Monday, September 08, 2008

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Is this the route to good privacy protection/security laws?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080908063543355

Kr: GS Caltex Faces Class Action Suit (follow-up)

Monday, September 08 2008 @ 06:35 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews

In the self-proclaimed high-tech utopia of Korea, where people have broadband connections on subways and television on mobile-phones, a recent hot trend seems to be class action lawsuits.

Police have arrested two employees of a subsidiary of GS Caltex and two accomplices on charges of unlawfully downloading customer information of the country's No.2 refinery and attempting to sell it on the black market.

... Lee Dong-gook, a Seoul-based private lawyer, began gathering applications for a class action lawsuit against GS Caltex and said he will be seeking compensation of about two million won per head.

... The Korean Information Security Agency (KISA) said it received reports from more than 9,000 people last year who claimed that their resident registration numbers, a 13-digit code that indicates birth date, sex and site of registration, had been stolen.

Security experts are claiming that companies should be held liable for the increasing number of security breaches, with many of them not bothering to encrypt their customers' data.

A KISA survey of 2,500 domestic companies last year found that about a half of them (50.8 percent) hadn't spent a single penny to enhance information security.

Source - The Korea Times



...because...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=200809080616059

Data “Dysprotection:” breaches reported last week

Monday, September 08 2008 @ 06:16 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews

A recap of incidents or privacy breaches reported last week for those who enjoy shaking their head and muttering to themselves with their morning coffee.

Source - Chronicles of Dissent



For your Security Manager (and if you're serious, your CEO)

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/09/08/Group_to_release_uniform_metrics_to_measure_IT_security-IDGNS_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/09/08/Group_to_release_uniform_metrics_to_measure_IT_security-IDGNS_1.html

Group to release uniform metrics to measure IT security

The Center for Information Security also launches a new service that enables companies to compare their security performance with their peers

By Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service September 08, 2008

... The latest CIS project is aimed at resolving the confusion and lack of uniformity in ways to measure whether an enterprise or organization's IT security is improving or not, said Bert Miuccio, CIS's CEO.

... The benchmarks, which are a free download on the CIS Web site, are intended to help organizations reduce IT security risks.

... The metrics should be released in late October or early November, Miuccio said.



Will they apply this to problems they aren't passionate about?

http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/commentary/games/2008/09/gamesfrontiers_0908

How Videogames Blind Us With Science

By Clive Thompson

A few years ago, Constance Steinkuehler -- a game academic at the University of Wisconsin -- was spending 12 hours a day playing Lineage, the online world game. She was, as she puts it, a "siege princess," running 150-person raids on hellishly difficult bosses. Most of her guild members were teenage boys.

But they were pretty good at figuring out how to defeat the bosses. One day she found out why. A group of them were building Excel spreadsheets into which they'd dump all the information they'd gathered about how each boss behaved: What potions affected it, what attacks it would use, with what damage, and when. Then they'd develop a mathematical model to explain how the boss worked -- and to predict how to beat it.

... That's when it hit her: The kids were practicing science.

... This led Steinkuehler to a fascinating and provocative conclusion: Videogames are becoming the new hotbed of scientific thinking for kids today.

... This is what Steinkuehler reports in a research paper -- "Scientific Habits of Mind in Virtual Worlds" (.pdf) -- that she will publish in this spring's Journal of Science Education and Technology.

... And here's the thing: The (mostly) young people engaging in these sciencelike conversations are precisely the same ones who are, more and more, tuning out of science in the classroom.



Got Geek? (Not much depth, but points to consider..)

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/09/08/37FE-startup-tech-how-to_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/09/08/37FE-startup-tech-how-to_1.html

How to start up your own tech startup

Follow the dream using advice from entrepreneurs who've made it work

By Bill Snyder September 08, 2008



The economics of the Internet? (Part 1 of 6 bazillion)

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/07/1636203&from=rss

How Networks Interact - Peering and Transit Explained

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday September 07, @01:26PM from the very-carefully dept.

Raindeer writes to share his article about peering and transit between networks, which begins:

"In 2005, AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre famously told BusinessWeek, 'What they [Google, Vonage, and others] would like to do is to use my pipes free. But I ain't going to let them do that... Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?' The story of how the Internet is structured economically is not so much a story about net neutrality, but rather it's a story about how ISPs actually do use AT&T's pipes for free, and about why AT&T actually wants them to do so. These inter-ISP sharing arrangements are known as 'peering' or 'transit,' and they are the two mechanisms that underlie the interconnection of networks that form the Internet. In this article, I'll take a look at the economics of peering and transit in order to give you a better sense of how traffic flows from point A to point B on the Internet, and how it does so mostly without problems, despite the fact that the Internet is a patchwork quilt of networks run by companies, schools, and governments."



Also looks like a great placefor consultants/professionals to tout their skills & expertise.

http://www.killerstartups.com/Social-Networking/ileonardo-com-a-collection-of-information

iLeonardo.com - A Collection Of Information

iLeonardo.com combines the advantages of social networking and knowledge sharing to create a truly unique web experience. Through the site, you’ll be able to upload content about things you know, allowing the service to create notebooks of information that many users collaborate on. As you start making more friends, you’ll be able to see the information they’ve uploaded. This will allow you to meet new people and enjoy the quality of the knowledge they have chosen to share with the rest of the community. I’ve come to think of this as a sort of cross between Facebook and Wikipedia. This sort of communal knowledge sharing is the dream of any utopist web designer. If all sites were a little bit more like this, the internet would sure be a better place. This social network is not about how many friends you have, it’s about how much you know and are willing to share with the world.

http://www.ileonardo.com/secure/main.php



Tools & Techniques Could be useful for e-Discovery

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10034602-52.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Rebus brings desktop search to scanned documents

Posted by Daniel Terdiman September 8, 2008 4:00 AM PDT



Global Warming! Global Warmiong! Let's not lose our heads people. If we aren't positive we know the cause(s) what makes us think we know the solution?

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/07/199217&from=rss

1,500-Ship Fleet Proposed To Fight Climate Change

Posted by timothy on Sunday September 07, @03:41PM from the sponsored-by-viagra dept. Earth Transportation Technology

Roland Piquepaille writes

"According to UK and U.S. researchers, it should be possible to fight the global warming effects associated with an increase of dioxide levels by using autonomous cloud-seeding ships to spray salt water into the air. This project would require the deployment of a worldwide fleet of 1,500 unmanned ships to cool the Earth even if the level of carbon dioxide doubled. These 300-tonne ships 'would be powered by the wind, but would not use conventional sails. Instead they would be fitted with a number of 20 m-high, 2.5 m-diameter cylinders known as Flettner rotors. The researchers estimate that such ships would cost between £1m and £2m each. This translates to a US$2.65 to 5.3 billion total cost for the ships only."

[Let me understand this. We suck heat out of the air and add heat to the ocean. Can you say El Nino? Bob]


Related. Science doesn't always get it right the first time.

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/07/1439239&from=rss

Opposable Thumbs and Upright Walking Caused By "Junk DNA"

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday September 07, @11:25AM from the stranded-pairs dept. Biotech Science

quinnlynn writes

"A group of research scientists at Yale discovered that the evolution of opposable thumbs and upright walking in humans is due to changes in the genome in the areas still classified as "junk DNA."

... In the last several years, scientists have discovered that non-coding regions of the genome, far from being junk, contain thousands of regulatory elements that act as genetic "switches" to turn genes on or off.'"

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