Is computer-mediated discourse leading to collective political action in the public sphere, or simply more fragmentation? This question has been asked by social and political theorists ever since the Internet entered academia in the early 90s. However, this debate has been recently rekindled by Jurgen Habermas – one of the leading theorists of the public sphere – who recently broke a longstanding silence and spoke out against the Internet as a potentially democratizing medium. Instead of directly intervening in this debate, I interrogate the techno-epistemic conditions of possibility for 'the blogosphere' to exist as a sociopolitical entity. Specifically, I analyze social aggregation sites like Technorati, Delicious, Digg, and even Google, which make it possible for collective action to precipitate out of the Internet. I find that Habermasians should not fear fragmentation, but instead integration: the blogosphere as a public sphere is constructed and unified not by ideal discourse, but algorithms.
From its unusual beginning as a data-sharing network designed by the U.S. military to remain operational in the event of a nuclear attack (Abbate, 2000), the Internet has quickly become one of the most prevalent and important media technologies in contemporary life. As first universities and then households began to link up to this global communications network at an exponential rate, one of the first and most longstanding predictions was that such a medium of communication would radically transform contemporary society for the better—as most early accounts claimed.Drawing extensively on the philosophy of Jürgen Habermas, a predominant prediction was that the Internet would usher in a rebirth of the public sphere. As Habermas argued in the mid-20th century, the public sphere had atrophied in a society where the high barriers to entry associated with radio, television, and print media, political discourse had been monopolized by a handful of monolithic mass media institutions. His ideal vision of a social world in which the only force was discourse, or "the unforced force of the better argument" (Habermas, 1998, p. 306) finally seemed possible in a virtual world. Yet despite the fact that his theories quickly become the de facto intellectual tradition deployed by the Internet's most vocal supporters, Habermas remained silent regarding the role of the Internet in the public sphere for quite some time. He has recently spoken out on the issue, although his brief remarks disappointed many who continually cited his work to celebrate the Internet and critique traditional mass media. Habermas claimed in 2006 that computer-mediated communication has little more than a 'parasitical' role to play in the public sphere, largely due to the way in which Internet-based discourse communities have fragmented the public.
As such, this paper analyzes the current debate that has emerged between the two camps regarding the role of the Internet in the public sphere: Habermas himself and the pro-Internet post-Habermasians. Before such an analysis, I first historicize the literature on the topic of the Habermasian public sphere since the introduction of the Internet in public life. I then return to the contemporary debate between Habermas and the self-proclaimed Habermasians, to argue that the current champions of computer-mediated discourse still hold troubling assumptions regarding both the Internet and the public sphere that were not fully excised from the flamboyant visions of virtual realities prevalent in the early 1990s. Finally, I critique the rebuttals made to Habermas' recent critiques of the Internet, specifically examining the issue of social integration between fragmented Internet-based communities. While Habermas' definition that the Internet has no mechanism for collective will/opinion formation between isolated nodes is, as many have claimed, empirically denied. I conclude by arguing that the solutions presented by the Internet's most vocal supporters are highly problematic for those who would call themselves Habermasian.
While the technological construction of society is a longstanding topic (Feenberg, 1991; Ihde, 2001; Latour, 1988; Woolgar, 1991), many researchers have recently identified the active roles of software programs and platforms in constructing Internet-based social spaces (Brey, 2008; Geiger & Ribes, 2010; Reagle, 2007; Rowland, 2005). Extending this line of research, this article argues that algorithmic aggregation sites not only make the blogo/public sphere knowable, but also play a key role in its highly non-discursive construction. The issue at hand in relation to the question of the Internet as a public sphere is not the risk of fragmentation, but of integration. While individual blogs, discussion forums, chat rooms, and other 'virtual communities' may very well be ideal discursive spaces for political deliberation, the Internet as a public sphere capable of synthesizing public opinion is not unified by discourse, but algorithms.
He continued, giving a humorous example that illustrated the "parasitical role" of such online discussion spaces: a blogger who sent a bill to a German newspaper for "criticisms and corrections" (Habermas, 2006, pp. 423-4) that they made to various articles. In this argument, he did not appear to be completely dismissive of bloggers; rather, the implication is that their only positive role in journalism and politics is as external reviewers of traditional sources of media. While he acknowledges the validity of the contemporary critiques of mass media (many of which he spearheaded), Habermas defended the existence of media professionals and even media elites in his talk, arguing that they are necessary for the proper operation of the public sphere.
In such a conception of both the Internet and the blogo/public sphere, this process of aggregation is assumed to be decentralized, democratic, meritocratic, bottom-up, radically participatory, and so on. It is acknowledged by such defenders of the blogo/public sphere that hierarchies of popularity do exist, but the common conception is that a relatively unpopular blog can generate interest regarding an issue that will be transported up the chain to the most popular blogs – if and only if it interests enough bloggers in the middle. On many of the websites like those mentioned by Bruns, the opinions crafted by individuals (presumably after or through discourse in a small community) can be aggregated and passed to other users and communities for further discussion and subsequent aggregation. Such sites cut out the human mediation traditionally required in a social network, allowing for a seemingly direct representation of public opinion in the blogosphere. Through a system of uncoordinated coordination, collective action has become possible on a previously unimaginable scale, due to the small amount of effort required by each human in order to bring about the so-called "wisdom of crowds" (Surowiecki, 2004).
One such site is Digg, which has experienced significant growth in recent years. Users can "digg particular web pages that they wish to share with others, and the website's algorithms determine which news stories, blog posts, videos, and other content to display. Users can vote a site up or down, and the number to the left of each link represents the operationalized level of approval or interest for that page. Other sites do not even require direct participation in their system, instead trawling through every website they can find and systematically documenting relationships and content according to highly-automated algorithms. Of this class of aggregation sites, Technorati is the most prevalent, having indexed hundreds of millions of blogs into a complex web of associations. This system also ranks blogs, both by number of readers and a metric of "authority" largely dependent on the links that other blogs make to a site.
Like the technologies of demography, macro-economics, or cadastral mapping that render populations visible (Mitchell, 2002), these aggregation sites function as "oligopticons" (Latour 2005, p. 181), or the inverse of panopticons. While the lone guard in the panoptic prison can cast a totalizing, even dominating gaze at any prisoner in its reach, the oligopticon allows the observer to see extremely limited abstractions of an entire population at once. As oligoptica, sites like Facebook, Delicious, Alexa, or Google similarly allow users to view a social network, the blogosphere, or even the entire Internet on a single screen, to see "what's percolating in blogs now," as Technorati's main list describes itself. Of note is the fact that these sites are frequently used by the most popular blogs as well as the mainstream media to support findings that a certain topic, story, or individual is popular or emerging in the blogosphere. In fact, search engines like Google and social bookmarking sites like Delicious make possible my previous claim regarding the "widely-circulated" nature of Rheingold and Bruns's blog postings.
While Habermas' current description of the Internet is undoubtedly outdated in light of these new mechanisms of data aggregation, this does not mean that the responses by commentators like Burns are sufficient to escape Habermasian critique. The issue at hand is twofold: first, the role of discourse in the public sphere; and second, the role of discourse in these aggregation mechanisms. For this first issue, I develop a historical account of the deployment of the Habermasian public sphere in relation to Internet-based communication, demonstrating that some vestiges of the most flamboyant fantasies of the mid-1990s still remain latent in contemporary discussions about the public sphere. Following this history, I give an account of the public sphere from Habermas' (1998) work Between Facts and Norms, specifically focusing on the theoretical concepts that have been problematically discussed by previous scholars. After this section, I critique the algorithmic aggregation mechanisms that supporters of an Internet-based public sphere have deployed in response to Habermas' criticism of fragmentation. I argue that these rebuttals are based on the misguided conceptions presented above, which tend to ignore the task of social integration between otherwise incommensurable lifeworlds through rational discourse facilitated by the public sphere.
Ever since access to the Internet became widely available to the general public in the early 1990s, scholars, activists, politicians, journalists, and ordinary citizens have debated the Internet's potential effect on society at large, particularly its impact on political systems. Even before the widespread emergence of the webpage-based medium enabled by the World Wide Web, electronically networked political communication was heralded by many as the solution to problems created by the top-down, one-way mass mediated system through which most citizens participated in the political system. From Ross Perot's promise of "electronic town halls" (McManus, 1992) in the 1992 U.S. Presidential campaign to John Perry Barlow's "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" (Barlow, 1996), the early 1990s was filled with unbridled optimism regarding the future of politics and governance in a world that was growing increasingly networked. The Internet was claimed by its supporters to be the cornerstone of a new society – even a new world – in which the constraints of materiality and physicality would be cast off and usher in an egalitarian liberalism the likes of which Enlightenment-era philosophers could only dream.
In the 1990s, the techno-libertarianism espoused by the Internet's most vocal supporters became increasingly aligned with two different political and cultural critiques: first, the propagandistic nature of mass media, described by Manufacturing Consent (Herman & Chomsky, 1988); and second, the decline of civic associations, identified in works like Bowling Alone (Putnam, 1995). Many of the Internet's supporters began to counterpoise this new form of decentralized communication as a solution to both problems, and many took the political theories of communitarian political philosophers in celebrating the emancipatory potential of the Internet. In particular, the work of Habermas – who emphasized the crucial importance of the public sphere for a free society governed by deliberative democratic consensus-building – was used by many in this camp.1 Taking from the discourse-based politics and ethics described by Habermas, these champions of the Internet saw chat rooms, web forums, mailing lists, and other forms of computer-mediated communication as far more ideal discursive spaces than either contemporary mass media or the coffeehouses described by Habermas as the cornerstone of the 19th century bourgeoisie public sphere. After generations of atrophy of the mass media, the Internet was to finally facilitate the rebirth of the public sphere: a multitude of 'virtual coffeehouses' would emerge, each of which would be far more inclusive and deliberative than the commercialized mass-mediated public sphere. Instead of relying on media elites – who at best arbitrarily set the agenda for public discourse and at worst actively manipulated public opinion for commercial or governmental interests – the Internet was to enable a radically egalitarian process of will-formation. While these accounts generally remained skeptical regarding the current state of computer-mediated communication, most expressed optimism for the future and gave recommendations as to how the Internet could be used to operate in more egalitarian and discourse-based ways.
Like the "new" media of the past century, Rheingold warned that the Internet could quickly become commoditized just like other forms of media. His final instruction to Internet enthusiasts was that they would have to work hard to resist such colonization by corporations, governments, and other organizations focused primarily on economic or political power. There was much possibility for true discourse to flourish on the Internet, but much opportunity for commodification as well.
The idea that cyberspace would be a place outside the control or influence of any traditionally coercive entity or institution (the state, the military, organized religion, the economy, the mass media, etc) was powerful and fueled visions of an online Habermasian public sphere. The fear Rheingold espoused regarding commodification tended to drop off the scene, largely due to the belief that low costs made advertizing unnecessary and the plurality of alternative spaces preserved competition. In this view, a commodified public sphere could only come into being via monopolization of media outlets (because few would freely choose to consume such media), and monopolies are only possible because of the scarcity of resources, bandwidth, labor, attention, or choice. In a libertarian fashion, the only fear was from government regulation – the only entity that could rewrite the fundamental protocols of the Internet that allegedly ensured such a self-regulating post-scarcity heterotopia.
This is the vision depicted by Mark Poster in his 1995 essay "CyberDemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere" (Poster, 1997) one of the earliest and most-cited2 articles explicitly focusing on the Internet as a Habermasian public sphere. Setting the agenda for a generation of scholarship on the topic, Poster declared that the "age of the public sphere as face-to-face talk is clearly over: the question of democracy must henceforth take into account new forms of electronically mediated discourse" (p. 222). In his analysis of the issue, Poster began by rejecting the depiction of the 19th century bourgeois public sphere presented in The Structural Transformation as an "impossible (counter-factual ideal)," citing feminist and Marxist criticism that the oft-mentioned coffeehouse discussions systematically excluded women and the proletariat from "the public." While he acknowledged that existing social, cultural, and political institutions could very well reinforce existing hierarchies and power relationships in this new medium as well, Poster held that Internet contained within its networked infrastructure the possibility for a public sphere that was truly public. Primarily due to the fact that a user's identity on an Internet site is self-defined, he celebrated the emancipatory and democratic potential when "acts of discourse are not limited to one-way address and not constrained by the gender and ethnic traces inscribed in face-to-face communications" (p. 211).
