Not everyone knows what a passport looks like. The picture does look official.

http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001308.php

Passport proxy

A seasoned traveler who ventured further into third world slums than I ever would told me about this nifty trick-of-the-trade. Make a good color copy of your passport, including the covers. Align the inside sheet of your passport data with the outside passport cover sheet. Glue together. Laminate. Score and fold. You now have a fairly official looking travel document.

I have found that for most purposes -- changing money at a bank, rentals, hotel front desks, and even police -- this passport clone is sufficient. You hide or store your real one and use this one for everything else except crossing borders. I don't know why, but most people seem happy to accept it. It may be because it seems like some new futuristic version 2.0 passport and who are they to question it?

(According to the US Passport Agency, it is perfectly legal for you to make a color copy of your passport -- although Kinko's can't -- and in fact they recommend you do so.)

Well, better late than never. Perhaps a few of you young lawyers could find work explaining how these “new ideas” have been working for the last 20 years in other industries...

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1530

From Confrontation to Experimentation: The Music Industry Is Playing a New Tune

Published: July 26, 2006 in Knowledge@Wharton

EMI Music backs a label that turns the traditional economics of the recording industry on its head. Vivendi's Universal Music Group creates multiple pricing schemes for CDs. Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Yahoo decide to sell a single without digital rights restrictions.

These moves typify a flurry of experimentation by major record labels in recent weeks, and stand in stark contrast to earlier behavior by an industry that six years ago was best known for launching anti-piracy lawsuits against Napster -- a network that originally swapped music files for free -- and individual users.

... Fader also notes another factor behind the music industry's willingness to try new approaches: It has no choice but to embrace the Internet. Like other media such as print, movies and television, the Internet is revamping the way entertainment is shared.

You can see why they might attract competition...

http://news.com.com/2061-10802_3-6098935.html?part=rss&tag=6098935&subj=news

Who gets what in a 99 cents download?

July 26, 2006 4:56 PM PDT

Record companies tend to complain about downloads, particularly since most songs are still downloaded illegally. But when it comes to legal downloads, they get most of the cash.

Record companies keep about 72.5 cents on average for a 99 cent song, Dave Jaworski, CEO of PassAlong Networks, at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit. PassAlong sets up online music services for other web sites. It has a big store on Ebay too.

The credit card company then gets a small slice. The rest goes to the people who sold the song. In PassAlong's case, the company divides the remainder with the retailer.

Perhaps this was not a data theft in the first place... In that case, why wouldn't they provide enough detail to convince us? (and why all the testing?)

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-identity-theft-risk,0,3671645.story

Computer Holding Personal Data Found

By MARK JOHNSON Associated Press Writer July 26, 2006, 4:10 PM EDT

ALBANY, N.Y. -- A computer that was lost with the personal information of as many as 540,000 injured workers has been located, state officials said Wednesday.

The FBI and the private company that had been in possession of the state-owned personal computer would not say how or where it was found, only that it was in "a secure location."

Officials said Monday the computer was missing from a secured facility [They lock the door? Bob] of Chicago-based CS Stars, an independent insurance brokerage. Most of the workers are New Yorkers from across the state who are in two special funds of the workers' compensation system.

CS Stars was using the computer to move the data -- including names, addresses and Social Security numbers -- from the state to the company's computerized claim system, according to the letter.

Mike Kachel, a spokesman for CS Stars' New York City office, said the FBI located the computer, missing since May 9, and that it appeared no one had used any of the information it contained. [You can tell just by looking at the computer? Bob]

FBI spokeswoman Cynthia Yates would not release any other information, saying the investigation was continuing. She said forensic tests were still being completed to verify the information had not been stolen.

The 'senior service' screws up again? (That's really not like them.)

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2006/07/26/ap2907381.html

Navy Computers With Personal Data Stolen

By LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press, 07.26.2006, 07:14 PM

Two laptop computers with personal information on about 31,000 Navy recruiters and their prospective recruits were stolen from Navy offices in New Jersey in June and July, the Navy disclosed on Wednesday.

It was the third time in little more than a month that personal data on Navy personnel has been lost or unintentionally released publicly over the Internet.

... He said the information on the laptops was secured by several layers of password protection. [So no serious security... Bob]

According to the Navy, one laptop was reported stolen from a recruiting station in Trenton, N.J., in early June, and the other was taken from a Jersey City, N.J., recruiting station in early July. While the thefts were initially reported to the police, the head of Naval personnel was not informed until mid-July.

Do you have anything on your computer worth saving? (Multi-national backup sites could make subpoenas interesting.)

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/07/26/backitup.ap/index.html

Saving data is a moneymaker

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Shalin Mody's computer held innumerable things he'd love to have forever: TV shows, video games, papers and more than 50 gigabytes of music. So normally he would have panicked the day the PC completely failed, unable to start up.

Fortunately, the 26-year-old investment manager had only weeks earlier come across a blog describing Carbonite, [http://carbonite.com/ Bob]an inexpensive new service that backed up everything on his PC over the Internet and stored it remotely.

When he bought a replacement PC, Carbonite repopulated it with his old files.

"It was extremely lucky," Mody said. "I just didn't stress too much."

... Taking advantage of cheap data storage and the proliferation of broadband Internet connections, Web-based services such as Carbonite can provide the equivalent of a fireproof safety deposit box for digital content.

