The Good Hack

Metalab is an open hacker space in Vienna, Austria where people can share ideas and get creative with technology.

The space opened its doors in 2006, a many-roomed basement space not far from Vienna's Rathaus (city hall). Visitors can make use of  an unsecured Wi-Fi connection and an array of technology (3-D printers, laser routers, darkroom and more) to help realize any idea about using technology for greater purpose.

Many of those who come consider themselves to be hackers, anyone who wants to unpack systems and put them back together to work better, says Thomas Lohninger, a Metalab regular.

This Friday Metalab will commemorate the loss of internet freedom fighter Aaron Swartz with a daylong hackathon. "As usual, there are will be open WLAN, whiteboards, flipcharts, projector and soft drinks,” according to the announcement on site.

Every event is organized by members and -- with very rare exceptions -- open to the public, according to Lohninger. The not-for-profit organization that operates Metalab, sees itself solely as an infrastructure provider and exerts little influence over projects and events carried out at the lab.

Some images from my visit to the lab on Feb 14:

3-D Printer

Bringing Dark Money to Account

Illustration by Bill Brown

Think the election season ended on Nov. 6, 2012? Think again.

The shadowy Super PACs and front groups that polluted the airwaves with political ads last year are already raising millions from corporations and billionaires to batter television viewers with a new wave of ads.

Earlier this week, Karl Rove’s Super PAC American Crossroads attacked actress and political activist Ashley Judd, who is contemplating a Senate run in Kentucky. And former Obama campaign hands are lining up dark-money donors to support a public relations push for implementation of health-care reforms.

The thought of having to endure another round of shady and dishonest political ads might make you queasy. But relief could be closer than you think.

Is Free Public WiFi Possible?

Wireless access in a NYC public park. Photo: Timothy Karr

The noisy response to a front-page Washington Post story about an alleged government plan to create free public WiFi networks indicates public enthusiasm for the cheaper Internet access in America.

If only it were so simple.

Americans pay far too much for far too little Internet access by comparison to rates in other developed countries. So it's little surprise that so many would welcome the idea of ubiquitous and affordable wireless Internet access.

But the story drew a different response from insiders and tech reporters who knew that the creation of a "super WiFi" network described in the story is far from reality.

Susan Crawford's Call to Action

The media center at Occupy Wall Street. NYC, 2011.
Photo: Timothy Karr

The Internet is no longer a child. It was conceived by the defense department in the 1960s, nurtured by academics and engineers in the 1970s and adopted by billions of people in the years since.

Susan Crawford's new book, Captive Audience, details a host of challenges for the Internet and its users as this network enters middle age.

Many of its recent growing pains come at the hands of network providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon that sell access to the global network.

While these companies don't own the Internet, they often act like they do, and are pursuing polices to wrest control over Internet content away from its many users.

Protecting Online Freedom as the Internet Turns 30

Originally published by the Seattle Times

THE Internet turned 30 earlier this month. On Jan. 1, 1983, engineers launched the basic protocol for sharing bits between computers, setting in motion the networked world we live in today.

It’s during anniversaries like these that we have a chance to take stock of this remarkable network and the people who make it what it is.

As the Internet enters its middle years, we users can no longer take it for granted. It’s more than a cloud. It’s people, technology and physical infrastructure. As with any infrastructure, the Internet needs protection and maintenance to survive; otherwise the wires and signals that send digital communications will cease to function. The online community also needs protections — to prevent our ideas from being blocked, our identities from being hijacked and our wallets from being picked.

Aaron Swartz: Looking Forward

With Aaron in NYC during last year's PIPA/SOPA protests. Photo: Gilly Younger/Flickr 

It's been five days since Aaron Swartz took his life in New York City, and a day since his funeral. The tragic news has both outraged and saddened the Internet community and beyond.

Aaron's story resonates with so many people. It has elements of classic lore: a young, often misunderstood genius, persecuted by corrupt authority, takes his life before his good work can be realized.

