Monday, May 21, 2012


At first, I thought this was a consequence of “big data” – just too much to analyze in a timely manner. Actually it seems to be a case of arrogance.
E.D.N.Y.: Govt’s failure to examine seized hard drives leads to suppression as “flagrant disregard” of warrant and Fourth Amendment
May 20, 2012 by Dissent
FourthAmendment.com points to a suppression ruling out of EDNY:
The government seized 61 hard drives to copy and copied four others then took it’s time analyzing them. The court finds the delay was unreasonable and was a “flagrant disregard” of the rights of the owner of the computers and target of the search and suppresses. United States v. Metter, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 155130 (E.D. N.Y. May 17, 2011) [apparently should be a 2012 citation]
Read the excerpt from the decision on FourthAmendment.com.
[From the ruling:
The lack of good faith by the government can be inferred from its conduct in this case. In the affidavits in support of the search warrants issued in this case, the government promised to review the evidence seized offsite to determine whether any evidence fell outside the scope of the warrants. (See McGuire Home Aff. ¶ 58; Carrano Aff. ¶ 60; McGuire Email Aff. ¶ 130.) The government then failed to commence the review, despite repeated requests from defense counsel and directions from the Court to do so. In fact, the government seemed shocked that the Court would require such a review, and, as mentioned above, threatened to provide all of the evidence seized and imaged to each defendant in the case, without conducting any such review. (See 2/4/11 S/C Tr. 24-26, 29-30; 2/28/11 Gov't Letter at 2.) The government's own conduct and statements indicate that it had no intention of fulfilling its obligations as promised in the search warrants. Nor has the government presented any evidence or arguments to the effect that it failed to fulfill this obligation due to limited resources, such as it has argued in other cases.


“It's for the children!”
Facebook to lift ban on under-13s joining social network site?
May 20, 2012 by Dissent
Facebook may relax a ban on children under the age of 13 joining its site after finding that many kids, some with their parents’ permission and help, were already using it. [Like they didn't know... Bob]
“There is reputable evidence that there are kids under 13 who are lying about their age to get on to Facebook,” Sunday Times quoted Simon Milner, Facebook’s head of policy in Britain as saying.
Read more on Deccan Chronicle.
I think I can already hear Congress scrambling to hold hearings….


Tools for the modern stalker...
"On Friday, a company called SceneTap flipped the on switch enabling cameras installed in around 20 bars to monitor how full the venues are, the mix of men and women, their ages — and to make all this information available live via an iPhone or Android app. Privacy advocates are unimpressed, though, as the only hint that people are being monitored is via tiny stickers on the windows. Beyond academics and policy experts, some San Francisco bar owners that originally partnered with SceneTap have said that they're pulling out and will be taking down the company's cameras. An increasing number of bars still listed on the SceneTap's site are now saying that they're not working with the Chicago startup, including Mr. Smith's, Southpaw, John Colins, and Bar None."


Whenever cities bribe companies, some politician claims it's the company's fault and it's “not fair” (which is political talk for “I have no clue what just happened.”)
"Eager to host Amazon warehouses and receive a cut of the tax on sales to customers statewide, the LA Times reports that two California cities are offering Amazon most of the tax money they stand to gain. After agreeing to collect California sales taxes beginning in the fall, Amazon is setting up two fulfillment centers in San Bernadino and Patterson, which will gain not only jobs but also a tax bonanza: Sales to Amazon customers throughout California will be deemed to take place there, so all the sales tax earmarked for local government operations will go to those two cities. The windfall is so lucrative that local officials are preparing to give Amazon the lion's share of their take as a reward for setting up shop there. 'The tax is supposed to be supporting government,' said Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Assn., of the proposed sales-tax rebate. Instead, it's going back into Amazon's pocket.' Sen. Mark DeSaulnier added: 'It seems like the private sector finds a way to pit one city against the other. You can't give away sales tax in this manner.'" [Apparently, you can. Bob]


Since we have no clue how long this should take, we'll rely on the estimates of the regulated companies...
ICO may give organisations years to comply with EU cookie law
May 21, 2012 by Dissent
Derek du Preez reports:
A senior policy manager at the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has said that it may give organisations with complex website environments [Apparently this means incomprehensible or unmanageable... Bob] years to comply with new EU cookie laws, even though the new regulation came into effect in the UK almost twelve months ago.
The government was forced [“My God they have big guns too!” Bob] to revise the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, which came into force in the UK on 26 May last year, to address a new EU directive that demands that businesses and organisations running websites in the UK need to get consent from visitors to their websites in order to store cookies on users’ computers.
However, the ICO stated at the time that it would give businesses a twelve month ‘moratorium’ period in which to get their house in order and to comply with the new regulation.
Read more on CSO.


Looks like a job for IP lawyers with JAG experience.
"The United States has pursued Bradley Manning with full force for his role in supplying classified documents to WikiLeaks, in part because of the substantial difficulty in going after the organization directly. Criminal statutes generally deployed against those who leak classified government documents--such as the Espionage Act of 1917--are ill-equipped to prosecute third-party international distribution organizations like WikiLeaks. One potential tool that could be used to prosecute WikiLeaks is copyright law. The use of copyright law in this context has rarely been mentioned, and when it has, the approach has been largely derided by experts, who decry it as contrary to the purposes of copyright. But a paper just published in the Stanford Journal of International Law describes one novel way the U.S. could use copyright to go after WikiLeaks and similar leaking organizations directly--by bringing suit in foreign jurisdictions."


