HOW CLOSE ARE WE TO
ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE?
INTERNET CENSORSHIP
Who’s keeping us safe from beheadings and hate speech?
ENCRYPTING EMAILS
How to keep your messages secure
ROBO-JOURNOS
The new tech writing the news
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CELEBRATION NETWORKS: A STATELESS MANIFESTO “Your pre-internet mind is gone for good,
but with the situation as volatile and exciting as it is, you don’t need it.”
STATELESS EDITORIAL TEAM XAVIER BOUCHERAT MAX GOLDBART EMILY BURT STEWART HUME ROBIN NIERYNCK JESSICA RAYNER AMELIA JONES TANGWEN ROBERTS JACK WETHERILL HANNAH SEATON MATTHEW EVANS
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The digital landscape is an increasingly dangerous realm.
This danger prompts resistance, and the creation of strange and fantastic digital subcultures. As such, it should be celebrated.
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Disconnecting from this landscape is not an option for most - provided you have access in the first place, which some 4 billion of us don’t.
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Therefore it is essential we equip ourselves with the tools and knowledge needed to counteract state surveillance and attacks on our privacy.
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Web users everywhere need to familiarise themselves with basic concepts like dark web, encryption, and the consequences of burgeoning artificial intelligence.
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Even today there exist publications that, despite their preoccupation with future web and future tech, refuse to acknowledge the Orwellian situation that we’ve arrived in.
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Silicon Valley giants continue to push outdated, utopian visions of the net, free of hierarchies and collectively controlled by
JOMEC.CO.UK/STATELESS
@STATELESSMAG
the people. These same global companies are compliant in mass online web censorship, state surveillance, and attacks on net neutrality.
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Stateless will speak for everyone who rejects this vision. We recognise that the internet, far from disseminating power, has further concentrated it in the hands of the few. It has provided underground platforms for criminals and creatives alike – platforms that, with a bit of knowledge and skill, anyone can access.
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As such, our editorial independence is paramount. We will never run advertising in our print publication, nor will we fill it with kneejerk reactionism – releasing bi-monthly allows for well considered and thought provoking content.
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The Internet has permanently transformed the way our minds and memories operate. We do not forget like we used to. Interactions that were once common place in real life are now considered strange, even inappropriate.
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Your pre-internet mind is gone for good, but the truth is, with the situation as volatile and exciting as it is, you don’t need it.
FACEBOOK.COM/STATELESSMAG
STATELESSMAG@GMAIL.COM
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CONTENTS RAW CONTENT
ROBOPHOBIA
Who is keeping our social media free from beheadings, child abuse and hate speech? Stateless examines the freelancers who moderate the internet
Has the progression of technology and the rise of artificial intelligence made our dystopian, Skynet-driven nightmares more poignant than ever?
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PAGES 5-7 WEB
ARTS
PAGE 4 ANALOGUE FUTURE Will the PM’s plans to outlaw encryption only worsen the nation’s cyber security? F*CKINGWEIRD.COM: LIGHTS OUT Weirdest website of the month explores childhood dreams PAGE 8 VISUALISING THE WEB We need to talk about the dark web
PAGE 14 BITTER LAKE Adam Curtis opens our eyes to the everyday treacheries we are fed by the very same people who plead transparency GIF ART FROM SPACE Modern GIF art and the creative power of satellite technology, where online meets offline street art FUCK REAL LIFE ZOOM LENS The online music label pushing the boundaries
TECH
FARSIDE
PAGE 9 RISE OF THE AUTOMATED JOURNALISTS Is the reporter that never sleeps the future of journalism? EMAIL ENCRYPTION Simple life hacks for encrypting emails PAGE 12 GHOSTERY: MODERN WEB SURVEILLANCE Is your technology keeping tabs on you?
