Jeff Bridges to Return for Tron: Ares
51 minutes ago
Tuesday 27 April 2010
The Black Dog - Remixes and Remixed (DJ Set)
‘Woefully Underconceptualised’: Rick McGrath on J.G. Ballard’s Cover Art
'Venus Smiles’: one of five Ballardian ‘ads’ published in Ambit magazine (designer: J.G. Ballard; Ambit, #46, Winter 1970/71)
LEFT: A Mike Foreman illustration for Doubleday’s edition of The Atrocity Exhibition (Doubleday, NY, 1970)
RIGHT: A Phoebe Gloeckner illustration for the RE/Search reprint (RE/Search, San Francisco, 1990)
Kate's Party gatecrashed by 60,000 Facebook users
A screen grab from the original Kate's Party Facebook event.
Notorious party boy Corey Worthington appeared to have met his match after more than 60,000 Facebook users invited themselves to fellow Australian Kate Miller's birthday party.
But the joke may in fact be on the gatecrashers as the entire meme - and Miller herself - has now been revealed to be the brainchild of Adelaide-based serial online prankster David Thorne.
The web kicked into gear after learning of the Facebook event "Kate's Birthday Party", which was billed as a small gathering of friends in an apartment but, crucially, the event was not closed, so anyone could invite new attendees.
David Thorne.
The Facebook page for the May 1 event was created on Saturday and garnered 5000 attendees in 10 minutes, growing to 60,000 overnight. By the time the group was shut down by Facebook there were a further 180,000 people who had been invited but not yet confirmed.
Over 500 related Facebook groups sprung up around the party, such as "Who needs a ride to Kate's party", "Which turban should I wear to Kate's", "I hope there's more than one toilet in kate's apartment", "I have enough cheese & crackers for 8 ppl, do you think that's enough for Kates", "Flight QF785 to Kates Party", "Kate's afterparty" and "It's actually a surprise party don't tell kate!!".
The description for the original event was quickly altered as its popularity grew: "WTF?????????? WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE? WHY ARE THERE 10000 PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN INVITED?????? THIS IS A PRIVATE PARTY AT OUR APARTMENT."
There's now an entire website, KatesParty.com, and a Twitter feed, with people sending in "fanpics" of themselves holding up posters saying "I'm Going to Kate's Party".
The original event page has now been removed from Facebook but several unofficial Kate's Party events are being planned in Australian capital cities for Saturday.
Of course, as with any popular internet meme, there's also a t-shirt on sale emblazoned with the fake photo of Kate used on the Facebook event and the words "I went to Kates Party".
Thorne, who runs the highly popular prankster site 27bslash6.com, came clean when contacted by this website today, saying he constructed the Facebook event as "a bit of pointless fun" to entertain people over the weekend.
Word of the fake party first began to spread virally after Thorne published a link to the event on his Twitter page. "Yay. Kate's having a party in her small apartment. Hit attending & give the host an aneurysm," Thorne's tweet read.
"It took me five minutes to set it up so it would entertain a few people over the weekend," said Thorne.
"I didn't expect there to be 500+ Facebook groups about it and there's also a website called katesparty.com, and they've organised a nationwide party starting at 6pm [on Saturday] in every state."
Thorne said he was impressed with how quickly Facebook acted to shut the event down.
"Usually when stuff goes awry on Facebook it takes them several days to do anything about it, so I think it shows that they're stepping up to the plate," he said.
Thorne's hilarious pranks have entertained internet users for years and he has recently collated the best of them in a new book, The Internet is a Playground.
While the entire birthday party event was a hoax, it illustrates the risks posed by failing to double-check privacy settings on Facebook. Many have found out the hard way by winding up on failbook.com.
Julian Cole, digital strategist at The Conscience Organisation, said the Kates Party meme illustrated how users were becoming more adept at using the platform and creating viral web hits.
Cole himself believed the event was a real party until he was informed it was a prank by this website.