This sounds entirely too rational.
Cable companies expand free Wi-Fi
The nation's biggest cable operators are banding together to offer free Wi-Fi access to their broadband customers in more than 50,000 hotspots around the country.
… The way it will work is that customers of any of these cable companies can look for the CableWiFi network and through a simple sign-on process connect using the same credentials as when accessing their own providers' Wi-Fi networks. Once subscribers have signed on once to any of the "CableWiFi" networks, they will be able to automatically authenticate onto any other CableWiFi network, the companies said in a press release.

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Sunday, May 20, 2012

Looks like the friendly state of California is already secretly collecting DNA.
"California lawmakers are weighing a bill aimed at protecting their state's citizens from surreptitious genetic testing but scientists are voicing their growing concerns that, if passed, such a law would have a costly and damaging effect on research. The bill, dubbed the Genetic Information Privacy Act, would require an individual's written consent for the collection, analysis, retention, and sharing of his or her genetic information—including DNA, genetic test results, and even family disease history. The University of California has submitted a formal letter objecting to the bill, estimating that the measure could increase administrative costs by up to $594,000 annually — money which would come out of the cash-strapped state's General Fund. The university has also expressed concern that its researchers would suffer competitive losses in obtaining research grants."


Stalker tech
May 19, 2012
Hearing on the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance (GPS) Act
House Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security - Hearing on the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance (GPS) Act - Statement for the Record of Professor Matt Blaze, May 17, 2012
  • Re - Geolocational Privacy and Surveillance Act, S. 1212: "GPS is only one technology for cell location, and while it is the most visible to the end user, GPS is neither the most pervasive nor the most generally applicable cellular phone location system, especially in the surveillance context. More ubiquitously available are techniques that (unlike GPS) do not depend on satellites or special hardware in the handset, but rather on radio signal data collected and analyzed at the cellular providers' towers and base stations. These “network-based” location techniques can give the position of virtually every handset active in the network at any time, regardless of whether the mobile devices are equipped with GPS chips and without the explicit knowledge or active cooperation of the phone users."


I have no comment...
Are people more honest when they text?
A study at the University of Michigan suggests not only that we are likely to tell the truth when we let our fingers do the talking, but that we're also more likely to give more detailed and precise answers to questions.


This is fair if Microsoft was paid to add software (e.g. anti-virus) to the install package for a fee. This allowed them to reduce the cost of the package. Dropping the extra software raises the price. But, $99 dollars worth? Perhaps I'll sic my students on an open source equivalent...
walterbyrd writes about a program from Microsoft to clean up bloated base installs, for a price. From the article:
"Microsoft even offers up numbers to show how detrimental this OEM-installed crapware is to your system. Microsoft claims that Signature systems start up 39 percent faster, go into sleep mode 23 percent faster, and resume from sleep a whopping 51 percent faster compared to their crapware-ladened counterparts. (A 'Signature' system is one without crapware). But now, Microsoft will offer customers the opportunity to give their Windows 7 PC the Signature treatment by bringing it to a Microsoft Store and paying $99, according to the Wall Street Journal."


More from the “Goodies for Geeks” front. It's not always about the high end...
Want a cheap computer that runs Android on an ARM processor and isn’t a Raspberry Pi? Now you can have it. I’m talking about a new system, called AllWinner, that is now shipping out of China.
This tiny, inexpensive Android PC has impressive specifications. It uses an ARM A10 dual-core running at 1.5 GHz, a Mali 400 GPU and offers 512MB of RAM. This puts it about on par with last year’s best tablets and today’s best smartphones.


Perhaps I could use this as a source for Quiz questions? (Surprise! It has an “English for Business “ quiz)
If you spend a lot of time on your computer, then you will know quite a lot about how certain programs and web services operate. If you would like to test your knowledge of popular services that you normally use, you could make use of a fun service called Smarterer.
Smarterer is a website where you can go to test your knowledge of Twitter, Facebook, Google, Photoshop, PHP, and a bunch of other computer-related services and tools. You start by signing in with your Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn account. Once you are signed in you can pick a service and answer corresponding questions under a time limit. The more questions you answer correctly, the higher your score, and the higher your position on the leaderboards.


For quoting modern American poetry to my students...
Rap Genius is a database of hip-hop lyrics that sits somewhere between Wikipedia and Urban Dictionary. Rap tunes, from the most complex to the everyday radio hits, are indexed on this website and explained by contributors. Tracks are broken down line by line, and if you think some of these rap songs are a mouthful then you should really look at how analytical and precise some of these explanations are.
Similar tools: TheRapMap, Lyreach, TubeOke, LyricRat, Lyrics, Lyrster, LyricsFly and few others in recently published top 5 sites to find song lyrics online.


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Saturday, May 19, 2012


The decline of a nation? Have they started down that slippery slope that results in a country with laws written by the entertainment industry? (Like the US...)
"India is at a crucial crossroad at the moment. Internet censorship laws are getting stricter as it begins to ban file-sharing and video-sharing websites. It started with Indian courts allowing censorship of Google, Facebook, etc. It has now gone one step ahead and decided to ask ISPs to block file-sharing sites. It is the movie industry which is again at the forefront of this. Anonymous retaliated, and targeted the websites of various Indian government websites in protest. What India lacks at this crucial juncture are debates in the public domain about this and citizens actually organizing protests as seen in the West."


