Not impossible, but more complex.

http://prisonplanet.com/articles/October2006/231006_b_NSA.htm

Why Bush's NSA Wire tapping is defeated by VoIP Networks

Google Video | October 23 2006

Bush claims he needs NSA wire tapping to break up terrorist networks but terrorists are not using the phone network Bush is tapping. They ... all » are using private voice over IP internet phones (VoIP) that can't be tapped. This video explains how it works. [Not the smoothest presentation ever, but he gets his fact straight... Bob]

It's not that these lawyers haven't been to law school, they're just using the legal department to advance a (not very smart) strategy.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20061024/113745.shtml

Newspaper Pretends It Can Block Fair Use And Threaten Those Who Say It Can't

from the nice-try dept

We recognize that some of the finer points of copyright can be confusing (or are disputed), but some things are pretty clear. Fair use, for example, does exist and cannot be denied by the owner of copyrights (even if they'd like to pretend they can). The latest example of this is pointed out by David Levine, who links to a blog post from legal expert Eugene Volokh ripping apart the claim of an "investigative report" publication who puts "This article is copyright protected and Fair Use is not applicable" at the bottom of all their articles. It also says: "In accordance with Fair Use of Copyright: WE FORBID ANY REPRODUCTION in part or in whole..." As Volokh notes, unfortunately, you can't just make up the law in your favor. [Sure you can! If ignorance of the law is no excuse, then creating a law (of which everyone is ignorant) may let you fool (intimidate) 'some of the people' Bob] Fair use isn't at the whim of the content owner, and it's not in accordance with fair use to deny "any reproduction." Volokh found out about the site from David Giacalone at Harvard's Berkman Center. Giaclone discusses more problems with the legal language the site uses, while noting that it's especially worrisome since the site fights for legal reform. However, the most ridiculous part of the whole thing is that when Giaclone (a retired member of the bar in two areas) points these things out to the editor of the site, she responds by calling him "an ass," saying that the site would be giving him "some publicity" and accusing him of "practicing law without a license," for which the publication's lawyer and the state Attorney General would be alerted. All this for pointing out that their legal disclaimer isn't actually binding? And we wonder why some people have trouble dealing with the finer points of copyright law...

Yesterday there was an article on a court opinion that “reasonable suspicion” was required. Apparently this generated a lot of stories suggesting it was a large problem... I doubt it is. What are they looking for? Terrorist bits & bytes?

http://digg.com/business_finance/Laptops_Have_No_Right_To_Privacy_At_U_S_Borders

Laptops Have No Right To Privacy At U.S. Borders

curtissthompson submitted by curtissthompson 22 hours 48 minutes ago (via http://news.com.com/2100-7348_3-6128871.html?tag=nefd.top )

Employers have a new worry--that business travelers' laptops, containing private corporate information, will be seized at customs and immigration checkpoints.

If they don't provide the details to Google, most likely they will face their own lawsuit and be forced to provide them to the “gang of Luddite publishers?”

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AMAZON_GOOGLE?SITE=VALYD&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Oct 24, 4:25 PM EDT

Amazon.com Won't Provide Search Details

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- As expected, online retailer Amazon.com Inc. has objected to providing details about its book search feature to rival Google Inc., which says it needs them to fight copyright infringement allegations from a group of authors and book publishers.

In a Monday filing, Amazon.com described Google's request, which was made via a subpoena served on Oct. 6, as "overly broad and unduly burdensome" and said it would expose Amazon's trade secrets.

Amazon lawyers also note how Google wants "essentially all documents concerning Amazon's sale of books on its Web sites, and all searching and indexing functions."

"Google can not show any substantial need to obtain Amazon's proprietary information," despite Google's promises to only use the information to defend itself against the lawsuits, Amazon's lawyers wrote.

Google says it needs the details to battle recently consolidated class action lawsuits filed against it by several major book publishers and The Authors Guild, which collectively allege Google didn't get the proper approvals before making their work available to anyone with an Internet connection.

Amazon's objections were apparently the first from the group of companies Google formally asked for book searching details in early October.

It's expected that Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and major book publishers Random House, Holtzbrinck Publishers and HarperCollins will also object.

How un-Google-like... Well, it was before the takeover, so perhaps the strategy will change?

http://michaelzimmer.org/2006/10/21/youtube-shared-user-data-with-studio-lawyers/

YouTube shared user data with studio lawyers

Posted on Saturday, October 21st, 2006 at 12:45 pm

In what really shouldn’t be that big a surprise, it has been reported that YouTube provided personal information about a user to a Hollywood film studio:

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=1576072006

EU, U.S. to share criminal investigation information

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union endorsed an agreement with the United States to facilitate the exchange of information between EU and U.S. prosecutors on terrorism and cross-border criminal cases, it said on Tuesday.

The deal, endorsed by EU ministers on Monday, will allow the EU-wide prosecutors' office Eurojust to exchange information with U.S. counterparts on cases under investigation, said Maarit Loimukoski, a member of Eurojust representing the Finnish EU Presidency.

... EU lawmakers and rights groups have been increasingly worried about protection of data privacy in such agreements.

Eurojust says each party to this new deal will act according to its own data processing rules [Lowest standard wins? Bob] and when sharing information, a prosecutor can impose conditions on how it will be used.

Felons got rights?

http://ktla.trb.com/news/local/la-me-da25oct25,0,880434.story?coll=ktla-newslocal-1

Criminal records to be kept from public, media

By Peter Y. Hong, Times Staff Writer October 25, 2006

California prosecutors are no longer releasing routine information about defendants, including their criminal histories and parole or probation status.

The change comes in the aftermath of a Sept. 20 legal opinion from Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer that furnishing such information from law enforcement computer databases violates defendants' privacy rights.

... Newton said the opinion "will almost certainly be universally followed" by prosecutors throughout California, fundamentally altering their relationship with the public.

... The 14-page attorney general's opinion states that prosecutors may not produce records on prior offenses and parole or probation status.

The IT Department is NOT ready for this. I have one client for whom I have captured more than one third of the entire IT network storage capacity – for a single (not large) case.

http://news.com.com/2010-1014_3-6129257.html?part=rss&tag=6129257&subj=news

Clock is ticking on e-discovery

By Eric J. Sinrod Story last modified Wed Oct 25 06:30:33 PDT 2006

perspective Dec. 1 is almost here, a significant date in the legal world when amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure will take effect. These rules govern electronic discovery and, in theory, are supposed to reduce litigation costs.

However, it turns out the rules may actually increase litigation costs, especially regarding work that must be performed within the first 120 days after a lawsuit gets filed. What's more, if a party gets it wrong by not properly producing electronic discovery, the resulting penalties can be gargantuan.