"[But] for users who don't have such a great understanding of the platform they can sometimes fall into these traps where this could happen ... it's very Corey Worthington-esque - I'm sure that this happens a lot," said Cole.
Asher Moses @'The Age'
See you at Fed Square Mayday 6PM
(Thanx Leisa!)
(Thanx Leisa!)
Facebook privacy hole 'lets you see where strangers plan to go'
Facebook: released new Graph API last Friday. Photograph: Linda Nylind
Facebook's new system for connecting together the web seems to have a serious privacy hole, a web developer has discovered.
Some people report that they are able to see the public "events" that Facebook users have said they will attend – even if they person is not a "friend" on the social network.
The discovery was made by Ka-Ping Yee, a software engineer for the charitable arm of Google, who was trying out the search query system known as the "Graph API" released by Facebook last Friday. In some cases – though not all – it will let you see the public events that people have said they will attend, or have attended.
Yee demonstrated the flaw by showing how the API – which plugs directly into Facebook's databases – can show you a list of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's planned public events.
Yee says that he was very disturbed by the discovery – because there seemed to be no way to prevent the events from appearing on the API, which is publicly accessible, except by saying you were "not attending" an event.
"It seemed that anyone could get this list. Today, I spent a while checking to make sure I wasn't crazy," he wrote on his blog. "I didn't opt in for this. I even tried setting all my privacy settings for maximum privacy. But Facebook is still exposing the list of events I've attended, and maybe your event."
The discovery will intensify the debate over Facebook's new system – which has drawn complaints that it makes it far too difficult to keep personal information private.
The implications of being able to find out the movements of any of the 400m people on Facebook are potentially wide-ranging – although the flaw does not seem to apply to every user, or every event. Yee says that the simplest way to prevent your name appearing in such lists is to put "not attending" against any event you are invited to.
"This kind of event list is not even accessible to your friends on Facebook," noted Yee. "As far as I can tell, there is no way to turn this off with your own privacy settings."
The problem mirrors that which Google ran into when it created its new Buzz systems, which aimed to create a Twitter-like social network – but annoyed people because it assumed that anyone with whom you had exchanged email would want to be part of your network. But the example of a wife who wanted to stay away from her abusive husband – but with whom she had once swapped an email – showed that Buzz had a flawed approach to privacy.
Similarly the Facebook API system may turn out to be crucially flawed. "What can your event list say about you? Quite a bit," wrote Yee. "It might reveal your home address, your friends' home addresses, the names and groups of people you associate with, your hobbies, or your political or religious activities, for example. "
However some people who have tried Yee's method of accessing the site were not able to repeat widespread invasion of privacy – though Zuckerberg's calendar was discoverable by everyone. The accessibility seemed to be semi-random: despite Yee's best efforts, a list of events still shows up for him.
Although the system only reveals data about "open" events – which by definition are public already – the new system changes the game radically. "There's a big difference between publishing an event page with a list of people attending, and publishing a list of events that you attended. Before last Wednesday, to find out which events you attended, I'd have to visit every single event page on Facebook and look for your name among the people attending. Now, I can just ask the API what you've been doing, and it will tell me. This kind of event list is not even accessible to your friends on the Facebook website; I haven't found any page at http://facebook.com/ that lets me list a friend's events. The API provides this list to anyone, so this is newly exposed information."
Charles Arthur @'The Guardian'
DJ Premier talks about his last meeting with Guru
With questions still remaining over details surrounding the death and final wishes of late rapper Guru last week, his former GangStarr parter DJ Premier has been discussing the final time he saw him.
As previously reported, immediately after Guru's death last Monday, his most recent producer Solar issued a statement and a letter purporting to be the rapper's final wishes, which included the desire for Solar to bring up his son KC and run his charitable organisation, and a particularly vitriolic rant against DJ Premier. However, the rapper's family say that they were not aware of any such charity being in operation, and claim that Guru had been in a coma since suffering a heart attack in February, so could not have written, or even dictated, the letter. Nor could he have issued the statement released via Solar in March assuring fans that he was recovering well.
