http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=12878
Stupid is as stupid does, Monday UK edition
August 16, 2010 by Dissent
Adrian Hearn reports:
A council has been accused of ”bullying” parents after spending £100,000 on a mobile camera which will dish out parking fines – to school-run mums.
The state-of-the-art ROADflow camera will be mounted on top of a traffic warden’s car and driven past 80 schools when parents are dropping off or picking up their children.
Any parent caught stopping on double-yellow lines or zig-zags at the school gates will be photographed and fined £60.
Bedford Borough Council is forking out £67,000 for the camera, £16,000 on software modification and a further £15,000 for warning signs.
A new team of council traffic enforcement officers will record the registration plates and issue Penalty Charge Notices without the vehicle needing to stop.
The council estimates it needs to issue 1,338 parking fines every year to meet the £42,000 annual running costs and make a predicted £37,500 profit.
Read more on SNWS.com
They couldn’t just hold a bake sale?
Obvious is not always wise, and off-the-cuff remarks are not strategy. (It also suggest a strategy for Identity Thieves: Change the name on those stolen Credit Cards to slow down detection. “I'm sorry Mr Jones, that card belongs to Mr Smith”)
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=12882
Google’s Eric Schmidt on privacy: change your name
August 17, 2010 by Dissent
Louisa Hearn reports:
Google’s chief has put forth a novel solution for today’s teenagers whose wild online antics threaten to follow them into their adult life: change your name.
His comments come as the search giant attempts to allay public concern about plans to commercialise its ever-increasing pile of data. Schmidt’s prediction for those wanting to distance themselves from their past came as part of a broad-based internet discussion with the Wall Street Journal.
“I don’t believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time,” he said, as he predicted that all young people might one day be entitled to change their names in order to disown compromising activities captured on friends’ social media sites.
Read more in The Age.
So one day Google may have a CEO named Eric Absurd?
Forgive me if I think it strange that legislatures believe they can dictate good (or even acceptable) uses for technology. What ever happened to Market Forces? What impact will this have on your insurance? Can I get one hooked to the black box in my car to prove that I never drink and drive?
Convicted NY Drunk Drivers Need Ignition Interlocks
Posted by Soulskill on Monday August 16, @07:33PM
"Starting yesterday in New York state, anyone sentenced for felony or misdemeanor DWI, whether a first-time or repeat offender, will have to install an ignition interlock in any vehicle they own or operate. The interlock contains a breath-checking unit that keeps the car from starting if the offender's blood-alcohol level registers 0.025 or higher, a little less than one-third of the legal limit. 'The addition of ignition interlocks will save lives in New York state,' says State Probation Director Robert Maccarone, who led the team that wrote the regulation. 'It's been proven in other states. New Mexico realized a 37 percent reduction in DWI recidivism.' Whether that will be enough to persuade more people to take a cab or find a designated driver is unknown. 'It's one more thing to make people think, it may help — it may keep a few people from getting behind the wheel,' says Onondaga County Sheriff Kevin Walsh."
(Related)
Radio, RIAA: mandatory FM radio in cell phones is the future
Music labels and radio broadcasters can't agree on much, including whether radio should be forced to turn over hundreds of millions of dollars a year to pay for the music it plays. But the two sides can agree on this: Congress should mandate that FM radio receivers be built into cell phones, PDAs, and other portable electronics.
(Related) There is a clear business opportunity to provide a “translation tool” that makes the various features of websites easier to use. (Since everything is clearly coded, this might even be simple.) But hardware is another story.
Legislation To Make Web Devices Accessible To Disabled Users
Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday August 17, @05:01AM
"In an effort to make web devices accessible to the disabled, the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (H.R. 3101), submitted by Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA) passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 348 to 23. The related Senate bill has been introduced by Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR). Quoting Representative Markey's website: 'We've moved from Braille to Broadcast, from Broadband to the Blackberry. We've moved from spelling letters in someone's palm to the Palm Pilot. And we must make all of these devices accessible.' [Must we? Bob] The Washington Post coverage notes, 'Some broadcasters put videos on the Internet with captions, but not all. That can make inaccessible everything from the political videos that are now common on the Web to pop culture clips that turn viral.' As someone who has 20/200 vision with my glasses on, I completely agree that the web has not been kind to individuals with various disabilities. But due to the size of the web, and the large number of different devices that access it, is it even possible to legislate something of this nature? Or should we rely on education and peer pressure on the various manufacturers?"
Perhaps we should gather these into a “How to avoid being vulnerable” guidebook for users who don't think.
75% Use Same Password For Social Media & Email
Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday August 16, @01:19PM
"Over 250,000 user names, email addresses, and passwords used for social networking sites can easily be found online. A study of the data collected showed that 75 percent of social networking username and password samples collected online were identical to those used for email accounts. The password data was gathered from blogs, torrents, online collaboration services and other sources. It was found that 43 percent of the data was leaked from online collaboration tools while 21 percent of data was leaked from blog postings. Meanwhile, torrents and users of other social hubs were responsible for leaking 10 percent and 18 percent of user data respectively...."