The new rules are designed to set out early structure, uniformity and predictability when it comes to e-discovery. Yet, from the very start of a case, the parties need to start evaluating with their IT teams and outside counsel what they need to do to produce relevant electronic data. That effort can be enormous, as data can be located live on a network across multiple servers, on backup tapes, on hard drives, laptops and personal digital assistants.

Opposing parties still will be able to argue that the evidentiary value of particular categories of electronic evidence is outweighed by the burden of searching, retrieving and producing that information. However, the magistrate, discovery referee or judge assigned to adjudicate discovery disputes on a given case may not agree.

And the failure to produce relevant electronic evidence, when truly required, can have dire consequences. A recent case illustrates the point:

In the case of z4 Technologies v. Microsoft Corporation, a defense witness revealed at a deposition immediately before trial that an e-mail he had sent to Microsoft had been provided to Microsoft attorneys more than a year before the deposition.

It turned out Microsoft had withheld production of the e-mail until responses to deposition questions revealed the existence of the e-mail. Once that was revealed, the presiding federal judge ruled that the e-mail was favorable to the plaintiff's position, which did not help the cause of the defense in dealing with its failure to produce.

The judge's decision also pointed out that Microsoft failed to correct deposition testimony eight months before the start of the trial stating that an alleged database did not exist. In addition, the judge concluded that Microsoft neglected to apprise the plaintiff that the database could be located in a sub-folder on a particular CD that had been produced.

As a result of this and other (mis)behavior, the judge determined that the defense had engaged in litigation misconduct and ordered Microsoft to pay additional damages of $25 million, as well as almost $2 million in attorney's fees to the plaintiff.

The judge noted that he had the discretion to award triple the jury's verdict because of the litigation misconduct. That would have amounted to an extra $345 million in damages. Luckily for Microsoft, he decided not to pull the trigger.

The z4 case demonstrates how even a company with the size and sophistication of a Microsoft can get it wrong when it comes to electronic discovery. But if Microsoft can get it wrong, less sophisticated companies also can get it wrong--companies that may not have the financial wherewithal to afford the extra damages for e-discovery mistakes.

The witching hour of Dec. 1 is almost here. If they've been procrastinating until now, companies would be smart to begin working with legal advisers skilled in the e-discovery arena. Such counsel can develop a plan to help ensure that relevant electronic data is preserved, searchable and ready to be retrieved and produced in as economically efficient manner as possible.

The clock is ticking.

“It's where the money is...” Willie Sutton

http://techdirt.com/articles/20061024/182854.shtml

Key Loggers Strike Online Brokerage Houses

from the costly-security dept

One of the more popular identity theft scams these days is to use keyloggers to get someone's bank account info and then take their money. However, it looks like some organized crime groups have taken this up another level with some online brokerage houses. Apparently, both TD Ameritrade and E-Trade were recently victims of multimillion dollar frauds when identity thieves used all of the accounts they had collected up to stage a huge pump-and-dump scam. [Has this been in the news? Bob] Basically, they collected a large number of logins to various accounts. But rather than directly going in and stealing the money, they used all of these accounts in a short period of time to buy certain stocks, pushing the value up, and allowing themselves to sell large quantities of the stock. Both brokerage houses said they had to cover their customers losses out of pocket, with E-Trade paying $18 million and TD Ameritrade spending $4 million. Both claim they're trying to make sure this doesn't happen again, [Gee, do you think that might be preferable to reimbursing $4Million every few weeks? Bob] mainly by being able to spot such frauds faster. Still, it is interesting to see how these identity theft scams continue to evolve -- and how they're clearly getting increasingly sophisticated.

This article doesn't give me that warm fuzzy feeling...

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9004108&source=rss_topic84

Brief: Congressional Budget Office mailing list hacked

Linda Rosencrance

October 12, 2006 (Computerworld) Hackers have breached the mailing list of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), according to the agency.

"There was limited breach of our list server that has since been patched and closed," said Melissa Merson, a CBO spokeswoman. "When people access a federal government computer, that's considered a possible criminal violation. So we've referred the matter to the appropriate law enforcement authorities, and it's under investigation."

Merson said the hackers sent out a message purporting to be a CBO e-mail, but she declined to offer any details because the matter had been referred to law enforcement officials for investigation.

However, according to a report in The Washington Post, the CBO recently sent out an e-mail warning that someone was using the the agency's mailing list to try to get private information about those on the list.

"Several people have reported receiving an e-mail message that appears to have been sent from the Congressional Budget Office," the e-mail said, according to the Post. "The message is actually Phish and appears to come from outside the U.S. We are not sure how many people received the message or how the address list was obtained, [but] if you received an email message from: 'Budget Office ' and using a subject line that says 'The Budget and Economic Outlook Fiscal Years 2007 to 2016,' then please delete it. Also, DO NOT click on the link at the bottom of the message. It could possibly infect your computer with spyware or a virus.'" [“possibly” Thay don't know for sure? Bob]

Research made easier?

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/24/yahoo-bookmarks-enters-21st-century/

Yahoo Bookmarks Enters 21st Century.

Michael Arrington October 24 2006

Yahoo is unveiling an entirely new Bookmarks product this evening at new.bookmarks.yahoo.com - new interface, new back-end, the works. A screencast created by Yahoo developer Tom Chi is here which gives an excellent overview of the service

... The new product caches all text on the page, stores a thumbnail view, and allows both categorization (folders) and tagging of each bookmark.

Drugs for secrets? It's nice to know we can trust our nuclear secrets to such fine, upstanding individuals.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LOS_ALAMOS_DOCUMENTS?SITE=VAWOO&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Drug Raid Yields Los Alamos Documents

By LARA JAKES JORDAN Associated Press Writer Oct 25, 7:27 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Authorities in northern New Mexico have stumbled onto what appears to be classified information from Los Alamos National Laboratory while arresting a man suspected of domestic violence and dealing methamphetamine from his mobile home.

Sgt. Chuck Ney of the Los Alamos Police Department said the information was discovered during a search last Friday of the man's records for evidence of his drug business.

Police alerted the FBI to the secret documents, which agents traced back to a woman linked to the drug dealer, officials said. The woman is a contract employee at Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to an FBI official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature [...but great FBI publicity value... Bob] of the case.

... Los Alamos has a history of high-profile security problems in the past decade, with the most notable the case of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee. After years of accusations, Lee pleaded guilty in a plea bargain to one count of mishandling nuclear secrets at the lab.

In 2004, the lab was essentially shut down after an inventory showed that two computer disks containing nuclear secrets were missing. A year later the lab concluded that it was just a mistake and the disks never existed.

