Today's news seems to be dominated by topics that involve post-Internet technology. Have you been keeping up?

Something for the e-Lawyers? Interesting questions of probable cause as well as new areas covered by a protective order.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/10/12/2237246/Facebook-User-Arrested-For-a-Poke?from=rss

Facebook User Arrested For a Poke

Posted by kdawson on Monday October 12, @07:11PM from the criminalizing-the-annoying dept.

nk497 writes

"A woman in Tennessee has been arrested for poking someone over Facebook. Sharon Jackson had been banned by courts from 'telephoning, contacting or otherwise communicating' with the apparent poke recipient, but just couldn't hold back from clicking the 'poke' button. She now faces a sentence of up to a year in prison."

[From the article:

When you poke someone, an alert pops up in the corner of that person's Facebook page notifying them of your poke. [I didn't know that... Bob]

Although Jackson declined to comment, her lawyer, Lawren Lassiter, told ABCNews.com that his client was "extremely shocked" when the police arrested her.

"The only evidence that I'm aware of is a printout of a screen," said Lassiter, adding that the printed screen grab of the victim's Facebook page is what led police to determine that the protective order had been breached. "I'm trying to get my hands on some Facebook documentation so we can better assess the situation."

Information from Facebook could help verify whether the poke came from Jackson's account or an imposter's, he said. It could also help determine whether or not the poke was made from Jackson's computer or if someone broke into her account.

… Although "poking" is a somewhat passive and new form of technology-enabled correspondence, Ryan Calo, a residential fellow at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet & Society, said it is still a form of communication restricted by a protective order.

"A poke is a very deliberate action," he said. "You have to select the person and say, 'this is what I want to do.'"

… In recent months, Calo said, there have been similar instances in which a person's virtual actions on social media sites have had legal ramifications.

In July, a Chicago woman was hit with a $50,000 lawsuit from a local management company after posting a comment on Twitter about her "moldy apartment."

What I find interesting here is that the article does not even hint at the “defamatory statements” Has their speech been chilled?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=4497

University’s libel suit highlights growing online dilemma

October 13, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Court, Internet, U.S.

A libel lawsuit filed by Butler University highlights the dangers of certain types of online postings.

The university is suing an anonymous blogger for comments posted last year on a blog that the school contends includes defamatory statements about two high-level administrators.

The blog has since been removed. University officials said they strongly support freedom of speech and academic freedom, “but we cannot tolerate the harassment, intimidation and defamation in which the defendant engaged.”

Read more on TheIndyChannel.

Internet economics are confusing to governments?

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/10/12/1814241

Blogger Loses Unemployment Check Because of Ads

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday October 12, @03:56PM from the time-for-an-injection-of-common-sense dept.

Techdirt is reporting that one unfortunate, unemployed New York lawyer recently had her unemployment benefits greatly reduced because of the incredible $1/day she was earning via ads on her blog.

"The whole thing sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare, with NY State asking her to get a form from her new 'employer' who didn't exist. Then NY Department of Labor started giving her all sorts of contradicting information, and eventually an 'investigation' into her 'business' — during which time her unemployment benefits were stopped entirely. She's now pulled the Google AdSense from her blog (total earned over the life of the blog $238.75)."

It's not because of the sex. (Okay, maybe a little bit) But is the fact that the Internet was used enough to change all the rules?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=4469

Group sex photos case heads to trial

October 12, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Breaches, Court, U.S.

Defendant took pictures of his ex-girlfriend “engaged in various sex acts with two other people.” Later he emailed some of the photos to his ex-girlfriend’s mother, ex-husband, ex-in laws, boss and co-workers.

The ex-girlfriend sued for intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy. Defendant moved for summary judgment.

[...]

Plaintiff claimed two forms of invasion of privacy — intrusion upon seclusion and publication of private facts. The court held she had presented enough facts for the latter but not the former.

The court granted Defendant’s motion for summary judgment as to intrusion upon seclusion because no intrusion occurred. Plaintiff knew Defendant was there taking pictures of the activities. The court rejected Plaintiff’s argument that publication of the no doubt intimate photos constituted intrusion. It held that the disclosure of properly obtained information could not give rise to the claim.

But as to the argument that emailing the photos unlawfully publicized private facts, the court sided with Plaintiff. Defendant had argued that emailing the photos to only a half dozen or so people did not amount to “publication,” which is one of the elements of the tort. He pointed to Comment “a” of the Restatement (Second) of Torts §652D which says that “it is not an invasion of the right of privacy to communicate a fact . . . to a single person, or even to a small group of people.”

In rejecting this argument, the court engaged in what some might characterize as “Internet exceptionalism,” — applying the law in response to a perceived substantial difference between online and offline communication.

Read more on Internet Cases.

The case is Peterson v. Moldofsky, No. 07-2603, 2009 WL 3126229 (D.Kan. September 29, 2009)

Hat-tip, Legal Blog Watch.

[From Internet Cases:

The court observed that “the Internet enables its users to ‘quickly and inexpensively’ surmount the barriers to generating publicity that were inherent in the traditional forms of communication.” Finding this distinction to be significant, the court held that distribution of the photos even to a small group of people through the private means of electronic mail could be considered a “publication” for purposes of the tort of invasion of privacy.

Local (DU Law) Magistrate on e-Discovery

http://ralphlosey.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/judges-craig-shaffer-and-ron-hedges-give-good-advice-to-all-students-of-e-discovery/

Judges Craig Shaffer and Ron Hedges Give Good Advice to All Students of e-Discovery

This week’s blog is an exclusive 15 minute, must-see video by two judges, Ronald J. Hedges and Craig B. Shaffer. Craig Shaffer (shown left) is a United States Magistrate Judge in Colorado. Ron Hedges is a former U.S. Magistrate Judge in New Jersey (1986-2007).

If we have learned anything, it's that we learn nothing.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/10/13/0037246/100-Years-of-Copyright-Hysteria?from=rss

100 Years of Copyright Hysteria

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday October 13, @08:07AM from the frothy-mouths dept.

