Friday, March 12, 2010

A prudent response? It could be a breach at their site, or the card processor's system or something completely unrelated. But “making sure” is both wise and unusual.

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=10603

Monoprice.com Shuttered After Fraud Complaints

March 11, 2010 by admin

Brian Krebs reports:

Audio visual cabling giant monoprice.com shut down its Web site – possibly for the next couple of weeks – while it investigates the possible compromise of its customer credit and debit card information.

Vincent Lim, monoprice.com’s operations manager, said the company took the site offline around midnight on Friday, Mar. 5, after it received e-mails and phone calls from several customers complaining about fraudulent charges on their cards that they had used on monoprice.com.

Read more on KrebsonSecurity.com

[From the article:

To date, he said, investigators have found no evidence that card information has been stolen from Monoprice’s computer network. The site is now allowing customers to browse products, but Monoprice won’t be taking any new orders until the investigation is completed, Lim said.



http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=8263

Judge Rules DOJ Unlawfully Recorded Renzi’s Calls

March 12, 2010 by Dissent

Mike Scarcella writes:

The Justice Department unlawfully recorded privileged phone calls between former Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) and his lawyers during an insurance fraud investigation, a federal magistrate judge in Arizona ruled Thursday in recommending the recordings be suppressed.

Magistrate Judge Bernardo Velasco found that prosecutors made false statements to the supervising judge regarding the status of one of the lawyers Renzi was talking with and regarding the government’s effort to minimize the intercept and recording of calls with other attorneys.

Still, Velasco is recommending that Renzi’s motion to dismiss the indictment be denied.

“While this court has concerns over the government’s conduct in this case, it does not rise to the level of outrageousness,” Velasco wrote in his 24-page ruling. U.S. District Judge David Bury will have a chance to review the magistrate’s report and recommendation. Velasco’s ruling is here.

Read more on the Blog of Legal Times.

[From the article:

No information from the calls appears in witness interviews or grand jury sessions, Velasco noted. [None? Bob]



High probability that this was not run by the Chief Privacy Officer...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=8267

Privacy flags raise concern for graduate students

March 12, 2010 by Dissent

Kate Perkowski reports:

Undergraduate students are not the only ones concerned with personal information available through UK’s [University of Kentucky's] online people search — now, graduate students are voicing their concern, too.

Members of UK’s graduate school have recently voiced concern about their information like home address and home telephone number being available on the UK Web site without their knowledge, said English teaching assistant Jesslyn Collins-Frohlich.

“We’ve been talking in my office because there are at least two or three people who’ve had students … call them late at night,” Collins-Frohlich said. “As a TA and as a student instructor, you just don’t really want that relationship and that access to you.”

[...]

T. Lynn Williamson, senior associate in legal services, said …. if a student got a privacy flag, UK would not be able to confirm them as a student because of the law, and that student would find his or her name missing at commencement ceremonies as well.

Williamson said creating a system that allows students to choose what information is made available is possible, but not at UK. Williamson said it would take thousands of dollars to let students choose what information they wanted available. [But the solution would work for ALL students, so it's not “thousands of dollars” each. Bob]

“Is it possible at the University of Kentucky with the technologies, the computer systems that we have? No, it’s not possible,” he said.

Read more on Kentucky Kernel.

So what is UK saying? That student privacy and safety not worth thousands of dollars? I hope UK takes a harder look at the issue and resolves to figure out a way to address the students’ concerns.



...because we're too curious to allow people to remain anonymous?

http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/chatroulettemap-com-mapping-people-on-chatroulette

ChatrouletteMap.com - Mapping People On ChatRoulette

http://www.chatroulettemap.com/

What is the obvious reaction to a site like ChatRoulette - a service that gives exhibitionists and people who know that they can do whatever they fancy and get away with it? The answer is something like this new website. Entitled Chatroulette Map, it will let you pinpoint the location of users of the increasingly popular face-to-face chatroom. In that way, the “get away with it” bit disappears altogether, and people would think twice before posting any old thing.



Hoist on our own petard? Nope. When we say “everybody” we don't include countries we like.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/12/0722225/A-Sad-Day-For-the-New-Zealand-Internet?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

A Sad Day For the New Zealand Internet

Posted by timothy on Friday March 12, @03:36AM

An anonymous reader writes

"Another one bites the dust, as New Zealand's Internet filter stealthily goes live with two smaller ISPs, and three of the largest already rumoured to have signed up to do the same. However, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is apparently 'committed to helping people to circumvent government internet filtering,' so perhaps the USA will launch an invasion to free the poor downtrodden Kiwis from their own evil government?"

Clever of one of the acquiescing ISPs to have named itself "Watchdog."



