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FBI Releases Plans to Monitor Social Networks

newscientist.com - January 25, 2012

      

(Image: Patrick George/Ikon Images/Getty)

Jim Giles, consultant

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has quietly released details of plans to continuously monitor the global output of Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, offering a rare glimpse into an activity that the FBI and other government agencies are reluctant to discuss publicly. The plans show that the bureau believes it can use information pulled from social media sites to better respond to crises, and maybe even to foresee them.

The information comes from a document released on 19 January looking for companies who might want to build a monitoring system for the FBI. It spells out what the bureau wants from such a system and invites potential contractors to reply by 10 February.

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Mesh Cities

 

What does it take to become a smart city?  Why are mesh cities important to sustainability?

 

For more information:

<http://www.meshcities.com/>

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Google Announces Privacy Changes Across Products; Users Can’t Opt Out

submitted by Stuart Leiderman

      

by Cecilia Kang - The Washington Post - January 24, 2012

Google will soon know far more about who you are and what you do on the Web.

The Web giant announced Tuesday that it plans to follow the activities of users across nearly all of its ubiquitous sites, including YouTube, Gmail and its leading search engine.

Google has already been collecting some of this information. But for the first time, it is combining data across its Web sites to stitch together a fuller portrait of users.

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(GOOGLE PREVIEW: PRIVACY POLICY - EFFECTIVE MARCH 1, 2012)

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Smart911 Technology Improves 9-1-1- Response

submitted by Mike Kraft

Homeland Security News Wire - January 25, 2012

Municipalities improve 9-1-1 response with Smart911; the technology allows individuals to use a Web site to enter emergency-relevant information they want emergency personnel answering a 9-1-1 call to have, including children’s photos, medical conditions, disabilities, home addresses of cellphone callers, or other rescue-related information

Farmingham, Massachusetts-based Rave Mobile Safety, a provider of safety software solutions, said its Smart911 technology has seen increasing adoption in 2011. Smart911 allows citizens to create a safety profile with critical information, which is then automatically displayed at participating public safety answering points (PSAPs), when a 9-1-1 call is placed.

The company said that Smart911 is now available to more than five million citizens.

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NPS - (RELIEF) Research & Experimentation for Local & International Emergency & First-Responders

submitted by Michael Gresalfi / Sam Bendett

      

Next Event: RELIEF 12-2, 29 FEBRUARY - 2 MARCH, 2012 at Camp Roberts, Paso Robles, CA. 

To receive our email updates, please contact ***@***.***  

 

RELIEF provides an environment that fuses interactive community building and knowledge sharing activities with concept-based socio-technological experimentation.

Since 2009, RELIEF has brought humanitarian practitioners, technology developers, federal civilians, and active duty military personnel together for hands-on collaboration. The multi-institutional field setting provides a semi-structured learning environment promoting collaboration and relationship building across an increasingly diverse response network.

The event utilizes different methods of interaction, all of which focus on end user input on disaster response operations. The field environment also provides the opportunity to explore new solutions for crisis responders through hands on interaction and experimentation. 

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Texting 911 in Emergencies

Homeland Security News Wire - November 29, 2011

The Post Falls police department in Idaho is testing a new 911 system that would allow residents to report emergencies via text message or e-mail.

Police say it is not meant to replace phone calls, but is instead designed to provide residents with additional options to communicate with authorities.

Texting or e-mailing is particularly helpful for the hearing impaired or those with disabilities that make it difficult to communicate over the phone.

Charlene Holbrook, PFPD’s emergency communications supervisor, hopes that the new text-based 911 option will encourage young people to interact with the police more. 

Texting allows them a method of communication with which most teens are comfortable,” Holbrook said. “Texting was the next logical step for us.”

Whether you like it or not, it’s obvious that the future of communication is texting,” Chief Scot Haug added. “You look at young people today and that’s the method of communication. Text messaging is here, and everybody’s using it. We are just looking for new ways to get information to solve and reduce crime.”

The new system also allows photos to be sent to 911 dispatchers.

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Trade in Surveillance Technology Raises Worries

submitted by Kent Hoffman

(Sari Horwitz/The Washington Post) - Syrian activist Rami Nakhle said that after he set up an online newspaper and started blogging about human rights issues, Syria’s secret police began summoning him for regular interrogations that involved threats of torture and a day in solitary confinement.

By , Shyamantha Asokan and

The Washington Post - December 1, 2011

Northern Virginia technology entrepreneur Jerry Lucas hosted his first trade show for makers of surveillance gear at the McLean Hilton in May 2002. Thirty-five people attended.

Nine years later, Lucas holds five events annually around the world, drawing hundreds of vendors and thousands of potential buyers for an industry that he estimates sells $5 billion of the latest tracking, monitoring and eavesdropping technology each year. Along the way, these events have earned an evocative nickname: the Wiretappers’ Ball.

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Video - The People's Skype

submitted by Albert Gomez

http://peoplesskype.org/

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Shunning Facebook, and Living to Tell About It

submitted by Samuel Bendett

December 13, 2011

by Jenna Wortham - The New York Times

Tyson Balcomb quit Facebook after a chance encounter on an elevator. He found himself standing next to a woman he had never met — yet through Facebook he knew what her older brother looked like, that she was from a tiny island off the coast of Washington and that she had recently visited the Space Needle in Seattle.

“I knew all these things about her, but I’d never even talked to her,” said Mr. Balcomb, a pre-med student in Oregon who had some real-life friends in common with the woman. “At that point I thought, maybe this is a little unhealthy.”

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Mapping Digital Media

soros.org - Open Society Foundations

The values that underpin good journalism, the need of citizens for reliable and abundant information, and the importance of such information for a healthy society and robust democracy: these are perennial, and provide compass-bearings for anyone trying to make sense of current changes across the media landscape.

The Mapping Digital Media project, which examines these changes in-depth, aims to build bridges between researchers and policymakers, activists, academics, and standard-setters across the world. It also builds policy capacity in countries where this is less developed, encouraging stakeholders to participate and influence change. At the same time, this research creates a knowledge base, laying foundations for advocacy work, building capacity, and enhancing debate.

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