Vice | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Tue, 24 May 2016 11:34:53 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png Vice | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Vice met with Edward Snowden to discuss surveillance states https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/vice-met-with-edward-snowden-to-discuss-surveillance-states/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/vice-met-with-edward-snowden-to-discuss-surveillance-states/#comments Tue, 24 May 2016 10:00:46 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=293749 Vice might get a bit of flak for its hipster approach to journalism at times, but it's also produced some pretty hard hitting documentaries and provided real insight into some of the stranger parts of the world. Its latest target in an upcoming episode is government surveillance, so company founder Shane Smith flew to Moscow …

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Vice might get a bit of flak for its hipster approach to journalism at times, but it's also produced some pretty hard hitting documentaries and provided real insight into some of the stranger parts of the world. Its latest target in an upcoming episode is government surveillance, so company founder Shane Smith flew to Moscow to meet whistle blower Edward Snowden.

The upcoming episode of Vice News targets the surveillance states that have grown up in the aftermath of the 11th September attacks in 2001, looking at mass spying on populations, the lack of oversight and the power that reams of data and metadata on a person can give an organisation.

There are concerns over intelligence agencies spying on each other, on politicians, on foreign allies and individual citizens. Much of the data gathered is acquired without the need for a warrant and in some cases oversight committees aren't even aware of it. Indeed, there are allusions that intelligence agencies could spy on the groups designed to keep an eye on their activities.

All of these aspects are discussed by Smith and Snowden in the upcoming episode and we have our first look at it thanks to the new trailer release. This isn't just a Snowden episode though, as Smith also reaches out to other people campaigning to end the surveillance state in the U.S., including those from ex-government positions, who have unique insight into the practices of law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

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KitGuru Says: There's a bit of editing over-excitement for this piece and the Snowden tucked-chin looks a bit dramatic, but what he's talking about is serious. Here's hoping something interesting comes out of this, even if it's just a raising of awareness among more people. 

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Vice airs Obama interview https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/vice-airs-obama-interview/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/vice-airs-obama-interview/#respond Tue, 17 Mar 2015 11:10:28 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=240466 Last week Vice debuted a trailer of founder Shane Smith's sit down with US President Barack Obama, hinting at some of the topics that they had discussed earlier in the week. Now the interview has been released in full, touching on everything from climate change, to political gridlocks and even on the potential for legalising cannabis. …

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Last week Vice debuted a trailer of founder Shane Smith's sit down with US President Barack Obama, hinting at some of the topics that they had discussed earlier in the week. Now the interview has been released in full, touching on everything from climate change, to political gridlocks and even on the potential for legalising cannabis.

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With Vice's explosive expansion in recent years, going from an oft-called ‘hipster' upstart in documentary filmmaking to one of the world's largest media organisations in just a few years, many wondered in the build up to this interview whether it would maintain a somewhat counter-culture stance. A lot of people latched on to the idea that with corporate investment from the likes of Fox Media and 20th Century Fox, that Vice had become a shill and was no longer objective.

After watching the the interview with Obama, some people maintain that view, but others were quite pleased with the outcome as well.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a01Rg2g2Z8′]

While Smith is rarely pressing throughout the interview, he does make a point of repeatedly putting across the concerns of young people. Obama's responses are often quite typical of a politician, but he reveals some more personable feelings at times too, suggesting that within the political machine of America, there is also often frustration at the short-sightedness of politicians.

He also alluded to many members of congress and elsewhere having far too tight a relationship with oil producing companies.

KitGuru Says: What did you guys think of the interview? I was hoping it would be a little longer myself. 

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Alternate Silk Road owner evidence ruled inadmissable https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/alternate-silk-road-owner-evidence-ruled-inadmissable/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/alternate-silk-road-owner-evidence-ruled-inadmissable/#respond Wed, 21 Jan 2015 10:24:56 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=231659 The defence of Ross Ulbricht during his ongoing court case for owning and operating the Tor accessible drug marketplace, Silk Road, was dealt a blow yesterday, when evidence from an agent with the department of homeland security (DHS) that claimed Ulbricht was a fall guy, was ruled inadmissible by the judge. The defence spent many …

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The defence of Ross Ulbricht during his ongoing court case for owning and operating the Tor accessible drug marketplace, Silk Road, was dealt a blow yesterday, when evidence from an agent with the department of homeland security (DHS) that claimed Ulbricht was a fall guy, was ruled inadmissible by the judge.

The defence spent many hours late last week cross-examining agent Jared Der-Yeghiayan, who claimed that along with Ulbricht his department had been investigating the owner of Bitcoin exchange, Mt Gox, Mark Karpeles, claiming that he was the shadowy owner and original founder of Silk Road. In his mind, Ulbricht was just a fall guy. He did have some evidence to back this claim up, but a lot of it was very dubious and the judge agreed.

After many objections from the prosecution, the judge ruled yesterday that Der-Yeghiayan's testimony on the matter of Karepeles was inadmissible due to “hearsay” and would be struck from the record. According to Vice news, this sent the defence reeling, with attorney Joshua Dratel requesting an extension to reassess his position. It was denied.

