According to the last Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA) recently published by EUROPOL – the European Union’s law enforcement agency – there is an increasing convergence between cybercrime and terrorism. Indeed, “Terrorists are becoming increasingly proficient in hiding their traces and activities by using anonymising and encryption tools and services » such as Tor available on the cybercrime market. Another trend highlighted by EUROPOL is the increasing use social media platforms by terrorist groups “to engage in recruitment campaigns, propaganda, incitement of terror acts and for claiming responsibility for attack”. In order to address these challenges, the EU law enforcement agency recommends Member States to “increase their OSINT capacity in order to monitor the development of new technologies that have potential for abuse by terrorists and which have already been adopted, and to proactively monitor social media to detect early patterns of radicalisation”.
Housing the Open Source Enterprise within the CIA’s new Directorate of Digital Innovation allows a combination of the right personnel and tools to get a more accurate analysis of world events, Brennan said.
We recently published our submission to the Libraries Taskforce consultation about its draft strategy – Libraries Deliver: An Ambition for Public Libraries in England 2016-21. Today, we want to say a bit more about our having called upon the Taskforce to explore the opportunities for public libraries that could flow from the growth of the ‘sharing economy’ and, in particular, moves to establish Platform Cooperatives.
On 27 May the Competitiveness Council in Brussels announced a European decision to achieve Open Access to all scientific research data by 2020. This decision, and the implementing European framework programme for research and innovation Horizon 2020, will be recognized by future generations as the first serious step toward the creation of a prosperous world at peace. With this one decision Europe is turning away from centuries of war and waste; away from scientific reductionism, away from corporate ownership of public knowledge, away from legal barriers to innovation, and away from government neglect of the public interest.
The French whistleblower and Spanish anti-corruption activists who triggered an investigation of a former International Monetary Fund chief announced Thursday they are designing a digital payment system aimed at excluding middlemen companies that make money from online purchases. Herve Falciani and the Xnet group say their nonprofit, peer-to-peer payment system would work like PayPal on a local basis within European cities for citizen payments to participating businesses and governments.