"Dark Internet" inhibits law enforcement's ability to identify, track terrorists

Posted on Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 8:29 AM 

For several months, Islamic State militants have been using instant messaging apps which encrypt or destroy conversations immediately. This has inhibit U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies from identifying and monitoring suspected terrorists, even when a court order is granted, because messaging companies and app developers say they are unable to unlock the coded conversations and/or do not have a record of the conversations. “We’re past going dark in certain instances,” said Michael B. Steinbach, the FBI’s top counterterrorism official. “We are dark.” 

For several months, Islamic State militants have been using instant messaging apps which encrypt or destroy conversations immediately. This has inhibit U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies from identifying and monitoring suspected terrorists, even when a court order is granted, because messaging companies and app developers say they are unable to unlock the coded conversations and/or do not have a record of the conversations. 

“We’re past going dark in certain instances,” said Michael B. Steinbach, the FBI’s top counterterrorism official. “We are dark.” 

FBI officials want Congress to expand their authority to monitor apps such as WhatsApp and Kik, as well as data-deleting apps such as Wickr and Surespot, used by hundreds of millions of people, including terrorists and their supporters, because they guarantee security and anonymity. 

About 200,000 people worldwide are exposed to “terrorist messaging” daily from ISIS supporters via direct messaging, online videos, or social media posts. ISIS recruiters also monitor Twitter and Facebook to connect with individuals who share the group’s posts, often inviting them to private conversations over encrypted or data-deleting apps. 

FBI officials fear that law enforcement agencies are missing important clues about potential plots as terror-linked conversations go from social media to private messaging apps. The FBI has arrested nearly forty people since last summer on the suspicion of seeking to support terrorist groups. A vast majority of those people communicated their intentions through social media. Last Tuesday, an FBI agent and a Boston police officer shot and killed a 26-year old former security guard in Roslindale, Massachusetts after he allegedly lunged at them with a knife. The FBI had been tracking his social media communications with ISIS for at least several days. 

ISIS and its supporters are now increasingly communicating via secure and encrypted messaging platforms. “These tactics are a sea change for spreading terror, and they require from us a paradigm shift in our counter-terrorism, intelligence and our operations,” Representative Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said last Wednesday at a congressional hearing. 

The Los Angeles Times reports that FBI officials have not disclosed details of cases in which private messaging apps have been used by terrorists, but they have appealed to tech and software companies to work with law enforcement to monitor suspected terrorist communications. 

Apple chief executive Tim Cook in a 1 June speech at the annual awards dinner for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, defended his company’s decision to encrypt the content of Facetime and iMessage communications. He lashed out at government officials who have asked Apple and other tech firms to create a backdoor key to encrypted messages. “Let me be crystal clear,” Cook said. “Weakening encryption or taking it away harms good people that are using it for the right reasons. And ultimately, I believe it has a chilling effect on our 1st Amendment rights and undermines our country’s founding principles.” 

At last Wednesday’s congressional hearing, Steinbach said that the FBI seeks a legal way to access stored text messages and active communications in suspected terrorism cases. “We’re talking about going before the court, whether the criminal court or the national security court, with evidence, a burden of proof, probable cause, suggesting a crime has been committed or, in our case, that there’s a terrorist,” he said. 

“We’re not looking at going through a backdoor or being nefarious,” he said. 

“We are imploring Congress to help us seek legal remedies toward that as well as asking the companies to provide technological solutions to help that,” Steinbach said. Public demand for e-mail and text messaging services which guarantee security and anonymity has risen since Edward Snowden leaked details about the NSA’s bulk data collection program. Still, federal officials want tech companies to know the risk associated with their services. “It is important for those who are providing the services to understand what the threats are and to be responsible … in terms of taking action to prevent designated terrorist groups from using their services to try to get people to commit terrorist acts here,” John Carlin, head of national security for the Justice Department, said in a recent interview. 

