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Julian Assange is an unusual figure in the world of hacktivism. He embraced his notoriety as leader of Wikileaks, and on 4 February 2016, he appeared on the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy holding a copy of a UN panel report that declared that he has been “arbitrarily detained” while avoiding extradition to Sweden for alleged rape for almost six years (British and Swedish prosecutors still seek to detain him).

The post Exposures from the dark side appeared first on OUPblog.

Law enforcement agencies are challenged on many fronts in their efforts to protect online users from all manner of cyber-related threats. Through constant innovation, cybercriminals across the world are developing increasingly sophisticated malware, rogue mobile apps and more resilient botnets. With little or no technical knowledge, criminals now occupy parts of the Internet to carry out their illegal activities within the notorious Dark Web.

The post Infiltrating the Dark Web appeared first on OUPblog.

As the analysis reaches deeper behind the recent Paris attacks, it has become clear that terrorism today is a widening series of global alliances often assisted and connected via cyber social media, and electronic propaganda.

The post Cyber terrorism and piracy appeared first on OUPblog.

Jon Mills is a professor and dean emeritus in the Fredric G. Levin College of Law. Among his many roles, he served as former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives and as the founding director of UF’s internationally recognized Center for Governmental Responsibility. He is author of many books, including his latest, Privacy: The Lost Right.

When you find yourself on a dark street in a dangerous area of your city, you probably keep a wary eye out for trouble. Conversely, when you sit in front of your computer screen with a cup of coffee in your home or office, you probably feel completely safe and secure. But wait. We are learning that cyberspace, like any community, has its own mean streets and they aren’t always clearly marked.

Cyberspace — whatever that is — has its own predators, spies, abusers and liars. Like the real world, the online world includes bad people and shady deals. We have recently learned that our government was probably illegally spying on many of us, despite its enormous power to spy on us legally. But as long as you trust the government at all levels, you should have no worries. And, what about all the information we gladly place on the internet about ourselves.

Let’s start with the government. Spying is a well-established function of government and has been for thousands of years. Sometimes it involves finding terrorists or criminals — we like it when that happens. But, there are other times when governmental power has been abused at the expense of its citizens. Remember Richard Nixon’s enemies lists that targeted journalists? How about McCarthyism when professors, actors and others were spied on and politically persecuted? We don’t like it when government bullies its citizens.

It’s interesting to note that government is much better equipped to spy today and has been given more authority to do it under policies such as the PATRIOT Act. Over the past eight or so years, under the very real threat of terrorism, Congress has authorized unprecedented intrusions into the privacy of American citizens, including warrantless searches, secret courts and immunity to companies that provide our confidential information to the government.

Technology has made privacy intrusions much easier to accomplish and more difficult to detect. The lists that required so much time to develop in the Nixon and McCarthy eras are now compiled by a good search engine quickly and without notice. Who subscribes to socialist magazines? Who contributed to liberal causes? Who attends meetings of the ACLU? This information is instantly available. Today’s spies are software geeks, not guys in dark shades.

Beyond government spies, some of the greatest privacy violations are facilitated by voluntary disclosures. The recent controversy about Facebook’s treatment of information as theirs is important, but the information willingly shared with others has a substantial potential for damage as well. In a Facebook environment when an individual shares information, even with a limited group, what expectation of privacy is there really? What if that shared information is forwarded to others? Realistically, once information is shared on the Internet, it’s no longer private, like it or not. Your information, once you put it out there, may be forwarded to others who may not be as discreet with it as you would want. When a prospective employer slides a MySpace or Facebook picture across the desk to you, you may not have known it was available or that it had even been taken. In addition to shared information getting away from the user, many Facebook users don’t set their profiles to private, leaving them open to viewing by anyone, friend or foe. And, there are websites devoted to digging up information from social websites. Spokeo.com says it “will find every little thing your friend (or enemy, as the case may be) has said, done and posted on the internet. Nothing is secret…”. We are also subject to instant searches of all public information related to each of us. Zabasearch is committed to making that information available. Zaba CEO Nick Matzorkis says public information online is “a 21st century reality with or without ZabaSearch.” The amount of individual information publicly available is staggering.

We need to be aware of that reality and not think of cyberspace as a pure and wonderful new world. Because when we’re online, we’re wandering a neighborhood that has predators, spies, abusers and liars We need to keep our eyes open for trouble, even when we’re having coffee in our living room while surfing the net.

I would like to draw your attention to this Family Reading page on The Horn Book’s website – there are lots of ideas and shared experiences to hearten and encourage reading with and to our children. I especially love Martha Parravano’s article “Reading Three Ways“ about reading with her two daughters; and I laughed aloud at the end. It reminded me of a holiday when Son Number One was still toddling. Rapunzel had been the perpetually chosen audio tape on the day’s drive up to the North of Scotland. A few days later:

Daddy: Where’s Mummy?
Son (cackling): The bird has flown, my pretty!

…I wish I’d actually been there to hear it!

Thinking back to that time when books had to be repeated ad infinitum, here’s a list, in no particular order, of only some of our family favorites from the very early years:

All the Hairy Maclary books by Lynley Dodd – in fact, all her books!
Owl Babies by Martin Waddell, ill. Patrick Benson;
Can’t You sleep, Baby Bear? - and the rest of the series, again by Martin Waddell, but ill. Barbara Firth
Each Peach Pear Plum and Peepo! by Janet and Allan Ahlberg
Mrs Armitage and the Big Wave by Quentin Blake
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen, ill. Helen Oxenbury
Little Beaver and the Echo by Amy MacDonald, ill. Sarah Fox-Davies
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss
The Gruffalo and all the other books by Julia Donaldson, ill. Axel Scheffler
Mrs Goose’s Baby and Mr Davies and the Baby by Charlotte Voake

When I look at this list I realise that nearly all these books were given to us by friends whose own children had loved them – and we in turn have handed them on to our smaller friends…

So let me just leave you with a something the illustrator Howard Pyle once said:

“The stories of childhood leave an indelible impression, and their author always has a niche in the temple of memory from which the image is never cast out to be thrown on the rubbish heap of things that are outgrown and outlived.”