[liberationtech] Call "Critical Media Sociology Today" ESA 2015 Conference Prague: RN18 stream
http://fuchs.uti.at/1338/ Call: RN18 Panel “Critical Media Sociology Today” 12th Conference of the European Sociological Association August 25-28, 2015. Prague ESA Research Network 18 – Sociology of Communications and Media Research Abstract submission (max. 250 words): Deadline February 1, 2015 Submission: http://esa12thconference.eu/abstract-submission Please indicate the session number to which you submit (see below, e.g. RN18_1) and provide one session number only for this purpose. Critical Media Sociology Today We live in times of ongoing crisis, the extension and intensification of inequalities concerning class, gender, and race, a return of the importance of the economy and political economy, a lack of imaginations of alternatives to neo-liberalism and capitalism, an intensification of right-wing extremism and fascism all over Europe, a lack of visions and power of the political Left, an intensification and extension of extremely repressive forms of state power such as communications surveillance conducted by secret services, ideological scapegoating conducted by conservative and far-right parties, and law and order-politics. Left-wing movements and parties have in some countries emerged or been strengthened, but the crisis has overall brought a further political shift towards the right and an intensification of capitalism and inequality. We today require politically a renewal of the Left. For critical media sociology this means that it needs to ask questions, theorise, and conduct critical analysis of media and communications in the context of capitalism, class, ideologies, racism, fascism, right-wing extremism, gender, state power, activism and social movements, challenges for public service, media reforms, crisis, globalisation, the rise of China, digitalisation, consumer and advertising culture, information/cultural/media work, digital labour, the new international division of cultural and digital labour, warfare and military conflicts, the new imperialism, financialisation, etc. ESA RN 18 calls for contributions that shed new light on questions that Critical Media Sociology needs to ask today and on theoretical and analytical insights that help to shape Critical Media Sociology in the 21st Century. RN18’s panel at the ESA 2014 Prague Conference “Differences, Inequalities and contributions are organised in the form of specific session topics. ESA RN18 calls for contributions to the following sessions: RN18_1: Critical Media Sociology and Karl Marx Today: What is the role and legacy of Karl Marx’s works and Marxist theory for critical media sociology today? RN18_2: Critical Media Sociology and Capitalism Today: How does capitalism shape media and communications today? RN18_3: Critical Media Sociology and Critical Theory Today: What is a critical theory of 21st century society? What role do communication, media and culture play in such a theory? RN18_4: Critical Media Sociology and Stuart Hall Today: How do Stuart Hall’s works, projects, and collaborations matter for critical media sociology today? RN18_5: Critical Media Sociology and Cultural Materialism Today: How does Raymond Williams’ approach of cultural materialism matter today for understanding the sociology of media and communications? RN18_6: Critical Media Sociology, Patriarchy and Gender Today: What is the role of and relationship of identity politics and anti-capitalism for feminist media sociology today? RN18_7: Critical Media Sociology and the Critique of the Political Economy of the Internet and Social Media: How does capitalism shape the Internet and social media? RN18_8: Critical Media Sociology and Ideology Critique Today: What are the main forms of ideology today and how do they operate in the media? Which forms and approaches of ideology critique do we need to understand them? RN18_9: Critical Media Sociology, Right-Wing Extremism and Fascism Today: What is the relationship of far-right movements and parties, the media and communication? RN18_10: Critical Media Sociology and Digital Labour Today: What forms of digital labour and digital class struggles are there and how can they best be theorised, analysed, and understood? RN18_11: Critical Media Sociology and the Left: How could a 21st century Left best look like and what is the role of media and communications for such a Left? What is the historical, contemporary, and possible future relationship of critical media sociology to the Left? What is the role of media, communications, the Internet, and social media in left-wing movements? What problems do such movements face in relation to the media, communications, the Internet, and social media? RN18_12: Critical Media Sociology and China: How can critical media sociology understand the media in China and the role of China and Chinese media in global capitalism? What are differences and commonalities between European and Chinese media understood with
[liberationtech] (n+1)sec = more privacy on the internet
Dear Libtech In recognition and celebration of Human Rights Day, eQualit.ie is proud to release the first public draft of a provably secure protocol for group messaging on the Internet https://learn.equalit.ie/wiki/Np1sec The protocol provides for end-to-end security of synchronous communications between any number of people. It is efficient and builds on recent advancements in cryptographic research. Security properties of (n+1)sec include: * Confidentiality: the conversation is not readable to an outsider * Forward secrecy: conversation history remains unreadable to an outsider even if participants’ encryption keys are compromised * Deniable authentication: Nobody can prove your participation in a chat * Authorship: A message recipient can be assured of the sender’s authenticity even if other participants in the room try to impersonate the sender * Room consistency: Group chat participants are confident that they are in the same room * Transcript consistency: Group chat participants are confident that they are seeing the same sequence of messages The protocol is being implemented as a FLOSS libpurple plugin and will find its first home in crypto.cat. We anticipate wide adoption in other instant messaging platforms. Contact us and join the conversation on the wiki https://learn.equalit.ie/wiki/Talk:Np1sec and check out the early code on https://github.com/equalitie/np1sec Dmitri Vitaliev -- Director | https://equalit.ie | https://deflect.ca GPG key ID: 0x6FF1895D -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
Re: [liberationtech] (n+1)sec = more privacy on the internet