How to control your image? Your best asset is a loyal customer base.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-03-06/news/fl-slcol-seth-social-media-crisis-managem20100307_1_social-media-seaworld-park-s-blog

SeaWorld uses social media to react quickly to a major crisis

March 06, 2010|Seth Liss

The recent killer whale attack at SeaWorld could have been the end of the theme park. It was that bad.

… SeaWorld's social media reaction started quickly with a tweet and a Facebook post acknowledging the attack and the tragic loss of its trainer. A few hours later, SeaWorld Orlando CEO Jim Atchison announced an investigation on the park's blog and left the post open for comments. The next morning, the company sensibly suspended its playful " Shamu" Twitter account, redirecting visitors to the park's main Twitter account, which included updates on its investigation and plans. It also responded to some of their supportive fans. Videos about the loss of Brancheau, referred to as a member of their family, were posted to YouTube and a press conference with Atchison was streamed live on the park's blog.

The most interesting conversation was taking place on their Facebook fan page, where people left comments such as, "Stop making money off of exploiting animals!! Free the whales!!." SeaWorld wasn't answering most of the questions and comments, but some of their 100,000 plus Facebook fans did. Those fans showed a deep loyalty to the park and were able to answer questions — and defend SeaWorld. It's exactly the best of what a company can expect from social media: building customer relationships and earning brand loyalty.



For us non-lawyers...

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=1400

10 ways you might be breaking the law with your computer



I wonder if this will encourage other artists to force the music labels to serve them? Perhaps there is a business opportunity here for a mere facilitator?

http://www.billboard.com/news/pink-floyd-wins-court-battle-with-emi-label-1004074467.story?tag=hpfeed#/news/pink-floyd-wins-court-battle-with-emi-label-1004074467.story?tag=hpfeed

Pink Floyd Wins Court Battle With EMI Label

Rock band Pink Floyd on Thursday won a court battle with EMI in a ruling that prevents the record company from selling single downloads on the Internet from the group's concept albums.

The outcome of the other element of the legal tussle in London's High Court -- concerning the level of royalties paid to the band by the label -- was unclear, as that part of the judgement was held in secret, the Press Association reported.

The ruling is the latest blow to EMI, the smallest of the four major record companies which is seeking new funds to avoid breaching debt covenants.


(Related) Apparently it will. For these guys, it's not just music.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1578965/ok-go-ditches-record-label-after-very-public-tussles-over-youtube-embedding-rights?partner=rss

OK Go Ditches Label Over YouTube Embedding Rights

BY Dan Nosowitz

How many times does a band have to take the music video world by storm before its record label gets that its members might know a little something about music videos? We may never find out, because OK Go, the band in question, has just ditched EMI, the record label in question, largely due to that very problem.

OK Go rocketed up through the indie rock world in large measure due to the band's brilliant, lo-fi music videos, which have spread like wildfire on YouTube. But EMI, in a misguided attempt to wring every penny out of the band's success, decided to block embedding on the YouTube videos--meaning the videos were unable to disseminate out through music and pop culture blogs, news sites, and personal blogs the way they did before the restriction. And that's not a minor detail: the band saw a 90% drop in views when that restriction went into effect. As in, 100,000 views one day, 10,000 views the next.

[Watch their video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w&feature=player_embedded



'cause everyone needs multiple operating systems, right?

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/virtualboxs-seamless-mode-combine-operating-systems-desktop/

VirtualBox’s Seamless Mode: Combine Two Operating Systems Into One Desktop

By Justin Pot on Mar. 11th, 2010

Installing two operating systems at the same time isn’t just possible; it can also be downright slick. Whether you’re a Mac user looking to occasionally use a given Windows application or someone looking for a risk-free way to try out different Linux versions, VirtualBox is the go-to freeware platform for virtualization. This program allows you to run any operating system in a contained, emulated environment.



Could make for some interesting class projects...

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/03/nine-tools-for-collaboratively-creating.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freetech4teachers%2FcGEY+%28Free+Technology+for+Teachers%29

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Nine Tools for Collaboratively Creating Mind Maps



I'm sure this tells us something (insightful?), but I have no idea what that might be...

http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/11/wikipedia-trending-topics/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Perseids, John Hughes, And G.I. Joe Are Trending Topics On Wikipedia

by Erick Schonfeld on Mar 11, 2010

Google has Google Trends, Twitter has trending topics, and now so does Wikipedia. Pete Skomoroch, a Senior Research Scientist at LinkedIn and blogger at Data Wrangling, built a trending topics page for Wikipedia. The homepage ranks the top-25 Wikipedia articles with the most pageviews over the past 30 days, as well as the fastest rising articles in the past 24 hours.

You can search for any topic, and the you will get a chart showing pageview trends, along with the actual article placed in an iFrame below the chart.

No comments: