No excitement in Denver! 8,000,000 hits in the first hour. Perhaps they should have used eBay?
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9802035-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Ticketless baseball fans in Denver
Posted by Steven Musil October 22, 2007 1:22 PM PDT
What if you threw a World Series and no one came because they couldn't buy tickets?
That is the dilemma facing the Colorado Rockies on Monday after the baseball team suspended online ticket sales because servers were overwhelmed by traffic.
"We are as frustrated and disappointed as (fans) are," Jay Alves told The Denver Post, adding that team officials had no idea so many people would try to use the Web site.
Oh boy, another “everyone is doing it” defense.
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071022191022108
Tories turn tables, accuse Liberals of having database that invades privacy, too
Monday, October 22 2007 @ 07:10 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Non-U.S. News
Liberal MPs use a constituent database that has some of the same invasive privacy capabilities as the maligned Conservative party system, according to a promotional web site for the software.
Peter Van Loan, the Conservative House leader, happily recited Monday the potential tools touted by The AIT Corp for its ElectSYS database.
Source - The Canadian Press
Because I'm trying to be less obsessive.
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071021180900881
Data “Dysprotection:” breaches reported last week
Monday, October 22 2007 @ 07:47 AM EDT
Contributed by: PrivacyNews
News Section: Breaches
A recap of incidents or privacy breaches reported last week for those who enjoy shaking their head and muttering to themselves with their morning coffee.
Source - Chronicles of Dissent
Hey! They're just as forthcoming as the Attorney General nominee...
http://techdirt.com/articles/20071022/180036.shtml
Comcast Still Dancing Around Its Content Jamming Operations; What's Wrong With Admitting It?
from the shhhh,-it's-a-secret-that-everyone-knows dept
With the news coming out that Comcast's broadband jamming operations actually interfere with other apps as well, Comcast is now trying to respond to the complaints in every way other than telling people what it is that they're doing, which at this point really does appear to be the only sensible response. Comcast went to Reuters (since it was AP who confirmed the original story) and repeated the carefully worded claim that Comcast is not blocking any kind of traffic. Of course, people aren't saying that it's completely blocking any traffic -- just that it's quietly pulling some background tricks to slow down certain types of traffic without letting its customers know. That's the key part, and it's the same complaint that people have had for years with Comcast concerning its fuzzy bandwidth caps. The company advertises unlimited service, but if it's not unlimited, why not come out and explain what the limitations are? It seems only fair.
Perhaps an answer comes from Tim Lee, who was invited to a conference call today with Comcast to help "clear up" the misperceptions Comcast feels are being spread in the media about its actions. The only problem is that Comcast doesn't clear up anything. It basically admits to the traffic shaping but says it can't tell people that it's doing that, as it could help them get around the shaping. Well, sorry, too late for that. Besides, what's wrong with simply telling people what the limitations are and then going after the violators for terms of service breaches? In being so secretive and misleading about it, all it's doing is causing many more people to get upset with Comcast and think that they're being targeted (even if they're not). It's a ridiculous PR situation for Comcast to be in -- and it could be solved easily enough if Comcast stopped beating around the bush, stopped giving gobbledy-gook doublespeak responses that don't actually answer the questions people are asking and simply told people what they're doing and why. It really is that simple. If the company has a legitimate reason for doing what it's doing (and some people say there is) then why not explain that?
The Streisand Effect
http://techdirt.com/articles/20071019/103624.shtml
College Blocks Blog Critical Of Chancellor; Now That Blog Is Mainstream News
from the nice-work! dept
Witty Nickname writes "A new Chancellor was selected to lead a Community College District in northern Harris County, Texas. A critical blog was set up to blast the new Chancellor, who quickly had IT block it on all campus computers. As these things always do, it backfired. The college was sued, forced to unblock the blog, and thanks to the media attention, now everyone in Houston knows about the blog. [and both readers of my blog Bob]" Didn't quite work the way he expected, huh? One would imagine that the blog got barely any traffic prior to this. Perhaps ignoring it would have been a better option.
Copyright as a weapon
Nation's Largest Textbook Seller Copyrights Class Textbook Listings
October 22, 2007 - 9:48pm — MacRonin
Nation's Largest Textbook Seller Copyrights Class Textbook Listings: "
College students are all too familiar with paying heavy prices for textbooks. So it should come as no surprise that the nation's leading collegiate book provider is targeting an online competitor with a federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act lawsuit.
