Think of this as Identity Theft with “Instant Consequences” (Not the first time this has happened)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004302237_webhoax24m.html
Man scammed by Craigslist ad
The Associated Press Monday, March 24, 2008 - Page updated at 07:23 PM
JACKSONVILLE, Ore. — A pair of hoax ads on Craigslist cost an Oregon man much of what he owned.
The ads popped up Saturday afternoon, saying the owner of a Jacksonville home was forced to leave the area suddenly and his belongings, including a horse, were free for the taking, said Jackson County sheriff's Detective Sgt. Colin Fagan.
But Robert Salisbury had no plans to leave. The independent contractor was at Emigrant Lake when he got a call from a woman who had stopped by his house to claim his horse.
On his way home he stopped a truck loaded down with his work ladders, lawn mower and weed eater.
"I informed them I was the owner, but they refused to give the stuff back," Salisbury said. "They showed me the Craigslist printout and told me they had the right to do what they did."
... The trespassers, armed with printouts of the ad, tried to brush him off. "They honestly thought that because it appeared on the Internet it was true," Salisbury said. "It boggles the mind."
... Detectives have contacted Craigslist's legal team to try to trace the ad.
Meanwhile, Salisbury could not even relax on his porch swing.
Someone took it.
I suppose it is better than a “double secret” wiretap...
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=2008032517152419
Indian Blackberry network given 15 days to allow government snooping or shut down
Tuesday, March 25 2008 @ 05:15 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Non-U.S. News
The last we'd heard, the Indian government had ruled out the threat of a Blackberry ban if RIM didn't allow it to snoop on messages, but it looks like some overzealous bureaucrat is getting his way after all: the Department of Telecom has issued a 15-day deadline for RIM to either open up for the G-men or get shut down.
Source - engadget
Future Law?
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9903070-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Corporate employee blogs: Lawsuits waiting to happen?
Posted by Anne Broache March 26, 2008 4:00 AM PDT
A recent libel lawsuit filed against Cisco Systems over one of its employees' personal blogs could spur companies, many of which have encouraged workers to share their writings publicly, to reconsider how much latitude to give them.
... Cisco's legal trouble stems from a Blogspot-hosted blog called Patent Troll Tracker, which Rick Frenkel, who directs the company's intellectual property department, launched last May. His posts focused on patents and patent litigation--an issue that Cisco has pressed Congress to address by overhauling what it views as a broken U.S. patent system.
A few weeks ago, Frenkel revealed his identity, and two patent attorneys in Texas filed suit, accusing him of tarnishing their good names and disparaging a patent case their client had filed against Cisco--all the while allegedly concealing his affiliation with the company.
When WalMart speaks, people listen (if the RIAA does not, what does that indicate?)
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/25/1856245&from=rss
Must a CD Cost $15.99?
Posted by kdawson on Tuesday March 25, @03:39PM from the selling-partner-who-does-not-care dept.
scionite0 sends us to Rolling Stone for an in-depth article on Wal-Mart and the music business. Wal-Mart is the largest music retailer selling "an estimated one out of every five major-label albums" in the US. Wal-Mart willingly loses money selling CDs for less than $10 in order to draw customers into the store, but they are tired of taking a loss on CDs. The mega-retailer is telling the major record labels to lower the price of CDs or risk losing retail space to DVDs and video games. (Scroll to the bottom of the article for a breakdown of where exactly the money goes on a $15.99 album sale.)
"[A Wal-Mart spokesman said:] 'The record industry needs to refine their business models, because the consumer is the ultimate arbitrator. And the consumer feels music isn't properly priced.'
[While music executives are quoted:] 'While Wal-Mart represents nearly twenty percent of major-label music sales, music represents only about two percent of Wal-Mart's total sales. If they got out of selling music, it would mean nothing to them. This keeps me awake at night.'
[And another:] 'Wal-Mart has no long-term care for an individual artist or marketing plan, unlike the specialty stores, which were a real business partner. At Wal-Mart, we're a commodity and have to fight for shelf space like Colgate fights for shelf space.'"