This is handy!

http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001459.php

Animated Knots

Best knot teacher

All knots are knotty and hard to visualize the first time. This free website is the best knot teacher yet. It beats any of the beginner books I've seen, as well as all the other knot websites. The key here is the stepped animations synchronized with instructions, which you can run at any speed. Replay them till you get them right. Animated Knots is the next best thing to having old Pete next to ya. Once you get the basic ones down, try some of the harder ones. There are 75 cool knots animated in total.

-- KK

Available at Animated Knots

Why would a nurse have 14,000 patient records?

http://www.ihealthbeat.org/index.cfm?Action=dspItem&itemID=126056

Stolen Laptop Contains Thousands of Minnesota Patients' Personal Data

October 23, 2006

Allina Hospitals and Clinics in Minneapolis last week began contacting obstetrics patients after a laptop containing the names and Social Security numbers of about 14,000 people was stolen from a nurse's car on Oct. 8, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

It does not appear that any data have been accessed, according to Allina spokesperson David Kanihan. He added that the information on the laptop is protected by two passwords.

Allina is providing identity protection resources to affected patients and is offering them one year of credit monitoring at no cost, according to the letters sent to the patients.

The laptops will not contain Social Security numbers in the future, Kanihan said (Lonetree, Minneapolis Star Tribune, 10/20).

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/24/HNsonydetailsproblem_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/24/HNsonydetailsproblem_1.html

Sony details battery problems

Manufacturing problems with stray metallic particles are expected to lead to the replacement of 9.6 million laptop batteries

By Martyn Williams, IDG News Service October 24, 2006

Sony has provided greater detail about a battery manufacturing problem that is expected to see the replacement of up to 9.6 million laptop computer battery packs.

The problem was first acknowledged in August when Dell issued a recall for 4.1 million batteries and until now had been explained as metallic particles that got into the battery during the manufacturing progress. On Tuesday, Sony expanded on this and said the particles, believed to be nickel, likely got into the battery during two stages in production: when a groove was created in the battery case and when the electrolyte was poured into the cell.

But that alone wouldn't be enough to cause the fires that have been reported by laptop owners. For that to happen Sony believes that the particles would have to fall into a small triangular gap in the cell body right at the point where the cathode ends between two layers of spacer material. Then, depending on system configuration, the conditions could be right for a fire to start in the battery.

... Last week Sony said it anticipates costs of ¥51 billion ($429 million) as a result of the battery problems.

... The replacement batteries won't all come from Sony because it doesn't have the manufacturing capacity to produce them all in the time required, [another risk/cost consideration... Bob] said Nakagawa. As a result Sony will source some cells from rival companies. Nakagawa said as a result there is a general possibility that Sony might not win back all the business it had before the battery problems occurred. Its success or failure in keeping business very much depends on how well Sony does to persuade customers that the problems are behind it, he said.

Well, that's resolved then...

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=40605

Coverage & Access

Wall Street Journal Examines Concerns Over Limits of HIPAA Medical Privacy Rule

[Oct 23, 2006]

The Wall Street Journal on Saturday examined how forms that outline the medical privacy rule under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act "essentially detai[l] the many ways a doctor can use and disclose medical information -- often without a patient's consent or knowledge" -- and how patients who visit physician offices, hospitals and pharmacies mistakenly "assume signing somehow protects their privacy" (Francis, Wall Street Journal, 10/21). The HIPAA Federal Privacy Rule allows health care providers to share patient medical records for the purposes of treatment and other "health care operations." Providers do not have to obtain written consent before they disclose medical records but are required to inform patients of their rights and make a "good-faith effort" to obtain written acknowledgment from patients that they have received the information. Providers must obtain consent from patients before they can disclose medical records in "nonroutine" cases (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 3/11/05). According to critics, the rule allows providers "to put medical information to myriad uses," the Journal reports. For example, providers can hire outside companies to survey patients on customer satisfaction or hire third-party marketers to advertise their products. Although the rule allows patients to extend restrictions on the use of their medical records through written agreements, providers do not have to agree to the terms under federal law. In addition, although violation of the rule can result in fines, the Office for Civil Rights, which received more than 22,600 complaints between mid-April 2003 and Sept. 30, to date has not issued any fines. Karen Hinton, a spokesperson for Patient Privacy Rights, said, "It's impossible to violate HIPAA." However, Thomas Wilder, vice president for private market regulation at America's Health Insurance Plans, said that the rule encourages "the appropriate use of information" and discourages "inappropriate sharing" (Wall Street Journal, 10/21).

What exactly is Thompson's agenda?

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6160340.html

Bully's boy-on-boy scenes causing a stir

Rockstar's latest lets players experiment with same-sex make-out sessions; ESRB says that content was considered in assigning the game a T-for-Teen rating.

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot Posted Oct 23, 2006 10:46 am PT

Rockstar Games' Bully has been the subject of controversy since it was first announced more than a year ago. The game shipped to retail last week after a failed 11th-hour attempt by Florida lawyer Jack Thompson to have it banned.

However, the controversy surrounding the game might not be over with just yet. In navigating the angst-filled halls of Bullworth Academy as 15-year-old Jimmy Hopkins, players can participate in some extracurricular tonsil hockey with significant others. But while these significant others are typically female, there's at least one other boy in the game whom Jimmy can successfully court, as documented by this in-game video from GameBrink.

The Entertainment Software Rating Board surprised some people last month when it issued a T-for-Teen rating for the game. The content descriptors listed for the game on the ESRB's Web site are crude humor, language, use of alcohol and tobacco, violence, and sexual themes. When asked about the boy-on-boy make-out sessions, the ESRB told GameSpot, "That content was considered in the assignment of the rating."

Thompson addressed ESRB president Patricia Vance in an e-mail he claimed to have sent to "every major news organization in America and the UK," as well as a host of lawmakers and industry representatives.

"Dear Ms. Vance," Thompson wrote, "We just found gay sexual content in Bully, as Jimmy Hopkins makes out with another male student. Good luck with your 'Teen' rating now, Patty."

A representative from Bully publisher Take-Two had not responded to a request for comment as of press time.

Again, the comments are more interesting than the article...

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/23/1815239&from=rss

Jack Thompson To Face Contempt Charge

Posted by Zonk on Monday October 23, @03:32PM from the hahahahahahahah dept.

Gamasutra has the story (by way of the currently-down GamePolitics) that Jack Thompson could be facing a contempt charge over his antics during the Bully fiasco. From the article: "According to the report, the contempt of court request could find Thompson facing jail time, though it is more likely that 'fines, judicial admonishment or censure' would result from this most recent turn of events. The report also notes that attorneys representing the Philadelphia law firm Blank-Rome have filed a 'Petition for Order to Show Cause,' which requires Thompson to illustrate to a judge why he should not be held in contempt."

