A wise man learns form other peoples' mistakes!

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/02/1215200&from=rss

Tech Magazine Loses June Issue, No Backup

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday May 02, @08:43AM from the happens-to-everyone dept. Data Storage Hardware

Gareth writes "Business 2.0, a magazine published by Time, has been warning their readers against the hazards of not taking backups of computer files. So much so that in an article published by them in 2003, they 'likened backups to flossing — everyone knows it's important, but few devote enough thought or energy to it.' Last week, Business 2.0 got caught forgetting to floss as the magazine's editorial system crashed, wiping out all the work that had been done for its June issue. The backup server failed to back up."

Manage your own message. Volunteers can help, suggest, propose, but NEVER control the message.

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/02/1453214&from=rss

Obama's MySpace Drama

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday May 02, @12:02PM from the highway-robbery-i-won't-pay-it dept. Democrats Politics

fistfullast33l writes "TechPresident, which is covering the use of technology by Presidential Campaigns for 2008, has a very interesting article on how Obama's MySpace page is currently the subject of an underground battle for control by the campaign itself and the volunteer who created it in 2004. Joseph Anthony worked with the campaign initially and grew the site to include over 160,000 unsolicited friends that the campaign could use to reach out to. It currently is the main Obama page in the Impact Channel on MySpace. However, as Obama's campaign became more centralized and formal, the decision was made to attempt to acquire control of the site from Anthony. They asked him for a price, which he offered up as $49,000 plus part of the $10,000 fee paid to MySpace for the Impact Channel. Obama balked at the price, [How about a nice Ambassadorship, like everyone else gets” Bob] and decided to start afresh rather than pay the money. The fight broke out into the open when Anthony posted a response on his blog to rumors that the campaign was spreading regarding him wanting to cash out. MyDD has more."

Certain to become a big legal area...

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/03/0215252&from=rss

Australian Teachers Try To Shut Down Website

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday May 02, @11:51PM from the teachers-leave-them-kids-alone dept. Censorship

DeathElk writes "New South Wales teachers are attempting to have a website based in the United States closed down due to "defamatory" content. The site in question encourages students to rate teachers at their school, which obviously results in some colorful content. Now the story has hit the media, with some insightful quotes such as "The president of the NSW Secondary Principals Council, Jim McAlpine, said the Federal Government should block access to 'scurrilous American websites'."

...and the flip[ side...

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070502/200120.shtml

Music Industry Continues To Shoot Self In Foot; Forces Pandora To Block Non-US Listeners

from the nice-work dept

It's really depressing to watch the recording industry so consistently shoot itself in the foot, focusing on capturing every immediate dollar, rather than recognizing the ability of using music as free promotion to build up the size of their market. The latest case is that Pandora.com, a popular streaming music recommendation service (which is already facing some challenges due to the new webcaster rates) is being forced to block all non-US users of its service. This is because the recording industry wants Pandora to sign separate licensing deals in every country where it has listeners -- a nearly impossible task. Anyone who's used Pandora for more than about five minutes realizes what a great service it is for the entire recording industry. It really does a good job of recommending new music to listeners -- the type of new music that fits in with what they like, and that they're much more likely to support with money. However, rather than recognizing the numerous ways that Pandora can grow their overall market, the recording industry has to shut it down since it won't pay them even more than they're already being paid. This harms the recording industry in numerous ways, and it's amazing they haven't figured that out yet.

Reading...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070502105411922

Privacy Law Professor Concludes Forwarding of Private Email Without Permission Violates Rights (press release)

Wednesday, May 02 2007 @ 10:54 AM CDT - Contributed by: PrivacyNews - Internet & Computers

In a major article examining the strength of legal arguments to protect private e-mail expression, a University of Arkansas law professor concludes that, based on the historical common law, today’s Federal Copyright Act does not protect someone from copying and distributing another person’s private expression, which means that forwarding e-mail without permission of the sender may be against the law.

.... Snow’s article will be published this summer in Volume 55 of the Kansas Law Review. It may be downloaded at http://ssrn.com/abstract=981729.

Source - Newswise

More reading...

http://www.links.org/files/selective-disclosure.pdf

Selective Disclosure

Ben Laurie (benl@google.com) May 2, 2007

Abstract Digital signatures are widely used on the Internet. One application is in identity management, where they may be used to authenticate (that is, prove identity or entitlement) or to make verifiable assertions (e.g. “this person is over 21” or “this person is a UK citizen”). However, traditional digital signatures have implications for privacy – these can be addressed by zero-knowledge and selective disclosure proofs. This paper explores both the need for and the properties of selective disclosure proofs.

