NSA’s mass surveillance of NZers online

Part of my TEDx Queenstown talk next week is about mass surveillance online. How governments are building the modern Panopticon.

I was therefore quite surprised yesterday when Prime Minister John Key said he has no reason to believe the NSA has undertaken mass surveillance on New Zealanders. To help the Prime Minister, let’s look at what we know about it and whether an objective person should come to the same conclusion.

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Career Hiatus

“A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache.”

Catherine the Great of Russia

Opportunity and circumstance have conspired in my leaving as CEO of Mega and I intend to begin working with Kim Dotcom and the rest of the Internet Party team shortly.

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Guidar Big Idea #1 – Location Graph

My first post on Guidar showed how difficult it is for an ‘independent’ app to even get noticed. Amongst the million others, a new app not linked to an existing online or physical presence struggles to even get noticed. With 90% of iOS apps free, monetisation is a second challenge.

To explain why spending hard-earned money on developing Guidar may not be as crazy and foolish as it sounds, I need to first write about two big ideas that, in my opinion and judgement, are going to be more important in the next few years. The first one- the Location Graph- is below while the other one is in a following post.

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HDC Bill: Limit Approved Agency to young adults

Should there be a law that exclusively targets (harmful) digital communications but not non-digital ones? Over time, I’ve come to accept the logic and need for it, as a part of a larger package of efforts. The medium is the message, the characteristics of digital communications impact society distinctively different than non-digital. It helps that the HDC Bill allows for the non-digital context to be taken into account when determining harm and remedies.

At the same time, I’ve also come to the view that the Approved Agency should only be available to young adults, say for individuals up to 18 or 21 years old.

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