Interesting. Suggests new types of regulations, for example a future traffic stop: “I see in your school record that you got a B in Drivers Ed. That means you can't drive after 9PM until you are 21. I'm going to make you stay after school and study Algebra...”

http://www.saukvalley.com/articles/2006/12/18/news/local/341484601910276.txt

Published on: Monday, December 18, 2006

Schools, cops trade student information

BY JOSEPH BUSTOS SVN REPORTER jbustos@svnmail.com

In the past, when a child ran afoul of the law, it was assumed the case file would end up on a judge's bench, and not necessarily a school administrator's desk.

However, local police and school districts are increasingly trading information about juveniles through the use of intergovernmental agreements. [Wow! Schools are governments! Bob]

It's a move that concerns proponents of civil liberties who worry schools may become a pipeline to the juvenile system.

"Once information sharing starts, there are no breaks and the school becomes an adjunct of the police department," said Ed Yohnka, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.

From the police's perspective, the agreements arm school administrators with the information to keep students safe.

"The problem we run into is we arrest students for violent (crimes), drugs or weapons and school is not getting that type of information," said Dixon Police Sgt. Troy Morse, who helped write the agreement that has been in place for seven years between his department and Dixon Public Schools. "(We) were worried of violent acts spilling over into the school and the safety of students and staff on site."

How they work

In these reciprocal agreements, police notify the school when a student is arrested off campus during free time. Likewise, if a student commits a criminal offense while on campus or at a school-sponsored activity, then the school agrees to notify police. [If a student stabs a teacher, don't they already call the police? Bob]

This might come to America, but politicians and other “not second class” citizens would be exempt.

http://news.com.com/2100-7348_3-6144548.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news

Judge stops Brit from selling Hotmail lists

By Tom Espiner Story last modified Mon Dec 18 11:44:15 PST 2006

Microsoft has stopped a U.K. man from selling lists of e-mail addresses that were then being used by spammers.

The technology giant took to court Paul Martin McDonald, who through his company Bizads sold e-mail addresses that were then used as spam lists. Microsoft sought and was granted a summary judgment against McDonald, arguing that his actions had caused Microsoft to suffer loss and damage to the goodwill it enjoyed as owner of the Web-based e-mail service Hotmail.

The judge agreed with Microsoft that Bizads had breached the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), a U.K. law that includes regulations designed to halt the sending of unsolicited e-mail.

"The evidence plainly established that the business of Bizads was supplying e-mail lists of persons who had not consented to receive direct marketing mail and that it had encouraged purchasers of the lists to send e-mails to those people," the judge said.

The judge ruled that Microsoft had suffered a loss as a result of the breach of the PECR and was entitled to compensation and an injunction restraining McDonald from instigating the transmission of commercial e-mails to Hotmail accounts.

... "It's interesting that Paul McDonald didn't send the spam himself; he just sold the lists," Robertson said. "But the court was able to characterize selling the lists as instigation of spam."

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/54783.html

SCO Quietly Seeks Another Review of IBM Decision

By Bob Mims The Salt Lake Tribune 12/19/06 4:00 AM PT

SCO wants U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball to take another look at his Nov. 29 decision to uphold Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells' June ruling to drop 187 of SCO's list of nearly 300 code-related allegations against IBM. Observers have said the decision left the Utah company with a near-worthless shell of a contract and copyright case.

Utah's SCO Group Latest News about SCO Group has asked a federal judge to reconsider striking most of the claims from its US$5 billion, Linux-related lawsuit against IBM.

But they don't want anyone to know why.

Keeping It Under Wraps

Attorneys for the Lindon, Utah-based software company, which claims IBM illegally leaked SCO-owned Unix programming code into the freely distributed Linux operating system, filed supporting documents for their reconsideration motion under seal last week.

"Largely, SCO wants to show some new evidence and cites some technical problems in the decision to be fixed. I can't really discuss more because [documents are under seal]," SCO attorney Brent Hatch said Thursday.

IBM, which has steadfastly declined to comment on developments in the suit, had no comment.

Both sides in the suit filed by SCO in March 2003 have filed documents under seal involving proprietary software and projects.

Not Much Left

SCO wants U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball to take another look at his Nov. 29 decision to uphold Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells' June ruling to drop 187 of SCO's list of nearly 300 code-related allegations against IBM. Observers have said the decision left the Utah company with a near-worthless shell of a contract and copyright case.

Following a six-week review of Wells' ruling, Kimball had not only upheld her decision in its entirety but chastised SCO for failure to obey repeated court orders to back up its claims.

The judge also ordered a separate but related suit involving Novell's challenge to SCO's claims of Unix ownership be tried next September, before the currently unscheduled IBM trial.

A Novell victory would likely deliver a coup de grace to SCO's suit against Big Blue, since Unix ownership is key to that action.

Have we learned nothing from DRM?

http://news.com.com/2061-12572_3-6144669.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news Reuters, Adobe, Canon to help track photo changes

December 18, 2006 5:52 PM PST

News organization Reuters is working with photo editing powerhouse Adobe and camera maker Canon so changes to digital photos can be detected, Reuters CEO Tom Glocer said on his blog last week.

Reuters, the news agency whose image was tarnished earlier this year when a freelance photographer provided doctored photos of bombing in Beirut, wants to ensure such changes can be found.