(Related) A bit less obvious that the previous article, but still offering several clear indications of high rask.
http://it.slashdot.org/story/10/08/16/139201/Dislike-Button-Scam-Hits-Facebook-Users?from=rss
"Dislike" Button Scam Hits Facebook Users
Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday August 16, @09:48AM
"A message saying 'I just got the Dislike button, so now I can dislike all of your dumb posts lol!!' is spreading rapidly on Facebook, tempting unsuspecting users into believing that they will be able to "dislike" posts as well as "like" them. However, security researchers say that it is just the latest 'survey scam', tricking Facebook users into into giving a rogue Facebook application permission to access their profile, and posting spam messages from their account. The rogue application requires victims to complete an online survey (which makes money for the scammers) before ultimately redirecting to a Firefox browser add-on for a Facebook dislike button developed by FaceMod. "As far as we can tell, FaceMod aren't connected with the scam — their browser add-on is simply being used as bait," says Sophos security blogger Graham Cluley."
Politics requires complex (but not always sophisticated) strategies. Consider that the Google CEO was a big Obama supporter and what I see is a politician saying publicly, “I do not bow to Google.” Privately I suspect the message is, “I know lots of Google-gazillionaires who can toss some pocket change (say $50,000,000) into your campaign funds if you vote their way.” Or is that too obvious?
Democrats Pan Google-Verizon Net Neutrality Proposal
Posted by Soulskill on Monday August 16, @11:37PM
"Four House Democrats wrote to the Federal Communications Commission, urging them to write strict net neutrality rules and reject the framework put forward by Google and Verizon. The lawmakers, including Rep. Anna Eshoo, who represents the district containing Google HQ, said the Google-Verizon proposal increases the pressure on the FCC to come up with actual net neutrality rules, and characterize the deal as harmful to consumers and beneficial for the corporations. In particular, the letter took issue with two pieces of the Verizon-Google proposal: exemptions for managed services and wireless services from strict net-neutrality rules."
Coming soon! They have a sense of humor – don't confuse that with trivial.
Swingly’s Answer Engine Comes Out Of Stealth Swinging And Killing Zombies
Sadly, Google isn’t great at answering questions because they’re a search engine that mainly returns hyperlinks. Sure, your answer may reside on one of those pages, but that requires another click and some browsing. A new service launching out of stealth mode tonight, Swingly, wants to perfect this task.
… Perhaps the most refreshing thing about the Texas-based startup is that they’re not pretending to be perfect. They claim to be about 75 percent accurate right now. But just in case they can’t back that up, they show related Q&A pairing below their best match to make sure you get what you’re looking for. And that’s actually smart because apparently in their alpha testing of the product, people have proven hungry for knowledge and keep coming back for more. “Our engagement numbers are phenomenal,” the company says.
… But really, all that matters here is how useful the service actually is in the real world. So Swingly is giving us 500 invites to dish out to TechCrunch readers. Simply use the code ‘techcrunch’ when you sign up and you’ll be granted access to the service when it’s fully live (which should be soon).
Swingly has also created a side-by-side comparison site so you can see how your questions are answered on their service versus how they are on the competitors. You can find that here (but you need to be logged in for it to work).
Something to share with your police friends?
SafetyWeb’s Free Online Tracking Helps Police Find Missing Kids
Child safety monitoring service SafetyWeb is releasing a free version of its online tracking tool today, specifically for law enforcement agencies.
The SWOT tool allows police to secure the social networking accounts of a missing child and access recent status updates. Basically it tracks recent activity across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and any other social networking services a missing child might use to rely information on their whereabouts. The platform also provides instant alerts of its video, social network and photo site tracking.
SWOT got a standing ovation when demoed by SafetyWeb founders (and parents) Geoffry Arone and Michael Clark at the Crimes Against Children Conference last week, which SafetyWeb co-sponsored with Google and Facebook.
Tools & Techniques: Hardware &software for geeks & hackers. Here are a few samples...
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2367742,00.asp
Computer Tools: Your At-Home IT Toolkit
Your parents can't figure out how to upload a picture to Facebook; you live 3,000 miles away. Do you try to talk them through the process on the phone? Why bother, when you can take remote control of their desktop from anywhere? Have them install TeamViewer's QuickSupport utility, so you can take over”even from an iPhone or iPad”once they give you the ID and Password generated at launch. It's secure because they have to provide the numbers to give you permission. And it works like a charm.
Even if you have original disks to re-install programs, you might lack some all-important product keys (those numbers that are used to legally install many programs). KeyFinder is a freebie that pulls the keys for over 300 programs, including older versions of Windows and Office.
DriveImage XML will make a complete backup image of the drive”just make sure you have a larger drive to back up to. And thankfully, you can run it from a bootable CD. It works with Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista, and 7
Got problems with wireless? This free tool gives you a full report on all the wireless in your area. That way you know what channels are in use, what's crowded, what's encrypted, and the strength of competing 802.11 signals over time. And unlike other tools like this, inSIDDer works with Windows all the way up to version 7, even 64-bit, all using your existing wireless hardware.
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