While ISIS seems to have successfully mastered how to use social media to recruit new followers, the medium has its weaknesses. Air Force analysts at Hurlburt Field, Florida recently helped destroy a command center in Syria after a militant revealed enough information online to disclose his position. “The (airmen are) combing through social media and they see some moron standing at this command,” Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle, head of Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, said in a speech on 1 June, according to Air Force Times. “And in some social media, open forum, bragging about command and control capabilities for (ISIS). And these guys go, ‘Ah, we got an in.’” 

“So they do some work. Long story short, about 22 hours later through that very building, three (‘smart’ bombs) take that entire building out. Through social media. It was a post on social media. Bombs on target in 22 hours,” he said. “It was incredible work, and incredible airmen doing this sort of thing.” 

ISIS, however, has been aware of the vulnerabilities of social media. Last fall, the group’s leaders issued an order forbidding fighters to photograph attacks and locations without permission from the group’s general council. The Times notes that ISIS also distributed a guide to removing geo-location and metadata from cell phone images. 

Homeland Security News Wire, June 10, 2015

http://www.globalintelligenceforum.com/news/dark-internet-inhibits-law-enforcements-ability-to-identify-track-terrorists

Attacks In Paris Highlight The Worst And Best Of Social Media

by Federico Guerrini, 14.11.2015

In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack last January, the French government advocated new legislation to stop the use of social networks as hate-speech vehicles by ISIL supporters, who were also using those platforms to coordinate their terrorist acts. 

Harlem Desir, State Secretary for European Affairs, proposed an international legal framework that would make Facebook and Twitter share responsibility when used to spread messages promoting violence. 

But the attacks which ravaged the French capital yesterday showed how social media can also play a much more positive role. 

Facebook activated its Safety Check tool, introduced in October 2014 to help people in areas afected by a disaster let their Facebook friends know they are safe. Twitter was also helpful: residents used the hashtag #porteouverte to offer shelter to people stranded in the city. 

Another important hashtag, #rechercheParis, is being used to search for missing loved ones last seen near attack sites. 

#ParisAttacks and #FranceUnderAttack are spreading information and updates about the attacks, while #PrayForParis gathers messages of solidarity and support for the victims and their fellow citizens. 

But there’s also a darker side to social media: when a disaster strikes, it can easily become a source of disinformation. As BBC journalist Dave Lee notes, it’s difficult, in the midst of confusion, to distinguish false rumors from news. When a refugee camp in Calais was set on fire, for example, someone tweeted it was done in revenge, while it most likely was just due to an electrical fire. 

White House candidate Donald Trump was also a “victim” of this witch-hunt: although he tweeted a a message of condolence, people shared instead, as if it were new, a tweet he made some months ago where he made a correlation between the Charlie Hebdo attacks and the fact the the possession of a gun in France wasn’t so widespread as in the U.S. Needless to says, he was accused of speculating on the murders. 

Even worse, according to some reports, ISIL (or ISIS) supporters celebrated the attacks on Twitter, under an hashtag in Arabic which, translated to English, reads as “#ParisInFlames,” or “#ParisBurns.” While this appears to be true (Vice News gathered a couple of these infamous tweets), it’s difficult to estimate the extent of this “celebration.” 

According to independent analyst Rita Katz, who in her Insite Blog tracks ISIL propaganda on social media, the latest attacks, “were part of a purposefully timed campaign to create hatred against France amongst jihadis.” 

She also pointed to how #ParisInFlame was used – among others – by supporters of the Caliphate. 

However the #ParisInFlame hashtag seems to have been used also by neutral, non-partisan Twitter users, simply to describe what was happening in Paris, and doubts have been cast on Katz’s methodology before, so caution is advised before making any claim that could be used to increase anger and sorrow even further. 

If there’s one thing that the admittedly brief history of social media has taught us so far, it’s that these powerful tools are a double-edged sword: they can be used to show support and help coordinate rescue efforts, or they can also be tools for disinformation and hate speech.

After the new attacks, it is possible that the French government will call for greater and more effective surveillance powers and the recent project of harsher legislation for social media might gain new strength. 

