Wrong question. It isn't “What does it cost?” It is, “What is it worth?” (See next article)

http://www.data-storage-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=50812

Will Data Storage Costs Increase Privacy?

By Frederick Lane March 16, 2007 12:18PM

The potential cost savings of anonymizing search-query data were probably a minor factor in Google's decision to revamp its privacy policy and anonymize search data after 18 to 24 months, according to privacy expert Lauren Weinstein, who pointed out that the value of the search-query data collected by Google far exceeds its storage cost.

Will technology companies start offering consumers greater privacy as a cost-saving measure? According to the United States Internet Industry Association, the cost of storing a single gigabyte of information in a secured facility can exceed $15 per year, while the cost of storing less sensitive data is half that figure.

Shouldn't we get 10%?

http://michaelzimmer.org/2007/03/16/your-clickstream-data-40-cents-losing-your-privacy-priceless/

Your Clickstream Data: 40 cents; Losing Your Privacy: Priceless

Posted on Friday, March 16th, 2007 at 2:08 pm

Adam Fields points to this disturbing revelation that ISPs are apparently selling their customer’s clickstream data. The guilty ISPs apparently took the same “anonymization” seminar as AOL, merely replacing user names with User 1, User 2, etc.

And what kind of price are they charging for such a violation of user’s privacy? About 40 cents a month per user. Unbelievable.

Learning about free speech? (They already know how to get around school rules.) Certainly not teaching about the fourth amendment...

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/16924647.htm

GUEST COMMENTARY

Students question privacy rights

By Elan Lubliner and Josh Weil Posted on Sat, Mar. 17, 2007

WHAT IS THE purpose of a high school newspaper? Is it a pamphlet of the positive events in the local community and school activities? Is it merely an extension of the classroom, or should it serve a greater purpose? At what point can a high school newspaper lose its right to inform the student body in the face of controversy?

This month, Campolindo's student newspaper La Puma was confronted with these questions. When a controversial event regarding the Fourth Amendment occurred on campus, we felt it was our duty to examine students' rights by writing an investigative piece on the incident.

However, before the article's publication in our monthly distribution, we hit a road block. The administration decided that all information regarding the incident could not be printed on the basis of student privacy.

But as our journalism class researched high school publication laws on the Student Press Law Center, we discovered that with the student's consent and the article's anonymity, it was legal for us to print the entire piece including the disciplinary section.

As we were preparing to defend our right to publish the article, we were faced yet again with an obstacle. Our adviser informed us that, for a reason he could not divulge, it was illegal for us to publish the article for an unknown time. We felt and still feel that the story addresses an important topic, and that students should be discussing their rights.

For these reasons, the original article follows:

What got them involved? Did the school ask for help or were they looking for a chance to expand their authority?

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/03/17/17ferpa.html

Education Department expands schools' control over records

Federal advisory in Longview case shields schools from having their decisions challenged under state open records laws.

Listen to this article or download audio file. Click-2-Listen [Have we become so lazy we can't read the news? (The computer sounds much better than Steven Hawking's...) Bob]

By Tara Copp AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Saturday, March 17, 2007

WASHINGTON — When a Longview High School volleyball coach was arrested in 2004 after being accused of inappropriately touching a female student during a school bus ride home, the local newspaper thought Texas' open records laws would help it get the facts out.

What the Longview News-Journal didn't count on was the U.S. Department of Education stepping in. In a 2006 letter, the department expanded the Longview school district's control over the information by advising that federal, not state, laws control school records.

Open government advocates disagreed with the advisory and worried it could be applied nationally to hide information that students and parents use to evaluate campuses.

"This is a very broad-reaching letter," said Katherine Garner, with the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. "It's restricted quite a bit more information than it previously has. It would restrict quite a bit more information in the future."

State laws would have given the News-Journal a route to appeal to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott about the scant information the school district chose to provide: a document so heavily marked up that it made only 27 words public.

But the Department of Education's intercession ended that recourse. The department cited the Family Educational Records Protection Act, or FERPA.

The law shields students' "education records" and "personally identifiable information" from the public unless they sign a consent to release them.

The Department of Education maintains that it is up to the school to decide whether a student's record is protected by federal law. [“Maybe we'll protect your information, maybe we won't. Don't make us angry!” Bob] Further, the school decides how much of a record to disclose. Because many records are open to only parents and students anyway, "there is no FERPA compliance issue" if the school decides to block "more than the absolute minimum," the department advised.

The department also advised that a school is not allowed to let the state's attorney general see what it withheld "for the purpose of determining whether it has complied" with open records laws.

Essentially, the advisory set a precedent that schools police themselves and are shielded from having their decisions challenged legally, because they are prohibited from disclosing what they have blocked. Any appeals that did arise would be directed to the Education Department's compliance office.

"This takes the wind right out of the Texas information act," Longview Managing Editor Juan Elizondo said.

It "absolutely makes it more difficult" to obtain public information from schools, Elizondo said, "because they have this precedent to point back to. Our fear — and it's not because we don't trust the school [wink wink Bob] — but they could stamp anything they want to stamp as an educational record, and the (attorney general) in Texas can't look at it."