Perhaps even more tragically, it has taken Aaron's death for many to understand and protest the injustices he faced. It's right to critique a U.S. prosecutor's office that bullied Aaron to a point of desperation. But we should also focus attention on his good work, which was rooted in the belief that openness and access to knowledge are essential to social justice and a healthy democracy.

The Internet, Journalism and the Newtown Tragedy

There was some media head scratching in Hoboken Friday afternoon after a police source on the scene of the Newtown tragedy identified the shooter as 24-year-old Ryan Lanza. 

A Facebook search identified Lanza as a resident of Hoboken, which sent local and national news crews and helicopters scrambling to his 1313 Grand Street address. At the scene were Hoboken police and FBI who had roped off surrounding streets. 

I counted some 80 journalists and crew members across the police line before new information had the assailant as Ryan's younger brother Adam. But by that time the damage had been done with many mainstream outlets having to correct earlier reports.

The Masters of the Internet

Who controls the Internet?

That question rests uneasily at the center of debates this week at the World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai.

The 12-day wonkfest has brought together representatives from more than 150 U.N. member states to craft global rules for the Internet. And that's where the trouble begins.

For many at the conference, the working assumption is that governments should control the digital network. They've reached this conclusion without asking any of the billions of Internet users who might think otherwise. Nor have they sought the advice of the many civil society groups that are helping to building a grassroots Internet freedom movement with global reach.

A Week in the Life of a Media Mogul

What's Up With Rupert.
(Illustration by James Hindle)

While two former lieutenants in the U.K. are to be charged for bribery and corruption,

 … http://nyti.ms/T0VStP

Rupert Murdoch's fortunes are turning in the U.S.,

 … http://nyti.ms/QpTrp2

where Obama's top FCC official is planning to lift media ownership limits,

 … http://bit.ly/USQkr6

It's a News Corp.-friendly move that would pave the way for Murdoch to fulfill ambitions to buy the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune,

 … http://bit.ly/T8Z7Cu

Don't Believe the Spin. Dark Money Won.

(Illustration by Bill Brown)

Before Nov. 6 is written into history, we need to correct assumptions now circulating among Washington's pundit class.

First, the Obama victory didn't signal the demise of big-money politics. It didn't spell the end of the Super PAC, far from it. And the election wasn't a train wreck for political advertising -- even after groups paid billions for spots that supported losing candidates.

"The bad news is that money ran rampant in the 2012 campaigns, perhaps as much as $6 billion when it's all added up," Former Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps said during a recent event in Washington.

Voting in Hoboken

13th Street fire station

My Week with Sandy:

Two hours before peak tide

Hijacking Democracy

Photo: WiredBike

Former Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps spoke Thursday about whether the media are strengthening our democracy -- or destroying it.

His assessment -- after serving for more than a decade overseeing the industry -- is disturbing. Copps has long argued that the media in general, and TV broadcasters in particular, need to do a lot more to nourish civic discourse.

Unfortunately, the owners of the nation's television stations don't see it that way.

"The public airwaves," Copps said in a speech at the University of Delaware, "have been hijacked by those whose primary objective is to serve the special interests rather than the public interest."

We can see this in 2012 in the relentless barrage of toxic political ads. It's also apparent in the dearth of serious local news to correct the misinformation and expose the money behind the ads.

Denver Post Commentary: Stations Not Fact-Checking Enough

Originally published by the Denver Post

Re:"Denver newsrooms tops in fact-checking,"Oct. 13 Perspective story.

Kathleen Hall-Jamieson claims to have found a "flaw in the logic" of a recent Free Press report on fact-checking by Denver TV stations. That report found that, despite a few notable exceptions, Denver stations weren't doing enough to investigate false claims made in political ads.

Free Press looked at ad spending in August and September by five prominent third-party groups. During that time, Denver's four biggest stations aired 29 hours of ads from these groups and devoted less than 11 minutes to related coverage. That's a ratio of 162 minutes of ads for every minute of news.