It would be a legitimate and understandable reaction: the risk, though, is to to get rid of the good sides of social networks, along with the bad. 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2015/11/14/attacks-in-paris-highlight-the-worst-and-best-of-social-media/2/

How Google and Coursera may upend the traditional college degree

Stuart M. Butler | February 23, 2015 7:30am 

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/techtank/posts/2015/02/23-mooc-google-coursera-butler

Recently, the online education firm Coursera announced a new arrangement with Google, Instagram and other tech firms to launch what some are calling “microdegrees” – a set of online courses plus a hands-on capstone project designed in conjunction with top universities and leading high-tech firms. Coursera is one of America’s leading MOOC developers (Massive Open Online Courses). 

Together with other developments, such as rival MOOC developer Udacity’s “nanodegree” program, the Coursera announcement could be an important step in a radical shakeup of higher education. That shakeup holds the prospect of far less expensive and more customized degrees that are more in tune with the recruiting needs of major employers. 

Why does this announcement suggest such a shakeup is likely? Several reasons. Here are just four: 

• MOOCs are moving from novel sideshow to serious competition. Similar to other new ventures and technologies, MOOC developers have struggled with quality – such as high drop-out rates from huge class enrolments – in addition to developing a viable business model. But through partnerships with employers and sometimes with prestigious universities (e.g. Udacity’s $7,000 master’s program with Georgia Tech), MOOCs and other online education developers are on the verge of sustainable business models. That’s a real threat to traditional universities. 

• The partnership between online education and employers is likely a game-changer. MOOCs and other online education developers recognize that many college degrees are disconnected from the needs of employers, reducing the value of those traditional degrees. By forming partnerships and designing programs in conjunction with employers, ventures with new business models are offering their students programs and degrees that will make them more attractive job candidates. It’s not just MOOCs like Coursera. New entrants like College for America, which now offers a $10,000 bachelor’s degree, are also teaming up with major employers such as Anthem Blue Cross, Gulf Oil, and McDonalds to offer customized degrees. 

• Accreditation as a restriction on competition is eroding. The cumbersome and expensive accreditation process has served as an obstacle to new business models, protecting existing colleges and universities. There have been moves to streamline or reform the accreditation process, including experiments with competency based certificates. But partnerships like Coursera’s include employers actually certifying groups of courses as meeting industry’s standards for skills and knowledge – essentially an endrun around traditional accreditation as a measure of quality. 

• Microdegrees are likely the pathway to customized degree programs. Specialized microdegrees are certainly of interest to both undergraduates and graduates looking for enhanced and marketable qualifications at an affordable price. But with the emergence of employer-credentialed multiple-course programs, it is only a matter of time before enterprising colleges or other entrepreneurs start assembling comprehensive degree programs consisting of microdegrees supplemented by other experiences, such as a semester abroad and time at a small liberal arts college. I describe this as the “general contractor” model of college education. 

There are still some university administrators who believe that innovations in online education and new college business models are a passing fad, or that they can just add some new technology features to their business model and continue more-or-less as usual. Coursera’s announcement is just one more indication that they will soon be proved wrong. 

PODCAST´S GREAT YEAR

This has been a great year (2014) for podcasts. A really great year. "Serial" blew everyone away with its 12-part investigation, PRX's podcast collective Radiotopia raised $620,000 in its kickstarter campaign, and articles in New York magazine, the New York Times and International Business Times hailed this as a golden age of podcasts.

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“Did you listen to this week’s Serial?” That’s been the question on everyone’s lips the past three months. The podcast, which reexamined the 1999 murder case of a Baltimore teenager, become morning Gchat convo—and launched a thousand think pieces declaring 2014 “The Golden Age of Podcasts.”

While individual podcasts have previously broken through the cultural consciousness—like comedian Marc Maron’s WTF in 2009—the genre has generally been a niche interest since it hit iTunes in 2005. That year, there were only about 3,000 podcasts up and running. A decade later, that number has mushroomed to more than 285,000 podcasts, created in over 100 languages. The DIY radio of the Internet is now a bona fide medium, heard by an estimated 39 million Americans a month.

To celebrate the format’s true coming of age—it is indeed “golden”—our very own obsessive pod people are telling you what you must hear in the new year.