Is this a true 'thumbs up' or do we have 1350 apathetic parents who simply don't care (and how can you tell the difference?)
AU: Parents give schools’ hi-tech rollcall the thumbs up
May 19, 2012 by Dissent
Evonne Barry, Stephanie Wilson report:
Victoria’s privacy chief has questioned the use of finger scanners to track students in schools.
At least two government schools have replaced traditional rollcalls with the biometric technology, which identifies students by their fingertips as they enter and exit school grounds.
Ringwood Secondary College is the latest school to adopt the hi-tech attendance tracker, after Nossal High School in Berwick.
Although both schools call the system a success, Acting Privacy Commissioner Dr Anthony Bendall questioned whether they were justified.
Read more in The Herald Sun.
Interesting statistic that (only) 50 out of 1400 parents opted out of this.


I feel safer already, don't you?
May 17, 2012
EPIC: Privacy Board Approved by Judiciary Committee, Vote Moves to Senate
"The Senate Committee on the Judiciary has approved President Obama's five nominees for the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The Board is an independent entity charged with ensuring that fundamental rights are protected in the implementation of government programs, including cybersecurity. Originally convened in 2004, the five seats on the Board have remained vacant for the past five years. Senator Leahy, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said, "When we worked to create this board, we did so to ensure that our fundamental rights and liberties would be preserved… The Senate should move quickly to confirm the nominees to the board so that they can get to their important work." For more information, see EPIC: 9/11 Commission Report and "The Sui Generis Privacy Agency: How the United States Institutionalized Privacy Oversight After 9-11."


Facebook's IPO generated $15 Billion? We'll take that....
"The folks at Facebook may be focusing on their IPO today, but a complaint filed in federal court has given them something else to think about. The filing consolidates 21 separate but similar cases and alleges Facebook invaded users privacy by tracking their browsing behavior even after they had logged out of the site. The claim seeks $15 billion in damages. 'If the claimants are successful in their case against Facebook, they could prevent Menlo Park from collecting the huge amount of data it collects about its users to serve ads back to them. Like the previous lawsuits, Facebook is once again being accused of violating the Federal Wiretap Act, which provides statutory damages per user of $100 per day per violation, up to a maximum per user of $10,000. The complaint also asserts claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Stored Communications Act, various California Statutes and California common law.'"


When everyone is in charge, no one is in charge.
Facebook rules: Everyone can vote on new privacy policy
Facebook is going to have to put its new privacy policy (or rather Data Use Policy) up for a vote, according to its own rules. The company has yet to announce such a plan, but now that the commenting period has closed, it’s only a matter of time.
Last Friday, Facebook proposed improvements to its Data Use Policy. You can view the tracked changes at the bottom of this article and go through an explanation of them over on the Facebook Site Governance webpage.
Facebook also held a live video Q&A on Monday and launched a Facebook Terms and Policies Hub at facebook.com/policies. Most importantly, the company asked its users to comment on the changes. It’s now closed:
The comment period for our proposed new Data Use Policy is now complete. Thank you for your participation. We plan to review and analyze your comments over the coming days and will keep you posted on next steps.
Here’s where it gets interesting. There’s a clause in Facebook’s own terms of service (Statement of Rights and Responsibilities) under the Amendments section that states the following:
If more than 7,000 users comment on the proposed change, we will also give you the opportunity to participate in a vote in which you will be provided alternatives. The vote shall be binding on us if more than 30% of all active registered users as of the date of the notice vote.


Well, that feeling of safety didn't last very long. On the other hand, eavesdropping on the Chinese military just got a lot easier...
Top Handset Maker Confirms Backdoor in One of Its Models
ZTE, which is based in China and produces the ScoreM, which sells as a Google Android phone, admitted that it had placed a backdoor account with a hardcoded password, which is easily found online. The backdoor was used by the company to remotely update its firmware, according to Reuters. But its existence would also allow anyone else with knowledge of the password to access a Score phone and gain root access.
“It could very well be that they’re not very good developers or they could be doing this for nefarious purposes,” Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, told the news service.


As a “space geek” I think this could be the dawn of true space exploration. Something like the transition from exploration of the Americas funded by the European monarchs to the start of the Hudson's Bay Company. No doubt critics will declaim the “evil profits” these companies make while claiming with equal fervor that government should cut NASA's budget entirely. (Unlike North Korea, these guys want it to work...)
SpaceX launch scrapped in last-second drama
With its nine first-stage engines throttling up in a rush of fiery exhaust, the intended launch of a commercial cargo ship bound for the International Space Station was aborted at the last second early Saturday because of higher-than-expected pressure in one of the compact power plants.


Perhaps I should start a site where my students can tell their stories...
It seems like watching lectures from inspirational people is becoming much more popular. TED was one of the originators, and recently, Google has jumped into the fray, bringing their own special brand of thought-provoking videos and lectures. The Do Lectures follows a similar format. They focus on showcasing people who do amazing things, in the hopes of inspiring others to get out there and do something themselves.
Similar sites: Fear.less, MagMe, and BetterMe.

(Related) Another place I can find alternatives to a lecture...
Watching documentaries is always a fun and educational way of passing your time. But for a documentary film to be interesting, it must be relevant to your topic of interest. Thanks to a website called Watch Documentary, you can now browse countless documentaries online according to their topic.

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Friday, May 18, 2012


“We don't need no stinking constitution!” At least, that's their “interpretation”
“Secret” interpretation of PATRIOT Act will remain secret – court
May 17, 2012 by Dissent
Damn and blast. The ACLU and New York Times have lost their lawsuit against the government that sought disclosure of the “secret interpretation” of the PATRIOT Act. District Judge William H. Pauley III of the Southern District of NY ruled that the government met its burden in claiming the requested memo was exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
So we, the people, remain in the dark about how the DOJ is interpreting Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act – a law passed by our representatives.
In light of this, maybe it’s time for Congress to amend Section 215 to rewrite it in such a way that it permits no other interpretation other than what they intend.


