No doubt he learned to do this in that “Making friends at court” class back in law school...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=9427

Feds Say Judge Hampering Webcam Spy Probe

April 26, 2010 by Dissent

David Kravets reports:

Prosecutors are claiming a federal judge is hampering a criminal investigation into a webcam scandal at a Philadelphia suburban school district.

The evidence prosecutors are seeking is connected to a federal civil lawsuit in which plaintiff’s lawyers claim the Lower Merion School District secretly snapped thousands of webcam images of students using school-issued laptops without the pupils’ knowledge or consent.

U.S. District Judge Jan DuBois, who is presiding over the civil case, two weeks ago ordered that evidence should only be disseminated to those connected to the civil lawsuit. (.pdf) U.S. Attorney Michael Levy wrote the judge, saying Friday her freeze order “interfered with the government’s obligation to investigate possible criminal conduct occurring within this district.”

Read more on Threat Level.

Is this the future for US Health Records?

http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=2553

UK: NHS responsible for third of data breaches

By Dissent, April 27, 2010 7:34 am

Jennifer Scott reports:

The deputy commissioner of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has named and shamed the NHS as the worst offender when it comes to data breaches.

During the opening keynote at InfoSecurity Europe 2010, David Smith highlighted the health service’s blunders over the past two years where it accounted for almost a third of all reported data breaches in UK organisations.

“In just over two years, there have 960 data breaches which works out round about 30 a month,” said Smith. “The numbers coming in have gone down slightly, but only slightly. They have been pretty consistent for many years which suggests there is still problems.”

Read more on ITPro.

My Data Analysis students would simply check the tax return against the attached W-2's and would note that the SSANs didn't match. Stolen SSANs can also be discovered when withholding is reported in six different states for the same individual...

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=11398

Up to 1.2M Tax Returns May Have Used Stolen IDs

April 26, 2010 by admin

An estimated 1.2 million tax returns filed in 2007 reported wages earned by taxpayers who used another taxpayer’s Social Security number, according to a new government report.

Many tax returns are filed by individuals who have used another person’s name and Social Security number at work, but then filed federal tax returns using their own names and assigned Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers. This often occurs with illegal immigrants. But when collection actions are taken on the account of the legitimate holder of the Social Security number, tax complications can occur for both the legitimate holder of the Social Security number, and the individual who used another person’s Social Security number at work.

A new report, by the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration, found that the Internal Revenue Service cannot currently identify such identity theft cases.

Read more on WebCPA.

Ignore the ethnic targeting for the moment. Where can I buy one of those cell phone taps?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=9424

Muslim leaders furious over phone tapping in Muslim-dominated cities

April 26, 2010 by Dissent

Mumtaz Alam Falahi reports:

Patna: Muslim community leaders are furious over phone tapping by intelligence agencies in Muslim dominated areas in Delhi, Lucknow and Hyderabad, and have demanded the government to make the agencies accountable. The disclosure about the tapping was made in the latest issue of English weekly Outlook. The magazine has also said that phone calls of some top political leaders from different parties were also tapped and taped.

[...]

The magazine says: “The most intrusive of these systems are the off-the-air GSM/CDMA monitoring devices procured by various central and state intelligence organisations across the country. Sources estimate 90 such systems to have been bought so far, enabling intelligence agents to track, hear and record cellphone conversations at will without even approaching the telecom companies.”

These devices have been often used in Muslim areas.

“These systems are frequently deployed in Muslim-dominated areas of cities like Delhi, Lucknow and Hyderabad. The systems, mounted inside cars, are sent on “fishing expeditions”, randomly tuning into conversations of citizens in a bid to track down terrorists. Unfortunately, though, such expeditions more often end up violating the privacy of individuals than in catching extremists. “We have deployed the system in places like Seelampur or Jamia in Delhi or the old city of Hyderabad on a few occasions, in the hope that we might pick up critical conversations,” says an intelligence official. “But most of the time, we end up getting private calls or lovers speaking to each other,” the Outlook says.

Read more on TwoCircles.net

Technology tend to make tools smaller and cheaper.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/04/27/0228225/New-Russian-Weapon-Hides-In-Shipping-Container?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

New Russian Weapon Hides In Shipping Container

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday April 27, @05:20AM

shmG writes

"A Russian company is marketing a devastating new cruise missile system that can be hidden inside a shipping container, giving any merchant vessel the capability to wipe out an aircraft carrier. Potential customers for the formidable 'Club-K' system include Kremlin allies Iran and Venezuela, say defense experts. They worry that countries could pass on the satellite-guided missiles, which are very hard to detect, to terrorist groups. This is a scary new development in the global arms race that allows for the proliferation of cruise missiles to anyone who will pay for them — even terrorists. This could be the next big thing in strategic weapons, as they can appear anywhere there is a container ship. The company even made a commercial and posted it onto the Internet."

The article notes that a Russian defense expert said that "as far as he understood, the Club-K was still at the concept stage."

(Related) Because there are no anti-terrorist lobbyists?

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/26/1855210/FBI-DoJ-Add-35-Positions-For-Intellectual-Property-Battle?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

FBI, DoJ Add 35 Positions For Intellectual Property Battle

Posted by Soulskill on Monday April 26, @03:33PM

coondoggie writes

"The FBI and Department of Justice said they were going to go hard after intellectual property crimes this year and so far they seem to be keeping their word, as today the agencies appointed 15 new Assistant US Attorney (AUSA) positions and 20 FBI Special Agents dedicated to fighting domestic and international IP crimes. The 15 new AUSAs will work closely with the Criminal Division's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section to aggressively pursue high tech crime, including computer crime and intellectual property offenses. The new positions will be located in California, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. The 20 FBI Special Agents will be deployed to specifically boost four geographic areas with intellectual property squads, and increase investigative capacity in other locations around the country where intellectual property crimes are of particular concern. The four squads will be located in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the District of Columbia."

I just knew this one was going to stir up discussion. That happens a lot when no one considers the consequences of their decisions.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=9402

“Peeping Tom” Allegation May Not Fly in “Webcamgate”

April 26, 2010 by Dissent

Matthew Heller comments:

A high-profile privacy lawsuit against a Pennsylvania school district that allegedly used remote-controlled cameras on laptop computers to snoop on students may turn out to be a tempest in a teapot unless the plaintiffs can show the district had some voyeuristic purpose.