Speaking on his Sirius Hip Hop Nation radio show, Premier recalled visiting his former collaborator in hospital once the rapper had slipped into a coma earlier this year. He recalled: "When I saw Guru it really fucked me up. I wore a GangStarr shirt first of all; just for the energy and so he knew that that's forever with us. And that includes everyone that came before me; I know every one of them... It was so ill [because] of what I was hearing of him waking up, writing, and tweeting and all that stuff. There was no way. He looked so gone".
He added that the rapper looked extremely dishevelled and, although you'd think that would be the responsibility of hospital staff, questioned how much care Solar had actually be providing: "If you love him, and you're taking care of him, why the fuck did his nails look longer than a fucking ruler? [And] a clump Afro? I've taken care of people in the hospital [before]. You can wash their hair and clean their nails off. His feet were swollen and his toenails were really disgusting... I took the logo on my shirt and rubbed it against his whole body and told him a message from me about how much I loved him, and that we were for live and still were for life. Then I kissed him on his face and let him know that I was going to miss him because it seemed like he was already gone"
Don't forget to grab DJ Premier's wonderful Guru mix
Blair Peach - Not Forgotten
Although investigators believed police killed Peach, they said there was "insufficient evidence" to bring charges over his death. via web
SPG officers lied to seniors during Blair Peach inquiry. The Met wanted them prosecuted for perverting the course of justice. None were.
Blair Peach report says he was “almost certainly” killed by a Special Patrol Group officer from carrier U.11.
Blair Peach report: “it can reasonably be concluded that a police officer struck the fatal blow”.
SPG officers lied to seniors during Blair Peach inquiry. The Met wanted them prosecuted for perverting the course of justice. None were.
Blair Peach report says he was “almost certainly” killed by a Special Patrol Group officer from carrier U.11.
Blair Peach report: “it can reasonably be concluded that a police officer struck the fatal blow”.
New Zealand-born Blair Peach died after a blow to the head during a demonstration in Southall, London, against the National Front in April 1979. Photograph: Public Domain
The anti-fascist protester Blair Peach was almost certainly killed by police at a demonstration in 1979, according to a secret report released today.
Documents published on the Metropolitan police's website shed new light on the death of Peach, a 33-year-old teacher from New Zealand, whose death marked one of the most controversial events in modern policing history.
A campaigner against the far right, Peach died from a blow to the head during a demonstration against the National Front in Southall, west London.
A crucial report into the death, which Peach's family have campaigned to see for more than 30 years, was finally released today. It said it could "reasonably be concluded that a police officer struck the fatal blow". A police van carrying six officers was identified as having been at the scene when the fatal blow was struck.
The 130-page report was produced by Commander John Cass, who ran the Met's internal complaints bureau and led the investigation into Peach's death. It reveals:
• Peach was almost certain to have been killed by an officer from its elite riot squad, known as the Special Patrol Group (SPG). A number of witnesses said they saw him being struck by a police officer, and the report found "there is no evidence to show he received the injury to the side of his head in any other way";
• despite concluding Peach was killed by a police officer, Cass said there was "insufficient evidence" to charge any officer over the death, a decision echoed by the director of public prosecutions, to whom his report was delivered. An inquest into the death later returned a verdict of "death by misadventure";
• suspicions centred on the SPG carrier U.11, the first vehicle to arrive on Beechcroft Avenue, the street where Peach was found staggering around and concussed. Cass said there was an "indication" that one officer in particular, who first emerged from the carrier but whose name has been redacted from the report, was responsible;
• the criminal investigation into Peach's death was hampered by SPG officers, who Cass concluded had lied to him to cover up the actions of their colleagues. He "strongly recommended" that three officers should be charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, giving detailed evidence to show how they were engaged in a "deliberate attempt to conceal the presence of the carrier at the scene at that time". None were ever charged;
• from the outset, the Cass investigation appeared unlikely to find an officer guilty. He defined Peach as a member of a "rebellious crowd" in his terms of reference, adding: "Without condoning the death I refer to Archbold 38th edition para 2528: 'In case of riot or rebellious assembly the officers endeavouring to disperse the riot are justified in killing them at common law if the riot cannot otherwise be suppressed'."
