Iran Hopes to Be Rid of Meddlesome Internet by August
Iran has had it up to here with the Internet—Google’s easy access to information, iTunes’ funneling in or Western Media, and don’t even get them started on Stuxnet—all totally the Internet’s fault. So, to preserve theocratic rule in the modern era, Iran is cutting off the Internet. Like, completely.
Iran has already taken steps to filter the filth of the Internet from reaching its citizens. Iranian leaders cut off VPN access before recent elections (who needs the BBC when you have state-run media?) and are currently working on their own “Clean Internet,” which should be functional by August.
Well, not so much of an Internet as a National Intranet. One that would block Western influences like Google and Yahoo, replacing them with government-sanction and search engines and email. Users will be required to register with the government to obtain access. Google and Yahoo will be blacked out by May with the rest of the World Wide Web going dark by mid-summer, according to Reza Taghipour, the Iranian minister for Information and Communications Technology. [IBT via The Register - Image: Maxim Tupikov /Shutterstock.
Ah, the social network. A Boston Phoenix story detailing law enforcement’s hunt for “Craigslist Killer” Philip Markoff reveals what Facebook sends to the cops when they subpoena your profile information (a topic about which Facebook has been very tight-lipped). What do the police receive? All of your wall posts and shares, everyone you’ve ever friended or defriended, every photo you’ve ever been tagged in (even if private or deleted), all of your “likes”, and your entire step-by-step history of activity, including every time you’ve viewed anyone’s profile: POSTED FROM DISINFORMATION
How Much Porn Does the Internet Hold?
For as much as we try to ignore and segregate it from our daily surfing, the fact remains that porn is the life-blood of the Internet. But how much sexy sex is actually moving through the series of tubes?
The answer is: tons. The world’s top porn sites—XVideos, LiveJasmin, YouPorn, Tube8, Pornhub—are on par with Google and Facebook. XVideos alone averages 4.4 billion page views per month, double what Reddit pulls over the same time and triple what CNN can do. And it’s not just the amount of traffic that these sites generate, it’s the length of individual visits as well. Most sites, Gizmodo included, average three to six minutes per visit. Porn sites average five times that—15-20 minutes per visit.
In terms of actual data usage, porn sites are behemoths. Most sites average 50 - 200 TB of material, which individually really isn’t all that much. But during peak times, when the site’s loading image galleries, downloading content and streaming video, its data usage soars. According to ExtremeTech,
YouPorn hosts “over 100TB of porn”, and serves “over 100 million” page views per day. All told, this equates to an average of 950 terabytes of data transfer per day, almost all of which is streaming video. This is around 28 petabytes per month, which means our 29PB estimate for Xvideos is on the low side; it probably serves 35 to 40PB per month. It gets better! At peak time, YouPorn serves 4000 pages per second, equating to burst traffic in the region of 100 gigabytes per second, or 800Gbps. This is equivalent to transferring more than 10 dual-layer DVDs every second.
That’s one, single site—and not even the largest of its kind—driving 800Gbps. And given that there are more porn sites than there are stars in the sky, it’s obvious what we’re all really here for—and it ain’t for the articles. [ExtremeTech]
‘After nearly unprecedented pushback against bills SOPA and PIPA, their apparent defeat cannot yet be claimed. Most skeptics presumed that the defeat of the aforementioned would only serve to offer a compromised “SOPA light” at some point to circumvent criticism over government censorship. Well, it didn’t take long. In addition to OPEN and ACTA to combat supposed piracy issues in the U.S. and Europe respectively, we now have been presented with a full-on fascist template for Internet control where government and private corporations will work hand in hand under the very broad definition of cybersecurity.’ POSTED FROM INFOWARS
Anonymous attacks China, govt websites hacked
Hundreds of Chinese websites have been hacked by people claiming to be the local branch of the hacktivist group Anonymous. The stated final goal of the attacks is to start a revolt against the government.
The number of sites attacked may be as high as 500. They include government, company and general-purpose pages.
In at least one case the hacking resulted in release of 548 phone numbers and 860 email addresses, apparently belonging to Chinese officials.
The people behind the attacks say their effort is aimed at undermining the Chinese government, which they accuse of suppressing freedoms and say should be overthrown by a popular revolt.
“In the defacings and leaks on this day, we demonstrate our revolt against the Chinese system. It has to stop! We aren’t asking you for nothing, just saying ‘protest, revolt, be the free person you always wanted to be!’” one of the anonymous comments on the Pastebin website rallied.
The cyber offensive kicked off in late March with the creation of as an Anonymous China Twitter account, endorsed by YourAnonNews. The new group already has almost 2,000 followers on Twitter.
China maintains tight control over the national segment of the internet. The government suppresses online material deemed harmful to public order. Those range from any references to separatist movements in Tibet to the strangest rumors that often spread like wildfire across China’s microblogging services.
