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Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network re Tibet
by Barry Wellman 30 Mar '09

30 Mar '09

fyi. Ron Deibert is a highly regarded colleague and friend. Runs CitizensLab at the University of Toronto. Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Department of Sociology University of Toronto 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 twitter: barrywellman secondlife: wikiwarrior swords Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _______________________________________________________________________ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:49:15 -0400 From: Ronald Deibert <r.deibert(a)utoronto.ca> To: Ronald Deibert <r.deibert(a)utoronto.ca> Subject: Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network. Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network. The report has now been covered in an exclusive story by the New York Times' John Markoff. Download the New York Times story here http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/technology/29spy.html Researchers at the Information Warfare Monitor uncovered a suspected cyber espionage network of over 1,295 infected hosts in 103 countries. This finding comes at the close of a 10-month investigation of alleged Chinese cyber spying against Tibetan institutions that consisted of fieldwork, technical scouting, and laboratory analysis. Close to 30% of the infected hosts are considered high-value and include computers located at ministries of foreign affairs, embassies, international organizations, news media, and NGOs. The investigation was able to conclude that Tibetan computer systems were compromised by multiple infections that gave attackers unprecedented access to potentially sensitive information, including documents from the private office of the Dalai Lama. Who is ultimately in control of the GhostNet system? While our analysis reveals that numerous politically sensitive and high value computer systems were compromised in ways that circumstantially point to China as the culprit, we do not know the exact motivation or the identity of the attacker(s), or how to accurately characterize this network of infections as a whole. One of the characteristics of cyber- attacks of the sort we document here is the ease by which attribution can be obscured. Regardless of who or what is ultimately in control of GhostNet, it is the capabilities of exploitation, and the strategic intelligence that can be harvested from it, which matters most. Indeed, although the Achilles heel of the GhostNet system allowed us to monitor and document its far-reaching network of infiltration, we can safely hypothesize that it is neither the first nor the only one of its kind. As Information Warfare Monitor principal investigators Ron Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski say in the foreword to the report, This report serves as a wake-up call. At the very least, a large percentage of high-value targets compromised by this network demonstrate the relative ease with which a technically unsophisticated approach can quickly be harnessed to create a very effective spynetThese are major disruptive capabilities that the professional information security community, as well as policymakers, need to come to terms with rapidly. Download the full report on 29 March 2009 at http://www.infowar-monitor.net/ghostnet/ Ronald J. Deibert Director, The Citizen Lab Munk Centre for International Studies University of Toronto r.deibert(a)utoronto.ca http://deibert.citizenlab.org/

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Rethinking Promotion and Tenure Criteria in the Digital Age
by Stuart Shulman 30 Mar '09

30 Mar '09

A task force is preparing a document for the Faculty Senate at UMass Amherst on scholarship in the digital age. We talk about lots of vexing issues with respect to old and new or emerging reward structures, the economics of publishing, etc. Most of the members are library-centric scholars, or actual librarians. I find myself tasked with drafting the section on promotion and review considerations. In particular, I have been asked to show some examples where universities, schools, colleges or specific departments have found new types of scholarly artifacts worthy of recognition. If you know of an example where the traditional consideration of books and articles in top tier journals is being augmented with other types of uniquely digital contributions, please let me know directly. I will share the results of this survey with the list when it is complete. Many thanks, ~Stu -- Dr. Stuart W. Shulman Assistant Professor Department of Political Science University of Massachusetts Amherst 200 Hicks Way Amherst, MA 01003 http://people.umass.edu/stu/ stu(a)polsci.umass.edu 413-545-5375 Editor, Journal of Information Technology and Politics http://www.jitp.net Director, QDAP-UMass http://www.umass.edu/qdap/ Associate Director, National Center for Digital Government http://www.umass.edu/digitalcenter/

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CfP: “Changing cultures: cultures of change” - Barcelona, 10-12 December 2009
by Richard Rogers 30 Mar '09