[...]

There is no doubt the district bungled badly by failing to inform parents that the laptops contained security software which enabled its technology staff to take a screen shot of a computer and a webcam image of what is in front of the computer. “This notice should have been given and we regret that was not done,” the district superintendent has admitted.

What still isn’t clear is what injury students suffered from the alleged violations of their 4th Amendment rights by the LANrev software.

Read more on OnPoint.

(Related)

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/20100425_Head_Strong__Web_cam_violated_third-party_rights.html

Head Strong: Web cam violated third-party rights

… But overlooked in much of the analysis of this case was a large group of victims of privacy invasion - those with whom Robbins was communicating online.

… More significant were the additional images Haltzman permitted me to review. No, not the image of Robbins shirtless. Or the one in which he's asleep in front of the laptop. Most shocking were the ones showing the faces or worded Internet postings of individuals with whom Robbins was communicating.

What gave Lower Merion the right to invade the privacy of these people?

… One radio listener asked me to distinguish this case from one in which a school maintains the prerogative to search a student's locker. I could easily do so. A locker is on school property, and it doesn't function like a predator drone in a student's bedroom.

A different listener had a better analogy. What if Comcast did what Lower Merion did? [Might be a hard rumor to disprove... Bob] What if someone was delinquent with a cable payment or lost a cable box, and Comcast threw a switch and took a peek at what was going on in front of that box sitting on top of your TV? There would be hell to pay, and appropriately so.

Could this become a trend? I've been recommending encryption for years and many companies have security policies that require it. Those who do not will no doubt be screaming that “it's not fair!”

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/25/1745210/Mass-Data-Security-Law-Says-Thou-Shalt-Encrypt?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Mass. Data Security Law Says "Thou Shalt Encrypt"

Posted by timothy on Sunday April 25, @02:28PM

emeraldd writes with this snippet from SQL Magazine summarizing what he calls a "rather scary" new data protection law from Massachusetts: "Here are the basics of the new law. If you have personally identifiable information (PII) about a Massachusetts resident, such as a first and last name, then you have to encrypt that data on the wire and as it's persisted. Sending PII over HTTP instead of HTTPS? That's a big no-no. Storing the name of a customer in SQL Server without the data being encrypted? No way, Jose. You'll get a fine of $5,000 per breach or lost record. If you have a database that contains 1,000 names of Massachusetts residents and lose it without the data being encrypted, that's $5,000,000. Yikes.'"

[From the article:

I also encourage you to read InformationWeek’s "States' Rights Come to Security Forefront: Massachusetts' new data protection law reaches beyond its borders. Are you ready?"

[Other:

The Regulation: http://www.mass.gov/Eoca/docs/idtheft/201CMR1700reg.pdf

Regulation Compliance Checklist: http://www.mass.gov/Eoca/docs/idtheft/compliance_checklist.pdf

I suspect there will be lots of back and forth on this subject before we reach agreement.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/26/073243/In-Brazil-Google-Fined-For-Content-of-Anonymous-Posting?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

In Brazil, Google Fined For Content of Anonymous Posting

Posted by timothy on Monday April 26, @05:11AM

Sabriel writes

"Google's appeal against a 2008 defamation ruling in Brazil over an anonymous posting on Orkut has been denied, and Google has been fined $US8500 ($9100) for the crime of being vandalized. In the words of the judge, Alvimar de Avila, 'By making space available on virtual networking sites, in which users can post any type of message without any checks beforehand, with offensive and injurious content, and, in many cases, of unknown origin, [Google] assumes the risk of causing damage [to other people]." I'd submit a blunter opinion of this farce, but it might be considered offensive and injurious content ... I wonder if he's related to the judge in Italy?"

Welcome to the 21^st Century. Nice of you to wake up and join the rest of us.

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/024108.html

April 25, 2010

Commerce Internet Policy Task Force Nexus Between Privacy Policy and Innovation in Internet Economy

"The Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force is conducting a comprehensive review of the nexus between privacy policy and innovation in the Internet economy. The Department seeks public comment from all Internet stakeholders, including the commercial, academic and civil society sectors, on the impact of current privacy laws in the United States and around the world on the pace of innovation in the information economy..The Department has launched the Privacy and Innovation Initiative to identify policies that will enhance:

(1) The clarity, transparency, scalability and flexibility needed to foster innovation in the information economy;

(2) the public confidence necessary for full citizen participation with the Internet; and

(3) uphold fundamental democratic values essential to the functioning of a free market and a free society."

[From the Federal Register:

Department also seeks to understand whether current privacy laws serve consumer interests and fundamental democratic values.

Privacy “A friend in need is a pest indeed.”

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/followcost-annoying-twitter-users/

FollowCost: See How Annoying A Twitter User Is

With hundreds of people following you every day, it is easy to just start following them back. However, many people later realize that a specific user wasn’t worth following. FollowCost is a new tool that lets you see how annoying a Twitter user would be before you start following them.

www.followcost.com

You mean it wasn't Al Gore? Or maybe Al only did the illegal part?

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/024102.html

April 25, 2010

New on LLRX.com - Commentary: Justice Stevens Invented the Internet

Justice Stevens Invented the Internet - With the announcement that Justice John Paul Stevens will resign from the Supreme Court at the end of this term, Jonathan Band and Matt Schruers focus on one of his opinions that has had a direct daily impact on virtually all Americans: the majority opinion in Sony v. Universal, decided by the Supreme Court in 1984. This decision is the legal foundation of the Digital Age.

Conspiracy theory?

http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=173945

Was iPad ban in aid of local distributor?

By BEN HARMTAN 26/04/2010 08:35

Following the lifting of a personal import ban on the iPad on Saturday, many Israelis are left scratching their heads, wondering why the ban had been instituted in the first place.

… Ordan said many are speculating that Apple’s Israeli distributor iDigital, which is owned by President Shimon Peres’s son, Chemi, did not want to repeat the same mistakes as happened with the Israeli launch of the iPhone.

Ordan said that Apple lists country by tier, with the US being first tier, European countries second tier, and Israel a third tier. By the time products get to Israel, they have often been available in first- and second-tier countries for some time, where they are also typically much cheaper.