Follett Higher Education Group, the nation's largest wholesaler of higher education textbooks, is targeting California-based Ugenie, alleging that part of Ugenie's online textbook comparison shopping service contains pilfered data from Follett. The allegedly purloined data, which Follett says is copyright protected, is publicly available
The lawsuit, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, raises questions of how far the Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects publicly available material that is assembled on a commercial web site. The case also raises privacy interests, as Follett claims Ugenie has unleashed so-called 'bots' onto the efollett.com web site, scooping up vast quantities of data in violation of its user agreement and data that would otherwise be impossible for a single user to acquire.
... The case is similar to Los Angeles federal court litigation where a judge last week issued an injunction against RMG Technologies, which sold software allowing ticket resellers to scoop up unlimited tickets at Ticketmaster ahead of the general public, and against Ticketmaster's user policy allowing a limited number of ticket purchases. The Pittsburgh company advertises that it's software is 'stealth technology that lets you hide your IP address, so you never get blocked by Ticketmaster.'
Like the Ticketmaster case, the Follett case alleges the Burlingame company violates Follett's terms of use agreement.
In the textbook case, the user agreement demands that users won't adapt the site's information for commercial gain. The terms of use agreement also 'expressly prohibits automated data gathering' from its site, where all content is copyrighted.
Free is good!
http://techdirt.com/articles/20071019/143716.shtml
The Internet Is Good For Classical Music
from the mozart.com dept
Back in 2005, the BBC made all nine of Beethoven's symphonies available for free download -- a move that made classical record label executives absolutely livid. We thought that their fear was short sighted, considering that the BBC was helping the classical music genre gain millions of listeners for free. A few years have passed now, and it looks like those record executives may finally be realizing that the Internet is, in fact, good for them. The classical music industry, struggling prior to 2000, is now on a huge rebound due largely to the Internet. Classical music labels are seeing record sales this year, now that the Internet allows music buyers access to their complete libraries of music, which would be completely impractical in a brick-and-mortar store. Classical music benefits more from the "long tail" since not only are there centuries of music from which to draw -- each piece is likely to have multiple recordings, resulting in a vast catalog. Furthermore, the Internet affords users with much richer music discovery process -- through blogs, YouTube, and sites like Michael Tilson Thomas' Keeping Score, where the San Francisco conductor leads a series of educational broadcasts, intended to educate listeners about classical music. It's nice to see that after initially being freaked out by change, the classical music world is now embracing these new technologies -- in the end, everyone benefits, listeners gain access to more music, and musicians and composers are able to expose their music to more people, oh, and yes, the labels do end up building a better business.
Odds are, it will be everywhere soon.
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071022112458898
From Casinos to Counterterrorism
Monday, October 22 2007 @ 11:24 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Surveillance
This city, famous for being America's playground, has also become its security lab. Like nowhere else in the United States, Las Vegas has embraced the twin trends of data mining and high-tech surveillance, with arguably more cameras per square foot than any airport or sports arena in the country. Even the city's cabs and monorail have cameras. As the U.S. government ramps up its efforts to forestall terrorist attacks, some privacy advocates view the city as a harbinger of things to come.
Source - Washington Post
When photos, birth certificates, fingerprints and a retinal scan isn't enough...
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/genetree--Genetics-Completing-Your-Family-Tree/
GeneTree.com - Genetics Completing Your Family Tree
Do you want to make a thorough family tree leaving no stone unturned? GeneTree.com is a family tree site that approached the scientific side of creating family trees. GeneTree.com offers DNA testing a way to link you with your ancestors and relatives.
When DNA, photos, birth certificates, fingerprints and a retinal scan isn't enough...
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/23/020240&from=rss
CalTech Creates Electronic Nose
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday October 23, @04:38AM
from the smells-like dept. Biotech Science
eldavojohn writes "Researchers have created an electronic nose that can detect odor and identify which odors are a concern to it. From the article, 'The Lewis Group a division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Cal Tech have a working model of an electronic nose. The efforts of Cal Tech scientists has led to an array of simple, readily fabricated chemically sensitive conducted polymer film. An array of broadly-cross reactive sensors respond to a variety of odors. However, the pattern of differential responses across the array produces a unique pattern for each odorant. The electronic nose can identify, classify and quantify when necessary the vapor or odor that poses a concern or threat.'"
