I admit, I almost fell for Web 2.0. But this morning I had a rude awakening.

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My article on Newsvine was censored. Hundreds of Digg articles were censored. Web 2.0 has just shown its huge weakness – its unaccountability.

See, normal news media is supposed to uphold a standard of quality. If news breaks about accounting errors in one of their sponsors, they’re supposed to investigate and report. But with social media, the crowd doesn’t have the power to stop censorship or accountability. It’s up to the gatekeepers.

And those gatekeepers have a huge interest in keeping their sponsors happy. Web 2.0 allows the gatekeepers unprecedented power to manipulate the news. Just look at hundreds of articles disappearing from Digg in one day. Do you see the Associated Press censoring hundreds of articles in a day?

Web 2.0 is really about the silent destruction of freedom of information on the net. Individuals no longer own the majority of traffic, it all flows through the group votes of Digg and Reddit and StumbleUpon. When we can’t verify the accountability of these, we get what we have now, a bunch of crap.

Social media just destroyed itself today. Never again will I work for someone else’s media network, like I did at Newsvine. Social media is too dangerous, it won’t ever work the way it was supposed to. It was a pretty dream though.

So it goes, another round of censorship on the ‘net. I’ve had it happen to me before, but I just figured it was an isolated incident. With this though, I’m getting over the internet. It started out as an excited medium, but now it’s becoming pure shit. Corporate interests and censorship everywhere. I’ll see you in the real world, where we can still speak our minds and say numbers without fear of lawsuit…

For now.

There’s a scramble by governments to track their citizens online. Because of rapid advances in technology, it’s possible to build complete profiles of people through their online aliases and email accounts. And anyone with enough know how can do it too.

Do you have a Myspace? How many forums have you posted to in your life? How many of your comments would give away a political preference? How many would give away a religious bias?

Even a trip down to the local library’s internet is now completely logged in the US. In order to use the public internet, you’ve got to provide an ID, and all of your web browsing habits are stored with your personal ID. It’s enough to make even the most jaded person paranoid.

Data mining massive amounts of personal data is already going on. Big companies use it to build consumer profiles, and governments use it to build databases of potentially “dangerous” people. But who determines what constitutes a dangerous person looks like, and how do we deal with people who only have the profile to do wrong?

The answer is, of course, that a “dangerous” person looks like whatever’s convenient to the current political power. If there’s a problem with land shortage, the “dangerous” person becomes the person who controls a large portion of property. If there’s a problem with people talking about Democracy, the “dangerous” person becomes the one who talks about it.

So, how is the average person supposed deal with this sort of data mining and profiling?

The short answer is, they don’t. They probably won’t even realize it’s going on. The long answer is, it’s difficult but getting easier.

If you think people should be allowed to look at and disseminate information without being tracked, you’re not in the minority. The only problem is, technology has made this process very easy, and the amount of observable information exchanges has risen exponentially with the internet.

Ten years ago, it would be impossible to track exactly which books you read in the past year, and what sort of information you’re into. But with the internet everywhere, it’s extremely easy to build a profile. Just start with a search for your name. Find any aliases you use – email addresses, usernames – and do a search for those. Within 10 minutes, you can find out a lot of information on what type of person someone is. If they’ve got an Amazon account, you can see books they’re into using their Wish List.
If you’d like to have your internet actions stay anonymous you should:

• Be aware of the information you post, and who it’s available t
• Use protection when posting potentially damning evidence
• Use multiple aliases, and dump them
• Be careful of where you post your name
• Use a DemocraKey while surfing (So no one listening to your internet can tell what sites you visit.)

Joining the EFF helps if you want to donate something to fight for freedom of thought. Otherwise, researching for yourself and letting others know what’s going on is the most efficient way to get things done.

I’ve been a Linux fanboy since the age of 12. I installed Slackware on my top of the line Pentium 75 mhz computer and my life was forever changed. I became a coder and a geek and fell in love with the idea of an open source operating system. I learned 4 different programming languages and really got to know the insides of the computer.

Linux, was a great learning tool for me, but it’s never been a very effective working tool.

You see, I used to do a whole lot of programming work in Linux. The LAMP architecture is the quickest, cheapest way to learn programming on the web. Being able to run your own webserver with built in MySQL and PHP on a home machine makes testing so much easier. But now that’s all been ported to Windows, and it works with a whole lot less headaches from broken libraries and esoteric drivers.

But I started doing more graphics work than programming, and graphic programs in Linux pretty much suck. The GIMP has one of the worst user interfaces ever. Just so counterintuitive, and such a hassle to get things done. I used to think that if Photoshop and Illustrator were ever ported to Linux, it would be the perfect desktop environment. But now, even if Photoshop and Illustrator are ever ported over, they still wouldn’t be the killer apps for me to make the switch back to Linux.

In Windows, all my hardware works, and I don’t have to worry about broken packages. I can even still view (and write to) my Linux drive (ext3) in Windows using this driver. There isn’t the time draining process of installing 8 libraries so I can install my one program. Everything in Windows just works.

And that’s what’s most important to me, as a business owner and entrepreneur. I don’t care about the purity of my tools, I only care about the end result. I don’t spend hours wondering why this package won’t compile. Working within a Windows environment is the quickest way for me to achieve the end result I need, at the lowest cost.

