As Facebook eclipses Google as the web’s most visited website we are seeing a change in Internet trends once again. No longer will people be searching for news, but rather it will be passed to them based upon their social network. The web’s vast tags and catalogs were once used to enhance search engine use, but soon these will be replaced by tags from your social network. At least, this is the idea of Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook.

At the F8 developer conference, Zuckerberg has been hyping the advantages of designing the web for use with your friends and social network — essentially looking at making Facebook the portal for the rest of the web. The idea is to personalize th web with ‘Like’ buttons that would cover all content on a web page from pictures, video, and text. The web could then cater to an individual based upon what their friend’s liked, essentially improving everyone’s Internet experience.

The Internet has always moved toward making itself more user friendly, but this catering would make your social activity on the web just as important to the acquisition of information as your actual ability to search through non-manipulated search results.This has its advantages on the surface, but a major downside when exploring a bit deeper.

Many have said that the major problem with the Internet is its move toward independent social groups and the shrinking niche market of sub-cultures. Always hearing a single side’s news makes it impossible to understand your dissenting neighbor and therefore intolerant of their ideals. Many say this could eventually cause a greater upset or even violence due to a lack of tolerance and understanding.

The other disadvantage comes with the amount of data Facebook can then accumulate and sell on its users. Privacy concerns are always present on this blog so there is no need to reiterate the obvious, but there is no limit to what can be breached with mounds of personal preference data. If users can be tracked down with ‘anonymized’ Google searches then preference data could easily pinpoint a users political standing or be utilized to falsely accuse someone of certain leanings because of their daily reads.

Lastly is the obvious battle this builds between Google and Facebook. If Facebook really wants to be the portal to the web then a more social Internet would create an advantage for them. There is no way that Google could jump into the social network game now. Facebook has over four-hundred million users with seventy percent of those residing outside the United States — Google couldn’t hope to compete with a social network that is already that huge. We could see a major shift in the evolution of the Internet and how it is used.

A lot of people fear government takeover and censorship of the Internet. In reality we won’t need their help since we are going to censor it ourselves and dump all of our trust into a single, centralized entity in the end.

Several governments, including Britain and the United States, have tried to shut down the site after it has published classified information in the past. The problem, or solution as some of us would say, has always been that once the information is released on the Internet it is immediately spread over the breadth of the web. Previously they have published “toxic dumping in Africa, protocols from Guantánamo Bay,” and sensitive documents from Swiss banks — just to name a few.

On Monday, WikiLeaks released the video (Collateral Murder) a United States Army helicopter circling and firing on unarmed civilians in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad. Two of the twelve killed in the attacks were employees of Reuters.

While Reuters has been attempting to gain access to the footage for the last several years using the Freedom of Information Act, WikiLeaks was able to get the original encrypted file and decrypt it over the last several months. This is where the story gets a little odd since as Bruce Schneier, security expert and blogger, points out: “Surely this isn’t NSA-level encryption. But what is it?”

All ethical, moral, and social commentary aside this easy decryption of a secure video should say something about our nation’s security. Early on this blog, links were posted to $30 Russian software that allowed you to decrypt and monitor the military’s Predator drones. Later it was also found that the monitoring software was not only being used by militants, but was also enabling them to monitor most manned planes. The Air Force uses less encryption on their data streams than a DVD. Makes you feel safe with the government having mounds of your personal data as well, right?

Although further information on the video has not surfaced, many are beginning to believe that it was encrypted similarly to the NATO document taken from the Pentagon Central Command website last February that used “progress” as the password. In this case, the video could have been encrypted using some utility that then placed a simple password on the file. Using a dictionary attack and a little time the security would have quickly crumbled.

There is an odd reversal of how things should actually be here. The devices we use daily with our legally purchased media use stronger encryption algorithms than the ones used by machines that are used to kill, machines that are intended to protect the security of a nation, and machines that are supposed to keep men alive.

