WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives
Audio archives of spoken word broadcasts from Community Radio WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill (weru.org)
A weekly feature on electronic technology as it affects everyday life with Jim Campbell. Broadcast on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, ME every Thursday at 7:30 AM.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
For hundreds of years in America, we have believed in the “Marketplace of Ideas” as the best way to confront differing opinions and sort out the truth. And then came the web. There, we can find almost any opinion on any subject, and those opinions as assertions of truth are often pre-sorted by search engines and social media sites before they ever reach us. How can we evaluate the veracity of what we find on the web? Here are a few starter suggestions.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Well, it’s National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (https://staysafeonline.org/ncsam), a good time to reflect on the best ways to keep ourselves, and our personal data, safe in this age of almost weekly security breaches. While many of those breaches are the work of outside hackers, they are not the only danger to our digital security and safety. We would be also be wise to consider the almost 2000 year old question: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” – “who will guard the guardians themselves?” Here’s why…
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Let’s continue with some items that might have gotten missed over Maine’s lovely summer ranging from computers that can identify trees to a new Kuwaiti law requiring all citizens and foreign residents to provide a sample of their DNA to a central government database.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Time for a look at some of the stories in the digital world we may have missed while sitting on the beach or paddling a canoe over the summer, ranging from clothing that will charge our smartphones to voting machines running an insecure operating system.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Ever hear of “the right to be forgotten?” If you haven’t yet, you probably will. Just what is “the right to be forgotten?” How does it work? What might it mean for our world today – and tomorrow?
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Ever wonder what we are afraid of as a society? Researchers at Chapman University did, and they set out to find out in a 2015 survey. The results indicate once again how much our digital and physical lives are becoming intertwined. If you’d like to look into the results yourself, head on over to http://www.chapman.edu/wilkinson/research-centers/babbie-center/survey-american-fears.aspx
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
These days, there are lots of ways besides cookies that companies are using to track us as we move around the Web. A recent research paper refers to these new tracking tools as “fingerprinting.” Here’s how some of them work. If you’d like to see just how your computer can be identified by some of these tools, go to panopticlick.eff.org. You will probably be surprised – and maybe dismayed.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Encryption has been a big concern of law enforcement and other government agencies of late. We’ve heard the FBI director and others worry about bad people “going dark.” What do computer experts have to say about encryption and efforts to outlaw it? Here are some opinions.