Nate Anderson pens a fine historical retrospective for Ars Technica: a look at 100 years of Big Content's fearmongering, in their own words. There was John Philip Sousa in 1906 warning that recording technology would destroy the US pastime of gathering around the piano to sing music ("What of the national throat? Will it not weaken? What of the national chest? Will it not shrink?"). There was the photocopier after World War II. There was the VCR in the 1970s, which a movie lobbyist predicted would result in tidal waves, avalanches, and bleeding and hemorrhaging by the music business. He compared the VCR to the Boston Strangler — in this scenario the US public was a woman home alone. Then home taping of music, digital audio tape, MP3 players, and Napster, each of which was predicted to lay waste to entire industries; and so on up to date with DVRs, HD radio, and HDTV. Anderson concludes with a quote from copyright expert William Patry in his book Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars: "I cannot think of a single significant innovation in either the creation or distribution of works of authorship that owes its origins to the copyright industries."

Huge surge in 2009...

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/022548.html

October 12, 2009

ID theft is one of UK's fastest growing crimes

National Identity Theft Prevention Week - UK's Fraud Prevention Service resources:

• Practical Guide To Identity Fraud Prevention For Business

• A Quick Reference Guide Leaflet

• Protecting your Information Checklist

• Personal Advice: A Quick Reference Guide Leaflet

• The Anonymous Attacker, A special report onIdentity Fraud and Account Takeover, October 2009

Let this be a lesson to ya.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/magistrate-clears-blogger-riaa-of-vexatious-charges/

Judge Refuses to Punish Lawyer for Anti-RIAA Blogging

By David Kravets October 12, 2009 3:53 pm

Think of it as another type of fingerprinting?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=4494

Does a cheek swab for DNA require a warrant?

October 13, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Court, Surveillance, U.S.

No, says the Indiana Court of Appeals in Garcia-Torres v. State:

After comparing cheek swabs with other searches requiring only reasonable suspicion, we conclude that the DNA sample collection technique at issue here, although minimally invasive, is also one of those limited searches that requires only reasonable suspicion and may therefore be conducted without a warrant. If anything, the cheek swab involves much less impact on the subject than some other searches that all agree may be conducted based on mere reasonable suspicion. As the United States Supreme Court has observed, “[e]ven a limited search of the outer clothing for weapons constitutes a severe, though brief, intrusion upon cherished personal security, and it must surely be an annoying, frightening, and perhaps humiliating experience.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 24-25. And yet, it is universally understood that such a pat-down may be conducted upon reasonable suspicion.

In contrast, a cheek swab takes even less time than a pat-down or field sobriety tests (”FSTs”) and is painless. Moreover, a swab of the inside of the cheek is very limited in scope, whereas a pat-down will generally involve manual exploration of the entirety of a suspect‘s body, including the genital areas. Finally, a swab does not carry nearly the same potential for opprobrium as pat-downs or FSTs, which will typically occur on public thoroughfares. As such, swabs are even less violative of the “[t]he interests in human dignity and privacy which the Fourth Amendment protects” than pat-downs or FSTs.

Read the rest of Orin Kerr’s post and the ensuing discussion on The Volokh Conspiracy. Criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield also offers his own commentary on Simple Justice.

Interesting, but not immediately useful. I suspect hackers will use this technique to demonstrate reading RFID tags at much greater distances.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/10/13/0059241/Visualizing-RFID?from=rss

Visualizing RFID

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday October 13, @02:08AM from the tufte-would-be-proud dept

jamie found a video on Warren Ellis's blog introducing a new way to visualize RFID fields. The film is by Timo Arnall and Jack Schulze. The subject is introduced in words on the BERG site (a design consultancy); the tech behind it is explored at Touch, a project that experiments with near-field communications.

"This image is a photographic mapping of the readable volume of a radio field from an RFID reader. The black component in the image is an RFID reader... The camera has been fixed in its position and the reader photographed. Using a tag connected to an LED we paint in the edges of the readable volume with a long exposure and animate them to show the form."

Back in the day, the IBM anti-trust case was typical of huge data volumes, with evidence being delivered in “semi-trailer” sized batches. Now we need to address “Library of Congress” sized batches.

http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/10/13/0114230/Getting-Students-To-Think-At-Internet-Scale?from=rss

Getting Students To Think At Internet Scale

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday October 13, @05:08AM from the peta-here-a-peta-there dept.

Hugh Pickens writes

"The NY Times reports that researchers and workers in fields as diverse as biotechnology, astronomy, and computer science will soon find themselves overwhelmed with information — so the next generation of computer scientists will have to learn think in terms of Internet scale of petabytes of data. For the most part, university students have used rather modest computing systems to support their studies, but these machines fail to churn through enough data to really challenge and train young minds to ponder the mega-scale problems of tomorrow. 'If they imprint on these small systems, that becomes their frame of reference and what they're always thinking about,' said Jim Spohrer, a director at IBM's Almaden Research Center. This year, the National Science Foundation funded 14 universities that want to teach their students how to grapple with big data questions. Students are beginning to work with data sets like the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, the largest public data set in the world. The telescope takes detailed images of large chunks of the sky and produces about 30 terabytes of data each night. 'Science these days has basically turned into a data-management problem,' says Jimmy Lin, an associate professor at the University of Maryland."

[For size comparisons, see: http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/tek1/how_big.htm 10 Terabytes: Printed collection of the U. S. Library of Congress

This is interesting to us educator types...

http://theopensourceschool.blogspot.com/

The Open Source School

Following the adventure of putting together an Open Source school: Albany Senior High School in Auckland, New Zealand. Covers pedagogy, learning, software, hardware, learning management systems, libraries and anything else I feel like talking about.

For the Computer Forensics wiki

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-trace-deactivate-your-stolen-cell-phone-with-mobiwee/

How To Trace & Deactivate Stolen Cell Phone

Oct. 12th, 2009 By Grant

Ditto

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-8-online-tools-to-identify-the-owner-of-a-phone-number/

Top 8 Online Tools To Identify The Owner Of A Phone Number

Oct. 13th, 2009 By Tina

I'll through these in in case my Disaster Recovery students think the T-Mobile problem I gave them happens too infrequently to be worth considering...

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/10/11/major-bug-in-snow-leopard-deletes-all-user-data

Updated: Major bug in Snow Leopard deletes all user data

Owen Williams on 11 October 2009 - 21:25

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10373349-36.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Facebook database outage cut off about 150,000

by Caroline McCarthy

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/lifestyle/travel/2955289/Fyfe-chides-IBM-over-outage

Air New Zealand boss criticises IBM over outage

By RANDAL JACKSON - Computerworld

Last updated 12:10 12/10/2009

… Air NZ's short haul airlines group general manager, Bruce Parton, told Radio New Zealand the fault appeared to have been caused by a power failure, followed by a delay in a back-up generator running.