What is notable about this quote is how Poster characterized the role of discourse in relation to the public sphere: the only logically necessary precondition for an Internet-based public sphere was that the technology must facilitate "discourse on political issues." This is based on a view that the Habermasian public sphere exists primarily to facilitate ideal discourse among rational and free individuals. The crucial difference between the Internet and the mass media for such theorists was that the former did not give individuals the ability to come to their own viewpoints and identities. If there was no ability to discuss content disseminated by the mass media, individuals would simply accept whatever opinions were dictated to them. Because of this, early academic scholarship regarding the Internet and the public sphere was predominantly focused on the extent to which it was a liberating communicative environment in which individuals could freely exchange ideas in order to form their own opinions. In the literature on the topic from the '90s and early 2000s, there was little discussion of social integration, collective will/opinion formation, or mediation between otherwise incommensurable social groups.
In conceptualizing the public sphere to be a communicative platform in which individuals were to make themselves into informed, engaged citizens, the only criteria for determining the efficacy of the Internet was the extent to which proper discourse was occurring between citizens and the number of citizens involved in the process. As long as enough individuals were interacting with each other about politics, according to the rules Habermas described, the Internet was facilitating a public sphere and was to be celebrated. This view spawned countless studies of particular chat rooms, web forums, mailing lists, and other sites, which were evaluated based on the extent to which they enabled this mode of communication for their particular research subjects. As may be expected, such research found mixed results: some communities were tightly bound by discourse and relations of mutual respect, others were filled with hostility and breakdowns in communication, and most were somewhere in between. This research also had its share of critics; the most prevalent critique was the 'digital divide' issue – the extent to which owning a computer excluded certain kinds of individuals from participating in this new public sphere (Menzies, 1996; Norris, 2001; Rheingold, 2000; Tsagarousianou, Tambini, & Bryan, 1998; DiMaggio, Hargittai, Neuman, & Robinson, 2001).
Around the turn of the millennium, the rhetorical distinctions between the Internet and traditional mass media intensified, still operating on the assumption that purpose of the Internet-based public sphere was to enable individuals to escape mass media coercion. Comments like "on the internet people can set their own agendas" (Gimmler, 2001, p. 33) frequently appeared in academic and popular works on the topic. However, a growing number of scholars, activists, and "netizens" were skeptical of the discursive egalitarianism that was allegedly inherent in the Internet's infrastructure. Writing from a Habermasian perspective, many expressed fear of "colonization" by corporations and traditional mass media outlets, as well as the growing number of Internet users who did not wish to abide by rational rules of discourse. As Douglas Kellner argued, those who believed that the Internet was a viable public sphere would have to actively work to ensure such a vision of political discourse; in short, to "teach individuals how to use the new technologies […] to promote democratic debate and diversity, allowing a full range of voices and ideas to become part of the cyberdemocracy of the future." (Kellner, 2000, p. 280) At the time, academics and activists in this area were also concerned with many other potential problems with the Internet as a public sphere, warning primarily of the digital divide (between haves and have-nots) and government surveillance alongside the issue of commodification.
In the next few years, blogs became one of the most visible aspects of the Internet, and scholars interested in the potential of an Internet-mediated public sphere drew heavily on the emerging blogosphere. As political blogs became especially popular venues for Internet users to discuss politics, the blogosphere became quickly equated with the public sphere – both in academia and in popular accounts. As early as 2002, mass media outlets were first reporting on the growing phenomenon of the blogosphere, and then quickly reporting on the content produced within. One of the most frequently-mentioned events in the history of blogs was in 2003, when Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott stated that the U.S. would not have as many "problems" if the segregationist politician Strom Thurmond had been elected in 1948 – a comment that was largely ignored by the mainstream media. However, as the narrative goes, bloggers picked up the story and kept generating outrage in the public sphere until mass media outlets had no choice but to report it about one week later. Lott was forced to resign shortly thereafter, and the episode was only the first of many self-proclaimed victories by the blogosphere over the mass media.
This is one of many tales that Yochai Benkler has described in his book, The Wealth of Networks (2007), which has been characterized as taking up the Habermasian lineage in a new, digital age. Benkler's key argument is that our mass-mediated public sphere (which has systematically failed to give us an authentic, democratic space) must give way to what he terms the networked public sphere ¬– one mediated through computer networks instead of the modern media forms of newspaper and television. Since its initial publication in 2005, it has quickly become the de facto theoretical text for those celebrating the demise of the mass media at the hands of the Internet. Both Rheingold and Bruns cited Benkler's work in their rebuttals of Habermas's 2006 criticisms of the Internet, and Rheingold even insinuated that Benkler was the leader of a new, post-Habermasian era of research on the Internet. While it was published before Habermas' controversial comments, The Wealth of Networks preemptively responds to the characterization of the Internet that was depicted by Habermas in his recent remarks. In particular, Benkler uses Habermas' discourse-based critiques of the mass mediated public sphere to support his view of the networked public sphere. While he spends much of the book describing the way in which the nature of the Internet has led to a multitude of predominantly discourse-based communities and associations, his work on the unified public sphere is what is truly new in the literature on the topic.
…the aggregate effect of individual action, even when it is not self-consciously cooperative, produces the coordinate effect of a new and rich information environment. One needs only to run a Google search on any subject of interest to see how the "information good" that is the response to one's query is produced by the coordinate effects of the uncoordinated actions of a wide and diverse range of individuals and organizations. (p. 4).
From a limited view of the Habermasian vision of society, it therefore seems that one of the key features of the public sphere could indeed be achieved through the Internet –transporting personal stories about the effects of politics in the lifeworld to the political system. In fact, Benkler gives many examples where uncoordinated coordination made such a mobilization possible.
Due to these emergent properties of networked economies, the Internet can (and does) constitute a public sphere in Benkler's reading of the concept. Because of the dual nature in which the multiplicity of autonomous discursive collectives is united and synthesized by uncoordinated coordinate effects, the Internet has allowed the citizenry to perform the only task that matters in such a conception of the Habermasian public sphere: giving citizens a space to form their own opinions through mutual discourse without coercion or manipulation by the mass media. It also may appear that the various aggregation mechanisms which make visible the zeitgeist of the Internet rebut Habermas' critique of fragmentation caused by the Internet's endless, independent discursive communities. Yet the problem with Benkler's analysis from a Habermasian perspective is that the critique of fragmentation is not an external social harm that must be mitigated, but rather an indication that no true public sphere actually exists. Benkler – like Rheingold and Bruns – has taken the synthesis of public opinion to be an end in itself, whereas Habermas clearly situates it in relation to the task of social integration.
Because of this, it is clear that Benkler's analysis still treats discourse as a sociopolitical inoculation or propaedeutic, a necessary Lose Weight Exercise required to get the public into a healthy position so that their collective opinions will result in an informed decision. While Benkler requires both intersubjective discourse in particular web communities, and the activity of collective will/opinion formation between these fragmented communities, he does not require that this latter process be discursive. In other words, public opinion must be constructed out of discursively-generated social spaces, but such an act of construction remains non-discursive – not to mention largely opaque and uncontestable. The only quality that he requires of the aggregation process itself is an absence of coercion, unequal information, manipulation, censorship, or illegitimately-exercised power. Assuming that such algorithms through which the blogosphere is made to speak with a single voice are indeed transparent and subject to public review, they are fully insufficient to perform the kinds of socially integrating tasks that a Habermasian public sphere performs. If Benkler's key example is the automated ranking system that structures search engine results according to a myriad of metrics, what kind of a discursive relationship can individuals possibly have with each other in a public sphere so constituted?
The public sphere is therefore not the mere communicative domain in which such conversations can take place, but "the social space generated in communicative action" (p. 360). The purpose of the forum or the coffeehouse (physical or virtual) is not simply to give each individual the effective ability to make their opinions known to others, but more importantly to produce a public sphere in which communicative freedom has a socially integrating effect. The production of public opinion does have a politically efficacious effect of being a "sounding board" or a "warning system" (p. 359), but it cannot be divorced from the conditions under which it emerges in Habermas' ideal account.
The diffusion of information and points of view via effective broadcasting media is not the only thing that matters in public processes of communication, nor is it the most important. … the rules of a shared practice of communication are of greater significance for structuring public opinion. Agreement on issues and contributions develops only as the result of more or less exhaustive controversy in which proposals, information, and reasons can be more or less rationally dealt with. In general terms, the discursive level of opinion-formation (p. 362).
Because of this, the seamless and uncoordinated coordination praised by Benkler surgically removes the aspect of the public sphere that is most critical to Habermas: the admittedly arduous process of negotiating with those that one would not ordinarily meet in private life. Being able to render the blogosphere visible in a single chart that, in real time, lets viewers know which speakers, positions, and issues are the most and least reputable, interesting, or contested is a very useful tool. However, in the same way that the process of performing a public opinion polls must not be mistaken for the act of crafting a fully-qualified public opinion in the public sphere, so must the zeitgeist of the blogosphere not be mistaken for a solution to the very real problem of social fragmentation. As Habermas states in relation to the difficult task of resolving conflicts in the public sphere, "communicative mastery of these conflicts constitutes the sole source of solidarity among strangers" (p. 308). While social aggregation and recommendation sites make possible a previously unimaginable expression of the collective will or opinion of millions of isolated, uncoordinated individuals, their efficiency and flexibility comes at the expense of the production of social solidarity between fragmented and isolated discursive communities.
As a recent report on "the state of the blogosphere" by the blog aggregation website Technorati claims, "Since all blogs are on the Internet by definition, they may be seen as interconnected and socially networked" (Technorati, 2009, par. 1). The problem is that a priori, blogs are only interconnected and networked by the telecommunications infrastructure of the Internet; they are networked, but NOT necessarily socially networked. Even the seemingly social act of linking to another blog (the default manner of giving credit) is not fully actualized until an aggregator, trawling through the Internet, identifies these patterns and analyzes them using a number of algorithms. It is only through the oligopticons of the Internet that it is possible for one to subsequently speak in the name of the blogosphere in a politically or socially efficacious manner. Because of this, the blogo/public sphere may very well operate at a micro-level via Habermasian ideal discourse, but it is at a macro-level constructed not through communication, but algorithms. In such a space, Habermas' philosophical justification for discursive power – the "unforced force of the better argument" that requires individuals from different sociopolitical spheres to engage and empathize with each other – is short-circuited by the algorithmic power constituted in today's most popular aggregation services. And as a number of scholars have identified, control that is constituted through code (Lessig, 1999) or protocol (Galloway, 2004) can be far more powerful, invisible, and uncontestable than more traditional forms.
In short, the kinds of oligoptic technologies that are currently being evoked to defend the networked blogo/public sphere against criticisms of fragmentation are undermining the very conditions of possibility for a truly Habermasian public sphere. In order to synthesize public opinion, these heterogeneous computerized networks must be made visible through a series of largely non-discursive aggregation algorithms. Because of this, the entity referred to by the term "the Internet" or "the blogosphere" is not a well-defined, pre-existing domain or communicative space (i.e. the set of all conversations that take place on blogs), but rather an always-incomplete representation that must constantly be performed. The task of making these disconnected, fragmented, pluralistic nodes in the networked blogo/public sphere socially networked is taken by many champions of the Internet to be an inherent, even emergent property of the software. However, this task is actually one performed by sites that forge associations between these independent micro-publics in ways that enable what appears to be an uncoordinated coordination. Unfortunately, this non-discursive act of public opinion/will formation forecloses on many of the socially integrating aspects of the Habermasian public sphere.
1Interestingly enough, his seminal 1962 work The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere¬¬ was only translated into English in 1989; as such, Habermas and the Internet were introduced into American academia around the same time.
2According to Google Scholar, the article has been cited over 375 times; according to Google Books, the title of his essay appears in over 250 books. The next-most cited work on this topic from the 1990s is Tsagarousianou's edited 1998 volume "CyberDemocracy: Technologies, Cities, and Civic Networks" – which, having the same opening title, would appear to be directly inspired by Poster's essay. Of note is the fact these scholarly aggregators which make such claims possible function similarly to the oligoptic aggregators I analyze in this work.
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I always like hearing it ! From a computer science standpoint, the Internet is a well-defined technological infrastructure of meticulously classified and categorized computers, cables, and code. In any other context, it is a gross category error to invoke the unity of the Internet. It has no more potential to become a new public sphere than do the airwaves that made possible the modern mass-mediated public sphere.