Was this also a poor “interpretation” or simply destruction of evidence?
"In recent times, it seems many Police Departments believe that recording them doing their work is an act of war with police officers, destroying the tapes, phones or cameras while arresting the folks doing it. But in a surprising twist, the U.S. Justice Department has sent letter (PDF) to attorneys for the Baltimore Police Department — who have been quite heavy handed in enforcing their 'Don't record me bro!' mantra. The letter contains an awful lot of lawyer babble and lists many court cases and the like, although some sections are surprisingly clear: 'Policies should prohibit officers from destroying recording devices or cameras and deleting recordings or photographs under any circumstances. In addition to violating the First Amendment, police officers violate the core requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process clause when they irrevocably deprived individuals of their recordings without first providing notice and an opportunity to object.' There is a lot more and it certainly seems like a firm foothold in the right direction."


Talk about backward logic. “We had no reason to suspect this guy until we looked at everyone whose location data indicated they were nearby and selected him as 'suspect-du-jour'.”
To Warrant or Not to Warrant? ACLU, Police Clash Over Cellphone Location Data
A bill requiring law enforcement agents to obtain a warrant to collect an individual’s geolocation data from cellphone carriers would be burdensome to criminal investigators and prevent them from gathering the evidence they need to make a case, according to law enforcement witnesses at a hearing on Thursday.
Requiring agents to obtain such warrants is backward logic, since they often use geolocation data they’ve collected on an individual in order to then obtain a probable cause warrant for further collection of evidence, according to John Ramsey, national vice president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, who spoke to the House Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security.


No other outcome was possible, given: “Your parents were wrong to allow you on to Facebook in the first place and they are not doing a proper job of monitoring your activity.”
School officials’ Facebook rummaging prompts mom’s privacy crusade
May 18, 2012 by Dissent
Bob Sullivan reports:
A mother who says her middle-school daughter was forced to let school officials browse the 13-year-old girl’s private Facebook page is speaking out against the practice because, she says, “other parents are scared to talk about it.”
Pam Broviak, who lives in the Chicago suburb of Geneva, Ill., says her daughter was traumatized when the principal of Geneva Middle School South forced the child to log in to her Facebook account, then rummaged through the girl’s private information.
Read more on Red Tape.


A consequence of the BYOD trend?
"J. Peter Bruzzese sees a solution for organizations seeking to cut down employee time spent on social networks at work: treat social networking like a smoke break. 'Try as you might to keep social networks at bay, mobile devices let people be in constant connection to their social networking vices over the cellular networks, which you can't block. Still, it's not completely impossible to stop social time-wasting over mobile: You can establish policies that, if enforced strongly enough, eliminate social networks from being accessed on company time. Treat it like smoking: Let employees take a 15-minute coffee/smoking/Facebook break and make them go to a designated area to do it.'"


A potential solution to the “jurisdiction” problem? Select blacklist or whitelist countries and define a network that excludes/includes them.
SDN Makes Cloud Offshoring More Attractive
Calligo may not be the first to take its cloud operations offshore, but in the age of software-defined networking (SDN), it could be the start of something bigger.
“It’s unclear if a small, niche player that offers the benefits having actual servers located on the Channel Islands can create a business that can compete with Amazon’s infrastructure as a service or the myriad private clouds people want to build, but the experiment is worth watching,” writes GigaOm’s Stacey Higginbotham.
… What’s so interesting is that the decision to go offshore is made easier in the age of SDN.
So by using whitebox networking gear, Calligo saves a bunch, the story goes. But here’s what stands out most, cloud watchers: “In many ways Calligo has built a software-defined data center….” Higginbotham writes.
Calligo says the Cayman Islands may be next, but the further offshore and with greater distances between centers comes latency, which wreaks havoc on cloud services.
What’s the big deal here? If it’s a demo of a abstracting from physical hardware and showcases software-defined data center, that’s great but why does it have to be on an island?
Eventually Box says Calligo plans to offer an offshore Dropbox-style personal storage account since many of the employees at its proposed customer base are leery of their employees using services like Dropbox given the sensitivity of having corporate data land on servers that could be located in the U.S.


Free Webinar
Enforcing Laptop Security
The increasing mobile workforce places a high demand on protecting laptop data.
Learn how to enforce strict laptop security, without effecting laptop productivity on 24 May 2012 in ISACA's live webinar, Striking the Right Balance for Laptop Data Protection.

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Thursday, May 17, 2012


Local. Hey, I'll get better with practice.
Mystery object nearly causes mid-air collision
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a mystery in the sky. A mysterious object flying over Denver nearly caused a mid-air collision Monday evening, 9Wants to Know has learned.
As far as investigators know, the mystery object did not show up on radar Monday. [It's called “Stealth” We don't want terrorists (or you second class citizens) shooting down the drone. Bob]
Investigators believe this object, whatever it is, could pose a serious safety hazard to planes.
Radio transmissions from LiveATC.net confirm a nervous-sounding pilot reported a strange object at 5:17 p.m. Monday.
The pilot is heard telling air traffic control: "A remote controlled aircraft, or what? Something just went by the other way ... About 20 to 30 seconds ago. It was like a large remote-controlled aircraft.
The corporate jet, a Cessna Citation 525 CJ1, was flying at 8,000 feet above sea level [minus 5280 = 2720 feet above ground level Bob] over Cherry Creek when the mystery object came close enough to make any pilot nervous.
"That's an issue because now we have something in controlled airspace that poses a danger," Former NTSB Investigator and 9NEWS Aviation Analyst Greg Feith said.
Feith listened to the air traffic recordings and believes the object could be one of three things:
- A military or law enforcement drone. [No missiles Bob]
- A remote controlled aircraft.
- A large bird.
"Was this an unmanned vehicle that was part of some sort of law enforcement operation? Was this somebody that had flown a large model aircraft inadvertently into the airspace? Or was it just [a bird that] caught the pilot's eye so he believed it was an aircraft but could have been a very large wing span bird," Feith said.