He later complained that the prosecution shouldn't be allowed to “eviscerate” his line of questioning retroactively.

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Ross Ulbricht

The defence's main focus will however remain on placing doubt in the mind of the jurors on the link between Ross Ulbricht and the online alias used by the Silkroad founder/owner, Dread Pirate Roberts. This is a key part of the prosecution's case that may need to be proved to secure a conviction. Ulbricht currently stands accused of of money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic narcotics and attempting to solicit the murders of as many as six individuals.

When he was arrested in early October 2013, Ulbricht was purportedly chatting with Der-Yeghiayan, who was acting undercover as a member of Silk Road's administrative team. He also had a window open that displayed the back end of Silk Road, so proving he had no relation to the site may be impossible. Proving he was DPR though, may be equally difficult.

KitGuru Says: This case should be very interesting, as it will tell us how secure the Tor platform really is. If the government had cracked it open as some people claim, it would surely levy that ability to bring Ulbricht down.

Image source: FreeRoss

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Kim Dotcom gets the Vice treatment https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/kim-dotcom-gets-the-vice-treatment/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/kim-dotcom-gets-the-vice-treatment/#respond Mon, 06 Jan 2014 08:49:46 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=170356 Vice has become one of the most interesting but down to earth, documentary machines in the past few years, pumping out everything from look-ins at North Korean slave labour camps in Siberia, to hanging out with General Butt Naked. But it's not all warlords and despots on their radar, sometimes it's larger than life personalities …

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Vice has become one of the most interesting but down to earth, documentary machines in the past few years, pumping out everything from look-ins at North Korean slave labour camps in Siberia, to hanging out with General Butt Naked. But it's not all warlords and despots on their radar, sometimes it's larger than life personalities that are fighting the good fight too, which is why it's no surprise that Kim Dotcom has shown up on its radar, and has now taken part in a short program on his situation and that of copyright and online privacy in contemporary society.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMxhIfG0MpY']

One of the interesting points brought up by the presenter during his Dotcom interview, was that Sean Parker – the guy played by Justin Timberlake in The Social Network – was a co-founnder of Napster, a tool that was specifically designed to ignore copyright law and yet today he's worth a couple of billion dollars. Comparatively Kim Dotcom has been hit by heavy legal action and police pressure, despite his shutdown platform (Megaupload) not being designed with the specific purpose of sharing content illegally.

The documentary does add the caveat at the start, that since meeting with Dotcom, certain emails and communications have been unearthed that suggested Megaupload staff did know of many copyright breeches on the site, but that's understandable since the site did offer takedown tools for movie studios – staff were obviously aware of what some users were doing.

One of the big points that comes across during the interview is that Dotcom is surprisingly humble. He's a larger than life personality, with pictures of himself with guns, yachts, cars and all sorts of extravagances, in a giant mansion with dedicated entertainment rooms featuring endless amounts of technology – but surprisingly he seems almost shy about this. Likewise the framed pictures of what he describes as “the good times,” seem behind him now.

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The passion appears when he talks about his children and online privacy. It's clear that he stands to benefit from a world where people are concerned about their privacy and he offers a product that can protect that, but that was the case when people wanted a file locker – he provided it. Dotcom can't be vilified purely for his entrepreneur skills.

KitGuru Says: As he says though, good will or not, the trial coming this year (probably) will have a big impact and it will be interesting to watch the continued fallout of the NSA revelations and how it will affect the US industry in 2014. 

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Vice troll pushes “finger hashtag” https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/vice-troll-pushes-finger-hashta/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/vice-troll-pushes-finger-hashta/#respond Thu, 07 Mar 2013 11:44:43 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=127534 Vice certainly covers some strange stuff. From captivating stories on North Korea and Liberia, to some of the world's weirdest and most dangerous drugs, it covers a lot of interesting topics that will make you realise how crazy the world really is. However the group's resident troll Nimrod Kamer, is hoping to inject a bit …

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Vice certainly covers some strange stuff. From captivating stories on North Korea and Liberia, to some of the world's weirdest and most dangerous drugs, it covers a lot of interesting topics that will make you realise how crazy the world really is. However the group's resident troll Nimrod Kamer, is hoping to inject a bit more crazy in the world, while mocking twitter users: by introducing the finger hashtag.

Claiming that it's a new trend that's catching on among the social hipster elite, Kamer has created a real life version of the hashtag. Simply hold up each set of index and middle finger you have and cross them over – thus creating the finger hashtag.

Hashtag
How many of you clicked the thumb to see this full picture?

Apparently the correct way to use this, is simply to add hashtags to your every day conversations, but instead of verbalising the #, you simply throw up this sign – we wouldn't recommend it in some parts of Los Angeles – and then proceed with whatever hashtag you were bringing up. YOLO or something.

Kamer has been getting a few of his freelance “news” pieces posted in different publications recently. This latest one is on Wired, but he also got an obvious troll piece about Twitter on the Huffington Post. I hope these publications are in on the joke.

KitGuru Says: Of course if you actually did this while we were talking, we'd no longer be friends. Even if you say “hashtag” and manage to stop yourself using the sign, I'll cut you right out.

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