30 Mar '09

“Changing cultures: cultures of change” December 10-12, 2009, Barcelona CALL FOR PAPERS Across disciplines, topological or intensive approaches to the study of culture treat change as normal and immanent rather than exceptional and externally determined. In these approaches, cultures are defined by the possibilities they offer for change rather than by their size, location or essence. These approaches thus provide a set of tools and concepts to think about different levels and kinds of change – learning, transmission, innovation, adaptation, self-organisation and evolution. This conference asks: what is the potential of topological and other intensive approaches to culture and space for thinking about change? It explores the value of thinking about culture as a privileged site or mechanism for change, but it also asks how and why the question of change is being posed in relation to culture today. This question is especially important at a time when calculation and complex technical systems have become ubiquitous elements of human life, in specialised sites of scientific enquiry and in everyday life. In contemporary society, numbers do not just describe but they construct and – in topological thinking - take on virtual properties, building abstract spaces of calculation and opening up the possibility of new perspectives on the questions of cultural predictability and innovation. What are the tools, techniques and artifacts of thinking topologically about cultural change? What spaces do they make? How can the current development of a material culture of topological thinking be taken into account, reflexively, as a research topic? What are the cultural implications of the growth of technical systems, quantitative calculation and ideas and procedures concerned with number, counting, and logic, the increase in lists and registers, and the rise of logistics, of innovations in thinking about linkages and technologies of address, and the combination and organization of these operations into systems in everyday life? What kinds of engagement are adequate to the task of thinking and acting in response? Finally, the conference will also address issues of method, and in particular examine the current interest in the use of quantitative methods to investigate and understand qualitative change. Can anything – or everything – be measured in numbers? What role do modeling, simulation and experimentation have in the study of culture? How can we understand cultures of quantification? What are the implications of studying culture for the uses and meanings of numbers? Speakers will be drawn from across the humanities and the social and natural sciences, from architecture, design, mathematics, physics, biology, medicine and AI, with plenary presentations from Rosi Braidotti, Manuel DeLanda, J. Doyne Farmer, Matthew Fuller, Alex Galloway, Penny Harvey, Scott Lash, Richard Rogers, Luc Steels, Eyal Weizmann. Participants are invited to explore these questions in relation to four broad areas of cultural change, though other domains are not excluded: Media – networks, digital methods, interface, algorithm, ubiquity, emergency, trash and spam, identification, communication and interaction Markets – models, probability, crisis, performance, devices, cultures of quantification, noise, financialization. Migration – movement, state spaces and spaces of passibility, lines and borders, flows, blocks and stoppages Mind – consciousness, language, the human, imitation and evolution. There will be special events for industry and policymakers, with a focus on social and cultural trends, different ways to think about predictability and the management of cultural change, in relation to processes of innovation. There will also be special events from graduate students, with an opportunity to participate in a training workshop. Further information about these events will be announced on ATACD website http://www.atacd.net. The deadline for paper submissions to the conference is Thursday 28 May 2009. Abstracts with a max length of 300 words will need to be submitted online in text only format (no diagrams, tables or graphs are permitted). Full instructions for online submission can be found on the Conference home page at: http://www.atacd.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=40 .

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CFP: Technical Communication Special Issue on “Legal Issues in Global Contexts”
by martine courant rife 30 Mar '09

