Because we can, we must! Surveillance is a slippery slope.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/18/1723240&from=rss
Police Given Access to Congestion-Charge Cameras
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday July 18, @03:17PM from the creep-hard-to-stop dept.
The BBC is reporting that anti-terror Police officers in London have been given live access to the "congestion charge cameras", allowing them to view and track vehicles in real time. This is a change from the original procedure that required them to apply for access on a case-by-case basis. "Under the new rules, anti-terror officers will be able to view pictures in "real time" from Transport for London's (Tfl) 1,500 cameras, which use Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology to link cars with owners' details. But they will only be able to use the data for national security purposes [Sure... Bob] and not to fight ordinary crime, the Home Office stressed."
Attention 'garage sale' subversives!
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/18/2027228&from=rss
eBay Bargains Soon To Be A Thing Of The Past?
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday July 18, @05:45PM from the capitalists-attacking-capitalism dept.
ScaredOfTheMan writes to mention that, as expected, companies are utilizing the decision in Leegin Creative Leater Products v. PSKS to force the take-down of auctions on eBay because auctions are priced too low or even stating the auction itself is an infringement of their intellectual property rights.
[My favorite comment:
Auctions (if fair & open) yield the RIGHT price... in other words, the price which the buyer is willing to pay and which the seller is willing to accept. Any other kind of pricing is rigged.
Too “European” for the US?
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/18/ap3927736.html
EU File Sharers Protected in Civil Cases
By AOIFE WHITE 07.18.07, 3:07 PM ET BRUSSELS, Belgium -
Copyright groups may not be able to demand that telecom companies hand over the names and addresses of people suspected of swapping music illegally online, a senior legal adviser to the EU's highest court said.
Advocate General Juliane Kokott, advising the European Court of Justice, said Wednesday that EU law directs governments to resist the disclosure of personal data on Internet traffic in civil cases - unlike criminal cases, where compliance would be required.
... Separately, a Belgian court ruled last month that a local Internet provider, Scarlet, must filter or block file-sharing software to prevent users downloading music owned by Belgian copyright owners. It has six months to comply or faces daily fines.
Bell killer?
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/18/ooma-launches-free-consumer-phone-service/
Ooma Launches Free Consumer Phone Service
Michael Arrington July 18 2007
An ambitious and long awaited new consumer VOIP startup - Ooma
- launches on Thursday morning. Much like Vonage and the ill-fated SunRocket, Ooma allows consumers to use their normal phones to make and receive telephone calls, but at drastically reduced prices.
Vonage provides unlimited calling in the U.S. and Canada for a flat $25/month. Ooma, however, is using an innovative peer-to-peer architecture to significantly reduce their cost overhead. Because of that cost reduction, they’re charging for hardware only. Calls in the U.S. are free, and will be forever.
... Ooma has a very deep management team and board of directors, and has raised $27 million over two rounds of financing.
I had the opportunity to interview founder and CEO Andrew Frame and Creative Director Ashton Kutcher (yeah, the actor) a couple of days ago. Kutcher is actively engaged in the business - part of his work will consist of creating a viral video series to promote the product. The podcast is up at TalkCrunch.
Think what you will, they're gonna sell a ton of them!
$298 Wal-Mart PC features OpenOffice.org, no crapware
By Eric Bangeman | Published: July 18, 2007 - 05:00PM CT
Looking to get a jump on the lucrative back-to-school shopping season, Wal-Mart has begun selling a sub-$300 PC. The Everex IMPACT GC3502 comes with Windows Vista Home Basic and OpenOffice.org 2.2 installed on a system that includes a 1.5GHz VIA C7 CPU, 1GB of DDR-2 SDRAM, an 80GB hard drive, a DVD burner, and integrated graphics, as well as a keyboard, mouse, and speakers. [Monitor extra Bob]
... for basic word processing, e-mailing, listening to music, watching video, and web surfing, the machine should be adequate, and Windows Vista Home Basic doesn't have the graphical overhead of the other versions.
Bill said that? What was he drinking at the time?
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article2098235.ece
Gates: how piracy worked for me in China
The Microsoft chairman says that bootlegged software is creating a demand for his legitimate products in the longer term
Rhys Blakely From Times Online July 18, 2007
Bill Gates has unveiled Microsoft’s unlikely secret weapon in China, a territory he is adamant will turn out to be the software giant's largest market: piracy.
"It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not," the Microsoft co-founder and chairman told Fortune magazine.
... Mr Gates's fondness for China and its potential looks as if it were being reciprocated.
His latest remarks came as he visited the country on a tour on which he met the kind of adulation more usually reserved for Hollywood’s glitterati.
On his trip he was made an honorary trustee of Peking University and awarded an honorary doctorate from Tsinghua University in Beijing.