Selfies, sex and body image – the revolution in books for teenage girls

With her positive messages and dark themes, Louise O’Neill is leading a new wave of young adultfiction 

Sarah Hughes Sunday 21 June 2015 00.04 BST 

The idea for her first book came to Louise O’Neill in a cafe in New York on a cold January morning in 2011. Then 26, O’Neill was working at Elle magazine in Manhattan and had recently started to relapse back into the anorexia she first suffered from at the age of 14. 

“I was really very, very thin at this point,” she says. “The weather was really bad and I was sitting in Starbucks reading a trashy magazine, In Style or something like that. It had all these pictures of celebrities on their winter holidays in St Barts in bikinis and their different body parts were picked out with red circles highlighting their muffin tops and their cellulite and I looked over at the next table and there was a girl eating a muffin. 

“I was sitting there nursing my green tea and I was fascinated because she made it look so casual. I couldn’t understand – why wasn’t she having an existential crisis about eating it? At that moment I had this vision of a teenage girl standing in a bikini in front of a class of other girls while a nun-like figure drew circles on her body and the rest of the class banged their desks and yelled ‘fat’, ‘fat’, ‘fat’. It was just incredibly vivid so I got out my notebook and started writing. An hour and a half later I’d filled the book.” 

The result of that moment of inspiration, Only Ever Yours, a dark examination of notions of female beauty set in a future where girls are manufactured not born, became one of the most critically acclaimed young adult novels of recent years drawing comparisons with Margaret Atwood’s dystopian classic The Handmaid’s Tale and praised by everyone from Jeanette Winterson to Marian Keyes. 

It was shortlisted for both this year’s Waterstones children’s book prize and the Children’s Books Ireland book of the year and won the inaugural Young Adult book prize while the Irish Book Awards named O’Neill newcomer of the year. In the US it sold out on pre-order and was reprinted before its publication in May. Small wonder then that her publisher Quercus, convinced of the book’s crossover appeal, will bring out an adult edition on 2 July, an honour previously bestowed on the bestselling likes of JK Rowling and Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games. 

“I’m trying not to get too caught up in it all,” O’Neill says. “I’m really grateful that people understand the work and the message I’m trying to put across because I felt passionately that we needed to talk about the way in which we view women’s bodies. We spend our lives looking at images of 6ft tall, size six Victoria’s Secret models and our self-esteem and selfworth starts to dip. 

“I’d say that of the women I know only three or four aren’t affected in some way by the idea that they should look a certain way. Many women make a correlation between moral worth and weight and I really wanted to explore that. I didn’t set out to write a young adult novel when I wrote Only Ever Yours but I was in a way writing for myself at 16.” 

That willingness to tackle dark and difficult themes – her second novel, the brilliant, harrowing Asking For It, due out 3 September, is set in present day Ireland (O’Neill is from the small town of Clonakilty in Co Cork) and focuses on a rape at a party – has placed O’Neill at the forefront of a young adult publishing revolution. For it’s not just that young adult novels are among the most popular genre in publishing (and read by teenagers and adults of both sexes alike), it’s that increasingly they are tackling important issues with honesty, humour and a steely precision that other supposedly more serious novels frequently lack. 

Thus Becky Albertalli’s Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda is a subtle, affecting look at a young gay teenager’s first steps towards coming out, Lisa Williamson’s The Art of Being Normal tells the moving story of a young transgender teen, Naomi Jackson’s The Star Side of Bird Hill looks at notions of race and identity as two sisters move from Brooklyn to Barbados, while Keris Stainton’s Reel Friends series depicts teenage female friendships that feel modern and utterly true. 

“There’s definitely a difference in how YA books are portraying female characters,” says O’Neill. “They’re more aspirational in that they present more of a reflection of something a teenage girl can look up to, saying this is what a healthy and positive relationship looks like. This is a healthy and positive way to be a girl.” 