Government Surveillance Crackdown On Internet Goes Into Overdrive
Cyber bills legislate for mass surveillance; Former Cybersecurity Czar calls for Homeland Security data “customs inspections”
In a New York Times editorial, former government cybersecurity czar Richard A. Clarke has called for the creation of customs checks on all data leaving and entering US cyberspace.
Clarke makes the call in relation to Chinese hackers stealing information and intellectual property from US firms.
“If given the proper authorization, the United States government could stop files in the process of being stolen from getting to the Chinese hackers.” Clarke writes.
“If government agencies were authorized to create a major program to grab stolen data leaving the country, they could drastically reduce today’s wholesale theft of American corporate secrets.”
While Clarke may well be coming at this subject well intentioned, the fact that government has a long history of attempting to crackdown on internet freedom and control the web will mean his words are a cause of concern for many.
“Under Customs authority, the Department of Homeland Security could inspect what enters and exits the United States in cyberspace…” Clarke continues.
Arthur C. Clarke Predicts the Internet and Personal Computers in 1974 (Video)
In 1974, science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke told a little boy what his life will look like in 2001. As recorded by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, he claimed that every household will have a computer, and by means of it, we will be connected all over the world:
Legislation to make it illegal to use “offensive” language online.
The state legislature of Arizona has passed a bill that vastly broadens telephone harassment laws and applies them to the Internet and other means of electronic communication.
The law, which is being pushed under the guise of an anti-bullying campaign, would mean that anything communicated or published online that was deemed to be “offensive” by the state, including editorials, illustrations, and even satire could be criminally punished.
“The bill is sweepingly broad, and would make it a crime to communicate via electronic means speech that is intended to ‘annoy,’ ‘offend,’ ‘harass’ or ‘terrify,’ as well as certain sexual speech. Because the bill is not limited to one-to-one communications, H.B. 2549 would apply to the Internet as a whole, thus criminalizing all manner of writing, cartoons, and other protected material the state finds offensive or annoying.”
Six strikes and you’re screwed: What the upcoming piracy crackdown means for you
Starting this July, Internet service providers and the copyright industry will institute a “Copyright Alerts” system that they hope will curb online copyright infringement. Here’s everything you need to know.
Starting July 1, the nation’s largest Internet service providers (ISPs) have agreed to adopt a “Graduated Response” program intended to cut down on illegal file sharing. The program, colloquially known as the “six-strikes” system, is the brainchild of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) — the same industry groups that conjured up SOPA and PIPA. The system will affect millions of Internet users across the country. Whether you download your music and movies from the Internet or not, it is important for everyone to understand what the plan is, and how it could affect your life. Here is everything you need to know about “six-strikes.”
How does it work, in a nutshell?
Anytime copyright holders find that their content is being illegally downloaded, they will contact the participating ISPs. The ISPs will then send out an initial “copyright alert” to accounts linked to the alleged infringement. If a subscriber’s account continues to be linked to infringement, his or her ISP will send out up to four written notices, the natures of which are sometimes vague and varying. If the alleged infringement continues still, the ISP will then take “mitigation measures,” which include bandwidth throttling (i.e. slowing down the accused subscriber’s connection), or even temporarily cutting off full Web browsing abilities. In cases where alleged infringement persists after the initial mitigation measure, the subscriber may face lawsuits from the copyright holder, and/or have their Internet access cut entirely, in accordance with section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA).
Physicists Add 11 Colors to the Rainbow By Tearing Apart Atoms
True, the pink is a lie. But a UC Santa Barbara research team has honestly just generated eleven new hues using lasers and ion cascades.
The team created the new colors by aiming a pair of lasers—one high-frequency, the other low-frequency—at a slab of semiconductor material, a gallium arsenide nanostructure. The high-frequency beam separates an electron from its host atom, generating what’s known as an excitron (a bonded pair consisting of a negatively-charged electron and a positively-charged ion). The powerful, low frequency wave then accelerates the freed electron, which goes crashing into the electron-less atom in front of it. Since the electron has extra energy from the acceleration when it recombines with the ion in front of it, that energy is radiated as light. Previously unseen frequencies of light.
While the general public might not be ready yet to comprehend the color blorange, this technique could prove quite useful in high-speed data transfers. As Ben Zaks, a UCSB doctoral student in physics and the paper’s lead author, explained to Science Daily,
Think of your cable Internet. The cable is a bundle of fiber optics, and you’re sending a beam with a wavelength that’s approximately 1.5 microns down the line. But within that beam there are a lot of frequencies separated by small gaps, like a fine-toothed comb. Information going one way moves on one frequency, and information going another way uses another frequency. You want to have a lot of frequencies available, but not too far from one another.
The team hopes to eventually develop this technology to run, not on the free electron laser used in this experiment, but on a transistor operating at terahertz frequencies. “Our data indicates that we are modulating the near infrared laser at twice the terahertz frequency. This is where we could really see this working to increase the speed of optical modulation, which is how you get information down a cable line,” Zecks said. [Science Daily - Image: Peter Allen, UCSB]
