Friday, February 03, 2012


If you can't reach all the infected computers (by pushing your own virus?) you can't kill off this bot...
"A botnet that was crippled by Microsoft and Kaspersky Lab last September is spamming once again and experts have no recourse to stop it. The Kelihos botnet only infected 45,000 or so computers but managed to send out nearly 4 billion spam messages a day, promoting, among other things, pornography, illegal pharmaceuticals and stock scams. But it was temporarily corralled last September after researchers used various technical means to get the 45,000 or so infected computers to communicate with a "sinkhole," or a computer they controlled."
[From the article:
Researchers knew that it would only be a matter of time before its controller used the botnet's complex infrastructure of proxy servers and communication nodes to regain control.


Your body manufactures all sorts of chemicals. Will OSHA want to inspect your adrenal gland?
"A non-surgical procedure that treats joint pain involves removing stem cells from a patient's blood and reinserting them into the joint. The facility conducting these procedures resides in Colorado, but because it orders equipment to perform the procedure from outside of Colorado, the FDA claims it must regulate this process and that it can classify stem cells as a drug. This issue opens the debate of what the FDA, or other regulatory bodies, may regulate within each of our own bodies."
Quick: Name five activities with no possible plausible effect on interstate commerce.


A carefully timed announcement: The Copyright Corps rides again! I'm sure their thrilling theme music would be playing in the background if there wasn't a question about who owned the Copyright...
Feds Seize 307 Sports-Related Domains Ahead of Super Sunday
Federal authorities said Thursday they had seized and shuttered 307 domains, 16 allegedly engaged in unauthorized live sports streaming and the remainder accused of selling fake professional sports merchandise, including National Football League paraphernalia.
The seizure, the biggest to date under the Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown known as Operation in Our Sites (.pdf), brings to more than 650 domains shuttered since the program began in June 2010. The latest seizures, which quietly began in October, were announced days ahead of Super Sunday

(Related) Because you never purchased that music, you only rented it. But you can't sub-lease it either. In fact, you have no rights what-so-ever. (Next year we're going to introduce “Per Ear Pricing!” because you have no right to listen with two ears when one will do the job)
Online Market for Pre-Owned Digital Music Hangs in the Balance
The future of a one-of-a-kind website enabling the online sale of pre-owned digital-music files is in the hands of a federal judge.
ReDigi, which opened in October, provides account holders with a platform to buy and sell used MP3s that were purchased lawfully through iTunes. The platform’s technology does not support other music.
Among other points, the case weighs the so-called first-sale doctrine, the legal theory that people in lawful possession of copyright material have the right to sell it.
A federal judge sided with that principle in 2008, when it debunked UMG Recordings’ claim that it retained perpetual ownership of promotional CDs it releases before an album’s debut. Last year, however, a different court ruled against now-defunct online service Zediva, which streamed movies to customers via DVDs that Zediva had purchased.


Except if you cross the border? TSA is expanding into bus & train travel. It could be important to know what they can and can't do... Also, would this argument cover smartphones and computers? (The answer here is yes!)
Federal court – warrantless search of protestor’s video cam violated Fourth Amendment
February 3, 2012 by Dissent
FourthAmendment.com points to a recent news story out of Oregon that searching a videocam without a warrant, even incident to an arrest, is a Fourth Amendment violation. Bryan Denson reports:
The rules of engagement became clearer in Eugene’s U.S. District Court last week, when a civil jury determined that a city police sergeant violated an environmental activist’s constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure during a 2009 leafletting campaign outside a bank.
The eight-person panel determined that Sgt. Bill Solesbee arrested environmentalist Josh Schlossberg without probable cause and used excessive force. But it was Solesbee’s next act that sent legal minds across Oregon into hyperdrive: He seized the environmentalist’s video camera without a warrant.
That’s the electronic equivalent of police walking off with several file cabinets of private papers without benefit of a judge’s signature, said Lauren Regan, Schlossberg’s lawyer.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin ruled in a pretrial hearing in the Eugene case that Solesbee violated Schlossberg’s Fourth Amendment rights by searching the contents of his camera without a warrant. That ruling marked the first time that a federal court in Oregon weighed in on warrantless seizures of digital devices. [Where have they been all these years? Bob]
Read more in The Oregonian.
While this is a great decision for privacy advocates, I note the court reached a different conclusion than other federal courts confronted with similar issues about whether devices are “containers” that can be searched without a warrant if incident to an arrest. In his opinion, Magistrate Judge Coffin explains:
I find that warrantless searches of such devices are not reasonable incident to a valid arrest absent a showing that the search was necessary to prevent the destruction of evidence, to ensure officer safety, or that other exigent circumstances exist.3 I further find that it is impractical to distinguish between electronic devices–between a laptop and a traditional cell phone or a smart phone and a camera, [YES! Bob] before an officer decides whether to proceed with a search of the electronic device incident to arrest. A rule requiring officers to distinguish between electronic devices is impractical. It would require officers to learn and memorize the capabilities of constantly changing electronic devices. A primary goal in search and seizure law has been to provide law enforcement with clear standards to follow. In sum because an electronic device like a camera has a high expectation of privacy in its contents, an officer may not review the contents as a search incident to arrest. Instead, the officer must obtain a warrant unless exigent circumstances exist. Donald, 335 at 455-56 (“Absent some grave emergency, the Fourth Amendment has interposed a magistrate between the citizen and the police. This was done not to shield criminals nor to make the home a safe haven for illegal activities. It was done so that an objective mind might weigh the need to invade that privacy in order to enforce the law.” )
Accordingly, I find that Solesbee violated the Fourth Amendment when he viewed the contents of plaintiff’s camera without first obtaining a warrant.


Mention software like this to anyone in the US and you get that blank stare that tells me they have never heard of such a thing. “It can't work here, [insert vendor name here] told me so.”
Open Source Tackles Healthcare In Places Microsoft Can’t
… Under the aegis of their nonprofit, eHealth Nigeria, Castle and Thompson have built a digital records system meant to eventually serve healthcare facilities across the region, but it doesn’t use the sort of specialized health care software in U.S. or even everyday database software. There’s no Kaiser software. And no Microsoft. The system is based on OpenMRS, an open source health records system designed specifically for use in underdeveloped regions.
First created in 2004, OpenMRS is now used in countries across the globe, including Rwanda, Mozambique, Haiti, India, China, and the Phillipines.

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