To define this reading experience we have to first look at books where the medium is part of the pleasure and books where the medium is pointless. Craig Mod, an ex-book designer, recently published a post on his site titled “Books in the Age of the iPad” and talks about the future of book production. For a long time we have been creating throwaway, disposable books — books “printed without consideration of form or sustainability or longevity.” This form factor is one that Mod argues can be replaced with digital readers without consequence since with the disappearance of the physicality of the book also comes the removal of the distribution and publishing systems that are such a toll on natural resources and the environment. These books are what he calls Formless Content.

When it comes to the other end of the spectrum Mod says that the book that generates an experience for the reader is Definite Content, something thought out and generated expressly for furthering the interpretation of the content. If you examine the traditional book there is a two-page spread. Factors such as font, page layout, and any other defining characteristics can affect the speed at which you reader or the way the book is digested. This canvas is the one we have grown used to and it seems to work well for dispersing information to a human reader.

Up until now the digital medium has tried new form factors where text was mutilated, compressed, or otherwise uncomfortable to digest. Then came e-Ink technology and the digital readers that presented text in a form a little bit closer to our comfortable two-page spread, but still unable to cater to this Definite Content defined earlier. Now comes the iPad and all the tablets that will follow, devices that Mod argues change the experience formula entirely. These tablets provide a canvas large enough to display Definite Content and are versatile enough that layouts can be arranged to emulate if not replace traditional reading experiences.

As a designer, Mod brings up the possibility of tablet devices to revolutionize content consumption if we can break out two-page habit. A digital device allows us the break the physical boundaries of the object and reach past them with infinite content planes or large-scale documents that can be sifted through just like paper on the screen. The digital device lowers the cost of modifying the content to reader relationship or as Mod puts it the “modes of conversation” that have been the norm in books for so long. Fluid planes with infinite content and pages arranged in a way that shakes the readers interaction with the book changes and upsets many interpretive modes and reader comforts. These digital devices give content producers a whole new set of tools.

Like any good bibliophile though, Mod doesn’t forget the physical print book and instead calls for people to embrace the physical limitations of traditional publishing methods and to make books then that are built to last, generate the nostalgia that will sell them, and remind people of the book as a sculpture and not just as formless content.

With devices that can emulate and expand upon our habitual and comfortable reading habits while at the same time producing an augmented experience there should be no reason for even the classical reader to feel disdain for the digital medium. Instead of lamenting the death of an outdated medium we should instead embrace the prospect of a new content canvas that can be manipulated into something more expressive than any medium of distribution used before. We are on the cusp of discovering new ways to tell and converse with stories.

As a sum-up the treaty is being debated separate from any established international organization and includes the following nations (thus far): Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States of America. Proposals involve third-party liability (such as ISPs as evil data Tortugas for data pirates, yarrr), obligations of countries to conform to civil and criminal penalties outlined by ACTA (renegotiating the WIPO Internet treaties and pushing further), and a three-strike system that requires data providers to disconnect you permanently from the Internet after three breaches of the ACTA.

Many critics, me among them, claim that the biggest problem with ACTA is that in establishing these global provisions we are creating a global culture of suspicion and spying. The private nature of the negotiations is bad enough, but the broad scope of the documents, if agreed upon, would establish a worldwide necessity of data monitoring — often without a warrant. Studies also show that 95% of iPod owners have at least one copied song that ACTA would make illegal. ACTA essentially turns the entire consumer base into criminals.

The number of domestic laws that would be overturned by ACTA are also staggering. An entirely new legal framework would be established through the treaty and one that essentially allowed the monitoring of IP traffic by governments. The way this works is that by making ISPs responsible for the content passing through their networks puts them in a position to come under fire. They then have to prove that they took action to stop the illegal traffic by making their records transparent to the authorities — essentially circumvention of privacy laws.

As talks continue, many U.S. Senators have started to speak out against ACTA and the need for the treaty negotiations to be transparent. Even though the U.S. set the provision for secrecy to begin with there is no reason that we couldn’t change our minds now. If you’re more curious about ACTA there are links to Michael Geist‘s excellent ACTA Guide below along with a link listing representatives, both in the EU and US, that are seeking transparency or a stop to the ACTA agreement.