… The other option, according to Ordan, “is that somebody in the Communications Ministry just went deaf, dumb, and blind. There’s really no logical explanation for the ban, just like there isn’t any logical explanation for why it was lifted yesterday. The whole thing stinks, like somebody had some interest involved.”

Researching regulations...

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/024103.html

April 25, 2010

New on LLRX.com - The Government Domain: New & Free Regulations Trackers

The Government Domain: New & Free Regulations Trackers - Peggy Garvin reviews new, free, non-government resources that have recently come online to complement the official U.S. government regulatory information sites, RegInfo.gov and Regulations.gov. For this bounty, Peggy says researcher can thank innovative developers and the relatively new availability of a free XML version of the Federal Register that can be downloaded in bulk.

Some percentage of the saving goes to my bonus...

http://www.informationweek.com/news/telecom/collaboration/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224600158&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All

Why CIOs Are Choosing Cloud E-Mail

… Take Sanmina-SCI, a nearly $6 billion-a-year global contract manufacturer. Sanmina-SCI moved more than 16,000 employees from premises-based Exchange to Google Apps as part of a company-wide push to reduce costs. "We looked at servers, backups, personnel tied up in running things," says CIO Manesh Patel. "When we ran that analysis and did the comparison, it was a fairly compelling case to move to the cloud." The move saves the company about $10 per month per employee, Manesh says, which works out to about $1.9 million a year--a figure any CIO would be happy to bring to a budget meeting.

Interesting, even if I can't see why some of these will be important.

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/024106.html

April 25, 2010

Technology Review: 10 Emerging Technologies 2010

"Each year, Technology Review selects what it believes are the 10 most important emerging technologies. The winners are chosen based on the editors’ coverage of key fields. The question that we ask is simple: is the technology likely to change the world? Some of these changes are on the largest scale possible: better biofuels, more efficient solar cells, and green concrete all aim at tackling global warming in the years ahead. Other changes will be more local and involve how we use technology: for example, 3-D screens on mobile devices, new applications for cloud computing, and social television. And new ways to implant medical electronics and develop drugs for diseases will affect us on the most intimate level of all, with the promise of making our lives healthier."

Do you have an “old” camera stuffed into your closet? I wonder if other manufacturers are doing this?

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/04/25/2016203/How-To-Get-39-Megapixels-From-a-53-Year-Old-Camera?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

How To Get 39 Megapixels From a 53-Year-Old Camera

Posted by timothy on Sunday April 25, @04:37PM

G3ckoG33k writes

"An article at The Register Hardware describes how Hasselblad film cameras dating back to 1957 can be given a new life using a digital back to get images at a super resolution of 39 megapixels. From the article: 'The CFV-39 digital back allows you to get those cameras out from the last century and use the V-System cameras with their beautiful glass once again, it simply fits in place of where the roll film used to be. Hasselblads have never been inexpensive, but talk about a return on investment. Here is a manufacturer looking after a fiercely loyal user-base and along with it offering what could be seen as the ultimate green camera system.' Oh, by the way most pictures taken during the Apollo space program in the 1960s were taken with Hasselblad."

Hasselblad's been making digital backs for quite a while now, but this one's very impressive in speed (and cost — "only" about $14,000) compared to earlier models.

For my students, most of whom could stand to learn anything.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-great-tutorial-websites-learn/

5 Great Tutorial Websites To Learn How To Do Something

Talk is easy, doing something is hard work!

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=9367

Facebook users risk blackmail, privacy czar warns

April 24, 2010 by Dissent

Jacquie McNish and Omar El Akkad report:

The world’s most popular social network has made it easier for its users to become the victims of “blackmail” by watering down its protections of personal information, Canada’s top privacy official says.

Facebook executives this week unveiled a series of changes to the site, which now boasts about 400-million users. One of the changes allows third-party developers who design games and other Facebook applications to store user data indefinitely. Previously, developers were required to delete the data after 24 hours.

“I’m very concerned about these changes. More than half a million developers will have access to this data,” Jennifer Stoddardt, Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, said in an interview in her Ottawa office. “The information will be stored indefinitely and it opens the possibility that a lot of people can be blackmailed from all corners of the world.”

Read more in the Globe and Mail.

If you want to steal data, you can do it retail (individual computers) or wholesale (NHS)

http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=2522

UK: NHS computers hit by voracious, data-stealing worm

By Dissent, April 22, 2010 8:39 pm

Dan Goodin reports:

The UK’s National Health Service has been hit by a voracious, data-stealing worm that’s easily detected by off-the-shelf security software, according to researchers who directly observed the mass compromise.

Researchers from anti-virus provider Symantec have been monitoring the Qakbot worm since last May and have documented its behavior here and here. On Thursday, after infiltrating two of the six servers used to collect pilfered data from infected machines, they provided an update that didn’t exactly instill confidence in the healthcare system.

“The logs show that there is a significant Qakbot infection on the National Health Service (NHS) network in the UK,” the Symantec update states. “This threat has managed to infect over 1,100 separate computers that are spread across multiple subnets within the NHS. We have attempted to contact the affected parties and have no evidence to show that any customer or patient data has been stolen.”

Not that Qakbot doesn’t have the ability to clean out the NHS if it wanted do.”

Read more in The Register.

[From the article:

Over a two week period, the researchers observed 4 GB of stolen data being funneled to the monitored servers. Because that represents a fraction of the servers used by Qakbot, the amount of pilfered information is likely much higher.

… “In a nutshell, if your computer is compromised, every bit of information you type into your browser will be stolen,” Symantec researchers wrote.

Interesting – the first person they kill off is a lawyer...

http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=2520

Paging Dr. Google

By Dissent, April 22, 2010 4:11 pm

There’s a Note by Colin P. McCarthy in the latest issue of William and Mary Law Review that reviews some of the privacy, security and regulatory issues surrounding personal health records:

“Paging Dr. Google: Personal Health Records and Patient Privacy.”

(Related)

http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=2525

Prying eyes

By Dissent, April 23, 2010 7:34 am

Matt Anderson comments:

In a previous issue, I related a conversation I had with a patient about the electronic medical record (EMR) and described to her the problems of poor documentation and up-coding. My conversation with my patient continued, as I told her about the legal intrusions of her privacy made possible or made easier with the EMR.

[...]

