Okay so it wasn't a remotely (or kamikaze) piloted drone. This is still a major escalation.
http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jdw/jdw060718_1_n.shtml
Hizbullah hits Israel's INS Hanit with anti-ship missile
By Alon Ben-David JDW Correspondent 18 July 2006
on the Israeli-Lebanese border
Israel's INS Hanit, a Eilat (Sa'ar 5)-class missile corvette, was struck on 14 July by an Iranian-made C-802 Noor (Tondar) radar-guided anti-ship missile, fired by Hizbullah from Beirut.
"We were not aware that Hizbullah possessed this kind of missile," said Rear Admiral Noam Faig, Israel Navy (IN) head of operations, told Jane's.
"We are familiar with that missile from other areas but assumed that the threat was not present in Lebanon."
The Noor, based on the Chinese C-802, was reported to have a 200 km range during manoeuvres conducted by the Iranian Navy in April 2005.
An initial debrief of the incident suggested that the Hanit was sailing without fully activating its Barak-point defence system.
For other, undisclosed reasons, the Hanit's electronic countermeasures and electronic support measures, as well as the Vulcan Phalanx close-in weapon system failed to block or intercept the missile.
"It's a very painful blow to the IN," admitted an IN source, "but it could have been worse if they had hit another section of the ship."
170 of 588 words [End of non-subscriber extract.]
Free is good!
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001303.php
Free Directory Assistance
Free phone 411
The number is 1-800-Free 411, and it's pretty self-explanatory. It's free directory information. Works on cells and land lines.
1-800-Free 411 1-800-373-3411 Free411
Can you see short videos for legal topics? (e.g. Can I patent this?)
http://www.researchbuzz.org/wp/2006/07/19/viewdo-a-respository-for-instructional-videos/
July 19, 2006
ViewDo a Respository for Instructional Videos
Want to know how to shuffle poker chips? Want to install that knowledge on an iPod? Do I have the Web site for you. ViewDo, at http://www.viewdo.com/, offers a library of instructional videos that you can download to your iPod.
You do have to register
Maybe it's just me, but shouldn't you look for missing tools BEFORE the sutures, staples and surgical glue?
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/19/1710200&from=rss
Surgical Tools to Include RFID
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday July 19, @02:16PM from the now-just-remember-to-use-the-wand dept. Wireless Networking Science
andrewman327 writes "Reuters is reporting that hospitals are considering embedding RFID tags in surgical tools to prevent leaving them in patients. After closing a patient, doctors would wave a receiver over the body to look for the chips which would indicate that something was left inside. The biggest current stumbling block is the chip's size, though scientists hope they will continue shrinking as the state of the art advances."
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2006_07.php#004827
July 19, 2006
Anonymity Preserved for Critics of Oklahoma School Official
Subpoena Withdrawn After EFF Intervenes
Tulsa, Oklahoma - An Oklahoma school superintendent has dropped his attempt to unmask the identities of a website operator and all registered users [Clearly to punish or deter discussion... or perhaps he suspected a conspiracy? Bob] of an Internet message board devoted to discussion of local public schools after the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) intervened in the case.
Jerry Burd, superintendent of the Sperry, Oklahoma, school district, had sued anonymous speakers who criticized him on an online message board. As part of the case, he filed a broad subpoena seeking to identify the site's creator and everyone who had posted or even registered on the site, violating First Amendment protections for anonymous speech and association. Working with Tulsa attorneys Greg Bledsoe and Curtis Parks, EFF filed a motion to quash the subpoena on behalf of the site's operator and a registered user. The superintendent responded by dismissing the case on Monday.
... For EFF's full motion to quash the subpoena: www.eff.org/legal/cases/Burd_v_Cole/Mtn-to-Quash.pdf
Should this be in the “We can, therefore we must” or the “We gotta do something” category?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/18/armstrong_predictive_outcomes_plan/
Round up the youthful suspects! Govt to target crime at birth
By John Lettice Published Tuesday 18th July 2006 15:36 GMT
Children's Minister Hilary Armstrong was due today to outline what could become one of Project Blair's most ambitious, misguided and hubristic projects yet. The Government will attempt to identify children at risk of failure, violent behaviour or criminality at birth, and take the necessary corrective actions to steer them onto a law-abiding and successful path.
Ironically, Armstrong is floating these proposals just as this same predictive approach to future behaviour patterns is becoming discredited. A couple of national newspapers, the Independent and The Observer, appear to have seen outlines of the plans. According to the Independent, midwives, doctors and nurses are to be "asked to identify 'chaotic' families whose babies are in danger of growing up to be delinquents, drug addicts and violent criminals." The plan will be backed up by "research" which "shows that children from the most dysfunctional families are 100 times more likely to abuse alcohol commit crimes or take drugs", and a "source" close to Armstrong says: "It is the 'supernanny' model.'
