"Circulez, vous êtes filmés" : la banalisation de la vidéosurveillance nous a habitué à être de plus en plus (vidéo)surveillés. Le conseil municipal d'Oxford (153 900 habitants, dont plus de 30 000 étudiants, plus 9 millions de touristes par an), en Grande-Bretagne, a de son côté décidé que tout ce que vous pourriez déclarer, dans un taxi, pourrait aussi être retenu contre vous.

Il veut en effet imposer à ses 662 taxis l'installation de systèmes de vidéosurveillance enregistrant, non seulement l'image, mais également le son, de ceux qui prennent un taxi, et d'archiver le tout pendant 28 jours, au cas où la police voudrait savoir ce qui s'y est passé, et ce que les gens s'y sont dit. Depuis le moment où le moteur du taxi a démarré jusqu'à 30 minutes après son extinction...

Google has admitted complying with requests from US intelligence agencies for data stored in its European data centers, most likely in violation of European Union data protection laws.

Gordon Frazer, Microsoft UK's managing director, made news headlines some weeks ago when he admitted that Microsoft can be compelled to share data with the US government regardless of where it is hosted in the world.

At the center of this problem is the USA PATRIOT ACT, which states that companies incorporated in the United States must hand over data administered by their foreign subsidiaries if requested.

Not only that, but they can be forced to keep quiet about it in order to avoid exposing active investigations and alert those targeted by the probes.

This situation poses a serious problem for companies like Microsoft, Google or Amazon, which offer cloud services around the world, because their subsidiaries must also respect local laws.

For example, European Union legislation requires companies to protect the personal information of EU citizens and this is clearly not something that Microsoft, Google, Amazon, or any of their EU customers can do.

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.

The project has been likened by web experts to China's attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.

The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to users of social media as "sock puppets" – could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same.

The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations "without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries".

Les manifestations de joies faites à la suite des dernières promesses de Ben Ali ont été documentées comme étant orchestrées. Les voitures klaxonnant dans les rues sont tous des véhicules de location. Une mise en scène digne de Tintin chez les Soviet.

As a drug predating the FDA, colchicine was sold as a generic in the United States for many years. In 2009, the FDA approved colchicine for gout flares, awarding Colcrys a three-year term of market exclusivity, prohibiting generic sales, and increasing the price of the drug from $9 to $485 per bottle

In a criminal investigation to establish whether Wikileaks and people involved or connected to Wikileaks, broke the law, Twitter was issued a subpoena by a Virginia District Court to provide subscriber account information (including names, mailing, home and email addresses, phone numbers and connection records) "for each account registered to, or associated with Wikileaks, rop_g; ioerror; brigittaj; Julian Assange; Bradley Manning; Rop Gongrijp; Brigitta Jonsdottir for the time period November 1, 2009, to present.

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in case you’re keeping score at home…

Can't wait for the 2011 scores