Sunday, May 23, 2010

Someone must have taught them to do this? Besides, if you don't have power off-premises, you can't spy on your students with those nifty little cameras in the laptops you gave them.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=10484

Does imposing school codes of conduct 24/7 go too far? Yes

May 23, 2010 by Dissent

Maureen Castriotta and Chris Rogers, members of the Roxbury Township Board of Education, write:

Every day, “We the People” lose a few more of our liberties at every level of government. Case in point is the disturbing trend of the adoption of Student Code of Conduct policies in our public schools throughout the state [New Jersey] requiring students to be on their best behavior the entire calendar year — even when school is out of session — or face disciplinary action from school authorities.

This begs the question: Just how much power are we willing to give our schools over our children?

In Roxbury Township, where we serve as school board members, a revised high school Student Code of Conduct was approved by a 7-3 vote last June, giving school administration the ability to prevent students from engaging in interscholastic athletics and student activities for inappropriate conduct on or off school grounds all year round.

Read more of their commentary on APP.com



Law in the Age of Web 2,0

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9177138/When_trade_secrets_meet_Facebook

When trade secrets meet Facebook

Is a customer list a trade secret once it's been recreated as a LinkedIn or Facebook account?

By Richard C. Darwin and Erin Welsh May 22, 2010 07:30 AM ET

Computerworld - Social networking sites are changing the way people interact, socially and professionally. Sites like Facebook and LinkedIn let people establish relationships and store information on their contacts.

… But the use of these social networking sites by employees to manage their business contacts can also have implications when those employees leave to join a competitor. Client lists and customer databases are frequently alleged to be trade secrets. If an employee has used a client list to build a network of links and/or contacts on Facebook or LinkedIn, does that list lose its trade secret status?


(Related) Big = Evil? Has antitrust addressed global revenue streams in comparison to non-global companies?

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/024311.html

May 22, 2010

NYT: "Federal government is examining Google's acquisitions and actions as never before"

Regulators are Watching Google Over Antitrust Concerns: "When it comes to government scrutiny, the company’s executives challenge the premise that Google is a monopoly, even as the company’s share of the search market inexorably rises, arguing that Google is still a minor player in the overall advertising market, which totals $800 billion a year... [Google's revenue was less than $24 Billions Bob] “They are not just on the radar screen. They are the at the center of it,” said Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia University and the author of a forthcoming book on technology monopolies, “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires.” “If you are in the federal government and are interested in antitrust, you are looking at Google.”


(Related) Big = Evil. And we've gotta handicap anyone that successful – the alternative is to admit they're smarter than us. (Who is John Galt?)

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=10486

Swiss want new rules to regulate firms like Google

May 23, 2010 by Dissent

Switzerland’s data protection chief said Sunday that the country needs new rules to regulate Internet services such as Google which could pose a problem to individuals’ privacy.

“I believe that Internet services and applications that could endanger personal rights must be subject to a licensing procedure,” said Hanspeter Thuer, Swiss data protection commissioner, in an interview with newspaper Sonntag.

Asked if this meant that a sort of Google-law was required, Thuer said: “Yes. A change in legislation is needed not just for Google, but for all IT applications. Everyone that offers applications on the market that could harm personal rights must be certified.”

Read more from the AFP on Expatica.com

Let’s see: if Canada’s privacy commissioner takes on Facebook, and Europe takes on Google, then, gosh, we really don’t need any U.S. privacy czar or commissioner to protect our privacy and data. Which is just as well, since other than some admirable efforts by the FTC, what has our federal government done to protect our privacy?

This is America, right? Why are we still essentially outsourcing privacy protection?



I wonder what “loose” means in Russia?

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=11758

Russia Considers Improving its Data Protection Law

May 22, 2010 by admin

The Russian Federation is considering amending the country’s data protection law, according to BNA’s Privacy Law Watch. Businesses have long complained that the law contains restrictions on data processing that are extremely difficult to meet. For example, the law requires affirmative written consent for most types of data processing. In the online context, this provision has been interpreted to require a consumer’s digital signature. A check box, which is an acceptable mechanism for expressing consent in the EU, for example, is deemed unacceptable in Russia.

