn Knutsen and Einar Sneve Martinussen

My little piece of Privacy by Niklas Roy

Natures and …

Strata #1 by Quayola

Stallman: Facebook IS Mass Surveillance

“Free software literally gives you freedom in the area of computing. It means that you can control your computing. It means that the users individually and collectively have control over their computing. And in particular it means they can protect themselves from the malicious features that are likely to be in proprietary software,”

…

“Facebook does massive surveillance. If there is a ‘like’ button in a page, Facebook knows who visited that page. And it can get IP address of the computer visiting the page even if the person is not a Facebook user. So you visit several pages that have ‘like’ button and Facebook knows that you visited all of those, even if it doesn’t really know who you are.”

—Richard Stallman

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Web2 class notes

Here are some things we looked at in today’s Web2 class for your reference later.

Arthur Ganson makes beautiful machines

Processing.js makes your data visualizations, digital art, interactive animations, educational graphs, video games, etc. work using web standards and without any plug-ins.

Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to create images, animations, and interactions.

You can see a sample of some of the best work created using Processing in the Exhibition.

The Creators is an interactive, audio-reactive multitouch installation

CONTINUUM is a concept for a web-based fashion label in which designs are user-generated using custom software and made to order to your personal measurements.

My little piece of Privacy by Niklas Roy

Google, evil or not?

WEB_1: Howard Rheingold, Look Who’s Talking

Post your responses below to: Howard Rheingold, Look Who’s Talking

How the Internet Works

Drawing by Vlad Gerasimov

Thanks to Brittany Whitaker for posting!

Random bits: Google Barcode, Email Etiquiette, Die Electric, Mutantrumpet, and Google Timeline

1. Today’s Google logo is hilarious. Check out the gallery for more wackiness.

2. This great article on email etiquette might just save your job one day.

3. A dielectric is an insulating material. It does not conduct electricity. The “Die Electric” experiment by Scott Amron makes use of AC power plugs and sockets less the flow of electricity. Finally, the “keybrid” below.

4. Palladio, an interactive, playable movie based on the novel by Jonathan Dee, is created by Ben Neill (on mutantrumpet) and visual artist Bill Jones. In their performances together, both VJ and trumpeter control music and video as a single hybrid form; a live duet of images and sound.

5. Google Timeline creates a visualization based on information it finds around the dates.

WEB_1: Look Who’s Talking by Howard Rheingold

Post your responses here for:

Look Who’s Talking by Howard Rheingold

Learning Web Design, Adding Links [6]; Adding Images [7]

Lev Manovich, Software Takes Command (2009)

Post your responses below to: Lev Manovich, Software Takes Command (2009) [pages 1–5, 7–18]