I related how the government has even more authority to see your record. The government needs no consent for quality, regulatory and compliance auditing, public health, and fraud and abuse investigations. The police can see your record without a court order if they have any suspicion you may be involved in domestic or child abuse. Exemptions to your consent apply to workers’ comp, national security, the military, and some judicial proceedings.

Even mental health records, the most sensitive information about you, can be legally disclosed without your consent in some circumstances.

Minor revisions to this rule in 2008 notwithstanding, these far-reaching but legal violations of your medical privacy mocks the Oath of Hippocrates in which I pledged to “keep to myself” confidential patient information. Most people know nothing of these legal intrusions into their medical records. The Fourth Amendment prevents the government from searching your house or person without a warrant, but the government needs no warrant and requires no permission from you to access your most private information.

Read more on WorldMag.

(Related)

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=11382

Survey: Delayed Compliance with New Regulations Has Increased Data Breaches and Medical Identity Theft in U.S. Hospitals

April 24, 2010 by admin

Although some will tend to minimize survey results when the surveyor has a self-serving interest, the results of the recent Identity Force survey of over 200 hospital administrators provides unsurprising, yet troubling, data. From their press release about the survey:

PROBLEMS ARE WORSENING DESPITE MAJOR REGULATORY EFFORTS

41.5% of hospitals have TEN OR MORE data breaches each year – a 120.7% increase over last year’s survey. Currently, over 20% percent of hospitals have twenty or more breaches annually.

INSIDERS NOT OPTIMISTIC HEALTHCARE REFORM WILL HELP

56.3% of hospital compliance officers believe that the new health care reform law will either have no change or will increase medical identity theft at their institutions.

INVESTIGATION OF FRAUD IS SURPRISINGLY LOW

Despite the fact that medical identity theft is the fastest growing form of identity fraud, 71.4% of hospitals on average investigate fewer than 50 cases of possible misuse of identity annually, and over 34% still do not keep good patient ID records.

TIMELINESS OF COMPLIANCE IS POOR

To date, only 15.7% of hospitals feel they are in compliance with the HITECH Act, which went into effect in February 2010. This lack of compliance mirrors last year’s slow compliance efforts regarding the FTC’s Red Flags Rule.

SECURITY OF THIRD PARTIES IS AN UNKNOWN

48.3% of hospitals do not know if their vendors and business associates are in compliance with the HITECH Act.

You can get a free copy of their entire report, Spring 2010 National Survey of Hospital Compliance Executives, here.

It's like taking fingerprints at a crime scene. “Something the crooks left behind” is far game. Sort out who the fingerprints or DNA belongs to later... But citizens can't do it – remember the Secret Service tackling the guy who was going through the trash from ex-president Nixon's NY condo?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=9383

MD court: Police may use trash to get a suspect’s DNA

April 25, 2010 by Dissent

Scott Daugherty reports:

Police may sift through a suspect’s trash, collect a genetic sample and send it off for DNA testing without a warrant, the state’s highest court ruled last week in upholding a 2007 county rape conviction.

The 5-2 opinion by the state’s Court of Appeals – which was issued Thursday in Annapolis – drew praise from prosecutors who said they had “no doubt” a county police detective was in the right four years ago when she tricked Kelroy Williamson into throwing away a fast food cup and unwittingly giving her a DNA sample.

[...]

District Public Defender William Davis, who represented Williamson at trial, blasted the majority opinion, though. He said the court is ignoring the U.S. Constitution’s protection against unlawful search and seizure, and that Chief Judge Robert M. Bell and Judge Clayton Greene Jr. got it right in their dissenting opinion.

“They aren’t chipping away at the Fourth Amendment, they are taking a jackhammer to it,” Davis said. He expects police departments across the state to “pick up this opinion and run with it.”

Read more in The Capital .

Hacking for lawyers?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=9389

Data Redaction: You’re Doing it Wrong

April 25, 2010 by Dissent

John Bambenek writes:

PDF files are a common way to distribute documents on the Internet and even are used for distributing documents with redacted (removed) content. However, when you distribute redacted documents make sure that the data you don’t want out there isn’t, in fact, still in the file.

Case in point, take the upcoming trial of former Governor Rod Blagojevich. He just submitted a motion to force President Obama to testify during his criminal trial. As you can imagine, there is sensitive information in the motion. You can read the motion here. The areas that are redacted are pretty obvious. Now, hit Control-A. Open a text editor or Microsoft Word (or the like). Hit Control-C. [Or use Control-C, Control-V -- Dissent]

Hello, Mr. Face. Meet, Mr. Palm. This particular mistake isn’t new. There was a well-publicized SNAFU involving the US Department of Defense publishing a redacted document that contained classified information which was happily leaked on the Internet using the same method.

Read more on isc.sans.org. Although the judge called an emergency meeting Thursday evening over the redaction problem, the unredacted motion is now “out there.”

Statistics

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/024096.html

April 23, 2010

Symantec Internet Security Threat Report April 2010

"The Symantec Internet Security Threat Report provides an annual overview and detailed analysis of Internet threat activity, malicious code, and known vulnerabilities. The report also discusses trends in phishing, spam and observed activities on underground economy servers...report sathe ys the U.S. was top country for malicious activity, making up 19% total."

• Internet Security Threat Report: Volume XV: April 2010

• Executive Summary: April 2010

Control access and you control third party developers. Let them develop profitable businesses, then start charging to access your data.

http://developers.slashdot.org/story/10/04/24/1614244/Twitter-and-the-Rise-of-Data-Platforms?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Twitter and the Rise of Data Platforms

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday April 24, @01:37PM

snydeq writes

"Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister sees Twitter's latest move — to develop 'analytical products' based on Twitter data and to encourage third-party developers to do the same — as part of a growing trend toward a new kind of software platform. 'In the past, tool vendors have offered developers languages and code libraries that gave them access to computing functions in simple, standardized ways. In this new paradigm, however, a platform consists of more than just frameworks and APIs. It also comes prepackaged with a complete, rich data set, and often that data is the platform's most valuable aspect. These new "data platforms" are creating exciting new opportunities for developers, though they are not without their challenges.' Chief among these issues are privacy and security, as evidenced by a recent letter to Google from government regulators and activist tools such as PleaseRobMe. But for developers, the challenges also include livelihood. 'Even more than mobile platforms such as Apple's iPhone, a data platform like Twitter's is a walled garden. If Twitter cuts off a developer's access to its data sources for any reason, that developer's business is sunk.' Even those who develop 'cloud middleware' around such data platforms stand to gain little from their efforts, as doing so pits them in competition with their data platform vendors, which are in a far better position to reach potential customers."

(Related) “How dare you make anything easy for our customers!”

http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/24/twitter-managetwitter/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

6 Million Unfollows Later, Twitter Moves To Silence ManageTwitter

… As the service posted on its Posterous blog yesterday, Twitter has sent the service an email letting them know that they’re breaking one of their rules. Specifically, this is what Twitter wrote:

We’re writing to let you know that your application, ManageTwitter, breaks our Automation Rules and Best Practices (http://help.twitter.com/entries/76915). Specifically, it facilitates bulk automated user unfollowing, which is not allowed. It’s best for both our users and your users if your application follows the rules, so please make the necessary changes, such as removing the “Select All” option (and requiring users to decide on each user individually) to bring your application into compliance.

If you still have a floppy disk drive on your desktop, it's time to start copying all you old floppies to DVD. Don't have a DVD drive? How old is your computer?

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/04/25/0635218/The-End-of-the-35-Inch-Floppy-Continues?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

The End of the 3.5 Inch Floppy Continues

Posted by timothy on Sunday April 25, @08:13AM

JoshuaInNippon writes

"In a brief press release buried within Sony Japan's website, the company announced that they would be ending sales of the classic 3.5 inch floppy disk in the country in March of 2011. Sony introduced the size to the world in 1981, which saw its heyday in the 1990s. Sony has been one of the last major manufacturers to continue shipments of the disk type they helped develop, but had ended most worldwide sales in March of this year. The company's production of the 3.5 inch floppy ceased in 2009. Sony noted the demand, or a lack thereof, as the reason. The company's withdrawal is one of the final marks in the slow death of the floppy era."

This comes up when I have my Excel class create household budgets

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/04/is-it-better-to-rent-or-buy-interactive.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freetech4teachers%2FcGEY+%28Free+Technology+for+Teachers%29

Is It Better to Rent or Buy? Interactive Infographic

… Users of the interactive infographic can enter variable data such as home price, interest rates, rent prices, rental rate increases, and housing market changes to determine when it's best to buy a home rather than rent. Users can also account for information like insurance rates, condo fees, and opportunity costs.

Easy editing of my porn instructional videos

http://www.killerstartups.com/Video-Music-Photo/videotoolbox-com-an-easy-way-to-edit-videos

VideoToolbox.com - An Easy Way To Edit Videos

http://www.videotoolbox.com/

The Video Toolbox site stands as a new resource that brings into your hands the kind of options that people who had a computer during the ‘90s will always associate with professional studios. Of course, most of these functionalities are elemental now. That is why they can be replicated by a tool that works on the browser. But that doesn’t make any single one of them any less effective.

Using the Video Toolbox you can work with videos amounting to as much as 300 MB, analyse them as in as much detail as you want, and also have them converted to all the file formats that are common currency nowadays. These include AVI., MOV,. FLV, MPA, MPEG… you know how the list continues.

All the high school students involved will have graduated college by the time any of this is sorted out...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=9352

Administrator agrees to surrender computer in Web cam case

April 23, 2010 by Dissent

John P. Martin brings us the latest development in the lawsuit against the Lower Merion School District for activating a webcam to record a student in the student’s home:

The Lower Merion School District administrator who had the ability to activate the Web cams on students’ laptops agreed Friday to let investigators inspect her personal computer to see if she used the remote tracking program at home, according to an attorney in the case.

The administrator, information systems coordinator Carol Cafiero, has also agreed to sit for a second deposition, attorney Mark Haltzman said. Cafiero had previously refused to answer lawyers’ questions about her role in the now-infamous tracking program.

Read more on Philly.com

The price falls as the volumes increase – someone should make up one of those “laws of economics” to explain this.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/194843/15_million_stolen_facebook_ids_up_for_sale.html

1.5 Million Stolen Facebook IDs up for Sale

… If they are legitimate, he has the account information of about one in every 300 Facebook users. His asking price varies from US$25 to $45 per 1,000 accounts, depending on the number of contacts each user has.

How to give the RIAA's lobbyists heart failure? It's positively Shakespearian (as in Kill all the lawyers)

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/24/018201/Indian-Copyright-Bill-Declares-Private-Personal-Copying-Fair-Dealing?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader

Indian Copyright Bill Declares Private, Personal Copying "Fair Dealing"

Posted by timothy on Saturday April 24, @01:31AM

asp7yxia writes

"India's new copyright bill sounds like a pretty good piece of work: it declares private, personal copying to be 'fair dealing' (like US fair use) and limits the prohibition on breaking DRM so that it's only illegal to do so if you're also violating copyright."

These are often fun to read...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=9306

Fourth Amendment Remedial Equilibration: A Comment on Herring v. United States and Pearson v. Callahan

DOH! I should have thought of this business opportunity. Hardware and software goes obsolete, unsupported and unavailable every day. Run this kind of business to support a “Museum of Ancient Computing” (Did you know they used to have monitors that didn't display color?)

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/04/23/210235/Emulation-For-Preservation-of-Digital-Artifacts?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader

Emulation For Preservation of Digital Artifacts

Posted by Soulskill on Friday April 23, @05:52PM

An anonymous reader writes

"Author Salman Rushdie donated his papers and notes to Emory University a while ago. Not surprisingly, many of Rushdie's original notes, drafts, and correspondence existed in electronic form. Rather than printing them out or converting them to other formats, archivists at the university created an emulated image of Rushdie's old computer, complete with old software. Researchers visiting the archive can read his email in Eudora and his Stickies notes, or read drafts of his books in ClarisWorks. When you leave your legacy to future generations, would you like a virtualized copy of your personal system to be included?"

It's much older in Internet Years...

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/shanerichmond/100004981/youtubes-oldest-video-is-five-today/

YouTube's oldest video is five today

The future of Health Care? If you can't trust your doctor, who can you trust?