text:
from bluebottle.accounts.serializers import UserPreviewSerializer
from fluent_contents.rendering import render_placeholder
from rest_framework import serializers
from bluebottle.bluebottle_drf2.serializers import SorlImageField
from .models import BlogPost

class BlogPostContentsField(serializers.Field):

    def to_native(self, obj):
        request = self.context.get('request', None)
        contents_html = render_placeholder(request, obj)
        return contents_html

class BlogPostSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
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    class Meta:
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class BlogPostPreviewSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Eesti Gaas is opening three fuel stations for compressed gas, where it will be possible to refuel with natural gas and green gas, i.e. biomethane from Estonian renewable raw materials.
"In a situation where prices for gasoline and diesel fuel are increasing, it is reasonable for car owners to switch to gas. Compressed natural gas is half the price of gasoline, about three or four euros a hundred kilometers and the price has remained stable over the years, "said Raul Kotov, board member of AS Eesti Gaas.
"Natural gas is also substantially cleaner and more environmentally friendly than liquid fuels. Since the composition and quality of green and natural gas are identical, both cars are equally well suited for use in automobiles, and they can be refueled in parallel, "Kotov said.


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Tackling food fraud, one molecule at a time
Food fraud is a global scourge, and more and more organizations are looking into this problem that is affecting the agri-food industry and represents a serious public health issue. To combat food fraud, a first step consists of building databases containing the chemical characteristics of authentic foods. Claude-Paul Lafrance, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Cégep de Lévis-Lauzon and a researcher at TransBIOTech, has developed a solution that combines two analysis techniques to create a statistical signature for authentic foodstuffs. The researcher is currently working on developing a methodology for authenticating maple syrup.
As food authenticity and traceability have become pressing issues, this technique comes at the right time to contribute to eradicating food fraud.
He first applied liquid chromatography to separate the molecules in the syrup. Using a sophisticated mass spectrometry technique, the molecules were then detected and isolated according to mass. A portion of these molecules were fragmented so that they could be identified by comparing them with other molecules stored in a database. To test the detection tool, Claude-Paul Lafrance used two groups of maple syrup samples: certified pure maple syrup, and syrup which had been deliberately adulterated. The data obtained were then processed to determine which molecules were characteristic of authentic maple syrup. Any maple syrup sample can then be evaluated to ensure authenticity.
As food authenticity and traceability have become pressing issues, this technique comes at the right time to contribute to eradicating food fraud, especially in the maple industry. It has also proved effective for verifying the metabolization of new drugs and identifying the organic substances created after their ingestion. Recently, the technique has been applied to tea, allowing researchers to compare the levels of antioxidants in green tea and pu'erh tea.
Intersectoral research
University students and postdoctoral fellows

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


I've had this recipe bookmarked for a long time, because I wanted sushi-grade salmon. You see, the salmon is not cooked all the way through here. You could cook it all the way, of course, but I was eager to try it partly raw, because it's closer to sushi and sushi is just about the only way I like fish (with the exception of tuna). The Engineer, who loves fish, was oohing and aahing all over the place. For me, it's probably the best fish I've had, but it's still fish (and therefore not my favourite thing). That being said, I'm definitely keeping this recipe; it's nice to have a little variety, especially when your husband likes salmon.
I made 2 servings instead of four, but rubbed them with the spices on both sides for more flavour. I'm giving you my version here. I served the salmon with a cucumber salad. It was a light and refreshing meal.
Stir together the sugar, salt, pepper, cumin and mustard in a small bowl. Unwrap the fish and press the sugar mixture evenly onto both sides.
Heat the oil in a large nonstick or cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Place the fish in the pan. Cook until the rub dissolves and darkens slightly (being careful not to burn), about 4 minutes. Flip the fish and cook to medium doneness, a few minutes more.


Tree House Views is a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom Algies Bay holiday home with peaceful bush surrounds and a view to the sea! This cute and sunny holiday home offers a relaxing base for a couple or small family, just a 55 minute drive north of Auckland (ideal if a family member needs to commute over the holiday period). This 2 storey Algies Bay holiday home includes cosy and comfortable open plan living downstairs... Enjoy fantastic indoor/outdoor living onto wrap around decking, where you can sit back and take in the serenity! Upstairs at this Algies Bay accommodation, a generously proportioned bedroom opens onto a balcony with sea views, and is fitted with a queen bed and a small sitting area offering additional space to unwind. Bedroom 2 is fitted with 2 single beds. There is a bathroom on each floor to complete the convenient holiday set up. The laundry is situated in the downstairs bathroom. When you are not relaxing on the deck, wander to the beach just a 2 minute stroll to the water... Plus you are just a short drive away from surrounding beaches and attractions, including Matakana and the ferry to Kawau Island. For a cruisy beach getaway, Tree House Views at Algies Bay has you covered!
* Bachcare charges / conditions - This property is managed by Bachcare and all charges and conditions may not be fully displayed or capable of being calculated on this site. This may include for things like minimum stay, additional costs based on number of guests, cleaning costs, linen costs, service fees and other special conditions. For full details, please go to www.bachcare.co.nz, Property ID 3095 and find your happy place!


Congregation Beth El presents third edition of cultural film initiative.
BENNINGTON — Third time's a charm, right?
Actually, the first two times for the Bennington Jewish Film Series went pretty, well, too.
After a successful inaugural run in 2017, a popular local celebration of culturally-oriented movies is making a comeback with a new set of films, and the same goals of both entertainment and education.
The 3rd Annual Jewish Film Series, formerly named the Jewish Film Festival, will premier this Saturday at Oldcastle Theatre Company with the classic Academy Award-winning "Yentl."
The series is sponsored by Congregation Beth El, and all showings will be hosted at Oldcastle. The four films chosen will all run at 7:00 p.m. on the designated Saturdays shown below.
All movies will be shown free of charge. Free will donations, however, are welcome from audience members, but not required. This year, a cash bar will also be available.
Oldcastle artistic director Eric Peterson lauded the continuation of the series into its third year, and said that it has become an integral part of Oldcastle's hosting of year-round programming.
"Oldcastle Theatre is thrilled to have the Jewish Film Series back for its third year after two successful seasons in 2017 and 2018," Peterson said. "The series has become a popular fixture in late winter and early spring and has attracted a diverse audience as one would expect from such a culturally-rich offering."
Al Bashevkin, a member of the series' organizing committee, added that education and appreciation are both at the heart of the series' success, and what have made it worthy of a comeback this year. Bashevkin credited fellow committee members Shelli DuBoff, Sharon Yorke, and Tony Eprile with final movie selection.
"Times change and we no longer live in the segregated communities of our ancestors, and living in America has opened many doors for the Jewish people," Bashevkin said. "With our assimilation a reality here in Vermont, we hope that the culture and roots of our ancestors will not be forgotten, so that we may continue in our quest to help humankind cope with the challenges we face in the 21st century. History teaches us a lot, and that should not be forgotten."
The slate of films will be presented starting this Saturday. Each film will be followed by an audience discussion facilitated by a committee member. Discussion attendance is voluntary.
Jan. 19: "Yentl," 7 p.m.
This 1983 romantic musical drama integrates humor and music to tell the story of an Ashkenazi Jewish girl in 1904 Poland who decides to dress and live like a man so that she is educated in Talmudic law — the realm of men only — after her father dies. Her thirst for knowledge is the central driving force of the movie. The cultural crossing of gender lines experienced by Yentl has since found a medical term known as Yentl Syndrome. Starring: Barbra Streisand, Mandy Patinkin, Michael York, and directed by Bob Fosse. Academy and Golden Globe winner. Discussion facilitator: Shelli DuBoff.
Feb. 23: "Crossing Delancey," 7 p.m.
Isabelle works at a New York bookstore in this 1988 romantic comedy. Author Anton Maes comes to the bookstore for a public reading of his work, and takes a fancy to her. Isabelle is also fascinated by the intellectual world, one that is very different from her traditional Jewish upbringing. Her grandmother, though, asks a old-school marriage broker to enter the scene. Starring: Amy Irving, Peter Riegert, Jeroen Krabbe, Sylvia Miles and directed by Joan Micklin Silver. Based on the play of the same title by Susan Sandler. Golden Globe nominee. Discussion facilitator: Al Bashevkin.
March 23: "A World Apart" 7 p.m.
This 1988 drama is set in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 1963, Molly Roth, a 13-year old, has her life torn apart when her father, a member of the South African Communist Party, flees into exile. Her mother, an anti-apartheid activist, is further detained. Their relationship is challenged by adversity and political bullying as her family's relationships with blacks come to the forefront. Starring: Barbara Hershey, David Suchet, Jeroen Krabbe, Tim Roth and directed by Chris Menges. BAFTA and Cannes winner. Discussion facilitator: Tony Eprile.
April 27: "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis," 7 p.m.
This is a 1970 Italian film with subtitles. In the late 1930s, with Mussolini's fascism on the rise, coupled with growing anti-Semitism, a group of young friends meet to play tennis and otherwise socialize. Banned from most tennis clubs, they go to play at the grand, walled garden of the Finzi-Continis, a well-to-do, intellectual and cultured Jewish family. Starring: Lino Capolicchio, Dominique Sanda, Helmut Berger and directed by Vittorio de Sica. Academy and Golden Bear winner. Discussion facilitator: Sharon Yorke.
In considering the movie selection for this year's series, committee member and marketing coordinator DuBoff said that the feedback from the past two years of the series has been very positive.
DuBoff emphasized that the movies deal in widespread themes and "cannot be dismissed as just entertainment. They make you think."
"You didn't have to be Jewish to love [them]," DuBoff said. "The theme[s] of family, friction between generations, tradition and faith [are] something every culture could relate to. Today [the] themes of emigration, assimilation, repression, and prejudice still ring true. We feel that the films we show are not just Jewish films, but universal."
For information on the 2019 Bennington Jewish Film Series, call Congregation Beth El at 802-442-9645, or Oldcastle Theatre Company at 802-447-0564.


