Hack the Future – September 14th 2015

Big week on line – against all odds and super antagonistic press  and BBC Jeremy Corbyn wins Labour leadership campaign.
An intense, focused,  hybrid social media-cum-hustings campaign and online voting option for the elections brought the victory.

In May 2015 less than 44% of under 40 year olds in UK voted in general elections.  In hugely more digital Labour leadership elections Jeremy amassed over 251,000 votes, a big chunk of those coming  from younger voters using digital voting system.  Tom Watson and Jeremy Corbyn have earned their titles as the first truly  “digital” politicians of 21^st century in UK!

Watch video of Tom Watson making a case for Internet Bill of Digital Rights in House of Commons, March 2015.

We argued back in Feb 2014 that it is not true that young people are not political, they just don’t like the way the politics are conducted – the process turns them off.  Bring the tools to 21^st century, and the passions come flying back. The new, re-energised Labour is now full of clever young souls that have digital skills and the social change mindset to make things better for all using good. Read here.

Cyber – Senators  in the making?  The issue of governance and defending  one country is getting harder, as the cyberwar is being played out on a very global scale.

Further to hacksunami and the avalanche of 2014-2015 record number of hacks and State hacking incidents, the US is attempting to get some order in cyberspace State hacking protocol. What is and what is not allowed for State-sponsored hacking?  Read here to see what is ‘fair’ and what not – looks that the electricity grid is off limits, but other than that, you are on your own.

Facebook in court for gathering a database of our faces – not a type of tracking that you can turn off! Highly sensitive data that have creeped over us with unclear legal framework. One on the list for Digital Bill of Rights. Read here.

Twitter shut down its political tweet archive, quoting ‘privacy’ concerns as a reason.  We strongly suspect that it was the frantic lobbying by the politicians that has won the weakening tech giant and made them cave in.  A big error, as accountability and transparency for MPs, Lords (UK) and Sentors (US) alike is vital. A campaign to reverse this decision is gathering pace. Read here.

Nothing is safe today, as even Pentagon Cafeteria gets hacked, with credit card and names of employees leaking out in a well organised hack than has seen over 200,000 names compromised. Read here.

Don’t miss our Radical Data event on 12^th October, with David Birch author of “Identity is the new money”, Nick Rothwell and his Data Viz tips for the urban hackers and Matthew Hopkinson (Local Data Company) arguing for wi-fi footfall counters for High Streets.

More information on Cybersalon.org

Tickets

Adult – £8

Student – £5

Middlesex and Westminster students tweet us @Cybrsalon for free entry