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/24/047209&from=rss

US Slips Again In Freedom of the Press Ranking

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday October 24, @07:39AM from the gosh-at-least-citizen's-rights-aren't-being-eroded dept. The Media Censorship Politics

npwa writes to tell us Reporters Without Borders has released their annual worldwide press freedom index. While developing nations like Haiti and Mauritania continue to gain ground developed nations like France, Japan, and the US continue their downward spiral. From the article:

"The United States (53rd) has fallen nine places since last year, after being in 17th position in the first year of the Index, in 2002. Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of 'national security' to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his 'war on terrorism.' The zeal of federal courts which, unlike those in 33 US states, refuse to recognise the media's right not to reveal its sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism."

Anyone want a voucher for a free copy of Windows 95?

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/24/HNmsarkansassettle_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/24/HNmsarkansassettle_1.html

Microsoft agrees to Arkansas settlement

Redmond will offer Arkansas residents $37.8 million in vouchers for free software, hardware to settle antitrust class action suit

By Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service October 24, 2006

The next 'cause célèbre?' Doing for video what AllofMP3 did for music?

http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-6128775.html?part=rss&tag=6128775&subj=news

TVUPlayer: Another Napster?

By Greg Sandoval Story last modified Tue Oct 24 06:22:37 PDT 2006

By streaming video of popular television programs over the Web, a self-described peer-to-peer service called TVUPlayer has begun to draw a loyal worldwide following.

The service, however, could also become an enticing target for Hollywood legal eagles with an eye out for copyright infringement.

Indeed, TVUPlayer, offered by a Chinese company called TVU Networks, looks to some like it could draw legal challenges similar to those faced by the early Napster peer-to-peer service, which became a pinata for litigious lawyers because of what some described as copyright violations on a massive scale.

TVUPlayer transmits TV shows, including pay-for-view broadcasts, from U.S. and international broadcasters such as ABC, HBO, the Disney Channel, The Comedy Channel, Al Jazeera and Telecapri Sports of Italy.

It's easy to see why it's becoming popular: In addition to a big selection, the TVUPlayer's pictures are usually clearer than the choppy and grainy images that often mark streaming video. Viewers can't upload their own videos.

But copyright experts say that unless TVU Networks executives have permission to use the content they transmit, the company can't legally rebroadcast the shows. And representatives of three organizations whose content was found on the TVUPlayer said they don't have any deals with TVU Networks.

... The TVUPlayer appears to have gained attention in the United States following the 2006 FIFA World Cup tournament in Germany. Thousands of soccer fans downloaded the software in order to watch matches not available on U.S. stations.

More importantly, TVU Networks has made watching online programming as easy watching a TV. After downloading the TVUPlayer, a menu appears with anywhere from 40 to 50 channels. Among the available channels available on Friday were Comedy Central, Animal Planet and the CNBC broadcast in India.

... Because TVU displays each broadcaster's commercials, some early reports have said TVU Networks is operating in a gray area of the law.

But some lawyers think the law is fairly clear-cut. "What gray area? The courts have already decided that you can't do this," said Mark Litvack, a copyright attorney for the Los Angeles law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.

Litvack cited a 2000 U.S. district court decision that Canadian company iCraveTV was in violation of copyright law when it captured broadcast signals from the likes of ABC, NBC and CBS and retransmitted them over the Web. The company was forced to shut down.

According to Litvack, the case demonstrated that the courts don't care whether a service retransmits commercials. The most important factor in whether a site is operating legally is whether it has permission from content owners to be transmitting their material.

... "You shut down this site and another one will crop up," Martin said. "This tells entertainment executives that they have to create opportunity for consumers to legally access content. Most people will pay the $1.99 for the download or watch the commercial. They just need an opportunity to do that."

How would they handle the volume of information (just look at the pictures – ignore the article describing them) or encryption (welcome to Guantanamo -- until you give us the key)

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1161335118318

Computer Search Turned Back at the Border

By Amanda Bronstad The National Law Journal 10-23-2006

Government officials must have reasonable suspicion under the Fourth Amendment to search someone's laptop at U.S. borders, according to a recent ruling in Los Angeles.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson of the Central District of California is the first within the area of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to address whether searching a person's laptop is more than routine and therefore subject to the search and seizure protections of the Fourth Amendment. U.S. v. Arnold, No. 2:05-cr-00772 (C.D. Calif.).

The Oct. 2 ruling expands upon a previous decision by the 9th Circuit that permitted the search of temporary cache files in a man's laptop. U.S. v. Romm, 455 F. 3d 990 (9th Cir. 2006). The decision could lead to a potential circuit split, given a conflicting 4th Circuit ruling last year in a similar case.

Under existing law, border officials must have a reasonable suspicion to conduct a nonroutine or invasive search, such as a body cavity search or X-rays. In most cases, that standard of proof is relatively low given the nation's heightened security concerns at the borders.

Previously, the only other case that addressed whether a laptop search is intrusive was U.S. v. Ickes, 393 F.3d 501 (4th Cir. 2005.) In that case, the 4th Circuit upheld a man's conviction in ruling that a laptop search at the border did not violate his First Amendment right of expression.

In July, the 9th Circuit upheld the conviction of a man with a prior criminal record in ruling that border authorities could search the temporary cache files in a laptop. But the circuit declined in Romm to address the issue of whether searching a laptop was routine or intrusive.

The recent case involves Michael Timothy Arnold, a 43-year-old man with no previous criminal record who was indicted on child pornography charges after customs officers searched his laptop and other computer equipment at Los Angeles International Airport in July 2005.

The government contended that the search was routine and therefore not subject to Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

"While not physically intrusive as in the case of a strip or body cavity search, the search of one's private and valuable personal information stored on a hard drive or other electronic storage device can be just as much, if not more, of an intrusion into the dignity and privacy interests of a person," Pregerson wrote. Given that conclusion, the government failed to prove reasonable suspicion.

Marilyn Bednarski of Pasadena, Calif.-based Kaye, McLane & Bednarski, who represents Arnold, hailed the ruling. "The search of a computer is different because it's like looking into somebody's mind," she said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Carpenter said prosecutors are deliberating about whether to appeal.

Wimps! So, will Belgium become the next North Korea? If nothing can go out, will the courts hold that nothing can come in?

http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-6128104.html

Microsoft bows to the Belgians

Company agrees to remove links to articles from Belgian papers to avoid copyright lawsuit threatened by publishers.

By Elinor Mills Staff Writer, CNET News.com Published: October 20, 2006, 1:43 PM PDT

Microsoft said on Friday it would remove links to articles in Belgian newspapers rather than be sued for copyright violation like Google was.