"Recruiting Great People Daily SA", the French headquartered recruitment agency (CAC: DPZGP) became one of the first GDPR casualties of the recruitment world.
"Recruiting Great People Daily SA" hired a GDPR expert ahead of May 25th 2018. As an expert, he found a large number of personal data on the CVs handled. He identified that the name and past positions were passed to the recruitment consultants. "This could be a breach of the principle of data minimisation" he confirmed. The GDPR expert knows what he is talking about as last December, he advised a white-bearded CEO often dressed in red on how to comply with the definitions set in Article 4 - a tedious task.
He initially suggested shredding the CVs as a pseudomisation method. The recruitment agency's DPO, Humpty D was against the idea. Mr 'D' cannot be named in fear of a data breach, but the expert agreed to reveal his surname in encrypted format 'B9BF142CC55E1CA70388C41734170576ACBA58A0099E8EE7FD20D680EA4A2770'. The reason Mr 'D' evoked was the cost of putting the CVs back together again as it would be too time consuming for the busy staff.
The GDPR expert then suggested to photocopy the CVs with a white sheet in front of the text. This clever solution meant the CVs no longer contained personal data. After a few experiments, the GDPR expert found a trick to save time: the recruitment staff could pick-up a blank CV from the paper tray of the photocopier and wouldn't need to press the Copy button. For the DPO, under huge budget constraints, this proved to be the best solution.
This solution worked well, but created a challenge when candidates exercised their rights under Article 15 of the GDPR. A lot of candidates complained that the copy of the CVs supplied were not theirs. Being all identical created a real challenge when trying to identify the data-subjects. A class-action was filed with the office of the French data-protection commissioner in the hope they could get a jackpot similar to the Google fine in January.
The French Data Protection Commission investigated and fined them 20 million euro, which far exceeded "Recruiting Great People Daily SA" savings.
"Recruiting Great People Daily SA" went bankrupt and the CEO said in a final press release "Bloody GDPR, we did all we could to be compliant, hiring a badged GDPR expert, followed his recommendations and still got fined. We can't run a business under these conditions". The former CEO and the DPO have started an on-line petition to revoke GDPR.
Moral of the story: Don't trust the GDPR Expert's badge blindly.
Picture: sample "GDPR badge", courtesy of Mr Dave 7073D36FCDF2D56F4A7658DFDBEB6B1213D9F0586D3A188AE7EBA40B3EE5A101.
PS: Although this may seem like a "plausible" story to some, we'd like to clarify it is a made-up story for April Fools' Day 2019 and that to our knowneldge such company does not exist. The acronym of the company is RGPD, French acronym for GDPR.