... But Action on Rights for Children (ARCH) points out that evidence is stacking up against early intervention, and says: "Far from being, at worst, ineffective, a growing body of research suggests that it can actively do harm." ARCH, produces an extremely useful breakdown of Government children's databases (which are far more numerous than you might think) in the form of a blog, (http://www.databasemasterclass.blogspot.com/) and points to the contribution made to a recent LSE conference (Children: Over Surveilled, Under Protected (http://childrenoversurveilled.lse.ac.uk/programme.htm)) by Jean Hine of de Montford University, who is involved in a five university ESRC-funded research programme into "Pathways into Crime."
Job Opening?
http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/index.blog?entry_id=1523277
27B STROKE 6
by Ryan Singel and Kevin Poulsen Tuesday, 18 July 2006
Opening for a Manager in the Federal Privacy League
Last week, the acting head of Homeland Security's Privacy Office, Maureen Cooney, left for a private-sector privacy law firm, some 10 months after being appointed temporarily to the position when Nuala O'Connor Kelly traded her appointed position as DHS privacy czar for a job at General Electric.
The Bush Administration has yet to name a successor to O'Connor Kelly, and instead left Cooney, a civil servant, to try to fight internal bureaucratic battles.
Still, Cooney told Daniel Pulliam of GovExec.com that it wasn't so bad.
Though Chertoff never named her as the chief privacy officer on a permanent basis, Cooney said she "always thought that [Chertoff] had a lot of confidence" in her.
"He has been nothing but supportive of me," Cooney said. "It's really the secretary's prerogative in filling this position ... I think he wanted to look at both internal and external candidates."
That might be true, but the rumors in the privacy community were that Cooney had no hiring authority and couldn't even "hire" summer interns.
No word on whether anyone is actually going to be appointed to the position or who will become acting-acting DHS privacy czar.
But, Peter Swire, the former top privacy official in the Clinton Administration, had this to say in Pulliam's piece about the implicit meaning in the lack of an appointee: "The Bush administration values surveillance more than privacy."
Sounds like they need a journal article...
http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=2228&trv=1
Spatial Data Privacy and the Law: What Can A Spatial Company Do?
By Kevin Pomfret (Jul 20, 2006)
... Privacy concerns continue to be a major challenge facing the spatial technology industry. Unfortunately, thus far there has been little legal guidance as to what steps a company should take with respect to spatial data that can be attributed to a particular individual.
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/51850.html
Survey Finds Consumers Balk at Updating Malware Protection
By John P. Mello Jr. www.EcommerceTimes.com Part of the ECT News Network 07/19/06 5:00 AM PT
"Overall, the research shows that many consumers have a false sense of security while online," ESET Chief Research Officer Andrew Lee said in a statement. "With the number of zero-day threats rapidly increasing, users need to be even more cautious and proactive in their own protection."
While nearly 90 percent of computer users have software on their machines to protect them from malware like viruses, Trojans, worms and spyware, almost two-thirds of those users are reluctant to upgrade the software after it's installed.
That was the finding in a survey released Monday by security software maker ESET, of San Diego.
The survey, which was conducted by Harris Interactive, of Rochester, N.Y., showed that 88 percent of computer users have antivirus software on their PCs, but 65 percent of them have postponed updating the programs.
http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/#1523373
Tuesday, 18 July 2006
Specter's Bill Still No Compromise - A Primer
white house
A new wave of stories on the so-called "Specter-Cheney" spying bill is likely to hit your local paper tomorrow, following today's ACLU briefing on the legislation.
Reporters from Fox News, the Washington Times, and the Christian Science Monitor were all in on the call and likely will file stories that won't call the bill a compromise as reporters called it last week.
In short, the ACLU thinks the bill is more sweeping in handing over unsupervised surveillance authority to the President than the Patriot Act.
... Now he has written a bill with the White House that completely re-writes how surveillance on American soil happens and allows, but doesn't require, the secret court to review the legality of whole surveillance programs.
...
The bill (this is line by line .doc version created by the ACLU on Tuesday) has four main prongs:
First, it removes the part of the law that says that the only way to spy on American soil is through the FISA law.
Second, the bill moves the most crucial part of all the lawsuits against the government surveillance programs and the telecoms that allegedly are helping with warrantless surveillance of Americans to the secret court.
... The bill also gives the court the right to dismiss any lawsuit on any grounds, e.g. the court doesn't like the font that the lawyers use.
... Third, ... The new law would allow the government to legally continue doing all the surveillance it has been doing.
... Fourth, there are a huge number of changes in the bill regarding how the executive branch can bypass the secret court, including one provision that would make it possible for the government to never have to use the court at all.