Doesn't winning against weak lawsuits result in weak precedents?

http://techdirt.com/articles/20061023/080823.shtml

Lawsuits Against Google Only Make It Stronger

from the what-doesn't-kill-it dept

As Google has grown to take top billing among internet based companies, it's been the target of numerous lawsuits, many of which have been filed by small companies with weak cases. You might think that all of these suits might be a distraction to the company. But in fact these cases may be playing right into the company's hands. By racking up court victories against small opponents that make weak arguments and have unsophisticated legal teams, it's helping to build up a body of case law that will come in handy when it has more serious legal challenges. So, for example, in acquiring YouTube, it is inheriting one lawsuit, from an individual who says his video was posted illegally to the site. But Google believes that YouTube's actions were legally grounded; if it can dispatch with this case, it sets a precedent if larger, better-heeled content owners try taking Google to court with similar arguments. Much of Google's success is due to its scale and building up reinforcing network effects; it seems it's going to apply that strategy to the legal arena as well.

Is this just part of a patent reform strategy?

http://techdirt.com/articles/20061023/105908.shtml

IBM Wants To Change The Patent System, But Before They Do, They Might As Well Sue Everyone

from the they've-patented-the-internet dept

There's a famous old story about IBM accusing Sun of patent infringement back in the 1980s, when Sun was still a small company. IBM sent a bunch of lawyers with a list of patents that they claimed Sun infringed on. Sun's team looked over the patents and pointed out how most weren't valid and the ones that were, Sun didn't infringe on at all. The response from the lawyers? "OK, maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?" This is still one of the more popular examples of "patent extortion" our there, though it happens all the time with firms that don't necessarily have 10,000 patents. Anyway, in more recent years it had seemed that IBM had softened a bit on patents, recognizing that they can do quite a bit of damage -- though, that still hasn't stopped them from applying for and getting a huge number of patents every year. However, for all their newfound "openness" on patents, it seems they still can send in the lawyers to companies and demand payment.

Damon writes in to point out that they've sued Amazon over a bunch of fairly obvious and excessively broad patents. If you look through the patents, they seem to basically describe nearly everything that you might see on the internet today, from presenting an application online to storing data on a network to presenting an ad online to presenting weighted hyperlinks to organizing items in an online catalog. Broad enough for you? They could basically sue just about any online company with this batch of patents, nearly all of which never should have gotten passed the "obviousness" test (oh, that's right, the USPTO doesn't do an obviousness test, despite it being required by the Constitution). IBM, however, brushes off complaints about these patents claiming they're "high-quality patents" and "to not enforce our patent rights would be a discredit to those who fairly and lawfully use these licenses." Let me get that straight. Because you've suckered some people into licensing your extremely broad and obvious patents, you need to sue everyone else just to be fair?

The kid is amusing...

http://techdirt.com/articles/20061023/154503.shtml

If You Add DRM To Circumvent DRM, Is It Circumvention At All?

from the follow-the-logic dept

Earlier this month, we wrote about "DVD Jon" Lech Johansen's latest effort to reverse engineer Apple's FairPlay DRM so that others could offer copy-protected downloadable music that would play on the iPod, basically in an attempt to get rid of the walled gardens of music we discussed earlier today. Plenty of people wondered if Apple would sue, but in a Fortune article, Johansen makes it pretty clear that he did everything according to the law. Specifically, they didn't "circumvent" the copy protection, but reverse engineered it, creating a clone. As he says, they're not removing DRM from anything, but actually adding DRM to other content -- and that appears to be legal by the letter of the law. The Fortune article, though, raises plenty of questions about whether or not that will keep Apple from suing and (perhaps more importantly) whether or not anyone will seriously be willing to license the cloned DRM and risk pissing off Apple or being sued themselves. Considering that it really would be easier to follow the eMusic path of offering unencumbered MP3s rather than this convoluted path of adding DRM to get around DRM restrictions, hopefully there really isn't a big need for this DRM to route around DRM. Still, if it does go to court and is found legal, it raises questions about where the borderline is between circumvention and reverse engineering. If you reverse engineer copy protection, but then open up more rights using it, which does it fall under?

Free is good (if you don't have business cards?)

http://digg.com/design/Skype_Mini_Cards

Skype Mini Cards

webtech submitted by webtech 10 hours 2 minutes ago (via http://www.moo.com/skype/ )

Create unique designs, and share your Skype Name, email, blog, and vital statistics with friends and attractive strangers, in the real world

For some reason, (almost) all the news today is about blogs. Go figure!


Even hints at the truth bother some governments. Imagine how this would go over in North Korea...

http://www.alertnet.org/db/blogs/3/2006/09/22-134838-1.htm

The limits to diplomacy via blogging

22 Oct 2006 13:48:00 GMT

UN envoy to Sudan Jan Pronk runs a blog detailing the realities of peace negotiations in Darfur.

He's admirably open and last week reported that Khartoum-backed forces had been beaten in two major battles.

Predictably, the Khartoum government didn't like being accused of direct involvement in violence by a UN official. It asked for an apology, according to ABC news. Having received none, it has now told Pronk he has three days to leave the country.

Pronk's blog gives the kind of detail that mainstream media can rarely provide. But the ability of officials to pursue diplomatic methods to end conflicts has conventionally required them to display a degree of discretion.

Pronk is experimenting with the limits of diplomacy by blogging. He's doing so within an apparent UN vacuum -- the organisation has rules on what can be published in books by its employees but no guidelines on blogs.

The fate of Pronk's blog will be of interest not only to those watching the unfolding disaster of Darfur, but also to organisations struggling to balance the benefits of blogs' openness with their ability to damage reputations and constrain the room for manoeuvre.

...even though none of their citizens would see it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/technology/23link.html?ex=1319256000&en=ddfb36d2f8248b7a&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

October 23, 2006

The Internet Black Hole That Is North Korea

By TOM ZELLER Jr.

THE tragically backward, sometimes absurdist hallmarks of North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong-il, are well known. There is Mr. Kim’s Elton John eyeglasses and strangely whipped, cotton-candy hairdo. And there is the North Korean “No! Yeeesssss ... No! O.K. Fear the tiger!” school of diplomacy.

... This is an impoverished country where televisions and radios are hard-wired to receive only government-controlled frequencies. Cellphones were banned outright in 2004. In May, the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York ranked North Korea No. 1 — over also-rans like Burma, Syria and Uzbekistan — on its list of the “10 Most Censored Countries.”

... While other restrictive regimes have sought to find ways to limit the Internet — through filters and blocks and threats — North Korea has chosen to stay wholly off the grid.

Julien Pain, head of the Internet desk at Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based group which tracks censorship around the world, put it more bluntly. “It is by far the worst Internet black hole,” he said.

That is not to say that North Korean officials are not aware of the Internet.