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Category Archive: Computer Malware
Ransomware strikes close to home
Photo credit: WFTV News
Today, the New York Times reported that "This has been the summer of crippling ransomware attacks" to all types of computer systems. Not only have 40 municipalities been struck — their data encrypted and a ransom demanded — but last week there was a report that another synagogue ransomware attack investigated by the FBI.
Cyber-hygiene. If you look closely at the screenshot above, you will see a pop-up from the anti-malware provider Malwarebytes, stating that its database is out of date (Oops!). What should you be doing to ensure a good cyber-hygiene regimen? (see a longer article from Symantec here)? What can you do to protect your data?
Deploy an antivirus/anti-malware product. An up-to-date, real-time antivirus might stop a cyber-attack.
Backup. Make sure to back up your important documents and keep a backup set offsite (in case of fire, etc.). There's no excuse. These days, cloud backups are free or low-cost and you can automatically sync documents to your cloud account.
Update, update,update. It's a constant battle. Bad actors learn how to sneak into our systems to do bad things. Software providers constantly provide security patches designed to close the open doors that bad actors use. Update your operating systems (Window or Mac), browsers, remote management software, Adobe products, Microsoft products, firewalls — everything. True, updates sometimes cause problems, but not updating leads to worse problems.
Use a firewall. Firewalls are the guards designed to protect your network from the internet. Whether you have a hardware or software firewall, it is critical that you keep it up to date.
Set strong passwords and use two-factor authentication. People still use easy-to-guess passwords like, "Welcome123", fail to change default passwords, or use the same password for multiple sites. Check out password tips from Google here. Check out a good primer from PC Mag, Two-Factor Authentication: Who Has It and How to Set It Up.
Before you pay a ransom ask for help! Contact the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the FBI, or the Secret Service and work with an experienced advisor to help recover from a cyber attack. Victims of ransomware should report it immediately to CISA at www.us-cert.gov/report, a local FBI Field Office, or Secret Service Field Office.
Consider cyber-attack insurance. Cyber-attacks can be costly. Even if you are following all of the steps recommended above and have current backups of everything, you may still be attacked and getting back to business may be costly. A compromised computer or network will have to be restored. If there is a data breach and your members' confidential data is compromised, other steps will have to be taken. Work with your insurance broker to determine what it would cost to recover from a cyber-attack versus the cost of the policy and do a cost-benefit analysis.
Note: Membership records. The synagogue was lucky, their membership data is stored in the cloud (e.g., Chaverware, ShulCloud). Most of the established synagogue management software stores data online, encrypts it and backs up its database. User agreements should specify that it is the vendor's responsibility to protect your data and to be prepared to quickly restore it.
For more information visit the CISA Resource Page on Ransomware.
Posted in Computer Malware, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity
Cyber attacks increase, what can you do?
Cybersecurity Best Practices
The following is a list of best practices designed to keep individuals and their data safe when connected to the internet.
Avoid opening emails, downloading attachments, or clicking on suspicious links sent from unknown or untrusted sources.
Verify unexpected attachments or links from known senders by contacting them via another method of communication.
Avoid providing your email address, phone number, or other personal information to unknown sources.
Avoid providing sensitive information to anyone via email. If you must, be sure to encrypt it before sending.
Be skeptical of emails written with a sense of urgency and requesting an immediate response, such as those stating your account will be closed if you do not click on an embedded link or provide the sender with sensitive information.
Beware of emails with poor design, grammar, or spelling.
Ensure an email's "sender name" corresponds to the correct email address to identify common email spoofing tactics.
Never open spam emails; report them as spam, and/or delete them. Do not respond to spam emails or use included "Unsubscribe" links as this only confirms to the spammer that your email address is active and may exacerbate the problem.
PASSWORDS AND MULTI-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION
Use strong passwords on all of your accounts.
Long, complex passwords make you less susceptible to brute-force attacks.
Use a combination of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters.
Avoid easy-to-guess elements like pets' names, children's names, birthdays, etc.
To reduce the risk of account compromise, account holders should:
Avoid using the same password across multiple accounts or platforms.
Never share their password with anyone, leave passwords out in the open for others to read, or store them in an unsecured, plaintext file on computers or mobile devices.
Consider using long acronyms or passphrases to increase the length of your password.
Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) or multi-factor authentication (MFA) on all accounts that offer it. This will help prevent unauthorized access in the event of credential compromise.
Ensure any websites requesting the insertion of account credentials and those used to conduct transactions online are encrypted with a valid digital certificate to ensure your data is secure. These website addresses will have a green padlock displayed in the URL field and will begin with https.
Avoid saving account information, such as passwords or credit card information, in web browsers or browser extensions.
Avoid using public computers and public Wi-Fi connections to log into accounts and access sensitive information.
Consider using ad-blocking, script-blocking, and coin-blocking browser extensions to protect systems against malicious advertising attacks and scripts designed to launch malware or mine cryptocurrency.
Sign out of accounts and shut down computers and mobile devices when not in use. Program systems and devices to automatically lock the active session after a set period of inactivity.
DEVICE SECURITY
Keep all hardware and software updated with the latest, patched version.
Run reputable antivirus or anti-malware applications on all devices and keep them updated with the latest version.
Create multiple, redundant backups of all critical and sensitive data and keep them stored off the network in the event of a ransomware infection or other destructive malware incident. This will allow you to recover lost files, if needed.
May 5779 be a year of peace and security; what you can do to help
Rosh Chodesh Elul includes clarion calls indicating that the High Holidays are coming soon. So, now is a good time to check out a recent presentation on synagogue security or to take a deeper dive into the library of documents available on the JCRC-NY Security Resources pages. Here are some relevant selections:
High Holiday Security and Emergency Preparedness Planning Library
High Holidays: Are you ready to get out if you have to?
JCRC-NY High Holiday Security Thinkplate
Access control considerations during High Holiday services (PDF)
Houses of Worship and the High Holidays
Planning for the Unexpected – High Holiday Edition 2010 (PDF)
Topical guidance
Are you prepared? 5 steps to make your facility safer and more secure
Sample Building Access Policies & Procedures (PDF)
Bomb Threat Guidance resources. See also Hoax threats can be scary, too, To evacuate or not to evacuate? That is the question., DHS' Introduction to Bomb Threat Management, Manhattan bomb threat: lessons learned, Bomb threat training video.
Active Shooter Resources Page (DHS, FBI and NYPD)
Cybersecurity Resources Page
US Postal Inspection Service Guide to Mail Center Security (PDF)
Vulnerability, Risk and Safety Assessments and Planning
FEMA: Reference Manual to Mitigate Potential Terrorist Attacks Against Buildings
FEMA, Emergency Operations Planning
Guide for Developing High-Quality School (K-12) Emergency Operations Plans
Guide for Developing High-Quality Emergency Operations Plans for Houses of Worship
Guide for Developing High-Quality Emergency Operations Plans for Institutions of Higher Education
DHS:
Potential Indicators, Common Vulnerabilities, and Protective Measures: Religious Facilities (Updated)
Hometown Security Report Series: Houses of Worship
K-12 School Security: A Guide for Preventing and Protecting against Gun Violence (2nd ed., 2018) provides preventive and protective measures to address the threat of gun violence in schools. The Guide is delivered in two parts: the first portion is a PDF with general security best practices and considerations in narrative format; while the second portion is a Microsoft Excel-based security survey. Together, these documents outline action-oriented security practices and options for consideration based on the results of the individual school's responses to the survey. While the primary audience for the Guide is the K-12 community, institutions of higher education or pre-K schools may also benefit from the information presented.
NYPD: Engineering Security: Protective Design for High Risk Buildings
OSHA: Evacuation Plans and Procedures eTool. This expert system will help you to create a basic Emergency Action Plan. This basic plan likely will be adequate for needs of many small and medium-sized entities. Most small and medium-sized entities can create basic plans using this system in 10 to 15 minutes. Larger, more complex organizations will require more work.
Practical Information on Crisis Planning: A Guide for Schools and Communities. U.S. Department of Education, Office of Drug Free and Safe Schools. Taking action now can save lives, prevent injury, and minimize property damage in the moments of a crisis. The importance of reviewing and revising school and district plans cannot be underscored enough, and Practical Information on Crisis Planning: A Guide for Schools and Communities is designed to help you navigate this process. The Guide is intended to give schools, districts, and communities the critical concepts and components of good crisis planning, stimulate thinking about the crisis preparedness process, and provide examples of promising practices.
Emergency Preparedness Planning Guide for Childcare Centers. From the Illinois Emergency Medical Services for Children (a collaborative program between the Illinois Department of Public Health and Loyola University Chicago). Lots of ideas to keep toddlers safe.
Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) Technical Assistance Center, U.S. Department of Education
REMS: Conducting a Safety Audit
California STAS: Protective Measures for Enhanced Facilities Security
New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness Critical Infrastructure Protection Bureau: Facility Self-Assessment Tool (updated) and other tools here.
Posted in Active shooter, Anti-Semitism, Bomb, Computer Malware, Cybersecurity, Halachah/Preparedness, High Holidays, Jewish cybercrime hackers, Jewish Security, Nonprofit Security, School security, Suspicious Packages, Synagogue Security, Terrorism
Could you be the next victim? How the Russians hacked us.
Phishing has been in the news lately. The latest indictment from the Special Counsel's Office (i.e., Mueller) shows that it's easy to become a victim (see the screenshot below and click on it for more info). The attack was both sophisticated and surprisingly simple.
Government sources report that phishing attacks are up. You don't have to be the target of sophisticated government cyber-warriors. Too many bad actors know the tricks of the trade and they can hijack your identity, your data and/or plant ransomware on your computer.
We've collected tips from various sources to help you to identify potentially-dangerous phishing emails. Just click on How to spot phishing like a pro. The document has several examples and is in PDF format so that you can download it and distribute it widely.
Remember to practice the basics:
Don't click on links that you don't recognize.
Use strong passwords.
Install anti-virus/anti-malware protection and keep the definitions up to date.
Install security updates for the software on your computer as they are released.
For more information, tips and resources see our dedicated webpage: www.jcrcny.org/cybersecurity.
Microsoft Customer Guidance for WannaCrypt attacks
MSRC Team May 12, 2017 | https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/msrc/2017/05/12/customer-guidance-for-wannacrypt-attacks/
Microsoft solution available to protect additional products
Today many of our customers around the world and the critical systems they depend on were victims of malicious "WannaCrypt" software. Seeing businesses and individuals affected by cyberattacks, such as the ones reported today, was painful. Microsoft worked throughout the day to ensure we understood the attack and were taking all possible actions to protect our customers. This blog spells out the steps every individual and business should take to stay protected. Additionally, we are taking the highly unusual step of providing a security update for all customers to protect Windows platforms that are in custom support only, including Windows XP, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2003. Customers running Windows 10 were not targeted by the attack today.
Details are below.
In March, we released a security update which addresses the vulnerability that these attacks are exploiting. Those who have Windows Update enabled are protected against attacks on this vulnerability. For those organizations who have not yet applied the security update, we suggest you immediately deploy Microsoft Security Bulletin MS17-010.
For customers using Windows Defender, we released an update earlier today which detects this threat as Ransom:Win32/WannaCrypt. As an additional "defense-in-depth" measure, keep up-to-date anti-malware software installed on your machines. Customers running anti-malware software from any number of security companies can confirm with their provider, that they are protected.
This attack type may evolve over time, so any additional defense-in-depth strategies will provide additional protections. (For example, to further protect against SMBv1 attacks, customers should consider blocking legacy protocols on their networks).
We also know that some of our customers are running versions of Windows that no longer receive mainstream support. That means those customers will not have received the above mentioned Security Update released in March. Given the potential impact to customers and their businesses, we made the decision to make the Security Update for platforms in custom support only, Windows XP, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2003, broadly available for download (see links below).
Customers who are running supported versions of the operating system (Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, Windows 10, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016) will have received the security update MS17-010 in March. If customers have automatic updates enabled or have installed the update, they are protected. For other customers, we encourage them to install the update as soon as possible.
This decision was made based on an assessment of this situation, with the principle of protecting our customer ecosystem overall, firmly in mind.
Some of the observed attacks use common phishing tactics including malicious attachments. Customers should use vigilance when opening documents from untrusted or unknown sources. For Office 365 customers we are continually monitoring and updating to protect against these kinds of threats including Ransom:Win32/WannaCrypt. More information on the malware itself is available from the Microsoft Malware Protection Center on the Windows Security blog. For those new to the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, this is a technical discussion focused on providing the IT Security Professional with information to help further protect systems.
We are working with customers to provide additional assistance as this situation evolves, and will update this blog with details as appropriate.
Phillip Misner, Principal Security Group Manager Microsoft Security Response Center
Further resources:
Download English language security updates: Windows Server 2003 SP2 x64, Windows Server 2003 SP2 x86, Windows XP SP2 x64, Windows XP SP3 x86, Windows XP Embedded SP3 x86, Windows 8 x86, Windows 8 x64
Download localized language security updates: Windows Server 2003 SP2 x64, Windows Server 2003 SP2 x86, Windows XP SP2 x64, Windows XP SP3 x86, Windows XP Embedded SP3 x86, Windows 8 x86, Windows 8 x64
General information on ransomware: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/portal/mmpc/shared/ransomware.aspx
MS17-010 Security Update: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/ms17-010.aspx
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Posted on March 21, 2018 May 23, 2019
From Knitwear Technology to Lighting up Embroidery
I was very excited to see the sustainability section of Keyhouse, being that my first love has always been the Earth. On the first day of Munich Fabric Start, I had the privilege to meet Yevheniia "Jane" Luchko, a knitwear designer studying with HTW in Berlin. I had seen her designs during our preparations, and I had been waiting to see the human behind them.
Jane's obvious passion for her knitwear dresses inspired me in less than a second, as I watched her quietly weaving on a knitting machine. I could see she was in her "flow", as positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi would say.
HTW is one of the largest universities in Berlin, with a well-attended fashion program offering bachelors and masters degrees. I reached out to Thu Thao Nguyen, a professor at the school, to learn more about what HTW offers their design students. She told me, "The combination of traditional craftsmanship and innovative technology in an interdisciplinary way is a huge benefit which our students value a lot. Further, we provide them regularly with newsletters about job offers, fashion events and fashion competitions."
From Knitwear Tech to Embroidery
Jane's interpretation of Marco Polo 2067: Model: Lucie Plaumann Photography: MS Designer: Yevheniia Luchko
Jane's embroideries are an exploration of color, with her Ukrainian heritage spilling out from the details. I asked her about her design process, and what inspires her to create her knitwear by hand. Jane said she takes the approach of late designer Alexander McQueen, who famously once said, "I never look at other people's work. My mind has to be completely focused on my own illusions." Jane takes inspiration from within herself, and within the Earth around her. She goes hiking often and illustrates a wide range of flowers and plants in intricate detail. She then replicates the drawings into her embroidery, mimicking nature as she knits and sews.