“Don't worry, it's just Kool-aid.” Jim Jones
Euclid downplays privacy concerns about Wi-Fi tracking
A new company that plans to track millions of retail shoppers through a unique ID emitted by their smartphones says it wants to be privacy-friendly.
Will Smith, co-founder and chief executive of Euclid Elements, showed up at the PII privacy conference here today to say that identifying repeat visitors by these unique IDs -- the so-called MAC addresses broadcast when Wi-Fi is turned on -- shouldn't be an issue.
"We put a sensor in the store," Smith said. "It passively detects smartphones that come near the store."
… Instead of asking shoppers to choose to opt-in, the company adopted an opt-out model, which means visiting a page on Euclid's Web site. MAC addresses are stored for 18 months and only aggregate data is made available to the retailer, which is required to post a notice telling shoppers what's happening.
But that still means a company, however well-intentioned, will keep detailed logs about the movements of millions of Americans (or at least their mobile phones and perhaps laptops and other gadgets) around cities and shopping malls.
… "If it really creates value for the shopper, it should be something they opt into. But in practice, it's going to be happening without their knowledge most of the time."
Euclid's database would also allow police armed with a court order to learn about someone's whereabouts as long as they know or can find a suspect's MAC address. (You can typically find your MAC address through your laptop or smartphone's About screens. Wireless access points may also record them.)


One of several suggested topics at the last Privacy Foundation seminar... Also has implications for Universities...
The "Bring Your Own Device" to Work Movement
The Report analyzes the challenges employers will face over the next 1 to 3 years as more and more employees use personal devices to perform work. For some companies, a BYOD or "Bring Your Own Device" policy may be the right response. But the adoption of BYOD policies will increase certain employment and labor law risks ... The BYOD Movement requires a truly interdisciplinary response. Thirteen of Littler’s Practice Groups contributed to the insights and recommendations in the Report.
+ Link to full report (PDF; 779 KB)


Monetizing details of my existence...
Rethinking Personal Data: Strengthening Trust
[This] report suggests that personal data are a tradable asset, like water, gold, or oil. And like these assets, they need a set of trading rules to allow for mining, sharing, and utilization. Unlike tangible assets, however, personal data are not consumed when used. Instead, use increases value because new data elements are accumulated, providing greater insights into individuals. This increased insight, coupled with new data mining and "big data" technologies, often leads to new ways to use and create value. ...
Link to full report (PDF; 7.38 MB)


It's cheaper than sending people to Guantanamo...
"The Metropolitan Police has rolled out a mobile device data extraction system to allow officers to extract data 'within minutes' from suspects' phones while they are in custody. 'Ostensibly, the system has been deployed to target phones that are suspected of having actually been used in criminal activity, although data privacy campaigners may focus on potentially wider use.'"


It's for the children (no matter what the parents want)
Quit Facebook or be expelled, school says
A Queensland primary school principal is threatening to expel students aged under 13 who refuse to delete their Facebook accounts, in a bold bid to stamp out cyber bullying at her school.
The policy has been applauded by cyber safety experts who say schools are grappling to deal with a surge in problems caused when children use social media sites designed for adults.
Leonie Hultgren, the principal of Harlaxton State School in Toowoomba, Queensland, has explained the school's new policy in its latest newsletter.
… The Queensland Education Department’s director for the Toowoomba region, Greg Dickman, said the department, "fully supports the principal in managing these issues at a school level".
He said Queensland state school principals had the power to discipline students if they were found to be using technology inappropriately "both at school and outside of school hours".
A Victorian Education Department spokeswoman said that while principals could seek meetings with parents if students aged under 13 had Facebook accounts, they did not have the same disciplinary powers as their Queensland counterparts.
"The principal can only request the family to remove their child's Facebook profile," the spokeswoman said.
Ms Hultgren declined to be interviewed, but in an open letter to parents, she detailed the thinking behind the new policy. She acknowledged some families may ask: Why is Facebook a school issue?
"As many of the parents in the (senior) class would testify, there has been some considerable Facebook traffic that either bullies a child of this school or in some cases denigrates some staff and the school. Either of these circumstances warrant the school becoming involved," she wrote.
But Steven Troeth, a partner at Gadens Lawyers, which provides legal advice to leading Melbourne schools, said that while schools had the right to take disciplinary action when Facebook was used to bully students or staff, even if the bullying occurred outside school hours, he doubted principals had the authority to issue a blanket ban on social media.
He said the Facebook guideline that stipulated users must be aged 13 and older was not enforced by any law.


With the IPO pending, everyone is writing Facebook article... For my Intro to Computer Security studnets.
Nine Major Ways Criminals Use Facebook


Wow, neato! Now we can have video of future presidential bullies. Think any rules are necessary?
Fort Worth teachers encouraged to use cameras in the classroom
May 17, 2012 by Dissent
Craig Civale reports:
The United Educators Association in Fort Worth is encouraging its 20,000 members to use camera phones to deal with unruly students inside the classroom. [Perhaps hitting them with the phone would work... Bob]
It’s a controversial subject that most North Texas school districts say they haven’t had to deal with, but with technology creeping into the classrooms, some say it’s only a matter of time.
“A classroom is not an expectation of privacy… that’s a public forum anybody can walk in, walk out… not an expectation of privacy,” said UEA executive director Larry Shaw.
Read more on WFAA.
So… fast forward, so to speak… the district starts recording what goes on in classrooms. For how long are the tapes retained before they are rolled over? Will students who claim they are being harassed by peers or staff be able to use the recordings to prove their claims? Will the recordings be used to discipline staff who don’t do their jobs well?
And more importantly, what happens to the notion of intellectual freedom and curiosity? Will students feel comfortable raising unpopular thoughts or questions if they know they are being recorded?
If Texas is having such significant problems with unruly students, investing in recording equipment doesn’t sound like a prudent investment of resources. I will bet you that most classrooms do not have token economies or behavior plans in place and that most teachers have not been adequately trained or supported in how to manage behavior – or how to recognize the signs and symptoms of disorders that need treatment or accommodation. Are research-validated building-wide interventions and programs to promote appropriate behavior even in place? And have they asked the teachers whose students are not unruly to serve as master teachers to help train their colleagues in successful techniques and strategies?
Cameras in the classroom will not reduce unruly behavior. They will only record it. I would hope Texas educators can be more creative in proactively preventing problem behavior.


I doubt a UN Big Brother would be any more acceptable than a local Big Brother. Imagine trying to work out a single (lowest common denominator?) set of policies...
"The Indian Government is proposing to create an intergovernmental body 'to develop internet policies, oversee all internet standards bodies and policy organizations, negotiate internet-related treaties and sit in judgment when internet-related disputes come up.' This committee will be funded and staffed by the UN and will report to the UN General Assembly which effectively means the control of the internet passes on to World Governments directly."


Food for thought for the Class Action guys? Evidence gathering should be a snap. Record the ads, measure the connection speeds, sue.
"I'm not getting the bandwidth I paid for from my DSL connection. My '3mbps' fluctuates between about 2.7 during the day down to 0.1 or 0.2 in the evening according to speedtest.net. Let's assume DSL is the only viable option for broadband at my house and I can't really move right now (rural area, on north face of the mountain, no cable service, very poor cell coverage). This was discussed 6 years ago, but I'd like to see if there are any current thoughts on whether I'm just stuck or if there is some way to make the ISP hold up its end."


Bad lawyers... Can they regain the court's trust?
Oops! Yahoo blunders in Facebook patent squabble
Yahoo's lawyers are eating humble pie after the company made accusations that Facebook filed patents fraudulently.
Facebook's lawyers not only managed to prove that the patents in question are legitimate, but that Yahoo's lawyers failed to check the records in the first place.


The Apps are out there – that's all I'm saying.
5 Powerful Music Apps That Should Make Middlemen Nervous


Does this suggest that Wikipedia is becoming more reliable?
"Yoni Appelbaum reports in the Atlantic that as part of their coursework in a class that studies historical hoaxes, undergraduates at George Mason University successfully fooled Wikipedia's community of editors, launching a Wikipedia page detailing the exploits of a fictitious 19th-century serial killer named Joe Scafe. The students, enrolled in T. Mills Kelly's course, Lying About the Past, used newspaper databases to identify four actual women murdered in New York City from 1895 to 1897, along with victims of broadly similar crimes, and created Wikipedia articles for the victims, carefully following the rules of the site. But while a similar page created previously by Kelly's students went undetected for years, when students posted the story to Reddit, it took just twenty-six minutes for a redditor to call foul, noting the Wikipedia entries' recent vintage and others were quick to pile on, deconstructing the entire tale. Why did the hoaxes succeed in 2008 on Wikipedia and not in 2012 on Reddit? According to Appelbaum, the answer lies in the structure of the Internet's various communities. 'Wikipedia has a weak community, but centralizes the exchange of information. It has a small number of extremely active editors, but participation is declining, and most users feel little ownership of the content. And although everyone views the same information, edits take place on a separate page, and discussions of reliability on another, insulating ordinary users from any doubts that might be expressed,' writes Appelbaum. 'Reddit, by contrast, builds its strong community around the centralized exchange of information. Discussion isn't a separate activity but the sine qua non of the site. If there's a simple lesson in all of this, it's that hoaxes tend to thrive in communities which exhibit high levels of trust. But on the Internet, where identities are malleable and uncertain, we all might be well advised to err on the side of skepticism (PDF).""


Cutesie picture of a start-up...
Facebook “Likes” Money: IPO By The Numbers [Infographic]


How huge is Facebook's impact?
Facebook.com received 9% of all U.S. Internet visits in April
  • Facebook.com received more than 1.6 billion visits a week and averaged more than 229 million U.S. visits a day for the year-to-date.
  • The average visit time on Facebook.com is 20 minutes.
  • Facebook.com became the No. 1 ranked website in the U.S. on March 9, 2010.
  • The term 'Facebook' is the most searched term in the U.S. and has been for the past three years, starting the week ending July 18, 2009.
  • 10 states account for 52 percent of visits to Facebook.com -- California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina based on year-to-date average.


I was talking with some lawyers recently about how they use technology. What you don't know can hurt you (or your client) When you delete a file, what actually happens is the Index pointer is deleted and the file remains untouched... This is a version you can load on your thumb drive and carry with you!
Drag and drop files to erase them permanently with EraserDrop
Every now and then, we need to make sure that the files we delete are really gone forever. Financial info, old work data, or poems we wrote in college all need to go down the memory hole with no chance of retrieval, and there are quite a few tools out there that get the job done.


