In an interview with the WSJ’s CIO blog, Lawrence Lessig proposes that the existence of cryptographic tools that allow for “zero-knowledge” data-querying, combined with the potential liability from leaks, will drive companies to retain less data on their customers. It’s a very lessigian analysis, grounded in the idea that social outcomes are driven by norms, … Read more
With a heavy heart Debian mourns the passing of Ian Murdock, stalwart proponent of Free Open Source Software, Father, Son, and the ‘ian’ in Debian. Ian started the Debian project in August of 1993, releasing the first versions of Debian later that same year. Debian would go on to become the world’s Universal Operating System, … Read more
The Europeana Space project is exploring different ways of reusing digital cultural heritage by running pilots in six thematic areas (TV, Photography, Dance, Games, Open and Hybrid Publishing and Museums). From 22-24 January 2016, the Open and Hybrid Publishing Pilot is organising the Hack the Book Festival in Athens, Greece, inviting designers, artists, publishers, programmers, authors, poets, … Read more
At 11AM (all times given in this article are UTC+1) later today, the 32nd Chaos Communication Congress (32C3) will kick off its four day stint of hacker-related talks. Past Chaos Communication Congress (CCC) events have been the host to quite a few famous people and groups in the technology world including the ‘fail0verflow’ team, a … Read more
Blockchain is an open source project supported by the Linux Foundation and twenty industry partners to develop an open source distributed ledger platform. The Linux Foundation has partnered with twenty companies on a major collaborative project called Blockchain, which aims to build an open source distributed ledger system and enable Bitcoin-like transactions for the business … Read more
Apache Spark When it comes to open source big data processing, Hadoop is no longer the only name in the game. Apache Spark is a general purpose distributed data processing tool that allows users to process gigantic datasets across many nodes, coordinating the processing so that users can concentrate on writing their queries in their language … Read more
There are two processes in the public sphere that we all depend on but that few of us really understand. And what’s worse is that both are in trouble. The first is the process of funding public projects. Public financing often involves a mix of taxation and the issuance of bonds or federal grantmaking to … Read more
Image: Jack Wallen For the longest time I’d been heralding Ubuntu and it’s Unity desktop as one of the best Linux distributions. I liked Unity…a lot. The design was beautiful, and workflow about as efficient as you would ever find. The Dash, the Launcher, the HUD…they all came together in a perfect storm of form … Read more
Image: Jack Wallen Let me just put this out there for your consideration. All platforms are insecure. They can all be exploited in one way or another. At some point in time, it will be announced that no operating system is invulnerable and every single one of them has their kryptonite. Every. Single. One. Windows. … Read more
Consultation on anti-corruption resource package This document summarises an initial plan for the development of a companion resource to the International Open Data Charter, and invites comments, feedback and contributions to shape the draft resource, to be developed over the first half of 2016. You will find a number of consultation questions (Q) in … Read more