Not that they’re shying away from dark themes. “Oh God, no,” says O’Neill. “I decided to write Asking For It because I wanted to talk about the idea that rape isn’t just being pulled into an alleyway by a stranger, that there are many different levels. All of my friends have stories of sexual assault and sexual experiences that weren’t right. They’ll say this is what happened when I was 17 and the terrible thing is I’m not surprised. I’m not surprised that they were sexually assaulted, or raped, that their drinks were spiked or they were too drunk to consent. We need to talk about the idea that sex isn’t something that men forcibly take from women. We tell girls ‘don’t get raped’, when we should be teaching boys ‘don’t rape’.” 

Her books are equally unflinching about life in the social media age. “Social media is a double-edged sword,” says O’Neill, herself an enthusiastic user of Twitter. “There are extremely positive elements to it, particularly the way in which it makes it easier for us to connect and build our own communities. Even selfies can be positive – I think there’s something brave and amazing about teenage girls posting pictures of themselves saying, ‘This is how I look and I am beautiful’ but it’s also true that it can exacerbate feelings of not being good enough. There’s so much toxic competitiveness when you’re a teenage girl, so much are my thighs smaller than hers? Am I prettier? Do boys like me more? Social media adds to the pressure and then society tells young women that they must look sexy and act sexy but that they can’t be sexual beings.” 

Comments such as this help explain why O’Neill’s books are read as much by the anxious mothers of teenage girls as by the girls themselves. “The key is to be honest,” she says when asked what advice she would give those parents. “I would hope mothers who read my books understand the pressures their daughters are under and why they are acting or behaving the way they are. Try to encourage honest communication, be open and interested, try to understand.” 

And what would she tell the teenagers of either sex who devoured Only Ever Yours. She laughs. “The most important thing is to care less about what other people think of you and More features Topics Children and teenagers Young people Women Body image Social media More… focus more on yourself, your values and ethical system then live according to that,” she says. 

“It sounds very ‘to thine own self be true’ but it’s the only way to live. When I wrote Only Ever Yours it was at a time when I was so sick and tired of feeling shame around my body and so weary of fighting the fact that women are seen as less in so many ways. I wanted to articulate how that felt. For years we’ve been told that our stories aren’t as important, that the concerns raised by Marian Keyes are lesser than those raised by Nick Hornby. I wanted to tell teenage girls that their stories aren’t trivial. Their voices are worthy of being heard. I wanted to say speak up, you don’t have to silence yourselves.” 

FIVE OF THE BEST IN YOUNG ADULT FICTION 

Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older 

Acclaimed fantasy writer Older makes his young adult fiction debut with this wonderful tale of Brooklyn teenager Sierra Santiago whose summer is interrupted by magic and ghosts. 

Am I Normal Yet by Holly Bourne 

An involving look at feminism, friendship and the secrets we hide even from those who know us best. 

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera 

A gut-wrenching story telling of race and sexuality, which is set in the Bronx, in New York, in the near future. 

For Holly by Tanya Byrne 

The latest from one of the genre’s rising stars, a suspense-filled family drama with a gloriously angry teen at its heart. 

Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls by Lynn Weingarten 

After her best friend kills herself June tries to uncover the truth in this dark thriller that’s been described as Gone Girl meets 13 Reasons Why

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/21/selfies-sex-body-image-teenage-girls-young-adult-fiction-louise-oneill-interview

VÍDEO DEL PARTIT VERD UK

Crowdworkers form their own digital networks

3.11.2014

Michael Pooler



They are the invisible labourers whose toil in the digital economy powers many rising technology companies.

Crowdworkers pick up the slack where artificial intelligence meets its limits. They do small online data tasks, on an outsourced basis and usually from home, that involve basic computer skills, from labelling images and transcription to identifying porno­graphy, which machines and algorithms alone cannot manage. The work is often repetitive and simple but requires human judgment and insight.

“For a lot of entrepreneurs working on lean start-up budgets, it’s not viable to take somebody on to do this work,” says Lilly Irani, a computer scientist at the University of California, San Diego, who sees the phenomenon as part of the broader socio-economic reconfiguration ushered in by on-demand services such as Uber, Lyft and TaskRabbit.

“[Crowdwork is] making large segments of labour infinitely flexible through computers and apps for a certain class of people – innovators and entrepreneurs,” says Ms Irani.