For my researching students...
… it is now rolling out a brand new way to perform Google searches – the Knowledge Graph.
First and foremost, the Knowledge Graph is about things, not strings. What does that mean? When you search for things Google knows about, such as places, people, etc., Google will now gather its knowledge about these things and include that in the search results. So when you search for a name, you will also get a summary of information about that name. Also included will be names other people have searched for along with this one.
… According to Google, the database currently contains more than 500 million objects, with more than 3.5 million facts about these objects and their relationships with other objects. [Something funny with those numbers Bob] Google have obviously made good use of search information indicating what people are looking for in order to create this search experience.
The Knowledge Graph is currently only available to U.S. English users, but will roll out slowly to other countries and languages as well. In the meantime, you can watch this video to learn more about the new features of Google Knowledge Graphs.
[See also:


The complete(?) guide, for my students with ideas.
Fund Your Dream With the Perfect Kickstarter Pitch

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Wednesday, May 16, 2012


It's not that they don't know how to protect data (Best Practices, etc.) it's just that it actually takes effort...
Zero tolerance for human error? Utah governor fires tech director
May 15, 2012 by admin
Heather May reports that at least one head has rolled in the wake of the Utah Department of Health breach in March:
Gov. Gary Herbert apologized to the 780,000 victims of the health data security breach on Tuesday.
To restore the public’s trust, he announced Tuesday that he fired Department of Technology Services director Stephen Fletcher and hired an ombudsman to shepherd victims through the process of protecting their identities and credit.
He said Fletcher was asked to resign, saying the director lacked “oversight and leadership.”
The governor said the status of two other technology employees is also being reviewed. They could be reprimanded or fired.
Herbert declined to give details of what protocols the employees failed to follow that allowed hackers, likely from Romania, to swipe the Social Security numbers and other data from health department servers on March 30. He said they are being investigated, but added that the breach was related to the failure to change a default password.
Read more on Salt Lake Tribune.
[From the article:
Data will now be encrypted while it is on state servers and not just when it is in transit, he said.
… Herbert also terminated a contractor who provided software without encryption safeguards, he said.

(Related) This applies to IP lawyers too.
Dear Executives, Technological Ignorance Is No Longer Acceptable
An article appeared in the New York Times technology section recently about Glenn Britt, the CEO of Time Warner Cable. The story? He doesn’t know what AirPlay is. Of course, many people don’t know what AirPlay is. For those of you who don’t know, AirPlay is a software service from Apple that allows users to play content from one device onto another.
… This is a twofold problem (at least.) If the content holders have no idea what technology consumers are using and what they want in a viewing experience, how can they make good decisions about how to provide and license their content and how can they do anything but respond to new and disruptive technology with lawsuits and awkward diatribes against piracy? I think we are past the point in our culture when we give people a pass for not understanding how technology works – not people who make a living from it and make legislative decisions about it. Part of the reason technology workers and enthusiasts are so put off by attempts to regulate (or not) technology is because these laws and restrictions are so obviously being created by people who don’t know the first thing about the technology they’re dealing with.


Tools for stalkers? Perhaps Rupert Murdock would like a copy too?
If you follow a lot of people on Twitter, you will find tweets in your stream where people mention others and talk to them. Reading only one side of the conversation does not help at all. To help you read both sides is a helpful tool called TweetsBetween.
TweetsBetween is an online tool that helps you read the most recent tweets between two Twitter users. All you have to do is type in the handles of each user into the specified fields and then click on the “Go” button.
… Although Twitter only lets the app search back for conversations up to a week ago, the app also provides you with the option to view specific conversations beyond that period after linking them to a URL.


Think this will go anywhere? Me neither...
Jack Straw: ‘Breach of privacy’ should be in Human Rights Act
May 16, 2012 by Dissent
Paul McNally reports:
The former justice secretary, Jack Straw, has called for the Human Rights Act to be amended to include a new clause on breach of privacy.
Giving evidence at the Leveson inquiry today, Straw said that when the Human Rights Act was passed in 2008 parliament felt the privacy element was best left to the senior judiciary to interpret and apply, but that had now changed.
He told the inquiry: “There is a need now for parliament to amend the law so there is a tort of breach of privacy that applies to everybody.
“I think it is time for parliament to accept the job we passed to the judiciary.”
Read more on Journalism.co.uk


My car, Big Brother's data?
As Congress Mulls Mandate on Car Black Boxes, Data Ownership Remains Unclear
The term “black boxes” conjures up images of plane crashes for some and inspires conspiracy theories for others. For the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), the automotive black box became a key source of impartial information in the unintended acceleration controversy focused on Toyota vehicles.
That’s partly why Congress now seems set on passing legislation that would make an Electronic Data Recorder (EDR) – the technical name for an automotive black box – required equipment on all new cars. And lawmakers also want to settle who owns the data on the devices, although that issue won’t be nearly as cut-and-dried.
Bill 1813 that mandates EDRs for every car sold in the U.S. starting with the model year 2015 has already passed the Senate. The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to pass a version of the bill with slightly different language. Car and Driver calls the wording of the bills “pretty vague” and notes that the Senate version stipulates that EDRs only “capture and store data related to motor vehicle safety,” and that access to the EDR’s information is only through an “interoperable data access port.”


“Because we can't teach them not to bully, we'll teach them to submit to privacy violations.”
NZ: Principals call to search students’ cellphones, laptops
Principals want the power to search students’ cellphones and laptops to combat cyber-bullying.
The call comes as part of a change in the way schools deal with the problem, with principals shifting away from restorative justice to suspending bullies.
Secondary Principals’ Association president Patrick Walsh said principals were being forced to take a heavier hand to ensure student safety, on the back of a backlash from parents, who say soft approaches don’t work.
The association is working with the Ministry of Education to give principals the power to confiscate phones, laptops and digital devices.
Read more on TVNZ.
Wait until they find communications between a teacher and a student. Then the fun should start as teachers jump into the fray….