30 Mar '09

Call for Proposals: Special Issue on “Legal Issues in Global Contexts” _Technical Communication_, the journal of the Society for Technical Communication (STC), is soliciting article proposals for an upcoming special issue that will examine how factors of law and of culture affect how technical communicators work in international and cross-cultural contexts. This special issue will be published in November 2010, and the guest editors are Kirk St.Amant of East Carolina University and Martine Courant Rife of Lansing Community College. SPECIAL ISSUE DESCRIPTION Legal issues are increasingly affecting the work we do as industry practitioners, academic researchers, university and college educators, and independent entrepreneurs in technical communication. In some cases, these legal issues involve notions of ownership, copyright, and trade secrets. In other instances, legal concerns related to privacy, disclosure, and free speech affect how technical communicators perform different activities. These legal issues are further complicated by different cultural perspectives related to working in global environments and to addressing the informational needs of different cultural groups within our own nations. Very few individuals in technical communication, however, are lawyers or have formal training in issues of law and its intersection with different cultural communication expectations and assumptions. This special issue of _Technical Communication_ will examine the legal issues affecting technical communication practices related to designing materials for or to working with individuals from other nations and cultures. POSSIBLE TOPICS FOR THIS SPECIAL ISSUE The guest editors invite proposals for papers on applied research or theory, case histories/studies, tutorials, and/or annotated bibliographies that address the following issues: • Why should technical communicators attend to global/international legal issues? Why not? • What kind of training should technical communicators have to address issues of law and culture effectively in international and domestic contexts? • How are legal issues or requirements related to language and translation affecting technical communication practices? • How should technical communicators working in international organizations approach legal issues? Should these issues be turned over to the “legal department”? Should technical communicators have input on organization policies with respect to implementing law? Should they be seen as experts in this area? Why or why not? • What developments in international law, treaties, or global-context legal conversations may impact the work of technical communicators (e.g., the EU Data Protection Directive, TRIPS [Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights], conversations on appropriation of traditional knowledge)? What recommendations might be developed to work within or challenge these new developments? • How do legal issues affect communication practices in globally distributed virtual teams? • What kinds of legal issues do international practices such as off shoring raise for technical communicators? How do these issues affect technical communication practices or provide new opportunities for technical communicators to contribute value to their organizations? • How have legal issues in global contexts become more immediate with regard to the continual growth of and use of online media in international contexts? • In what ways can our history of examining issues of intercultural communication contribute to how we approach legal issues in global contexts? • How do cultural differences related to intellectual property and copyright affect technical communication practices – particularly practices involving globally distributed teams? • How do issues of government surveillance and data mining affect the ways in which technical communicators interact in globally distributed workplaces or use online media to present information and exchange ideas across cultures? • How can aligning global legal issues and local legal issues help – or complicate how we work and conduct research as technical communicators? • What kinds of theories or research methods from the field of technical communication might inform our ability to understand legal issues in global contexts? • In what ways can/should technical communicators enter into public discussions about global-legal issues? SUBMISSION GUIDELINES Proposals should be no more than 400 words in length. All proposals should include submitter name, affiliation, and email address as well as a working title for the proposed article. PRODUCTION SCHEDULE The schedule for the special issue is as follows: 1 June 2009 -- 400-word proposals due 15 June 2009 – Guest editors return proposal decisions to submitters 1 October 2009 – Draft manuscripts of accepted proposals due 15 February 2010 -- Final manuscripts due November 2010 -- Publication date of special issue CONTACT INFORMATION Completed proposals or questions about either proposal topics or this special issue should be sent to Kirk St.Amant and Martine Courant Rife at tc.special.issue(a)gmail.com -- Martine Courant Rife, JD, PhD Professor, Writing Program Lansing Community College Communication Department Arts & Sciences Building, 211G, 517/4839906 martinerife(a)gmail.com //AIM martine785

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Paper: De-anonymizing Social Networks
by Richard Forno 30 Mar '09

30 Mar '09

De-anonymizing Social Networks Abstract: Operators of online social networks are increasingly sharing potentially sensitive information about users and their relationships with advertisers, application developers, and data-mining researchers. Privacy is typically protected by anonymization, i.e., removing names, addresses, etc. We present a framework for analyzing privacy and anonymity in social networks and develop a new re-identification algorithm targeting anonymized social-network graphs. To demonstrate its effectiveness on real-world networks, we show that a third of the users who can be verified to have accounts on both Twitter, a popular microblogging service, and Flickr, an online photo-sharing site, can be re- identified in the anonymous Twitter graph with only a 12% error rate. Our de-anonymization algorithm is based purely on the network topology, does not require creation of a large number of dummy “sybil” nodes, is robust to noise and all existing defenses, and works even when the overlap between the target network and the adversary’s auxiliary information is small. < - > http://33bits.org/2009/03/19/de-anonymizing-social-networks/

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Book announcement: 'Innovating for and by users'
by Jo Pierson 29 Mar '09

