There’s a rush going on in Washington DC right now. It has been going on for over 2 years now and will continue until they get something done. The topic – cybersecurity. The latest failed legislation – CISPA. US News is reporting that the US Senate will not take up the cybersecurity bill but will draft different legislation to go after cybersecurity – and some would say our privacy as well – in the coming months. Their biggest concern according to Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WVa) is that the bill’s “privacy protections are insufficient.” This echoes President Barack Obama’s sentiment and is the reason…

President Barack Obama’s team is very active on social media. The Facebook page that carries his name has new posts twice a day on average with a mix of hopeful messages, political statements, and personalized views into life at the White House. On Twitter, they post several times a day with links, pictures, and quotes from the President. Google+ is a different story. It was only mildly active during the election campaign. After a peak of 19 posts in August, 2012, it started falling off quickly. In September, there were 11 posts followed by 5 in October. November, the month of the election, saw two…

There was a time in 2008 when Twitter really started taking off. Celebrities were starting to use it. Kevin Rose, former geek leader and entrepreneur, dissed his own startup, Pownce, by saying that he preferred Twitter. The company was on a good trajectory. That was on the surface. Behind the scenes, it was far from cozy. They were having coding issues. They couldn’t stay up for an entire day without presenting a fail whale for an extended period of time. They were, in essence, a tech company that was getting too popular for their own good and couldn’t figure out how to bring everything together. Then,…

President Obama’s successful re-election campaign last year was marked with many technological victories. They won most of the many battles on social media, held the attention of the media in a way that almost had the unbiased fabric of journalism tearing away to root for him, and dominated the devices to score major victories through mobile device marketing. From a fund-raising perspective, one of the campaigns most powerful weapons was good ol’ fashioned email marketing and their most powerful subject line may surprise many. “Hey.” That was it. The concepts of “I Need Your Support” or “Help…

The opinions that we express in the real world are often not congruent with what we post on Twitter according to a report from Pew Research. Just because something is loved or hated on Twitter doesn’t mean that the real world feels the same way. Sometimes, the Twitter reality is opposite of real world reality. In politics, social media is left leaning, but both sides come out strong when there are complaints to be Tweeted. According to Pew: At times the Twitter conversation is more liberal than survey responses, while at other times it is more conservative. Often it is the overall negativity that…

If you’re going to spread your message on Twitter, it’s best to avoid the Viagra technique. That’s the message coming from capitol hill as Congressman Steve Stockman (R-TX) released evidence in a press release that he is being spammed by twitterbots. “Obama’s anti-gun campaign is a fraud,” Stockman said in the release. “Obama’s anti-gun activists are trying to defraud Congress using the same scam that sells ‘male enhancement pills.’  Every day thousands of Americans call, write and email the Capitol opposing Obama’s anti-gun schemes.  Obama’s supporters are panicking…

Videos that try to make a political statement don’t normally find their way onto these pages, but considering the timeliness of the issue in question, this artistic video short is an exception. The FAA has taken steps to expand drone use in America. According to RT: US President Barack Obama has approved legislation that is expected to immediately accelerate the use of domestic surveillance drones within the United States. This news makes the disturbing video below more relevant in its statement. Are we going to be watched? Who is going to be watching us? Are we ever really alone? Is Big Brother…

Before anyone starts chanting that the conspiracy theorists were bound to find something in the Cybersecurity Executive Order to attack for the sake of attacking, keep one thing in mind. I like the order as a whole. In many ways, it’s pretty impotent and stays in line with what privacy activists (myself included) had hoped for – a one-way street of information sharing that will allow public and private entities involved in critical infrastructure to better defend themselves. My hope was that the sharing would be even deeper, that there would be more tangible ways that the government could educate…

When Captain Kirk does a Reddit AMA, geeks rejoice. When he sticks around on the site and starts calling out users, administrators, and managers for allowing too much hate speech, people still listen but not with as much zeal. Actor William Shatner, a man who despite his age is no stranger to the internet or social media, joined the social news powerhouse and followed in the footsteps of President Obama and dozens of other celebrities to do an AMA (Ask Me Anything). He stayed on the site and has explored it over the past several days, coming to a stark conclusion: they’re adhering too heavily to free…

When a headline such as “Broad Powers Seen for Obama in Cyberstrikes” appears on the NY Times, my initial response is a skeptical one. I’ve long viewed the ways that the last two administrations have handled cybersecurity as failures to understand Golidilocks; they are too harsh when it isn’t warranted and lackadaisical in times of the greatest need. Many countries are growing more dangerous in the world of cyberterrorism with China leading the way. They are arguably more advanced than the United States in understanding the realities of cyberwarfare. To my pleasant surprise, the reported…