CULTURE
PAGE 13 HOW ILLEGAL ARE YOU? Your guide to carefree online downloading and streaming YOUR MONTH IN... NET NEUTRALITY Disturbing government plans tighten the digital noose
PAGE 15 FACES OF FARSIDE The Slender Man, a web driven urban myth of damage and destruction
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DIGITAL BRITAIN FACES ANALOGUE FUTURE Will the PM’s ‘solution’ of outlawing end-to-end encryption only worsen the nation’s cyber security? IN the wake of events such as the Snowden
leaks and the phone hacking scandal, public trust in the relationship between the media and government remains tenuous. As part of a progressively digital nation, the Internet has become engrained in everyday society, and as news stories questioning online safety continue to surface, cyber security has never been more topical Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden placed Internet freedom at the heart of his campaign. However, with the revelations of Snowden’s NSA leaks in mind, the extent of our freedom to browse the Internet unwatched or tracked, nowadays seems merely an idealistic fantasy. The recent news of David Cameron’s plans to ban end-to-end encryption (the technology that protects online communication) in messages, looks to further disrupt free expression. “In our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people which we cannot read?” Cameron asked, as he discussed his latest proposal. It is fair to
say that for the majority of people the answer to that question would be yes, as privacy runs alongside our right to free expression. But Cameron is not the majority of people: and among a wealth of problems with this question, this rhetoric demonstrates his failure to recognise the destructive consequences of such a plan, and ultimately his flawed digital awareness. Encryption is used for online shopping, banking and messaging; it protects personal information when bank details are sent to a private server. Should Cameron propose a ban on encryption in the UK, any information sent across the Internet could be accessed by any company or government possessing ten minutes’ worth of hacking experience. If the Prime Minister’s plans for encryption are ever implemented, there is a real threat they could cause severe damage to Britain’s economy, security and freedom. And so, for a Prime Minister who proposed to build “digital Britain”, Cameron risks dragging Britain back to the analogue age.
F*CKINGWEIRD.COM: LIGHTS OUT Weirdest website of the month explores childhood dreams WHEN most people go to a website they want
to gain something, be it news, entertainment, or hell - even some sexual gratification. Ana Somnia offers its consumer a unique web experience: a website with no real purpose other than to allow a user to lose themselves in an idea, breaking the boundaries between screen and viewer. Anasomnia.com is a simple yet beautiful idea. As soon as you enter the website you are asked to allow access to your webcam Once you agree you are presented with a crudely animated child about to settle down
for a nights sleep, who asks you to turn out the lights. The clever part of this site is that when you fulfil her request, the website bursts into a surreal dreamscape. The project seeks to explore the world of childhood dreams though various interconnected images, which come to an abrupt end as soon as you turn your light back on. The site is not making a grandiose statement, simply allowing a user an immersive experience within the concept of dreams.
WEB
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Over the last year, ISIS have used social media to disseminate scenes of graphic violence
RAW CONTENT Who’s been keeping our social media free of beheadings, child abuse and hate-speech?
