Berkman Buzz: September 7, 2013

Now that we have enough details about how the NSA eavesdrops on the internet, including today's disclosures of the NSA's deliberate weakening of cryptographic systems, we can finally start to figure out how to protect ourselves.

For the past two weeks, I have been working with the Guardian on NSA stories, and have read hundreds of top-secret NSA documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden. I wasn't part of today's story – it was in process well before I showed up – but everything I read confirms what the Guardian is reporting.

At this point, I feel I can provide some advice for keeping secure against such an adversary.

::bounce:: The folks at Yale just gave me my book cover design. I'm so excited to get this book in your hands! pic.twitter.com/9oQXtAjcDo
—danah boyd (@zephoria)

Even though the Post has some terrific people working on digital media R&D, most of the R&D is happening not only outside the Post, but also outside the news industry as a whole. Where? Everywhere: universities, corporate labs, open-source repositories, startups, basements. The experiments are taking place inside and outside of companies, inside and outside the news industry (mostly outside), in Silicon Valley and out in the larger world. Many, if not most, of the valuable ideas, technologies and techniques – including and maybe especially revenue models – are coming from projects whose creators have no journalistic intent, but whose work could and should be used in the journalism ecosystem.

The Post and news business as a whole need to make these connections.

Wowse. RT @kinggary: Censorship in China: A hot new Harvard study finds it huge -- and quite revealing http://ow.ly/ozA2B
—Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep)

It was entertaining to read the Internet Police, as everyone who saw me reading it thought that I was hate-reading it. Fortunately, it’s more about police on the Internet than policing the Internet. It’s by Nate Anderson, who’s an Ars Technica writer, and if you’ve followed Ars’s coverage, much of the book may be familiar, from RATs and webcam spying to how to set up an Internet sting. The book describes the technologies at issue accurately and thoroughly without getting boring, and presents many of the problems of online law enforcement, from the Silk Road to child porn. Would recommend as an intro to cybercrime.

Creative class naming must be be on the rise. As institutions of higher education are all now basing budgets on a tuition-charge-back system where academic units are rewarded for class sizes, the profs are going to be looking around for ideas that sell their courses.

Using the distinction above, here are all of the course titles I found that were creatively named. With two exceptions, they are all actual courses that were taught at universities, as far as I know.

Do you have any names to add?

We're very pleased to announce that internet entrepreneur Mohamed Nanabhay has joined the board of Global Voices.

Mohamed, an early contributor to Global Voices, works at the intersection of media, technology and entrepreneurship and brings to the organisation a wealth of knowledge and experience about online news platforms, alternative media channels, audience engagement and online communities.