Next, she's looking for embroidery thread that glows. The Munich Fabric Start Keyhouse gave her the perfect place to talk with contacts from the recent collaboration between Statex, Madeira, and Zsk. She plans to dabble in conductive yarns, to give light to the delicate details of her embroidered flowers and leaves.
We also spoke about the creativity found in university collaborations such as HTW and Marco Polo's 2067, which was being displayed at Munich Fabric Start. I was captivated by the light in her eyes as she spoke about this opportunity. There is something to be said about the passion students feel when they're surrounded by innovation and pushed to problem solve. There's a feeling of having the world literally at your fingertips, and you feel as if your brain could open up at any moment and the entire universe could pour in.
Nguyen weighed in on this too by saying, "Young designers, although still students or already alumni, will always benefit from their very versatile education at HTW Berlin where they got the chance to gain practical and creative skills, always up-to-date. That prepares them for the fashion industry and highly increases their chances to get a job as a young designer. The positive feedback from cooperation partners and employers of the fashion industry prove that. Networking is essential to us."
I'm excited to see what Jane's imagination creates next using glowing or conductive yarns, with the knitwear knowledge she's gained from HTW's program and resources. As the space for conductive clothing grows, I'm confident her designs will continue to inspire others with the passion she's knitting into each piece.
What If We Could Trace Fibers From Roots To Retail?
In recent years, it has become more apparent how damaging the fashion industry is to the environment. Therefore discussions about textile standards, in terms of sustainable fashion, and the exploration of new technologies like the blockchain all sound very promising, but what if we could simplify the process of finding out the footprint of our garments.
Sustainable Fashion and Accountability
Some consumers may be satisfied with reading the label on their clothes. Others may look to standards organizations like GOTS or ISO, to learn more about the supply chains of their favorite brands. But we still don't have scientific evidence to show exactly where a garment has come from. We can track its footprint from a seed to the shelf with various stages of reporting, but we do not have hard science to show for our tracking. If a technology was developed to do this, it would quickly impact the level of sustainability within the fashion industry. It could probably spread to other industries as well.
Imagine a Fiber Testing Kit, that any consumer could purchase, bring home to their closet, and run a quick analysis on their favourite t-shirt. Anyone with the ability to test the fiber, theoretically, could hold companies accountable for their sourcing practices. An invention like this could be highly disruptive to the fashion industry, especially pertaining to the ongoing battle between ethical apparel and fast-fashion. Having the ability to know where a piece of clothing has been throughout its lifetime could be fascinating. Where were the fibers grown? Where was the product manufactured? Whose hands created the stitches? What if we could track the DNA of fabric?
ALSO READ: 5 Sustainable Fabric Innovators to Watch Out For
Over 40 years ago, DNA profiling was developed by British-born Sir Alec Jeffreys, a geneticist and professor at the University of Leicester. Across the pond in California, biochemist Dr Kary Mullis, learned how to link and repeat DNA (polymerase chain reaction or PCR), while trying to find the point of genetic mutations for hereditary diseases. Both extraordinary minds made incredible breakthroughs for our knowledge and understanding of the human genome. DNA testing was implemented into law enforcement's forensic teams within two years of the discoveries and has since been used worldwide to prove criminal acts, as well as exonerate innocent suspects.
Since 1983, millions of people have benefitted from the ability to profile our DNA. Our knowledge of genetic linkages has led to countless family members being reunited, even posthumously. Millions more have been able to learn about their ethnicities, histories, and heritages through ancestry tracking. Yet often, we still think of DNA profiling most closely linked to evidence in criminal proceedings.
In fact, many fibers are traceable through the forensic analysis as well. Analysts determine if the thread is natural, manufactured, or mixed. They can usually identify the product it came from–A rug? A sweater? This is again often used by law enforcement and prosecutors to seek justice for crimes. Fiber forensic analysis is usually debated in court due to the mass of products created.
The amount of production of a particular manufactured fiber and its end use, influence the degree of rarity of a given fiber. Unlike a fingerprint, there is no way to tell two fibers of the same origin apart. Fiber forensics can only be used as evidentiary support to corroborate other facts. Yet, why has this technology not expanded to track fibers for sustainability and ethics?
Molecular tagging of genes can identify and verify products creating a forensic proof of origin for more sustainable fashion.
What if we could trace fibers back to their origins? What if we could geographically pinpoint precisely where a thread was grown, what animals were involved, or what fertilisers were used? We could deduct which workers had a hand in the production or manufacturing process based on what specific area in the world our fibers were from. In a world of ever-growing technological advancements, this could be a logical next step in ensuring more sustainable supply chains.
Molecular Tagging to Reveal the Footprint
Image Credits: Adrien Ledoux
Applied DNA Sciences has come the closest to creating this process for identifying fibers called "molecular
tagging". They tag fibers by matching batches to origins already known. Once a supplier is tested and proven to be sustainable, SigNature(™)T technology can then continue to tag future batches.
Although this gene tagging method may not be able to track individual fibers from anywhere in the world yet, many sustainable fashion organizations have mapped out the production process for consumers. MADE-BY, a non-profit organization dedicated to the fashion industry's environmental and social conditions, has laid out a seed-to-shelf roadmap. MADE-BY works with sustainable brands to standardize the production process, highlight industry leaders, and mainstream sustainability advancements. Over 50 industry experts consulted on the typical methods, and six large fashion brands have now joined, including G-Star and Ted Baker.
Another of their worthy goals is to entice consumers to learn more about the manufacturing side of where their garments come from. This is an incredible endeavor on behalf of all the hard-working individuals who have created and advanced MADE-BY. However, the system still hinges on individuals throughout the production and manufacturing process to record a variety of their activities. It would be an incredible advancement if we could back up these activities with concrete evidence. The fiber testing system could back up these organization's endeavors by proving their process is safe, environmental, and sustainable. The movement to create transparent supply chains would suddenly be so much easier to for companies to subscribe to.
Insights into Your Closet
Imagine walking into your closet, picking a tiny thread from your favorite shirt, and learning exactly where in the world it came from. Maybe the test shows what dye was used and geographically defines where the color came from too. Perhaps it shows specifics of which animals contributed to the process, like silkworms, sheep, goats, etc. Maybe it shows you what types of fertilizers were used in the growth process of cotton fibers. Maybe it shows that the water used in the dying process is from an entirely different part of the world than what's found on the label.
This process could show us much more of our supply chains than we see today. Maybe we could know where all our products were originally grown or developed. The real question is, would we want to know? What if your favorite sustainable fashion brands are advertising their garments that were made in the last country the manufacturing took place in. All without accounting for the multiple countries that garment went through before reaching the final stage of the manufacturing process. If you could test the fibers at home, would you buy from this brand again? Suddenly, the power would be pushed back into the consumers' hands, to make accurate decisions based on evidence and not just on marketing or advertising.
Posted on July 18, 2017 May 23, 2019
Theories and Predictions
Theories on Culture
Every culture has differences, as shown in Human, a film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Each individual has their own needs, goals, and hardships. Proving we all have the ability to create, to preserve, and to evolve. However, vast economic inequality creates winners and losers. For the global South, the terms of the global market are not in the interests of preservation of humanity. Instead, as Emmanuel Wallerstein suggests, nations with lower gross domestic product are economically dependent on the top producing countries.
In many instances, Neocolonialism still holds a firm grasp on development efforts in poor countries. If we focused on localization and created trade networks through social media channels, societies could have the ability to focus on preserving their heritage through economic growth. There are various factors working against heritage preservation, but with the rise of the information age, one of the biggest factors is that heritage preservation efforts have almost no way of accumulating any capital. In terms of heritage arts, they simply cannot be produced without any demand.
Max Weber's Theories
Max Weber spent his life analyzing capitalism. As he grew out of the industrial revolution, he had witnessed the aristocracies of his time, as he watched them be replaced by the bosses of the new capitalist economic system. He believed the spirit of capitalism was a direct result of Protestantism and Calvinism. He viewed followers of these religions as bearing an immense amount of shame, assuming anxious positions to please the judging eye of a silent monolith. Weber's writings on the Protestant Work Ethic stated that Protestants value working hard as a way to please their god. This ideology translates into Protestants working continuously; earnest to prove their holiness.
Protestantism blend in Capitalism
Unlike Catholics, Protestants believed any profession could be holy. As long as it is done "in the name of God", and with a lot of hard work. Weber viewed these ideologies, along with the Protestant belief that there are no miracles. The perfect concoction for capitalism to take root. Through hard work, and the absence of miracles, people began to rely more heavily on science. This led to breakthroughs in technology, which furthered industrialization and the ability to make more products faster. In time, this process created consumerism in humans. As well as climate degradation on the Earth. One can see an obvious path back to Weber's analysis.
If Weber were alive today, he would undoubtedly argue against economic foreign aid. He would argue that economic capitalist intervention will never work in societies with traditionally different societal structures and religions. Could this be true? Research suggests societies without this inherent anxiousness, one may not adapt well to capitalism. In fact, societies dictated by any strict religious principles other than Protestantism, would probably not achieve capitalism with the same amount of economic "success". However, in order to view the U.S. version of capitalism as successful, one must disregard the countless lives lost to the industrialization of peripheral countries.
Modern Take on Capitalism
In Thomas Piketty's, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, he states, "Modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have made it possible to avoid the Marxist apocalypse but have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality—or in any case not as much as one might have imagined in the optimistic decades following World War II."
I agree with this point about the diffusion of knowledge. In fact, without the internet completely changing the landscape of the global market, one could theorize that the downfall of capitalism would have already happened. Yet it will be our adaptability, and willingness to evolve, that will save or destroy nations on the brink of change.
Currently, our society can easily relate to the research and predictions of Marx and Weber. Marx offered a fair prediction of consumerism and it's hold on society. Our proof he was right lies in the countless brawls of Black Friday sales, and the "fashion hauls" of white teenage girls on Youtube.com. However, the real question remains; how does this negatively effect our human qualities? Since it is proven that some people are so poor, all they have is money, is it too late to stop consuming?
"Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits."
-Edmund Burke
Preserving Heritage Arts in a Consumer Industry
Kiowa Girl, portrait by Edward S. Curtis
Identity and cultural heritage are two topics I have been intrigued to research. I've wondered, how can we continue preserving our heritage in an ever-changing world? Especially, when it comes to fast fashion. I realized how relevant identity is after reading the work of Karl Marx. Although, not all of his predictions have played out yet, some striking evidence of his theories proved true in the film True Cost. The film made me think of my own career goals in the fashion industry. I want to create a way to equip designers and artisans in the developing world to be able to innovate and collaborate with one another.
I aspire to build an online platform for a designer showroom. It could be my way of preserving international artisans by displaying their work. Work in this field is already being done. Organizations like Social Tailor, retailers like People Tree, and a myriad of social media activists already are doing their part.
Then I realized, if we continue down this path of constant work, Weber's Protestant Work Ethic, is aiding emerging designers in developing countries actually helping or hindering their society? Which internal faults has our society developed due to capitalism, consumerism, and the fetishism of commodities? What affects have consumerism had on our society? If Marx was right about the consumerism, how should social entrepreneurs respond?
I love researching heritage and the preservation of indigenous designs. Many of my career goals are fashion focused, which is why cultural heritage intrigues me. Thus, researching why and how to promote preservation ideals furthers a deeper understanding of my personal goals. Historically, clothing has been worn as a symbol of identity, which is why I chose to focus my research on historic costume.
Photographer in the West
In the early 1900s, photographer Edward S. Curtis created a commercial photography project highlighting the importance on Native American heritage rituals and costume. Curtis said, "The passing of every old man or woman means the passing of some tradition, some knowledge of sacred rites possessed by no other. Consequently the information that is to be gathered, for the benefit of future generations, respecting the mode of life of one of the great races of mankind, must be collected at once or the opportunity will be lost for all time."
Curtis was urged to capture on film the great life of Native Americans, because his research predicted their severe loss of heritage. His photographs served as a small way of preserving the Native American lifestyle. Efforts like this happen all over the world, but the driving factor in heritage preservation is the sense of loss. Humans want to remember their history because it gives them a sense of belonging. If we cannot remember our history, we risk repeating our mistakes.
Eco-Fashion Blogs
Top 5 Best Eco-Fashion Blogs of 2017
Recently, I read a post by Charlie Ross of the Offset Warehouse, focusing on eco-fashion and ethical fashion blogs. I noticed a few of my favorite fashion blogs in the list they had. Check out the following links to find ethical and sustainable fashion vibes!
Ecouterre: As the world's first ethical and sustainable fashion blog, my list couldn't be complete without them. If you're new to the game, and trying to learn how to embrace a slow fashion lifestyle, here's a good place to start. Ecouterre is chic, while it covers all the bases of conscious style.
Eco Warrior Princess: This neat a tidy blog is perfectly curated. It's aimed at readers want to make conscious purchases when they can, and who believe in choosing eco-friendly and sustainable lifestyles. Eco Warrior Princess provides resources for new ethical bloggers as well.
The Conscience Collective: This blog looks for the ethics in brands, as well as showcasing their uniqueness. They focus on innovative designers, and always publish new hacks for a conscious lifestyle.
The Fashion Hedge: If you're looking for strategy and brand development inspiration, this is your blog. Check out the Fashion Hedge to begin embracing an ethical lifestyle. As you change over your closet, kitchen, cleaning products, and everything else you realize can be more sustainable, this blog can serve as a guide.
Green Issues by Agy: I may have saved the best for last. If you're looking for a new project, and ready to get your hands dirty, this blog will inspire you to no end. Agy, a passionate textile artist, reminds us to come back down to Earth. Check out this blog for constant updates on upcycles. Making something new is so much better than buying something new!
Fashion + Function
Fashion Takes on a New Role
Fashion should have a functional twist. In China, some of the worst air pollution in the world is found surrounding cities. Chinese designers are realizing they must produce protective fashion to sustain their urban lifestyles. Beautiful new innovations of fashion with functionality are popping up every day. Fashion finally meets function, as if function is the new black. Climate change is affecting us all more and more. As our climate changes, we must protect ourselves with fashion.
Special Edition Masha Ma mask available on Yoox
Check out www.yoox.com for more fashion, art and design. Look for #consciousconsumerism at Yoox in their conscious collection page, here.
Learn more from @Liz_Flora here at Jing Daily!