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/22/1813249/After-DNA-Misuse-Researchers-Banished-From-Havasupai-Reservation?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader

After DNA Misuse, Researchers Banished From Havasupai Reservation

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 22, @02:31PM

bbsguru writes

"A court settlement has ended a controversial case of medical privacy abuse. From the NYTimes: 'Seven years ago, the Havasupai Indians, who live in the deepest part of the Grand Canyon, issued a 'banishment order' to keep Arizona State University employees from setting foot on their reservation, an ancient punishment for what they regarded as a genetic-era betrayal. Members of the tiny tribe had given DNA samples to university researchers starting in 1990, hoping they might provide genetic clues to the tribe's high rate of diabetes. But members learned their blood samples also had been used to study many other things, including mental illness and theories of the tribe's geographical origins that contradict their traditional stories.'"

“Full sensor sweep, Mr. Sulu.” As long as you're in the neighborhood, you might as well collect all the Elint you can. Think of it as a telephone book that eventually will include detail down to the level of your DNA.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=9261

Google Street View logs WiFi networks, Mac addresses

April 22, 2010 by Dissent

Andrew Orlowski reports:

Google’s roving Street View spycam may blur your face, but it’s got your number. The Street View service is under fire in Germany for scanning private WLAN networks, and recording users’ unique Mac (Media Access Control) addresses, as the car trundles along.

Germany’s Federal Commissioner for Data Protection Peter Schaar says he’s “horrified” by the discovery.

“I am appalled… I call upon Google to delete previously unlawfully collected personal data [Are you sure there's a law against that? Bob] on the wireless network immediately and stop the rides for Street View,” according to German broadcaster ARD.

Read more in The Register.

We love customers – but only because we can make money by having lots of the scum...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=9256

Facebook Used To Make Partners Delete Your Data After 24 Hrs. No Longer.

April 22, 2010 by Dissent

Ben Popken writes:

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced this morning that Facebook will toss a policy that made developers and partners with access your data to delete it after 24 hours. Now they can just keep it. Turns out the privacy policy hindered growth: Zuckerberg told Inside Facebook

[...]

Coming soon after their announcement that some pieces of your personal information will never be private even if you set your profile to private, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that Facebook won’t let a little thing like respect for its users get in the way of its quest for total internet domination.

Read more on Consumerist.

(Related) “No Privacy implications here. Move along.”

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=9293

Facebook steps up lobbying, deepens ties with intelligence agencies, FTC

April 23, 2010 by Dissent

Kim-Mai Cutler writes:

Facebook has been gradually boosting its profile in Washington D.C. over the past year and is on the hunt for a second senior lobbyist to add to its office of four. Disclosures released a few days ago show that, on top of lobbying the usual suspects Internet companies reach out to like the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. senators and representatives, the fast-growing social network has also been busy deepening ties to government intelligence and homeland security agencies.

[...]

What’s interesting about Facebook’s lobbying in D.C. is what it spends money on despite its small size. It was the only consumer Internet company out of Google, Amazon, eBay, Microsoft, Yahoo and Apple to reach out to intelligence agencies last year, according to lobbying disclosure forms. It has lobbied the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — an umbrella office founded in the wake of Sept. 11 that synthesizes intelligence from 17 agencies including the CIA and advises the President — for the last three quarters on privacy and federal cyber-security policy. It has reached out to the Defense Intelligence Agency too.

Andrew Noyes, the company’s manager of public policy communications, says most of Facebook’s work in D.C. consists of basic education — helping legislators and agencies understand how to use the social network for campaigning, reaching out to their constituencies and in their regular line of work.

Read more on SocialBeat.

Et tu, Hotmail?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=9249

Hotmail’s social networking busts your privacy

April 22, 2010 by Dissent

It seems that every week, social networking sites or free services are unilaterally changing their features and exposing people’s private information without prior consent or a chance to fully opt out before changes are implemented. Over on Windows Secrets, Woody Leonhard blogs:

In its rush to take on Facebook and Google Buzz, Microsoft is now collecting and displaying personal information on your Hotmail page — information you may never have wanted to broadcast.

Exactly how it’s mining this information is something of a mystery, but if you use Hotmail or Windows Live, it’s time to review your privacy settings — lest something you said or did comes back to haunt you.

One user signed in to her Hotmail account recently and was greeted with Microsoft’s new, improved social networking splash page, shown in Figure 1.

[...]

Unless somebody in Redmond shows a little common sense and restraint, this foray into public — and potentially embarrassing — data mining could bring with it legal liabilities.

Given the murkiness of this new social networking scheme, I’d just as soon opt out — if I could only figure out how.

Read more on Windows Secrets.

Adventures in Academia! “What? Youse didn't know about dat?”

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=9243

Legal spying via the cell phone system

April 22, 2010 by Dissent

Elinor Mills reports:

Two researchers say they have found a way to exploit weaknesses in the mobile telecom system to legally spy on people by figuring out the private cell phone number of anyone they want, tracking their whereabouts, and listening to their voice mail.

Independent security researcher Nick DePetrillo and Don Bailey, a security consultant with iSec Partners, planned to provide details in a talk entitled “We Found Carmen San Diego” at the Source Boston security conference on Wednesday.

“There are a lot of fragile eggs in the telecom industry and they can be broken,” Bailey said in an interview with CNET. “We assume the telecom industry protects our privacy. But we’ve been able to crack the eggs and piece them together.”

Read more on cnet.

Update: a reader sends in a link to coverage of this story on The Register.

Spying on the Court? Is the legal research done by Judges “public records?” Can I get them in advance of court decisions in order to do a bit of futures trading (as in, the plaintiff has no future)

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=9289

Were ‘governmentwatcher’ posts made by same user as ‘lawmiss’?

April 23, 2010 by Dissent

In for a penny, in for a pound? As if it was not enough to reveal the possible identity of an anonymous commenter on their web site, the Plain Dealer now goes further and attempts to link Judge Strickland Saffold to a second anonymous commenter’s account. James F. McCarty reports:

[...]

Comments under the two usernames cover many of the same topics, criticize many of the same people, misspell some of the same words and use identical colloquialisms. They also both stopped posting comments on the same day, March 19, for unknown reasons.

Saffold has denied making the lawmiss comments about cases in her courtroom, but she has declined to be interviewed about whether she posted governmentwatcher comments.

[...]

The Plain Dealer filed a request for public records showing all websites visited by the desktop computer assigned to Saffold. The computer is in Saffold’s private chambers, across a hallway from her courtroom. County computer servers keep track of the time and date and Web domain of each site visited by each computer on a county server. The servers take note every time a computer user hits the “enter” button, to visit a website, refresh a Web page or submit an online comment.

