CBrajkovich Ramblings

Paul Radu is building a platform for the hacker community to collaborate with investigative journalists to expose the most vile, dangerous, and bizarre global corruption you never knew existed.

This is how the article, The Investigative Dashboard – Hacking Crime and Corruption, starts out on Boing Boing and it only gets better as you listen to and read about the concept of hackers and investigative journalists collaborating to fight crime. All of those laws that governments are trying to pass aren’t even coming close to fighting crime, most likely because so many actually participate in the corruption.

Paul and his intrepid team is developing this tool to help people get involved in fighting the type of crime that affects their lives directly. Any time a politician votes with money; anytime a criminal has fingers in the legal system; anytime a poor individual gets swept away by “legalities” while fighting the good fight – that’s when the people take one (unfairly) for the team. But now, innovative people everywhere are changing the game by literally changing the game. Yes, education pays off and here’s more definitive proof of that sentiment. So, go out there and learn about the true crimes so that you too can find a way to give a hand in making sure life is played on an even playing field.

And government everywhere, seriously, this is crime fighting.

– thanks Boing Boing for this incredible project find!!!

I listened to the folks talking about protecting the future of the Internet on Hacking Society on Tuesday. Now, there’s a word that I really love to see when discussing change: hacking. There’s also a pretty awesome post written by Venkat that has been floating around Twitter that caught my eye for obvious reasons: Hacking the Non-Disposable Planet. And with just a few of these treasures brings this post about what the Network means to me (as asked during #hacksociety).

The network is the all-inclusive digital society that literally gives each and every one of us a chance to be heard and understood. In our physical society, we only have to look around to see that this is not even remotely true. Those who have the most money or power are the ones who are heard loud and clear. The rest of us…not so much. We are those frail wraiths who are floating against the onslaught of hot air that carries little message of value through the norm. Although to the norm, this value is fundamental because it is something that can be measured and given a price tag.

Those of us on the digital network that are fighting tooth-and-nail against that hot air blowing across the lands and oceans know all to well that this domain is our last stand. But it’s not as hopeless as the words “last stand” might signify, because we’ve managed to build a vibrant community that hasn’t unleashed the multitude of horrors easily found in the physical world. Yes, we are physical, but we are also metaphysical. We’re much more than flesh and bones. We’re also emotions, ideals, dreams, hopes, and frustrations that push us to be more than physical. That’s probably the reason why digital netizens (I know, most people hate this word) choose to reject the divisions that seek to exclude. We get that we’re embracing contradictions, but we’re doing so because we don’t ever want to reach the point where there is something that we can’t uncover.

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