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 2014.12.10 11.31, Dmitri Vitaliev wrote: > Dear Libtech > > In recognition and celebration of Human Rights Day, eQualit.ie is > proud to release the first public draft of a provably secure > protocol for group messaging on the Internet > https://learn.equalit.ie/wiki/Np1sec > > The protocol provides for end-to-end security of synchronous > communications between any number of people. It is efficient and > builds on recent advancements in cryptographic research. Security > properties of (n+1)sec include: > > * Confidentiality: the conversation is not readable to an outsider > * Forward secrecy: conversation history remains unreadable to an > outsider even if participants’ encryption keys are compromised * > Deniable authentication: Nobody can prove your participation in a > chat * Authorship: A message recipient can be assured of the > sender’s authenticity even if other participants in the room try to > impersonate the sender * Room consistency: Group chat participants > are confident that they are in the same room * Transcript > consistency: Group chat participants are confident that they are > seeing the same sequence of messages Hi! This is great news and I'm delighted to see a new effort in this space, especially one that's taken review seriously from the beginning. I'm curious, however, how the requirements for the protocol where arrived at. In particular, I notice that you're supporting group chat with no specific provision made for a moderator role to eject a participant from a chat room. When I've talked to users about their actual use of group chats, this is a consistent requirement and far more important than deniability, the utility of which is still unclear at best. Would you talk a bit about how you arrived at that list of properties and how moderator ejection will be implemented, assuming uncooperative clients? E. - -- Ideas are my favorite toys. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iF4EAREIAAYFAlSIkXoACgkQQwkE2RkM0wpfagD/b2VStN7R6VNHDr4ZEqvmTnTp lo2X4hKKX4SLDq2iaBQA/238TyDI/ZgGzgWT2bNGk3kq4xnFQj0fiRkv0oXzRYpl =hXFg -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Announcing Martus v5 and the brand new martus.org
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Dear LibTech, On this International Human Rights Day it is a distinct pleasure to announce the release of Martus v5, the latest version of Benetech's free/libre, open source, encrypted and distributed information management system for human rights defenders, journalists, activists and others. The release coincides with a full redesign of the Martus website. Please have a look: https://www.martus.org/ In developing v5, we have focused heavily on improving usability and the user experience. For years users and potential users have reported that they found Martus to be difficult to learn and use, and not so pleasant to look at (a well-meaning colleague once described the user interface as "rather soviet"). With this release we have designed an entirely new and modern UI, and worked hard to make important features and actions both accessible and intuitive. Our overarching goal for Martus v5 was to lower the barriers that were keeping people from accessing Martus' strong security features, and I'm very proud to say that I think we've taken a major step in that direction. You can read more about the release, including info on new features and design, at Enrique's blog post, here: http://benetech.org/2014/12/10/strong-open-and-usable-encryption-meet-the-next-generation-of-the-martus-project/ I welcome you to explore our new, simplified website and try out the latest Martus release. We see this as an important step for us and our users and partners, and welcome your feedback and that of your partners and colleagues as we continue to work to improve our software and service. Please send any thoughts and feedback to mar...@benetech.org. We're very happy to answer any questions. Our official announcement is below. Thanks very much for your support, and we're looking forward to your feedback! Cheers, Collin - Original Message Subject: Meet the Next-Gen Martus Project Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 19:19:48 + From: Benetech Martus Project Reply-To: Benetech Martus Project To: Collin Sullivan View this email in your browser (http://us9.campaign-archive2.com/?u=ee98fb164f13da34a2b0f8970&id=5cd6d2dc1b&e=aef25fb424) Today, International Human Rights Day, the Benetech Human Rights Program is delighted to announce the release of version 5.0 of the Martus app and the debut of the updated Martus Project website. With these updates, Benetech is taking a leap towards improving the usability of end-to-end, open source encryption and extending its benefits to rights defenders, activists, journalists, citizen reporters, and other organizations and individuals who rely on secure data collection. The Martus Project. Strong Crypto Since 2003. Follow the @MartusProject Around the world, millions of courageous individuals and groups who protect and advance human rights operate in the shadow of active surveillance, state-sponsored harassment, organized crime violence, and targeted computer espionage. Their digital security and physical safety are closely linked, yet all too often they lack the resources or know-how to secure themselves against digital threats. Benetech established the Martus Project—which extends open, secure information management technology—to address this gap. As technologists, we see it as our duty to provide the growing community involved in human rights documentation and data collection with secure tools that protect their privacy and anonymity, and that empower them to uphold their commitments to do no harm to the vulnerable populations they work with. We believe that end-to-end encryption is critical for their safety and success, but recognize that usability is still a major barrier to its wide adoption. Usability Is A Security Feature As part of our continuous efforts to lower the barriers to strong, digital security, we have made dramatic upgrades to Martus 5.0 that bring an entirely new user experience. These include new look and feel; auto-sync of record retrieval from the server; improved record format; simple text search on main screen; Tor and Server on/off buttons on main screen; increased template manager flexibility; and more. We are very excited for this new phase of the Martus Project, but also recognize that much remains to be done. We will continue to improve the Martus desktop and mobile apps, and are moving ahead with new projects to strengthen the security and safety of those involved in data collection efforts. This International Human Rights Day, celebrating the theme ** Human Rights 365 and the idea that every day is a Human Rights Day, we invite you to ** explore the Martus Project website (http://martus.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=ee98fb164f13da34a2b0f8970&id=6c801f2170&e=aef25fb424), ** download Martus 5.0 (http://martus.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ee98fb164f13da34a2b0f8970&id=f91f8b1fd1&e=aef25fb424), and ** learn all about what's n