As far back as 2000, at the conclusion of a visit to Pyongyang, Madeleine K. Albright, then secretary of state, bid Mr. Kim to “pick up the telephone any time,” to which the North Korean leader replied, “Please give me your e-mail address.” That signaled to everyone that at least he, if not the average North Korean, was cybersavvy. (It is unclear if Ms. Albright obliged.)

These days, the designated North Korean domain suffix, “.kp” remains dormant, but several “official” North Korean sites can be found delivering sweet nothings about the country and its leader to the global conversation (an example: www.kcckp.net/en/) — although these are typically hosted on servers in China or Japan.

Mr. Kim, embracing the concept of “distance learning,” has established the Kim Il-sung Open University Web site, www.ournation-school.com — aimed at educating the world on North Korea’s philosophy of “juche” or self-reliance. And the official North Korean news agency, at www.kcna.co.jp, provides tea leaves that are required reading for anyone following the great Quixote in the current nuclear crisis.

But to the extent that students and researchers at universities and a few other lucky souls have access to computers, these are linked only to each other — that is, to a nationwide, closely-monitored Intranet — according to the OpenNet Initiative, a human rights project linking researchers from the University of Toronto, Harvard Law School and Cambridge and Oxford Universities in Britain.

A handful of elites have access to the wider Web — via a pipeline through China — but this is almost certainly filtered, monitored and logged.

Some small “information technology stores” — crude cybercafes — have also cropped up. But these, too, connect only to the country’s closed network. According to The Daily NK, a pro-democracy news site based in South Korea, computer classes at one such store cost more than six months wages for the average North Korean (snipurl.com/DailyNK). The store, located in Chungjin, North Korea, has its own generator to keep the computers running if the power is cut, The Daily NK site said.

“It’s one thing for authoritarian regimes like China to try to blend the economic catalyst of access to the Internet with controls designed to sand off the rough edges, forcing citizens to make a little extra effort to see or create sensitive content,” said Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford.

The problem is much more vexing for North Korea, Professor Zittrain said, because its “comprehensive official fantasy worldview” must remain inviolate. “In such a situation, any information leakage from the outside world could be devastating,” he said, “and Internet access for the citizenry would have to be so controlled as to be useless. It couldn’t even resemble the Internet as we know it.”

But how long can North Korea’s leadership keep the country in the dark?

Writing in The International Herald Tribune last year, Rebecca MacKinnon, a research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, suggested that North Korea’s ban on cellphones was being breached on the black market along China’s border. And as more and more cellphones there become Web-enabled, she suggested, that might mean that a growing number of North Koreans, in addition to talking to family in the South, would be quietly raising digital periscopes from the depths.

Of course, there are no polls indicating whether the average North Korean would prefer nuclear arms or Internet access (or food, or reliable power), but given Mr. Kim’s interest in weapons, it is a safe bet it would not matter.

“No doubt it’s harder to make nuclear warheads than to set up an Internet network,” Mr. Pain said. “It’s all a question of priority.”

Will higher resolution result in higher reliance? Over-reliance?

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_4534073?source=rss

Space lens may refocus spy technology

Article Last Updated:10/22/2006 11:32:24 PM MDT

Air Force Academy - A researcher thinks he has found a new space-based tool to spy on enemy lands.

Using lightweight materials similar to aluminum foil, Geoff Andersen says it's possible to build a new type of satellite-borne telescope lens that would revolutionize spy satellites and open new vistas in the field of astronomy. Andersen said the new lens would zoom into targets hundreds of miles below with clarity that would allow operators to read newsprint.

Andersen is experimenting with technology used for microscopes called a photon sieve. It's the equivalent of using millions of pinhole cameras to focus light beams on a single point.

His 4-inch experimental model is thin as foil and uses 10 million tiny holes to do the job. So far, Andersen said, the model, which cost $1,000 to construct, works better than lenses that cost 10 times as much.

There should be at least a law journal article here. Perhaps a guidebook for bloggers?

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/53815.html

Blogging for Better Customer Service

By Erika Morphy www.CRMBuyer.com Part of the ECT News Network 10/23/06 4:00 AM PT

Blogs are increasingly being used to shine a spotlight on companies that provide poor service or otherwise annoy -- sometimes enrage -- consumers. For consumer advocates, they are a true equalizer: Bloggers have been able to shame companies into fixing mistakes or changing policies, especially when they cause a mainstream media reporter to come calling.

What should companies do -- and what should they refrain from doing -- when reacting to blog postings about their products or services? Robert Cox, president of the New York-based Media Bloggers Association and a consultant to consumer packaged goods companies, has very specific ideas on the subject.

What they shouldn't do: Ignore the situation, or worse, try to intimidate bloggers into shutting up -- unless, of course, they are writing defamatory statements. More on that below.

"There have been some high-profile cases of companies ignoring complaints about their products on blogs and then having it blow up in their faces very publicly later on," he tells CRM Buyer.

There was, for example, the publicity about Dell's very poor customer service -- the catalyst for that PR firestorm was an unhappy blogger.

There was also the humiliating case of the Kryptonite lock. A blogger posted a video showing that its bike locks could be picked with a Bic pen in 30 seconds, confirming what had started out as a rumor. Within weeks, the video made its way into major media and the company wound up issuing a recall.

A More Positive Approach

Dunkin' Donuts, on the other hand, provides an example of a company thinking on its feet to handle a negative blog posting correctly.

A few years ago, Cox says, he came across a Web site that announced Dunkin' Donuts would ship a case of coffee to any relative of a soldier fighting in Iraq. The blog was a misleading in many ways, he recalls.

For starters, the site was designed to look like Dunkin' Donuts -- indeed, Cox though it was an affiliated Web site at first. Also, as it turned out, the information was not quite accurate. Cox believed that it was, though, and passed the link to other bloggers who began mentoining it on their sites.

Hours later, Cox, who has two nephews in Iraq, called Dunkin' Donuts to find out more. He spoke with a woman who told him the company was no longer backing the offer, because it had gotten too many requests. Cox related the conversation on his own blog and passed that information along to the blogosphere as well. It got exactly the reception one might expect.

Next, Cox received a call from an ad agency that monitored the blogosphere for mentions of its clients. "They said, before I write anything further they would like a chance to investigate what had happened -- and could I please hold off," said Cox.

They called back with an explanation -- and a press release tailored just for him. The offer to ship coffee had never been a formal one; apparently it was made ad hoc without much thought concerning the total cost to the company. However, Dunkin' Donuts did want to do something to support the troops and said it would ship cases of its coffee to different units every month, on a random but regular basis.

Consumer Complaints

Web logs, or "blogs" as they are called, are increasingly being used to shine a spotlight on companies that provide poor service or otherwise annoy -- sometimes enrage -- consumers.