"Ten thousand-plus customers affected on the last day of holidays, and millions of dollars of revenue not going through our online site, you can be assured we'll be having some very serious discussions with IBM today."

Of course, we would never do this in the US.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=4488

Police keep data about demonstrators’ relatives

October 12, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Govt, Non-U.S., Surveillance

Bae Hyun-jung reports:

Family members of those who violated the law on assembly and demonstration have their personal information recorded in the police database, without their knowing, said a lawmaker.

“The police, in trials involving the candlelight vigil participants, submitted as evidence the past criminal records of their family members who were not involved in the assembly,” said Rep. Choe Kyoo-sik of the main opposition Democratic Party on Sunday.

Such investigation methods correspond to the involvement system, which is banned by the Constitution, the lawmaker said.

Investigators may at any time refer to the database, which shows whether any family member has ever been arrested, indicted, convicted, or even just suspected of violating the assembly law, he said.

Read more in The Korea Herald.

Language for more modern constitutions? More important, a precedent for the EU?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=4483

Unconstitutionality of law on telecommunication data retention

October 11, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Court, Internet, Legislation, Non-U.S., Surveillance

If I’m understanding this article correctly, the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) has declared certain provisions of Law 298/2008 on telephone data storage unconstitutional because the law violates articles of the Romanian Constitution. The court considered the matter in a dispute between Orange Romania and the Commissariat for Civil Society (CSC).

The text of the Constitution provides that “the secrecy of letters, telegrams and other postal communications, of telephone calls and other legal means of communication is inviolable”. Under Law 298/2008, communication service operators can provide prosecutors with traffic and localisation data related to services of internet access, email and internet telephony only if criminal proceedings have been initiated in the case for which they require information.

Read more on Curierul National. A story from another site provides some additional detail and suggests that CSC initiated the legal challenge to the law.

In the US, we have to fight the Privacy fight each time a “new” technology is introduced

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=4480

Activists demand privacy protections for DC One Card

October 11, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Featured Headlines, Govt, Surveillance, U.S.

Michael Neibauer reports:

Privacy advocates have sounded the alarm about the District government’s effort to issue a single, traceable identification card to residents, urging the D.C. Council to adopt legislation that protects the privacy of all users.

The DC One Card has been adopted by the Fenty administration as a single credential for use as a school and government employee ID, as a SmarTrip card for Metro, as a library card and as a recreational facility access card. It is designed to be used by any District government agency, though only a handful have signed on so far.

[...]

The Office of the Chief Technology Officer is bound by a privacy policy that limits data collection to a minimum and bars the agency from tracking users, Willey said. But other government entities, he added, are not bound by OCTO’s privacy policy — in fact, an agency that uses the One Card is under no obligation to have a privacy policy at all.

And that might be the problem, Cheh said after Friday’s hearing. OCTO has oversight of the One Card initiative by default because it created the technology, she said, but there is no office setting governmentwide standards.

Read more in the Washington Examiner.

For my lawyer/astronaut friends.

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/022537.html

October 11, 2009

New Report: Space Security 2009

"A newly issued study provides a comprehensive source of data and analysis on space activities and their cumulative impact on the security of outer space. Space Security 2009 has been jointly released by Project Ploughshares and Secure World Foundation on behalf of the Space Security Index, an international research consortium. This is the sixth annual report on trends and developments in space, covering the period January to December 2008."

• Press Release

• Executive Summary

• Download Full Book

Yep, it's gotta be the end of Twitter. Or maybe they just fired their staff of Twitter updaters to save money?

http://www.accesshollywood.com/miley-cyrus-explains-twitter-exit-courtney-love-leaves-too_article_24065

Miley Cyrus Explains Twitter Exit; Courtney Love Leaves Too

Stimulus and response. If it sounds improbable, check the facts. If it sounds familiar (logic isn't required) run with it and check the facts later... if you have time... and feel like it.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/10/11/1439222/Misadventures-In-Online-Journalism?from=rss

Misadventures In Online Journalism

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday October 11, @10:44AM from the dewey-defeats-obama dept.

An anonymous reader writes

"Paul Carr, writing for TechCrunch, has posted his take on some of the flaws inherent to today's fast-paced news ecosystem, where bloggers often get little or no editorial feedback and interesting headlines are passed around faster than ever. His article was inspired by a recent story on ZDNet that accused Yahoo of sharing the names and emails of 200,000 users with the Iranian government; a report that turned out to be false, yet generated a great deal of outrage before it was disproved. Carr writes, 'Trusting the common sense of your writers is all well and good — but when it comes to breaking news, where journalistic adrenaline is at its highest and everyone is paranoid about being scooped by a competitor, that common sense can too easily become the first casualty. Journalists get caught up in the moment; we get excited and we post stupid crap from a foreign language student blog and call it news. And then within half a minute — bloggers being what they are — the news gets repeated and repeated until it becomes fact. Fact that can affect share prices or ruin lives. This is the reality of the blogosphere, where Churchill's remark: that "a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on" is more true, and more potentially damaging, than at any time in history.'"

Tools & Techniques for Hackers

http://www.mailmyweb.com/

MailMyWeb.com (Beta)

If you can' t access the internet through your restriced corporate network, MailMyWeb.com is the solution !

… (Incidentally you can watch videos, use search engines and read your online-community mails)

Tools & Techniques for my Forensics and hacker students. (Apparently they are seeing a lots of “questionable” photos.)

http://exifremover.com/index.php

EXIF remover

Exchangeable image file format (Exif) is a specification for the image file format used by digital cameras. The specification uses the existing JPEG, TIFF Rev. 6.0, and RIFF WAV file formats, with the addition of specific metadata tags. It is not supported in JPEG 2000, PNG, or GIF.

… . EXIFremover is a web tool that allows you to easily delete EXIF information online.

Card skimming. Small potatoes but targeting only one store, apparently very aggressive use of the cards skimmed. May be a model for attacks elsewhere?

