Monday, March 07, 2011

The Court of Public Opinion is now in session!

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=21398

Jeweler sells surveillance tape over Lohan’s theft case to TV show

March 6, 2011 by Dissent

A Venice, California jewelry store has sold the surveillance tape central to the felony theft case against troubled actress Lindsay Lohan to a company that licensed it to a popular entertainment news show, which could complicate the case, local news outlets reported on Saturday.

Entertainment Tonight, a daily tabloid-style television show that is syndicated by CBS Television Distribution throughout the United States, Canada and in many countries around the world, will air the footage Monday, RadarOnline reported.

Read more on China.org.cn

Wait a minute, though. If you have a private business that uses video surveillance of customers, you can sell video surveillance of a customer without their consent? What if there’s no sign on your door warning customers that they will be videotaped? I don’t know what the situation was in this case. I’m just asking a general question. You may not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in public spaces, nor in a store, but does that mean that they can sell film of you without your consent? I have no idea what the privacy tort would be – appropriation of likeness? – but something doesn’t seem right about this.

And that’s apart from the issue of the criminal matter, of course.

Update: I’ve been told that selling video taken in this type of situation is generally legal, proving, once again, that just because something doesn’t seem right to me, it doesn’t make it illegal.



Several interesting arguments, but the best is that the Internet was designed to maintain communications in the event of nuclear war. Shutting it off would seem to be exactly what an enemy would want.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/06/in-search-of-the-internet-kill-switch/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

In Search Of The Internet Kill Switch

The complete internet shutdown this week in Libya involved a new way to turn off web access for an entire country. Earlier this year, the total internet blockade in Egypt backfired and emboldened the protesters. China is well known for blocking internet services, but it’s not just China. Of course, having the government turn off the internet could never happen in the United States. We couldn’t condemn the action in other countries while at the same time plan it here. No one would even suggest such a thing, right?



Even politicians can do embarrassing things?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=21392

BC NDP demanding social media login credentials

March 6, 2011 by Dissent

David Fraser writes:

In the last week, there have been reports that the British Columbia New Democratic Party has been demanding the social media login credentials from candidates for the leadership of the party (see: B.C. NDP candidate in social-media standoff with party bosses – The Globe and Mail). All of the candidates have provided this info, except for one who — quite rightly — challenges this an an invasion of privacy.

We’ve heard in the past about employers asking for this sort of information and then backing off when facing a fire-storm of criticism. I can appreciate that the party is hoping to avoid any surprises, but this, in my view, seriously crosses the line.

Read more on Canadian Privacy Law Blog.



Luddites! If my students can make more money creating e-Discovery programs than reading emails, why should I train them for a boring obsolete job? Perhaps “Brains” that can't see how the world is changing should be “retired.”

http://search.slashdot.org/story/11/03/07/014206/Is-Software-Driving-a-Falling-Demand-For-Brains?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Is Software Driving a Falling Demand For Brains?

"Paul Krugman writes in the NY Times that information technology seems to be reducing, not increasing, the demand for highly educated workers (reg. may be required), because a lot of what highly educated workers do could actually be replaced by sophisticated information processing. One good recent example is how software is replacing the teams of lawyers who used to do document research. 'From a legal staffing viewpoint, it means that a lot of people who used to be allocated to conduct document review are no longer able to be billed out,' says Bill Herr, a lawyer at a major chemical company who used to muster auditoriums of lawyers to read documents for weeks on end. 'People get bored, people get headaches. Computers don't.' If true this raises a number of interesting questions. 'One is whether emphasizing education — even aside from the fact that the big rise in inequality has taken place among the highly educated — is, in effect, fighting the last war,' writes Krugman. 'Another is how we [can] have a decent society if and when even highly educated workers can't command a middle-class income.' Remember the Luddites weren't the poorest of the poor, they were skilled artisans whose skills had suddenly been devalued by new technology." [Is he suggesting e-Discovery is an art rather than a science? Bob]



A good use of Push Updates? Assumes that Google properly identified an App as malware and assumes you approve of their deletion.

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/11/03/06/202208/Google-Finally-Uses-Remote-Kill-Switch-On-Malware?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Google Finally Uses Remote Kill Switch On Malware

"The Google Mobile Team has announced that in addition to removing the 21 malicious applications from Android Market that were downloaded 50,000 times, suspending the associated developer accounts, and contacting law enforcement about the attacks, they are remotely removing the malicious applications from affected devices. 'We are pushing an Android Market security update to all affected devices that undoes the exploits to prevent the attacker(s) from accessing any more information from affected devices,' wrote the team on their blog. 'For affected devices, we believe that the only information the attacker(s) were able to gather was device-specific (IMEI/IMSI, unique codes which are used to identify mobile devices, and the version of Android running on your device).' Google's actions come after numerous complaints in tech publications. "Does Google really want its Android Market to gain the reputation of being a cesspool of malware? 'Certainly not,' wrote Nicholas Deleon in TechCrunch. 'But then part of the allure of the Android Market is that it's open; you don't have to play by Google's rules, per se, to get on there like you do with Apple's App Store.'"



Now you can Text, Talk and Video your friends while driving! Also, bandwidth requirements just jumped up big time.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/03/07/0525247/Facebook-Said-To-Resume-Talks-With-Skype?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Facebook Said To Resume Talks With Skype

"You may soon be able to start a Skype video call with your friends on Facebook. The latest rumor suggests that Facebook and Skype have resumed talks about integrating the video conferencing technology on the social network. The two companies first talked about a potential partnership in September 2010, but they could not reach an agreement. When Skype 5.0 was released in October 2010, the new version offered voice calling between Facebook friends, but it did not include a video chatting feature."



Is this the new paradigm for content?

http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/07/aol-closes-315-million-huffington-post-acquisition/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

AOL Closes $315 Million Huffington Post Acquisition; Expands Editorial Team

The deal was originally announced on February 6, so it’s taken a month for the acquisition to close.

… With the acquisition, AOL is buying into the new publishing model that the Huffington Post represents. Armstrong has said that the the driving factors behind the deal is how well the Huffington Post fits into the content platform he is trying to build, particularly around women, influencers, and local (his 80-80-80 strategy).

Tim and Arianna have been on a roadshow of sorts, explaining the new content strategy to the public.


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