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“They work alone at their bedroom computers, in third world countries, with little training or support” OUR lives are ruled by social media. Our profiles are idealised constructs to impress our friends, with Facebook at the centre of this online reality. A place where everyone is mates, a seemingly perfect world. But simmering just below the surface of our newsfeeds are the atrocities that characterise ‘reality’, hidden from view. We know they’re there, so why can’t we see them? Who filters through the hours of disturbing footage that ends up online and prevents it from appearing in mainstream social spaces? Moderators. We all know they’re up there, sitting at their desks in their cushy offices in Silicon Valley. Yet these offices, much like our profiles, are another convenient construct, this time for the social media giants themselves. Consider the sheer amount of content we upload to social networks every day. On Facebook alone there are 2.5 million pieces of content uploaded every single minute by the 1.4 billion users across the world. That’s 2.5 million videos, photos and recordings that people care enough about to merit sharing with the world. This gargantuan amount of data means it wouldn’t be possible for Facebook to have a purely in-house moderating team; the costs would be astronomical, and the workforce would have to be enormous. The in-house teams that do exist are made up mostly of university graduates looking for a bit of post-graduation cash. And it’s well paid: $10 an hour for sitting at a desk and flicking through pictures of people showing off the lesser sides of their character on a night out. They get two screens - one for moderating, and one for watching back-to-back Game of Thrones. Sounds ideal for those attempting to adjust to the real world after student life. To assist the in-house moderation however, the work is outsourced to companies in countries like the Philippines. On the second floor of an elementary school just outside Manila, there sit rows of PCs manned by a hundred or so people. This is the office of TaskUs; just one of the many companies that moderate content for the social networks we’re glued to day and night. It may seem
a dirty job, but there are people out there prepared to do it, and seemingly enjoying it. One reviewer on Glassdoor discussed TaskUs in glowing terms: “What I love most about TaskUs is that it’s a true meritocracy. Despite age or experience, everyone checks their ego at the door - the right answer is the one that gets results.” Now that Facebook’s user-base spans every age and generation, all users have to be taken into account. Your grandmother won’t be logging in if the first thing she sees on her screen is a dick pic, or someone getting the shit kicked out of them. Social networks want to protect our delicate minds. They are safe havens, populated by family, friends, and funny listicles. A random beheading doesn’t quite fit this picture. Outsourcing overseas for simple, mechanical roles isn’t unusual in any field. But alongside these workforces overseas, companies working in social media moderation such as oDesk are reportedly commissioning freelancers to take on moderation roles, which is far more worrying. According to a Telegraph article, these freelancers work alone at their bedroom computers, in third world countries, with a minimal amount of support. They get a few
WEB weeks of training before they start. They are given a list of things considered acceptable, and then have to use their discretion to decide if it should be deleted, in a system they call ‘delete it; ignore it; escalate it.’ Sounds pretty simple, but it’s anything but. Moderation companies such as oDesk have convoluted policies on what content falls under an abuse of their standards: policies in a constant state of flux. Earwax is banned, including cartoon earwax, but snot in any form is fine. Crushed heads, according to the guidelines, are perfectly acceptable, as long as no insides are visible. Bodily fluids – with the exception of semen - were deemed appropriate in 2012, under the condition that no humans also featured in the photograph. The ambiguity of these lists has caused high profile incidents in the news. Does the name Karlesha Thurman ring any bells? Last June, Karlesha posted a photo to Facebook of her breastfeeding her three-month-old daughter on graduation day. The online backlash came thick and fast, with the developing issue of social media moderation flagged alongside the public stigmas about breastfeeding. But few participating in the debates were aware that those at the helm of this
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moderation could potentially be living hundreds or even thousands of miles away, far removed from the haze of this backlash; and this displacement is one of many problems with using freelance moderators. Workers who have spoken out about their treatment on platforms such as Wired and Gawker, have discussed how, after seeing so much horrendous activity, they have become desensitised to the acts of violence and terror. Employee testimonies state there is little or no counselling at the overseas companies. Even at the Silicon Valley head offices, counsellors are hard to access, with staff not being told they’re available unless they are explicitly requested. Whether young graduates in the US, or outsourced freelancers abroad, moderators are likely to face exposure to violent and disturbing material. Beheadings become almost commonplace, to the point where the lines between what’s normal and what’s not become blurred. Speaking to Gawker, former freelance moderator Jake Swearingen described the moment he was confronted with one such video on his monitor. “I didn’t want to look back and say I became so blasé to watching people have these really horrible things happen to them.” When contacted by Stateless on how they moderate their content, the major social networks replied with standard press releases. “We have an in-house moderation department as well as outsourcing to several overseas companies.” There was no mention of their usage of freelancers. Given the ethical dimensions at play, their reluctance to admit to the fact is hardly surprising.
Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa, both beheaded by ISIS in January 2015
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Visualising the Web
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THE DARK WEB We weren’t gonna say anything, but you’re starting to embarass yourself when you conflate all these terms we’ve dreamed up to describe the horrifying state of the web. This month’s Visualising the Web sets the record straight.
SURFACE WEB
Occasionally referred to as the clear web, the surface web basically refers to anything you can Google – that is, any page indexed by a search engine. So when you’re googling yourself, stalking your crush (stop it), or asking for advice you should really be getting off a doctor, the pages that crop up are all surface web. Search engines deploy web crawlers, or spiders, to index pages. These clever little things will store useful data on a page, and then follow through every hyperlink on that page and do the same. However, not every page has a hyperlink leading to it, and thus can’t be ‘crawled’. This makes it a part of the deep web.
DARK WEB
DEEP WEB
What some people don’t realise is that for the most part, we’re still in very standard territory here. Deep web simply refers to all the content on the Internet that, for whatever reason, doesn’t pop up in search engines. Along with pages that can’t be crawled, this will include pages that are private, like your step-dad’s OkCupid profile, or content on a site that still thinks paywalls are a good idea. The deep web is several orders of magnitudes bigger than the surface. Access to its content is tightly controlled, usually requiring some kind of login through a single point of access. Buried within the deep web however, can be found the dark web.
The dark web is a network that normally requires anonymising software such as the TOR browser to access. There are perfectly legitimate reasons for the use of TOR, but what’s also indisputable is its use by paedophiles, terrorists and other nefarious elements for the exchange of information and content. Elsewhere, so-called dark markets enable the purchase of drugs and weaponry via crypto-currencies such as bitcoin. US defense agency DARPA are currently developing ‘Memex’, a search engine capable of mapping these spaces. Unlike the deep web, there are many points of access into the dark web.
Tech
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RISE OF THE AUTOMATED JOURNALIST In an age of instant news around the clock, is the reporter that never sleeps the future of journalism? AS the pace of the digital age shows no
sign of slowing down, the conventional ideas surrounding journalism are in flux. Journalists and news agencies fight to adapt to the relentless concept of 24-hour news, and the impact of social media on the way we access information. When we sleep the action goes on, and the race to be at the forefront of a ‘breaking news’ story continues. But as technology comes uncomfortably close to outgrowing us, could the future of journalism lie in automatic writing? “Aerie Pharmaceuticals Inc. (AERI) on Tuesday reported a loss of $13.1 million in its third quarter. The Research Triangle Park, North Carolina-based company said it had a loss of 54 cents per share. Losses, adjusted for stock option expense, came to 44 cents per share.” A concise and informative piece of news: admittedly not the most riveting story, but do you notice anything out of the ordinary? The story, published by the
Associated Press (AP) has no byline - more accurately it has no human byline. The story is an example of AP’s use of a programe known as Automated Insights, an automated system that can write breaking business stories at a faster rate than any human. The conventional human journalist might write 300 stories in a set time frame, whereas reports claim automation technology can produce as many as 4,400. Sleep is a basic human need but with the 24-hour nature of news setting the pace, media organisations are increasingly looking for smart ways to use computer algorithms. Although these ‘journobots’ may not carry an apocalyptic, ‘rise of the machines’ sci-fi rhetoric, the thought
of robots writing stories is still a pretty unsavory one for many writers. This is not a new concept. On March 17th 2014, the inhabitants of LA were awoken by a mild tremor, and less than three minutes later a story was published on the LA Times website. The story did nothing other than state the facts, but what was remarkable is that the story was sourced and written by data imported into a computer software system. The LA Times broke the story before every other news outlet, which to some extent proves the technology’s worth. Automation technology has continued to grow in popularity, with Japan going as far as creating the very first robot news anchor, an android that is potentially able to read news stories better than humans.