Along with the Cass report, the Met has released more than 3,000 pages of supporting forensics documents, witness statements, interviews with officers and legal analysis.
They include all the detailed evidence gathered by police in the weeks and months after Peach was killed. The nature of his injuries led at least one pathologist to conclude Peach's skull was crushed with an unauthorised weapon, such as a lead-weighted cosh or police radio.
It was already known that when Cass raided lockers at the SPG headquarters he uncovered a stash of unauthorised weapons, including illegal truncheons, knives, two crowbars, a whip, a 3ft wooden stave and a lead-weighted leather stick.
One officer was caught trying to hide a metal cosh, although it was not the weapon that killed Peach. Another officer was found with a collection of Nazi regalia.
In his report, Cass said the arsenal of weapons caused him "grave concern", but claimed there was insufficient evidence to prosecute the officers involved.
A total of 14 witnesses told investigators they saw "a police officer hit the deceased on the head" but, according to Cass, there were discrepancies in their evidence and most could not identify the officer.
The Met has resisted publishing any material relating to the death of Peach for almost 30 years.
That decision was reversed last year after an investigation by the Guardian into the parallels between events surrounding Peach's death in April 1979 and the death of Ian Tomlinson, a 47-year-old newspaper vendor who died during last year's G20 protests in London.
The Met commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, intervened to support the release of the report after Tomlinson's death.
Peach's long-term partner, Celia Stubbs, said she was "relieved" to see the report after so long. Along with other relatives of Peach, and the officers named in the report, she first received the documents on Friday.
"This report totally vindicates what we have always believed – that Blair was killed by one of six officers from Unit 1 of the Special Patrol Group whose names have been in the public domain over all these years," she said.
Her lawyer, Raju Bhatt, said he was still examining the documents, but his initial reading indicated Cass had tried but struggled to "undermine" evidence, suggesting one of his officers killed Peach.
"What I read in this report is a senior investigating officer desperately trying to explain away this death, but despite himself, he is driven by the weight of the evidence to conclude that the death was caused by one of his officers," he said.
Names of officers and witnesses are blanked out of the report, but their identities can easily be established from published material, including several unofficial reports into Peach's death and transcripts from his inquest, where several officers gave evidence.
Bhatt said friends of Peach would gather outside Scotland Yard today, and read out the names of the six suspected officers inside the SPG carrier U.11.
The names include five officers serving under Alan Murray, the SPG inspector in charge of the carrier. Aged 29 at the time at the time of the death, Murray resigned from the Met in anger at what he believed was an unfair inquiry by Cass.
Last night Murray, who is now a lecturer in corporate social responsibility at Sheffield University, declined to comment on the Cass report, saying he had not been given time to digest its findings.
Deborah Coles, co-director of Inquest, an organisation that was set up in 1981 partly in response to Peach's death and provides advice on contentious deaths, called on the Met commissioner to concede that the force was responsible for Peach's death.
"The whole police investigation into what happened on 23 April 1979 was clearly designed as an exercise in managing the fallout from the events of that iconic day in Southall, to exonerate police violence in the face of legitimate public protest," she said. "The echoes of that exercise sound across the decades to the events of the G20 protest and the death of Ian Tomlinson in 2009."
Paul Lewis @'The Guardian'
I was there at the protest against the Naional Front that day in Southall and witnessed a lot of police brutality...another time at a Rock Against Racism march I saw a NF sticker on the inside of a police car windscreen!
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