For economists, the firm that brought us “All the Worlds Aircraft” and “All the Worlds Warships” now brings us...
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/017924.html
March 25, 2008
Jane's Information Services Ranks 50 Most Stable and Properous Countries in the World
UK Times Online: "A one-year investigation and analysis of 235 countries by Jane's Information Services has put the UK joint seventh in the premier league of nations with the US at 22nd and Switzerland, normally associated with wealth and untouchable stability, is rated 17th. Here is the full list..."
Interesting copyright opinion...
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080325/005954642.shtml
Turnitin Found Not To Violate Student Copyrights
from the might-be-a-good-thing-for-Google... dept
Last year, we noted that some students were suing iParadigms, the makers of "Turnitin" the excessively popular plagiarism checker used by many colleges and high schools. The professors feed student papers into the system, and it returns a "score" judging how likely the paper is to be plagiarized. However, it also takes a copy of each paper and includes it in its database for future plagiarism checks. This annoyed quite a few students who felt that this was copyright infringement -- using their papers in a commercial database.
However, a court has now rejected the students' arguments and found that Turnitin does not violate the copyright of the students for a variety of reasons. First there is the fact that students had to agree to the terms of the service to use it -- even if they were forced to by their schools. However, the court finds that this is a problem for the schools, not Turnitin. But, much more interesting is the rationale for why storing those papers is considered "fair use." Among other things, the court found that Turnitin isn't using the papers for their creative meaning and even though it stores the entire document, it doesn't really publish a full copy of it for others to see.
That becomes especially interesting given the current lawsuit concerning Google's scanning of books from various university libraries, as it may be able to note the similarities in this situation to Turnitin's. There are some differences -- and clearly, the publishers will claim that the impact on the commercial value is quite different (despite evidence to the contrary -- but this ruling is likely to help Google's position at least somewhat.
Related? Perhaps running those papers through this site would hide any plagiarism. I can always use it to better communicate with my students...
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/Unintelligencercom---Who-Sed-Yur-Stoopid/
Unintelligencer.com - Who Sed Yur Stoopid
Many of the Clement Greene ilk, aka snobs, bemoan the atrocities done to language on the internet. Literacy, they complain, takes a nose dive and we’re left with utterances and symbols such as %##Rttttdkal, and who can forget those cheezburger cats. The internet makes you dumb. Well, that’s what some say, and Unintelligencer seems to heartily agree. In fact, they’ll help you dumbify your speech so that it fits in with the rest of the Youtube crowd. Paste some text or a feed url into the site, pick your level of idiocy—there are 5 to choose from, a little dumb, idiot, moron, re-re and incomprehensible—and hit the button. Unintelligencer will translate your formerly correct and upstanding discourse into a mix of Trollish, Lolcat Pidgin, Noobian and 4chanese among others. Join the fight against literacy today; stupidize your speech.
[A simple test:
IN: Don't forget! All papers are due on the last day of class.
OUT: No forget! Awl papers am due oan tehz last day of class.
Comcast is a monopoly (in designated areas) will this work for them too?
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080325/155924648.shtml
It's Good To Be A Monopoly: Bell Canada Tells ISPs To Shut Up And Accept Traffic Shaping
from the what-are-you-gonna-do? dept
Remember how Bell Canada had decided to start traffic shaping without telling any of its ISP resellers? Well, in a meeting with those resellers, the company both admitted it and told them there was nothing they could do about it, even if it meant that those ISPs were violating their own terms of service and promises to customers. It's good to be a monopoly, you see. Since those ISPs have nowhere else to go, Bell Canada is able to do whatever it wants to the network, and if those ISPs don't like it, they're pretty much out of luck.
Target? I'll mention this in my Hacking (Computer Security) class...
