Thursday, May 24, 2012


If it's evidence, shouldn't he already have access? If not, what crime are we talking about? Another look at “self-incrimination by password” (Lot's of comments suggest this is being followed closely...)
"On Wednesday, Kim 'Dotcom' Schmitz and his legal team visited the High Court in Auckland, New Zealand, to demand access to the data stored on his computers and hard drives that were confiscated during the police raid, and also requested a judicial review of the general legality of the search warrants police used to raid his mansion. Dotcom's lawyer, Paul Davison, argued that his client needs the data for a few reasons: To mount a 'proper defense' case, to fight possibly being extradited to the U.S., and also to show that 'excessive police action' was used during the raid. Dotcom could prove this in court because the entire raid was recorded by CCTV data, which is stored on Dotcom's confiscated computers. Even though the FBI demanded Dotcom turn over the passwords for Megaupload's encrypted data, he refuses to give up any passwords until he can regain access to his seized property."


Quick question: If they can't locate the phone, how can they claim to be “following” someone using GPS?
"The Oakland Tribune reports that when Berkeley police Chief Michael Meehan's son's cell phone was stolen from a school locker in January, ten police officers were sent to track down the stolen iPhone, with some working overtime at taxpayer expense. 'If your cell phone was stolen or my cell phone was stolen, I don't think any officer would be investigating it,' says Michael Sherman, vice chairman of the Berkeley Police Review Commission, a city watchdog group. 'They have more important things to do. We have crime in the streets.' But the kicker is that even with all those cops swarming around, looking for an iPhone equipped with the Find My iPhone tracking software, police were not able to locate the phone. 'If 10 cops who know a neighborhood can't find an iPhone that's broadcasting its location, that shouldn't give you a lot of confidence in your own vigilante recovery of a stolen iProduct,' writes Alexis Madrigal. 'Just saying. Consider this a PSA: just buy a new phone.'"


Works for websites they have reviewed and manually determined a grade for... It could automatically score a privacy policy, but that is no indication of what they actually do with your data.
The service tracks more than 1,400 websites, including popular websites like Google, Facebook and many others. Each website gets a rating out of 100, the highest being the most secure and the lowest being the website most likely to share your information with their advertisers, marketing partners or any third party company. The score given to websites is based on how their policies protect your personal information, and how many companies track users when they visit any website.


One of the modern joys of parenting?
MN: Undisclosed Number of Century Middle School Students Suspended
May 23, 2012 by Dissent
Derrick Williams reports:
An unidentified number of Century Middle School students have been suspended due to a May 22 incident in which an inappropriate photo was digitally disseminated around the school’s student community.
Lakeville Area Public School officials have acknowledged the incident and also said the Lakeville Police Department and Dakota County Attorneys Office are investigating the matter.
Read more on Lakeville Patch and then explain to me why the school district couldn’t just handle this without police involvement.

(Related) Told ya! Any self-respecting caveman wanted an iPhone...
The Urge to Sext Naked Self-Portraits Is Primal
Over the past two years, more photographs of bare-naked celebrity anatomy have been leaked to the public eye than over the previous two centuries: Scarlett Johansson snapping a blurry self-portrait while sprawled on her bed, Vanessa Hudgens posing for a cellphone in a bracelet and a smile, Congressman Wiener touting a Blackberry and a mirror in the House Members Gym, Jessica Alba, Christina Aguilera, Miley Cyrus, Ron Artest, Charlize Theron, Chris Brown, Bret Favre, Rihanna, Pete Wentz, Ke$ha, and dozens more.
This flood of celebrity skin has prompted folks to wonder, ‘Why are so many famous people exhibitionists?’ The source of all this au naturel flaunting lies not in the culture of fame, but in the design of our sexual brains. In fact, research has unveiled two distinct explanations: Female exhibitionism appears to be primarily cortical, while male exhibitionism is mainly subcortical.
“The desire of the man is for the woman,” Madame de Stael famously penned, “The desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.” Being the center of sexual attention is a fundamental female turn-on dramatized in women’s fantasies, female-authored erotica, and in the cross-cultural gush of sultry self-portraits.


What a shock! (EU-wide numbers are due soon)
IE: Invasion of privacy
May 24, 2012 by Dissent
Conor Ryan reports:
Gardaí, the Defence Forces, and Revenue Commissioners are accessing record levels of private landline, mobile phone, and internet records.
The latest available figures show authorities accessed more than 40 private communications each day in 2010 — compared with 31 per day a year earlier.
Read more on Irish Examiner. The report is replete with statistics from a government report and will be of interest to privacy advocates.


This is but one of many “ills” that would be cured if the municipality owned the “cable” and allowed anyone to use it for a fee.
Digital Rights Groups Defend Antenna-Based Internet TV Service
Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a friend-of-the-court brief, said the courts should not shutter Aereo, as broadcasters are asking, simply because there is no federal licensing scheme yet for internet streaming of over-the-air broadcasts (one exists for cable companies).
Aereo’s New York customers basically rent two tiny antennas, each about the size of a dime. Tens of thousands of the antennas are housed in a Brooklyn data center. One antenna — unique to a customer — is used when a customer wants to watch a program in real time from a computer, tablet or mobile phone. The other works with a DVR service to record programs for later online viewing.
Aereo, which offers the service free but plans to charge about $12 monthly, does not divulge the number of its customers.


Do I care?


For my students. For example, I carry a thumb drive with my favorite browser (configured the way I like it) to every place I access the Internet.
Portable apps have a huge place in my geeky heart simply because they are quite numerous (if you don’t believe me, check out the Best Portable Apps here). They don’t modify the registry, and can be used in different Windows machines (though there are portable apps for Linux as well).


“We don't need no stinking classrooms!” What is still needed is a way to “certify” that we have learned something.
Education and learning should be a lifelong process and the Internet is your chance to get a university level education for free, regardless of where you are in life. This article introduces you to the three best websites to get started.
Fans of YouTube, check out these articles:

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