Interesting Blog, well worth reading.
Petraeus
and Privacy: Did We Overreact?
November 22, 2012 by Dissent
For a different perspective on the
Petraeus-Broadwell-Kelley-Allen case, read Derek
Bambauer’s blog post on Info/Law. Here’s a snippet:
I’ll be candid:
the privacy community has a growing
tendency to cry wolf. That is fine for advocates, but it risks
conflating real issues and threats (warrantless
wiretapping, use
of drones domestically, surveillance
for national security purposes domestically) with sensational but
meaningless media events. The privacy fears in the Petraeus case
boil down to two objections. First, many (including Google and
others) think that the current federal wiretapping statute (the
Electronic Communications Privacy Act) is outdated. Consider its
weird
6-month rule for access to e-mail: under 6 months, get a warrant;
over 6 months, a subpoena is enough. ECPA
reform is entirely sensible, but law enforcement can hardly be
accused of violating privacy when they carefully follow the laws as
written. If you want the laws changed, that’s an entirely
different claim – it’s normative, not descriptive. Distinguish
the world you want from the world you live in.
Ireland seems as confused as I am.
Must be in my genes...
Ireland
Pushes Facebook to Clarify Privacy Changes
November 22, 2012 by Dissent
Stephanie Bodoni reports:
Irish regulators
are seeking “urgent” clarifications from Facebook Inc. (FB) after
the social media company informed users of changes to its privacy
policy overnight.
Facebook, which is
overseen by Irish data protection regulators in the European Union,
said that it recently proposed changes to its data-use policy and its
statement of rights and responsibilities. The changes give users
more detailed information about shared data including “reminders
about what’s visible to other people on Facebook.”
“We will be
seeking urgent further clarification from Facebook Ireland and if we
consider that the proposed changes require a specific consent from EU
users we will require Facebook to do this,” Gary Davis, Ireland’s
deputy data- protection commissioner, said in an e-mail today.
Read more on Bloomberg
Businessweek.
Kimber Streams of The
Verge provides a description of the changes:
Facebook has
proposed
another set of updates to the documents that describe how it
handles user data, and those changes reveal that it will be sharing
data from other services it owns as well as removing the ability to
block email messages from certain users outright. As part of the new
Data Use Policy, Facebook wants to share user information across
other Facebook-owned entities — such as Instagram — in order to
“improve our own services and their own services.” The company
also slipped in the ability to use that data to improve targeted
advertising.
In addition,
Facebook is removing the ability to control whether individuals can
message you. However,
in its proposal the company does state that it will be offering
users new options — including filters — to help manage their
inbox instead.
But wait, Facebook isn’t done messing
with your privacy, as Salvador Rodriguez of the L.A.
Times reports:
Facebook has
proposed taking away users’ ability to vote on certain privacy
policy changes and restructuring the social network’s governance
process.
Currently, the
Menlo Park-based social network allows users to vote if a proposed
change to the policy receives more than 7,000 comments. Once a vote
is triggered, if more than 30% of Facebook members participate, the
results of the balloting stand.
In a post
Wednesday, Facebook said the current system has become outdated
because with 1 billion members, getting 7,000 comments is easy, but
getting 300 million members to vote is a tough task.
“We’re
proposing to end the voting component of the process in favor of a
system that leads to more meaningful feedback and engagement,”
Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s vice president of communications, public
policy and marketing, said in the post.
Nice, huh?
I'm kind of surprised. Is this the
reaction when your grab for power becomes too blatent?
"Today, the European Parliament
passed a resolution that condemns
the upcoming attempt from the International Telecommunications Union
(ITU) to assert control over the Internet, and instructed its 27
Member States to act accordingly. This follows an attempt from the
ITU to assert itself as the governing body and control the Internet.
From the article: 'The resolution, which was passed with a large
majority, included Members of European Parliament (MEPs) from all
major party groups, and the Pirate Party’s Amelia Andersdotter had
been playing a central role in its drafting, together with MEPs
Marietje Schaake and Judith Sargentini from the Netherlands, Sabine
Verheyen and Petra Kammerevert from Germany, Ivailo Kalfin from
Bulgaria, and Catherine Trautmann from France.'"
Similar, but different? When global
companies “avoid” taxes, is that automatically “tax evasion?”
We're going to have to figure this out or everyone will incorporate
is TinyTaxLand... Interesting arguments in the Comments...
"Looks like Google's habit of
funneling billions of dollars in revenue through its Irish and
Bermuda subsidiaries continues to attract unfavorable government
attention globally. France
has already announced plans to take on the search giant's tax evasion
habits, and the Australian Government, to which Google paid just
$74,000 in tax last year despite having Australian revenues close to
$1 billion, has now confirmed
plans to do the same."
A simple hack...
How
To Enable 4G LTE On The Google Nexus 4
Reports surfaced this morning that the
Nexus
4, Google’s latest flagship Android smartphone, supports LTE
via a relatively easy software hack. After testing, it turns out
that’s definitely true, so I’ll show you exactly how to enable it
on your device.
For my students. A tool for keeping
current.
UsenetStorm is an easy to use site
which allows you to connect to any Usenet group that you like. After
creating a free account, you can submit your nbz via a URL or by
uploading your own from your hard drive and then begin downloading
discussions. Downloads up to 500MB are allowed under a free account
at speeds of up to 500 kb/s.
[From
UsenetStorm's website:
…
The
most simple method of searching for nzb files to download is using a
nzb index site. There are many different index sites on the web. We
recommend using nzbindex.nl
as it is clean and free to use.
…
If
you're looking for traditional Usenet access through a desktop
client, we recommend trying the 10GB FREE trial from our partners at
UsenetServer.com
[What
is nzb?
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