EMAIL ENCRYPTION
Simple life hacks
PRIVACY: a term that is becoming more of
a pipedream these days. Every year there is a new story concerning how our private information is under threat. Since Edward Snowden’s revelations exposing the extent of government surveillance perhaps society should begin to take Internet security more seriously. A good place to start with this is email encryption. Email encryption is a simple process and you don’t have to be a hacking nerd to do it. There are various pieces of encryption software available to download, many of which are free. All of them work on the same principle of public and private keys. To put it simply, the public key is like a master lock that you can attach to information. The private key is the only way to break the lock . If you want to give encryption a go, a great place to start is with Mailvelope. This is an open source plugin for Google Chrome. It is fairly simple to use and fully compatible with Gmail. For a more robust system, a better
way to go would be with GPG Keychain. This is also free, although it does require you to download software. The advantage of this is that it can be used to encrypt various file types on your computer, from word documents to images. For more information visit www.jomec. co.uk/Stateless for a video tutorial demonstrating a trial run of this software.
Watch our video about email encryption on the website, jomec.co.uk/stateless
THE PUBLIC KEY
The public key is the piece of information that correspondents who want to contact you securely will need. Once they have this they can then send you an email that can only be decrypted with a person’s private key.
THE PRIVATE KEY
The private key is the piece that you must always keep secret. Anyone can use your public key to encrypt data but it can only be decoded with the use of your private key that you should keep local on your hard drive.
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TECH
“In all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, he’s sure he can control the demon. It doesn’t work out.”
TECH
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Robophobia With technology fast catching up with fiction, Stateless asks if fears of our mechanical replacements are justified CHAPPIE. Ultron. Baymax. JARVIS.
The message of 2015’s slate of copious big-budget science fiction films appears to be that even with humanity getting smarter, we are insisting on dragging our machines, kicking and screaming, along with us. And should they accept our gift of dastardly self-awareness, they’re going to be thoroughly pissed. This is hardly a new theme; for as long as man has used machines, the media and fiction has reflected our fears that we may be supplanted by our creations. Fritz Lang’s 1927 sci-fi Metropolis pre-dates Alan Turing’s work by almost a decade, a prime example of how deep-rooted our robophobia really is. But as technology rapidly catches up with the idea of artificial intelligence, our Skynet-driven dystopian nightmares have never been more poignant. All this worry may simply be needless conjecture or paranoia but at some point, one has to wonder if our fears are merely reflecting Hollywood’s interpretation of the future, rather than reality. Complex algorithms exist that seem relatively intelligent – apps that recognise shirt patterns and pull up similar garments on the net, the creepily accurate ‘recommended ads’ on Facebook, Siri and Cortana. But as much as these have filtered into our everyday life, they are all recognisably algorithms, all programs that will not work properly if exactly the right data is not fed to them. We’re not there yet. But as a generation we are about to enter a world of self-driving cars, wearable technology and smart houses. Suddenly, the future is now. Recently, two of the biggest names in science and tech have spoken out, warning humanity against the dangers of AI. Elon Musk, head honcho of electric-vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors and a real-life Tony Stark figure, likens AI to summoning a demon: “In all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, it’s like – yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon. Doesn’t work out.” Pessimistic about a future in which
Cubic will be available in 2016 AI becomes incontrolable, Musk is, “Increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish.” He’s not alone. Bill Gates has also voiced his concerns in a recent Reddit feed that, “First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. [Which] should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that, though, the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern.” And there’s a very good reason to suggest that we’ll turn control of our lives over to Skynet. As one developing project illustrates, we’re obsessed with making ourselves lazier. Cubic, a crowdfunded Indiegogo project, is essentially a Siri-like interface that hops between your devices and anticipates your needs. Not content with just setting alarms, this sparse interface will wake you up gently with a stream of information and inform you, “It’s cold, so you should wear long sleeves.