There are no exact figures but active crowdworkers are believed to number hundreds of thousands globally, with most concentrated in the US and India.

Champions of this emerging sector say the work is flexible and provides a path out of poverty for people in developing nations, as well as a financial lifeline in countries with weak social safety nets. Its critics say that the often minimal pay – sometimes as low as 50 cents an hour – and absence of employment rights, such as guaranteed work, sick pay and holidays, sits uneasily with the world-changing aspirations of the tech entrepreneurs and engineers who farm out the mouse-clicking and keyboard-tapping assignments.

“It’s not like a nine to five [job], where the same work is available to you,” says 27-year-old Ozlem Demirci, who lives in the US. “I call $20 [a] day a fantastic day. Some days I earn just a couple of dollars.”

This emerging but disparate virtual workforce is increasingly trying to tip the scales back in its favour.

Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, dubbed MTurk, is the best known and biggest crowdwork marketplace with a pool of 500,000 workers worldwide, according to the online retailer. Launched in 2005, it takes its name from an 18th century autonomous chess-playing machine that toured Europe before it was exposed as having a living chess master operating it from inside.

While “requesters”, who post tasks with set prices, are free to withhold payment without explanation if dissatisfied, a “Turker” who receives several bad ratings on the quality of their work is barred from viewing swaths of tasks. They have no grievance mechanism: Amazon, which receives a commission on each paid “human intelligence task”, or HIT, does not intervene in disputes. Studies put the median hourly MTurk wage at between $1.38 and $5. “How much a worker makes really depends on what tasks [they choose], how good their work is and if they are a casual or a full-time worker,” says Amazon.

Although they are geographically dispersed, crowdworkers are establishing digital versions of mutual aid and workplace solidarity. There are internet forums where Turkers, as they call themselves, share tips, experiences of particular requesters, boast about their task tallies and air anxieties about work drying up or paying too little.

TurkOpticon, a web browser plug-in developed by Ms Irani and a colleague with input from Turkers, enables workers to rate requesters on communication, generosity, fairness and promptness of payment. Some other websites provide coding to help users to operate the Amazon system more efficiently.

“Only when you harness all the tools available can you make a living wage, or [even] a good living,” says Kristy Milland, a thirtysomething mother and student in Ontario, Canada. Ms Milland says she made “double the poverty line” by Turking full-time, which was enough to support her family and pay medical bills for two years after her husband lost his job. Even so, obtaining work involves unpaid admin: “We have to look for HITs, then check out the requester on TurkOpticon, track who we have worked for and set up alerts in case they post more good work.”

However, crowdsourcing companies’ ability to get round statutory minimum wages is being challenged in the US. A California court has been asked to approve a financial settlement between San Francisco-based CrowdFlower and two of its former workers, who claimed breach of federal minimum wage laws. Ellen Doyle, a lawyer for one of the claimants, says that although the case will not set a precedent, such actions could in her view eventually lead to crowdworkers being reclassified as employees instead of their present status as independent contractors. “It isn’t a big leap to say even if you work online from your house or the coffee shop you are still performing work which is essentially highly controlled by the company.” CrowdFlower did not respond to requests for comment.

There are signs that potential litigation is prompting some companies to re­think their strategy on digital outsourcing. Some crowdwork companies are increasingly targeting video gamers or younger people with in-game rewards or Facebook credits instead of cash.

Other businesses are looking overseas. CloudFactory, which recently announced a $3m fundraising, engages workers in Kenya and Nepal. The company aims to improve its service by treating its 3,000-odd contractors better than its competitors.

Instead of an open marketplace, it uses handpicked trained and supervised workers who spend minimal time looking for tasks, says chief executive Mark Sears. “[Our workers] are usually earning $1-$3 an hour, which ironically is more than what many people are getting paid in the US [for similar work]”.

Not all crowdworkers are disempowered. One, who prefers not to be named, says he earns up to $200 on a good day and adds that some people do not pay tax on their earnings – a requirement in most jurisdictions.