ACTA Internet Guide:

Part 1: Talks to Date

Part 2: Official & Leaked Documents

Part 3: Transparency & Secrecy

Part 4: Domestic Law Changes

Part 5: Speaking Out

More Reading? Try Cory Doctorow’s article over at Internet Evolution. It’s a great write-up of everything so far.

The latest uproar came when the censorship board was found to be increasingly banning pornography with women have an A-cup breast size because small breasts, they say, encourage pedophilia. This brought a steaming reaction across the Internet as it alienated a majority of women, handed out a government-catered sexual aesthetic preference, and essentially made assumptive cultural attacks on small-breasted women. While many supporters of government filtering have been quick to point out: the censorship board isn’t banning all small-breasted women. Are we supposed to be more comfortable with the fact that they are picking on just select groups then? Certain ethnic minorities that are profiting in the porn industry perhaps?

Many ignore the story all-together since it is just porn after all, but the important thing to notice is that in the problem of pedophilia and the Internet we continue to punish the wrong people. No amount of censorship will keep pedophiles away from what they crave. Punishing someone for the size of their breasts, saying that they encourage pedophilia, and then zapping some of their revenue in the process is not the way to catch or even stop pedophiles. Pedophilia starts and can be stopped off of the Internet.

Moving on to the next issue and for some reason much-ignored portion of the press release is the fact that the censor board is banning depictions of female ejaculation during orgasm. Ignoring female sexuality entirely the board is banning these depictions under the grounds that female ejaculation is abhorrent. A quick biology lesson tells us that female ejaculation is entirely natural, happens every time, and while typically only small and adding to typical vaginal lubrication can in certain situations come out in quantity and under great pressure much like the often-heralded male ejaculation or ba-dum-ching cumshot.

Many tracing the trending effects of the Australian censorship board have said that the panel’s mandates have already had massive changes on media this year. Their breast-size rulings have caused the magazines to take a plunge toward large breasted models to avoid hassle. What then will a banning of female ejaculation bring about? The very idea that a natural biological process or that someone’s natural size and shape are considered abhorrent means that the government can mandate proper size and protocol in sexual aesthetics and interaction.

People are quick to jump on the avoidance bandwagon and say that it’s just porn. The fact is that pornography has existed since cavemen figured out how to draw dicks on walls. Pornography, though in the background of society, depicts and defines a generations sexual tastes and preferences. Pornography is often how people come to discover how sexuality should be played out. Whether in written, visual, or spoken form it has a large influence on a generation’s sexual development. Where did your first “pornographic” experience come from? Where were your ideas of sexuality first formed?

As censorship boards increasingly become the norm across the Internet of the free world and not just under oppressive regimes we have to remember that censorship of aesthetics or biology is nothing more than discrimination and can only lead to discriminatory cultural trends. Censors have a vast influence on the shape of the next generation. Just think of children that have grown up with the Internet versus their elders — the difference is vast. Now think of a child who’s grown up under a government that has always discriminated against a certain political, religious, or colored group versus their elders. Censorship destroys the progress and freedoms that all men and women have fought for with a single, conservative, fear-backed blow.

We could take the time to outline the reasons why the iPad sucks, but instead here’s a link to an article from Gizmodo: 8 Things That Suck About the iPad. As you’ll see the iPad lacks Flash support (YouTube, etc), multi-tasking abilities (the main reason the iPhone OS is trash), a webcam, and a closed App store. Never fear though since some real tech companies are releasing tablets of their own running open platforms and usable interfaces. This probably won’t stop anyone from buying the Apple iPad however; as unfortunate as that is.

Apple has built a near-religious following within its tight user base. Where PCs have always failed to build brand loyalty, Apple has succeeded in keeping people coming back again and again for its sub-par products. Many are predicting that the iPad will be the Kindle killer or the eReader/tablet combination of the future. This young and hip with an expendable income user base will undoubtedly latch onto this new product because of brand loyalty and not because of usability, power, or even logic.