And a tie, because you’ve got that big meeting today.” This isn’t really anything remarkably new, of course. Many of us stopped using analogue alarm clocks a long time ago, relying on phones to wake us up at a time designated the night before. How that information is inputted, via buttons, touchscreen or voice command, is relatively subjective. The bizarre thing is the attempt at personality the Cubic team, including CMO Ivan Kryukov, have given the little box. According to Kryukov, “Cubic tries to entertain and emotionally support the user.” But the worst bit by far is the proposed central device, the “Home Cube”. Intended to act like a plug-in for smart homes, the Home Cube is able to, “Adjust the temperature in your home, turn off your lights, lock your doors, set your alarm, and more.” If there’s ever a time to slam on the brakes and consider how much power we’re turning over to automated services, it’s probably now. It can lock your fucking doors.
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TECH
EVERY MOVE YOU MAKE Who’s tracking you online? Stateless spent a week using the Ghostery app to find out. Here’s five things we learnt
Photo credit: Paolo Trabuttoni
GHOSTERY IS REALLY KEEN TO HELP
This is a very benevolent plugin, giving off the vibe that it just wants to help you out. Ghostery’s smiling icon – a rebel cousin of the Snapchat logo – sits on your search toolbar and tattles on every backstage tracker using you for data collection. The plugin allows you to block trackers you don’t want collecting data about your habits and provides handy soundbites of information about each tracker, and the sort of websites you can expect to find stalking you around the Net. Clicking on a tracker will tell you more about the site, along with a handy little address book where you can get in touch with their legal teams.
NEWS SITES ARE TRACKING HOTSPOTS
Once you’ve installed the app you’ll never feel lonely in your browsing habits again. Trackers are everywhere. Around two or three crop up every time we open personal emails, and there are a couple hanging around on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit. But largely, analytics don’t seem too concerned with social media. Head onto any mainstream newspaper website and you’ve got another story. The BBC is fairly sparse as far as analytics go, but the Telegraph, the Guardian, Independent and Daily Mail all host a minimum of 20 trackers on each page, analytics, browsing trackers and ‘clicker’ views. Softer more clickable news stories pull in many more trackers than harder news. It says a lot about the trend-based way society
now shares and consumes news online – and that advertisers and trackers are savvy to this.
GOOGLE IS EVERYWHERE, EXCEPT GOOGLE
It’s no original thought to say that Google rules the digital landscape, but Ghostery shows that the digital giant is everywhere. Even on sites with the bare minimum of trackers and analytics, Google Analytics is watching you. Their software spans news, social sites, even the dodgier corners of illegal streaming and the downright grimy back doors of the web. The only place you won’t find them are on their own platforms. Google Plus, Gmail and Google Drive are free from any visible trackers. Any other domain though, you can’t shake it. In the end they were blocked out of sheer irritation.
TRACKERS WILL FOLLOW YOU ANYWHERE
There are trackers on the dark side of the net. Illegal streaming and pirate platforms like Putlocker and Alluc throw up very few tracker notifications, as do access points to the Silk Road and Angora Market Place. For the sake of research we cruise some of the most basic porn platforms available: there’s Google Analytics, checking out what you’re checking out. Tumblr and Pinterest were also present; and then there were specific trackers for adult sites with charming names like JuggCash and DoublePimp, dedicated to getting every bit of money they can out of online traffic. We wouldn’t want to insinuate
anything about your browsing habits, but it’s worth keeping their prescence in mind.
GHOSTERY CAN STOP THESE MONITORS
Should you be one of those people who doesn’t enjoy the idea of having a digital footprint all over the Net, Ghostery can stop any of your analytical stalkers in their tracks with a simple click. Block a tracker and it will be unable to trail you across websites. Click on a tracker to learn more about it, along with their website details and a handy contact section so you can, should you feel the need, get in touch with their legal team. Of course Ghostery has its own hypocrisy in the small print: using a tool called GhostRank it observes who’s tracking your browsing and then collects its own data on the subject. Still, you can opt out of this, and as far as managing your digital trail goes this is an app well worth downloading. At the very least, you’ll never feel alone again.
