Hunting Gold with Google Maps
German hacking group No Name Crew earlier this month managed to hack the website of the far-right German political party the NPD. Someone has used the data to create a Google Map that lists the full names and addresses of 400 donors to the NPD.
The map contains a legend that says that it “might contain some errors..”, which obviously does raise concerns that someone completely unrelated to the NPD could end up being targeted by a user of the map. I’ve therefore decided to not link directly to the map itself.
In 1998 the BNP, a far right group in the UK, similarly had its members’ list hacked. A UK map developer also created a Google Map of the political party’s members.
The map developer quickly took the map down, after realising that innocent people might end up being attacked. Instead he created a heat map of the UK, that didn’t show individual addresses, but instead gave an overview of where in the country support for the BNP was stronger.
A similar approach from the German hackers or the creator of the NPD map would provide an interesting map of where support for the NPD is concentrated, without causing any risk to people’s safety.
Via: taz.de
Discover Stories with New Microsoft Local Impact Map
Every day hundreds of nonprofit organizations are hard at work improving education, facilitating research, and giving people the skills to find work or start a business. When a nonprofit really connects with its community it becomes more effective and it leads to thousands of incredible stories from every corner of the world – stories that help inspire even greater achievements.
At Microsoft, we want to help these nonprofits succeed. One way we can do that is to make it easier for them to tell their stories. So with that goal in mind, our Corporate Citizenship team has used Bing Maps to build theMicrosoft Local Impact Map, a new tool that allows you to discover the stories of the communities you care about most, stories about how people and technology are having a real impact.
One of our favorite stories comes from our team in India that worked with local teachers to train them under thePartners in Learning program. In the community of Dharwad, Project Shiksha was created by a group of trained instructors to establish a residential school for students with hearing impairments. One trainer in particular used an incredibly unique approach to help the students learn to use computers. Find out what she did by reading the story here.
Of course, this story is only one among thousands. The Local Impact Map provides a living record of how technology is having a positive impact in communities around the world. We invite you to take a look and read examples of people working together for a common good.