Jurisdiction shopping...
http://techdirt.com/articles/20071021/145116.shtml
Canadian Public Domain Not Good Enough For German Publisher
from the this-is-not-the-public-domain-you-were-looking-for dept
It's no secret that different countries have different lengths for copyright. That's why there are constant debates over copyright extension, as countries with shorter terms for copyright are pressured by those with longer terms to extend (or, better yet, to leapfrog) copyright terms. Otherwise, you end up with the situation where content in one country is in the public domain, while it's still under copyright elsewhere. In the age of the internet, where borders are somewhat meaningless online, that's going to cause some problems. Witness the situation with the International Music Score Library Project, a wiki-based project in Canada, for publishing public domain music scores online. The site was careful about copyright, making sure that the only content published was in the public domain. Since the site is based in Canada, it focused on Canadian copyright law and what was in the public domain in that country. Apparently, that was seen as problematic to a German publisher, Universal Edition AG, who found that some of the musical scores that are in the public domain in Canada are still under copyright in Germany. Universal Edition then hired a Toronto law firm to send a cease and desist letter, that caused the entire site to be taken down. Yes, even though all of the content was perfectly legal under Canadian law, this German publisher was able to get it taken offline because some of the content was still under copyright in Europe. If this type of thing is allowed to stand, then we reach a point where all copyright online automatically is covered by the absolute most draconian and stringent levels of copyright law, no matter what the law is anywhere else. That doesn't seem either reasonable or fair.
Worth a read?
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11492?ref=rss
Identity thieves likely to be first-timers, strangers
Robert Lemos, SecurityFocus 2007-10-22
An analysis of identity-theft cases closed by the U.S. Secret Service in the past six years has found that identity thieves typically do not have a criminal record and are generally not known by their victims.
The study, published on Monday, reviewed data from 517 cases resolved by the U.S. Secret Service between 2001 and 2006. The analysis found that nearly 60 percent of the 933 offenders implicated in the cases did not know their victims and more than 70 percent of the thieves had no prior criminal record. While most reports of identity theft focus on individuals, the analysis found that financial institutions are slightly more likely to be a victim.
The review is the first time that the federal agency has allowed the public analysis of its cases, said Gary R. Gordon, a professor of economic crime at Utica College and an author of the study.
... The average loss claimed by the victims totaled $31,356, with the largest loss totally $13 million. Women made up a significant percentage of offenders -- a third -- compared to other types of crimes, and 71 percent of offenders had not previously been charged with a crime.
Did Uncle Willy really win the Medal of Honor three times?
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/016330.html
October 22, 2007
National Personnel Records Center Opens more than Six Million New Military Personnel Files
Press release: "The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC website) will open for the first time all of the individual Official Military Personnel Files (OMPFs) of Army, Army Air Corps, Army Air Forces, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard military personnel who served and were discharged, retired or died while in the service, prior to 1946. Collectively, these files comprise more than six million records. This is the second step in the progressive opening of the entire paper and microfiche OMPF collection of over 57 million individual files. Additional military personnel records will be made available to the public each year through 2067 until the entire collection is opened."
Tools & Techniques
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/makeuseof--Cool-Web-20-News-Products/
MakeUseOf.com - Cool Web 2.0 News, Products
MakeUseOf is a sort of tech blog/web 2.0 directory which only showcases the coolest, most useful and free apps out there. This isn’t a strictly techno-geek’s blog, it’s for everyone, even those that confuse ICQ with a stay in Cedars Sinai, or those who think tweets have something to do with Looney Tunes.
Sites consists of three main sections:
1. Blog (daily list-style software and web application reviews)
2. Directory (free web apps and mobile tools)
3. Tech Fun (Funny pictures and videos for tech minded folks, aka geeks)
Tools & Techniques
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9802167-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Hot deal: National Geographic National Park topo CD-ROMs for $2 each
Posted by Emily Shurr October 22, 2007 3:58 PM PDT
Lost your way? Try topos.
You're a dedicated digital professional of some kind, shackled to your desk all week. But you're a fearless explorer of the natural world on your days off. When you get ready for your next overland adventure, you can plan your route down the Shenandoah River or up Mount Everest with pens, highlighters and a large collection of topographical maps unfolded over every available surface--or you can use one little CD-ROM from National Geographic. No, you cannot plan it all out on a GPS. You need some old-fashioned know-how to go with your newfangled technology.
Assuming you have a color printer, National Geographic's TrailSmart National Park CD-ROM allows you to mark locations, add text boxes, map your route and create elevation profiles. It also points out attractions and features of the terrain along the route.
How much: $1.95 Shipping: $5.95 Where: Sierra Trading Post
Tools & Techniques
http://www.news.com/2300-1025_3-6214686-1.html?part=rss&tag=6214686&subj=news
A look at TasteBook
October 22, 2007 9:01 PM PDT
TasteBook, a new Web site that allows people to search the Web for recipes and print out hardcover cookbooks, is set to launch Tuesday.
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