Notes from the Electronic Cottage 6/2/11

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

It’s no secret that the FBI is gathering information about the phone calls and emails of Americans. What has been a secret until now is why the FBI does not want to reveal the names of the the phone and internet companies that have been allowing widespread surveillance of Americans talking with people overseas. The reasons may surprise you, or make you laugh, or make
you cry. If you’d like to hear them from the horse’s mouth, listen up. If you’d like your own copy of the FBI’s reasoning, go to
www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-v-office-director-national-intelligence-declaration-david-m-hardy.

Notes from the Electronic Cottage 4/09/09

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

During this last month of WERU’s 20th Anniversary year, we’re digging a few old editions from the Electronic Cottage vault that seem to us to be just as relevant today as they were when they were first broadcast. In this edition from November 2004, we take a look at spam, the scourge of the Internet.
Everything in this years old edition is still true today, except one point.
The one exception is that spam is no longer just 40% of Internet email traffic. Estimates in April 2009 are that it comprises as much as 94% of Internet traffic. It seems that in some parts of the digital world, just as in the physical world, the more things change, the more they stay the same.