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/011868.html
July 19, 2006
Pew Internet Project Releases New Report on Bloggers
Press release: "A national phone survey of bloggers finds that most are focused on describing their personal experiences to a relatively small audience of readers and that only a small proportion focus their coverage on politics, media, government, or technology. Blogs, the survey finds, are as individual as the people who keep them. However, most bloggers are primarily interested in creative, personal expression – documenting individual experiences, sharing practical knowledge, or just keeping in touch with friends and family."
Bloggers: A portrait of the internet's new storytellers, July 19, 2006 (33 pages, PDF)
[From the summary:
Blogging is bringing new voices to the online world.
A telephone survey of a nationally-representative sample of bloggers has found that blogging is inspiring a new group of writers and creators to share their voices with the world. Some 54% of bloggers say that they have never published their writing or media creations anywhere else;
... Eight percent of internet users, or about 12 million American adults, keep a blog. Thirty-nine percent of internet users, or about 57 million American adults, read blogs – a significant increase since the fall of 2005.
How to “correct” those pesky video depositions... (No chilling effect here...)
http://techdirt.com/articles/20060719/1321246.shtml
Hey Lip Readers: Pluck Two
from the spoiling-all-that-lip-reading-fun dept
It's always amusing when a TV station edits out a profanity with an ill-timed beep or replaces it with a total non-sequitur ("This is what you get when you meet a stranger in the Alps!", goes a particularly creative reworking of a line from The Big Lebowski). But just in case some sharp lip-readers among you still manage to decipher the original line, your days may be numbered. PBS is apparently insisting that any bleep must be accompanied by lip pixelation, so that a viewer can't make out the offending word on screen. As some are noting, the visual alteration will make the censorship even more jarring, and could definitely change the tenor of a scene. Still, with the FCC ready to pounce at any moment, perhaps PBS rightly believes it can never be too safe.
Memo to Congress: America is falling behind! (Is “behind” a dirty word?)
http://techdirt.com/articles/20060720/0320215.shtml
Vietnamese Government Creates Own Porn Site To Help Save Marriages?
from the how-thoughtful-of-them dept
Vietnam is definitely up there on the list of countries that has pretty strict regulations concerning online content. Years back, they started down this path by requiring websites to register with the government -- which just so happened to allow them to stop some online critics from speaking out. While they've struggled at times to manage the growth of the internet while still blocking any content they find objectionable, they've delegated some of the work to local governments and asked citizens to report any bad info they see online (an early example of crowdsourcing, perhaps?). Of course, while most of the focus has been on stopping any sort of political dissent, porn is another important issue. The Vietnamese government, not surprisingly, bans porn websites.
However, it seems that may have resulted in a bit of a problem. Married couples aren't having enough sex -- often leading to divorce and/or increased prostitution. At least, that's what the government claims. To fix this problem, the Vietnamese government has decided there's only one thing it can do: produce its own government-approved porn -- and hope that it puts married couples back into the mood. Of course, they don't call it "porn." No, it's an "orthodox sex website" that will "help couples learn more about healthy sexual intercourse." The government insists that the videos on the site will only be "educational" in nature, which doesn't necessarily mean very much. It is, of course, quite likely that these videos will be incredibly tame, if they're even remotely sexual at all. The videos may end up being typical sex ed videos -- though it's difficult to see how that will encourage the married couple who hasn't had sex in a year (which the gov't official cited as being a big problem) to get it on. You have to imagine that such a couple has other issues to work out than how to make sure their intercourse is "healthy."
Interesting article for my Excel students
http://bitworking.org/news/Document_Centric
Document Centric
Half of the world's business data is in Excel. [Not really a quote, just paraphrasing.]
We've all heard the same thing before, that stupid users are putting important data into spreadsheets and running their businesses with them. Here is a Slashdot article that was originally about errors in spreadsheets but one comment thread spirals into deriding people that put data into spreadsheets that really belong in databases.
Oh, those stupid lazy users, if only they'd learn to put their data into normal form and enjoy all the benefits of a relational database.
Would this be legal in the US? We tell everyone now by putting the sex offender's name on a web site, but if this crime is sufficient to cancel credit what others might be?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5194150.stm
Paedophiles face cancelled cards
Last Updated: Wednesday, 19 July 2006, 10:03 GMT 11:03 UK
Card firms have called for the amendment
Credit and debit card firms will find it easier to cancel the cards of online paedophiles under a planned new law.
Cancellation will be on the grounds that using cards to purchase child pornography breaches the issuer's terms and conditions.
... "No card provider wants to be associated with those who commit these crimes," said Paul Marsh, director of cards and fraud control at the Association of Payment Clearing Services (Apacs).
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