Facebook Ban: Dutch Political Party Scrambles to get House in Order #groenlinks #facebook

As you may know I was banned from Facebook for a having a political poster as my profile page to protest against a Dutch political issue. I’m nothing like the New Yorker who is suing Facebook to get his account back, although a piece in Time magazine might be useful. 🙂

Due to the fact that this poster comes from the FB images of the Dutch political party GroenLinks they are now wondering what they are going to do, as @HuubBellemakers – who is partly responsible for the GroenLinks (election)campaigns, content strategy, online communities and social media policy – says:

mm, I need to take action because prudish Americans can’t appreciate the best election poster ever. #grmbl

For Huub I’ll add my Godwinism here: A nation that yields to tyrants’ might, losses more than life and property, they lose the light. (Een volk dat voor tirannen zwicht, zal meer dan lijf en goed verliezen, dan dooft het licht.)

I’m glad I can still use Twitter for Political Activism.

Image source: Dutch Pacifist Socialist Party – GroenLinks

Dutch Internet Pacifism Meme gets me a Facebook Block #freedom #groenlinks

I usually don’t use this blog as a political forum, and as of changing my FaceBook profile picture to a campaign poster of the Dutch Pacifist Socialist Party, (seen left) now known as GroenLinks I was banned from Facebook. This is an Internet meme started after the decision by the Dutch political party GroenLinks neglecting their pacifist roots and opting to side with a right government and send soldiers and police to Afganistan.

What’s funny is that I didn’t even upload the picture, I just tagged it and set it as my profile picture. I warned fellow party members, and they will mostly likely not take down their protest against the Dutch political party.

I wonder if Amnesty International will take up my plight, like they took up the plight of the app developers who get banned from the Apple app store.

Image source: Dutch Pacifist Socialist Party

TIME’s poor “Person of the Year” poll #web2.0 @time

I’ve been voting in “Who Will Be TIME’s 2010 Person of the Year?” The way it’s set up I need to remember that I gave certain people certain points; Mark Zuckerberg 78; Hamid Karzai – 15; Julian Assange – 90; Glenn Beck – 77; etc. Wouldn’t it be better to rate them in order?

It’s quite simple really: drag and drop the names and/or images or names of the candidates in the order of the ranking and based on that TIME can actually rank all the people correctly. When you believe Karzai is more influential than Jobs, put him first; less influential than Assange put him after. It’s really not much harder than that.

Please enter this century TIME, it’s not so scary here.

Tightening your Security Budget #security

I was reading 6 Tips For Doing More Security With Less and was happily surprised by the following points:

1. Get out of the deployment business.
3. Get more out of your existing security tools and systems

1. Get out of the deployment business.
IT security should definitely be involved in selecting data protection tools, but shouldn’t be dealing with provisioning tools that require heavy customization, Forrester’s Jaquith says. That can drain already-limited resources.

Many companies want provisioning tools with which they can specifically add users and specific edit fields, they want a helpdesk to perform this task so they can have cheap labour without compromising security. This is a short term thinking by Forrester, in my opinion.

3. Get more out of your existing security tools and systems
[…]
Consider reorienting the more labor-intensive tools, such as those for data leakage prevention (DLP), he says. Forrester recommends using DLP products mainly for monitoring activity rather than for blocking the leakage of data. And enlist the help of your business units to get the big picture on where data is flowing in the organization. “If you are looking at DLP to stop a data leak, you’re probably a little too late. You need to understand how users are using the information they have, what they are downloading, [etc.],” he says.

Absolutely, if you are using DLP to prevent data leakage you are doing it wrong. Implementing controls to monitor data leakage and informing your employees is far more effective and less intensive on the budget. The recently passed Nokia Law to allow email snooping may look evil on the surface, but this is also part of DLP. Personally I am against the tactics used by Nokia, but they have a valid reason to monitor their network traffic for data leakage, corporate espionage.

Technorati Tags: nokia, law, data, leakage, prevention, provisioning, security, business

Barack Obama’s LinkedIn account to be restricted #linkedin

I’m a great fan of LinkedIn, although it still has some issues. The 2008 report on Social Network Downtime from pingdom states:

“LinkedIn’s downtime has been increasing over the year. Each quarter has seen a larger amount of downtime than the one before it. 63% of its downtime took place during the second half of 2008.“

“LinkedIn seems to be on a trend toward increasing amounts of downtime, […] and even clearer in the quarterly breakdown. 63% of its downtime took place during the second half of 2008.“

Don’t forget to vote! (Election Day)

Today is election day, it’s your duty to vote. Or if you are not an American to convince an American to vote. It doesn’t matter who you vote for – *cough* – as long as you vote for somebody.

technorati tags: election, politics

Making a knife in an Airport? #schneier

“The whole system is designed to catch stupid terrorists,” Schnei­er told me. A smart terrorist, he says, won’t try to bring a knife aboard a plane, as I had been doing; he’ll make his own, in the airplane bathroom. Schnei­er told me the recipe: “Get some steel epoxy glue at a hardware store. It comes in two tubes, one with steel dust and then a hardener. You make the mold by folding a piece of cardboard in two, and then you mix the two tubes together. You can use a metal spoon for the handle. It hardens in 15 minutes.”

By way of Bruce Schneier, The Things He Carried

technorati tags: risk, security, schneier

Mahatma Gandhi’s Birthday

Today is Mahatma Gandhi‘s birthday. He was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement.

technorati tags: politics, gandhi

Michael Moore in Slacker Uprising #movie #p2008

I just finished watching Slacker Uprising by Michael Moore. I can’t say I really liked it, it’s as always a propaganda film. It is an interesting view on how the election of 2004 was lost, and features some big names, it just didn’t touch me. US politics had gone to hell in a handbasket in 2004.

Tom Morello said it right, when he said that the fight starts on the day after the election. The problems don’t end, just because a president has been chosen.

Vote!

technorati tags: p2008, p2004, michaelmoore, moore, slackeruprising, movie, film, propaganda

Politics is Fun #politics

I get lots of mail, as I’ve said many times before, now I get lots of nice political mail too. I don’t know if I had said I’m not a Obama supporter, I’m not a McCain supporter. According to the tests I took I would actually be a Nader supporter. Luckily I can’t vote in the US elections.
I got an fun mail from MoveOn.org:

Did you watch Sarah Palin’s speech last night? The speech told us a lot about her.
It told us that she can distort the facts and deliver mean-spirited zingers with the best of them. It told us that if Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter ever need a stand-in, she’d be a great pick.

I love all these attacks, it’s what makes the US election the biggest show on earth.
Technorati Tags: palin, moveon, elections, p2008, p2008-mccain, p2008-obama