In response to the newspaper’s request, the court administrator provided 849 pages of data, detailing all Internet activity by Saffold’s computer from Jan. 4. Through March 19. Earlier records are unavailable. [I hope they asked for the record retention policy at the same time... Bob] The newspaper compared the dates and times that Saffold’s computer visited pages on cleveland.com to the dates and times that comments were left by lawmiss and governmentwatcher.

Altogether, 50 lawmiss and governmentwatcher comments were posted within two minutes of Saffold’s computer clicking on a page at cleveland.com or an affiliated site, advance.net, the analysis found.

Read more on Cleveland.com.

Here's a thought. Could this be the future of Journalism?

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/04/22/1853243/Googling-the-Trail-of-a-Serial-Rapist?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader

Googling the Trail of a Serial Rapist

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 22, @03:17PM

theodp writes

"Innovative Interactivity has a behind-the-scenes look at the Washington Post's On the Trail of a Serial Rapist series. Information Designer Kat Downs details her experience designing and building the impressive interface for the series, including the use of Google Maps to track the rapist. Wary, perhaps, that it might encourage vigilantism, the WaPo stopped short of allowing readers to add their own input to the maps and urged anyone with additional information to contact the police."

Every student a programmer? Them folks at MIT got skills!

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/create-automation-scripts-easily-screenshots/

Sikuli – Create Automation Scripts Easily Using Screenshots

by Varun Kashyap on Apr. 22nd, 2010

Sikuli takes all the pain and learning away from creating an automation script. If you can take screenshots, then you can script with Sikuli as well.

… To let Sikuli know that you want to click you write “click” and enclose a screenshot of where you want to click within a pair of braces. You don’t even have to crop and position the screenshot, Sikuli does that for you. Just type “click(” and then press SHIFT + ALT + 2 and Sikuli lets you capture a screenshot. Be concise, while including a bit of context within your screenshot. Position the crosshair roughly where you want to click and make sure that your screenshot is fairly unambiguous.

Here is a video demo to further help you along in creating your first Sikuli automation script.

Project Sikuli http://groups.csail.mit.edu/uid/sikuli/download.shtml

Being sociable can cost you...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=9210

Are Buzz, Facebook and Twitter creating ’social insecurity’?

April 21, 2010 by Dissent

Mike Elgan writes:

An insurance expert told the Britain’s Telegraph newspaper that using location-centric mobile social services like Google Buzz, Twitter , Facebook and Foursquare could raise your home insurance premiums, or even result in the denial of insurance claims.

Wait, what?

A gag Web site launched this week called “Please Rob Me” raised an ugly but obvious truth about location-based mobile social networking: When you tell the public where you are, you’re also telling burglars you’re not at home. The site originally displayed a real-time stream of Twitter and Foursquare posts that might interest criminals.

Twitter has since pulled the plug, apparently, and now all Please Rob Me posts are from Foursquare. Each post begins with the user’s name, followed by “left home and checked in” followed by an exact address of where the person is.

Insurance industry watchers like the one quoted by the Telegraph predict that after customers get burglarized and file claims on stolen property, the insurance companies will probably investigate to see whether the customer broadcast information over social networks in a way that constitutes “negligence.” They could also make “social networker” the homeowners insurance equivalent of “chain smoker” in health insurance — a category of customers who are charged higher premiums.

Read more on ITbusiness.ca

Related: Using Facebook or Twitter ‘could raise your insurance premiums by 10pc’

It's like having an e-Butler...

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/architecture/aria-high-tech-hotel

The High-Tech, Luxury, Surveillance Hotel

… When a guest enters a room, curtains automatically open, music plays, the TV activates and climate controls bring the room to a preset temperature.

If a guest leaves, the lights go out, curtains close, the TV and music shut off, and the temperature reverts to a preset, personalized setting. All room features (including the "Do Not Disturb" sign) can be manipulated with a Control 4 touchscreen room-automation remote control, or directly through the room's HDTV. A forthcoming iPad app will also allow the tablet to double as a room remote.

Since guests register with the Aria's data system, the hotel can store all room setting information indefinitely. If a guest returns a year later, their room can be prepped with the same lighting, entertainment and climate settings as during their previous stay.

“Everything does not mean everything, it just means everything. We couldn't be clearer!”

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20003065-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

North Carolina defends request for Amazon.com customer records

by Declan McCullagh April 21, 2010 11:17 AM PDT

North Carolina's tax collectors said Wednesday that they never demanded personal information such as book titles from Amazon.com, which filed a federal lawsuit against the state this week seeking to keep that information confidential.

"Amazon's complaint is misleading in alleging the department has required detailed information revealing personal consumer preferences, such as book titles," North Carolina Secretary of Revenue, Kenneth Lay, said in a statement.

But CNET has obtained correspondence from the Department of Revenue that calls North Carolina's claim into question.

In a letter to Amazon dated December 1, 2009, Romey McCoy, the Department of Revenue's audit manager, asked for "all information" relating to nearly 50 million purchases that customers in that state had made between 2003 and 2010. McCoy's letter did not exempt the titles of books or Blu-Ray movies, and did not address the privacy implications of the request.

Amazon subsequently turned over limited, anonymous information: the amount of the purchase, the seller, and the postal code it was sent to.

McCoy replied in a second letter on March 19, 2010 saying Amazon had until this Monday to divulge the full records of each transaction or North Carolina "will" take legal action. To punctuate his threat of litigation, McCoy's letter copied two assistant attorneys general from the North Carolina Department of Justice.

Should be worth a read...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=9235

Article: The Puzzle of Brandeis, Privacy, and Speech

April 22, 2010 by Dissent

Over on Concurring Opinions, Danielle Citron calls our attention to this article by Neil Richards:

The Puzzle of Brandeis, Privacy, and Speech

Neil M. Richards

Washington University School of Law

Vanderbilt Law Review, Vol. 63, 2010

Abstract:

Most courts and scholarship assume that privacy and free speech are always in conflict, even though each of these traditions can be traced back to writings by Louis D. Brandeis – his 1890 Harvard Law Review article “The Right to Privacy” and his 1927 concurrence in Whitney v. California. How can modern notions of privacy and speech be so fundamentally opposed if Brandeis played a major role in crafting both? And how, if at all, did Brandeis recognize or address these tensions? These questions have been neglected by scholars of First Amendment law, privacy, and Brandeis. In this paper, I argue that the puzzle of Brandeis’s views on privacy and speech can be resolved in a surprising and useful way.