Ghostery is a free app downloadable as a plugin for major browsers
Culture
In an age of streaming and downloads, we explain just how much you can get away with LEGAL STREAMING SITES
YouTube - a good place to start. The site for streaming videos online. There is obviously a plethora of illegal copyright content on the site but a viewer watching such material need not worry about having their front door kicked in and being cuffed on the spot.
ILLEGAL STREAMING SITES
What about all those other streaming sites, like Project Free TV that offer the latest movies for free? Technically speaking, watching and listening to media via free streaming sites is not breaking the law because it’s the guys embedding the videos that are doing wrong. But, using these sites could mean that you are infringing copyright on two counts. Firstly, if you download even the smallest amount of content you are committing copyright theft. Some people may even do this accidentally via a method known as pseudostreaming, a way in which a program makes a digital bookmark on the video you are viewing. Double check your settings on Flash. Secondly, broadcasting copyrighted media publically is most definitely a violation.
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL DOWNLOADS
This is illegal under the UK 1988 Copyright, Design and Patents act. And the law comes down very heavily on those who are downloading content with the intent to sell it.
COULD TIMES BE CHANGING?
Back in 2010 there was an attempt to update copyright legislation with the Digital Economy Act. Under this legislation, warning letters would be sent to alleged copyright infringers. This was meant to kick into action this year. However, the incentive encountered stumbling blocks and has been shelved.
INSTEAD
We now have the Creative Content UK alert program launching this spring. This is an industry-led incentive already supported by BT, Sky, Virgin Media and TalkTalk. Their promise is to send up to four warning letters to those believed to be breaching copyright laws. But this scheme is for educational and awareness purposes and does not allow the Internet service providers to pass on subjects’.
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HOW ILLEGAL ARE YOU?
...NET NEUTRALITY Disturbing new plans for American users as the digital noose tightens AMERICAN Net Neutrality
legislation has been a battleground from day one, with no signs of abating anytime soon. Outspoken users have fought tirelessly to bring the issue to the public’s attention. After Obama announced his support for an ‘Open Internet’, a 332page piece
of legislation was constructed, which is available for the public to view after the Federal Communications Commission voted and implemented it on 26 February. The FCC’s plans for internet service providers to throttle bandwidth in order to create ‘slow lanes’ and ‘fast lanes’ have been thrown out before — so why is Chairman Tom Wheeler now backing Obama’s pro-NN stance? Ajit Pai, currently the only Republican FCC Commissioner, spoke out on Thursday 6 February, stating candidly in a press release, “If you like dealing with the IRS, you are going to love the President’s plan.”
Although Wheeler claims the document will “ban paid prioritisation, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services,” by reclassifying the Internet as a public utility in the same way as phone lines, Pai goes on to state that this legislation actually harms the net neutrality cause. He explains, “The plan saddles small, independent businesses and entrepreneurs with heavy-handed regulations that will push them out of the market. The rollout earlier in the week was obviously intended to downplay the plan’s massive intrusion into the internet economy.”
Caption: Has FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler U-turned on net neutrality?
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Arts
ARTS FILM
MUSIC
ART
Bitter Lake
Zoom Lens
Gif Art fom Space
LONGTIME Charlie Brooker collaborator
EVERY music label has a mission. Often it’s
WHO would have thought that GIF art would
Adam Curtis may just be one of the founding fathers of Stateless, a trailblazer in his field who has opened the eyes of thousands across the world to the everyday lies and treacheries we are fed by the same people who plead transparency. Now he’s back with Bitter Lake (available only on BBC iPlayer); an epic trawl through the history books to examine the West’s relationship with Afghanistan and question why politicians in this current climate are failing to explain Middle Eastern relations with the necessary complexity they deserve. Plainly stated, it is not just ‘good versus evil’. The film is trademark Curtis, his use of archive footage is meticulous and leaves the watcher both well informed and enthralled. Beginning with President Roosevelt’s meeting with King Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of World War Two and ending with a frighteningly dystopian vision of the new threat the West faces from the Islamic State, Bitter Lake leaves no stone unturned, juxtaposing disturbingly violent imagery with black humour. This is all encompassed by a wonderful soundtrack encapsulated by Burial’s Come down to us. Stateless awaits with baited breath our founding father’s next instalment.