"I think this is stuff that people don't really realize they can do," said David Friend, CEO of Boston-based Carbonite, which lets users back up unlimited amounts of data for less than $5 a month.

Carbonite runs in the background of a Windows-based computer, copying files, encrypting them and sending them to remote servers. Because most broadband connections have much slower upload speeds than download speeds, the initial backup process can take several days.

... Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. are also weighing vast remote-storage services that could be free and backed by advertising, though neither company would offer details.

Even before products like that emerge, however, the choices for consumers are mushrooming.

IBM Corp. recently rolled out a $35-per-computer software package that automatically backs up a consumer's files by routing the data to whatever sources happen to be available, including inexpensive "thumb" drives and online storage accounts offered by Internet providers.

For those willing to manually make sure important files are safely stored in more than one place, thumb drives and free services like Google's Gmail offer several gigabytes of space. That would be enough room to protect many users' important documents, though richer media like photos, music and video quickly eat up far more space.

... Of course, if a fire or flood destroys your house, what good is it to have backed up your data on something that was sitting right next to the PC?

... IBackup launched in 1999 and now holds more than 150 terabytes of data for its customers in five locations around the world, spokesman Raghu Kulkarni said.

Recall that 150 terabytes would be roughly equivalent to 150 million books. So it would seem iBackup is no secret. But Kulkarni suggests that amount of data is nothing compared to what would roll in if online backup really became widespread.

"It's still a field that has to get the real attention of the consumers," he said. "Because backup in general is not a very cool thing."

Another reason to use off site backup?

http://techdirt.com/articles/20060726/2235224.shtml

Court Says Border Patrol Can Look Through Your Hard Drive

from the so-says-the-courts dept

A court of appeals has determined that, if you're entering the US, border guards have every right to search through the contents of your laptop, even if they have no reason to be suspicious. This fits with an earlier Supreme Court ruling that basically said the 4th Amendment doesn't apply at the border. All this case does is say that the data on your laptop is equally available to border guards. The author of the News.com article, Declan McCullough, suggests people learn how to encrypt data on their laptops if they're worried -- but will that matter? What happens if the border guards ask to see the encrypted data as well? [What happens if there is gibberish on your computer and the border guards think it's encrypted data? Bob] What are the limits? Also, we've noted in the past that officials have used just the presence of encryption software as evidence that you may have committed a crime, so encrypting data you'd like to keep confidential hardly seems likely to protect that data.

History is not understanding.

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/011947.html

July 26, 2006

CRS Report on the Middle East - Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah: The Current Conflict, July 21, 2006

Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah: The Current Conflict, July 21, 2006 (45 pages, PDF)

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/011942.html

July 26, 2006

GAO: Key Federal Privacy Laws Do Not Require Information Resellers to Safeguard All Sensitive Data

Personal Information: Key Federal Privacy Laws Do Not Require Information Resellers to Safeguard All Sensitive Data, Full text GAO-06-674, and Highlights, June 26, 2006.

• "The growth of information resellers--companies that collect and resell publicly available and private information on individuals--has raised privacy and security concerns about this industry. These companies collectively maintain large amounts of detailed personal information on nearly all American consumers, and some have experienced security breaches...GAO found that the applicability of the primary federal privacy and data security laws--the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)--to information resellers is limited."

Astroturfing: Building false 'grassroots' support.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20060726/1215206.shtml

Shareholder Astroturfing: Latest Tactic In Net Neutrality Debate

from the the-next-pointless-battle dept

We've spent way too much time on how both sides of the net neutrality debate have used astroturfing and other dishonest (or simply ridiculous) tactics to push their own side forward. However, it seems that every time you think you've seen it all, one side sinks even lower. The latest can best be described as "shareholder astroturfing." A mutual fund that owns a tiny bit of Microsoft stock is trying to use that to force the company to issue a report explaining its stand on net neutrality -- which, of course, the mutual fund claims is "expanded government regulation for the internet." Microsoft is asking the SEC if it can ignore the demand, as it really has nothing to do with Microsoft explaining its position, but is really just a PR stunt by anti-net neutrality supporters.

http://digg.com/tech_news/3_Ways_to_Immediately_Increase_Search_Engine_Traffic

3 Ways to Immediately Increase Search Engine Traffic

amarelito submitted by amarelito 22 hours 9 minutes ago (via http://performancing.com/node/3422 )

Amongst the commercial blogosphere there is huge interest in the dark, and mysterious art of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. There shouldn't be. Not because paying attention to Search traffic is bad, or that wanting to rank higher in Google is evil, simply because it's not rocket science, and anyone can do it. Even you.

You can ignore these, they are for my students.

http://digg.com/business_finance/10_nasty_money_habits_to_kick

10 nasty money habits to kick

Geekforlife submitted by Geekforlife 19 hours 37 minutes ago (via http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Savinganddebt/Savemoney/P144418.asp )

Stop making the same mistakes every year and wondering why you can't save. Break the cycle and change your life.

Unbelievable

http://digg.com/videos_educational/Flying_an_F_15_with_one_wing

Flying an F-15 with one wing!

Frinkahedron submitted by Frinkahedron 8 hours 36 minutes ago (via http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg3sKtPTWPQ )

"The IAF (Israeli Air Force) contacted McDonnel Douglas and asked for information about possibility to land an F-15 with one wing . MD replied that this is aerodynamically impossible, as confirmed by computer simulations... Then they received the photo...."