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080325/192449650.shtml
Forget E-Voting Problems, Now We Have To Worry About E-Census Problems Too
from the new-technology-isn't-always-good... dept
It looks like the US census is the latest process to be prematurely "automated" under the silly belief that computers automatically do everything better. Reports are coming out about how the new computerized census systems aren't just costly, they might also be inaccurate (bonus!). The system involves handheld devices for census-takers, but the devices are apparently not that intuitive. Thus there are additional training costs involved, and no one seems keen on paying for that. There are a few options here, including mostly ignoring the new system (which only cost $600 million in taxpayer money) and going back to a more manual process. However, the company that provided the devices insists the complaints are overblown and with just half an hour of training anyone could understand how to use the devices. Either way, it should be a reminder that any attempt to automate a process that uses the "just add technology!" component probably is going to be something of a disaster.
Tools & Techniques: Convergence means you can show that “slightly used” dog bone in your ad.
http://www.killerstartups.com/Video-Music-Photo/MyHomeShopinfo---Video-Classifieds/
MyHomeShop.info - Video Classifieds
Move over Craigslist, classified ads just got visual.
Also for my Hacking class
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080325172902110
CRS Report: Cybercrime: An Overview of the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Statute and Related Federal Criminal Laws
Tuesday, March 25 2008 @ 05:29 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Fed. Govt.
Summary:
The federal computer fraud and abuse statute, 18 U.S.C. 1030, outlaws conduct that victimizes computer systems. It is a computer security law. It protects federal computers, bank computers, and computers connected to the Internet. It shields them from trespassing, threats, damage, espionage, and from being corruptly used as instruments of fraud. It is not a comprehensive provision, but instead it fills crack and gaps in the protection afforded by other federal criminal laws. This is a brief sketch of section 1030 and some of its federal statutory companions.
In their present form, the seven paragraphs of subsection 1030(a) outlaw:
computer trespassing (e.g., hacking) in a government computer, 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(3);
computer trespassing (e.g., hackers) resulting in exposure to certain governmental, credit, financial, or commercial information, 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2);
damaging a government computer, a bank computer, or a computer used in interstate or foreign commerce (e.g., a worm, computer virus, Trojan horse, time bomb, a denial of service attack, and other forms of cyber attack, cyber crime, or cyber terrorism), 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(5);
committing fraud an integral part of which involves unauthorized access to a government computer, a bank computer, or a computer used in interstate or foreign commerce, 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(4);
threatening to damage a government computer, a bank computer, or a computer used in interstate or foreign commerce, 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(7);
trafficking in passwords for a government computer, a bank computer, or a computer used in interstate or foreign commerce, 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(6); and
accessing a computer to commit espionage, 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(1).
Subsection 1030(b) makes it a crime to attempt to commit any of these offenses. Subsection 1030(c) catalogs the penalties for committing them, penalties that range from imprisonment for not more than a year for simple cyberspace trespassing to a maximum of life imprisonment when death results from intentional computer damage. Subsection 1030(d) preserves the investigative authority of the Secret Service. Subsection 1030(e) supplies common definitions. Subsection 1030(f) disclaims any application to otherwise permissible law enforcement activities. Subsection 1030(g) creates a civil cause of action of victims of these crimes.
This report is available in abbreviated form – without the footnotes, citations, quotations, or appendices found in this report – under the title Cybercrime: A Sketch of 18 U.S.C. 1030 and Related Federal Criminal Laws, RS20830.
Source - Full Report [pdf] CRS, updated February 25, 2008
Via Secrecy News blog
As they become increasingly rare and valuable, this site will become more and more useful. (Who says the technologies aren't complementary?)
http://library.state.ak.us/hist/conman.html
Conservation Book Repair: A training manual by Artemis BonaDea
Illustrated by Alexandria Prentiss Alaska State Library, Alaska Department of Education, 1995
Still trying to work out a “Wine tasting” site where everyone sends me free samples...
March 21, 2008 08:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Top Wine Blogs Honored at American Wine Blog Awards
[List and ballot: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Dqm3Bonrm9EDMdIfLtSC9A_3d_3d Bob]
They got cool stuff.
http://resources.library.yale.edu/online/newsdetail.asp?whatcaseedit=1114
New Digital Collections Page
The Library has launched a redesigned and improved Digital Collections page on its web site.
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