While the Turker forums have pressed for and won improvements such as convincing requesters to communicate better or redesign aptitude tests and work-distribution algorithms, there is scepticism that more collective forms of self-organising can prevail. “A union would never work on any crowdsource platform,” writes one forum user. “If the workers staged a strike, thousands of non-union workers would quickly fill the void.”

Further reading: Payment by the hour, not the task

As digital crowdwork faces a backlash over low pay and absence of protection for workers, some entrepreneurs sense an opportunity in adopting socially conscious models.

“When people are badly paid and it’s relatively transactional, they show up, do the work and disappear. There’s no incentive to do a good job,” says Anand Kulkarni, chief executive of MobileWorks, whose LeadGenius platform launched in 2010 and has “several hundred” full-time workers in 50 countries. MobileWorks recently raised $6m on top of $2.2m in early-stage funding.

The company targets disadvantaged and marginalised groups, from military veterans to refugees. Unlike most other crowdwork companies, it pays hourly. The idea is to root out poor-quality work by removing the incentive to complete assignments hastily.

A US-based crowdworker for MobileWorks can expect up to 40 hours work a week, says Mr Kulkarni. “Pay is almost always above the minimum wage in the countries we are working in,” he adds. The lower-skilled tasks are assigned to developing countries.

However, its workers are freelancers, not employees, and therefore enjoy no holiday or sick pay, or security of work.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/2c23a880-5df3-11e4-bc04-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz3I3Hu0Ims

Uber, Airbnb Under Attack As Old and New Economies Clash

http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/07/29/327796899/uber-airbnb-under-attack-in-spain-as-old-and-new-economy-clash

by LAUREN FRAYER

July 29, 2014 4:55 AM ET

This summer, more people than ever before are booking rooms on Airbnb and using carpooling websites and smartphone apps to get around on vacation. The new "share economy" can be a money saver in areas hard hit by the economic crisis, like southern Europe.

But in sunny Spain, authorities are cracking down.

In Barcelona — one of the top destinations for European tourists this summer — police are pulling over and ticketing drivers suspected of using the private taxi app Uber.

The regional Catalan government is also trying to thwart Airbnb, fining the U.S. company some $40,000 and threatening to block its website. This is the first such punishment for the popular room-booking website, and other municipalities could follow suit.

Spain is emerging as a battleground for such apps and a test case for how governments handle innovations beloved by many citizens but hated by the hotel lobby and powerful labor unions.http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/07/29/327796899/uber-airbnb-under-attack-in-spain-as-old-and-new-economy-clash

i

Spanish law does not currently prohibit Uber and other private taxi apps or ride-sharing schemes. But Spain's taxi unions are lobbying politicians to intervene and protect their industry. Here, another scene from the July 1 protests.

David Ramos/Getty Images

Shiraz Jeral is a Pakistani-born Spaniard who supports his large family by ferrying tourists from Barcelona's airport to their hotels around the city. He makes up to $125 a day using his own car and picking up fares through the private taxi app Uber.

"Every morning at 6 a.m. I pick up tourists at the airport. It's great! They pay by credit card through their smartphones, and Uber pays me at the end of the month," Jeral says. "But the other taxi drivers, they get really mad."

Taxi drivers across Europe have gone on strike this summer to protest Uber. They say it undercuts their business and want it banned. In Spain, taxi licenses can cost upward of $150,000. Drivers pay it off like a mortgage, over their career. Many worry their investment will be worthless if private citizens can pick up fares with Uber.

A popular car-sharing company in Spain, Bluemove, has had some of its cars' tires slashed mysteriously — in an apparent attack on the "share economy."

"We call it the 'Uber Effect' — it's like a shadow," says Gabriel Herrero-Beaumont, Bluemove's president. "All the taxi drivers are worried about competition from Uber, but the Uber app is actually only available in Barcelona — not other Spanish cities. So anyone angry about Uber takes it out on other innovators, even though we have nothing to do with Uber."

Herrero-Beaumont says he doesn't know who is responsible for the attacks this summer on his company's cars.

One recent morning, while Jeral awaited passengers at Barcelona's airport, the police pulled him over and detained him for an hour.

