Making Sense of the Jigsaw
I've been looking at the impact of social media and warfare of late, so thought it might help SWC readers to add a couple of pointers. Especially after a non-SWC member added:
Quote:
... there are few who have grasped the full implications of social networking for public order, security etc
Hat tip to Tim Stevens, Kings War Studies to the work of Daniel Bennett, from the BBC and a Ph.D student:
Quote:
My thesis considered the impact of blogging and 'new' media on the BBC's coverage of war and terrorism.
Daniel has a blog:http://mediatingconflict.blogspot.co.uk/
More an information-gathering point maybe; I was intrigued by the possibilities in his piece 'Links on Twitter and Mapping', notably a map of newspapers:http://mediatingconflict.blogspot.co...d-mapping.html
The non-SWC member pointed to another blogsite, with an article from September 2011 'How government could use social media to improve its response to public crises', which opens with:
Quote:
Over the last couple of months I have been watching with interest how social media has been used during a number of crisis events and how governments have reacted to and made use of these technologies. It has been an instructive period as we have had the opportunity to observe both man-made and natural crises. What is clear is that governments still do not fully understand social media and how to use it in a disaster or crisis.
Link:http://i-logue.com/chaos-is-a-social-issue/
No, I'm not a cartographer, amongst the embedded links is this one:http://crisismappers.net/
Using Social Media: ten steps to get better
A suggestion from a SWC reader: '10 ways the military and intel should be using social media, if they aren’t already' which was written in August 2011, so before Tahrir Square, that opens with:
Quote:
..if I were in charge of finding and eliminating bad guys, and protecting civilians on the ground in wartime situations, if I were in charge of understanding the formation of events such as Arab Spring..this is what I’d do.
And concludes:
Quote:
We’re not completely sure where we are all headed, but we’ll get there by learning from each other.
Link:http://productfour.wordpress.com/201...-soical-media/
1984 was alive & well in Libya
Hat tip to Bruce Schneier for the pointer to a lengthy article on Wired 'Jamming Tripoli: Inside Moammar Gadhafi’s Secret Surveillance Network':http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/ff_libya/all/1
I was struck by this sentence:
Quote:
By now, it’s well known that the Arab Spring showed the promise of the Internet as a crucible for democratic activism. But, in the shadows, a second narrative unfolded, one that demonstrated the Internet’s equal potential for government surveillance and repression on a scale unimaginable with the old analog techniques of phone taps and informants.
(Much later) Today you can run an approximation of 1984 out of a couple of rooms filled with server racks. And that’s precisely what Libya’s spies did—and what dictatorships all around the world continue to do.
Bruce's article draws attention to Chinese, French, South African and USA technology suppliers:http://www.schneier.com/blog/archive...sting_art.html
Looking back at the Arab Spring
Hat tip to Londonistani for this wide ranging review of social media in the Arab Spring, actual title 'The Arab Spring: Revolution without Revolutionaries?' by Guy Harris, who has "sand in his boots":http://www.defenceiq.com/defence-tec...lution-withou/
How Anonymous Picks Targets, Launches Attacks
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...anonymous/all/
Quote:
In fact, the success of Anonymous without leaders is pretty easy to understand—if you forget everything you think you know about how organizations work. Anonymous is a classic “do-ocracy,” to use a phrase that’s popular in the open source movement. As the term implies, that means rule by sheer doing: Individuals propose actions, others join in (or not), and then the Anonymous flag is flown over the result. There’s no one to grant permission, no promise of praise or credit, so every action must be its own reward.
What’s harder to comprehend—but just as important, if you want to grasp the future of Anonymous after the arrests—is the radical political consciousness that seized this innumerable throng of Internet misfits. Anonymous became dangerous to governments and corporations not just because of its skills (lots of hackers have those) or its scale but because of the fury of its convictions. In the beginning, Anonymous was just about self-amusement, the “lulz,” but somehow, over the course of the past few years, it grew up to become a sort of self-appointed immune system for the Internet, striking back at anyone the hive mind perceived as an enemy of freedom, online or offline. It started as a gang of nihilists but somehow evolved into a fervent group of believers. To understand that unlikely transformation, and Anonymous’ peculiar method of (non)organization, it is necessary to start at the very beginning.
Private companies pitch Web surveillance tools to police
This could fit the 'Big Brother' thread and theme, but sits here well IMO. Not surprisingly the examples cited and linked are Anglo-American:http://californiawatch.org/dailyrepo...s-police-17846
I have m' doubts over the value of such tools, do drug suppliers really use Twitter? Can sense be made of the torrent of information, say anger over a police shooting in Chicago?
One thing is guaranteed hi-tech companies will try to sell their products to the police and other agencies who are still trying to get working desk-top computer systems.