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Forsythia spp. (Oleaceae)
Forsythias, with their elegant sprays of four-petalled, yellow flowers clustered along leafless, pimply branches are common sights in British gardens in early spring. Today, forsythias have become horticultural clichés but before the early twentieth century, they were rare shrubs, sought after by gardeners eager to impress their peers. The genus comprises nine species (all but one from east Asia), two (Forsythia suspensa and Forsythia viridissima) are frequently planted, along with their hybrid, Forsythia x intermedia.
Syringa suspensa was discovered in China by Carolus Linnaeus's pupil Carl Thunberg in the mid 1770s. In 1804, it was transferred to the genus Forsythia, which was named in honour of the Scottish botanist, royal gardener and founding member of the Horticultural Society of London, William Forsyth.
By the 1840s, Forsythia suspensa was growing in Britain but Forsythia viridissima proved a more popular nineteenth-century garden plant. Forsythia viridissima was discovered by the Scottish plant collector Robert Fortune in 1844 on his first botanical expedition to China. Fortune, sponsored by the Horticultural Society, became famous for filling British gardens with Chinese ornamentals. John Lindley, in 1846, formally described Fortune's discovery, and included quotes from Fortune's journal: 'it [Forsythia suspensa] is a great favourite with the Chinese, and is generally grown in all the gardens of the rich ... wild amongst the mountains of the interior in the province of Chekiang [Zhejiang] ... I thought it even more ornamental ... than when cultivated in the fairy gardens of the Mandarins'.
The hybrid Forsythia x intermedia was discovered by Hermann Zabel in 1878 among forsythia seedlings growing in the municipal gardens of Münden, Germany. During the twentieth century, this hybrid proved to be a horticultural success, and numerous popular cultivars, e.g., 'Arnold Giant' and 'Spectabilis', were selected from it.
Forsythias display heterostyly, a mechanism by which some plants prevent themselves being self-pollinated. Individuals in a population have male anthers at the ends of long filaments, and female stigmas on the ends of short styles. Other plants, in the same population, have short filaments and long styles. Consequently, long-styled plants can only be pollinated by short-styled plants and vice versa. Darwin described this phenomenon in forsythia, and even corrected Joseph Hooker, Director of Kew, who believed forsythias had separate male and female plants. Since most forsythias in gardens are cultivars propagated as clones, it is rare to find both flower types; short-styled forms are more common than long-styles forms.
de Wolf GP and Hebb RS 1971. The story of Forsythia. Arnoldia 31:41-63.


