New tool to take down terrorism images online spurs debate on what constitutes extremist content

Ellen Nakashima, washingtonpost.com, New tool to take down terrorism images online spurs debate on what constitutes extremist content "“If you could search out the beheading videos, or the picture of the ISIS fighter all in black carrying the Daesh flag across the sands of Syria, if you could do it with video and audio, you’d be doing something big,” said Mark Wallace, chief executive of the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), a nonpartisan policy group. “I believe it’s a game-changer.”" CEP info here + related IBTimes piece here

Evading censorship

Rebecca Wanjiku, PC World, Online Activists Tap Tools to Escape Censorship, 26 Sep 2010 "Internet activists in the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia are increasingly using collaborative Internet sites as well as circumvention and anonymity tools to avoid censorship, according to participants at the international "Internet at Liberty" conference sponsored by Google."

halalify.org

Press release: I-Newswire, Halalify.org Goes Live To Kick-Start The “Halalification” Of The Internet, August 23, 2010 "Webmasters from all over the world can support add a “Halalify” button on their website to start making the Internet more Halal.

"Halalify.org(www.halalify.org) is an initiative launched by I’mHalal(www.imhalal.com) aims to make the World Wide Web a better place."

Further information on these ambitions are here: halalify.org, together with instructions on how to integrate it into websites, should you so wish.

Halal-Internet:

Anuradha Shukla, TMCnet, Halal-Internet: A new Internet Protection Software, 26 Jul 2010 "To increase visibility of Islam in society, Halal-internet launched a new software program today designed with Muslims in mind. HalalGate, the first Internet filter with parental control features, is exclusively designed for Muslim parents, educators, and business owners to surf the internet freely without running into inappropriate web content that conflicts with essential Islamic beliefs and values.

"This powerful tool is created by Muslims and inspired by the growing need among the Islamic community to minimize degrading cultural variables. It is simple to install and easy to use. HalalGate empowers websurfers by blocking dating sites and webpages featuring gambling, alcohol, and drug usage. It allows the users to block the websites related to terrorism, violence, pornography, or exhibiting any extremist behavior."

For more information, take a look at the Halal-Internet site, which is where the image on the left is taken from. The image below (also from the site) gives an indication of what the interface looks like:

A Premium edition of this product is also planned. According to the product description:

"We eliminate all and every objectionable web sites from our database websites that can content or promote what can be considered as un-Islamic like Pornography, dating, Adult Image, Alcohol, Gambling, Criminal Skills, Alternative Lifestyles, Hate Speech, Match Making, Extreme, Profanity, Substance Abuse, Weapon, mind toxic sites like Myspace, certain Web-blog that promote un-Islamic unlawful criminal un-ethical and immoral behavior. Occult sites , and much much more.
we quarantine any website that promote Al-fuhsha, or Al-munkar, and any fake Islamic site that we come across. websites that are designed by Anonymous non Muslim to spread misinformation and confusion about the true teaching if the Islam." [sic]

Quite how these parameters are decided is unclear. There might be scope for extending this product outside of a Muslim market. I'd like to find out more, and maybe do a product test sometime.

Drones 'hacked'

Times Online, Islamic insurgents hack into CIA state-of-the-art Predator drones, 18 Dec 09 "The Wall Street Journal reported that the hackers were Iranian-backed Shias in Iraq, who used easily downloadable software, such as SkyGrabber, to capture the video feeds, which had not been protected by military encryption."

Jordan, technology and comedy

A couple of interesting tech related stories relating to Jordan:

Tom Gara, The National, Animated success for Jordan, 5 Oct 09 "A Jordanian animation studio has received a multimillion-dollar investment from a regional private equity fund in another success for the country’s community of technology entrepreneurs."

Tom Gara, The National, Arabic humour scores a hit, 26 Sep 09 "A Jordanian website that lets users view and share humorous Arabic-language content is one of the winners of a contest to find the most promising internet startups in Europe and the Middle East." This refers to Talasim:



Details: Talasim. This blog needs more (intentional) comedy, so I may return in due course to Talasim when I have time.

G.Ho.st in the machine

AFP, High-tech Israeli-Palestinian firm defies barriers, 15 Jul 09 "The software, called G.ho.st, makes use of cutting-edge "cloud computing" to allow users to create a virtual desktop -- complete with files and applications -- that can be accessed from any computer or mobile phone in the world." There's a screen shot of a desktop for G.Ho.st on the left (looks familiar). The product itself is potentially very useful, and available in many languages. See G.Ho.st for info on the Arabic version. As significant in this article is reading about the barriers the Palestinian developers face, and the obstacles the company has had to get over.