simply giving new, up-and-coming artists more exposure. But rarely do you find a label that claims to “explore the implications of popular culture on the human condition and the duality of musical creations discovered across the digital landscape.” This mission statement comes from Zoom Lens, a label created by musician Garrett Yim. Although technically based in California, Zoom Lens would probably prefer to selfdefine as based online. In their six years of existence they have built quite a following from all over the world. Red Bull’s music academy profiled them last year claiming they were “one of the stand-out net based labels to have emerged in recent years”. The label was established in 2009 with the aim of discovering artists pushing the boundaries of what music can be. The label initially focused on musicians exploring harsh noise in their soundscapes, but now they have widened their interest. Their focus has now shifted to emotive electro pop, often with strong ties to various Asian cultures. The label has signed artists from the US, Japan, the Philippines and Singapore. With its strong community of bands and listeners they are able to share their ideas of what music can be, from one computer to another.
still be around in 2015? With the increased development of online streaming and interactive infographics providing a more immersive experience for Internet users, you could be excused for thinking that the GIF would have died by now. But what seems to excite many creators of this movable image format are its limitations. How much creativity can you pack into one second of information? Well, artist INSA is one such creator who has taken GIF art to a new level entirely. INSA is the founder of Gif-iti: a process where an artist paints a piece on a wall and then alters the image, taking photos of each layer. These layers are then put on top of one another to produce a GIF. His most recent project, involving a whole team of painters, saw him create a huge piece of art work in Brazil which he altered slightly over four days. It was then photographed by a satellite from space. That’s right, this graffiti artist produced a GIF from images taken from space. This recent project really shows how far the realms of minimal media can be pushed. To learn more about INSA and his work, you can see the process in a short YouTube documentary, created by Ballantines.
Farside
STATELESS MARCH 2015 14 15 16
FACES OF FARSIDE Slender Man
Don’t look back.
ORIGIN - A unique product of electronic media and viral internet culture, the Slender Man first appeared in an amateur Photoshop competition hosted on a Something Awful forum thread in 2009. He featured in two doctored photographs posted by “Victor Surge” (real name Eric Knudsen).
APPEARANCE - Unnaturally tall with elongated arms that reach towards his victims, and the occasional tentacle appearance. His dapper suit and tie combination is emphasised by his lack of any facial features. BIO - A web-driven urban myth, the Slender Man was first recorded at scenes of damage and destruction, typically involving the disappearance of children. The lack of resolution in what exactly he does to his victims renders him a perfect figure for fear mongering. He stalks the web via amateur Photoshop, sketchy video games and Halloween prank videos.
“We didn’t want to go, we didn’t want to kill them, but its persistent silence and outstretched arms horrified and comforted us at the same time.” 1983, photographer unknown, presumed dead. SKILLS - Teleportation; camera distortion and electronic disruption; extreme stalking; horrifying ambient music DJ. POPULAR APPEARANCES - Sketchy Blair Witchesque Youtube Mockumentary Marble Hornets (2011), Parsec Productions’ hipster horror survival game Slender: The Eight Pages and spinoffs Slender: Haunt and Slender: The Arrival. REAL LIFE - In May 2014 twelve-year-olds Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser lured a classmate into the woods near their home in Wakeshua, Wisconsin, and stabbed her 19 times in a tribute to the Slender Man. The victim of the stabbing survived, but as Wisconsin has no youth law, both girls face a sentence of up to 65 years in jail. Their preliminary hearing is currently underway.
Find faces of farside and more on our website jomec.co.uk/stateless
www.jomec.co.uk/stateless