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Rasmus Fleischer | 1 Jul 18:39

The schizo-politics of The Pirate Bay, Inc.

?YOU FUCKING CORPORATE SELL OUT RATS!? Users of The Pirate Bay are raging.
About a thousand comments were posted at The Pirate Bay?s blog during the
first day after the news, probably 90-95 % expressing sadness or anger over
the supposed sell-out. Some mainstream commentators in Sweden, on the other
hand, greeted this as a step towards the abandonment of digital piracy.

We are used to imagine The Pirate Bay as a legendary entity fighting an epic
battle, on behalf of the millions of file-sharers. However, it is not
exactly a legendary entity that is being sold. It is something different. So
what is about to be sold?

?The Pirate Bay? is today, among other things:
    * A domain name
    * A web site
    * An ad selling business
    * A blog
    * The world?s largest bittorrent tracker
    * A clothing store
    * Three persons
    * A swarm
    * A symbol

?The Pirate Bay? must be defined as an assemblage. Any of the listed parts
would, on its own, be powerless. Only through its connections, the
assemblage becomes so powerful. However, all the parts are not needed all
the time. Two are enough to make up the practice of bittorrent file-sharing:
a swarm of file-sharers, and a tracker to connect them.
Many file-sharers are using The Pirate Bay?s tracker services without even
visiting the website. Other indexing websites, like Mininova, are using The
Pirate Bay?s tracker. Technically speaking, The Pirate Bay?s website has
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claudia bernardi | 2 Jul 13:29
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edu-factory [[[ News ]]] ..::Global Conflicts in the Universities::..

www.edu-factory.org
**

*
*

*Germany: strike of education *

"Campus-Camps" were set up on various campuses in about 15 cities the
Institute for Philosophical studies in Heidelberg was occupied + later that
day the Romanic Institute was occupied as well the main building of the Ruhr
- University in Bochum was blocked by activists all entries of buildings on
campus Grifflenberg of the University of Wuppertal were blocked by students
the complete Otto-Suhr Institute for political sciences [which is part of
the Free University Berlin] together with the Institute for Eastern European
studies were occupied in Berlin the institute for architecture of the
Technical University of Berlin sit-in (~ 30 people) blocking the entry of
the state chancellery [...]

On Wednesday, 17th June 260.000 kids, parents, students and researchers took
the streets of more than 70 Germany cities to protest at the educational
system, claiming for money, better conditions of labour, against the rise of
university tuition fees, and demanding quality of knowledge in a university
where now students "learn anything?. In Berlin, a huge demonstration of
30.000 persons started in Alexander Platz and arrived at Humboldt
University: place and symbol of the old model of the elite university has
been invaded by students and symbolically covered by toilet papers. [...]

*
*
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Dennis Deicke | 2 Jul 10:26

Review of Gerald Reischl "Die Google-Falle"

Google Unleashed - The new global power?

Review of Gerald Reischl Die Google Falle - Die unkontrollierte Weltmacht
im Internet. Ueberreuter, Wien: 2008.

By Dennis Deicke

In The Google Trap - The Uncontrolled Global Power In The Internet Gerald
Reischl describes the growing influence of Google due its monopoly in the
digital environment. He calls for the reader to question the objectives of
Google’s founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Reischl comes up with some
interesting facts and aspects that reveal the enormous power Google has
developed by providing many additional services that go far beyond the
original search engine functionality.

Initially, Gerald Reischl, technology editor of the Austrian newspaper
Kurier, starts by describing his experiences of when he visited the
Google’s head office, the Googleplex in Mountain View, California. Google
is conceived as an attractive and good employer. The company collects its
staff with buses having wireless LAN, even if they live 1 hour away.
Furthermore, the food for employees is free. They can have their clothes
washed and ironed at their workplace or go to the gym. People working at
Google can use 20% of the time they spend at work on their own projects.