Identity theft not a biggie?

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/014297.html

March 16, 2007

2006 Annual Report Issued by Internet Crime Complaint Center

Press release: "The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) today released its annual Internet Fraud Crime Report. From January 1 through December 31, 2006, the center received 207,492 complaint submissions. These filings were composed of fraudulent and non-fraudulent complaints primarily related to the Internet and included many different fraud types to include auction fraud, non-delivery, and credit/debit card fraud, as well as non-fraudulent complaints, such as computer intrusions, spam/unsolicited email..."

• Report summary and highlights

• e Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a joint project of the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center. The entire 2006 Internet Fraud Crime Report, PDF

How do you spell “naive?”

http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/news/1174209810121070.xml&coll=3

Some inmates have access to Social Security numbers

Sunday, March 18, 2007 By BRENDAN KIRBY Staff Reporter

WETUMPKA -- Inside a windowless, metal building, inmates at Tutwiler Prison for Women tap away on computer keyboards, entering information from state employee timecards that contain Social Security numbers.

Officials at the Alabama Department of Corrections insist that extraordinary precautions are taken to prevent identity theft, but the practice drew a sharp rebuke last year from the Social Security Administration and recent dismay from the chief lobbyist for state workers.

... Health department officials said they thoroughly researched the programs offered by the prison system and private contractors and determined that inmates could do the job more securely and more cheaply than anyone else.

... That security, according to corrections officials, includes a prohibition against prisoners taking any paper or writing implements into the room. A supervisor monitors the 10 or so women at all times, and officials go so far as to strip-search the inmates every day after their shift to make sure they have not written any numbers on their hands or hidden anything on their bodies.

... "They would have to have a photographic mind to take (a Social Security number) out," said Warden Frank Albright.

Even then, he said, it would be difficult for an inmate to commit identity theft. Prisoners do not have access to the Internet, and all telephone calls are recorded, although, he said, prison officials do not check outgoing mail without probable cause.

... According to an audit released in August by the Social Security Administration's Office of the Inspector General, Alabama is one of 13 states that allow some prisoners access to Social Security numbers through various work programs.

... Warden Albright said he reviews those criminal records and blocks inmates who have been convicted of identity theft.

... Alabama officials said they have never had a report of an inmate in the data-entry program stealing a Social Security number, and federal auditors said they're not aware of a single case of identity theft committed by an inmate with access to numbers at a facility that auditors visited.

But the report stated that security breaches are possible, pointing to an incident in which California prisoners working in a government warehouse gained access to employees' personal information, including Social Security numbers, birth dates and pension account numbers. One inmate who was found with confidential records reportedly asked a fellow prisoner serving a sentence for identity theft to teach him how to use the information.

Illuminating

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/18/0340251&from=rss

A Law Professor's Opinion of Viacom vs YouTube

Posted by Zonk on Saturday March 17, @11:46PM from the winning-isn't-everything dept. The Internet Businesses

troll -1 writes "Lawrence Lessig, a well-known law professor at Stanford, has an op-ed in the NY Times entitled Make Way for Copyright Chaos which references the Viacom vs YouTube case. What's interesting about this article is that it gives some historical perspective on copyright law and the courts. Up until Grokster, Lessig says the attitude of the courts was, 'if you don't like how new technologies affect copyright, take your problem to Congress.' But in the Grokster case the court seemed to rule against the technology itself, cutting Congress out of the picture. He also explains that Viacom is essentially asking the Court to rule against the safe harbor provision of Title II of the DMCA which should protect YouTube and others against liability so long as they make reasonable steps to take down infringing content at the request of the copyright holder. Lessig doesn't give us any insight into who's going to win but he does conclude that 'conservatives on the Supreme Court have long warned' about the dynamic of going against Congress when it comes to copyright."

Trivial now, but I can see the potential...

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/014296.html

March 16, 2007

Newsmap Mashup Combines Google Maps and Yahoo News for Global Updates

Newsmap is "an experimental news site combining Google Maps with Yahoo News. Clicking on a country/region retrieves news about that country. Switch clickly to another continent by clicking on the continent links in the header. Zooming in one level will retrieve news at the state/provincial level. Currently state level news is available for US, Canada, UK(Home Nations) and Australia. Zooming in a second time will retrieve city news for large cities. Over 3000 large cities are in the database. Zooming out again will retrieve news at the respective level. Click on a country to start."

I can see this integrating with the UK's video surveillance system too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6461831.stm

Vehicle warning system trialled

By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News website

Vehicles may soon be swapping information about road conditions to warn drivers about jams and dangers.

A German research project on show at hi-tech trade fair Cebit envisions a peer-to-peer network for vehicles on a road passing data back and forth.

... Information would be conveyed to drivers via a dashboard screen or through a mobile phone headset.

... For spotting dangers and jams, the system would use data from sensors that were likely to be fitted to cars, bikes and trucks in the future, Dr Blocher added.

... As well as giving information about dangers, drivers could also ask the SmartWeb system for information about traffic jams, speed traps, parking availability and other problems in natural language.