For consumer advocates, they are a true equalizer: Bloggers have been able to shame companies into fixing mistakes or changing policies, especially when they cause a mainstream media reporter to come calling.

Companies, for the most part, are reacting well to this shifting balance of power with consumers. As a consultant, "How do I shut these people up?" was a typical request Cox received from companies.

"That is still out there, of course," he said, "but I have seen a change among smarter companies that are realizing that blogs represent opportunities to engage with their audiences on a very large scale."

Big Voice, Big Responsibilities

With the power of the blogger's voice, though, comes larger responsibilities -- not to mention potential liabilities. Many bloggers aren't aware of the danger zones.

A Louisiana woman was recently held liable for her blog posting about the service a Florida resident provided in a situation that involved her sons. What was unusual about the case was that the Louisiana native -- who lost her house in Hurricane Katrina -- had no money to pay the judgment, but the suit went forward anyway.

Legal observers expect to see such suits proliferate. "The interplay between the legal system and the blogging community is a developing one," Chip Babcock, a litigation attorney and partner at Jackson Walker tells CRM Buyer.

For the Record

Basically, bloggers are held to the same libel standard that any publisher is held to, Babcock explains. For bloggers unaware of what that standard is, a primer on the difference between a false statement and a statement of opinion -- which is protected speech -- is key.

Says Babcock: "If you want to call someone 'scum,' that is protected speech. You just can't say someone is scum because, say, they embezzle money," he advises, "unless of course that is true, and you can prove it."

More companies are monitoring the blogsphere, he notes, although many take a more adversarial stance than Dunkin' Donuts reportedly did. "I think corporate and legal strategies to deal with blogs [are] still very much evolving," he says.

Cease and desist letters are one tool -- but unless the blog is making false statements of fact, a blogger should have little to worry about.

"It is generally very difficult to prove defamation," Steve Smith, a partner at Preston Gates, tells CRM Buyer. "My guess is that for every ten lawsuits that are initiated for defamation, nine are eventually dropped once the person realizes how difficult it is to prove."

A tool for dealing with the previous article's threats?

http://news.com.com/2100-1008_3-6128340.html?part=rss&tag=6128340&subj=news

Putting blogs to work for Wall Street

By Michael Kanellos Story last modified Mon Oct 23 04:00:04 PDT 2006

Collective Intellect has a goal: Make bloggers work for The Man.

The company has created a service that combs through thousands of blogs, news sites, chat rooms and other Web sites every day and then surfaces rumors and news reports that might be of interest to traders or corporate public relations executives. Other start-ups like Monitor 110 provide similar services.

The idea is to give traders back the early and easy access to critical data that that they used to have when this information came through a lot fewer channels. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, a Bloomberg terminal or subscriptions to news services could give you a jump on the hoi polloi. Today, it's the hoi polloi who often have the jump thanks to blogs and other tipster sites.

"They aren't sure where a story will break and how it will break," said Don Springer, Collective Intellect's CEO. "Traders are going crazy."

The system examines about 150,000 new postings a day. Then it analyzes them for sentiment--is it causing a stock to go up or down?--and credibility. The company then sends out data feeds and e-mails on stock activity and interesting news to subscribers.

Sites such as Digg and Google aggregate news and blog postings as well and for free, of course, but Collective Intellect can charge several thousand dollars, Springer said, because it filters out the critical information for its subscribers.

"Blogs have information, but there is no way to get at it easily," said Jim Armstrong, a partner at the venture capital firm Clearstone Venture Partners. Still, he added that companies in this space are going to have to figure out how to stand out from free services or competitors.

Does it work? The service finds breaking stories, but often at the same time as free services. The company says it had re-published news about the Dell battery recall on Aug. 14, a day before the New York Times published it on Aug. 15. However, several mainstream news sites posted the news on Aug. 14 as well. The system caught Dell's adoption of AMD notebook chips on Aug. 3, putting it only in a tie with free news sites.

The system, though, does summarize information, eliminating the time required to do independent searches.

"Google Blogsearch and Technorati look only at blogs. There really no good search engine that I know of for bulletin boards," Charlene Li, an analyst at Forrester Research, wrote in an e-mail. "It's an interesting idea, packaging the media aggregation and data for traders...The key is can they get news/insight sooner than others, and more importantly, be able to make sense of it."

Depending on the quality of the reports, these services could turn into a $50 million to $500 million industry.

Some of the more successful results have been with bits of information from obscure sites on stocks that aren't always in the limelight. In August, the system picked up information about a contract that Taser, the stun gun company, landed in France. The French contract was officially announced Oct. 5 and caused the stock to jump about 12 percent that day.

To maintain quality, the company says it monitors the performance and accuracy of the sources it combs. It also filters out spam blogs and tries to weed out sites that can influence opinion versus ones that are just new media also-rans. The company, in fact, hopes to be able to figure out if new media sources are actually surfacing and publishing new information, thereby fulfilling a new role in the media world, or just regurgitating stuff that's already out there.

Although accuracy is important, exact accuracy isn't always necessary. Traders often don't care, after all, if a rumor turns out to be true. The main issue is whether the information moves the stock.

Collective Intellect is trying to sell corporate America on the service too. Consumer electronics companies are starting to adopt it to track consumer feeling about the company. A public relations firm in the fourth quarter will also begin to use it to see how their releases get circulated in new media circles.

These companies pay, by the way. One sell-side firm pays $45,000 a year for a 10-seat subscription. Another firm paid $200,000 for a year's worth of data feeds. In 2006, it will book $400,000 in revenue. The company is currently trying to raise $6 million to $8 million in venture capital.

That's probably a little more than some people are getting from putting Google ad links on their sites. But will firms ante up for this service?

"It's the natural evolution with what you get out of two or three Technorati searches," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter. "But at those price points, it's hard imagining that this will last forever."

http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6128305.html?tag=nefd.top

Google to unveil election mashup

By Elinor Mills Story last modified Mon Oct 23 05:29:26 PDT 2006

Google is expected to unveil on Sunday night a mashup that combines its popular Google Earth mapping program with information about the U.S. congressional races coming up in two weeks.

The Google Earth 2006 election resource tool indicates the country's 436 congressional districts with stars on the popular 3D map of the country. Clicking on a star pops open a bubble window that has information on the candidates in that race.

The window also includes links to news, images and Web search results on candidates, as well as to information on where and how to vote and campaign finance reform.

... On Tuesday, AOL launched an election-related blog called "The Stump."

The mid-term elections are scheduled for Nov. 7.

