Berkman Buzz: February 7, 2014

“It’s Complicated” is dedicated to my beloved advisor, Peter Lyman, who passed away before I finished my degree at Berkeley. It was Peter who initially helped me conceive of this project and it was Peter who took my limited ethnographic training and helped me develop deep reflexive instincts. As much joy as it brings me to see this book born into the world, it also saddens me that Peter couldn’t get to see the project completed.

My personal home page turned 20! Check out the 1994 original: http://bit.ly/1g1Six8
—Christian Sandvig (@niftyc)

There won't be a website blackout next Tuesday, 11 February, but there will be another virtual call to arms. In the US the primary goal this time is to help reverse America's retreat from liberty by telling lawmakers we can't abide a surveillance state – and by insisting they vote for a measure, called the USA Freedom Act, that would begin to restore the civil liberties we've lost in recent times. (For people outside the US the goal will be similar, to push authorities toward policies favoring liberty and privacy.)

Next week's protest organizers are calling it "The Day We Fight Back Against Mass Surveillance". They've lined up an array of backers of various political persuasions. You don't often see the American Civil Liberties Union on the same side of an issue as the very conservative FreedomWorks, but they are this time.

The most recent story from the Snowden documents is from Canada: it claims the CSEC (Communications Security Establishment Canada) used airport Wi-Fi information to track travelers. That's not really true. What the top-secret presentation shows is a proof-of-concept project to identify different IP networks, using a database of user IDs found on those networks over time, and then potentially using that data to identify individual users. This is actually far more interesting than simply eavesdropping on airport Wi-Fi sessions. Between Boingo and the cell phone carriers, that's pretty easy.

In the wake of the disclosures about government surveillance and the rise of corporate-run applications and protocols, is the idea of an “unowned” Internet still a credible one? The Berkman Center’s Jonathan Zittrain moderates a panel, including Yochai Benkler (Harvard Law School), Ebele Okobi (Yahoo!), Bruce Schneier (CO3 Systems), and Benjamin Wittes (Brookings Institution) to explore surveillance and the potential for reforms in policy, technology, and corporate and consumer behavior.

Making the rounds in Turkey. "Erdogan proposes to replace Twitter's blue bird with a penguin." pic.twitter.com/ZibSvCXmrl —Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep)

Food is life. It unites us all. Here at Global Voices, we love food, so we bring you eight yummy food blogs from Sub-Saharan Africa.