Author Archives: zephyrin_xirdal

who is escaping?

Posted on by May 20, 2012
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zeph’s pop culture quiz #30 Who is escaping by that daring jump out of the window? And from where is he escaping?     Just leave a comment with your educated guess—you can ask for additional hints, too. [Leaving a comment is easy; just click the ‘Leave a comment’ at the end of the post and fill in the form. If it’s the first time you post a comment, it will be held for moderation. But I am constantly checking, and once I’ve approved a comment, your next ones won’t be held, but published immediately by the system.]     … Continue reading →

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teliasonera’s black boxes

Posted on by May 20, 2012
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Here’s the timely follow-up to ↵heretics house tripoli, an hour-long feature by the Swedish news show Uppdrag Granskning, investigating the entanglement of Swedish telecom giant ↑TeliaSonera with authoritarian regimes—especially in ex-Soviet states. From ↑Eva Galperin’s write-up at EFF: According to a recent investigation by the Swedish news show Uppdrag Granskning, Sweden’s telecommunications giant Teliasonera is the latest Western country revealed to be colluding with authoritarian regimes by selling them high-tech surveillance gear to spy on its citizens. Teliasonera has allegedly enabled the governments of Belarus, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Georgia and Kazakhstan to spy on journalists, union leaders, and members of … Continue reading →

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heretics house tripoli

Posted on by December 13, 2012
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Much has been said and written about the role of social media and the Internet during the Arab Spring. Especially the liberating potentials of these technologies are discussed, even anthropologists are belabouring the topic. But, and that’s the ↵core theme of cyberpunk, technologies are fundamentally ambivalent. Just yesterday ↑Jamming Tripoli: Inside Moammar Gadhafi’s secret surveillance network by Matthieu Aikins was published by Wired: [The] activists would suffer greatly at the hands of Gadhafi’s spy service, whose own capabilities had been heightened by 21st-century technology. By now, it’s well known that the Arab Spring showed the promise of the Internet as … Continue reading →

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what is switched?

Posted on by June 10, 2012
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zeph’s pop culture quiz #29 What is caused by using the switch?     Just leave a comment with your educated guess—you can ask for additional hints, too. [Leaving a comment is easy; just click the ‘Leave a comment’ at the end of the post and fill in the form. If it’s the first time you post a comment, it will be held for moderation. But I am constantly checking, and once I’ve approved a comment, your next ones won’t be held, but published immediately by the system.] UPDATE 1 (07 June 2012): Now that I am ↵back online, here … Continue reading →

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who is descending?

Posted on by May 7, 2012
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zeph’s pop culture quiz #28 Two people are running down a staircase—why and who are they?     Just leave a comment with your educated guess—you can ask for additional hints, too. [Leaving a comment is easy; just click the ‘Leave a comment’ at the end of the post and fill in the form. If it’s the first time you post a comment, it will be held for moderation. But I am constantly checking, and once I’ve approved a comment, your next ones won’t be held, but published immediately by the system.] … Continue reading →

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what is observed?

Posted on by April 29, 2012
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zeph’s pop culture quiz #27 What strange occurence does the man checking surveillance tapes observe?     Just leave a comment with your educated guess—you can ask for additional hints, too. [Leaving a comment is easy; just click the ‘Leave a comment’ at the end of the post and fill in the form. If it’s the first time you post a comment, it will be held for moderation. But I am constantly checking, and once I’ve approved a comment, your next ones won’t be held, but published immediately by the system.] … Continue reading →

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me on wikipedia

Posted on by April 29, 2012
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This is in order to prevent anyone assuming that my vanity has gone straight through the ceiling. I just discovered that there is an entry called ↑Cyberanthropology at the German Wikipedia. To my surprise within this entry there is an inside-Wikipedia link ↑Alexander Knorr (Ethnologe) [(social/cultural anthropologist)]. And indeed, since 25 April 2012 there is an entry at Wikipedia on yours truly [I am awaiting its speedy deletion ;-]. Someone started the thing and meanwhile four other people worked on it. Till now it’s only four sentences long—and here my question: Should I, as time will permit, myself enlarge it? … Continue reading →

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