Raves in the comments, then the site was overwhelmed...

http://digg.com/design/Beautiful_Japanese_Fine_Art_Huge_Collection_7500_Hi_Res

Beautiful Japanese Fine Art - Huge Collection (7500+, Hi-Res)

noqualities submitted by noqualities 23 hours 37 minutes ago (via http://visipix.dynalias.com/search/search.php?q=japan&u=&l=en )

A huge collection of beautiful Japanese fine art, by artists such as Hokusai. All stored in high resolution, great for wallpapers!

Governments frequently move slower than writers imagine. Only now is England moving into 1984... Perhaps next they will ban Soccer Hooligans, Muslims, and the Labour Party... Won't tourists be impressed when they have to be fingerprinted in each pub they visit. I suspect this would not be allowed in Ireland – it would delay that first drink too long.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/22/050218&from=rss

England Starts Fingerprinting Drinkers

Posted by Zonk on Sunday October 22, @01:37AM from the you-are-not-free-to-drink-the-beer dept. Privacy

dptalia writes "In an effort to reduce alcohol related violence, England is rolling out mandatory fingerprinting of all pub patrons. If a pub owner refuses to comply with the new system, and fails to show 'considerable' reductions in alcohol-related crimes, they will lose their license. Supposedly the town that piloted this program had a 48% reduction in alcohol-related crime."

From the article: "Offenders can be banned from one pub or all of them for a specified time - usually a period of months - by a committee of landlords and police called Pub Watch. Their offenses are recorded against their names in the fingerprint system. Bradburn noted the system had a 'psychological effect' on offenders."

...of course, that could never happen here!

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/21/2333218&from=rss

Feds Start Small on Smart IDs

Posted by Zonk on Saturday October 21, @08:12PM from the small-start-leads-to-big-ending dept. Security Privacy Politics Technology

jcatcw writes "Some government employees will be getting smart ID cards beginning this week. The unfunded mandate to have all employees and contractors use Personal Identity Verification (PIV) cards is part of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12. The U.S. General Services Administration is providing enrollment centers that can verify the identities of employees, fingerprint and photograph the workers, and issue PIV cards to them. The deadline for getting cards to all employees and contractors is the end of September 2008."

If nothing else, the list of past data loss events is impressive...

http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/20/2250246&from=rss

Why Not Use Full Disk Encryption on Laptops?

Posted by Cliff on Saturday October 21, @06:33PM from the mitigating-risk-of-data-leaks dept. Encryption Portables Security

Saqib Ali asks: "According to the 2006 Security Breaches Matrix, a large number of the data leaks were caused due to stolen/missing laptops. Mobile devices will be stolen or lost, but one way to easily mitigate the harm is to use Full Disk Encryption (FDE) on all mobile devices. So, why don't we encrypt all our HDDs?"

"Cost, and performance impact are the usual arguments.

Analysis shows that the access time increases by 56%-85% after FDE. As HDDs fills up the fragmentation increases and so will the file access time. With FDE, the swap file (system's virtual memory) gets encrypted as well. This will impact the system's performance noticeably [but how much “intensive” computing is done on remote laptops? Typically they are used to display data or for word processing and email. Bob] when the virtual memory is being used more often.

Encryption key & password management blues follow. What happens when the user forgets his/her new FDE password? How to manage the encryption key backup files? Who has possession of the backups of the encryption keys? What about when the users quits and does not hand over the password / encryption keys? Who can access the system and its encrypted files? How frequently does the password need to be changed? How to prevent the user from writing the passwords down? Using hardware token (RSA Token, smartcard etc) can alleviate many of the password management issues. But these hardware tokens are costly!

Cost for Full Disk Encryption solutions ranges from $0-$300. [Note that encryption costs start at ZERO. Can you afford NOT to spend that much to secure your data? Bob]

Is it not worth using Full Disk Encryption on mobile devices after all the data leaks we have seen in the last few years?"

Here's one tax we've avoided, For God's sake don't tell your Congressman!

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/22/053201&from=rss

Germany's New Internet License Fee

Posted by Zonk on Sunday October 22, @03:30AM from the enjoy-your-privelages dept. The Internet Television The Almighty Buck

PapayaSF writes "Beginning January 1st, Germany will require payment of a license fee of 5.52 euros a month on computers and mobile phones that can access TV and radio programs over the Internet. Like the current TV and radio license fees, the money will support national and local public TV and radio stations. German companies with many computers are predictably upset."

I'm not sure if this is the same story we discussed in 2004. Did this original fee go through, and this is another fee on top of the original?

Watch TV on your computer before the government starts taxing it!

http://digg.com/software/Democracy_the_free_and_opensource_Internet_TV_platform_New_Version

Democracy: the free and opensource Internet TV platform - New Version

webtech submitted by webtech 21 hours 32 minutes ago (via http://www.getdemocracy.com/downloads/ )

You've probably watched hundreds of tiny videos on websites. It's tedious. Democracy Player makes video on the internet way less frustrating and way more enjoyable. You can subscribe to channels of internet video, download videos, and watch them fullscreen, one after the other, all in one application. Internet video becomes internet TV. It's free.

I told you video was popular on the Internet. (So popular this site has crashed!)

http://digg.com/tech_news/Digg_For_Torrents

Digg For Torrents!

matthall28 submitted by matthall28 12 hours 26 minutes ago (via http://www.torrop.com/ )

Another Digg Clone, With It's Own Unique Use. This One Is For Torrents!

Anyone got any ideas?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1546327,00.html?=duggin?

The Next YouTubes

After Google's deal, dotcoms are bubbling hot. What you need to know about Web 2.0

By JEREMY CAPLAN Sunday, Oct. 15, 2006

For budding internet entrepreneurs, the moral of Google's $1.65 billion purchase of video start-up YouTube is simple: Build a real, functioning company, then sell it to a bigger one.

... They know Google's not the only shopper. Yahoo! has spent close to $100 million for start-ups Flickr and Jumpcut, among others. Facebook may be next, with Yahoo! said to be mulling a $1 billion offer. With investors on track to inject $500 million into new Net firms this year--twice last year's total, according to a Dow Jones VentureOne report--this may be the start of a golden hunting season.

There are more than 1,000 start-ups--referred to these days as Web 2.0 companies--using a new set of tools to quickly and cheaply create sites and services that would have taken years--and millions--to build in the '90s.

Well, it's a start. (They forgot “howdy!”)

http://digg.com/tech_news/Learn_To_Say_Hello_In_Over_800_Languages

Learn To Say "Hello" In Over 800 Languages

ndm007 submitted by ndm007 13 hours 58 minutes ago (via http://www.elite.net/~runner/jennifers/hello.htm )

This site contains lists of greetings such as hello, goodbye, and how are you from over 800 languages, including 14 versions of English and 42 versions of German.

[From the comments: I can't speak for everyone else but the one word that I want to know how to speak universally is "bathroom" ]