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=7778

Losses from EFTPOS frauds at Perth shops hit $450,000

October 10, 2009 by admin Filed under Breach Incidents, Breach Types, Business Sector, ID Theft, Non-U.S., Skimmers

McDonald’s Australia is alerting customers to a huge skimming operation in Perth. As of yesterday, they had reported that about 2500 accounts had been compromised to the tune of $450,000 but today they say that they cannot guarantee that more West Australians will not be fleeced in the fraud scam.

While police have so far refused to detail exactly how the fraud was happening, it is understood McDonald’s is the only store to have been targeted.

PerthNow understands that the sophisticated scam has netted hundreds of victims and more than $750,000 has been siphoned from bank accounts.

Read more in Perth Now.

[From the report:

Police, who said yesterday that about 2500 accounts had been compromised, today said 1400 of those had been confirmed defrauded.

"It is estimated that the value of this is around $450,000," police spokeswoman Ros Weatherall said.

That was three times the $150,000 loss figure estimated yesterday.

… Several PerthNow readers have revealed in comments on related stories that their accounts had been debited up to thousands of dollars in a series of transactions for increasing amounts.

[From Perth Now:

PerthNow understands that the sophisticated scam has netted hundreds of victims and more than $750,000 has been siphoned from bank accounts.

An interesting outcome of poor security? The intersection of Identity Theft and stalking? If the bank continues to refuse to follow its own policy, what are the consequences?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=4477

Bank customer’s privacy anger

October 10, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Breaches, Non-U.S.

David Nankervis reports:

Banking giant ANZ has admitted a branch manager breached privacy regulations to access a customer’s personal information.

But the woman whose private details were “inappropriately” viewed by the manager – who is also her next door neighbour – is demanding the man be sacked according to the bank’s own code of conduct regulations.

At the very least, Golden Grove resident Susan Clayton wants ANZ manager Phillip Saredakis transferred from her local Golden Grove branch.

[...]

The couple took their complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which said in May they were entitled to compensation for the “distress” caused by the bank – but it could not force ANZ to sack Mr Saredakis.

The couple accepted $5000 in compensation but are still demanding Mr Saredakis lose his job.

Watchdog group Consumers SA agrees, saying the privacy breach should also be investigated by police.

Read more on Adelaide Now.

Security. If I was still a professional paranoid, I'd take this to mean that the DHS can't secure their data. Silly me.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/10/spies-protest-after-after-intel-sharing-tools-shut-down/

Spies Protest After Intel-Sharing Tools Shut Down

By Michael Tanji October 9, 2009 12:55 pm

… uGov, an e-mail platform that could be used by analysts throughout the intelligence community, was “one of its earliest efforts at cross-agency collaboration,” Marc Ambinder over at The Atlantic notes. uGov “will be shut down because of security concerns, government officials said.”

[This] follows reports that another popular analytic platform called “Bridge,” which allows analysts with security clearances to collaborate with people outside the government who have relevant expertise but no clearances, is being killed.

Security: Backup your phone recently?

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/10/11/0335210/Server-Failure-Destroys-Sidekick-Users-Backup-Data?from=rss

Server Failure Destroys Sidekick Users' Backup Data

Posted by timothy on Sunday October 11, @05:29AM from the oh-well-enough-said dept.

Expanding on the T-Mobile data loss mentioned in an update to an earlier story, reader stigmato writes

"T-Mobile's popular Sidekick brand of devices and their users are facing a data loss crisis. According to the T-Mobile community forums, Microsoft/Danger has suffered a catastrophic server failure that has resulted in the loss of all personal data not stored on the phones. They are advising users not to turn off their phones, reset them or let the batteries die in them for fear of losing what data remains on the devices. Microsoft/Danger has stated that they cannot recover the data but are still trying. Already people are clamoring for a lawsuit. Should we continue to trust cloud computing content providers with our personal information? Perhaps they should have used ZFS or btrfs for their servers."

(Related) Failures do not stop users from trusting the Cloud. Or maybe it's the legal environment they prefer...

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/10/10/2312210/Warez-Moving-From-BitTorrent-to-Conventional-Hosting-Services?from=rss

Warez Moving From BitTorrent to Conventional Hosting Services

Posted by timothy on Saturday October 10, @11:31PM from the gradual-process-gets-noticed dept.

ericatcw writes

"Driven by increased crackdowns on BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, software pirates are fast moving their warez to file-hosting Web sites like RapidShare, reports Computerworld. According to anti-piracy vendor V.I. Labs, 100% of the warez in its survey were available on RapidShare, which, according to Alexa, is already one of the 20 largest sites in the world. V.I. Labs' CEO predicts file-hosting sites such as RapidShare will supplant BitTorrent, as the former appear better protected legally."

Business Strategy: Let's see if as many users will pay for our content as will read it for free. And how will we attract new readers?

http://research.globalthoughtz.com/index.php/economist-com-to-start-charging-fee-for-reading-news-online/

Economist.com to start charging fee for Reading News Online

On 10.10.09, In Uncategorized, by bhupendra

Leading Economic Magazine ‘The Economist‘ team has decided to charge for its online news readers starting October 13th.

[Apparently online access will be limited to the last 90 days and the Contents page will be for subscribers only Bob]

(Related) Strong indications that this is part of contract renegotiation. (Shutting out Google is trivial, as the article points out.) Perhaps Google should counter with a “Rupert-Free Day” – let the provider see what part Google plays in sending traffic to their sites? We'd really see some lawsuits then!

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/10/10/2234213/Rupert-Murdoch-Says-Google-Is-Stealing-His-Content?from=rss

Rupert Murdoch Says Google Is Stealing His Content

Posted by timothy on Saturday October 10, @08:22PM from the what-part-of-come-in-don't-you-understand? dept.

Hugh Pickens writes

Weston Kosova writes in Newsweek that Rupert Murdoch gave an impassioned speech to media executives in Beijing decrying that search engines — in particular Google — are stealing from him, because Google links to his stories but doesn't pay News Corp. to do so. [Is this the online equivalent of saying, “Did you read that article about the Rockies?” as I hand you the paper? Bob] 'The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content,' Murdoch says. 'But if we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid content, it will be the content creators — the people in this hall — who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs who triumph.' But if Murdoch really thinks Google is stealing from him, and if he really wants Google to stop driving all those readers to his Web sites at no charge, he can simply stop Google from linking to their news stories by going to his Web site's robot.txt file and adding 'Disallow.'"

Business strategy: Clearest indication yet that Apple will open the iPhone to other carriers. (The alternative would be to buy them, but I doubt Apple would bother) Time to short AT&T?

