|
May 21, 2013 - 1:34am
Michael Dukakis and Cambridge resident Shanti Fry received awards at last tonight's The Massachusetts Democratic Party's annual Roosevelt Awards event. Dukakis, the former governor of Massachusetts, exhorted the crowd not to let up before the June 25 special election. Fry, who helped raise a record amount of cash for Elizabeth Warren's campaign, reminded attendees the next 30 days would be the hardest.
read more |
|
May 19, 2013 - 8:30pm
By Sarah Cortes-80 boys and 20 girls gathered at MIT media lab today to create computer projects, practice their programming skills and learn new skills. Using a programming language developed specifically for kids by Mitch Resnick at MIT, participants had an opportunity to have fun. Along the way they develop and sharpen skills that America desperately needs in its workforce, and that may one day provide the ultimate edge in today's job market. Once a skill reserved for a few specialists, programming, or "coding" as it is called, is now a skill expected in significant numbers by employers worldwide. Americans have lagged behind in adapting their education system to reflect this economic and employment reality,
While children with elite educations in other countries like India and China have access to many coding learning programs and countless competitions
read more |
|
April 28, 2013 - 9:52pm
by @SarahCortes-Over 120 technologists gathered at host Microsoft Cambridge this weekend to volunteer 48 consecutive hours of help for 24 nonprofits. Over 30 projects were accomplished for free for for organizations that otherwise cold not afford them. Projects included website implementations, database reverse engineering, and porting nonprofits' applications to more stable platforms. Jim O'Neil of Microsoft, who organized the event, said, "this is our fourth year, and we have seen that flexibility is the key to successful implementations and a fun, smooth weekend for volunteers."
Paul Grenier was one of the coders who travelled from the land of Connecticut and camped overnight at Microsoft, which provided shower facilities and space for tents and sleeping bags, where volunteers caught a few hours of sleep over the weekend. @AutoSponge Grenier, worked on http://www.fuerza.is, an online application to help combat cyberstalking, a project inspired by a consortium that includes Emerge, http://www.emergedv.com, a Cambridge Abuser Education program, Transition House, http://www.transitionhouse.org, which provides shelter and services for victims of Domestic Violence, and https://www....
read more |
|
April 14, 2013 - 4:34pm
by Sarah Cortes-On Tuesday, the White House invited technologists from all over the world to brief senior staff on the use of technology to combat human trafficking. The White House conducted the briefing as part of its Human Trafficking Task Force. Human trafficking is described as modern day slavery.
Dr. Steven Chan, a Chief Technology Officer/Research Fellow within the Department of Comparative Media Studies at MIT and Andrew Lewman, Executive Director of the Tor Project were among the invited technologists.
Attorney General Eric Holder addressed the Task Force first on Tuesday morning in the White House briefing room. He noted an estimate of 27 million individuals believed held in modern day slavery due to Human Trafficking, a White House and Obama priority, Holder stated.
Janet Napolitano next requested feedback on the draft action plan from those attending.
Andrew Lewman, Executive Director of Tor, participated in the briefing Tuesday at the White House's invitation. He accepted the request to join the White House in 2012 during the White House's effort to enlist technology and technologists to combat human trafficking in order to "better understand the role of technology in...
read more |
|
April 10, 2013 - 7:12pm
by Sarah Cortes-On Tuesday, the White House invited technologists from all over the world to brief senior staff on the use of technology to combat human trafficking. The White House conducted the briefing as part of its Human Trafficking Task Force. Human trafficking is described as modern day slavery.
Dr. Steven Chan, a Chief Technology Officer/Research Fellow within the Department of Comparative Media Studies at MIT and Andrew Lewman, Executive Director of the Tor Project were among the invited technologists.
Attorney General Eric Holder addressed the Task Force first on Tuesday morning in the White House briefing room. He noted an estimate of 27 million individuals believed held in modern day slavery due to Human Trafficking, a White House and Obama priority, Holder stated.
Janet Napolitano next requested feedback on the draft action plan from those attending.
read more |
|
September 30, 2012 - 10:16pm
By Sarah Cortes-Ever since Chinese computer hackers reportedly brought down the entire power grid of northeastern New York State, utilities and the US government have collaborated to strengthen the US energy infrastructure to prevent similar occurrences. Smart Grid technology, including computerized Smart Meters, have been rolled out around the US, and there are plans to install more, including in Cambridge and the entire state of Massachusetts.