...and still more reading (research tool?)

http://www.publictechnology.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=9033

Briefing: on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs)

Articles / eGovernment news & analysis from the EU Date: May 03, 2007 - 07:55 AM

... The use of PETs can help to design information and communication systems and services in a way that minimises the collection and use of personal data and facilitate compliance with data protection rules. The use of PETs should result in making breaches of certain data protection rules more difficult and/or helping to detect them.

Several examples of PETs can be mentioned here.

> Automatic anonymisation after a certain lapse of time support the principle that the data processed should be kept in a form which permits identification of data subjects for no longer than necessary for the purposes for which the data were originally collected.
> Encryption tools prevent hacking when the information is transmitted over the Internet and support the data controller's obligation to take appropriate measures to protect personal data against unlawful processing. .
> Cookie-cutters blocking cookies placed on the user's PC to make it perform certain instructions without him being aware of them, enhance compliance with the principle that data must be processed fairly and lawfully, and that the data subject must be informed about the processing going on.
> The Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P), allowing internet users to analyze the privacy policies of websites and compare them with the user's preferences as to the information he allows to release, helps to ensure that data subjects' consent to processing of their data is an informed one.
... Further information on European research on PETs

European research projects in this field are funded as part of the Information Society Technologies (IST) programme - at this link
Examples of significant IST research projects in this field:
Project PRIME: developing solutions for solutions on privacy-enhancing identity management - at this link
Project FIDIS: developing new ways for identifying individuals, eg so-called virtual identities, embodying concepts such as pseudonymity and anonymity, - at this link
Related links to this article:
European Commission
European Data Protection Supervisor

Good question...

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9715032-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Bloggers and podcasters get their own magazine

Posted by Daniel Terdiman May 2, 2007 11:05 AM PDT

... The magazine, which features famous blogger and podcaster Robert Scoble on the cover, has a Web site, of course, on which most of its content will be available for free. And it also has a free podcast edition. Why anyone would pay $79 for a subscription to the print magazine is not entirely clear.

Related (Note to law students: This could serve as the basis of a “Legal Guide for Bloggers”)

http://www.avivadirectory.com/blogger-law/

12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know

May 1st, 2007

This is a joke, right? Is America about to swap religions?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20670001&refer=us&sid=afIESX3LdgnQ

California Hotels Go Green With Low-Flow Toilets, Solar Lights

By Ari Levy and Carole Zimmer

April 27 (Bloomberg) -- Visitors to the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa won't find the Gideon Bible in the nightstand drawer. Instead, on the bureau will be a copy of ``An Inconvenient Truth,'' former Vice President Al Gore's book about global warming.

Now here's a class project I'd like to supervise. Build a brewery, and turn the waste into electricity! (and turn the beer over to the professor!) How's this for an Al Gore campaign slogan: A brewery in every home!

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/02/2241250&from=rss

The 660 Gallon Brewery Fuel Cell

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday May 02, @08:48PM from the drinking-electricity dept. Power Science

An anonymous reader writes "Australia's University of Queensland has secured a $115,000 grant for a 660-gallon fuel cell that should produce 2 kilowatts of power. A prototype has been operating at the university laboratory for three months. This fuel cell type is essentially a battery in which bacteria consume water-soluble brewing waste such as sugar, starch and alcohol, plus in this instance produces clean water."

Get your word out...

http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/contact/media.asp

Media contact information

Geek stuff Security Tools & Techniques

http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=129

May 1st, 2007

How to REALLY erase a hard drive

Posted by Robin Harris @ 8:44 pm Categories: Uncategorized

... Something called Secure Erase, a set of commands embedded in most ATA drives built since 2001.

... Secure Erase overwrites every single track on the hard drive. That includes the data on “bad blocks”, the data left at the end of partly overwritten blocks, directories, everything. There is no data recovery from Secure Erase.

Says who?

The National Security Agency, for one. And the National Institute for Standards and Testing (NIST), who give it a higher security rating than external block overwrite software that you’d have to buy. Update: There is an open source external block overwrite utility called Boot and Nuke that is free.

Secure Erase is approved for complying with the legal requirements noted above.

UCSD’s CMRR to the rescue

The University of California at San Diego hosts the Center for Magnetic Recording Research. Dr. Gordon Hughes of CMRR helped develop the Secure Erase standard.

Download his Freeware Secure Erase Utility, read the ReadMe file and you’re good to go.