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/10/10/1628210

Why AT&T Should Dump the iPhone's Unlimited Data Plan

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 10, @01:40PM from the traffic-shaping-on-the-go dept.

Pickens writes

"Farhad Manjoo has a provocative story at Slate asserting that while the iPhone has prompted millions of people to join AT&T, it has also hurt the company's image because all of those customers use their phones too much, [The customers would disagree. Bob] and AT&T's network is getting crushed by the demand. [They weren't ready and couldn't adapt. Bob] The typical smartphone customer consumes about 40 to 80 megabytes of wireless capacity a month, while the typical iPhone customer uses 400 MB a month. As more people sign up, local cell towers get more congested, and your own phone performs worse. He says the problem is that a customer who uses 1 MB a month pays the same amount as someone who uses 1,000 MB, and the solution is tiered pricing. [Making the system work as advertised never enters their minds. Bob] 'Of course, users would cry bloody murder at first,' [“But we'd soon eliminate the whiners...” Bob] writes Manjoo. 'I'd call on AT&T to create automatic tiers — everyone would start out on the $10/100 MB plan each month, and your price would go up automatically as your usage passes each 100 MB tier.' He says the key to implementing the policy is transparency, and that the iPhone should have an indicator like the battery bar that changes color as you pass each monthly tier. 'Some iPhone fans will argue that metered pricing would kill the magic of Apple's phone — that sense of liberation one feels at being able to access the Internet from anywhere, at any time. The trouble is, for many of us, AT&T's overcrowded network has already killed that sense, and now our usual dealings with Apple's phone are tinged with annoyance.'" [i.e. Customers are ready to leave AT&T Bob]

We love our employees so much, we're willing to treat them like our children. (No Christian Scientists need apply.)

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/022534.html

October 10, 2009

Mandatory Flu Shots for New York Health Care Workers

Time: "...The notices are there to remind the hospital's staff — which includes everyone from the doctors and nurses who care for patients to the administrative, housekeeping and food-service personnel — that every employee must be vaccinated against both seasonal and H1N1 flu or face possible termination. The mandate comes from the health department of New York, which over the summer became the first state to require that all health-care workers be vaccinated against influenza. In other states, individual hospitals have taken the same aggressive position. Given that the pandemic H1N1 strain is circulating the globe — and that one of the seasonal-flu strains is resistant to Tamiflu, a commonly used antiviral treatment — such a policy seems logical. But is it legal?"

Amusing. Perhaps you could use this for a treasure hunt? (Or to interpret the log of the Beagle?)

http://www.getlatlon.com/

Get Lat Lon

Find the latitude and longitude of a point on a map.

For my Hacking students. With that information you captured, you can pretend to be the RIAA and extort money from your friends!

http://torrentfreak.com/illegal-downloads-150x-more-profitable-than-legal-sales-091009/

Illegal Downloads 150x More Profitable Than Legal Sales

Written by Ernesto on October 09, 2009

Unlike most people might think, piracy is not necessarily a bad thing for copyright holders. In fact, German pirate-tracking outfit DigiRights Solutions shows that copyright holders can earn 150 times more money from illicit downloads than from iTunes and other legal stores.

… The German-based anti-piracy outfit DigiRights Solutions (DRS) recently published an interesting PowerPoint presentation (in German) which shows how copyright holders can make millions from pirates. The document reveals some rather shocking statistics that show how illicit downloads are more profitable than legal downloads.

… DRS says it generally sends out emails to alleged file-sharers requesting them to pay €450 (650$) per offense. According to the company they get to keep 80% of the money, leaving 20% for the copyright holders.

… However, not everyone who receives a letter will pay up, but DRS says that an impressive 25% of all recipients do without asking questions. This figure is much higher than most people assumed previously.

… DRS states that it’s realistic to track and pursue about 5,000 filesharers per month per title. Considering that 25% of those people pay the €90, then the copyright holders would have to to make about 150,000 online sales. Which is equal to the number of sales that are required for a Gold record award in Germany.

Global Warming! Global Warming! A certain law professor asks my Statistics students to calculate the probability that Al Gore is responsible for the new Ice Age, postponement of the Rockies game and the earliest start to the ski season in 40 years. I smell a lawsuit coming!

http://cbs4denver.com/local/weather.denver.colorado.2.742188.html

Oct 10, 2009 7:03 pm US/Mountain

Season's First Arctic Blast Delivers Record Cold

DENVER (CBS4) ―

The temperature on Saturday morning bottomed out at 17 degrees -- a new record low for Denver.

The old record was 25 degrees set back in 1905! Sunday morning should deliver another record low for Denver.

Well now the cat is out of the bag. If USA Today starts writing about basic computer security, soon everyone will understand it and us consultants won't be able to charge the big bucks!

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=7772

Cyberthieves find workplace networks are easy pickings

October 10, 2009 by admin Filed under Breach Incidents, Commentaries and Analyses, Hack, ID Theft, U.S.

Byron Acohido provides a write-up of some of the TJX and Heartland Payment Systems incidents that emphasizes the point that many hacks go undetected or unnoticed — and that cyberthieves often take considerable time to start and continue stealing data:

Companies, understandably, rarely discuss data breaches. However, proof that data thieves are targeting hundreds of organizations using similar approaches to breach networks comes from Verizon Business, a division of Verizon Communications that sells consulting services to other corporations. Since 2004, Verizon has dispatched forensic specialists to conduct CSI-like probes of nearly 600 cases of corporate data theft.

In the vast majority of those cases, investigators discovered thieves routinely took days after initially penetrating a network to locate and break into valuable databases. And most often, the intruders spent weeks to years extracting data before being discovered.

“It’s one of the more shocking statistics we’ve run across,” says Verizon principal researcher Wade Baker. “The length of time it takes an organization to discover that data is leaving is often five to six months” after the initial breach.

That pattern suggests “many organizations right now have breaches they don’t know about and won’t discover for some time to come,” says Baker.

Read more on USA Today.

Political Rule # 4: “In the end, you can't tell one party from another.”

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=4465

Round-Up of Reactions to PATRIOT Vote

October 10, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Legislation, Surveillance, U.S.