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Game of Thrones' Sophie Turner is the new face of Karen Millen
Last Updated on 27th August 2014
We showed you pics of the very gorgeous Kit Harington posing for Jimmy Choo a few months ago, but he isn't the only Game of Thrones star to land a big ad campaign.
Sophie Turner, aka Sansa Stark, is the face of Karen Millen's autumn/winter 2014 ad campaign… and if you ask us, she epitomises the brand as a whole
"When I was growing up, I always saw Karen Millen as a resource for women who were a bit older," the actress said. Since I started going into their stores more over the past few years, I've realized it's for people of all ages, and actually a really cool brand that I can believe in, so I jumped at the chance to be a part of their campaign when they approached me."
Wise choice, Sophie! She was shot by Glen Luchford and styled by Katy England, with cool East London landmarks such as Heron Tower and Spitalfield's Church as her glorious backdrop. She is also joined in the ad campaigns by Brit models Lara Mullen, Brogan Loftus and Rosie Tapner.
Excellent choice, Karen Millen!
Jeremy Scott's hot supermodel line-up for Moschino autumn/winter 2014 ads
First look: Game of Thrones' Kit Harington for Jimmy Choo
The six models who replaced Rihanna in the new Balmain ad campaign…
Cara Delevingne poses in a boxing ring for Chanel autumn/winter 2014 ad campaign
Kate Moss for Stella McCartney's dreamy autumn/winter 2014 ad campaign
Iggy Azalea designing a shoe collection with Steve Madden
Lunchtime Buy: Warehouse yellow duster coat


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Jack Vitek is the Journalism professor in the English department at Edgewood College. Vitek has worked at the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Daily News, Newsday, the Palm Beach Post and Outdoor Life magazine.  He is the advisor for Edgewood College's student newspaper, On the Edge, which recently had finalist reporters in two categories in the AP Collegiate Story of the Year contest.

He co-authored (with Jerry Oppenheimer) the 1986 biography Idol Rock Hudson: The True Story of an American Film Hero. The biography by Vitek and Oppenheimer generated controversy because it reported that Hudson continued to have unprotected sex with other men after he had been diagnosed with AIDS. Their version of his life story was supported by a lawsuit won by one of Hudson's lovers who was exposed to AIDS.

His latest work is The Godfather of Tabloid:  Generoso Pope Jr. and the National Enquirer, published August 1, 2008 by University Press of Kentucky.

External links
 Press Release about the student newspaper winning national recognition

American educators
Edgewood College people
Living people
American biographers
1950 births

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia