This is a joke, right?
On Thursday,
the Department of Justice said that they have filed a lawsuit against
AT&T for allowing their IP Relay service, which is aimed at
helping the speech and hearing impaired, to become a haven for
Nigerian scammers.
IP Relay, the DOJ explained in court
documents, is a text-based communications service designed to allow
hearing and speech impaired individuals to place telephone calls to
hearing persons by typing messages over the Internet, which are then
relayed by communications assistants (CAs) employed by an IP Relay
provider. AT&T, as such a relay provider, would then bill
the government about $1.30 per minute for the calls. [My taxes at
work? Bob]
It’s alleged that AT&T, despite
the mandate that the service be restricted to U.S.
customers only, knew that the service was being abused by
Nigerian scammers and other criminals overseas, but allowed the calls
to take place because they accounted for 95% of
AT&T’s IP Relay call volume. [...and they thought this would
go unnoticed? Bob]
“Now if you'd like to purchase
access...”
Facebook
warns employers not to demand passwords
March 24, 2012 by Dissent
Barbara Orutay reports:
Facebook is
warning employers not to demand the passwords of job applicants,
saying that it’s an invasion of privacy
that opens companies to legal liabilities.
The social
networking company is also threatening legal action against those who
violate its long-standing policy against sharing passwords. [Users?
Aren't they the “victims” Facebook is so concerned about? Bob]
Read more on Tampa
Bay Online.
I’m glad they will support
legislation to prohibit such practices, but I do think it’s
hysterically funny that they are yakking about invasion of privacy in
light of approved apps invading people’s privacy without direct
opt-in consent. Perhaps they could expand their new-found
respect for privacy to include that?
(Related) Now who's a twit?
Twitter:
We Won’t Hand Over Data on Occupy Wall Street Protester
March 23, 2012 by Dissent
John Paul Titlow reports:
Barely two weeks
after the New York District Attorney asked
Twitter to hand over data about an Occupy Wall Street protester,
the company says it will not comply with the request.
The D.A.’s office had sent a subpoena
to the microblogging service’s headquarters seeking information
about the account belonging to Jeffrey Rae, one of several hundred
activists arrested during an Occupy Wall Street demonstration in New
York on March 1.
Paul Mills, the
attorney representing Rae, filed a motion to quash the subpoena on
March 15 on the grounds that the request was in violation of
California’s requirements for out-of-state subpoenas.
Read more on ReadWriteWeb.
Once a bureaucracy, always a
bureaucracy. It's probably too early to start hoping Congress
will cut some of the foolishness. (and what's with the Facebook
requirement?)
"Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) program challenges and failures will be the
focus of a joint hearing of the US House of Representatives Committee
on Oversight and Government Reform and the Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure, on Monday, March 26, 2012. The
Hearing is titled 'TSA
Oversight Part III: Effective Security or Security Theater?'
Bruce Schneier is scheduled to be a witness at
this hearing. Additional
information on the hearing is posted on the oversight committee's
website. The Congressmen who serve on these committees are
soliciting questions from the public to ask TSA officials at the
hearing ... provided
the public is willing to submit their questions via Facebook."
Vive le French court!
Official:
stillborn French biometric ID card scheme not just extra-terrestrial
but also unconstitutional, 13 times over
March 23, 2012 by Dissent
Remember France?
Remember 6
March 2012 when the French parliament decided to introduce
national biometric ID cards? In a scheme reminiscent of Vichy?
60+ members of the National
Assembly and 60+ members of the Senate
referred the law to the French Constitutional Council. What does the
Council make of it?
The Conseil
constitutionnel published its Decision
no. 2012-652 DC yesterday, 22 March 2012. They’re not pleased.
Read more on DMossEsq.
[From the article:
The Council has 10 objections to the
way the scope of a law supposedly concerned with identity fraud has
crept into terrorism and many other areas.
And three objections to the use of the proposed biometric ID cards
for eCommerce.
These 13 counts of unconstitutionality
are laid out in the Commentary
which accompanies the Decision and summarised in the Council's press
release, in which the law is judged to be disproportionate and to
infringe people's right to privacy:
Since I'm not a Facebook user, I can
say “BOOK” without paying a fee or getting pre-approved by
Facebook.
Facebook
Asserts Trademark on Word ‘Book’ in New User Agreement
Facebook is trying to expand its
trademark rights over the word “book” by adding the claim to a
newly
revised version of its “Statement of Rights and
Responsibilities,” the agreement all users implicitly consent to by
using or accessing Facebook.
Technical methods are always amusing.
March 23, 2012
U.S.
Intelligence: Hiding of Military Assets by "Rogue Nations"
and Other States a Major Security Challenge for 21st Century
Jeffrey T. Richelson: "A central
element of the current debate over how to deal with Iran's nuclear
program has focused on the possible difficulty of destroying the Qom
underground uranium enrichment facility via air strikes. However,
documents posted today by the National Security Archive show that Qom
is only the latest in a long series of alleged and real underground
facilities that for decades have been a high priority challenge for
U.S. and allied intelligence collection and analysis efforts, as well
as for military planners. The documents featured in this posting
describe in detail the agencies and programs the U.S. government has
brought to the task of identifying and assessing underground
structures in foreign countries since World War II. Internal records
indicate there are more than 10,000 such facilities worldwide, many
of them in hostile territory, and many presumably intended to hide or
protect lethal military equipment and activities, including weapons
of mass destruction, that could threaten U.S. or allied interests.
The records (and
introductory essay by Archive Fellow Jeffrey T. Richelson) also
discuss the vast complexities of gathering and analyzing intelligence
on these facilities, and detail several of the highly
technical methods U.S. agencies have developed for the
purpose over time."
I know a librarian (or six) who might
find this useful...
March 23, 2012
Links
to Some Presentations from Computers in Libraries
Computers
in Libraries 2012 - access the presentations online using this
link.
For my fellow Firefox users... Two
words: Memory Restart
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