"I am pleased to announce today that we are working with Adobe and Canon to create a solution that enables photo editors to view an audit trail of changes to a digital image, which is permanently embedded in the photograph, ensuring the accuracy of the image," Glocer said in the blog posting, a transcript of a December 11 speech at the Globes Media Conference in Tel Aviv.

... It's not an academic issue for Reuters. Earlier in December, it announced a deal with Yahoo in which people who post photos to the Flickr photo-sharing site, can tag their shots and submit them to Reuters.

See! Even a big bureaucracy can learn to use technology...

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/013321.html

December 18, 2006

Library of Congress Launches RSS Feeds

List of Library of Congress RSS Feeds

News - A bulletin service of the latest news from the world's preeminent reservoir of knowledge, providing resources to Congress and the American people

Upcoming Events - Listing of the dozens of free concerts, lectures, exhibitions, symposia, films and other special programs offered at the Library on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

New on the Web - Updates on new collections, features, reference materials and other services available on the Library's award-winning Web site New Webcasts: The latest webcasts and podcasts of lectures and events sponsored by the Library

What's New in Science Reference - new products and services on the subject of science and technology from the Library's Science, Technology & Business Division.

What a concept!

http://techdirt.com/articles/20061218/154932.shtml

UK Rejects Software Patents That Don't Actually Describe Process

from the a-decent-test dept

One of the reasons that defenders of the current patent system often give for the importance of keeping the system, is the idea that it benefits society by revealing ideas that otherwise would be kept secret. That is, indeed, one of the benefits... if those ideas wouldn't have come out otherwise and if the publication of the patent actually revealed anything about the invention in question. All too often we've seen that this second part is missing. Patents describe something extremely broad and general, so as to reveal as little as possible, but make sure as much as possible infringes on it. It seems like it would be a reasonable "test" of the validity of a patent to see if someone could use just the patent itself to replicate the invention in question. It seems like some judges in the UK agree. The Court of Appeals in England has ruled against two software patents, specifically noting that someone who knows the basic subject area should be able to replicate what's described in the patent with just the patent alone -- and these patents fail that test. In fact, the ruling said: "that the patent was missing vital details, contained wrong equations, demanded a higher level of expertise than allowed and that it relied on material external to the patent." In other words, the patent itself did not actually explain the invention it was trying to cover, but rather hinted at what it might be. With the huge awards for patent infringement going around, an increasing number of patents seem to be written the same way -- so it would be nice to see more examinations of patents that look at this particular factor and whether or not the patent actually does try to explain the invention for others to use, or simply word it broadly enough to catch random infringers.

Does not sound like it to me!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2511248,00.html

Patients can keep their details secret after computer U-turn

David Rose The Times December 19, 2006

# 'Distress' can veto electronic data

# Campaigners say pledge is a joke

The Government has agreed to let patients keep details of their medical records private after they are uploaded electronically on to a new NHS database. [How would that work? Bob]

In a policy U-turn, Lord Warner, a health minister, said that he had accepted the recommendations of a task force on the electronic patient records system. The Government is to stick to its plan that patients will have to opt out of the NHS Care Records Service — but there will now be the chance for patients to view their record and amend details online before information is uploaded for sharing. They will also be able to consent [“consent” implies “opt in”, “dissent” would be the term for “opt out” Bob] to how their information is shared with professionals across the NHS in England.

But campaigners and privacy experts dismissed the promise of an opt-out to the national system as a joke.

Doctors across England will be able to access data on people’s medication, allergies and adverse drug reactions. The electronic holding of more sensitive data, such as HIV status, is still under consideration.

Ministers had argued that compulsory e-records were necessary because the paper-based system was putting patients at risk. But Harry Cayton, the patients’ ombudsman, argued that changes required “public support and clinical confidence”.

... Patients can also object before their information is even put on to computers by arguing that an electronic record would cause them “significant mental distress”: the Government is legally required not to store them if this is the case.

... Helen Wilkinson, of the Big Opt Out campaign group, said: “So long as ministers continue to demand that all GP records will be kept at hosting centres under government control, the opt-out is a joke.”

Of course, here in the US of A, we take privacy seriously (25% of the time.)

http://govhealthit.com/article97136-12-18-06-Web

Most privacy complaints are not investigated

By Heather Hayes Published on Dec. 18, 2006

The Department of Health and Human Services investigated less than 25 percent of 22,964 privacy complaints submitted to HHS’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) from April 2003 through September 2006, according to a new report on medial privacy.

... Dennis Melamed, editor and publisher of the report, said the report raises more questions than it answers. The raw statistics cannot explain why OCR investigated so few complaints, he added.

... “Our experience has been that complaints are being dismissed without any real investigation and very few of them are sent to the Department of Justice for enforcement,” Peel said.

Yeah, but except for those credit card numbers, they are sooo boring!

http://greatreporter.com/mambo/content/view/1349/2/

Hackers ‘can eavesdrop on 70% of web calls’

Written by Presswire.com Sunday, 17 December 2006

PhoneBusinesses and call centres are rendering customers’ private details a free-for-all by failing to secure their VoIP networks against ‘wiretapping’ hackers…

Scanit (www.scanit.net), a top security company that audits major IT systems, says as many as 7 out of every 10 calls being made over the internet is potentially open to hackers.