Taking issue with the argument that, after decentralisation, control is embodied within the protocols of networks, Harry Halpin gives a historical account of the all-too-human actors vying for power over the net. Not technical standards but immaterial aristocrats rule cyberspace and their seats of power are vulnerable to revolutionary attack

This year’s Transmediale festival in Berlin was themed around the conceptual term ‘Conspire’. Here, Marina Vishmidt reviews its multiple presentations of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ collaborative truth production, and queries some suspicious absences

                               Free Software
                         Toni Prug, toni@irational.org
                                August 13, 2007

I had heard this week that an RFID card being developed for trial on Rotterdam's public transport system had been hacked, producing qualms about the security of all systems using RFID. However, according to the comment to the article below, the news turns out to be even more portentious for those in London, where an extremely unpopular Oyster card has existed for some time based on exactly the same Phillips manufactured 'MiFare' chip  

Re-posted from Schneier on SecurityA blog covering security and security technology.

Agnese Trocchi looks at the history of pirate television in Italy and sees the rise of a new organisation in the TeleStreet network

In The Art of War Sun Tzu explains that ‘all warfare is based on deception’. He states that psychological tactics minimise the need for military involvement, and it seems that hacker Kevin Mitnick agrees with him.