The Need for Privacy and the End of Innovation: The Monday Round-Up

Following a busy week of exploring Open Data standards for legislatures and a roundtable for a NED-sponsored program to strengthen technology for participation, here are some of the news-worthy events that we have been watching:

• Senator Al Franken stresses the importance of protecting privacy and civil liberties in developing technology, and the perceptions of privacy across cultures are examined by the International Media program at American University.
• Global Information Society Watch evaluates the impact of freedom of expression online on foreign policy. 
• After an anchor collided with a major underwater fiber optic cable off of the coast of Kenya, an anticipated 20% slowdown in Internet speeds will affect Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and South Sudan. 
• Dr. Hamandoun Toure, Secretary-General of the ITU, explores how mobile broadband can transform Africa. 
• SalamWorld is a social networking site in development, billed as an alternative for Muslim Facebook users who want to use a "cleaner" internet. 
• BBC explores the role of LiveJournal in Russia's election, Gregory Aslomov from LSE examines how ICTs affect Russian state and society, and the Berkman Center release their research on digitally-mediated collective action in Russia. 
• The safety of satellite phones has been called into question following the deaths of two journalists in Syria. CPJ and Mobile Active detail the security flaws in satellite phones that could put their users at risk. 
• Are Macs safe? The writers behind Break & Enter show how to hack Macs through the Thunderbolt interface. 
• Pakistan continues to implement plans to centralize Internet censorship. 
• IEEE evaluate the security of VoIP, and reviews what could be done to close existing security gaps. 
• EFF has released a new version of the HTTPS Everywhere extension for the Firefox browser and has debuted a beta version for Chrome. 
• China continues to restrict Internet in Tibetan areas. 
• The New York Times states that innovation for the sake for fun is over. 
• Tajikistan has blocked access to Facebook and other websites that have criticized president Emomalii Rahmon.
• The Modern Language Association has devised how to cite a Tweet in an academic paper. 
• The UN Human Rights Council held a session on online freedom of expression during the 19th Session. Article 19, the Association for Progressive Communications and other organizations welcome this development, and see it as an important stepping stone to raising awareness of internet freedom issues. 
• While not tech-related, the Economist has published a guide on how to rig an election.