Par example: the new eInk technology is capable of staying charged for days worth of reading while the iPad will last a maximum of 10 hours, not even enough time to get through your entire day if you’re continually using it. As Steve Jobs put it: “You’re not going to read for 10 hours.” However since most of the Internet (and computer interaction for that matter) involves reading you won’t be surfing the Internet for 10 hours either, or going through your E-mail for 10 hours, or really doing anything for 10 hours — because your battery will be toast.

While the device’s shortcomings abound there is still a dedicated fan base calling this a revolutionary device. Since thousands of young people already have their lives tied to Apple, with the iPod, iPhone, and MacBooks being as ubiquitous as IBM once was, the logical step will be for many of these people to pick up the iPad to compliment their collection — not because it is more useful, but because they all work together.

Before you put your money into an iPad take a look at what’s around. No LCD screen can compare with an eInk display when it comes to reading. In the end you’re going to want two devices or a massive bottle of Tylenol to clear your LED back-light headache. From one Apple-ex to dozens of fans: don’t let the marketing hype con you away from buying something functional. A Google device might be just as bad, but at least it comes with an open application store and usable hardware. Support technology that works and encourage progress.

The topic has come up on several occasions that people are willing to admit more to a search engine box than they would their best friend or spouse. Why then are we comfortable with this data be logged and tagged with our identity? Do you really want Google to know that you followed that penis enlargement spam link? No, of course not. Especially knowing that post-Patriot US law still allows the government to purchase your data without a warrant.

GoogleSharing is a new anonymizing proxy service that works exclusively through Google. It’s a Firefox plug-in that redirects Google-bound traffic. The plug-in’s source code was also released so it could be poured over for weaknesses and exploits — everything was found to be solid so far. All traffic is encrypted using HTTPS as well so you don’t have to worry about your data being logged by GoogleSharing itself.

Keep in mind that if you choose to don this tin foil hat plug-in you should keep in mind that it only works with services that you don’t have to login for. If you are checking your Gmail, Docs, Reader, or other applications that you have to physically login to then GoogleSharing forwards the request directly to Google since you are identifying yourself with a login.

Typically the Kindle marketed eBooks show the author around 35% of the $9.99 or so that the eBook costs. The rest of that percentile goes directly to Amazon. With the new DTP option for authors the percentages would be literally swapped with 70% for the author and 30% going back to the site.

The new DTP option will require that distribution costs be paid for by the publisher (typically $0.15 in data transfer charges), the books must be priced 20% below their print counterparts, and the books must support the Kindle’s humorously-termed “broad set” of features (like text-to-speech). As with many Kindle experiments, this option will only be available for books that are in-copyright and sold in the United States.

As other eBook stores begin to align themselves as competitors with Amazon, the company has no-doubt been scrambling to come up with a way to maintain its customer base. With the popularity of eReaders at CES this year, and eBook sales surpassing print sales this Christmas, we are undoubtedly entering the year of the electronic reader. Stores that offer more open formats, such as Scribd and Powells,  have been gaining in popularity along with eReaders that support these open document formats — such as the Sony or Aztek readers.

Amazon has made an excellent move in targeting the writers since the readers have to join up where the content is distributed. The writing market is in a serious downturn and a professional author will have to go where the royalties are: Amazon.

Of course the problem with this is that a company is going to corner a market into using its standards. This can only spell a lack of progress in the still-developing eBook industry. An open standard is necessary to bring reading and publishing to the next level. The eReader still has a lot of untapped potential — interactive books being just a possibility, something impossible with paper.

Hopefully authors can see the benefit of offering their books on other services and in formats other than Amazon’s DTP option and that other electronic publishers will make the move toward offering competitive royalty rates with Amazon. If 70% was the norm the content industry might actually be able to save itself before everyone realizes that technology has given writers the ability to publish without a publisher.