The “If I own it, I can do whatever I want with it” argument, is heating up.
Police Raid PS3 Hacker's House, Hacker Releases PS3 'Hypervisor Bible'
"Graf_chokolo, who has contributed countless things to the PS3 scene, had his private home raided by police this morning. They confiscated all of his 'accounts' and anything related to PS3 hacking. Some of you may remember that graf_chokolo promised if he was pushed, that he would release all of his PS3 hypervisor knowledge to the world. He kept good on this promise, releasing what is being dubbed as the Hypervisor Bible. 'The uploaded files contains his database, which is a series of tools for the PS3's Hypervisor and Hypervisor processes. It will help other devs to reverse engineer the hypervisor of PS3 further.'"
“Micro” used to mean less than $1. I guess kids have larger allowances now.
FTC To Examine Microtransactions In Free-To-Play Games and Apps
A post at GamePolitics points out that the Federal Trade Commission will be looking into free-to-play mobile games that rely on internal microtransactions as a business model. Many such games are marketed for children, and there have been a spate of cases where kids racked up huge bills without their parents' knowledge or explicit consent.
"The in-app purchases have also catapulted children's games such as Smurfs' Village and Tap Zoo, by San Francisco-based Pocket Gems, into the ranks of the highest-grossing apps on iPods, iPhones and iPads. But the practice is troubling parents and public interest groups, who say $99 for a wagon of Smurfberries or $19 for a bucket of snowflakes doesn't have any business in a children's game. Though a password is needed to make a purchase, critics say that the safeguards aren't strong enough and that there are loopholes. 'Parents need to know that the promotion of games and the delivery mechanism for them are deceptively cheap,' said Jim Styer, president of Common Sense Media, a public advocacy group for online content for children. 'But basically people are trying to make money off these apps, which is a huge problem, and only going to get bigger because mobile apps are the new platform for kids.'"
Dudes! What have you been smoking? “You can be anonymous, as long as we know who you are.”
http://www.noco5.com/Global/story.asp?S=14041486
Marijuana Privacy Laws
DENVER (AP) — Medical marijuana patients in Colorado are facing new rules concerning patient privacy, and some are getting a briefing from the state health department to understand how their patient records could be used.
Marijuana advocates requested Wednesday's briefing by the state Board of Health.
Marijuana advocates complain that looming regulations allowing law enforcement to access records at marijuana dispensaries violate the marijuana amendment to Colorado's constitution. The amendment set up a "confidential registry" of patients maintained by "the state health agency," not the Department of Revenue, which is regulating dispensaries.
Some marijuana patients say they are planning a lawsuit to challenge how patient records are kept if the plan isn't changed so that the health department can't share patient records with law enforcement or tax regulators.
“It's not policy, but we always do it.”
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=21096
Maryland Agency Stops Asking Interviewees for Facebook Login
February 23, 2011 by Dissent
As I noted yesterday in an update to the original blog entry, the Maryland Department of Corrections has issued a 45-day moratorium [Wait for this to blow over... Bob] on asking employees and applicants for their Facebook login after the Maryland ACLU went public with the situation and the story got spread far and wide.
Alexis Madrigal, who had helped call attention to the ACLU case, reports:
Days after the American Civil Liberties Union went public with the story of a Maryland corrections officer who was asked for his Facebook login information during a job interview, the state’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) has suspended that practice.
[...]
In an e-mail to The Atlantic, the department’s director of communications Rick Binetti wrote that he thought the ACLU letter and press release had created “misperceptions” about the organization’s policy.
Binetti said that it was not policy to “demand any personal social media information from applicants.” However, he did admit that the organization does ask for that information during interviews. Here’s how he described what was supposed to happen:
During the initial interview, or recertification processes, DPSCS does not require correctional officer applicants to provide any information related to social media. An applicant is asked if they are active users of social media. If so, the Department only asks if an applicant would provide this information. If any information is provided by an applicant, it is done so voluntarily. If an applicant does not provide this information, it is not held against them and the interview process moves forward.[...]
Read more in The Atlantic.
As far as I’m concerned, the agency shouldn’t be asking at all – even if it is “voluntary.” Given how many people believe that “If you have nothing to hide…” any refusal to provide a “voluntary” login could still be viewed suspiciously or influence hiring or recertification decisions.
Won't all libraries shift to eBooks to save cost/space?
eBook Lending Library Launched
"The Open Library has launched an eBook lending program. Patrons of this Internet Archive-led group of libraries may borrow up to five books at a time, for up to two weeks. Like print books, the eBooks may be on loan only to one patron at a time. The organization perceives this model providing more bang for the libraries' bucks. The books are mostly 20th-century titles. Some librarians have books that are too fragile or rare for lending and will scan them for eBook lending."
For the Toolkit...
Thursday, February 24, 2011
View All Microsoft Formats in Google Docs
Somehow I missed Google's announcement last Friday that the Google Docs viewer now supports all Microsoft Office file types. The viewer also supports Apple's Pages files. If you have files in any of those formats you can now upload them to your Google Docs account and view them from any computer. Most importantly, if someone sends you one of these file types as an attachment to your Gmail account, you can view the file without having to download it.
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