And after spending a while doing graphics in the simplicity of Windows, I started looking around for replacements to the awesome development environment that is LAMP. And I’ve found I can get rid of my Linux partition completely.

With WAMP I really have no reason to go back to Linux ever again. I can develop and code and then switch back to graphics work without a reboot. Sure, there’s no bash in Windows, but I can do just about everything bash does with Perl. Voila, a stable, aesthetically pleasing development environment without the headache of packages.

Wait a minute, am I saying I like Windows now? Yes, unfortunately. Getting things done and producing top notch work comes before any software ideals right now. In a perfect world, I would have the time to fix all of Linux’s problems. But I can’t spend a few hours every day implementing fixes, especially if there isn’t even a real place for them to all go. So for now, Windows it is.

It’s a fact, winner takes all. The top three megasites on the internet (Yahoo, Google, and MSN) each get seen by about 30% of all web vistors. Between the three of them, they control what the vast majority of internet users see, their browsing information, and their email accounts.And that is a recipe for trouble.

Each of these companies are building and run massive datacenters. They’re investing millions (billions…?) in the future of a centralized internet. Each wants to provide your email service, your scheduling service, your office experience, and basically every service possible over the internet. In order for this to be possible, they’re buying up and creating supercomputers capable of storing every document you’ll ever create, every email you ever write, and every video or picture you post to the net. Do you see a problem?

The biggest problem is the one most people refuse to look at. With government’s history of illegal wiretaps, illegal internet backbone snooping, and just all around disregard for the law, a datacenter containing millions of people’s every document ever written or photo ever taken is just too good for them to pass up. And they don’t even have to go through the process of signing a law to force everyone’s every word written into a mega database. All they need is a homeland security wiretap from a judge on Google’s datacenter, and wham!, they’re snooping legally on millions of users. Scary.

Or, just as dangerously, a government entity decides a certain segment of information (democracy, for instance) is dangerous to its citizens. It blocks the big sites from presenting any news unapproved by the government and creates a firewall to stop any other potentially threatening sites. This is already happening. (China)

In the coming years, there’s going to be a huge need for decentralization of information on the internet if freedom of thought is going to persist. The internet was built on Open Source and freedom of information via peer to peer software. If it’s to remain a beacon for freedom of speech and expression, we’ve got to start supporting smaller search engines, and build a more distributed internet. The concentration of information can only lead to abuse.

There are solutions out there, like the Freenet, but what do you think is the best way to combat the centralization of information on the internet?

You’ve probably seen it all over the news lately. In an effort to “curtail terror” all over the globe, there have been some serious infringements of privacy by governments all over the world. Secret wiretaps, blogger arrests, internet data mining, the list just goes on and on.

It’s tough for the little guy to sit by and see all this horrible stuff happening and not know what the hell to do about it. So, without further ado, here’s a list of 10 ways to fight back against big brother. Lovers of freedom of thought and information need only apply.

1. Make a donation to the EFF

Yes, the Electronic Frontier Foundation mainly does work in the United States, but most of its projects have reprocussions around the world. For instance, their Freenet project created an anonymous discussion area on the net, and their TOR project helps people behind big firewalls (China) see an unfiltered internet. The TOR software also anonymizes visits to websites, so people inside of the US can keep their website visits secret from a snooping employer.

2. Set NaplesIsHome.com/freedom as your homepage

For every computer that sets the NaplesIsHome site as their homepage, $7 is donated to charities working for freedom of information around the globe. This really is the easiest way to do the greatest amount of good. It’s a frontend to Google, and so you get the same results as you normally would.

3. Become a TOR exit node

This is really a great use of computer resources if you’ve got them. Becoming a TOR exit node helps make the TOR network possible. You’ll be helping ensure people all over the world have equal access to information, regardless of what their government thinks is dangerous.

4. Encrypt your e-mail

This is a big one, and most people will never do it. Start by encrypting emails with your friends, if only for the novelty. Each encrypted email is another letter less easy for a government to read. If everyone encrypts their email, it becomes impossible to track every single letter sent, and whether the ideas in those send up red flags.

5. Use open source software

Closed source software is impossible to audit and prove effective. By using open source software, anyone can check and make sure that the code does exactly as said. Companies providing privacy software have been forced by their government (Germany) to provide backdoors. Open source software is global, and beyond any government control.

6. Spread the Word about the DemocraKey

Walk up to any computer, plug in a USB key, and you’re surfing the net anonymously and securely. The DemocraKey puts TOR and other encryption on a portable key you can take anywhere. Best of all, the directions on how to build them are free, and they’re available here. Can’t afford one? Sign up for the DemocraKey mailing list and you’ll automatically be entered to win one.
7. Get an EFF Badge for your Blog

Putting up an EFF badge for blogger’s rights helps get the word out about the need to protect freedom of speech. Everywhere.

8. Stay Educated

Pay attention to the independent news sites. Read blogs. Make sure you keep yourself up to date with the latest technology designed to track your every move, both on the net and otherwise.

9. Vote

Of course, voting assumes that the new voting machines aren’t rigged, and that the politicians haven’t been bought already, but do it anyway, it’s tradition. And it might work someday.

10. Pass it on

Spread the word about how to fight back. That with a little work, anyone can protect themselves from snooping and regulation of thought. It’s not that hard.