NEW RESOURCES

Mirage News: Rare clips of Dame Edna through the ages published online. “Hello possums! The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) is celebrating the one and only Dame Edna Everage with a new online collection featuring rare video clips of Edna through the ages…. Initially a suburban housewife from Moonee Ponds, Edna Everage (as in average) was created by satirist Barry Humphries in 1955 whilst touring with a group of actors around Victoria in 1955. She was a caricature of mayor’s wives they met on the road and was named after his childhood nanny, and even Humphries himself was taken by surprise at her popularity.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ausdroid: What does Google have in store for us this year at Google IO?. “It’s Google IO time again, a great time of year for Google enthusiasts. It’s where we get to hear all the new and exciting developments Google have for us in the coming months (and years). While not everything always makes it to market the Google IO announcements and developments give us a good indication of Google’s plans for not just Android but also Chrome, AI, IoT and much more.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Resource Magazine: New Documentary Reveals The Real Lives Of Social Media Stars. “Ever wonder about the lives of social media stars, beyond the ‘life’ they construct for their followers? Me neither. Still, some people do, and The American Meme, a documentary set on revealing what life is really like for social media’s biggest names, just made its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.”

Techdirt: FOIA Heroes At The FBI Protect Superman’s Privacy; Refuse To Hand Over Secret Identity To Requester. “Following an FOIA lawsuit against the FBI, Emma Best is raking in agency documents dealing with the Church of Scientology. The FBI doesn’t care much for FOIA requesters and the informal policy on handling released documents is to redact as much as possible and hope the redactions aren’t challenged. Sadly, there’s not much subtlety or attention to detail deployed when redacting documents prior to release. It appears that the FBI’s FOIA response personnel are trained to redact anything that looks like a person’s name, whether or not it actually needs to be redacted. This almost-automatic redaction technique has led to the most ridiculous of results: the FBI has engaged in the proactive protection of Superman’s secret identity.”

Times of Israel: Israel reaches out to Iraqis on Facebook. “Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday launched a Facebook page uniquely dedicated to fostering ties with Iraq. Diplomats in Jerusalem said the Arabic-language page will serve as ‘some sort of digital embassy’ to the war-torn country. Israel, while still formally considering Iraq an enemy state, has in recent months stepped up efforts to reach out to the country, arguing that Iraqis are interested in establishing ties with the Jewish state.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Washington Post: The agency in charge of policing Facebook and Google is 103 years old. Can it modernize?. “Facebook and Google must answer to new cops on the beat — a group of five fresh Washington regulators at the Federal Trade Commission who have the power to punish Silicon Valley if it misbehaves. But veterans of the 103-year-old watchdog say that the agency, without more cash, a more cutting-edge staff and stronger legal teeth, increasingly runs the risk of being outmatched by the very tech giants it oversees.”

The Guardian: UK regulator orders Cambridge Analytica to release data on US voter. “Cambridge Analytica has been ordered to hand over all the data and personal information it has on an American voter, including details of where it got the data and what it did with it, or face a criminal prosecution. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) served the enforcement notice to the company on Friday in a landmark legal decision that opens the way for up to 240 million other American voters to request their data back from the firm under British data protection laws.”

Ars Technica: Report: Chinese government is behind a decade of hacks on software companies. “Researchers said Chinese intelligence officers are behind almost a decade’s worth of network intrusions that use advanced malware to penetrate software and gaming companies in the US, Europe, Russia, and elsewhere. The hackers have struck as recently as March in a campaign that used phishing emails in an attempt to access corporate-sensitive Office 365 and Gmail accounts. In the process, they made serious operational security errors that revealed key information about their targets and possible location.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Next Web: Vilifying Facebook is pointless — we need to take responsibility for our data. “Today’s heightened focus on data privacy is a perfect opportunity to re-negotiate these out of balance ‘contracts’ to reflect the unprecedented value companies derive from accessing our data and the risks they create when it is compromised. These risks are now becoming tangible. From the elections to the exposed location data of US military personnel and personal records of millions of Equifax victims, technology users now understand that they have no recourse or control over how their data is used.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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