Kevin Bankston of EFF provides a round-up of reactions to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote on a bill reauthorizing portions of the PATRIOT Act that were set to expire this year:

Yesterday, as the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to recommend and send to the Senate floor a USA PATRIOT Act renewal bill lacking critical civil liberties reforms, EFF’s reaction was much the same as Senator Feingold’s, as he expressed in his post-vote blog post at Daily Kos.

Feingold, one of only three Democrats to vote against the bill and a sponsor of the PATRIOT reform bill the JUSTICE Act, was left scratching his head over how a Democratic super-majority with a Democratic Administration could so thoroughly fail at reforming the PATRIOT Act, a law long maligned by Democrats as an affront to civil liberties. [Political Rule #407.b “Never fix anything you can blame the other party for.” Bob] He closed by posing a choice to his Democratic colleagues: “In the end…Democrats have to decide if they are going to stand up for the rights of the American people or allow the FBI to write our laws.”

[...]

However, the biggest disappointment of all yesterday was the Obama Administration itself. Of the seven amendments to water down the bill’s civil liberties protections that were offered by the Committee Republicans, at least five of them were recommended by Obama’s Justice Department. As one anonymous Democratic staffer told the New York Times, the amendments “were a verbatim transfer of the text of amendments the Obama administration had privately sent to Congress on Wednesday.”

Read more on EFF.

Ah, that explains a lot. Big Brother owns the phone companies...

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/att-doj-foia/

Telephone Company Is Arm of Government, Feds Admit in Spy Suit

By Ryan Singel October 8, 2009 8:24 pm

The Department of Justice has finally admitted it in court papers: The nation’s telecom companies are an arm of the government — at least when it comes to secret spying.

… The feds argued that the documents showing consultation over the controversial telecom immunity proposal weren’t subject to the Freedom of Information Act since they were protected as “intra-agency” records: [“See, we was really just talking to ourselves. ...and buying ourselves dinner. … and taking ourselves on golf outings. ...and contributing to our reelection.” Bob]

(Related) How they do it in Canada. As I read it, it makes no difference what their Privacy Policy promised when you used their system. If they change the policy to say you have no rights, that applies retroactively.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=4470

Canada: New decision on warrantless access to ISP customer data

October 10, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Businesses, Court, Featured Headlines, Internet, Non-U.S.

David Fraser writes:

A friend just provided me with a copy of a recent decision of the Ontario Court of Justice considering the admissibility of information obtained without a warrant from the suspect’s internet service provider, Bell. R. v. Cuttell is not on CanLii yet, but I’ve put a copy here.

The Court concluded there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in your account records, but this expectation can be destroyed by your ISP if their service agreement grants them wide latitude to hand over customer information. The judge accepts that a broadly-worded statement in Bell’s contract with the customer might supplant the reasonable expectation of privacy. (I would also question whether a form contract that the customer likey has not read would be enough to mean that subjectively there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.)

In this case, there was no proof brought by the police that the Bell contract applied to this customer so a Charter breach was found.

Read more on Canadian Privacy Law Blog.

Related: The debate about warrantless access to ISP customer information on Slaw and Fraser’s commentary.

(Related) Hint! Hint! My Forensic students better find a way to work this into our discussion...

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/09/2-people-died-in-a-sweat-lodge-last-night-and-deleted-tweets-have-surfaced/

2 People Died In A Sweat Lodge Last Night. And Deleted Tweets Have Surfaced.

by MG Siegler on October 9, 2009

Last night, at a retreat in Arizona, two people died and another 19 had to be hospitalized after something went horribly wrong at a sweat lodge. Normally, such a story, while interesting, wouldn’t be right for TechCrunch. But there’s a tech angle here.

Apparently, the man who rented the place and threw the retreat, author James Arthur Ray, is also an avid Twitter user. And yes, during the night of the incident he was tweeting about it. Ray later deleted those tweets and all the tweets about the retreat. But, as Mark Maunder discovered, they’re still available in Twitter search. And a couple are pretty interesting:

… The fact that these tweets still exist in Twitter Search is very interesting. Twitter recently updated its terms of service agreement, making it very clear that “your tweets belong to you.” But that ownership for whatever reason, be it technical or otherwise, doesn’t fully extend to the point that when you delete a tweet, it is gone forever.

This could become amusing...

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/10/09/2158221/FCC-To-Probe-Google-Voice-Over-Call-Blocking?from=rss

FCC To Probe Google Voice Over Call Blocking

Posted by Soulskill on Friday October 09, @07:15PM from the keep-your-eye-on-the-ball dept.

Over the past few months, we've been following the FCC's inquiry into Apple and AT&T after they rejected Google Voice from the App store. A couple weeks ago, AT&T did their best to deflect the FCC by dangling a shiny object in front of them — the use of Google Voice to block calls. It now appears the FCC has taken the bait, as they've sent an official inquiry to Google asking why the service restricts connections. "In its letter, the FCC asked Google to describe how its calls are routed and whether calls to particular numbers are prohibited. It also asks for information on how restrictions are implemented, how Google informs customers about those restrictions, whether Google Voice services are free, and if Google ever plans to charge for them in the future." Richard Whitt has already posted a brief explanation on Google's Public Policy blog. "The reason we restrict calls to certain local phone carriers' numbers is simple. Not only do they charge exorbitant termination rates for calls, but they also partner with adult sex chat lines and 'free' conference calling centers to drive high volumes of traffic." The FCC also received a push from members of the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

For my Computer Security students. This is what you must secure...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10372001-92.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Report: Two of every five of workers telecommute

by Lance Whitney October 9, 2009 12:50 PM PDT

… More than 38 million people, or 37 percent of the total U.S. workforce, work from home at least once a month, according to the report "Telework and the Technologies Enabling Work Outside Corporate Walls" released Thursday by the Consumer Electronics Association.

The CEA survey found that among telecommuters, 98 percent use computer technology, such as PCs and printers; 90 percent use communications equipment, including cell phones and fax machines; and 75 percent use accessories, such as surge protectors and docking stations.

Am I reading this correctly? Is Microsoft about to install Office on every computer exactly like it installs Internet Explorer? What are they thinking?

http://hothardware.com/News/Microsoft-Ditching-Works-for-AdSupported-Office-Starter-2010/

Microsoft Ditching Works for Ad-Supported Office Starter 2010

Thursday, October 08, 2009 - by Michael Santo

Microsoft Works, which is frequently offered as part of new PCs, is about to meet its end. Instead, in an interesting move, Microsoft announced it will allow OEMs to install the entire Office 2010 Suite on new PCs in a free, ad-supported form, but with much functionality disabled unless an activation key is purchased.

