Gus Hosein is the executive director of Privacy International, a leading international watchdog organization regarding privacy and technology policy reform.

Within thirty seconds of the BBC publishing a quotation from me on the latest round of the nymwars and Google+, my phone rang. Caller ID indicated that it was my colleague at Google. “Had I said something wrong?” was my first thought. I quickly retraced in my mind what it was that I had said to the journalist; I had responded in the article that Google’s recent announcement could be seen as positive but really it was a sidestepping of the larger challenge of identity management. Yes, I’m surprised that the BBC printed the quotation too. Must have been a slow news day.

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2011 was a banner year at Flip the Media.  Over the last twelve months we have grown into an informative, timely and thought provoking daily journal. Student run, Flip’s success is based on the content that MCDM students enrolled in the Flip independent study provide to readers every week on a daily basis. Most of our content comes from the students and faculty in the Master of Communication in Digital Media (MCDM) program and Flip the Media reflects the best aspects of that program’s scholarship and entrepreneurialism.

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Due to the sensitivity of this report, all sources names have been changed to protect anonymity. The writer of this article’s name is being withheld for safety reasons as well. Please be advised, some of the images in this story are graphic.

When the news broke last month that a Mexican blogger nicknamed “Rascatripas” (Gut Scratcher) had been killed by Mexican drug cartel “Los Zetas,” it sent a chilling message to journalists not just in Mexico, but around the world. It happened only days after members of the powerful computer hacking group Anonymous declared a short-lived war on the drug cartels in response to the kidnapping of one of their own members in Veracruz.

During an operation called PaperStorm, Anonymous hacktivists threatened via a video message to expose the Zetas and their closest inside sources if their fellow Anonymous member wasn’t released. Although the blogger was set free the day after, he brought a cryptic message back from the Zetas: “For every contributor you expose we will kill ten innocent people.” After much debate online about the ramifications of innocent lives lost, operation PaperStorm was subsequently cancelled.

But “Rascatripas,” who worked separately from Anonymous, openly refused to give up his attempts to write about and expose members of the cartel.

Less than a month later his body was found decapitated under a bridge in Nuevo Laredo.

To put things in perspective, violence in Mexico is believe to have caused more than 45,000 deaths since 2006. Just yesterday morning, 16 people were shot dead in the state of Veracruz in a drug cartel turf war. Read more…

Join us for cocktails and conversation tonight at Flowers on the corner of 42nd and University Way.  Meet fellow MCDMers working at FtM and share a story idea or two.  6:00pm-8:00pm .

We here at FtM Central like infographics. A blend of design, information, and (these days) digital media—what’s not to love about them? In fact, they are so quintessentially the distillation of information into small, easily digested bites, that we’d love to run one by you on a regular basis, analyzing what does and doesn’t work for each one. There’s an interesting hitch to the idea of running a regular column, though…

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This weeks viral video comes courtesy of our friends over at the Microsoft Zune Team. They’re the guys responsible for encoding all of the media that you can download and stream on your XBox through the Zune Marketplace. Amongst other things, the job entails watching hours of movies, TV shows and music videos looking for encoding errors. Every once in awhile between the Hannah Montana episodes dubbed into Italian and the newest Red Hot Chili Peppers video, a gem like this comes along.

The video is from high school fashion blogger turned pop star Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, and is an example of Japanese Harajuku style, emphasizing over-the-top, almost grotesque cuteness. But it goes all out with a set designed by 6%DOKIDOKI and some bizzare digital effects, making videos by American acts like Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj that have emulated Harajuku style seem dull by comparison.

In case you were wondering, Pon means “Clap” and the lyrics, which follow the same absurdist vein as the video, enthusiastically urge you to clap along.