... However, there are signs that Microsoft is gaining traction in China — a feat that Mr Gates suggested was aided by the vast volume of the company’s software that has been bootlegged by Chinese pirates, making Windows the nation’s de facto standard.
Cutting prices for Windows — to as low as £1.50 for students — has also helped.
Points to free software...
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/58358.html
Bringing Doctors and Lawyers Into the 21st Century
By Jack M. Germain TechNewsWorld 07/18/07 4:00 AM PT
Doctors and lawyers generate huge amounts of electronic records and are under increasing regulatory and legal scrutiny. With recent changes to the Federal Rules to Civil Procedure, courts are requiring solo law practitioners and large practices alike to become litigation-ready and establish the integrity of their electronic records over their retention periods and throughout their chain of custody.
One out of three. We're getting better too slowly?
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/18/1833237&from=rss
Identifying (and Fixing) Failing IT Projects
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday July 18, @04:57PM from the if-it-aint-baroque-don't-fix-it dept. Software IT
Esther Schindler writes "Often, the difference between the success and failure of any IT project is spotting critical early warning signs that the project is in trouble. CIO.com offers a few ways to identify the symptoms, as well as suggestions about what you can do to fix a project gone wrong. ' The original study (which is still sometimes quoted as if it were current) was shocking. In 1994, the researchers found that 31 percent of the IT projects were flat failures. That is, they were abandoned before completion and produced nothing useful. Only about 16 percent of all projects were completely successful: delivering applications on time, within budget and with all the originally specified features. "As of 2006, the absolute failure rate is down to 19 percent," Johnson says. "The success rate is up to 35 percent." The remaining 46 percent are what the Standish Group calls "challenged": projects that didn't meet the criteria for total success but delivered a useful product.'"
Perhaps we could tap the sewer lines for our cars? (When they say 'green,' they don't mean 'around the gills,' do they?)
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/18/1456224&from=rss
Boeing Helping to Develop Algae-Powered Jet
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday July 18, @12:48PM from the powerful-pond-scum dept. Science Technology
jon_cooper writes "Air New Zealand, Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation and Boeing are working together to develop and test a bio-fuel derived from algae. Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation began operating in May last year after it met a request from the local council to deal with excess algae on sewage ponds. Boeing's Dave Daggett was reported this year as saying algae ponds totaling 34,000 square kilometers could produce enough fuel to reduce the net CO2 footprint for all of aviation to zero."
More thinking about RFID
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1867898/posts
AMA Issues Ethics Code for RFID Chip Implants
RFID Journal ^ | July 17, 2007 | Beth Bacheldor Posted on 07/18/2007 10:49:01 AM PDT by TheTruthAintPretty
The American Medical Association (AMA) has officially established a code of ethics designed to protect patients receiving RFID implants. The recommendations focus on safeguarding a patient's privacy and health, and are the result of an evaluation by the AMA's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) regarding the medical and ethical implications of RFID chips in humans, as well as a follow-up report recently released. The latter discusses the possible advantages and specific privacy and ethical issues of using RFID-enabled implantations for clinical purposes.
Entitled "Radio Frequency ID Devices in Humans," the report is presented by Robert M. Sade, M.D., who chairs the CEJA. It acknowledges that RFID's use in health care "represents another promising development in information technology, but also raises important ethical, legal and social issues." The report adds, "Specifically, the use of RFID labeling in humans for medical purposes may improve patient safety, but also may pose some physical risks, compromise patient privacy, or present other social hazards."
[Direct link to the WORD document: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/467/ceja5a07.doc ]
A lovely little (11 page) summary, with suggestions for Best Practices and pointers to resources. (Makes me wonder why all government data hasn't been compromised.)
http://csrc.nist.gov/pcig/document/Common-Risks-Impeding-Adequate-Protection-Govt-Info.pdf
Common Risks Impeding the Adequate Protection of Government Information
1. Security and privacy training is inadequate and poorly aligned with the different roles and responsibilities of various personnel.
2. Contracts and data sharing agreements between agencies and entities operating on behalf of the agency do not describe the procedures for appropriately processing and adequately safeguarding information.
3. Information inventories inaccurately describe the types and uses of government information, and the locations where it is stored, processed or transmitted, including personally identifiable information.
4. Information is not appropriately scheduled, archived, or destroyed.
5. Suspicious activities and incidents are not identified and reported in a timely manner.
6. Audit trails documenting how information is processed are not appropriately created or reviewed.
7. Inadequate physical security controls where information is collected, created, processed or maintained.
8. Information security controls are not adequate.
9. Inadequate protection of information accessed or processed remotely.
10. Agencies acquire information technology and information security products without incorporating appropriate security and privacy standards and guidelines.
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