(Related) What might teachers find on student devices?
Ca: Top court to decide if data on work computer is private
May 15, 2012 by Dissent
Angela Mulholland reports:
How much privacy Canadians can expect when they use work computers for personal use will be under a microscope when the Supreme Court begins hearing arguments this week in a case that could have wide implications for many employees.
The case before the Supreme Court of Canada involves a high school teacher in Sudbury, Ont. who was charged with possession of child pornography, after nude pictures of a student were found on his work-issued laptop.
Read more on CTV.ca


I read this as a firm, “We can't tell...”
May 15, 2012
Outsourcing and Insourcing Jobs in the U.S. Economy: Evidence Based on Foreign Investment Data
Outsourcing and Insourcing Jobs in the U.S. Economy: Evidence Based on Foreign Investment Data, James K. Jackson - Specialist in International Trade and Finance, May 10, 2012
  • "Broad, comprehensive data on U.S. multinational companies generally lag behind current events by two years and were not developed to address the issue of jobs outsourcing. Many economists argue, however, that there is little evidence to date to support the notion that the overseas investment activities of U.S. multinational companies play a significant role in the rate at which jobs are created in the U.S. economy. Instead, they argue that the source of job creation in the economy is rooted in the combination of macroeconomic policies the nation has chosen, the rate of productivity growth, and the availability of resources. This report addresses these issues by analyzing the extent of direct investment into and out of the economy, the role such investment plays in U.S. trade, jobs, and production, and the relationship between direct investment and the broader economic changes that are occurring in the U.S. economy."


Slick. Add our service and we give you a second line, free!
Comcast’s Non-Denial Denial On Traffic Prioritization And Net Neutrality


Perspective
People Click on About One of Every 2,000 Facebook Ads They See
… One indication comes courtesy of this infographic that these marketers created showing the differences between Facebook and Google's ad networks. It contains three remarkable stats about clickthrough rate (CTR), which is the percentage of the time a user clicks on an online advertisement. The average, these marketers say, is about 0.1 percent. Facebook's CTR is below average at 0.051 percent and Google's is above average 0.4 percent.
While these differences are meaningful and say something powerful about Google and Facebook, let's do the math on those percentages to see how relevant the ads you're seeing really are. For Google, people are clicking on about 1 of every 250 ads they see while searching. For the average, it's 1 out of every 1,000 ads. And for Facebook, people are only clicking once every 1,961 ads they see.


For my researching students
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
This afternoon I discovered a new feature in Google Documents (now a part of Google Drive) that could prove to be handy for students to use while writing research papers. Google Docs now has a search function built-in. This feature allows users to search the web without having to leave the document they're viewing. To access the new feature open the "tools" menu then select "research" while you have a document open. The search box will appear on the righthand side of your screen.
Once you have opened the search sidebar there are some great features to take advantage of. If you find a web result that you want to use in your writing, click on the "insert link" and "cite" buttons to have that link included in your document. Google Docs will automatically insert a footnote citation for that link. The same concept is applied to image searches. When you find an image that you want to use in your document, drag it into place and Google Docs will automatically include a citation for you. The only problem with the image search is that I couldn't tell if the images were Creative Commons licensed or not without going to the actual source in a new tab. Finally, there is a quotation search function that allows you search for famous quotes to include in your writing. Again the automatic citation function kicks-in if you find a quote that you want to you use.
… To learn more about Google Documents and Google Drive, download my free 57 page guide to Google Drive and Docs for Teachers.


For my Statistics students: It's so unfair that people would actually have to get out of bed to vote. Perhaps we could base everything on the newspaper and TV polls. (Or, Twitter, just to be a bit more up-to-date)
Why Fewer Voters Can Mean Better Elections
… Two separate research initiatives—one from a pioneering cryptographer and a second from a team based at Stanford University—have proposed a return to this purer, Athenian-style democracy. Rather than expect everyone to vote, both proposals argue, we should randomly select an anonymous subset of electors from among registered voters. Their votes would then be extrapolated to the wider population. Think of it as voting via statistically valid sample. With a population of 313 million, the US would need about 100,000 voters to deliver a reliable margin of error.

(Related) On the other hand...
Sorry, Mr. Obama: You Can't Use Twitter to Predict Election Results
… Election forecasting with twitter is a particularly trenchant example of the cocktail of hubris and naïveté that is widespread in social-media prediction work. For instance in a particularly well-cited 2010 paper titled "Predicting Elections with Twitter: What 140 Characters Reveal about Political Sentiment," researchers in Germany argued that Twitter is a "valid real-time indicator of political sentiment'' in which "the mere number of tweets mentioning a political party" has predictive power that rivals traditional polling. However, this paper, which claimed to have matched traditional polling's error rates for the 2009 German Parliamentary Elections, is indicative of many of the problems with such predictive studies.
Strong early detection work is seriously grounded in the offline social dynamics and phenomena that would lead someone to express a related sentiment online. Work on "predicting" election outcomes is not. Public-opinion polling -- the contemporary gold standard of election forecasting -- involves incredibly sophisticated sampling procedures to identify "likely voters" as opposed to "registered voters," often stratifying by various populations of interest that might otherwise be under-represented. This is a means of grounding the work in the real social dynamics of voting. Only by building into the predictive model a view of what will actually get which people to the polls, is it possible to translate the loosely held public political sentiment of the moment into something that relates to actual outcomes on election day. In Twitter prediction to date there has been no such subtle inclusion of the dynamics of participation and how these map to real world action.

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