Read more on Hunton & Williams LLP, Privacy and Information Security Law Blog.



Interesting that citations of law are now global...

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=11761

FAQ on Alberta’s New Breach Notice Law

May 22, 2010 by admin

David Navetta writes:

Earlier this month (May 1, 2010), Alberta became the first Canadian province to pass a broad breach notice law (“Bill 54”) as part of their comprehensive data privacy statute, the Personal Information Protection Act (“the Act”; technically, Alberta is the second province to pass a breach notice law in Canada, Ontario previously passed a breach notice law that focuses on health information custodians).

It will be interesting to see whether the Alberta law ushers in the passage of additional provincial laws similar to way California’s SB 1386 lead to breach notice laws in over forty U.S. states. There appear to be several breach notice initiatives at the provincial and federal level in Canada, some of which may be on the verge of passing. If a wave of breach notice laws do pass throughout Canada, it will be interesting to see if it will have the same impact as in the United States (e.g. frequent reporting of breaches, lawsuits, etc.). It will also be interesting to see whether the Canadian approach differs from the U.S. approach.

This blog post breaks down Alberta’s breach notice provisions in a “Frequently Asked Questions” format, and includes commentary and comparisons to existing U.S. Law. Note that the Act also now includes obligations concerning collecting and transferring of personal information outside of Canada. That is also discussed briefly in this blog post.

Read the FAQ on InformationLawGroup.



“Security is as Security does.” F. Gump This only works if you don't bother to log and review changes to your website.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/05/22/1546215/Malware-on-Hijacked-Subdomains-a-New-Trend?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Malware on Hijacked Subdomains, a New Trend?

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday May 22, @12:20PM

The Unmask Parasites blog discusses a technique attackers are using more and more often recently: modifying a compromised site's DNS settings to redirect various subdomains to different IPs that serve up malware, often leaving site administrators none the wiser. Quoting:

"It is clear that hackers have figured out that subdomains of legitimate websites are an almost infinite source of free domain names for their attack sites. With access to DNS settings, they can create arbitrary subdomains that point to their own servers. Such subdomains can hardly be noticed by domain owners who rarely check their DNS records after the initial domain configuration. And they cost nothing to hackers. I wonder if using hijacked subdomains of legitimate websites is a new trend in malware distribution or just a temporarily solution that won't be widely adopted by cybercriminals in the long run (like dynamic DNS domains last September)."



I suppose this was inevitable. Strange that a gestural language hasn't been developed by NY Taxi drivers...

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/10/05/23/0614255/New-iConji-Language-For-the-Symbol-Minded-Texter?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

New iConji Language For the Symbol-Minded Texter

Posted by timothy on Sunday May 23, @06:00AM

"As texting evolves into its own language, a Northern Colorado Business Review article covers an ambitious project to develop a new symbol-based language called iConji for mobile texting and online chatting. 'iConji is a set of user-created 32x32-pixel symbols that represent words or ideas, not dissimilar from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics or American Sign Language.' There is an instructional video for the iPhone app and it is also integrated into Facebook."

Behind this project is Kai Staats, formerly CEO of Terra Soft Solutions, the original developer of Yellow Dog Linux.



This must be useful to someone, right?

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/find-content-matters-twitter-part-1/

9 Websites To Show You The Hottest Stuff on Twitter Now



Facebook has problems enough, now they are a gateway to Microsoft?

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/microsoft-docs-supplement-replacement-ms-office/

Microsoft Docs – A Supplement To (Not A Replacement) MS Office

Microsoft Docs is technically in beta, but I received my login within minutes of signing up. Just head over to Docs.com and click the “Sign Up” button.

… You’ll notice right away that signing into Microsoft Docs requires not an MSN username and password but a Facebook one.



For my website class

http://www.cssreflex.com/2010/05/10-best-css-editors.html

10 Best of Breed CSS Editors

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