Worse, stations kept airing ads their own reporters found were false or misleading. But Jamieson suggests that such statistics don't matter because voters can get fact-checking information from other sources, including her own site, FactCheck.org.

Your Lying TV

Illustration: Bill Brown

In 2012, politics are all about spreading lies and making money.

And we're not talking nickels and dimes. Campaigns and Super PACs are raising billions of dollars to win over voters. A large chunk of that money ends up in the pockets of local broadcasters who are selling off the airwaves to place political ads. And way too many of these ads are dishonest.

If you're a television viewer in a battleground market that means having to endure a relentless stream of misinformation. Best estimates are that more than half a million political ads will air nationwide by Election Day.

And what are broadcasters giving viewers in return? Next to nothing. They have done virtually no fact-checking of the claims made in political ads.

The Internet as Political Lie Detector

Illustration: Bill Brown

In a year of misleading political attack ads and distracted television newscasters, the Internet may offer salvation for voters seeking the truth.

A new Google poll found that 64 percent of battleground-state voters have used the Internet to fact-check the candidates in 2012.

They may have gone online after tuning out local television news, which has largely taken a pass on vetting the claims made in political ads they air. Two recent Free Press studies found that newscasters at stations in the most heavily saturated markets have failed to investigate the shadowy groups that place local political ads — or to question the content of the ads themselves.

A Free Press’ study of political ads in Milwaukee found that stations in May devoted 53 news segments to Justin Bieber while offering zero analysis of the groups behind political ads flooding local airwaves.

Scared Silly ...or... Why Photography Matters

Every so often I come across a body of photographs that is so perfect in its simplicity and execution.

A recent series of  images by Nightmares Fear Factory in Niagara Falls depict people at a particularly terrifying moment during a walk through a haunted house.

These images are remarkably photographic in that they show people as they are, in playful moments of shock at some unseen -- and fake -- threat.

Their flash of a reaction reveals much about these people as individuals, and about human nature. Of special note is our shared and immediate tendency to seek the physical comfort of others when startled unexpectedly.

And they're just funny. Some favorites:

In Pyongyang: The Ride of Your Life

Photo: NKNews.org

North Korea's newly refurbished amusement parks feature the "roller coaster of doom" (pictured right) known for its "previously malfunctioning harnesses," according to NKNews.org.

Mangyongdae and Taesongsan Funfair Parks recently re-opened to a limited crowd of Pyongyang's braver elite.

The parks, located on the outskirts of the city had fallen into disrepair during the rein of  Fearless Leader Kim Jong Il. Their cause was taken up by Jong Il's son and successor Kim Jong-un, who publicly reprimanded park management for poor maintenance during a visit in May.

Jong-un is not alone among Hermit Kingdom royalty in his love for theme parks. Half brother, Kim Jong-nam, had fallen from favor in 2001 after he was caught attempting to visit Tokyo Disneyland using a fake passport. Other reports claim that Jong Un himself had successfully duped Japanese authorities during an earlier visit to the theme park.

Political Hush Money

The Miami Herald's Edward Wasserman cites my reporting on political ad spending in a cutting  commentary on the state of local television news in 2012.

"The funders of political advertising appear to have purchased not just air time, but immunity from media scrutiny," writes Wasserman, who was recently named dean of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

"Some of the same media that should referee political discourse and oversee the process by which a sovereign electorate selects its leaders are in thrall to the backroom players whose mission it is to manipulate and game that discourse."

Wasserman refers to the findings in Left in the Dark and Money, News and Deception in Denver, two Free Press studies that ask whether the TV stations that are pocketing billions in political ad money are also reporting on the entities that bankroll those ads.

Big Bird Takes Back the Streets

Sales of Big Bird costumes are up this Halloween as many don yellow feathers to protest the GOP attack on public broadcasting. A sampling:

Photo: The Sacramento Bee