"They told me Uber is illegal, and they wrote me a ticket with a big fine," he says. "I'm taking the ticket to my supervisors at the Uber office today."

i

In Spain, taxi licenses can cost upward of $150,000. Drivers pay it off like a mortgage, over their career. Many worry that their investment will be worthless if private citizens can pick up fares with the Uber smartphone app.

David Ramos/Getty Images

Spanish law does not — at least not yet — prohibit Uber and other private taxi apps or ride-sharing schemes. But Spain's taxi unions are lobbying politicians to intervene and protect their industry.

Professional taxi drivers also argue that it's dangerous to get into the car with an unverified Uber driver. But ride-share advocates say it's just the opposite.

"If you jump into any cab, you don't know the driver," says Vincent Rosso, the Spain director of another ride-share website in Europe, called Blablacar. "But in our case, people who jump into a car know in advance who is going to be in the car — their age, their preferences when they travel, they can check the [driver's] biography. They have more information about the ride."

Spain is the most popular destination for European tourists each summer. It's the most visible place for this clash of old and new economies — and a test case for how other countries might regulate these new tools.

Esperanza Casas, 25, works long hours at a marketing company in Barcelona, earning about $1,000 a month. With Spanish youth unemployment at more than 50 percent, she feels lucky to have a job. But she'd never afford rent without her Airbnb income.

"I need it — completely. It's the only way we have to live decently," says Casas, who offers two of the three bedrooms in her apartment for rent every night on Airbnb. "We have no other ways."

But Spain's powerful hotel lobby is angry. And local authorities have just slapped the U.S. company with a $40,000 fine, for failing to list rentals with the local Catalan tourism board. Unlike hotels, Airbnb properties are not inspected for local health and safety compliance. Authorities say they're worried about the safety of some 26.5 million tourists who visit Catalonia each year.

"Our position in this case is not thinking about hotels. It's thinking about consumer rights," says Patrick Torrent, who heads the Catalan Tourism Agency. "Innovation and social cooperation are great ways to improve the tourist experience. But our role is to ensure quality, safety and security first."

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Unlike hotels, Airbnb properties — private residences such as this one in Barcelona — are not inspected for local health and safety compliance. Authorities say they're worried about the safety of some 26.5 million tourists who visit Catalonia each year.

Phin Stubs III/Flickr

Airbnb acknowledges that there's been the rare attack or burglary by its 15 million users worldwide. But Barcelona is one of its top destinations, and the company is appealing Catalonia's fine.

"I think it's a real shame, where you have a government that's so aggressive," says David Hantman, Airbnb's public policy director. "There are ways of protecting neighborhoods and protecting citizens and putting some restrictions on this activity that make sense. Because people are still going to travel, the key is to figure out how to make sense of this amazing activity, instead of just trying to enforce old rules that were designed for really a different time."

Airbnb and other companies are in talks with the Spanish government. Among the compromises is a new rule in Madrid that requires a five-day minimum stay for Airbnb. Hotels get the shorter one- or two-day visits.

"In a few short years the growth of these platforms like Airbnb and Uber has been exponential, but it's also been disruptive," says David Córdova, a government relations expert at Madrid's IE Business School. "Traditional vendors weren't prepared for it and they've reacted harshly. The trick is to prevent that from paralyzing this new 'share economy.' "

Among those eager to see what happens is Rosa Maria Sanchez, a 60-year-old widow from Barcelona.

"Airbnb is my main work now, ever since the company I worked for closed and laid me off four years ago," Sanchez says. "I can't retire yet. I'm still paying the mortgage. Six years ago my husband died. I need to pay the bills."

In the difficult years since her husband died, Sanchez has sustained herself both financially and socially by filling her home with Airbnb guests.

"From Tasmania, Taiwan, Korea," she says. "Right now my guests are from Montreal. Oh, and there were those two sisters from Azerbaijan! We exchange Christmas cards now. I have friends around the world."

The test, for Spain, is to harness that enthusiasm for the new "share economy" — and work out what role hotels and taxis can still play.