… This software, of course, will come pre-installed on new PCs. For those with older systems, Microsoft will sort of stream Office 2010 to their PCs when required using Click-To-Run, a new technology, which the company unveiled in the July invitation-only Technical Preview of Office 2010. It downloads the essential pieces you need for the task at hand, and does the rest in the background.

The computer auditors are finally speaking up. I wonder if anyone in this country will bother to have this article translated from the Canadian?

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/10/10/0124227/Open-Source-Could-Have-Saved-Ontario-Hundreds-of-Millions?from=rss

Open Source Could Have Saved Ontario Hundreds of Millions

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 10, @12:06AM from the proprietary-pocket-change dept.

Platinum Dragon writes

"Ontario's auditor-general released a blistering report this week detailing how successive governments threw away a billion dollars developing an integrated electronic medical record system. This CBC article highlights an open source system developed at McMaster University that is already used by hundreds of doctors in Ontario. As one of the developers points out, 'we don't have very high-priced executives and consultants,' some of whom cost Ontario taxpayers $2,700 per day."

The McMaster University researchers claim their system could be rolled out for two percent of the billion-dollars-plus already spent on the project. The report itself (PDF) also makes note of the excessive consultation spending: "By 2008, the Ministry’s eHealth Program Branch had fewer than 30 full-time employees but was engaging more than 300 consultants, a number of whom held senior management positions."

Interesting that they noticed what the Streisand Effect was doing to them and backed down.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10372127-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Ralph Lauren admits it needs Photoshop lessons

by Chris Matyszczyk October 9, 2009 1:11 PM PDT

… Ralph Lauren has gurgitated a mea gulpa: "For over 42 years we have built a brand based on quality and integrity. After further investigation, we have learned that we are responsible for the poor imaging and retouching that resulted in a very distorted image of a woman's body."

Stunning! WATCH THE VIDEO DEMO! My website students will all look like Michelangelo!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6265876/PhotoSketch-picture-software-wins-plaudits.html

PhotoSketch picture software wins plaudits

An image manipulation tool built by a group of Chinese students has taken the internet by storm.

By Claudine Beaumont, Technology Editor Published: 3:18PM BST 06 Oct 2009

PhotoSketch, which transforms basic stick-figure drawings in to a photograph, has been described by technology website Mashable as "mind blowing".

Think of this as a personal alibi generator!

http://www.killerstartups.com/Mobile/logearth-net-keep-track-of-your-position

LogEarth.net - Keep Track Of Your Position

http://www.logearth.net/

… This site gives you all the information you need to know … to help you out when it comes to tracking your movements using a GPS logger.

Interesting freebie from ISACA. Governance, Risk & Compliance seminar online. (You need to register)

http://events.techtarget.com/GRC/

GRC & IT Virtual Seminar

ISACA and SearchCompliance.com have teamed up to present a free one-day virtual seminar (Tuesday, November 3rd.) demystifying GRC and IT frameworks. Join us for this unique opportunity to network with hundreds of like-minded auditors, IT strategists and business leaders.

Fishing expedition or something more? A backup tape wouldn't hold a lot of data (relative to a complete customer database) and there is nothing I'm aware of that requires JPMorgan to itemize the records lost (much as I'd like to see that) So why the kerfuffle?

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=7768

US lawmakers ask JPMorgan Chase about data breach

October 8, 2009 by admin Filed under Breach Incidents, Financial Sector, Lost or Missing, U.S.

Diane Bartz reports:

Two lawmakers want JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N), the second largest U.S. bank by assets, to answer a few questions about how many customers were affected when a computer tape with their personal information was lost earlier this year.

Representatives Joe Barton, the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and George Radanovich, the top Republican on the subcommittee on commerce, trade and consumer protection, wrote JPMorgan Chase Bank CEO James Dimon on Wednesday.

Read more on Reuters. Previous coverage here.

We've been talking about the increase in sophistication of malware and other tech-supported crime. Remember, sophisticated doesn't always mean workable.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/08/the-evolution-of-click-fraud-massive-chinese-operation-dormring1-uncovered/

The Evolution Of Click Fraud: Massive Chinese Operation DormRing1 Uncovered

by Erick Schonfeld on October 8, 2009

As long as advertisers pay for clicks, there will be click fraud. And the more people combat it, the more sophisticated the attacks become to get around the defenses that advertisers, search engines, and others put in place. But a recent click fraud ring discovered by click-fraud monitoring service Anchor Intelligence suggests that the practice is evolving to a scale never seen before.

Anchor Intelligence identified a click fraud ring being run out of China which involved 200,000 different IP addresses and racked up more than $3 million worth of fraudulent clicks across 2,000 advertisers in a two-week period. That money was never paid out and the ring has now dissipated (or moved onto another scam), but who knows how long the ring was in operation before Anchor noticed.

Good news, bad news? “The longer we work with our systems the buggier they become?”

http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/10/08/2249227/Microsoft-Plans-Largest-Ever-Patch-Tuesday?from=rss

Microsoft Plans Largest-Ever Patch Tuesday

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 08, @07:49PM from the 24-hours-but-bigger-minutes dept.

CWmike writes

"Microsoft said it will deliver its largest-ever number of security updates on Tuesday to fix 13 flaws in every version of Windows, as well as Internet Explorer (IE), Office, SQL Server, important developer tools and Forefront Security client software. Among the updates will be the first for the final, or release to manufacturing, code of Windows 7, Microsoft's newest operating system. The 13 updates slated for next week, eight of them pegged 'critical,' beat the previous record of 12 updates shipped in February 2007 and again in October 2008."

Update Reader Kurt Seifried writes to correct the math a bit, pointing to Microsoft's Advance Notification page for the release, which says that rather than 13 flaws, this Patch Tuesday involves "13 bulletins (eight critical and five important), addressing 34 vulnerabilities ... Most of these updates require a restart so please factor that into your deployment planning."