29 Mar '09

Book: 'Innovating for and by users' Edited by Jo Pierson, Enid Mante-Meijer, Eugène Loos and Bartolomeo Sapio EU Publications Office - COST298 - ISBN 978-92-898-0047-1 The book looks at socio-technological transitions and shifting roles of users in the design and innovation of broadband technologies and digital media. The different chapters aim to shed more light on the ‘black box’ of design and use of ICTs. In this way we hope to contribute to the empowerment of people in their relationship(s) with new media and - through this - to increase the quality of social life. The title ‘Innovating for and by users’ refers to insights on how to innovate by involving users more intensely in the design of technological innovations, which can lead to innovations that create more benefits for these users. The different authors deliver a timely reality check on the current information society in Europe from a users’ perspective, in a general (theoretical) sense as well as in specific domains (digital television, e-publishing, care sector...). This is done in an interdisciplinary way by integrating social science views and engineering approaches. The findings are based on academic and industry-driven digital media research in various European countries. For more information on this book, please visit: http://smit.vub.ac.be/ifbu Jo Pierson, Ph.D. IBBT - SMIT, Studies on Media, Information & Telecommunication Vrije Universiteit Brussel Offices: Pleinlaan 9, 2nd floor B - 1050 Brussels Belgium Tel: +32 2 629 16 27 Fax: +32 2 629 17 00 E-mail: jo.pierson(a)vub.ac.be http://smit.vub.ac.be

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Re: [Air-L] Papers out of NetLab recently
by Andrew Herman 29 Mar '09

29 Mar '09

Barry- I have tried to find #3 on your website but to no avail. Where specifically does it reside? Thanks, Andrew Herman Andrew Herman, Ph. D. Associate Professor Department of Communication Studies Wilfrid Laurier University Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5 CANADA 519 884-1970 x3693 >>> Barry Wellman <wellman(a)chass.utoronto.ca> 03/28/09 7:17 PM >>> All up on my webpage 1. Barry Wellman, "I was a Wikiwarrior for Barack Obama." Short fun piece. Huffington Post was going to blog it, but then they haven't done anything for a month, and don't answer emails. Make me a publn offer. 2. Wenhong Chen and Barry Wellman, "Net and Jet." How transnational Canadian-Chinese entrepreneurs network by land, air and ether. Based on Wenhong's dissertation. Coming out in Information, Communication and Society June 2009. 3. Barry Wellman. "Studying Internet Studies Through the Ages." A short piece that updates my Three Ages of Internet Studies. Coming out in the Blackwell Handbook of Internet Studies. 4. Diana Mok, Barry Wellman, and Juan-Antonio Carrasco, "Does Distance Still Matter in the Age of the Internet?" The answer is yes for relationships, but not for email itself. Based on Connected Lives data. Due out in Urban Studies: late 2009 or early 2010. 5. Juan-Antonio Carrasco, Barry Wellman and Eric Miller. 2008. "How Far - and With Whom - Do People Socialize? Empirical Evidence about Distance between Social Network Members." Transportation Research Record: 2076: 114-122. Travel analysis based on Connected Lives data. Shows the interplay of email and face-to-face contact. 6. Rochelle Côté, Gabriele Plickert and Barry Wellman. 2009 "Does the Golden Rule, Rule?" Pp. 49-71 in Contexts of Social Capital: Social Networks in Markets, Communities and Families, edited by Ray-May Hsung, Nan Lin and Ronald Breiger. London: Routledge. Based on the second East York -- the first (we know of) social network analysis of who reciprocates with what. Finds direct exchange (tit-for-tit) beats indirect (tit-for-tat). 7. Ben Veenhof, Barry Wellman, Carsten Quell and Bernie Hogan. 2008. "How Canadians' Use of the Internet Affects Social Life and Civic Participation". Connectedness report series: F0004M-16, December 4, 2008. 29 pp. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/56f0004m/56f0004m2008016-eng.pdf. Uses very large Statistics Canada national surveys (and some Connected Lives data) to analyze time use, civic involvement and internet use. Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Department of Sociology University of Toronto 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 twitter: barrywellman secondlife: wikiwarrior swords Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ The Air-L(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/

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Sports, fandom, and new media
by Jacqueline Vickery 28 Mar '09

28 Mar '09

Hello all, I am wondering if anyone is aware of some qualitative or quantitative research about sports and new media. I'm particularly interested in how sports fans are using message boards, cell phones, twitter, blogs, and other digital media to extend their communities and further perform their fan identities. Even more specifically, I am interested in American college football fans, but any research about sports fandom as it intersects with digital media would be really helpful. Thank you much, - jacqueline -- Jacqueline Vickery, PhD Student Co-Coordinating Editor, FlowTV.org Department of Radio-Television-Film University of Texas - Austin