My basic claim is that Brandeis came to largely abandon the tort theory of privacy he expounded in “The Right to Privacy.” As a young lawyer, Brandeis conceived of privacy as a tort action protecting emotional injury from newspaper stories that revealed private facts. But Brandeis’s ideas evolved over his life. He soon came to believe strongly in a contrary idea he called “the duty of publicity.” This is the notion that disclosure of most kinds of fraud and wrongdoing are in the public interest; that as he famously put it, “sunlight is the best disinfectant.” When Brandeis came to think through First Amendment issues after the First World War, tort privacy could no longer consistently fit into his influential theories of civil liberty.

But while Brandeis changed his mind about tort privacy, what he replaced it with is even more interesting. In his Olmstead dissent and free speech writings, Brandeis identified a second conception of privacy that I call “intellectual privacy.” Brandeis reminds us that the generation of new ideas requires a certain measure of privacy to succeed, and that in this way intellectual privacy and free speech are mutually supportive. I conclude by suggesting some contemporary implications of Brandeis’s rejection of tort privacy and his linkage of intellectual privacy with free speech.

You can download the full article from ssrn.

Double-Secret Probation has been lifted! There are now only 26 Copyrights. I own the rights to the letter “E”

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=9232

Draft of ACTA released

April 22, 2010 by Dissent

The draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was released yesterday, and there’s a lot of buzz because it does not contain a “three-strikes” rule for those who illegally download copyrighted material. Here are some links to some of the coverage and commentary:

Rashmi Rangnath, staff attorney for Public Knowledge, provides an analysis and commentary, here.

Joelle Tessler of the Associated Press focuses on technology companies’ fears that the provisions could open the door to “second liability,” here.

Nate Anderson of Ars Technica has a round-up of reactions from different types of stakeholders, here, while Juliana Gruenwald of the National Journal provides more reactions here.

On NPR, perhaps Canadian law professor Michael Geist said it best:

If you’ve got Europe and the United States and Australia and other countries all claiming that ACTA is fully consistent with their domestic laws, they can’t all be right, or at least they can’t all be right once an agreement is finally concluded. And it seems to me more likely that they’ll all be wrong, that in a sense, everybody is going to have to make some shifts, and everybody is going to face some amount of change on the domestic front.

I'd like to know who the “lawyers representing Google rivals” are, so I can Google them.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/21/2248230/Group-Calls-For-Google-Antitrust-Probe?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader

Group Calls For Google Antitrust Probe

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday April 21, @07:21PM

CWmike writes

"Advocacy group Consumer Watchdog called on the DOJ to launch a broad antitrust investigation into Google's search and advertising practices and consider a wide array of penalties, including possibly breaking the company up (PDF). The watchdog, along with a mobile entrepreneur and two lawyers representing Google rivals, called for an investigation focusing on a number of issues, including Google's marriage of search results to advertising and its book search service. '… We think all remedies should be on the table, including, we think, the possible breakup of the Internet giant,' said John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog. Adam Kovacevich, senior manager for global communications and public affairs at Google, discounted the criticisms, saying Consumer Watchdog has been 'relentlessly negative' about Google. The group recently questioned the reasons why Google stopped censoring search results in China, and criticized Google's privacy Dashboard as inadequate, Kovacevich said."

First, do no harm There is a fix out already, but it's complicated...

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/21/mcafee-update--shutting-down-xp-machines/

Botched McAfee update shutting down corporate XP machines worldwide

Now I can truly overload my Statistics students!

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/21/2156215/UK-University-Researchers-Must-Make-Data-Available?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader

UK University Researchers Must Make Data Available

Posted by timothy on Wednesday April 21, @06:14PM

Sara Chan writes

"In a landmark ruling, the UK's Information Commissioner's Office has decided that researchers at a university must make all their data available to the public. The decision follows from a three-year battle by mathematician Douglas J. Keenan, who wants the data to do his own analysis on it. The university researchers have had the data for many years, and have published several papers using the data, but had refused to make the data available. The data in this case pertains to global warming, but the decision is believed to apply to any field: scientists at universities, which are all public in the UK, can now not claim data from publicly-funded research as their private property."

(Related) Little Green Men, here I come!

http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/04/21/2040245/SETI-To-Release-Data-To-the-Public?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader

SETI To Release Data To the Public

Posted by timothy on Wednesday April 21, @04:48PM

log1385 writes

"SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is releasing its collected data to the public. Jill Tarter, director of SETI, says, 'We hope that a global army of open source code developers, students, and other experts in digital signal processing, as well as citizen scientists willing to lend their intelligence to our exploration, will have access to the same technology and join our quest.'"

Graphic If nothing else, the speed graphs are interesting...

http://www.focus.com/images/view/6467/

State of the Internet

Open Source Intelligence

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-websites-find-national-local-newspapers-published-world/

5 Sites to Find Local Newspapers Published Around the World

Have eReaders become a commodity? Looks like.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20003132-1.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Target to begin selling the Kindle

Selling advanced degrees... 'cause “Smarts is good for you!”

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/024085.html

April 21, 2010

Census Bureau Reports Nearly 6 in 10 Advanced Degree Holders Age 25-29 Are Women

News release: "The U.S. Census Bureau reported today more women than men are expected to occupy professions such as doctors, lawyers and college professors as they represent approximately 58 percent of young adults, age 25 to 29, who hold an advanced degree. In addition, among all adults 25 and older, more women than men had high school diplomas and bachelor’s degrees. The tabulations, Educational Attainment in the United States: 2009, showed that among people in the 25-29 age group, 9 percent of women and 6 percent of men held either a master’s, professional (such as law or medical) or doctoral degree. This holds true for white, black and Hispanic women. Among Asian men and women of this age group, there was no statistical difference. The data also demonstrate the extent to which having such a degree pays off: average earnings in 2008 totaled $83,144 for those with an advanced degree, compared with $58,613 for those with a bachelor’s degree only. People whose highest level of attainment was a high school diploma had average earnings of $31,283."