New Smart Grid technology can make your energy consumption data much more interesting, creating benefits- and problems. Collected at intervals as low as every hour or 15 minutes, increased granularity of your energy consumption paints a distinct picture of your activities in your home. And, the activities of others in your home while you are away. Each person may create a unique "digital energy usage signature" that can be used to identify who is in your home doing what, when. This is helpful when you want to understand how to cut down your energy usage. It also interests businesses that want to sell you things, other individuals who want to track your activities, and law enforcement and related government agencies, when they wants to...
read more |
|
September 6, 2012 - 7:45pm
by @SarahCortes-As over 30 press outlets filed an amicus brief to protest secrecy surrounding PVC Bradley Manning's trial, protestors in Cambridge, Boston and 33 Obama campaign headquarters around the US joined yesterday in the demand to free Manning.
Manning is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents and media, including the video www.CollateralMurder.com, to Wikileaks. Many view Wikileaks as a news outlet similar to the New York Times, and Manning as a whistleblower similar to Daniel Ellsberg of the Pentagon Papers. Documents and media allegedly leaked by Manning to Wikileaks portray misconduct by the US military, such as that in the Collateral Murder video. Wikileaks director Julian Assange is currently in refuge in the Ecuadoran embassy in London, under threat of arrest and deportation to Sweden. Four US congressional representatives have called for Assange's death. The US seeks his extradition for publishing the classified material. Manning faces 22 charges, including aiding the enemy, unauthorized disclosure of national security information and violating orders. The maximum punishment for these crimes includes life imprisonment. The government has...
read more |
|
August 17, 2012 - 6:56am
by Sarah Cortes-Protestors spent a second day and night outside the British Consulate in Cambridge MA in response to the UK's continued threats against the sovereignty of Ecuador's London Embassy and Julian Assange. Identifying themselves with the philosophy of the loose collective of computer hackers known as "Anonymous," individuals in "V for Vendetta" masks occupied the space in front of the Consulate, located at One Broadway in Kendall Square.
Assange has sought refuge from UK extradition in Ecuador's London embassy since June 16. In a new development, Ecuador announced yesterday it has extended Assange permanant asylum. In response, the UK has stated it will arrest Assange the minute he steps outside the embassy.
Assange founded Wikileaks, the organization that published hundreds of thousands of pages of US diplomatic and military cables allegedly leaked by US Pvt. Bradley Manning. Among other artifacts, Wikileaks published 39 minutes of classified US Army helicopter cockpit gunsight footage, which can be seen in the video "Collateral Murder," at www.collateralmurder.com. The video footage includes the shooting and sometimes slow deaths of unarmed civilians, children and...
read more |
|
August 16, 2012 - 7:54am
by Sarah Cortes-Protestors wearing the "V for Vendetta" Guy Fawkes masks preferred by the loose hacker collective "Anonymous" appeared at the British Consulate in Cambridge last night, only hours after news outlets revealed that UK police have started amassing outside Ecuador's embassy in London. An announcement is expected this morning by Ecuadorean authorities over asylum for WIkileaks founder Julian Assange, who is living in the embassy. British authorities have vowed to arrest Assange the minute he steps outside embassy premises, legally considered Ecuadorian soil. The UK threat to a sovereign embassy has resonated around the world overnight, causing fears of retaliation to UK subjects, embassies, and consulates worldwide. Cambridge, home to many prominent supporters of internet freedom, was among the first to organize and react.
The protestors gathered around 11pm EST outside the British Consulate located at One Broadway in Kendall Square, Cambridge, on the 7th floor. They expressed their outrage over reports last night from BBC News that a letter sent yesterday from the UK government to Ecuadorean officials threatened that UK police would storm the embassy if Ecuador did not...
read more |
|
July 30, 2012 - 3:31am
by Sarah Cortes-Josh Corman, Akamai Director of Security Intelligence, appeared in the new film "We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists" screened today at DefCon, the largest computer hacker conference on earth. In the film, Corman, a former philosophy major, speaks about the origins of the hacktivist phenomenon "Anonymous."
The film traces the origins of Anonymous from various groups, including a loose association of friends who called themselves the "Cult of the Dead Cow" and enjoyed computer pranks. The film also covers early origins of "hackers" in MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) and the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
From these origins, groups of hackers interacted on electronic bulletin boards and eventually on 4chan. From those identifying with hacker values and principals eventually evolved those identifying with the principals of Anonymous, Corman explains in the film. In 2010, Anonymous reportedly assisted Wikileaks in obtaining and publishing hundreds of classified US government documents, including the video "Collateral Murder."
Anonymous also provided significant assistance to the Occupy movements, one of which appeared in Harvard Yard in...
read more |
