Inside Story: World Wide Web: Global Force for Good?

We celebrate and analyse the 25th anniversary of Tim Berners-Lee's landmark invention.

Tim Berners-Lee: UK and US Must Do More to Protect Internet Users' Privacy

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web

THE GUARDIAN: 'Tide of surveillance and censorship' threatens future of democracy, says inventor of world wide web

The UK and US must do more to protect internet users' privacy, the inventor of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has warned as a survey of online freedoms is released.

Berners-Lee warned that "a growing tide of surveillance and censorship" posed a threat to the future of democracy, even as more and more people were using the internet to expose wrongdoing.

His remarks came before the second annual release of a global league table that classifies countries according to a set of freedoms. Since last year, the US has dropped from second place to fourth, while the UK has remained in third place. Sweden still tops the list, with Norway in second place. All of the Scandinavian countries – Sweden, Denmark and Norway – feature in the top 10.

The UK was poorly placed on privacy rights but was lifted by its high scores for availability of relevant content and the internet's political impact. Read on and comment » | Charles Arthur and agencies | Friday, November 22, 2013

How CERN’s Grid May Place the Power of the World’s Computers in Your Hands

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The combined power of the world’s computers could soon be placed in the palm of your hand thanks to technology that is partly being developed at the home of the Large Hadron Collider.

Scientists at CERN in Switzerland and in the US have been developing a new kind of computer system that is already being described as the successor to the World Wide Web.

Known as the Worldwide Grid, it would give users access to the computing power of all the machines connected to a network no matter where they are in the world.

The technology could turn desktop computers into supercomputers and is now being adapted to allow mobile devices such as phones and tablets to connect.

Physicists at CERN already have access to the world’s biggest Grid computing network, combining more than 200,000 computers together.

It allows them to analyse more than 26 million gigabytes of data produced by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) each year. » | Richard Gray, Science Correspondent | Wednesday, August 14, 2013

US Student Bypasses Egypt's Web Blackout
After internet services were disconnected in Egypt, protesters were prevented from speaking to the world. But thanks to John Scott Railton, a Los Angeles based student, who took upon himself the task of uploading messages on micro blogging site twitter. He started making calls and posting messages on a twitter account he created for the Egyptian protests

China’s Internet Censorship Model “Spreading Like a Virus”
THE TELEGRAPH: Dozens of countries are copying China's methods of censoring the internet, Amnesty International said yesterday.
In advance of a live webcast to discuss internet freedom, Amnesty gave warning that censorship was a "virus" that was infecting countries round the world.

Tim Hancock, Amnesty's international campaigns director, said: "The 'Chinese model' of an internet that allows economic growth but not free speech or privacy is growing in popularity, from a handful of countries five years ago to dozens of governments today who block sites and arrest bloggers." Censoring of internet is 'spreading like virus' (more) By Richard Spencer in Beijing

Richard Spencer’s blog: The great firewall of China

Mark Alexander

Can the Web Really Be Unspun?
GLOBE AND MAIL: For the past few decades, a huge network infrastructure has provided billions of people with access to information and technology that was inconceivable to earlier generations.

But if the cybergelicals of the 1990s were right about how the Internet would transform everyday life, they were less prophetic about what exactly those transformations would look like. As the number of users and applications has expanded, so have the frustrations and risks of plugging in.

This week, the United States banned soldiers from websites such as YouTube and MySpace – concerned that downloads and social networking could overload military systems and lead to security breaches. Some banks have reverted to snail mail to help customers steer clear of phishers trying to bilk them out of their money.

“Over all, the situation is not getting better, it's getting worse,” says David Clark, a senior researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the early creators of the Internet. Untangling the World Wide Web (more) By Christopher Dreher

GLOBE AND MAIL: Study finds 25 countries censor websites

GLOBE AND MAIL:
YouTube doubtful of Pentagon explanation for blocking sites By Scott Lindlaw

Mark Alexander