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Papers out of NetLab recently
by Barry Wellman 28 Mar '09

28 Mar '09

All up on my webpage 1. Barry Wellman, "I was a Wikiwarrior for Barack Obama." Short fun piece. Huffington Post was going to blog it, but then they haven't done anything for a month, and don't answer emails. Make me a publn offer. 2. Wenhong Chen and Barry Wellman, "Net and Jet." How transnational Canadian-Chinese entrepreneurs network by land, air and ether. Based on Wenhong's dissertation. Coming out in Information, Communication and Society June 2009. 3. Barry Wellman. "Studying Internet Studies Through the Ages." A short piece that updates my Three Ages of Internet Studies. Coming out in the Blackwell Handbook of Internet Studies. 4. Diana Mok, Barry Wellman, and Juan-Antonio Carrasco, "Does Distance Still Matter in the Age of the Internet?" The answer is yes for relationships, but not for email itself. Based on Connected Lives data. Due out in Urban Studies: late 2009 or early 2010. 5. Juan-Antonio Carrasco, Barry Wellman and Eric Miller. 2008. "How Far - and With Whom - Do People Socialize? Empirical Evidence about Distance between Social Network Members." Transportation Research Record: 2076: 114-122. Travel analysis based on Connected Lives data. Shows the interplay of email and face-to-face contact. 6. Rochelle Côté, Gabriele Plickert and Barry Wellman. 2009 "Does the Golden Rule, Rule?" Pp. 49-71 in Contexts of Social Capital: Social Networks in Markets, Communities and Families, edited by Ray-May Hsung, Nan Lin and Ronald Breiger. London: Routledge. Based on the second East York -- the first (we know of) social network analysis of who reciprocates with what. Finds direct exchange (tit-for-tit) beats indirect (tit-for-tat). 7. Ben Veenhof, Barry Wellman, Carsten Quell and Bernie Hogan. 2008. "How Canadians' Use of the Internet Affects Social Life and Civic Participation". Connectedness report series: F0004M-16, December 4, 2008. 29 pp. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/56f0004m/56f0004m2008016-eng.pdf. Uses very large Statistics Canada national surveys (and some Connected Lives data) to analyze time use, civic involvement and internet use. Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Department of Sociology University of Toronto 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 twitter: barrywellman secondlife: wikiwarrior swords Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _______________________________________________________________________

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The Guardian: Blogging / Podcasting / Twitter / Wikipedia - The Future Of (UK) Education?
by McKiernan, Gerard [LIB] 28 Mar '09

28 Mar '09

Colleagues/ Recent-Late-Breaking-Revolutionary News ... !!! /Gerry The Guardian: Blogging / Podcasting / Twitter / Wikipedia - The Future Of (UK) Education? Children will no longer have to study the Victorians or the second world war under proposals to overhaul the primary school curriculum, the Guardian has learned. However, the draft plans will require children to master Twitter and Wikipedia and give teachers far more freedom to decide what youngsters should be concentrating on in classes. The proposed curriculum, which would mark the biggest change to primary schooling in a decade, strips away hundreds of specifications about the scientific, geographical and historical knowledge pupils must accumulate before they are 11 to allow schools greater flexibility in what they teach. [snip] The papers seen by the Guardian are draft plans for the detailed content of each of six core "learning areas" that Rose is proposing should replace the current 13 standalone subject areas. The proposals would require: * Children to leave primary school familiar with blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter as sources of information and forms of communication. [snip] [snip] The six core areas are: understanding English, communication and languages, mathematical understanding, scientific and technological understanding, human, social and environmental understanding, understanding physical health and wellbeing, and understanding arts and design. [More] Links To Full Article and Companion Audio Interview Available At [ http://tinyurl.com/cu49jc ] What Will They Do Next? Sanction Membership In Social Networks [:-) Enjoy! /Gerry Gerry McKiernan Associate Professor Science and Technology Librarian Iowa State University Library Ames IA 50011 gerrymck(a)iastate.edu There is Nothing More Powerful Than An Idea Whose Time Has Come / Victor Hugo [ http://www.blogger.com/profile/09093368136660604490 ] Iowa: Where the Tall Corn Flows and the (North)West Wind Blows [ http://alternativeenergyblogs.blogspot.com/ ]

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