Definitions are critical here. Will they flag my nightly backups as high-volume, therefore SPAM? What actions will they take? A pop-up in my browser isn't much use if I'm not there and my browser isn't running. Is it good customer service to first mention this new “service” AFTER it starts?

http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/10/08/2022211/Comcasts-War-On-Infected-PCs-Or-All-Customers?from=rss

Comcast's War On Infected PCs (Or All Customers)

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 08, @04:21PM from the could-go-badly dept.

thadmiller writes

"Comcast is launching a trial on Thursday of a new automated service that will warn broadband customers of possible virus infections if the computers are behaving as if they have been compromised by malware. For instance, a significant overnight spike in traffic being sent from a particular Internet Protocol address could signal that a computer is infected with a virus, taking control of the system and using it to send spam as part of a botnet." [Or it could be a bunch of lawyers filing an appeal at the last minute. Blocking that traffic could have interesting consequences. Bob]

Update: Jason Livingood of Comcast's Internet Systems Engineering group sent to Dave Farber's "Interesting People" mailing list a more detailed explanation of what this trial will involve.

[From the article:

Customers in Denver are set to begin receiving notifications that their system may be infected with a virus or other malware via a pop-up message in the browser, as part of the new free service, called Comcast Constant Guard. The "Service Notice" will include a link to a Comcast security Web site where customers can follow a set of instructions to remove the malware from their computer.

So are we bragging or complaining here? Either position starts with the assumption that Yahoo was acting as the laws of Iran require. (Legal may not be ethical)

http://government.zdnet.com/?p=5547

Did Yahoo provide Iran with names of 200,000 users?

Posted by Richard Koman @ October 8, 2009 @ 10:13 PM

This post is going to make some major allegations. I realize this is not completely buttoned down, but I believe there is sufficient veracity in what I have right now to publish. I am expecting to be able to provide further proof as the story unfolds.

Yahoo collaborated with the Iranian regime during the election protests, providing to the authorities the names and emails of some 200,000 Iranian Yahoo users, according to a post on the Iranian Students Solidarity (Farsi) blog.

Lawyers are not considering the Streisand effect before they send those notices.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/10/08/1749256/Photoshop-Disaster-Draws-DMCA-Notice-For-Boing-Boing?from=rss

Photoshop Disaster Draws DMCA Notice For Boing Boing

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 08, @01:58PM from the need-to-fatten-that-one-a-bit dept.

Pickens writes

"Cory Doctorow writes that Ralph Lauren issued a DMCA takedown notice after Boing Boing republished the Photoshop disaster contained in a Ralph Lauren advertisement in which a model's proportions appear to have been altered to give her an impossibly skinny body with the model's head larger than her pelvis. Doctorow says that one of the things that makes their ISP Priority Colo so awesome is that they don't automatically act on DMCA takedowns and proceeded to dare Lauren to sue. ' This is classic fair use: a reproduction "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting," etc,' writes Doctorow. 'Copyright law doesn't give you the right to threaten your critics for pointing out the problems with your offerings.' Doctorow adds that every time Lauren threatens to sue he will 'reproduce the original criticism, making damned sure that all our readers get a good, long look at it,' 'publish your spurious legal threat along with copious mockery,' and 'offer nourishing soup and sandwiches to your models.'"

Another “shortage?” Do you suppose none of the telecommunication companies understood this when they bid at the spectrum auctions? Sounds to me like the government is about to add another tax “to correct the market.”

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/10/08/2243242/FCC-Chairman-Warns-of-Wireless-Spectrum-Gap?from=rss

FCC Chairman Warns of Wireless Spectrum Gap

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 08, @06:52PM from the congress-from-whom-all-blessings-flow dept.

locallyunscene writes

"'We are fast entering a world where mass-market mobile devices consume thousands of megabytes each month,' FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski warned at CTIA Wireless yesterday. 'So we must ask: what happens when every mobile user has an iPhone, a Palm Pre, a BlackBerry Tour, or whatever the next device is? What happens when we quadruple the number of subscribers with mobile broadband on their laptops or netbooks?'"

Once upon a time, in a courtroom far, far away... (Apparently, all of IBM's lawyers who were involved with the huge anti-trust case have retired and left nothing for their replacements – not even an oral history.)

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/10/08/1637223/IBM-Faces-DOJ-Antitrust-Inquiry-On-Mainframes?from=rss

IBM Faces DOJ Antitrust Inquiry On Mainframes

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Thursday October 08, @01:07PM from the goliath-syndrome dept.

Several sources are reporting that IBM is facing an antitrust inquiry from the US Department of Justice due to a supposed refusal to issue mainframe OS licenses to competitors.

"Part of CCIA's complaint stems from the tech giant's treatment of former competitor Platform Solutions. IBM had little competition in the mainframe market when Platform Solutions, early this decade, began work on servers that could mimic the behavior of more expensive IBM mainframes, CCIA said. Platform Solutions, based on past mainframe agreements between IBM and the DOJ, requested copies of IBM's OS and technical information under a licensing agreement. IBM declined to grant Platform Solutions a license and prohibited customers from transferring IBM software licenses to Platform Solutions machines, said CCIA, which has members that are potential competitors of IBM."

It's one thing to sue these guys, but with bias allegations against all the judges and now indications of faked/falsified evidence, you have to wonder if the courts can function correctly in “high tech” cases?

http://torrentfreak.com/anti-pirates-try-to-nail-the-pirate-bay-with-faked-evidence-091008/

Anti-Pirates Try to Nail The Pirate Bay with Faked Evidence

Written by Ernesto on October 08, 2009

In August, Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN won its case against The Pirate Bay, and the court ordered the defendants to block access to Dutch visitors. The case was appealed today and rightly so. It appears that the evidence presented by BREIN was faked in an attempt to mislead the court.

Do I detect a slight political bias?

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/09/10/09/123207/Barack-Obama-Wins-the-2009-Nobel-Peace-Prize?from=rss

Barack Obama Wins the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize

Posted by kdawson on Friday October 09, @08:52AM from the taliban-not-happy dept.

Barack Obama has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The BBC opines:

"In awarding President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian committee is honoring his intentions more than his achievements. all he has been in office only just over eight months and he will presumably hope to serve eight years, so it is very early in his term to get this award. ... The committee does not make any secret of its approach. It states that he is being given the prize 'for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples.' This is of course an implied criticism of former US president George W Bush and the neo-conservatives, who were often accused of trying to change the world in their image."

The Washington Post collects more reactions from around the world.

Geek parents – watch the video

http://www.labnol.org/software/old-linux-computer-for-baby/10420/