Reischl points out that the perception of Google by both people and media
is very positive. But contradictory to Google‘s credo „Don‘t Be Evil,“ he
detects some aspects of Google and its position that should be taken into
consideration critically. First of all, he criticizes Google‘s information
policy, which he calls „weird.“ Uncomfortable questions are either left
unanswered by Google, or the company overrides people with critical
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onto | 2 Jul 15:49
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FOX News reviews "The Coming Insurrection"

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKyi2qNskJc
Story: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529784,00.html
Book:  http://tarnac9.wordpress.com/texts/the-coming-insurrection/

FOX NEWS: Extreme Left Calling People to Arms
by Glenn Beck

While the government warns that right-wing extremists could be domestic
terrorists, and The New York Times, says I could incite those crazy
conservatives to violence, the extreme left is actively calling for
violence!

As world economies go down the tank and unemployment continues to rise,
disenfranchised people are set to explode.

The dangerous leftist book that could spark this is “The Coming
Insurrection.” This is a call to arms for violent revolution, authored
anonymously by a French group called the Invisible Committee who want to
bring down capitalism.

This started in France and spread to countries like Greece and Iceland,
where people are out of work, out of money and out of patience.

Now it’s coming here. The book comes out in English in the U.S. in
August. I have one of the first English copies.

The book was written after riots in the Paris suburbs in 2005 tore the
country apart, and that was before the economy really got bad. This is
the anti-”Common Sense,” where I call for peaceful protest.
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t byfield | 2 Jul 18:14
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Re: The schizo-politics of The Pirate Bay, Inc.

rasmus@... (Wed 07/01/09 at 06:39 PM +0200):

> [...] When large parts of the world?s internet traffic depends on
> whether Fredrik is too drunk to fix a server error, a radical
> diversification is needed to maintaing the power of P2P file-sharing.
> Dissolving the centered subject, abandoning a trademark to multiply
> what it stands for. That's the implicit schizo-politics of The Pirate
> Bay's recent move.

O. Swartz, "Prosecution Baffled by Pirate Bay's Anarchic Structure,"
Threat Level (WiReD, 19 Feb 09):

     The prosecutor became visibly frustrated when he tried to get
     Neij to identify the kingpin who is ultimately responsible for
     Pirate Bay and the text and graphics on the site. Neij explained
     that an extended group of people have privileges on the server,
     and contribute haphazardly as they see fit.  The prosecutor
     seemed not to grasp the concept. "But someone must ultimately
     decide whether to put up a certain text or graphic," he
     protested. "No," Neij answered. "Why? If someone believes a new
     text is needed, he just inputs it. Or if a graphic is ugly,
     someone makes a better one. The one who wants to do something
     just does it." <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/02/neij/>

Pardon me, Rasmus, for getting all molar on your ass, but could you
address the question of subscriber privacy? TPB has all but 'implicitly'
been nominated to the Default Settings Hall of Fame, which means that
many, many klewless ewsers will be pointing their software at it for a 
long time to come. Now, granted, BT by its very nature hardly lends 
itself to privacy, so you get what you pay for -- but still... Depending
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nettime's_roving_reporter | 3 Jul 08:05

outdigesting the fox [x4: mazzetta (x3), jacobs]

Re: <nettime> FOX News reviews "The Coming Insurrection"

     mazzetta <goedel@...>
     mazzetta <goedel@...>
     Andreas Jacobs <ajaco@...>
     mazzetta <goedel@...>

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:36:53 +0200
From: mazzetta <goedel@...>
Subject: Re: <nettime> FOX News reviews "The Coming Insurrection"

that's typical with Fox' nuts

they scream about a potential "dangers" they invent dat by day and they 
end in promoting what they fear because of their incredible records of 
lies and their reputations as Faux News

great advertising for the book!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:39:59 +0200
From: mazzetta <goedel@...>
Subject: Re: <nettime> FOX News reviews "The Coming Insurrection"

onto ha scritto:
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Naeem Mohaiemen | 2 Jul 16:08
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Reply to Vijay Prashad's thoughts on Facebook/Twitter in Iran

I posted this on Vijay's wall on FB, but since that's a semi-closed
system, posting it here in hopes of generating some debate-- on either
side of the coin.

#################################3
Vijay Prashad wrote this op-ed "Made for Revolution: Iran and Us"

http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad07012009.html

I agree with most of the op-ed, except this sentence-->
"Our Facebook updates and Twitter squeals do not contribute to their debate."

My response to this specific sentence, which I also sent to Vijay-->

I disagree that Iranian twitterers, inside Iran and in the diaspora,
don't have an impact on the crisis. To suggest otherwise would be to
denigrate the achievement of twitterers like PersianKiwi, who sent
updates for two weeks, until being allegedly arrested by security
forces.

Yes, there's tremendous amount of chaff on Twitter, but there's also
precious data.

I stand by my original op-ed from June 17

"The Revolution Will Bypass Your Filters"
http://unheardvoice.net/blog/2009/06/17/iran-filters/

This crisis has been different precisely because of the critical mass
interlinking of social media. News, photos and video has leaked out in
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anton1 | 3 Jul 15:59
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Invitation to particiapte in MAKE KAPITALISM HISTORY

To all ARTISTS and ART THEORIESTS based in Germany and beyond that are
able to travel.

MAKE KAPITALISM HISTORY KONGRESS takes place from the 2-4 of October
in Berlin. The event will deal with the analysis and alternatives to
the system as well as: ecology, migration, feminism, education etc.
Mike Davis, Dietmar Dath, Mena Menon and others are taking part and
we are expecting more then 1000 visitors. At the moment we are working
at improving the gender balance at the congress.

We would like to invite everyone interested to send proposals for workshops,
lectures, performances, screenings or whatever else.

We are especially interested in thematising in a series of workshops
arts relationship to technology as well as representing approches to
new media and the politics representation.

For any questions or proposals please contact anton nikolotov at anton1@...

AN

http://www.make-capitalism-history.de/
www.counterrealism.wordpress.com
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Michael Reinsborough | 3 Jul 21:17
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G20: Campus Control / Academic Freedom / Chris Knight

http://www.chrisknight.co.uk/2009/06/03/my-suspension/ 

"On March 26, the Corporate Management Team at the University of East London suspended Chris Knight for
'gross professional misconduct'.  Among other things, his crime was to proceed with organizing the
Alternative G20 Summit despite his employers' decision to close down the entire campus at the last minute
(http://www.PetitionOnline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?openUEL   ).

Chris' disciplinary hearing is scheduled for Friday July 10th. Friends and comrades wishing to defend him
against possible dismissal will find more information here:
http://www.chrisknight.co.uk/2009/06/03/my-suspension/    .

Please add your name together with any comment you may have to this petition:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/knight09/petition.html 

 ( http://www.chrisknight.co.uk :  I particularly like the irrelavant pictures section on the website
demonstrating what tenured professors get up to when they are not at the front of your classroom saying
very important things)
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Doug Henwood | 3 Jul 22:16
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new radio product

"Best Music on an Economics & Politics Radio Show"
Village Voice Best of NYC 2005

podcast:
<http://shout.lbo-talk.org/lbo/radio-feed.php>
iTunes:
<http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=73801817 
 >
or
<http://tinyurl.com/3bsaqb>

opening commentaries now at:
<http://doughenwood.wordpress.com/>

Facebook group:
<http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=53240558375>.

--------------------------------------------------

Just posted to my radio archive
<http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html>:

July 2, 2009 Leo Panitch, author of this cover story inForeign Policy,  
on why the bourgeoisie is interested in Marx (and, of course, why they  
should be) * Jackson Lears, author of Rebirth of a Nation: The Making  
of Modern America, 1877-1920, on American regeneration (mainly through  
violence) after the Civil War

it joins:
--------
(Continue reading)

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Gmane